Feast of Pentecost

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
The Feast of Pentecost  - 27 May 2007

Text: Acts 2: 1-11
Other  Readings: John 14: 8-17; Romans 8: 14-17; Psalm 104: 25-35


         Doubtless most of you know the story of Helen Keller, the young Southern girl made blind & deaf by illness early in life.  Her teacher, Annie Sullivan, toiled tirelessly to convey the idea of language and meaning to her.   As Annie pumped water across her hands, spelling W-A-T-E-R into her hand simultaneously, language was finally revealed to her.  She GOT it & dragged the exhausted Annie from place to place, object to object in the yard, drinking in the knowledge of the names which had previously eluded her.   We can only imagine the joy of a whole new world opening up to Helen as she grasped the concept of language.

         Upon listening to languages we don't understand this morning & then having the meanings revealed with the familiar English, we only glimpse the amazement & astonishment those Parthians, Medes, Elamites, & others from throughout the known world must have felt the first Pentecost Day as the backwoods Galileans shared God's deeds of power in the language of each one.   Their hearts were open to the Good News because they understood a language.

         All those amazed & perplexed asked "What does this mean?"  And each year when we hear the scriptures in languages spoken by members of our own congregation, some ask, "What does this mean?"   No, they weren't drunk, nor are we this morning.  Surely, it is good for us to spend a few moments as clueless as some of our neighbors here in  Oak Forest  might be if they happened into our worship.  How would we make a Spanish speaker feel at home here?  Yet they surround us in this neighborhood, many of whom are unchurched.

         "What does this mean?" we ask.  Peter helps them discern when he quotes the prophet Joel:  "God declares, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, & your sons & your daughters shall prophesy, & your young men shall see visions, & your old men shall dream dreams. . . . everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."   No one among them was left without a share of God's gift—all were immediately filled with the Holy Spirit.  Now many in the Hebrew Scriptures were empowered by the Spirit for specific tasks for a limited time, but the Advocate whom God sends on Pentecost gives gifts for ministry to all the believers for all their lives.   Thus is the Church born.  Though the signs & portents in Joel were a prelude to disaster, here they are an indication of God's purpose of redemption for all humanity as the Spirit brings new life to the world.  

         So what?  What does this mean to us?  Today?  First, as Paul tells us in Romans, ALL those led by the Spirit of God are God's children are heirs of God & joint heirs with Christ.   We can't claim exclusive privilege as super Christians, nor can we pass the buck by claiming that only the ordained are called to spread Christ's gospel in the world.   Each Christian has received a spirit of adoption at baptism which we'll celebrate [at 10:30 /in a few minutes].  Paul tells us we didn't receive a spirit of slavery & cannot live in fear.  

         Today, here at Hope parish, we are called to celebrate the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are poured upon us as surely as they were the first Pentecost.  We have been given new life in this parish church, & each of us has the opportunity & responsibility to welcome & utilize the gifts we have been given for the building up of the Hope community & our reaching out into the larger community.   Many of us prayed fervently to discern God's will in our coming together into one parish.  Now is the time for us to discern God's yearning for this parish in moving forward in our mission.   We cannot live in a spirit of fear or be passive spectators.  The Spirit will equip us for Hope's ministry, & we must each lend our prayers & our action to God's purpose for Hope.  

Opportunities abound for leadership training within the Diocese, & we're being offered scholarships to diocesan & larger church training events this summer.  How about your volunteering for one or more of them?   Participate in the Crosspointes' Charter weekend in June, the new diocesan leadership initiative.  Register for the national Union of Black Episcopalians Conference this July.   I've been offered scholarships & travel expenses for 3 for the Kaleidoscope Institute in  Los Angeles with Eric Law as trainer so we can do more cross-cultural training in our Diocese.   There are 3 trainings between the 9th & the 18th of August.  And in October, there's a small church conference in  Kanuga,  North Carolina entitled "Creative Models of Sacramental Leadership for the  Small  Church" to which we're being offered a reduced rate.

