2017-4 Seeing Glory (John 17 1-10) - The Prayer of Jesus

My field education this week started with a birthday party for one of the residents of Carlsbad-By-The-sea (CBTS) who turned 100 years old. As he joked on the day “Now I am starting my second century”. What a great way to look at life.

I started working on my sermon early in the week, studying and praying on John 17 1:10 especially as someone had asked me previously “If Jesus was God why did He need to pray?”. After a few false starts and no real conviction, even after discussing this with some residents it dawned on me that this was not to be the focus of the week. Whilst I think that we could improve the prayer life of the community at CBTS this was not the week to do that. I will take that on as an objective for June.

After further study and prayer it struck me that this week’s passage is about the Glory of God.  Glory, an important word that is found over 400 times in the Bible, is one of those words that is hard to explain.

We can start to understanding this word if we think of it as being used in three different ways:

·         Something that is real; something we can see, hear, or touch, maybe a bright light or fire as in (Exodus 16:7) when the Israelites saw “the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount" or in nature when we see the power of the waves, strong winds or even bright colors at sunset.

·         Something we cannot touch or see. Ideas like truth, love, and justice are abstract and can be the feeling we have when we see God’s glory as we look at a sunset, listen to music, or look at a piece of art that moves us. Many verses use it in this way as feelings that refer to God's glory. In the Song of Moses after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea the Bible states that the Lord is "glorious in power" "glorious in holiness" and that He has "triumphed gloriously”.

·         God’s divine nature appears in the skills and talents He gives us and the works He performs through us. This is not just in praise and worship but more. St Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:6 writes “For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ”. We too can do His will through the use of the knowledge He gives us. That is how we recognize His glory and how we glorify Him.

When we look at how Jesus glorified God, He showed God’s glory, divinity, grace, and power in what He did during His ministry and on the cross.

Jesus, the Word sent from the Father to die on the cross for our salvation, shows His light shining out of darkness by finishing the work God the Father gave him to do. He honored Him through his obedience to His commands, taught what He wanted him to teach, and performed healing and other works that He wanted him to perform. Jesus glorified God the Father by revealing God's power in himself.

The gospel links glorification to a process or series of events in Jesus ministry that culminates in the crucifixion. The crucifixion and resurrection complete Jesus' work of glorifying God on earth.

In visits this week the glory of God, as revealed through sights, feelings and actions, started to show up in discussions I had on pastoral care visits. Two special examples come to mind.

One is a lady I visited who mentioned that she remembered her grandmother always saying “Glory be!” whenever she saw or heard something she thought was wonderful and miraculous. This expression has now been passed through all the following generations of her family. Passing this down through the generations is a great way to praise god for His glory.

The other example is the person who turned 100 this week. He is a world renowned botanist who studied at Harvard, then became a professor there and later held full professorships at Syracuse and Duke Universities. As we were discussing the gifts God has given us and glory He has shown through our actions I was surprised at his humility. Especially when he said “I think it was God’s glory that made sure that the students I taught and mentored went on to do greater things than I. I may have been educated at some fine establishments but I always thought my students were brighter than me”. During his career he authored over 30 books, many papers and did teach students who also went on to great things in biology, chemistry and their application to agriculture. He even mentored a Japanese student who was awarded a Noble prize.

There were other times throughout the week when discussion on God’s glory at this week’s bible study sessions or in pastoral care visits produced examples of how we see and feel God’s glory and how we glorify Him in our words and deeds.

The advantage of providing the weekly Service Of The Word, bible studies, prayer sessions, and pastoral care to CBTS residents who are mostly in their 80's and 90's is that there is extensive experience and history that is shared and discussed on any topic each week.

2017-3 Settling Into The Role (John 14 1-21) - The Way, Truth, Life and the Paraclete

 My week started on Sunday with the Service of the Word, including a Gospel reading and sermon on the Way, the Truth, The Life (John 14:1-14), followed by a mad rush to a local restaurant for Mothers’ Day lunch, and then working it all off by packing boxes ready for our Realtor to photograph our house. Unfortunately that same afternoon we also had a kitchen drain blockage we had to deal.

On Sunday I really did not have a lot of time to contemplate the Way, the Truth, the Life but I did have every intention of seeing how this Gospel passage was visible in the pastoral care visits I made and my meetings this week.

I was not really seeing evidence of this at Carlsbad-By-The-Sea (CBTS) until on Tuesday I was having a coffee in the reception area and a resident came up to me and started a conversation. She introduced herself and although she knew my name she asked where I was from and what I was doing there. I told her about the pastoral care ministry at St. Michael's By The Sea, the School-For-Ministry (SFM), and my field education at CBTS. Then she said something that changed my week. She said that we were all Christians and all belonged to the wider church. She said she had attended a service at St. Michael's and enjoyed it. She then went on to say that she though these services were the way the Episcopal Church connected with God but she was a Presbyterian and they had a more direct line. This made me think more about how the message of “the way the truth and the life” resonated across different denominations and that I was being a little negative by looking backwards at last Sundays Gospel passage each week.

