March 2, 2003, Last Sunday of Epiphany Year

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Last Sunday of Epiphany Year

March 2, 2003

Let us pray: God of glory, you gave the vision of your Son to those who watched on the mountain; grant that by our glimpse of him, we may be changed in his glorious likeness. AMEN.

With so many special effects in movies these days, it would not be hard to reproduce the visual excitement of the transfiguration. Actually, we can imagine in our minds what sort of sight this may have been.

In the Old Testament readings, and from other spiritual readings, transfigurations are not limited to this one time. Moses was transfigured, St. Theresa was, St. Francis was. And people were witnesses to this. Here is community. Transfigurations do not happen alone. There are always witnesses.

In the Bible translation called The Message, the transfiguration has the witnesses "buried in the cloud, they became deeply aware of God." To become deeply aware of God is another form of transfiguration. They were witnesses to the oneness of God as personified in Jesus Christ. They witnessed Jesus' physical transfiguration, but were themselves aware of a inner transfiguration. They were witnesses to this in each other. And the experience was so awe-filled that they were speechless.

And because Jesus had already revealed what was to take place in Jerusalem, his betrayal and death, the witnesses were all the more speechless because they were aware that God, in the person of Jesus, was ready to die for them. And Jesus had said before, no greater love has this, than a friend will lay down their life for another friend. What love this is to be willing to give your life for someone else. We've heard of heroic efforts by parents to rescue their children when in danger. The heroes of Flight 93 on that day in September when they took control of a highjacked plane and gave their lives so others might be safe. Our Armed Forces across the seas, willing to give their lives for our freedoms. Most of us have someone we're willing to die for. And here we have our Savior and Redeemer, willing to give himself for our sins.

Jesus as friend and as God, as Master and servant, as the fulfillment of the traditions of the past, the history, the heritage, all the myths and legends, all the hopes and dreams, revealed by God to witnesses, was prepared to make the most loving of all gestures not only for the few followers but for all of humankind.

The witnesses who recognized Jesus, were told by a voice that they should listen to Jesus, and were themselves changed, "deeply aware" of God. The incarnation of God as Jesus, the incarnation of Jesus within them had happened. We were again, one with God, aware of our holiness.

I feel the more we know about ourselves, the choices we make, the roads we take, the more aware we are of God and God's indwelling in us. Some, by the grace of God, may have startling transfigurations, but for most of us, it will be an unveiling. Unlike Moses, who kept his transfiguration veiled from his witnesses. We need to unveil our transfigurations as they evolve through us to show forth the work of God within our lives. To show forth the "dazzling countenance" of having seen God.

The Bishop of San Diego last week spoke of some of you who have returned to the institutional church after some years of being away. Away because you felt unwelcomed and not a part of community. I have seen you come toSt Paul's and blossom forth as you became aware of your holiness. Baptisms, confirmations, receptions are "business as usual" at St Paul's. People see us as we change, as we reveal ourselves, as we become more and more aware of what is

Do we like Moses have to wear veils over our faces because our appearance has become so dazzling to others? Are we, like Jesus, surrounded by the great prophets? In a very real sense, the answer is yes. We have been transfigured. We have heard the voice from heaven claiming us, recognizing us and affirming our decision to continue on with this faith journey whether it leads to our personal Calvary or not.

How do we manifest this transfiguration? How has all this culminated into our everyday life? Our personal transfiguration is our time to look within and speak out with joy as to what we have become, what we have found, and what it is like for us now. From Paul's letter to the Phillipians, "It is God at work in you giving you the will and the power to achieve God's purpose." I was finishing a book the other day, and just a single sentence from this novel jumped out at me and has given me great pause. A simple sentence that read, "what do you hope to achieve?" I've thought of it for days on end. I thought of what I had achieved in the past, a good parish, being dean of a cathedral, of changing peoples' lives and I thought of those things at which I didn't achieve the anticipated goal, but fell short of the mark. I wrestled with what I thought I wanted to achieve now, until I read Paul's letter to the Phillipians..."the will and the power to achieve God's purpose." This is what Jesus did with his life, this is

There's a sign in my office that reads "Imagination is evidence of the Divine." To be deeply aware of God within us allows us to be transfigured and to dream. We are the only species in our world known to have the capacity for exercising a creative imagination. The divine quality of imagining and of dreaming. Dreaming of what you want to be, where you want to go, and what you'd love to do, what you hope to achieve. All these dreams and imaginings make us human. By being made in the image of a creator God, we are fulfilling God's purpose by dreaming, imagining and embracing life, no matter what happens. And that is our faith, that is our hope.