These are only some of the opportunities we're being offered because we are a multi-cultural congregation whom the Diocese sees as full of Hope for our future.  Will we rise to the challenge?   Are you willing to vision, to dream dreams, to begin to answer "What does this mean" for Hope?

Easter VII

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Easter VII - 20 May 2007

Text: Acts  16: 16-34          Other Readings : John  17: 20-26; Psalm 97; Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21


This last Wednesday, a small group of the Hope community celebrated the feast of Jesus' Ascension here in our chapel.  Next Sunday is a major feast of the year, Pentecost.   We invite you to wear red—the color of the Holy Spirit—next Sunday.  

Today, we celebrate the 7th and last Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after the Ascension.  Our collect, the opening prayer printed on our scripture sheet, expresses well the sense of being "in between" which this day represents in our church calendar.   We prayed to God a few minutes ago:  "you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven."   Here the collect is looking back to the Ascension just 3 days ago when Jesus rose to God's right hand.  Then we prayed: "Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, & exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before."   Thus, the prayer anticipates the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whose presence among us we'll celebrate with joy next Sunday.

Today, between Ascension & Pentecost, we find ourselves "in between".  I'm reminded of an image I got several years ago of being in a hallway.   You've probably found yourself from time to time in a long hallway in an office building or school or even in someone's home.  Coming through a door at one end of the hallway, you try to determine which door will take you where you want to go.   Sometimes the doors are labeled, but other times, you just guess the correct one or test to see which will open for you.  Hallways are not very interesting in themselves even if they have family pictures hung in them.   They seldom contain even a bench to sit on.  They're just a way to get from one place to another, the sooner the better.   Today is a hallway sort of day.

Still, hallways are valuable to facilitate getting to our destination, & they allow us to focus on how we spend our lives.  In his high priestly prayer from John's Gospel, Jesus prays not only for his disciples but also for those brought to belief in God due to the disciples' witness.   Jesus moves in a hallway from his public ministry to his Passion—his death, resurrection, & ascension—so he calls on God to empower the disciples to feel God's intimacy.  

Let's concentrate for a minute on the disciples' activities in Acts.  The very disciples for whom Jesus prays in his high priestly prayer are indeed going forth into the world with the Gospel.   The earliest disciples think Christ is returning soon & they are living in the hallway of their lives 'till their Savior takes them to live with the Godhead.   But do they sit around waiting for the end to come?  Not on your life.  They venture into their known world telling the good news of Christ.   Their evangelistic activity is described in today's first lesson.

Paul & his companions are establishing the first Macedonian church in  Philippi.  On their way to a river to pray, they encounter a slave girl whose owners are abusing her mental illness forcing her to tell fortunes.   Her demonic spirit recognizes the Holy Spirit within Paul & his companions & calls out to them.  Her outbursts disturb her & annoy Paul, so he exorcizes the demon from within her.   Paul sets her free to be the whole & healthy person God created her to be.  In so doing, of course, he ruins her owners' racket, & they are furious.   What right does Paul have to disrupt their money-making scheme, no matter that it is destroying a human being?  

Each of us has some unhealthy but useful habit on which we rely that we don't want to give up.  What would it cost us to give it up & rely totally upon Jesus & the Holy Spirit rather than our crutch or bad habit?  

And the owners aren't one bit happy that the slave girl is now healthy.  They attack the source of their financial misfortune. They drag Paul & his traveling buddies to the magistrates in the marketplace, their version of the people's court, I guess.   Sounds like the crowd takes justice into its own hands: they attack the disciples, strip their clothing off, beat them, & throw them in prison.   Lest we believe such behavior impossible today, we should remember James Byrd, the African-American man dragged to his death in Jasper several years ago or the young man injured by a pipe at a party last year just up the road in Conroe .  

You would think Paul & Silas were dangerous terrorists the way they are treated in prison—placed in the innermost cell & their feet fastened in stocks.  How do Paul & Silas react?   About midnight , they are praising God, singing hymns, & witnessing to the other prisoners.  When facing misfortune, they share the Good News of Christ with other prisoners, those who surely could use Good News.


