The Saints of St. Mary's III - The Rev'd. Charles Tyner

          Today’s subject of the Saints of St. Mary’s is different from all of the others. Some of you are familiar with the two previous installments of this sermon series about our parish’s spiritual ancestors. All those whose stories I’ve told before were members of this congregation. Today’s saint comes to St. Mary’s by cross pollination. You’ve noticed by now that in addition to offering prayers in the name of our patroness, we mention the name of St. George often. Our choir and our chapel are named for him. St. George came to St. Mary’s through a merger of two congregations in the 1980s. St. George’s Church had a long history on Kansas City’s east side. The end of its time came about 30 years ago when its members and its memories became a part of St. Mary’s. Today’s subject is the Rev’d. Charles Tyner who served as rector of St. George’s from 1923 until 1952. Like Fr. Betts, he came to St. Mary’s from the Diocese of Nebraska. Like Fr. Jardine and Thomas Pain, he came by way of eastern Canada. Unlike any other priest who served in West Missouri, his first career was as a professional athlete.

          The Toronto Professionals were Canada’s first pro hockey team. In 1908 they won the championship of the Ontario Professional Hockey League. On March 14 of that year they met the Montreal Wanderers, champions of the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association, in a match for the Stanley Cup. Toronto’s goal tender was Chuck Tyner. He was well known on Toronto’s east side as a gifted athlete: a champion amateur boxer and a talented baseball and lacrosse player as well as the rather elderly goal-tender of the Toronto Professionals. His teammates were still in their teens or barely out of them. Tyner was well into his twenties, his long playing years probably due partly to his natural athleticism and partly because goalies experience less wear and tear than their teammates.

If your first thought was that March 14 seems awfully early for a Stanley Cup match, there are a couple of reason for that. In the early 20^th century, the Stanley Cup was awarded on a challenge basis. Any team who thought they could beat the current champions could petition the commissioners and request a match.  In the 1908 matchup, Toronto was the challenger. The Wanderers had held the cup the previous two years. The match was played on Toronto’s home ice, housed in a wood frame building in the city’s downtown. The building seated five thousand spectators and was used for a variety of sports. It had a concrete floor with a recessed area surrounded by the seats.  In the winter, they flooded the floor and let mother nature create the rink. The season had to end before the spring thaw. The Wanderers won the cup that year 6-4 on two late goals. Chuck Tyner retired from professional sports the following year and enrolled in seminary.

As with nearly all of the subjects of this sermon series, there’s quite a lot written about him, but very little of it is introspective. We know nothing about Fr. Tyner’s call to ministry . We know that he married a Canadian woman by the name of Mary, but we don’t know what moved him to come to the United States.  He next turns up in 1916, mentioned in an article in the Toronto World newspaper. It reads “old timers remember Chuck Tyner, all round amateur athlete and sportsman of the east end, proficient in lacrosse, baseball, hockey and boxing. Rev. Mr. Tyner is home from Lincoln, Nebraska where he has had a charge for several years, anxious to go to the front with the Sportsmen's Battalion. He is, of course, eligible as chaplain and his qualifications in the above games should give him preference over most preachers. Mr. Tyner has aged imperceptibly. He will present his credentials today to Lieut. Col. Greer.”

The Sportsmen’s Battalion was a military unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I. For whatever reason, Fr. Tyner’s application to it was not successful. A year later the Ottawa Journal notes that “the Rev. Charles “Chuck” Tyner who played for Marlboro of Toronto several years ago and later with Branford and Montreal is going overseas with an American contingent.” He did serve in World War I, but in the US Army, rather than the Canadian.  He left behind his congregation at St. Luke’s in Lincoln when he departed for Europe.

          When he returned to Nebraska in 1919, he was called to the position of Dean at St. Mark’s pro-Cathedral in Hastings. St. Mark’s was the first church to be built west of Grand Island. All evidence indicates that Dean Tyner was popular, a sociable man with a great sense of humor and a skill for building community. In the congregation’s history on its web site, the comment on him is “who will ever forget this human dynamo.” Under his leadership, St. Mark’s engaged Ralph Adams Cram, one of the greatest architects of his generation, to design its new building. In an elaborate ceremony in September 1921, leaders of the congregation broke ground for the new building and the bishop laid the cornerstone in December, 1922. A few months later, Charles Tyner accepted a call from St. George’s Church in Kansas City. Again, we don’t know why he relinquished the position of dean to become a parish priest.

          At St. George’s his lively temperament and skill at building community were apparent. His name and picture appeared frequently in the newspapers. He spoke regularly to community groups and took a leadership role among the city’s clergy. Diocesan publications note the affection and respect that his colleagues had for him. His athletic interests didn’t fade as he entered into middle age. Fr. Tyner served as the president of the Kansas City Figure Skating Club and as a judge at its local competitions. He was seen frequently on the ice as a referee in local amateur hockey games.

          During the course of Fr. Tyner’s rectorship, St. George’s reached a great milestone:  the congregation paid off the mortgage on their church building. An elaborate celebration was planned with the Eucharist followed by a reception at which the mortgage would be ceremonially burned. A week before the date of the party, Fr. Tyner was injured in a rather serious car accident, necessitating a stay in the hospital. He was determined that the party would not be rescheduled and that he would be there. He spent the week persuading the attending physician to release him from the hospital long enough to attend. The doctor agreed, but only if he traveled by ambulance on a stretcher and did not rise from it for any reason. Fr. Tyner agreed. Another priest was engaged to preach and celebrate and the Kansas City Star carried a picture of Fr. Tyner, lying on a stretcher in his clerical collar with a huge grin on his face as ambulance attendants carried him into St. George’s.

          Another anecdote comes from two of my colleagues – The Rev’d. Harry Firth, known to some of you and the Rev’d. Bill Beachy. Both of them knew Fr. Tyner personally. They were newly ordained around the time he retired. He had not forgotten his days as a champion amateur boxer on a day when he was pulled over for speeding. When the officer came to the side of his car and informed him why he was being cited, Fr. Tyner opened the door and stepped out of the car. He raised his hands, closed his fists and playfully suggested that the two of them engage in an informal boxing match to determine whether or not he would receive a ticket. Neither of my colleagues knew what the officer’s reaction was to this challenge from a man in a clerical collar.

          He retired in 1952. He and Mrs. Tyner remained in Kansas City until his death in the mid-1960s. Twelve years after his retirement, the Star carried an account of an event organized by the altar guild of St. George’s, honoring Fr. and Mrs. Tyner. In the Missouri Valley Special Collection of local historical documents at our downtown library, you can see a scroll presented to the two of them at this event, expressing the affection and respect of the St. George’s Altar Guild. All of its members’ signatures appear on the scroll.

          Fr. Tyner’s obituary in the diocesan newsletter gives a sense of the great affection and respect felt for this energetic and faithful man with a great sense of humor. St. George’s Church continued on only about two decades after his passing.

          There is a season for everything. Nothing but God is eternal, but the divine is present in all creation, in the love we hold for one another that lives on. St. Mary’s received the gift of the history and legacy of St. George’s church when the two merged nearly three decades ago. God calls all of us. With some that call is clearly articulated and documented; with others the particulars of it remain mysterious but the reality of the call is unmistakable. With some people vocation is a clear and obvious path from childhood, through adolescence and into young adulthood. With others, the vocational path remains hidden early on, becoming clear only later in life, but there is no mistaking its truth. The story of St. George’s Church reminds us that we do not know the future holds. We can only remain faithful as it unfolds before us. Charles Tyner did that, with energy, good humor and devotion and today for his ministry we give thanks.

