Discipleship—Living by Principles

A few weeks ago, my colleague at a local Pre-K–8 Episcopal school invited me to give the homily at an all-school service. He said that the theme for the season of Lent was discipleship, and that he had spent a good deal of his time teaching the community about various religious traditions and teachers, and that I might say a few words about why I have chosen to follow Jesus.

I explained to my young listeners that I had come to talk to them about building something amazing, and I brought something to help me tell the story, a broken piece of brick.

This brick, I said, is going to help me tell you a story about being a disciple. The story has three parts:

The first is for my youngest friends here in Pre-K and Kindergarten.

When I was little, my friends and I were playing by a factory near where we lived. It was a dark night, and my friends Jerry, Kenny and I started kidding about who could hit the factory with a stone. We never thought we could do it. I missed. Kenny missed. Then, to our astonishment, Guess what? Jerry, who was the oldest, threw a stone that hit the factory. Right on a window. CRASH!

And we all ran.

My mother found out, of course. And even though I did not throw the stone that broke it, she took me by the hand to the office of the factory manager and made me apologize and pay for the broken window.

That stone taught me a great lesson. Telling the truth sometimes hurts but it is always the right thing to do. The factory manager was a kind older man. He shook my hand and he forgave me. I remember him saying something that made sense about not playing near his factory, but I don’t remember what it was.

Part two of my story was for my Middle School friends. I said that the brick was a piece of the history of their school. When I moved to our town 26 years ago, the place where the school now stood was a field. It was a really nice field and part of a farm, but there was no school, no gym, no awesome playground—just grass and corn. But with vision and prayer about education on this field, together with the commitment of many fine teachers and leaders, bricks like this were used to build something very special—a school. And not just any school, but a school built on guiding principles.

Like words carved into a stone, I had learned that this school thrived on eight guiding principles including respect, compassion, responsibility, honor, enthusiasm, imagination, worship and service.

This brick, then, was a metaphor for the community’s actions and beliefs. As much as a brick is a real building block for our safety and comfort while we learn, it represents our faith and hope for what is best about ourselves and the good we can do for others.

Part three of my story was about the person Jesus. Jesus was a rabbi in a Jewish community a long time ago. Just about every major religion can trace its beginning to a special teacher. Judaism began with Abraham, Buddhism with Siddhartha, Islam with Muhammad. All of these leaders had followers that I call disciples. Just as building cannot stand without strong foundations of brick and steel, strong communities need solid leaders who know what it means to build on the principles of their founders, and these principles become the building blocks of our personal and community spirit. The brick I brought reminds us that in bad weather or good, in hard times or happy times, in sadness and in joy, we need to follow the path of a good teacher.

As a teacher, I am aware that my students are looking to me for leadership, discipline, courage, and example. If you are a student, try to remember that God does not expect you to be perfect. Holding up the broken piece of brick, I said, Look at this brick. It has a big chip broken off of it. This a visual reminder that leaders like Abraham and Sarah did not believe God’s promise at first. In fact, they laughed. But God chose them anyway. Consider Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright, and Moses who killed someone. Even Jesus ran off from his parents in a big city without telling them where he was. Peter, whose name means “Rock” was a rough and tumble sailor who often gave the wrong answers to Jesus questions, and Paul was a nasty fellow who bullied the early followers of Jesus. And yet God called each one of these, and so many others like them, to be the foundation stones of peace and harmony in this wonderful world of ours.

Now this rock got tossed out during the building of your school, but today it helps me tell your story, our story, a story that is still evolving.

Each disciple, and that means you and me, always has an opportunity to turn ourselves around. How? By turning on to something bigger than ourselves with the help of solid foundations.

The best foundation I know of, and the best principle to live by, is love. With love as our foundation, we can take more risks; we can face danger with courage; and we can make this world a much better place to live.

If we want the world to get better, and we all know it needs to get better, we need to be rock solid in one guiding principle: We need to love and care for others. Doing so will help us face our own problems and guide us on a straight path to respect for and responsibility to our community.

A long time ago, my mom took me by the hand to that factory manager, and she made me apologize and pay for the damage. Later she called my friend’s mother, and you can bet I heard it from him about being a tattletale. But we were true friends, and he forgave me. More importantly, we all felt better because we told the truth. It hurts sometimes, but I’d rather be a chipped brick in the tower of truth than a phony fraud.

My time with you is about over. I came to talk to you about being a follower of Jesus, and about following your school’s guiding principles of respect, compassion, responsibility, honor, enthusiasm, imagination, worship and service. All of these principles are held together by love. To be a disciple of Jesus, we need to practice love. I cannot be his disciple for you. No one can do that except you.

Small Town Family Help

Did you know that there are over 2000 people living in tiny Delaware who are without adequate housing? And many of these are motivated, hard-working folk who simply need a break.

What can you do?

If you are reading this, I hope, when you are finished, that you will make a small donation to Family Help, Inc. (FHI). Perhaps you will consider giving a gift of money in another person's name—a superb way to give a gift that won't collect dust, but will put food on a table and provide shelter for a single mom with one or two children.


FHI is in its third year of service to the homeless of Middletown, Delaware. Many generous people contributed money to the project last year, and several school athletic programs raised money for Christmas presents this year.

The generosity of those of us who have more of life's advantages is supporting four families with children, who live in transitional housing units on West Lake Street in Middletown, Delaware. Each family receives food and clothing as well as counseling that will, with God’s help, lead each family to more a stable and independent future. Several families have already improved their credit rating, secured jobs, and have moved into their own apartments. New tenants have moved in and are beginning to turn their lives around.