Then there's an earthquake.  The prison doors open & the chains are unfastened.  Now I would probably have thought this was a miracle invitation & hightailed it out of there, no thought of the jailer, much less the fate of the other prisoners.   However, Paul & Silas remain & apparently convince the other prisoners to do the same, aware that their escape would be blamed on the jailer.   True heroes, truly compassionate persons, are concerned for the situations of all involved just as we saw with the rescue teams after the  World  Trade  Towers collapsed on 9/11.  Paul & Silas' actions didn't make any sense at all in human terms, but they listened to directions of a Higher Power.

And the result of their self-giving generosity?  The jailer, absolutely overcome, asks, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  Perhaps the jailer means simply saved from the magistrates' wrath, but Paul & Silas witness to him.   They admonish him to ". . .believe in the Lord Jesus, & you will be saved, you & your household."  Already wound up from the prayer & hymn sing as well as the earthquake, they just turn the whole place into a revival meeting & preach to the jailer & his family.   Reciprocal ministry happens at this time, for after the jailer washes & bandages their wounds, Paul & Silas baptize the jailer & his entire family right then & there.   How do they celebrate?  They eat, of course.  A banquet is prepared right there in the middle of the night & they rejoice together, giving thanks to God.  

Quite a story, isn't it?  Paul & Silas & the other disciples don't just stand around in the hallway waiting for Jesus to come & sweep them up into some kind of rapture meant just for them, do they?   They do the work Christ set out for them to do, even when it gets them into trouble.  They take advantage of even the difficulty they encounter, praising God in the prison & witnessing to others.   Then they stop the jailer from destroying himself & minister to his needs instead of saving their own skins.  Finally, they witness God's love & generosity to a whole family.   Quite a remarkable night's work, wouldn't you say?

Our lives today are very different from Paul & Silas', but their ministry techniques & their insistence on giving thanks in all things, regardless of their circumstances, can inspire us to take seriously Christ's call to go & spread God's love to all.   How can we live our lives as authentically as Paul & Silas did theirs? 

As we've built community in the past two years, we've been in the hallway, poised between our new life as Hope & our accepting our mission reaching out into the larger community, not just to encourage other Christians to worship & minister at Hope but also to offer Christ's love & the gift of community to those who do not yet have a worshipping community or a growing faith.   We must continue to be equipped as ministers of the Gospel in order to pass Christ's Good News on to others.  We need to support each other individually & within our families to reach out to others.   One way we can do that is to pray for & support our friendships, marriages, & children as we do this morning.  As we witness the public renewal of wedding vows today, may we find ways to strengthen each other in our faith.  

Next week, as we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, we will join those being baptized by renewing our baptismal vows.  Let's honor the half century of early childhood education here on the 2 nd & 3rd of June with our St. Michael's Day School reunion.  Our new youth minister joins us in June to coordinate the Christian formation of our own youth as well as those in the neighborhood.   Throughout May & June, let's hold those who will be confirmed & received in our prayers & join them to welcome Bishop Wimberly when he comes in late June for confirmation.   As we grow into our mission, may it fulfill Christ's hope for Hope parish that we may share Hope with all we encounter.

Easter VI

By The Rev. Martha Frances+

Year C, Easter VI

13 May 2007

 

Text: John 14: 23-29         Other Readings : Revelation 21: 10 , 22-22: 5;

                                                          Acts 16: 9-15; Psalm 67

 

       In all the years my husband Bill & I were together, he insisted I had to be the last person to leave an event, to lock up the place.  He might have been right!   At least, he spent lots of time waiting for me.  I'll admit I can surely relate to Jesus' need to linger with his disciples, to prepare them for the time when he will no longer be with them.   In our Gospel reading for today, he has just such a talk with them, instructing them on how to behave when he's gone.  He wants to equip his disciples to carry on his ministry beyond his death, resurrection & ascension.  

