Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

A few years ago, when traveling anywhere was out of the question because of you-know-what, many homeowners thought of turning their own yards into destinations worthy of traveling to--and the staycation was born.

My backyard was a blank slate full of weeds. I wanted a place outside that was worth traveling to, a yard that reminded me of places I'd been to and loved--Clear Lake, the working-class resort of my early childhood with its woods and hammock; Olympic National Forest; Glacier National Park; the Japanese Garden in San Francisco and Spokane; and finally, Children's Fairyland in Oakland and anything Alice in Wonderland.

I'm too scrawny to dig a hole deeper than three inches, so I hired a landscaper to plant the trees I bought. In my usual getting-carried-away habit, I eventually ended up, in a medium sized backyard, with 2 redbud trees, 3 magnolias, 7 dogwoods, and 13 Japanese maples, all different.

After they were planted, I told the trees, "You're on your own." I didn't want to have to actually work in my yard. I'm all for no-maintenance gardening here. The trees had to take care of themselves. It was a transactional relationship between me and my trees. I give them dirt; they give me beauty, shade, and supplemental oxygen. I wasn't going to fuss over them, water them, hug them--or prune them. I'm not a gardener. I'm a stay-at-home tourist.

While coming down the hill into Hyde Park on Ridge, I noticed a car stopped in the middle of the intersection, and a man standing at the back of his car. Without thinking it through, I pulled off to the side, saying to my sister, hold on, a guy is stuck in the intersection. I'll call you right back. And as I jumped out of my car to see what was going on, I heard her yell through the speakerphone of my car, It's not safe! Don't be a martyr, Melanie! The intersection was filled with honking cars.

One guy flew around us full speed and then only one other man, a guy driving a semi-truck, got out to help me push this other guy's vehicle to the curb so that everyone else could get back to what they were doing before someone's bad luck completely inconvenienced them.

When was it lord that we saw you in need and did not come to your aid? And Jesus answered, just as you did not do it for one of your fellow humans in small things, you did not do it for me. The voice of our shepherd showing up, even in small things.

I got back in the car, and as promised, I called my sister. What happened? I'm glad you're alive. I laughed too. A guy just needed a little push. It wasn't until then that I realized how silly I might have looked pushing a car in my collar, or how annoyed I was that only one other guy got up to help us.

Our hope rests in God. When God shows up and does the
work of transformation, and resurrection in our lives, our part is to recognize
God. And if you're not sure how to recognize God, look for love. And I mean, every time. Look for the love in
your life. And when you look there, you see God and you recognize that God has
been at work in resurrection all around you all the time.


This is when you begin to believe. When you cut someone off in traffic, because
you're thinking about something, you didn't mean to do it, you're a very good
person, we all know, but you cut someone off, and then you realize you do it,
and then that person drives by you, and instead of giving you the finger, waves
at you, and is like, I get it, it's okay. Recognize God's presence, please. That's
God.


When you're at the airport, and you see two people that
you have no idea who they are, and they clearly haven't seen each other in a
while and they grab each other and embrace when they see each other, recognize
God's presence.
When you're coming off the highway, and you see that man
who's standing on the side asking for money, you know, that guy, maybe you give
him a dollar and maybe you don't, but when you see him, you make eye contact
with him and you say, hello. And when he looks at you and you look at him and
you see each other's eyes, friends, that's God at work.

How many of you have been through hell with God by your
side, through the trials of your life, possibly testing you? How about when you get to the other side and
God is still there? You know in your
heart that you've made it through the hard times and hardships because of that
presence that you can always count on.



The presence that always seems to provide, you know that
very well. How many of you know in your
hearts, in your bones, in your body that without God you couldn't, you wouldn't
survive? For us, our belief and trust in
God does not result from merely pondering or meditating on God, but on having a
relationship with God.



It's important to know that if your faith and
relationship doesn't look like Abraham's, that's okay. But what is important is that you pursue a
relationship. And our journeys with God
are going to be different. We're going
to experience God differently. That
doesn't mean your faith is not as strong as someone else's faith.



It just means that they're different. And as long as we're working on our faith and
relationship with God, I don't believe that God is going to look at a gauge and
say whether or not you have enough faith that you pray enough. God knows each and every one of us, and meets
us where we're at.

We experience God, we sense God, and we need God. And we know that we can trust God with our
dreams, with our successes, and our failures.
During our lives at every stage, God has proven to be faithful and
steadfast. Even when we know we haven't always been. We know that we can count on God without full
understanding or complete knowledge of what God is doing.

People were getting healed. There were rumors of a savior. We would overthrow our oppressors and be our true selves again under our true ruler. There were some disagreements among us at first, and some confusion, and some people got pretty belligerent, and they started arguing against us. And then, at the end, it's as if they got carried away with their inflammatory extremist ideas, and here we are.
But it wasn't that sudden. There were signs. We just didn't pick up on the signs, because the signs were warning about us, not about them. So we kept going, and then we crossed the line, and we couldn't go back. We always assumed we were the good guys. We are the good guys. So then how did I end up holding these nails and this hammer in my hand?
How did we get to be the executioners instead of the saviors?
Like I said, it seems so sudden, but it wasn't really. There was a road we went down, an imperceptible slide down the road towards that cross. And at some point, we made a turn down the conventional path that tells us to conform to the empire's moral code.

Hospitality is also an integral part of our story
tonight. And it's the one that surprised
me. I consider myself a pretty great
host. I love when people come to my home
for dinner. I'm Greek, so there's always enough food to feed a small army. And I've crafted my own signature
cocktail. And I've brought brightly
colored linens home from my travels so I can tell the story of the amazing
people I've met along the way.


Hospitality, though, has another side, the surprise
side. It turns out that I'm terrible at
being a guest. I actually had a friend
once grab me by the wrist and bring me back to the dining room so I would stop
washing her dishes.


I rarely allow myself to be the recipient of the service of others
because that level of vulnerability
might remind me that I might actually need someone to take care of me
from time to time.

Jesus shows us this night that if we are going to share hospitality
without condescension, then we first
have to allow ourselves to be the guest
in someone else's home. Jesus begins this
act of service, and only by receiving it
can we know how to share it with others.