We were created to have a mind and spirit by God to hear the voice of heaven claiming and affirming us. This is faith. The clean, refreshing, renewing, transfiguring pureness of being human.

Dreaming, creating, imagining, faith, transfiguration, expectancy, birth, recognition, claiming and affirming. We are created to be believers. Our spiritual journey is about seeking and finding our faith. And faith is a choice, not an argument. Faith is a decision, not a debate. Faith is a commitment, not a controversy.

I don't know whether Jesus knew that his transfiguration and spoken recognition by God was going to happen when he went to the mountain to pray. I don't know whether Jesus expected to be recognized and revealed by God at his baptism. I do know that Jesus went out to pray and make a commitment both those times and during those times of prayer, God was revealed to the world, and those who witnessed became deeply aware of God.

We now stand poised to set out into another season of transformation and transfiguration, that of Lent. A time for reflection, repentance, amendment of life and a deep awareness of God. Let us embrace with eagerness, with joy and expectancy, this season. Not with fear, not with doubt, not wrestling for our own agendas. "Let go and let God" as one of the 12 step slogans say. Or as I heard someone say, "life is not a dress rehearsal". No it's not. It's yours now to either embrace as we strive to achieve God's purpose, working through us or we can choose to turn our back, never go to the mountain top...and never set our face towards Jerusalem.
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April 6, 2003 Lent 5

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Sermon preached by The Reverend Armand John Kreft

Associate Rector for Family Ministry

Church of St Paul in the Desert, Episcopal

Palm Springs, California

April 6, 2003 Lent 5B

There's a television show called "Unwrapped" and it's on the Food Channel. It shows how certain foods were invented and how they are made. The other evening it showed cake mixes. Betty Crocker invented cake mixes in 1948. The least successful mix was one in which you only had to add water to make the batter. It just didn't sell. When the company did a marketing survey, the reason it didn't sell was that it was too easy. People wanted to do something more than just add water. So they restructured the mix so not only did you add water, but you also had to add an egg. Sales rose dramatically because people felt they had something more to do with the mixture than just add water.

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will never be more than one grain. But if it dies, it will produce a lot of wheat. Being a Christian isn't easy. We need to feel as if we have something to do with the process. Last week I said the only requirement to being a Christian is to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Easier said than done. We come here wanting to see Jesus. We have heard about Jesus and want to know him. We come to learn about him so we can serve him and tell others about him. But as his servants, we're suppose to go where he goes. It's easy to follow the resurrected Christ. It's easy to follow the Jesus who heals the sick and raises the dead. It's easy to follow the Jesus who walks on water and calms the storm. But it is very difficult to follow him when he's headed for the cross on Calvary. The people who hailed him as Messiah when he was out and about, cursed him when he was being crucified.

Here's where it gets difficult. If we wish to follow Jesus there are crosses in our future just as there was one in his. If we seek to be disciples of Jesus there are dark times ahead just as there were dark times for the first disciples. If we want the life that comes only through Jesus we must look beyond the present. That is as hard to accept now as it was back then. Because looking to the future requires hope and faith, and that is difficult when the present is in darkness. But Jesus offers us hope for the times of darkness. The light is with us now. Christ is here if we trust in the light we will become sons and daughters of the light. Then, when the darkness comes, we will not be left stumbling.

But the darkness is necessary. When the grain of wheat is planted in the ground, it is surrounded by darkness. That darkness is necessary in order for it to germinate, to produce new life, to send up shoots through the dark soil to bask in the nourishing light of the sun. Without the darkness, the grain would only die but not produce new growth. Darkness is necessary for the nutrients of the soil, as well as the support of the darkness in order to grow.