        Let's look at what he's telling us, his modern-day disciples, about carrying out his mission in the world.  First, he says those who love him will keep his word.   At base, his word is to love each other as he has loved us.  Jesus does not say anything about our having happy, pleasant feelings toward everyone all the time.   Nowhere does he say that our treating everyone in a loving manner is going to mean that everyone treats us well.  Jesus indicates that we are to choose to behave in a loving manner no matter how others treat us.

        What Jesus tells us is that, if we keep his word, he & the Father will come & make their home with us.  This phrase in Greek means that they will pitch their tents with us, they'll dwell with us human beings.   How extraordinary!  What would you do if you knew very important visitors were coming? 

        There's a story about a poor cobbler who dreams that Jesus is coming to visit him that evening.  He is cleaning up his cobbler shop which is also his home when he hears an old woman outside crying, so he brings her in, gives her a cup of tea, & listens to her story.   As she leaves, he presses into her basket the tea cakes he's just bought for Jesus' visit.  Now he hardly has time to prepare supper, but as he begins again, he hears a knock on his door.   Outside are 2 vagabond children lost in the snow.  He bundles them up in coats he had saved to give to Jesus in his visit & takes them into the snow storm to find their mother.   Rushing back home, he tries to redeem what time he can, making ready a snack supper for Jesus, his important guest.  Just as he has the table set, a man on crutches comes to his door, asking for a bite to eat & something warm for his feet.   The cobbler gives him the supper he had prepared for Jesus & the last pair of shoes he has made, having no more leather to make more. 

Troubled that his important guest has not arrived & embarrassed that he has nothing to feed Jesus were he to finally arrive, the cobbler rocks by the fire & drifts off to sleep.  When Jesus appears in his dream, he shakes a fist at Jesus & demands to know why he hasn't come sooner!  Jesus responds, "Oh, but I did come.  First, I was a poor woman who needed a patient listening ear & then 2 lost children who needed guidance home.  Finally came the older man who needed food & shoes to shelter him from the cold.   I've been coming to you all day long, & you did not recognize me, but you gave abundantly out of your scarcity.  Indeed, you have invited me into your home 3 times & you have shown love for me in most unselfish ways.

Jesus says he'll be at home with us if we show our love for others.  Who have you shown Jesus' love to this past week?  I understand the plant sale gave church members great opportunity to invite new people to Hope & to St. Michael's Day School yesterday.   On June 2^nd, the All Year Day School reunion will give us another chance to open our doors & our hearts to new people. Let's look for opportunities to welcome others in Jesus' name this week.   There's a certain assurance in God's pitching a tent to be present with us through thick & thin, even when things get rough. 

Do we have to do this on our own?  No, Jesus also says God will send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach us & remind us of Jesus' teachings.  That word "remind" is from the same root as the word "remember."  Jesus told us we're to come to Eucharist as often as possible to eat & drink in remembrance of him.   We're able to do just that because of the Holy Spirit.  Greek for the Holy Spirit is paraclete formed from a verb meaning "to call alongside."   Paraclete or "Advocate" is a legal term, & an advocate is someone who'll stand up for me & take my side.  When I was a kid, my sister & I used to fight & argue w/ each other over almost everything.   But if someone went after either one of us, we presented a united front.  Once, LaNell, the neighbor girl, called my little sister an ugly name, & I took off down the street to "scratch LaNell's eyes out."   Adults intervened, I suppose, because the only damage I did was some pretty mean nail marks on one of her arms, but by golly, I was an advocate for my little sister!   I stood up for her!

I'm glad I have the Holy Spirit advocating for me, & I hope that comforts you, too.  The Holy Spirit meets the needs arising from Jesus' departure.   We have the Spirit of God among us to teach us as we live out our daily lives.  I certainly sense the Holy Spirit's teaching role as we share Sunday Bible Study & then as the confirmation class meets on Wednesday nights.   In both venues, learning is spirited & exciting.

