Sermon: What questions are on your test?

Testing is different than trusting.

We played Twenty Questions at the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper last week.  One of the questions had us brainstorming all the intervals of forty something we could remember from scripture, and we gathered quite a few.

Noah was afloat with the zoo for forty days and nights, until the floodwaters subsided. He’d done as God asked, and brought the creatures to a new beginning. Today, ecologists call the community of plants and animals in a food web an ark.

Moses went up on Mount Sinai to parley with God about the unruly group he’d led out of Egypt into the desert wilderness. He was gone such a long time that they gave up on him. After forty days and nights, he came down with the tablets of the law, God’s simple rules to bring forth blessings from life.

The whole people of Israel wandered for forty years on the Sinai Peninsula, so long that some who had left Egypt didn’t make it to Canaan. During that time, they faced trials. Their Outward Bound experience strengthened them as a people.

And, today, in Luke’s gospel story, Jesus spends forty days and nights in the Judean Desert. I’ve been there. It’s a compelling place.

Sermon: Ash Wednesday

It’s Ash Wednesday so it must be time for an oil change.

We Episcopalians don’t use as much ‘sin’ language in our liturgy as we used to. But penitential expressions are still with us, especially on days like Ash Wednesday and, to some degree, throughout the season of Lent.

There’s a calendar put out every year by Church Insurance Group. I suspect Judy has it hanging around somewhere at St. Bede’s unless, that is, somebody hid it because of its irreverence. Each month features a cartoon portraying some aspect of parish life, and it’s pretty ‘equal opportunity’ in poking fun at clergy and laity, altar guild and choir. Left to my own devices, I would reprint those cartoons on the front of the worship bulletin. One of my favorites depicts an Ash Wednesday service. The priest is imposing ashes upon the forehead of a member of the congregation, saying, “Remember that you are dust…”, to which the parishioner responds, “Thanks for reminding me.”

Every so often someone will ask me about sin. Most typically, it’s someone who, in response to a service like this one today, might be inclined to say, “Gee. Thanks for reminding me.” It’s like the person isn’t comfortable being reminded of his or her sin and yet, even so, yearns to know more about it. Perhaps it’s a matter of getting close but not too close.

Shrove Tuesday

What’s not to like about Shrove Tuesday at St. Bede’s?

The Vestry hosts the pancake supper. The kids adorn their pancakes with sweet treats. Even some of the adults pass up the fruit toppings and go straight for the sprinkles instead. In past years, we’ve run pancake relays, but the kids always beat us. This year we played Fascinating Questions about Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent.  See (below) how many you can answer. At the end of the evening, we burn some of the palm crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration, to make ashes for tomorrow’s Ash Wednesday observance. The kids get to put the crosses in the brazier. Flame, smoke, and ash, all part of God’s great and marvelous recycling system. Here a few snapshots of the evening!

v. Behold, we speak to the Lord God
r. We who are but dust and ashes

God takes up the weak out of the dust*
And lifts the poor from the ashes       (Psalm 113:6)

Lenten Trivia Quiz – Test Your Knowledge!

1a. How many days are there from the first day of Lent to Easter Sunday?

1b. How many days of fasting are there in Lent?

1c. What New Testament story parallels the days of Lent?

1d. What two Hebrew Scriptures stories parallel the days of Lent?

1e. What did the early Christian communities of the first two centuries use the days of Lent for?

1f. What do we typically use the days of Lent for now? What do you use them for?

2. What was the original meaning of the word “Lent”?

February 20 – Concert Canceled

We regret that the choir’s Lenten concert has been canceled due to unforeseen events.  We will be performing the five voiced Missa Sancta et Immaculata Virginitas by Francisco Guerrero (1528-99) during the 10:15 Eucharist on Sunday, March 7.

Chocolates by candlelight – for Lent?

From the Diocese of California:

NOW IS THE TIME! A CARBON FAST FOR LENT

The Commission for the Environment encourages you to consider a Carbon Fast for Lent, and offers an inspirational Carbon-Fast Calendar. Each of these actions challenges us to reflect on our consumption habits, reduce our production of climate change pollution and help to preserve God’s great gift of Creation. What better time than Lent to begin practicing such a lifestyle.

Bede’s Bog Brigade

In January 2009, with the support of Palo Alto Park Ranger Daren Anderson, St. Bede’s adopted a small plot of marshland at the Palo Alto Baylands for the purpose of wetland restoration. Primary needs at this site are invasive plant removal and the planting of native plant species. Between February and November, 2009, a small group of parishioners met at least one Saturday a month to tackle the invasive mustard plant, a nonnative plant that offers little to no value to the marshland and that spreads rapidly thereby inhibiting the growth of native plant species that do offer nutrition to the soil and protection for marshland wildlife. We pulled both small and three-foot tall mustard plants with the result of a decrease in the density of the mustard plant in our assigned plot.

In November, Ranger Daren made arrangements with Save the Bay for St. Bede’s to plant native gum plants (Grindelia stricta), a ground cover that provides protection and food for native wildlife. In January of 2010, for two consecutive weekends, St. Bede’s parishioners planted and mulched 200 gum plants that were grown in the native plant nursery at the Palo Alto Baylands that is managed by Save the Bay, an environmental organization based in Oakland CA that is dedicated to the protection and restoration of the San Francisco Bay and oversees the restoration efforts at the Palo Alto Baylands.

In 2010, St. Bede’s will work with Ranger Daren and Save the Bay on planting native plants (gum plant) and continuing to remove the non-native, invasive mustard.

Check out this entertaining,

sing-along Bede’s Bog slideshow!

Sermon: Plucking and Planting

Listen. What do you think? Would God want us to have this conversation with those around us, those who won’t talk in church terms? Would Jesus want us to roll up our sleeves, alongside others, to become the tipping point in an alternative way of living, to preserve the earth for our descendents? What a fine way to conceive our vocation. People don’t see what difference religion makes for good. Here’s a good way.

Last Sunday, in Soulwork, we talked about the power of God’s Word, echoing through time, convincing the faithful to live according to God’s dream for the world. Countless have heard and heeded God’s word, spoken through Jeremiah and Isaiah, in the passages appointed today. And countless carry in their hearts Paul’s hymn to love.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Thus says the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah. We can read this passage in relation to the child Bede, fostered by monks, as he considered his calling. It was an ambitious undertaking to write The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. To do such a thing, Bede had to take such a passage seriously, and  he had to appreciate the vocation of his own people too.

Now let’s apply the call of Jeremiah to our congregation, bearing Bede’s name. The passage asks us to reflect upon how the Spirit is forming us, how we are being grown in faith and practice, how we are being asked to serve in a particular time and place, and in communion with Bede, Luke, Paul, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, to name just a few.