A portrait of Fr. Tyner as Rector of St. George's

http://www.kchistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Churches&CISOPTR=376&CISOBOX=1&REC=1

Team photo of the 1908 Toronto Professionals. I think Charles Tyner is at the left end of the second row.

 http://icehockey.wikia.com/wiki/Toronto_Professional_Hockey_Club

                

The Saints of St. Mary's III - The Rev'ds. George Charles Betts and Minerson Erastus Buck

Today we continue with part III of the Saints of St. Mary’s, a series of sermons about the people who have, through the years, made our parish what it is.  Our subjects are two of the rectors who served the congregation when it still had its original name, St. Luke’s.

          The Rev’d. George Charles Betts was born in Dublin in 1840. He was ordained in Omaha in 1865. Around that time he became rector of St. John’s Church in Cass County, Nebraska, a couple of counties south of Omaha. He had come there from a Methodist Church in Denver, where he had been the minister in charge. It’s difficult to say what he was doing at a Methodist church in Denver, but in the mid 19^th century it was difficult to find clergy willing to serve on the frontier. The Methodists may have been content to borrow him.

After a year or two at St. John’s he became Rector of Trinity Church in Omaha which would eventually become the Cathedral of the Diocese of Nebraska. The Cathedral sponsored a new mission church in the east end of the city which was organized on June 11, St. Barnabas Day in 1868.  Fr. Betts helped arrange for a loan for construction of a building and the first services were held there about six months later. It was organized as a parish with the name of St. Barnabas about six months after that inaugural service. Members of the Vestry offered its rectorship to Fr. Betts and he accepted their call on June 11, 1869. He appears to have served there well and happily for nearly three years. But on a Sunday in March 1872, he celebrated mass at St. Barnabas in the morning and received the bishop for a visit that evening. It was not a happy occasion. Fr. Betts’ high church tendencies were not pleasing to the bishop. Conflict over that issue was not uncommon at that time and there were strong opinions on both sides. The bishop “demanded that the rector relinquish the use of the chasuble or any other vestment save the surplice and black stole, that he direct the choir that they do not turn towards the altar when reciting the creed or the glorias and that the rector not make the sign of the cross in benedictions or elsewhere except in the baptismal office.” For a high churchman those instructions would have been impossible to tolerate. Fr. Betts declined to comply. He did promise that if the bishop could find any rule written in the church canons or elsewhere that prohibited the use of those objects, vestments and practices that the bishop wanted him to do away with, he would apologize and comply immediately.

The bishop tried again. He stated that it was his “wish” that they be done away with and because he wanted done, Fr. Betts ought to do it. Fr. Betts declined again. Shortly after that meeting with the bishop, he resigned his position as rector and left Omaha.

There was a church about 200 miles south that was happy to have him. St. Luke’s in Kansas City was 15 years old by then and had been served by several rectors, none of whom had stayed for much longer than a year.  A young, energetic priest with a skill for building membership and raising money was just what the vestry of St. Luke’s was looking for. One wonders if Fr. Betts was not pleased by the fact that in Kansas City he would more than two hundred miles away from the bishop of the diocese of Missouri. Fr. Betts went to work on refining the worship of St. Luke’s. One of the first things he did was have “a proper altar” built in the church building at 8^th and Walnut. He put the choir in vestments and put a cross and candles on the altar. Members of the congregation liked it. They donated a processional cross and Eucharistic vestments. The parish organized a guild of young men, a women’s society and something called a “Pleasant Hour Club” for the matrons. There were so many people coming to church they had to enlarge the building. Fr. Betts began taking his show on the road, traveling with the choir to conduct worship in areas outside Kansas City. He was a 33^rd degree mason and the choir occasionally provided music for various masonic events in the area. The men’s guild of St. Luke’s traveled with him to the jail in Wyandotte County where he presided at worship on Sunday afternoons. The choir sang at Vesper services – like our Evensong – at some of the Roman Catholic churches in the area. The history of our parish, notes that “The Rector of St. Luke’s was an institution of the city.” Two years after he became Rector, Fr. Betts was celebrating mass daily. A fair number of Episcopal Churches do that now, but in the late 19^th century, morning prayer was the norm on Sundays, with the Eucharist celebrated once a month. To offer it daily was to identify a parish as truly Anglo-catholic. By all accounts, Fr. Betts was a huge success at St. Mary’s. Not only did he serve the parish well, he acted as a mentor to several young colleagues, offering them the opportunity to serve at St. Luke’s under his supervision before they took charge of parishes. In the spring of 1876 he received a call from Trinity Church in St. Louis and moved there. After a few years at Trinity, he took a parish in Louisville and then moved to New Jersey and on to New York.

As with nearly all of our spiritual ancestors at St. Mary’s most of the information we have about Fr. Betts is descriptive rather than introspective. He seems to have been an energetic and purposeful man with strong opinions. I mentioned that he was Irish by birth and throughout his life he supported the cause of Irish nationalism. While serving as Rector of Trinity, St. Louis, he became the president of the Irish National Convention. An account in the New York Times of an event honoring the memory of Robert Emmet, one of the great martyrs of the Irish Nationalist cause, lists Fr. Betts among the VIPs in attendance and describes an impassioned speech he gave that evening.  He is the first rector for whom we have a large portrait. It’s on the far right end on the north wall of the parish hall. We also have one candid photo of him standing on the porch of the church at 8^th and Walnut. You can see that picture just inside the door at the back of the church.

All indications are that Fr. Betts remained a bachelor during his time as rector of St. Luke’s, but at some point he married and had two daughters, Annie and Mary, and a son who was named Herbert Keble Betts, I would suppose after George Herbert and John Keble, two well-known historical figures in the Church of England. Herbert made his living as an actor and was also commissioned as a lay preacher in the Episcopal Church.

Parishioner Thomas Pain knew Fr. Betts personally. Pain was an Englishman by birth and Fr. Betts’ Irish Nationalist sentiments might have made things tense between them, but it appears not to have. Pain writes of him “He was a Fenian, but said all his best friends were Englishmen and it was his love for England that made him work to free her from Ireland.” Fr. Betts died at the age of 61 in Goshen New York. He died late on a Saturday evening of heart failure. On his desk were found his sermon for the following morning and an address prepared for the annual meeting of his parish which was scheduled for that Sunday evening.