In addition, what gift does Jesus leave for his disciples?  Peace.  The Hebrew word, "Shalom," is both a greeting & a farewell, but this peace is not, as Jesus says in the scripture, what the world gives.   And it is not just lack of conflict.  When Jesus gives us peace, he's talking about an underlying acceptance of life on life's terms, even when the diagnosis is devastating, the kids have the flu in successive weeks, our jobs are on the line, & the electrician says all the wiring has to be replaced.   I often hear in AlAnon that we don't have to like the circumstances we find ourselves in, but serenity comes in liking ourselves in whatever circumstance.  

The peace Jesus gives is in the next verse in today's Gospel.  He continues, "Do not let your hearts be troubled, & do not let them be afraid."  It's hard not to be troubled or afraid when situations seem so grim, isn't it?  Though many people have thought Jesus was offering freedom from difficulties & then feel they've been cheated when calamity strikes.   Jesus' peace—not what the world gives—comes in the midst of vexation, of misunderstanding, of lies or persecution—often a still, small voice of calm when we would rather scream or lash out at others.

Now I don't mean by this that we are not faithful or loving or spiritual if we get stirred up about something in our lives or the life of someone close to us.  Part of being fully human is to experience a wide range of emotions which include pain & hurt & anger at what is unfair in life, at what seems unbearable.   Affirming & expressing those emotions is normal & healthy for us, but we're not meant to STAY there but to move through those emotions to a place of peace, the shalom that Jesus gives.

Finally, I think it is instructive that the passage ENDS with the reminder that we are to rejoice in Jesus' going away because in so doing, Jesus joins God the Father—& Mother, too—& that they together send the Spirit to strengthen our belief.   Belief doesn't just come from what we've heard about or even what is done for us, but rather belief develops in the process of our acting as if we believed.   It is in walking the walk, with the Advocate beside us, that our belief grows. 

Here in this community of Hope, we have many opportunities to expand our belief, in some cases acting into a new way of believing.  Some worked the plant sale yesterday, & others will help with the Reunion & BBQ next month.   The Bishop's visit & Vacation Bible School require many hands & hearts.

Outreach projects such as tutoring at Black Middle School & learning how to organize in order to make a difference with social & justice issues are vital to our growth as a church who makes a difference here & in the larger community.   We deepen our prayer lives for ourselves & others in Daughters of the King to which we will install three new members today & Brotherhood of St. Andrew, while finding other ways to welcome God's reign in our midst & make others aware of God's presence are challenges to each of us.   We cannot all do everything, but each of us can choose a few places to go for nourishment & to reach out in God's love to others.  What will your summer projects be?   Need some help deciding?  Come see me or ask a vestry member.

As we celebrate the feast day of the Ascension of Christ this Wednesday evening & move on 10 days later to the birthday of the Church with the Holy Spirit's coming into our midst at Pentecost, let us pay attention & be conscious at all times to the movement of the Advocate in our lives.   We may pray for the grace of stronger belief as we become more open to God at work in our lives.  And let us remember that it is in loving actions that we keep Christ's word & experience more & more fully the love of God.   Thanks be to God.  Alleluia!

Easter V

By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C, Easter V - 6 May 2007

Text: John 13:31-35. Other Readings: Revelation 21:1-6, Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148


During the Easter Season, we've been exploring Jesus' resurrection appearances to his disciples, but in today's gospel, we flash back to the Last Supper, Jesus' last meal with his disciples. The meal & after-dinner discussion actually take several chapters in the Gospel of John. It's as if Jesus, like a mother who all of a sudden realizes her child is leaving for college or the military the next day, rushes to tell his disciples all they need to know before facing the world out there without him. Now, they've had their meal, Jesus has washed his disciples' feet, & Judas has gone.

Here, today's gospel begins. Jesus affectionately addresses them as "little children." This isn't one of Jesus' public speeches in the countryside to crowds of people. Rather, it's an intimate gathering of those closest to him, a family meal really. Jesus, again stressing he won't be with them much longer, gets to the heart of his message.

Earlier Jesus has told the disciples what we've come to know as the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. As fine a guideline for life as it may be to treat others as we would like to be treated, the Golden Rule compares our behavior to that of other people.