Not only does the grain of wheat send up shoots to the surface, it also sends down roots to hold it fast against the elements. Our spiritual life, our dedication, our commitment to living the life of Jesus is what roots us deep in the faith. The beautiful euculyptus trees are tall and slender but their roots are very shallow. In a wind storm many blow over. If we seek only a God who will make our lives easy, who will fix everything for us, we will be blown over by the events of life when God doesn't answer our prayers for the cross to pass us by. However, if we worship the God who created the universe, who loves us so much that he gave us his Son and who sends his Holy Spirit as our advocate and guide. A God who will never desert us or leaves us comfortless, a God who entered into our pain and sorrow and yet gave us hope again. If this is the God we walk with, then our roots will have dug deep into our darkest experience and still send out shoots to the light. For this is God who is not at our beck and call, but who calls us into his arms.

When we feel that God has abandoned us or when we are angry with God for not sparing us the darkness, it would be helpful to remember that the darkness is necessary for our personal growth. Darkness also brings us refreshing sleep. A time to end our ceaseless worries, our endless manipulations, our dashing about. A time to rest and rise with the dawn.

Most of the time in our darkness we look to our leadership, the progress of scientific discovery, the spread of knowledge rather than wisdom or drugs from our doctors and think that we can find the solutions to all our problems. But our hope for the light rests not in a system or a government or a philosophy, but in the cross of Christ.

From Annie Dillard's book, "Teaching a Stone to Talk": God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is life with God which demands these things....You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it." Darkness is necessary for us to welcome the light.

We want to feel as if we have a part in the process. When we go through some of life's hard trials, it is natural for us to center upon ourselves. Whether it is physical or mental anguish, personal pain tears us apart. God did not exclude himself from human suffering. He became one of us, in the person of Jesus, and shared with us all there is to share. Philip Yancey wrote, "God does not, in the comfortable surroundings of heaven, turn a deaf ear to the sounds of suffering on this groaning planet."

Even in the darkness of Jesus' life and ministry, he continued to heal the sick, feed the hungry, loved the unloved, taught the ignorant, and worked miracles amongst the people. Still the crowd shouted "crucify him!". And so he died that we might live.

When we are content and comfortable to stay in the darkness and shun the light, is when we have turned our back on the life to which Jesus calls us. A life of dying to self so that others may live.

For as surely as the night falls, the sun rises in the morning until that great day when the sun that rises will be the Son of Righteousness, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And joy comes in the morning.
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May 11, 2003 Fourth Week After Easter

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Sermon preached by Father Armand John Kreft

Associate Rector for Family Ministry

Episcopal Church of St Paul in the Desert

Palm Springs, California

Sunday, May 11, 2003 Easter

Jesus said "I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down their life for the sheep. The one who is a hireling ... leaves the sheep and flees."

Good Shepherd Sunday. For most of us this conjures up a very pastoral picture. We've all seen the holy cards of Jesus holding a little lamb over his arm and sheep looking up adoringly. It's all very bucolic and serene. Well, I've worked on a sheep ranch and it's not like that at all. It's long hours, it's dirty and smelly...and the sheep are not grateful.

Recently, a long time friend of mine and her husband left San Francisco where they were raised and bought a ranch in New Mexico. There they have cattle and sheep, chickens and the like. Neither one had ever lived outside of the city before. Prior to going off to the ranch, my friend took courses in husbandry and farming. All very textbook. Then came reality. A stillborn calf left in the mountains for the buzzards, the mother cow not regaining health quickly enough. She too is about to die. They learn to give injections, they learn that there are no days off on a ranch. They are working hard. The closest neighbor is three miles away.

On the other hand, I have a priest friend in London who, with his companion, own a sheep ranch in the north of England. They go there for relaxation. To them mucking about in wellingtons, corralling sheep is fun and different from the church work , well not all that different, but it is different from their business in the city.

Because we have appropriated a hallmark card image of what a shepherd is, we have lost the true metaphor that Jesus was using in this speech. We are not a rural culture and have neither first hand knowledge of what a shepherd is or what Jesus was referring to when he called himself good. Donald Messer writes in his book, Contemporary images of Christian Ministry: "When Jesus was criticized for hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, this was not referring to those disreputable people who failed to observe the commandments of God, but also to those who were engaged in "despicable trades." Biblical scholars now say that "sinners" was a term used to describe those engaged in those despised trades. So far from being a noble profession, according to the scholars, the job of being a shepherd in first century Palestine was one of the most despised trades, along with gamblers, usurers and publicans.