There is no doubt that Fr. Betts built St. Luke’s into a strong, vibrant and growing parish. They must have been sorry to see him go. There is little known of his successor, the Rev’d. Minerson Erastus Buck, compared with what we know of Fr. Betts, but it is interesting information. There is an entry about Fr. Buck in a multi-volume book called The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-made Men. I believe he falls into the latter category. He was born to Minerson Erastus Buck, Sr. and his wife Maria Pierce Buck in Ravenna, Ohio in 1849. The family moved to Kalamazoo County, Michigan two years later. Erastus attended school and worked on his family’s farm during the summers until he was 15 years old.  The family’s circumstances offered him little chance of going to college. Instead, he left home to make his fortune. His family were Methodists, like many on the western frontier, but after leaving home the future Fr. Buck found an Episcopal Church where he fell in love with the liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer. He was determined to study for the priesthood and persuaded someone at Nashotah House Seminary in Milwaukee to admit him on the basis of his high school record. He earned his tuition by working as a farm laborer during the summer. By all accounts, he did well enough at Nashotah and was ordained deacon in the early 1870s. He served as deacon in charge of Trinity Church in Three Rivers Michigan. The parish was near collapse when he took charge of it. The parish had a half-finished building and debt of more than $2,000, but Deacon Buck rallied them. Parishioners were inspired to contribute enough money to retire the debt, complete construction of the church building and build a new spire on top of it.  Deacon Buck’s name appears among those of the clergy who met to organize the new diocese of Western Michigan in 1874.  They elected a bishop who ordained him to the priesthood the following spring.  He continued his work, now as Rector of Trinity Three Rivers until September, 1876 when he was elected Rector of St. Luke’s Church in Kansas City. He began his work there on the feast of St. Luke, October 18, of that year. The Biographical Dictionary of self-made men notes: “This call was entirely unsolicited, he was known to the people of the parish only by reputation as an able preacher and successful church financier.” When he arrived, St. Luke’s Kansas City is described as being in debt for $3,000 – perhaps for those expansions of the building made under Fr. Betts’. Fr. Buck had been in Kansas City only a year by the time the congregation raised enough money to pay it off. His biography suggests that he took part in the initial discussion of the creation of the Diocese of West Missouri, beginning about 10 years before the division actually took place. Fr. Buck became the Chaplain of a Group Called the Craig Rifles. It had organized originally during the Civil War under the name the Kansas City Guards. After the fighting ended, it was re-invented as a social and charitable organization emphasizing exhibition drills, flashy uniforms and an annual gala that was one of the town’s hottest tickets. One wonders what attracted this humble farmer’s son with no experience of fighting to a military organization. Perhaps the experience of being a boy too young to enlist during the civil war inspired his interest in the military.  Fr. Buck died of tuberculosis in Kansas City on January 20, 1879, having begun the process of changing the parish’s name from St. Luke’s to St. Mary’s. His body was returned to Kalamazoo for burial.

In this day, when the ordination process requires several years of qualification and scrutiny of one’s motives and accomplishments one wonders if the devotion and diligence of a man like Erastus Buck would have been enough to allow him to be ordained. At a time when the search for a new Rector can consume more than a year and involves extensive background checking and consultation with references, one wonders if a man like Fr. Betts who had run afoul of his bishop would have been called so easily to a new parish, or if a man like Fr. Buck would have been elected sight unseen. It is to our benefit that they were.

The history of St. Mary’s is filled with ups and downs, stories of financial and organizational stress and times of health and bounty. Through all of those years run the stories of gifted, unique and sometimes quirky leaders. Today as always, we give thanks for their ministry to this parish.

Saints of St. Mary's: Edward Clarke Hamill, October 13, 2013

            In a community like St. Mary’s with a very long history there are people whose stories are notable for their brief duration, sometimes tragically or scandalously brief. Others are known for what we might call spiritual longevity – a combination of commitment, faith, temperament and circumstance that allows them to engage with the community for a very long time. We continue today with part three of the Saints of St. Mary’s – a series of sermons about the people who have had a significant part in the history of our parish. I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had been convinced that parts 1 and 2 of the series had exhausted the supply of spiritual forbears for whom we had adequate information to tell a story. Additional research has revealed enough subjects for a third series, which we continue today after a break last week for the blessing of animals.

            Edward Clarke Hamill is a name that some of us have heard or read. He donated the window on the north side with the picture of the nun and the little girl. It was a gift in memory of his mother Jennie. The window was installed in 1920. The nun is Sister Mary Frances, a member of the Order of the Holy Cross that was established at St. Mary’s around 1880. She was a teacher, and archival materials have suggested that the little girl depicted in the window is Edward Hamill’s mother, Jennie, but the dates really don’t fit. He had a sister, and perhaps the little girl is meant to represent her.

            He and his mother and sister became members of the parish when he was baptized by Fr. Betts at St. Luke’s Church on July 27, 1873 at the age of six. That was when parishioners still worshiped in the old building at 8^th and Walnut, before the parish changed its name to St. Mary’s and moved here.  At the age of 10, Edward began to sing in the choir. He was confirmed on Ascension Day, 1881.  Fr. Jardine presented him to Bishop Robertson for confirmation. Young Mr. Hamill was elected to the vestry for the first time at the age of 18 during the last tumultuous year of Fr. Jardine’s service as Rector.

            Edward Hamill’s professional life started early and the trajectory of it mirrored his life at St. Mary’s in its long-term commitment. The story I read describes him as “a very active and mischievous boy” whose “worried guardian” was anxious to have him employed. In the materials I found about his life there is only one mention of Edward Hamill’s father, John. It appears that he died not long after Edward was born in Leavenworth. Jennie Hamill moved with her young son and daughter to Kansas City where friends or family took an interest in the children.  This guardian of young Edward approached a small wholesale drug business called Woodward Faxon & Company that had relocated from Lawrence to Kansas City, establishing itself at 511 Delaware Street. Edward went to work for them shortly after his 11^th birthday, starting as a messenger boy. His boss, Mr. Horton, is described as having taken a paternal interest in him. Edward remained with the company which promoted him into positions of increasing responsibility as he grew older. The business changed hands and names several times, merged with competitors and continued to grow. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his employment, the company honored Mr. Hamill with a surprise party to which all of its employees and customers were invited. By that time Fr. Merrill was Rector of St. Mary’s. He was also invited to the celebration and was responsible for getting the guest of honor and his wife to the party without revealing the surprise.  Mr. Hamill’s colleagues gave him a gold watch, a gift of money and many testimonials. Honored as he was to have his years of service recognized by the company, he was back at work the following Monday morning. It appears that he never retired, but continued to work until he died.

            In the account of this celebration, Mr. Hamill is described as the greeter at Faxon & Gallagher Drug Company. It’s hard to know exactly what the responsibilities for such a position might have been, but it had to do with building and maintaining customer relationships for the company. There is no indication that his formal education continued much past 5^th grade since he went to work at the age of eleven. He seems not to have had anywhere near the kind of training in chemistry or pharmacy  that would be required for a technical position in a wholesale drug business.  All accounts describe him as friendly, energetic and genuine. His genius seems to have been in forming relationships and building community.  It was reflected in the prosperity and longevity of his company and in his service to St. Mary’s.

            Twenty years after his first election to the vestry, Edward Hamill married Rua Ellen Randall in this church on February 16, 1904. He was 37 years old. Fr. Stewart-Smith officiated at their marriage. As is true of many of the women parishioners of our church who lived in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, little is known about his wife. By the time he married, Mr. Hamill had served more than once on the vestry and had been both Jr. and Sr. Warden.  He was the church’s Sunday school superintendent and continued to sing in the choir. He served as parish’s delegate to several diocesan conventions and served on various diocesan committees. It was a rare Sunday when he was not in church.

            In addition to his interpersonal gifts, Mr. Hamill is described as having a remarkable tenor voice. He was a member of Kansas City’s Apollo Club, a choral group with chapters in several American cities around the turn of the last century. He sang in the choir at St. Mary’s until a few months before he died. Other church choirs are said to have coveted his voice. Several local choir directors tried to lure him away, but he never looked elsewhere.