Jesus moves beyond a strictly human standard of measurement when he gives his new commandment. Jesus tells them to love one another just as he has loved them. How awesome! He tells his disciples his love is a standard for the quality & quantity of love they offer each other.

Such a guideline may sound to us like a wonderful goal to reach for but not very practical in real life, but then he adds an awesome teaser. He says others will know they are Jesus' disciples when they see the love they have for one another. Jesus is challenging the disciples to walk the walk & not just talk the talk. Here we have one very important aspect of the incarnation. After all, why did God need to become man? In order for humans to be able to see in no uncertain terms what the love God expects us to demonstrate for one another looks like & feels like. After all, they've been on the receiving end of Jesus' love. What they have received, they must now give.

Jesus is doing 2 things here. First, Jesus wants his disciples to be strong as a group so they can withstand what he knows is in store for them after he is gone. Jesus knows they have to be a community, ever strengthening their ties with each other, gaining strength from one another. Remember, he's talking to those with whom he's been closest here on earth, with whom he's walked the hills of Galilee & traveled to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover. He's heard them bicker among themselves about who is the greatest. Now, they have to grow up & take responsibility for the nurturance of the faith community without him there to settle their squabbles.

But Jesus is also giving the disciples a glimpse of effective evangelism, what is necessary in order to grow the Body of Christ, the Christian community. He's telling them that, unless their lives reflect his own love, no one will be attracted to their new way of life; they won't be able to spread the Good News across the street, much less to the ends of the earth. He challenges them to a standard greater than ever before. Furthermore, it's clear he has confidence they can fulfill this new commandment.

Isn't this a sweet story? Jesus calls in the homeboys—& some of the homegirls, too, we presume—& gives them guidelines for living. Now we could come get our weekly portion of bread & wine, sing a hymn & go over to the parish hall for coffee & conversation this morning & then go our separate ways during the week discussing how well or how poorly Jesus' disciples followed his suggestions for a faithful life. We could make ourselves feel better about our own failings by coming to Bible study & pointing out places where the disciples failed to carry out his suggestions.

But you know what? These "suggestions" are sort of like the "suggested steps" of Alcoholics Anonymous. While those AA steps are just suggestions, folks say, if alcoholics & addicts intend to stay clean & sober & live a better life, then those are 12 Steps you darn well better take! This new commandment is that same sort of suggestion: it's the standard. Not only does Jesus expect it; Jesus says we'll be identified as Christians by how faithfully we do it!

And it wasn't just a new commandment for the disciples gathered in that upper room the night before Jesus' death. This Sunday morning, the 6th of May 2007 , Jesus gathers US, this congregation we call Hope, to him & says even to us today: "Little children, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you." His referring to us as little children isn't demeaning but affectionate, intimate. Jesus tells us we are to love one another, to be a community. Jesus says his love is the model for our love for each other.

We've come a long way in developing community in the 2 plus years we've been together. Our work is not over, however, & our first reading today from the book of Acts also challenges us to use God's guidelines rather than our own in how we do church, how we form community. Despite Peter's blatant denial of Jesus just hours after the Last Supper scene we've just revisited, he has become a leader of the orthodox group of believers at home in Jerusalem. He's been in Joppa, & when he returns to Jerusalem , the conservative Jewish believers dress him down about allowing the dirty Gentiles into their sacred club. Not only that; horror of horrors—Peter has shared table fellowship with these heathens! He's got some serious explaining to do!

By way of explanation, Peter describes God's object lesson for him in the form of a vision he received when at prayer. He himself felt quite self-righteous when a sheet was lowered to him full of all sorts of foul animals that Jews were forbidden to eat. Can't you just visualize Peter's pride at being able to withstand temptation as he tells the Spirit, "Nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth"? What a shock he must have had when the Spirit proclaims that even these previously-forbidden animals are not only acceptable but clean in God's sight!