This was when I decided to look forward and try to see how the upcoming message of “Jesus’s promise of the Holy Spirit” was revealing itself instead.

Looking forward and feeling the Holy Spirit this week has produced some interesting results, such as:

• ·         The afternoon where I tried to visit someone but he was asleep, so I delayed the visit to later that afternoon. When I went back it was very late afternoon and I was ready to head home. When I was walking out of the Care Center, at the end of the corridor I had to decide to turn left and go home or right and see if I could visit at that time. I am sure it was the Holy Spirit that urged me to turn right and even though it was late we had an enjoyable visit.
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• ·         One afternoon we had a resident who the staff felt was very close to passing. I was guided to go and fetch my Book of Common Prayer (BCP) so that we could say the “Ministration at the Time of Death”. Although the person was not fully conscious I felt she could hear us and it really meant a lot to the staff that they could pray with me and for her.  We also prayed for God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and to send His healing power.  Later that week she recovered, was alert and was back participating with other residents in the activities room. We were so joyful that our prayers had been answered.
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• ·         There was a Bible Study meeting I was fortunate enough to lead where we read the upcoming Gospel passage (John 14:15-21) and had an in depth discussion about the Holy Spirit, and the differences between “Indwelling” and “Spirit Filled”. I was able to learn from other peoples’ understanding of this theology.
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• ·         There were other discussions with individuals who I met and wanted to talk one-on-one. I saw the Holy Spirit working in the witness of someone who told me that her brother must have been spirit filled when during or shortly after WWII was part of a search and rescue team. He would parachute into dangerous areas of the jungle in Burma to search out and provide medical help to servicemen in need. On his return he set up a service providing medical assistance for a First Nation community who lived in the woods around the Boston area.

I was also able to relate my experiences this week to the ethics class we took last year and the study of James Smith’s book, “You are what you love. But you might not love what you think”.

The research for that book suggested that who we worship, combined with our Christian Narrative (story/history), Tradition (churches & communities) and Practices (services) fundamentally shape our hearts, minds and culture.

And while we want to shape our culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love things that are not the one true God. But as Christians we should recognize the power of culture and the transformative properties of our own practices.

In our practices of worship services, bible studies and prayers we are being transformed day-by-day without really noticing.  As with the Gospels and Epistles, our worship liturgy, although written by the early Church Fathers, was guided by the Holy Spirit.

It has an invitation to draw near to God, we confess our sins so that He can forgive and meet us, we sing hymns of praise, we listen to His words in the Readings and the Gospel, we praise and pray to Him in the Psalm, and we talk to Him in the prayers of the people. These are the practices that shape us and change the way we interact with people and the things we do during the week. 

With each exposure to God’s Word and presence in our lives, the Holy Spirit is actively changing us.

I feel that these were all aspects of Holy Spirit working in and through me this week and approaching this message with a forward looking and positive attitude made me see it more clearly and made me deliberately focus on introducing the Holy Spirit to others who may not be aware.

It also gave me a more comfortable feeling about the sermon I am due to deliver this coming Sunday, again the Holy Spirit is working in mysterious ways.

2017-2 Into the Sheepfold (John 10 1-10) - The Good Shepherd

At Carlsbad-By-The-Sea (CBTS) this week our gospel passage looked at the sheep management customs of Jesus’ time. People highly valued sheep, the shepherds knew which sheep were theirs, which belonged to someone and the sheep themselves knew to whom they belonged. With Jesus as our Good Shepard we, the sheep, know His voice and how we should respond in following Him.

 In my pastoral care this week I intended to build upon previous weeks questions of “how we recognize Jesus” and “where is our sheepfold and how do we know our Shepard’s voice”

This week I conducted visits to someone I had visited last week but most of the times I visited he was already involved in other activities such as bathing or musical therapy. On the days we did connect we sat quietly, talked only occasionally and prayed together. These were times when I realized we do not always need to talk to connect with each other and with God.

I also visited a resident, who is 100 years old in October this year, who had fallen and had been taken to hospital. She had returned to the Care Center and was determined to complete her physical therapy exercises so that she could go back to her un-assisted living apartment. We had a great discussion about 2 friends of hers who she thinks are not believers. They both do many good works for others within this community so there must be something working within them even if they profess to be non-believers.  We discussed that Jesus has “other sheep” that He is inviting in and right to the end of our lives God is near us and always inviting us into a relationship with Him. Of course He offers this relationship and salvation but everyone has free will to accept or reject it. We agreed that is not us who can judge people, only God can do that. We can just encourage and try to bring them to Christ in the small things we do. As she is concerned about who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell I suspect this conversation will continue.

There was another person I ministered to this week who had been in the Care Center (skilled nursing) for a while and had now returned to her apartment in Assisted Living. She had not been seen by the other people in the Care Center for a while so I invited her to attend the Bible Study session I was leading there this week. When she arrived she was welcomed back with hugs and so much love that it really made me feel that there is definitely a sheepfold within the Care Center. Her return to see them that afternoon made me think of Luke 15 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!”