            Edward Hamill departed this life on November 11, 1941. At the requiem mass which was celebrated at the church on November 14, Bishop Spencer gave the eulogy. Mr. Hamill was buried in the parish cemetery. Eight weeks thereafter, members of the Vestry composed a written tribute to him, relating all the aspects of his long and faithful service to the parish and his devotion to his family. The tribute ends with the words, “all these qualities found their expression in the sanctity of his spirit and simplicity of his character. He shunned the limelight and still his memory speaks louder than words. His saintly life is enshrined indelibly in the hearts and minds of all who knew him. A rare soul has passed from our midst, but his influence and example will live on and on, undiminished through long years to come.” Six months after his death, on the feast of Pentecost, 1942, a memorial fund was established in his name to support the choir of St. Mary’s.

            Edward Clarke Hamill was born about 18 months after the civil war ended. He died a few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. His membership in the church spanned three different versions of the Book of Common Prayer. His life speaks to the care and nurture of relationships and of his own spiritual life. Those two forms of stewardship are at the heart of life in the church. We choose to be here – as members of a parish and as worshipers on any particular Sunday. God calls us here, but our response to that call is up to us. Sometimes I wonder if many of you are aware of it but when you are not here on Sunday you are missed. Your absence isn’t noticed out of any kind of malice or criticism; it is noticed because you are absent from a community of mission and prayer whose members care about you. The relationships we build here are different from friendships at work, in the neighborhood or in social groups because they are built on the foundation of our baptismal covenant; they are friendships with a mission, the building of God’s kingdom. We really need everyone to take part in that. At this time of year, when parishioners are asked to make a financial commitment to next year’s operating budget, I hope that you will also consider a gift of your time and skill to the parish and choose to participate in the life of the parish in some new way next year.

            For the last few years at St. Mary’s we have put a lot of energy into growing the membership of the parish. It has been energy well spent, and we will continue to work to build our numbers, but it’s time also for us to be more intentional about growing in depth. During the coming year, we will offer opportunities for growth in the knowledge of our faith and our own spiritual lives. I hope that everyone here will participate and help to shape the kind of learning and experience St. Mary’s offers.

            People are disinclined to speak ill of one departed this life, but the accounts of Edward Hamill, as a churchman and as a professional are remarkable in the love and respect that they express. It’s true that they do not give the details of his rough edges or bad days, but this man accomplished something quite remarkable. He worked at the same company and worshiped at the same church for more than sixty years and was remembered with friendship, respect and admiration in both places when he died. In Edward Hamill, that care and attention to relationships reflected a profound knowledge of who and how God is. That depth of spiritual understanding requires nurture and practice. His life in this community gives us an example of how to build and care for relationships with others and our own relationship with God. We give thanks for the life and legacy of Edward Clarke Hamill.

Photo by Alistair Tutton

The Saints of St. Mary's: William Gillis, St. Michael and All Angels

          This Sunday opens our annual stewardship campaign. In recent years, sermons for this six-week interval in the fall have focused on the spiritual forbears of our congregation. Two years ago I thought that I had written a sermon about everyone for whom enough information was available. I did some more digging and I think we’re good for another year so I am happy to offer a third series of the Saints of St. Mary’s.

The name of one man appears on both the documents that incorporated the town of Kansas in June, 1850 and those that organized our parish in December, 1857. That is the name of William Gillis. He joined with a handful of other businessmen to gain official recognition of the town that had grown up on the Missouri River. At the time of its incorporation, the population was 1,500. Members of St. Mary’s have not been accustomed to think of him as having an important part in the history of our church – at least not as important as that of his niece, Mary Troost. But he was one of the founding members of what was then known as St. Luke’s Church.

          At the time it was organized its members had been meeting for about three years in borrowed worship space. A priest from Trinity Church in Independence traveled on foot or by mule the 12 miles between his parish  and the Town of Kansas about twice a month to lead worship. On the weeks he did not visit, members of the congregation read Morning Prayer. At one point, the Diocese of Missouri, based in St. Louis, arranged for a bishop to visit and celebrate baptisms and confirmations, giving the small congregation a sufficient number of confirmed members to qualify for parish status. Somewhere along the way – perhaps on that day – William Gillis became a baptized, confirmed communicant of the Episcopal Church.

          The other prominent men who signed the town’s incorporation papers and the parish’s founding documents knew him as a wealthy gentleman farmer and Indian trader who claimed to be a lifelong bachelor. He is described as a large, powerfully built man who dressed in elegant black clothing summer and winter.

          Gillis had made a long and colorful journey to his position of prominence and respect in Kansas City. He was a native of Maryland, born  between 1795 and 1797.  He ran away from home before his 12^th birthday and joined the crew of a ship. During his time as a sailor, he made the acquaintance of William Henry Harrison, who eventually became the 9^th president of the United States. Gillis fought under Harrison against the Shawnee leader Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Economic opportunity seems to have trumped any ideological fervor Gillis might have developed as a member of Harrison’s forces. In 1820 he made his way to southwest Missouri and began to trade with members of the Delaware tribe who had landed there in the great diaspora of indigenous peoples that followed the Revolutionary War. Gillis traded provisions, furs and other commodities with the Delaware for a decade during which he was said to have been made a member of the tribe. Around 1830, the Delaware living near what is now Springfield, Missouri were involuntarily relocated again to the junction of the Kaw and Missouri Rivers. Gillis moved along with them. His trade with them and other indigenous peoples had made him a wealthy man by that time and when he arrived in this area he bought thousands of acres of land for pennies each, eventually selling it at a vast profit. He kept for his own plantation a tract of land bordered by what are now 23^rd and 27^th streets and Summit and State Line. He selected it for its proximity to the Shawnee trail which would facilitate his continued trade with the Indians.  Gillis’ home was described as one of the most beautiful, gracious and elegant residences in the town, designed and furnished along the lines of a southern plantation. The farm labor on his land was conducted by slaves.

          It is difficult to know what level of involvement William Gillis had in our parish. During its early years he is listed as a vestryman, and it is noted that he, along with other wealthy leaders of the congregation contributed funds to provide an operating budget and a priest’s compensation. His death predates the construction of this building. There are no tangible memorials here to Gillis’ participation in the life of the congregation. I found no information that revealed anything about his inner life or personality. The one subjective comment I found was the observation of one of his contemporaries that Gillis was consumed by the acquisition of ever greater wealth and reluctant to part with what he already possessed. Whether that was true we will probably never know.

          Gillis died in July 1869. Despite his vast wealth, his will was relatively simple but very curious. The bulk of the estate went to Gillis’ niece Mary who by that time had become Mrs. Benoist Troost. But there were two additional bequests of $10 each to two daughters of a woman described as a member of the Delaware tribe with whom Gillis had traveled to this area in 1830. One of these additional heiresses was also named Mary the other was Sophia and the will noted that they were sometimes known as Mary Gillis and Sophia Gillis. For a man who had represented himself to society as a lifelong bachelor, this was an interesting revelation.