Well, Peter may be slow, but he's not stupid. Even Peter cannot miss the irony of the timely arrival of three Caesarean men sent to fetch Peter to Cornelius' Gentile house that he might preach salvation. The Spirit tells Peter he is to make no distinction between them & the Jews, so he preaches to them &, by golly, they are given the gift of baptism & the Holy Spirit. Peter explains to the home folk back in Jerusalem that to do anything else would have been to hinder God. Our scripture tells us that, despite their centuries-held exclusivism, they hear the Holy Spirit's desire in Peter's words & are silenced. We know from the rest of Acts & Paul's epistles that not all the resistance to including the Gentiles dissolves with this one encounter, yet this is a powerful witness to God's desire to bring all people into relationship with one another & with God.

This past week the Dalai Lama spoke out at Rice University & challenged our city to move toward what he called "inner disarmament." He encouraged us to lay down the weapons of destruction—hatred, anger, & jealousy—which we have in our hearts & to strengthen our resolve toward peaceful coexistence in this cosmopolitan city so that Houston might be a model for a new global reality of peace. Yes, we are truly a multi-cultural city, yet it is easy to get complacent, allowing prejudices & unfortunate experiences to close us to the acceptance which Peter came to in today's scripture.

Another news story this week cited surveys a year apart with attitudes toward those who have settled here from Katrina. Houstonians were basically positive about our new neighbors a year ago yet today, are decidedly negative. I realize this is a complicated situation, but it shows an attitude I became very familiar with at Lord of the Streets we labeled NIMBY—not in my back yard. The social issues which migrated to Houston with Katrina were merely unfortunate when they were in New Orleans , but we didn't really have to deal with them. Now they're ours, & we don't want them, thank you very much. Similarly, as near town ordinances have forced homeless folk out into neighborhoods such as ours, many folk want them to go elsewhere once again rather than we, as a society, having to face the underlying issues of homelessness. When I taught English as a Second Language at the local community college, I worked regularly with young men & women newly settled in our city to deal with traffic tickets & housing regulations & other issues heightened by our citizens' negative attitude toward foreigners. Recently, I've re-viewed the movie Crash & then unpacked it theologically with a group. I would suggest that Hope have a showing sometime soon & then discuss where Christ is in that movie & with which characters.

I've only touched on one of many issues paralleled in the New Testament church, but we at Hope are called to grapple, with who we really are to be as intentionally-inclusive a community as our mission statement states: we are called to spread God's transforming love to all people. Tonight several of us will gather at the Comstocks' to continue a conversation about what it means for us to live as Easter people active in our community today. There's still room if you want to be part of that discussion.

We are only one little church in one city of the Diocese, but our baptismal responsibility is similar to the Daughters of the King motto which can apply to us all: "For His sake. . . I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?"

Sometimes we just don't feel like showing self-giving love to each other & to others beyond our community, do we? That's when we have to remember that it's not our own love we proclaim nor is it our own strength. It's Jesus' love. Do you remember when Jesus' teaching occurs? It's at the last supper, just after Judas has gone out to betray Jesus. Jesus knows the end is near, & he's told the disciples that several times though they don't yet know what he means. No one would have blamed Jesus had he just gone off in a huff to protect himself & mope about all he'd done for these ungrateful bums.

But what does he do? He spends quality time with his closest friends to guide them to use his strength & his love as they mature into a community, & then he goes out to the garden where he faces almost certain arrest & death. The disciples sort of slip away after that & hide out until the Holy Spirit breathes new life into them at Pentecost. And then what happens? This little band multiplied into a worldwide religion, a global church which continues to grow.

We at Hope have the challenge before us to be a force for Christ in this community, to be agents of transformation around us. In order to do that, we must fulfill our budgetary obligations & provide the seed, the soil & the fertilizer for God to continually transform us to nurture others. Our capacity may never be that of the mega-churches in quantity, but our felicitous obligation is to do our part for God to use us as a force for good in this neighborhood. I'm reminded of the boy whom the fisherman met as he walked along the seashore. The boy was tossing beached starfish back into the water. The fisherman scoffed at his seemingly-futile attempt to save the starfish. He said to the little boy, "Don't you know what you're doing won't matter? You can't ever toss enough of them back." The boy replied confidently, "It matters to the starfish."