Far from being viewed as reliable and responsible, shepherds were habitually known to graze on other people's lands and to pilfer the produce of the herd. Shepherds, like tax collectors and publicans, had no civil rights nor could they witness in court. It was forbidden to buy wool, milk or a kid from a shepherd because it was widely assumed that it would be stolen property.

Jesus, by deliberately choosing to identify himself with a despised trade was standing again with the acknowledged sinners and outcasts of his culture. What outraged the religious leaders of his time, as it does in our own time now, was not his message of God's love, but his insistence, and now ours, on the inclusiveness of God's love, that no one was beyond God's redeeming grace."

Jesus called himself the good shepherd just as he called the samaritan good. He contrasted the good shepherd who cared for the sheep with the hireling who is just employed to take care of them. Not investing anything of themselves in their charge. The shepherd does not own the sheep. The shepherd is not just an employee like the hireling. The shepherd probably has a debt or has a duty to the master of the flock. Jesus claims that a good shepherd will die for their charges while a paid employee flees in the face of wolves.

We are called to be shepherds together. As such and as members of the flock this means we are willing to commit ourselves to a relationiship with Jesus Christ, with all that that entails, our failings as well as our successes. We commit to embrace our united humanity, our time and talents and our treasures, enough to share. My commitment and yours as good shepherds means we won't run away if the wolves come to us or the going gets tough. It means we have committed ourselves for this journey. Yes, we will all move on in God's time.

For us to act as the good shepherd we allow ourselves to put aside a life of selfishness and personal agenda.. As the good shepherd we invite others to explore a new life, new thoughts, new ways of living. Because of you people are aware of inclusiveness, more aware of social action, more aware of the hurt and anger we have for the humiliation done to us in the name of Jesus Christ. Because of you, others are invited to explore their own hurts, their own failings, their own search for intimacy, and have widened their vision of the kingdom of God. But also because of you they have been able to see the good things in their lives in abundancy.

From each other we draw the strength to continue to speak out against those who use our Scriptures as weapons of exclusion. From each other we draw courage to speak of welcome to all people to the church. From each other we call the institutional church to repentance for its past wrongs and sins against the people of God and against God's creation. As a shephered, from your counselings, your confessions, from our conversations filled with a myriad of emotions: laughter, anger, despair I see the life of Jesus lived over and over again... the needless crucifixions we put ourselves through and the glory-filled resurrections of many. The clergy here, as good shepherds, gather you and try to lead you home, even as we are finding our own way ... moving not so much from knowledge but of the sense, the feeling of the holy into the direction of the heavenly New Jerusalem where the gates stand open to receive all people. Where there is neither sighing nor weeping.

We are all called to be the shepherds of the flock. I know my own and my own know me. Would you lay down your life for the flock?

Being a shepherd is not an easy job, just as my friend found out in New Mexico. Sometimes it is a struggle as we wrestle with someone who will not let go of their problems long enough to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Or the heartbreak of saying a final goodbye to one of our own and to gather us who remain and keep us walking on that journey, somehow looking for words that will not only comfort us, but give us true courage to continue on.

But like my friends in New Mexico, this new life is ours because we choose to lay down our old life for the most refreshing, exciting and fulfilling life. Good shepherds lay down their lives for their sheep because they want to. Each of you are called to be a good shepherd in your own life. And you will be called, by God, to lay down some part of your life to follow Jesus.

For some it may be a drastic change of careers. It may be downsizing a complex lifestyle. It may mean setting aside your own idea of church and truly becoming a part of this community. It may mean to just let go. Let go of all the past hurts and wrongs, the despair and the anger, and embrace a new life filled with hope. Hope that what you are doing will make a difference not only to those around you, but somehow will make a difference in the kingdom of God. To lay down your life may mean to become holy ... that is authentic and genuine, reflecting the goodness of the Savior, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for you first.

We will all be given a choice. To take on the role of the hireling or the shepherd. To look to your life fearlessly. See where you have run away in the past. Heal those wounds by whatever means necessary, because Jesus calls you to be whole. And then to choose, to lay down your life to the past and embrace the new life, the life of the good shepherd or to take your wages as a hireling without committment, without dedication, without love and run away as fast as you can. Jesus asks us to make this choice everyday. And the choice is yours to make and all choices have consequences.
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