          It became more interesting three and a half years later with the untimely death of his niece Mary Troost. In 1872, just before Christmas, she traveled to Pennsylvania to visit a friend. She arrived to find the town in the grip of a dreadful smallpox epidemic. Mrs. Troost fell ill almost immediately and died within days of her arrival. Her will included the bequest of land for the construction a church named St. Mary’s at what is now the corner of 13^th and Holmes. You are in that church. More than a decade transpired between her death and the transfer of land to our parish which changed its name in 1879 to St. Mary’s. Materials in our archives suggest that the long transition had to do with the short time between the deaths of William Gillis and Mary Troost and the incomplete revision of her will to incorporate the bequest of her uncle.

          What really happened is that after Mrs. Troost’s death, numerous persons claiming to be legitimate children of William Gillis from his days as an Indian trader contested both of the wills, claiming that Mary Troost had exerted undue influence over her uncle. The lawsuits stated that William Gillis had been legally married at least twice and associated more casually with a number of other women and that these relationships had produced as many as a dozen children. The plaintiffs claimed that their status as legitimate children trumped that of his niece Mrs. Troost. It took more than a decade to finalize Gillis’ will and 35 years to settle that of Mary Troost. Most of the claims against the will were found to be without merit, but not all of them. Sums awarded to Gillis’ legitimate heirs other than his niece Mary and four decades of litigation dramatically reduced the value of her estate but the impact of its charitable intent is still alive today in Kansas City and in this building.

          Today we observe the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. Michael and Gabriel are known traditionally as guardians of the church. As with many churches, St. Mary’s has windows that commemorate these two saints positioned on either side of the altar. They are the easternmost upper windows on either side  and I encourage you to look for them when you come to the altar rail for communion. Our spiritual ancestor, William Gillis, whose life we explore this morning, is, by our standards, neither saint nor angel.  His contemporaries suggest that he was a miser. He enslaved other human beings and his interactions with indigenous persons give us reason to question his motives and morals. What do we make of this former vestryman, this founding member of our church? His life began when the United States was one of the world’s newest sovereign nations. He arrived in our city when its claims to fame were a post office and a population of 300. He had an opportunity to reinvent himself and seems to have taken advantage of it. Did he assume a respectability that he did not truly deserve? If he did, was it to protect the reputation of his niece or to augment his already substantial fortune or for some other reason? Should we try to disown him? make excuses for him? write him off as an aberration? give thanks for his good sense in giving most of his loot to a more respectable and generous relative?

          Whatever conclusions we might draw on the basis of legal documents or his contemporaries’ observations, we know almost nothing about what this man felt or thought or believed. What we know is that in addition to founding a town and making a fortune, he joined with his contemporaries in establishing an Episcopal church in a town that had none. While it is true that they could have done it without him, it appears likely that we have him to thank, at least indirectly, for the land on which this building stands.

 William Gillis was a man of his place and time. The record of his actions indicates that he engaged in racist behavior. The Episcopal Church in his day was not innocent of racism and its actions as an institution were destructive of the autonomy of indigenous persons and disrespectful of their cultural achievements. We know more now. We as individuals and as a society are not yet free of the sin of racism, but we are far more aware of what it is and the harm it does than the people of this city were 150 years ago. The church has offered us opportunities to learn and ways to seek forgiveness. St. Mary’s has given us a community in which to live out the promises in our baptismal covenant to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of all persons.

          At this time of year in particular we examine our vision for the future of St. Mary’s and the means by which it will be realized. A look at our past helps to put that in perspective. Nearly 156 years after William Gillis signed the documents that organized this church, we are still here. We do not share many of his values or approve of much of his behavior, but he has a part in our being here this morning.  More importantly, as our Old Testament lessons says, God has surely been present with us through those 156 years, in good times and bad; the Lord who will keep us in all times and who will do for us what he has promised.

          

Sermon for the Requiem Mass of Dr. Stuart Phipps

            The language of the burial liturgy is filled with images of immortality and eternal life. Those concepts are as old as human self-consciousness, reflecting our very natural reluctance to let go of our own existence and the presence among us of those we love. The ancient Israelites believed in a time of resurrection when all persons who had died would rise again together. That belief was reinterpreted in Christian teaching. We celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death at Easter and on the occasions when we honor one of the community of his followers who has departed this life.

          It is difficult for us to imagine what this life everlasting might really be.  Allusions to it in the Bible range from the unelaborated mention of those words to the florid descriptions of the Book of Revelation. Some Christians have been taught to believe that it is a reward for right thoughts, beliefs and actions. Others envision it as an ultimate home in the divine where distinctions and differences end, suffering is relieved and all is finally known and understood, the perfection of the bonds of our common humanity.

          Especially at times when a person we love, like Stuart, has departed this life suddenly and unexpectedly we cling to that hope of ultimate reunion. Initially our grief may blind us to the lessons this parting has to teach, but eventually God will make them clear. This experience of poignant loss is a time when we can renew our commitment to do the things that strengthen relationships and build community. Our ordinary way of life glorifies being busy. It pressures us to take on too many commitments and robs us of time to be friends, share experiences and build relationships.

          I did not meet Stuart until he was well into middle age, but he seemed to be a man who discerned his calling early and accurately. Sometimes an early vocation burns bright for a few years but turns to something different later in life. For Stuart, the call to teach seems to have gained depth and complexity and a greater sense of fulfillment for him as time passed. His work as an educator and mentor and the work of all who follow the vocation of teaching may be one of the best metaphors we have for eternal life, more real than walking streets paved with gold or looking out on processions of white-robed witnesses.  In his work, Stuart touched thousands of lives. He modeled what it means to have an inquiring and discerning heart and mind and helped people to cultivate that characteristic within themselves. He taught many of you and through you thousands of others why it’s important to live life with a passion for learning. People who adopt that manner of life pass it on to others. In so doing you assure that the gift given to you lives on. By being your teacher and mentor, Stuart lives on in your work and in the lives of those whom you will teach and advise. It is not the kind of complete or perfect immortality that the scriptures speak of, but it comes closer to it than many of the occupations one might undertake while living in time and space.

          Stuart entered a lifelong relationship with Carlos 36 years ago. As a gay couple, they lived together through decades during which their love was suspect and its legitimacy questioned at very least. At worst it was labeled immoral and contrary to God’s word. Their love for each other was strong enough to withstand cruelty and misunderstanding. It sustained them for nearly four decades and fulfilled them so well as to allow them the generosity to reach out to others and build a rich and extensive network of friends. Their life together was a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that helped unity to overcome estrangement, forgiveness to heal guilt, and joy to conquer despair. The reality and truth of their love for each other is another glimpse of the eternity for which we hope and into which Stuart has now entered.

          I’ve seen a wonderful photograph of Stuart in his academic dress at an event at the University of St. Mary taken one week ago, the day before he died. He’s laughing, it’s an ordinary, good day at work. I have heard that he had the gift of a satisfying visit with his family only a short time before his death. The loss we feel at his passing is fresh and sharp. We see a life’s work ended just as it was coming to its greatest fruition, well before we would have said it was completed. We think of questions we had intended to ask, stories we wanted to share. We see a relationship with a life partner cut short and friendships deprived of the joy of his presence. The final lesson Stuart has to teach all of us is that no matter how many years they encompass, our lives are finite. We never know their measure, and our time together is precious. Our God-given gifts of memory, reason and skill are meant for sharing joy, wisdom and love. We are meant to use those gifts fully and generously and the times when we do are glimpses of life complete and perfect in the presence of God. Let us never fail to be thankful for them and for the gift of Stuart’s presence among us.