In the larger, General Bible Study Group we discussed the Good Shepard and one person informed us that there are now some farmers that have Llamas to protect sheep rather than dogs. Apparently they are better at fighting off coyotes and protecting the sheep. This conversation prompted discussion on how we should all look out for and protect each other even if we are getting along in years and often do not feel strong.

Throughout the week I noticed how we are in one large sheepfold (the Church) and within that there are multiple sheep pens (St Michael's Church, CBTS etc.). As sheep we all stray, sometimes between sheep pens and sometimes we try to stray outside the sheepfold altogether. But we are called back by our Good Shepherd’s voice.

These are a few examples of that showed me that people, like sheep are vulnerable, and we can all help each other and watch out for each other no matter what community or sheepfold we are in. Plus we should listen to hear our Good Shepard’s voice and follow Him so that he can protect us from the spiritual dangers of this world.

If there is one key thing I have learned this week is that people, like sheep, cannot be treated like tasks on a project plan or schedule. Each day I can plan out meetings such as bible studies and visits with the best intentions of carry them out. Thanks be to God that He is not on my timeline and schedule so although there are some things that happen as planned many do not.

Throughout the week I feel that I have been ministering within a sheepfold and am being guided to do our Lord’s will when He wants me to do it rather than any schedule I may agree.

For me this week has been formulation in trust (Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD. And whose trust is the LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream, and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit”

2017-1 The Journey Starts (Luke 24:13-35) - On the Road to Emmaus

This week I feel so blessed to be able to start my summer field education close to my church home and in a field that I feel I am called to.

Just after Easter I attended a meeting at Carlsbad-By-The Sea (CBTS), a continuing care retirement community with assisted living and skilled nursing. I met with the CBTS Executive Director, the Director of Resident Services, the SMF Field Education Director and my Sponsoring Priest and we all agreed that I could volunteer providing pastoral care in that facility.

Little did I know this also involved leading the “Service of the Word”, preaching most Sundays, attending the Chapel Committee and leading two Bible Study classes plus numerous other things that may arise such as attending social gatherings and maybe even playing some pickleball.

After 2 weeks of forms and tests (fingerprints, drugs, tuberculosis, hipaa, elder abuse) I was ready to start. My first assignment was to conduct the Service of the Word on the Sunday, including preaching a sermon on “The Road to Emmaus”. Never having preached before I thought this would be good experience for when I take a class on preaching. I elicited some knowledge and guidance from a very experienced preacher in sermon writing and delivery during the week and on the Sunday everything seemed to go well. Someone did mention that my 10 minute sermon could have been 3 or 4 minutes shorter but others said it was a little short. I am not sure what I will learn from that.

My first day of pastoral care was this past Thursday with a tour of the facility and an introduction to some of the residents I would be visiting and getting to know a lot better in the coming weeks.

This is an exciting opportunity but required a lot of prayer and listening before starting. In one of those sessions I was guided to make my pastoral care “guided by the Word of God”. So after reading and studying that weeks’ Gospel passage and drafting the sermon I decided to write about how the gospel passage for each week is lived in practice throughout the week (hence the Blog series title). I will try it and see how that goes but I am sure I will be guided to change if necessary

This week we read about a journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus which is both a literal and a spiritual journey.  On one hand it recounts the story of two disciples who, after the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, walk seven miles from Jerusalem to their village of Emmaus.

On the other hand, it outlines for us the journey that we all take from not recognizing Jesus, to understanding what the Scripture says about Him, to recognizing Him for who He is, and finally to our giving our own witness.

These two travelers walked and talked with Jesus but they did not recognize him until at supper He took the bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to them.  At that point their eyes were opened, they recognized him, and said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” ^.

We just need to invite Him in (“Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent”), listen and we will recognize that He is with us at all times.

At the CBTS facility there are many people who have journeyed for quite a while, some meeting and recognizing Jesus daily, other meeting Him occasionally and some may be not at all. This message is very relevant to all the residents I have met and will meet in the future.

This week there was one particular pastoral care visit that stood out.  I visited a man in Hospice who is 99 years old and is declining in his later years. During his journey he was a renowned professor who taught and mentored many scientists that later went on to do great things, one even achieved a Nobel Prize. Although he is not very mobile and is hard of hearing he can still tell a great story about his lifelong journey but is also very concerned about his daily relationship with God. Each day he prays the Lord’s Prayer and the Rosary and this week was looking for a confessional type prayer. Together we prayed the Jesus Prayer until he could own it as another daily devotion. The look on his face when he recognized the significance of the prayer that acknowledges Jesus is Lord, that He is Divine that we are Sinners in need of His help and we can ask for Mercy showed me that he connected with our Lord that afternoon.

This was a time when I could see the Gospel reading for that week being reflected in a pastoral care visit and could feel my heart burning in this encounter. We recognized that Jesus:

1.  Draws near to us sometimes and we are unaware

2. Meets us in our visits, prayers and worship, and He talks to us in many different ways so we need to actively listen

3. Stays with us always, so we just need to invite Him in and be comforted

This week in my study for preaching the sermon last Sunday and in my pastoral care visits this week I have seen that Jesus is beside and within us at all times if we just invite Him in to our daily worship and prayers and let Him guide us.