Let us pray:

Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no
longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon
them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work
in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost*

 Amos 8.4-7
Psalm 113
1 Timothy 2.1-7
Luke 16.1-13

      There aren’t many Bible stories that invite you to do the math in order to understand their meaning, but today’s parable from Luke’s gospel is one of them. This story can be baffling because people assume that the master in the story represents God. If you think of it that way, God commends the manager for stealing from him and that doesn’t make sense.  You also get into trouble if you assume that the form of economy that underlies this story is western capitalism. The story comes from the ancient near east and it was created in the first century, before capitalism was invented.

          The parable begins with the boss notifying the manager that accusations have been made against him. The manager knows  he’s in trouble. If he is dismissed for poor performance, which seems likely, his options will be limited. He envisions his future as a beggar or a miner. With those choices, he’ll starve or be worked to death in a short time. The false accusation and the man’s desperation reflect the economic and social organization of the society in which Jesus lived and did his work – a true dog eat dog world. Jesus’ original audience for this parable would have understood that in a way that we do not. Their economy did not routinely produce surplus. 98 percent of the society’s wealth was held by 1 or 2 percent of the population. The rest lived in a range of circumstances. If they were skilled and could develop a relationship with a wealthy man, like the manager in this story, they could live in reasonable comfort. The manager is an agent for his employer. He has the authority to conduct business and make decisions concerning his boss’ property and affairs as if he were the boss himself. He’s expected to make the boss a lot of money and he probably adds to his salary by scraping a little off that substantial profit. This relationship with a wealthy man puts him in a very different position from the people at the bottom of the economy who lived somewhere between subsistence and starvation. As this parable begins, the manager is on the verge of a very rapid descent to the bottom. He comes up with a scheme that seems intended to facilitate building a relationship with a new patron.  That will give him some hope of finding a job comparable to the one he has when his current boss dismisses him. In the end, something very different happens.

          The Torah prohibits Jews to charge interest on loans to other Jews. Exodus 22 says: “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.” Deuteronomy 23 says: “You shall not charge interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is lent. On loans to a foreigner you may charge interest, but on loans to another Israelite, you may not charge interest.”

          Human nature in the first century was not particularly different from what it is now. In order to conduct business, some lending is necessary. People want to make a profit wherever they can, so they find ways around the rules. One way to do that was to charge interest in the form of commodities such as wheat and olive oil rather than as money. The interest payment became indistinguishable within the transaction.  Anticipating his dismissal, the manager goes to two men who owe debts to his master. The first one owes 100 jugs of olive oil and the other 100 bushels of wheat. We can assume that wrapped up in those debts is some interest.

In ancient economic systems there was a range of interest rates. In some Jewish writings there is mention of a standard rate of 20%. In other ancient cultures, rates range from 25% on loans of money to 33%, 100% and 140% on commodities. Interest increased with the perishability of the product. In this parable we hear today, the manager reduces the repayment cost on the olive oil by 50% and on the wheat by 20%. The amounts suggest that he is forgiving the interest owed by his master’s creditors thus bringing his master’s business dealings into conformity with the law. These two men, up to their necks in a merciless economy that exploits everyone and punishes the poor manage to manipulate their way to a condition of moral integrity. Through the most unjust and dishonest circumstances and means God’s will is done. The rich man, restored to a right relationship with God, praises the manager for his shrewdness.

Parables are meant to shock the hearer. This one was originally addressed to an audience made skeptical by  unrelenting poverty and economic exploitation. The story’s message to them is that in the end God establishes justice using the machinery of the system that seeks to grind them down. That should give us hope in a time when our nation’s leaders seem bent on destroying the lives and the hope of the poor.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of our building’s dedication. Faith communities are frequently cautioned not to become slaves to our buildings and this congregation is wise to heed that advice. Devotion to our buildings is sometimes held up as a stumbling block for 21^st century congregations that allow their architectural affection to blind them to the economic realities of caring for an old church. We all know how true that is. Yet this building speaks profoundly to us and to the entire community. For 125 years, St. Mary’s has stood on this corner through the ebb and flow of the city, offering care for those who suffer from poverty and economic injustice. Whether the surroundings have been a lively neighborhood of homes and small businesses or a desolate patch of dirt awaiting the construction of a freeway and new office buildings, St. Mary’s has offered kindness and prayer for those  left behind by progress and wealth. In the harshest circumstances, God’s will is done and this church has a share in that.

Many of those years that this building has stood here, the congregation was scraping to pay off the loans taken on during its construction and for later repairs. Our church’s canons require that a building be paid for before it is dedicated, and the people of St. Mary’s worked for decades, a generation or more, to accomplish that goal. Many who saw the doors open for the first time did not live to see the dedication. This congregation has never been wealthy and has only rarely been financially comfortable. What I believe that has done is give us a sense of empathy for the poor that we might not otherwise have had. God’s will prevails through all times and in all places, even when we cannot imagine how that will happen. We are privileged to be in this place and to have a hand in building the kingdom in our own time.

* The exegesis of Luke 16.1-13 in this sermon draws on the work of Bernard Brandon Scott in his book ReImagine the World

Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 32.7-14

Psalm 51.1-11

1 Timothy 1.12-17

Luke 15.1-10

   

       You may remember a few months ago when Paula Deen publicly acknowledged having engaged in racist behavior in her restaurant. The network that had carried her television show terminated its relationship with her. Her many endorsement contracts were ended and she became a pariah in the media. Her behavior was wrong and the marketplace reacted to the news of it by making her an outcast, not necessarily out of disapproval for what she did, but because the individuals and companies that were associated with her didn’t want to be tainted by the unacceptable behavior she had admitted. Yesterday it was reported on the news that Lance Armstrong has returned the medal that he won at the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia. It’s another episode in a long fall from grace for him: endorsement contracts cancelled, the relationship ended with his charitable foundation and the enthusiastic admiration of millions thoroughly disavowed after his admission of using performance enhancing drugs.

          We see something a little bit like the repudiation of Lance and Paula happening in today’s gospel lesson. The Pharisees criticize Jesus for the company he keeps – tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors in territories conquered by the Roman Empire were despised. They were frequently recruited locally, and made responsible for collecting punitive taxes from their own people. The tax collection system invited low-level corruption, making it almost a necessity if the tax collector was to earn anything for his work. The term “sinners” as it is used in this instance is a euphemism for sex workers – prostitutes, procurers, brothel operators and the like. These corrupt, low-level bureaucrats and practitioners of the oldest profession were shunned by the community in Jesus’ time. People who wanted to be identified as upstanding citizens avoided association with these disreputables. They didn’t want to be tainted by socializing with the wrong kind of people – at least not in public. It was not uncommon to insult someone by accusing him of associating with low lifes, and that is what the Pharisees do to Jesus in this text.

The stakeholders in our contemporary marketplace, the ones who manifest their good corporate citizenship by shunning the likes of Paula Deen and Lance Armstrong are doing much the same thing. And the marketplace is not obliged to forgive anyone. The players in it are there to satisfy their needs and desires and to create value for shareholders.  Christians are obliged to forgive people. We are cautioned to be careful about judging others because one day there will be reason for us to be similarly judged. Jesus tells us to forgive others as God forgives us. But more often than not, we are tempted to take on the judgment of the marketplace before we even know what we are doing. Christians often ascribe to God the behavior we observe in the marketplace’s dealings with transgressors like Lance Armstrong and Paula Deen, imagining that God only really loves people who behave the way they think God approves of.

The two parables that Jesus tells in today’s gospel lesson invite us to think about that differently. Parables are quirky stories that challenge the assumptions of the hearer. In the story of the lost sheep, the challenge comes in the first line: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” Good question. Whenever I read this text, I think about Jesus’ first century audience of Galilean peasants. I imagine them hearing him say that and think about the expressions on their faces as it begins to sink it. Which one of them – and which one of us - doesn’t at least wonder if risking the 99 to go find the other one is a very counterproductive move? Jesus goes on to tell his audience how happy the shepherd is when he finds the sheep. He lifts it up to his shoulders and heads back to the flock. Don’t you wonder if he’s even happier to discover that none of them has been eaten by a predator or wandered away when he was off looking for the straggler? What does this story really mean?

The second parable begins with a surprise also. In the ancient world, silver coins were rare and extremely valuable. In the Roman world, only the empire could mint silver coins. 1^st century Jewish coins were all made of bronze and were much less valuable. The value of the nine coins that the woman has in hand is substantial, whether or not she ever finds the tenth one. But finding it missing, she lights a lamp and turns the house upside down until she finds it. And like the man with the lost sheep, she invites her family and friends in to help her rejoice.

For whatever reason this story of the man looking for the lost sheep has come to have a lot of sentimentality associated with it. Churches can put so much energy into finding that individual sheep among their members who seems to be perpetually lost and, incidentally, quite reluctant to be found. In doing so they often lose sight of the needs of the other 99. These parables really aren’t meant to be sentimental at all. They’re meant to invite us to re-imagine the world. Start by asking yourself what the man’s friends and family are going to eat when they come to celebrate with him over finding that lost sheep. I bet it involves roast lamb. Don’t you wonder if the woman who found the lost coin will use it to pay the grocery bill for all that rejoicing she plans? 

These parables invite us to try to see the world from God’s point of view. God doesn’t do cost/benefit analyses. God loves each of us, values each of us infinitely. God’s forgiveness of our failures is as infinite as God’s love. There’s no ledger of transgressions and good deeds. There’s no such thing for God as having enough faithful people that it’s OK to let the rest of them go. We’re meant to give our lives to the work of making room for everyone.  God does not ask if we’re worth the aggravation or if it is detrimental to the divine reputation to have us as God’s people. God loves, forgives and rejoices generously and extravagantly. Jesus calls us to give our lives to learning how to love and forgive as God does.

Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 15.1-6

Psalm 33.12-22

Hebrews 11.1-3, 8-16

Luke 12.32-40

            

Many of us carry around devices that can tell us what’s happening on the other side of the earth, and send pictures, whenever we want to know. You can find out what your bank balance is or how much money you owe with a few taps on the screen. If you’re worried about your health, there are plenty of opportunities to find out what your risk factors are for one disease or another and get advice on what you can do about it. If you’re looking for sources of anxiety, you have an excellent selection at your fingertips and if what you fear seems beyond your control, there’s a whole chorus of voices out there that will explain how you had a hand in it –  maybe by not saving enough, planning ahead or living in a healthy manner. It won’t be long before you’ll have some guilt to go along with the anxiety. If life in time and space is all you see, there will always be something you missed out on or didn’t prepare for. There will always be someone better off. There will always be something to fear.

          In the story of God’s mighty acts in human history it’s very different. People receive blessings they’ve never come close to earning or deserving. Abraham and Sarah, senior citizen parents, become the mother and father of an entire nation of God’s people. All they ever really do is believe that what they do not see or build or control could be true and real because God promises it.

          In today’s gospel lesson Jesus tells his disciples the same thing – it is God’s pleasure to give them the kingdom. Luke writes in the early second century – fifty years after Paul and nearly eighty years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Underlying Paul’s letters is the fervent belief that Jesus’ return was imminent. You can imagine how such a conviction would change the thoughts and actions of a community that held it in common as the most profound element of their identity. Luke’s audience has had decades to consider that the expectations of their forbears have not been realized. The centrality of Jesus to their faith is still very real, but they’ve come to think differently about what it means and how their lives are to reflect it. They still believe that God will self-reveal to the world again in the person of Jesus but they are faced with the challenge of living out that belief in the unspecified interval of time until it becomes reality. That’s a more difficult way to wait than the innocent expectancy of Christian communities half a century earlier. Doubt creeps in, believers are in a position to reply to the skepticism of those outside the community who challenge their faith and seem to live more easily and comfortably unencumbered by it. Jesus tells them do not worry – it is God’s pleasure to give them the kingdom. Live your lives in a manner that reflects what you believe to be true. For Jesus that challenge frequently points toward our relationship with the material aspects of life – wealth and possessions. The things that we are taught to value because they secure our existence and free us from anxiety are the things that Jesus frequently advises his followers to let go. In today’s gospel lesson he advises them to sell what they own and give the money away.

          There are Christians who have done that literally in a time closer to our own. They made vows and lived in religious communities devoting their lives to service and prayer, neither owning nor earning anything for themselves. Even those communities are changing. Nuns go out and get jobs now. Their paychecks go to their communities, frequently to support elderly, retired members. Monastic orders have developed new models in which their members take vows but live, not in cloistered communities, but in their own homes. They follow a rule of life in which prayer and service are emphasized, but they are also obliged to earn a living, and possibly support a family.

          Today’s lessons focus on the importance of faith to our identity – the belief in the truth of what we cannot see and what has not yet been fully realized. Luke’s audience had waited a few decades for God’s great self-revelation. For us, two millennia have passed since the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Luke mediated the culture and sacred literature of the Jews to an audience of gentiles. The symbols and motifs of that culture may have been unknown and a bit odd to the Christians in Thessalonica or Corinth, but in the second century neither Jew nor Greek had seen photographs of the earth taken from space or used the Internet.  We read the sacred literature they adopted and created across a vast distance of time, space and culture. The knowledge gained in the 2,000 years since Luke wrote allows us to think in terms of what that could mean for believers who seek to honor those writings faithfully in very different times and places from the ones in which they were written.  We live in a culture that is averse to risk and devoted to the idea of a proven track record. We are encouraged to go with the sure thing and to protect ourselves against the possibility that our plans and expectations will not be fulfilled. And yet we still gather together to hear the words of Jesus telling us that it is God’s pleasure to give us the kingdom.

          One of the things we have come to believe in the two millennia since those words were written, is that we have a part in building that kingdom. We will not bring about its full realization, but the belief that we have a hand in its creation is central to who we are. Very few people are able literally to sell all they have and live lives devoted to prayer and expectation of Jesus’ return. We could interpret that as a sign of Christianity’s failure or we could re-imagine what it means to live out the kind of hopeful expectation that Jesus commends to his hearers in this gospel lesson. Will we live expectantly in hope or with fearful anxiety? What will we do while we wait?

Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

Ecclesiastes 1.2, 12-14, 18-23

Psalm 49.1-11

Colossians 3.1-11

Luke 12.13-21

     

 I saw a post this week that I liked a lot – a dark background with no images, only text printed in white – the words “stop the glorification of busy.” It’s a perfect fit with today’s lessons. Many of us like having a lot to do. We interpret it as being important, staying connected and having the products of our labor be valued. But filling all of our hours with doing leaves us with little time to be – to consider who we are and who we are becoming apart from what we accomplish or produce.

          That’s part of the feeling of sorrow and futility expressed by the author of today’s Old Testament lesson . He finds that he has put considerable effort into accomplishing results that the passage of time and his own mortality force him to leave to others. He can do nothing to maintain the integrity of his legacy – someone can come along after him and reinterpret it, distort it or even destroy it. That’s true for all of us. It’s true for the church. We fear that and it motivates us to try to pile up more and more of our selected variety of accomplishments and figure out how to safeguard them, like the character in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus reminds his hearers that human life is finite – that is both blessing and sorrow – but it is true. It will feel more like a blessing if we use our time and talent and the resources that come our way with the knowledge that all of it comes from and ultimately belongs to God.

          The Vestry met yesterday in its annual retreat. Right now this parish has one of the most committed, talented and generous teams of lay leaders that I have every worked with. In their charge are the temporal affairs of this congregation. We talked a lot yesterday about the big challenges: getting the taxes paid every year on time; completing the repairs to the building and parking lot that still need to be done; discerning what our congregation’s mission is on an ongoing basis; constantly building community within and reaching out effectively beyond the walls of this building.  There are differences of opinion about priorities, goals and how to go about accomplishing them. We agreed to take initial steps and continue the conversation. When I reflected last night on the meeting, I was not sure how I would characterize what we accomplished yesterday. I know we’re in no danger of feeling like we have to pull down our barns and build new ones in order to store our possessions. I feel like we began to take a look at the work that we do as a congregation with the careful eye of discernment – to be sure that we know the difference between being busy and building God’s kingdom.

          As a small congregation living on a shoestring with an expensive building we live daily with the reality that it could all be taken from us. One of my less sensitive colleagues once suggested in a public meeting that St. Mary’s building would make a great brew pub and its selling price give a nice boost to the diocesan coffers. With a 150 year old legacy preceding us, we feel a sense of urgency that it not be lost and particularly that we not be the ones to let it slip away. But that danger overshadows all of human life and endeavor.

          People of faith spend their lives discerning the balance between our temporal responsibilities and our ultimate home in God. We are called to build the kingdom as we are able in time and space, knowing that our efforts will never complete it. We struggle with competing claims upon our time and energy, to make good decisions about how to use the resources that God provides.  The truth we return to is embodied in the prayer with which we began this morning – our dependence upon God’s protection and direction. To know and feel what it means to be protected and directed by God, we have to stop glorifying “busy” and let our selves be silent and empty. God fits most easily into empty time and space. In today’s lessons we are reminded of the human inclination to fill up empty spaces – the work of the spirit is to keep them empty and open for God.  

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 18.1-10a
Psalm 15
Colosians 1.15-28
Luke 10.38-42

Luke’s gospel has more than its share of memorable and beloved stories. Today’s lesson – the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha is among them. It is a story that has launched a thousand metaphors and admonitions to overstressed hostesses. During my years at seminary it was the initial inspiration for a short-lived plan to publish a Bible cookbook. This large format, full-color volume was to accompany each recipe with the Bible story that inspired it and a beautiful color photograph of somewhere near where the story takes place. The recipe for Mary and Martha’s Favorite Company Casserole (whose ingredients were never actually specified) was to have a place in the main course section this book. Along with it in the salad section would be the recipe for the Seven Wise Maidens’ Red Wine Vinaigrette. In the baking section, readers would find that culinary classic on a grand scale - Whole Grain Flatbread for five thousand. The group of friends who dreamed up this volume thought it might be a way to pay off our student loans.  Twenty years later I am resigned to the reality of sending that giant payment every month to American Education Services because the book never got off the ground.

          One of the commentators whose work I read for background on this text noted that it is a foundational narrative of Christian feminism. No doubt it is one of the texts that inspired the expression “Jesus was a feminist.”  It’s really unlikely that he was in any sense that we would recognize, but this story and that expression are good examples of why it’s important to know how and why we use biblical text the way we do.

          Interpretations traditionally contrast the roles of the two sisters: Martha is overwhelmed with the work of a householder offering her guest a proper welcome. She complains to Jesus that her sister isn’t helping. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet in a manner characteristic of one learning from a master or teacher.  Jesus’ willingness to teach a woman, to encourage her to assume the manner of a disciple rather than ordering her to join her sister in the kitchen has been interpreted as his having a sense of respect for women and allowing them a greater range of accepted behavior than other men of his time. Women, rightfully challenging the limitations placed for centuries upon their participation in the life of the church, found this interpretation to be inspiring and empowering. Arguably the Bible should inspire and empower believers to live out the lives and ministries to which God calls each of us. But the ability of this one text or any text to give us a definitive understanding of who and how Jesus was as a person and whether he was ahead of his time in the way he interacted with women is very limited.

          We are inclined to assume that Jesus was enlightened as we understand that word. We want to believe that he was perfectly kind and thoughtful. We imagine that he must have understood all sides of every question and drawn conclusions that were always beyond reproach. Church tradition that developed around the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection characterizes him as being without sin and thus the perfect offering to redeem the sins of all humanity. That is our tradition and we’re more or less sticking to it, but we should understand it. The tradition of Jesus’ sinlessness has led his followers, as we grow farther removed from the culture in which the gospels were created, to attribute to him personality characteristics and opinions that are judged favorably in our culture. Those attributions are frequently the result of interpreting a biblical story beyond the information that it actually provides about its characters.

          There’s nothing terribly wrong with that. Believers long before us have pulled and stretched sacred literature beyond its original boundaries. There’s plenty of evidence to indicate that biblical books were edited centuries after their original creation to take into account important events that occurred later in time. This kind of use demonstrates their importance over time and the respect they were accorded by later generations.  Generation after generation of believers have allowed their imaginations to move beyond the boundaries of biblical story in order to deepen and enrich their understanding of it or to apply it to new situations. The cultural gulf that lies between us and the creators of any biblical book is immense. I doubt that it was particularly less so for believers five hundred or a thousand years ago.  It is not surprising that we in the 21^st century who are not satisfied with interpreting the Bible literally have our work cut out for us when we attempt to weave it into the fabric of our daily lives.

          One of the most profound distinctions between Christians in the last five centuries is in how we understand the role of the Bible in our faith, particularly how we understand it in relation to the traditions of the church. Historically the Episcopal Church has understood scripture and tradition in balance with each other and human reason. But there are Episcopalians and Anglicans and other Christians who privilege scripture beyond those other two elements of our faith. Wherever any individual believer may fall on that continuum is the place to which God has led him or her at this point in a long journey of faith.

What I think is really important is that we don’t allow the complexity of the Bible and its cultural distance from the world we live in to cause us to hold it at arm’s length or to constrain it by oversimplification.  One of my hopes for St. Mary’s over the next few years is that our adult educational offerings will increase in depth and frequency. The geography and culture of this parish are such that bringing people in early on a Sunday morning or asking them to come to the church for a mid-week class over an extended period of time may not be right. But I really want to develop a greater range of learning opportunities for parishioners, among them, the opportunity to study the Bible in greater depth.

For some things that are very old and very precious, we demonstrate our understanding of their value by observing them from afar, not touching them, not using them. Happily, the Bible is not fragile in the way that art works and artifacts are. We can touch it, use it, dig deeply into it and understand it and in doing so show our love and respect for it.