The generosity of many individuals and groups has allowed FHI to meet an important need in our community, but, in order for us to continue this noble work, I am asking you consider making a tax-deductible donation to help FHI continue its mission. Your donation will be used to maintain four apartments, provide basic needs for four families, and continue programs to help them create a better financial foundation for themselves and their families.

In these challenging economic times, FHI needs your support. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of homeless families in Middletown.

Checks should be sent to Family Help Inc, P.O. Box 302, Middletown, DE 19709.

If you would like to get involved in other ways, tour the property, or ask questions about the program, please contact Board President Harvey Zendt at 302-528-5685.

Finally, please pass this plea on to others who are in a position to support FHI's effort to help those in need. Thank you for your support and prayers.

The Dark World We Live In

Many, many years ago, Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. The story tells us that he simply joined a number of others who were also baptized that day.

Imagine the world as Jesus knew it. Stories from Isaiah speak of overwhelming rivers, consuming fires, and God’s children being ransomed. It was a pretty dark and dangerous world.

Psalm 29 speaks of a God who thunders, is all powerful, breaks cedars, and flashes forth flames of fire—a world that is dark and dangerous.

Luke describes Jesus as a Messiah who came with a winnowing fork to gather the righteous and to separate them from the unrighteous. Apparently some Jews were cooperating with the occupying Romans, seemingly denying their faith and traditions, while others fought through terrorist acts of violence hoping for a Messiah of power to appear, while still others may have prayed for guidance but were confused about this Jesus Messiah, who seemed humble and nonviolent.

The human condition is dark and dangerous. The first verse of the first book of the Bible, Genesis 1, verse 1, states: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Yet into this dark and complex reality we take great pains to convince ourselves that it is otherwise, that we can avoid the dark truth of our existence.

Yes, my friends, you and I are members of a master race of disillusioned human beings.

A man I know told me that one day his seven-year-old son started pulling out his eye lashes. The man and his wife were having marital problems, and in his seven-year-old mind, the boy thought that inflicting pain on himself would send a message to his mom and dad that they did not need to fight with each other, that his personal suffering would somehow save the troubled marriage.

This is what I call a self-evident truth—truth that the world is both dark and dangerous. When a child is willing to accept suffering to ransom the shortcomings of his parents, the world for that child is dark indeed.

Theologians, like Paul Tillich, Christopher Lasch and Ernest Becker who have thought deeply about culture and civilization in modern day North America have determined that we are disillusioned about the reality of our dark and dangerous world. Since the coming of the Mayflower, we have exchanged the idea of God’s thundering wrath and Jesus’ winnowing fork for the idea that we are a beacon of hope, a place of prosperity to be envied by all who look upon democracy, freedom, and capitalism, and deem it right and good. We have replaced the reality of suffering with cynicism, false hope, and repression.

But you and I know better: the truth is the truth; and self-evident truth is just that—truth that cannot be denied by rational thought.

Scientists know that the sun around which this humble planet, our island home, revolves is cooling, ever so slowly, but it is cooling never the less; and this means that this earth, and life as we know it, will one day end.

I submit to us all that this is worse than dark and dangerous. This is abject terror, and end that we all know is coming one day.

Is it better to deny this reality? to imagine it is not so? To ignore it?

The fact is that Americans like you and me would rather live disillusioned, believing, falsely, that that money, fame, power, and self-righteousness will somehow save us from the dark and dangerous reality that is this world.

We need the light of truth to expose what is false and to guide us toward the truth.

One of the books I read over the Christmas break was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer turned writer, former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, she won the coveted Edgar M. Cullen Prize at Yale; she clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Ms. Rubin observed that Americans are preoccupied with buying things. Buying stuff can stimulate goodness, like the time she bought a book of puzzles for her daughter that was so exciting that the child developed a passion for problem-solving. Ms. Rubin was tempted to buy similar books, but realized that more of a good thing is not necessarily better. Her child would become bored with more of the same thing.

She determined that buying more things does not make us more happy. The Happiness Project was full of other ideas to make one happy: more sleep, more exercise, singing, more organization—like cleaning out a closet— running, playing an instrument, traveling, starting a book club—all healthy distractions that remind us how happy we can be if we try hard enough.

According to Aristotle, “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life.” Later, Epicurus wrote, “If we have happiness, we have everything, and if it is absent, then all our actions are directed toward attaining it.”

Happiness, it could be said, is our light in a dark world. God put us in charge of finding that light and to be that light. But just read the headlines in any recent news sources to see that we have not done a very good job of being that light.

I believe this is why Jesus chose to lead the way he did, and why he said that he would some day come again.

Terrorism, conflict and chaos are all around us—in Tunisia, Russia, the Middle East, India.

Think about the tens of thousands of Indians who reacted to the December 19, 2012 rape and murder of a female university student that drove conscientious Indians to challenge their government through protests. A similar incident occurred again just this weekend. Remember the Tunisian man who ignited the pro-democracy Arab Spring by setting himself on fire on December 17, 2010, after being humiliated by a dictator’s police. Just this weekend, another Tibetan man set himself on fire in protest of Chinese rule over his region.

Such protests are uniting moments in which each person’s conscience is moved to reassert a moral good in the face of a dark and terrible event. The triumph lies in victory of that common good.

One of my most lasting memories of grade school was when my history teacher told my class that Americans have a passion and drive to seek justice, to put right in front of might, and to root for the underdog in a contest. I have never forgotten that lesson. It planted the idea that Americans unite around ideas and passions, and we will not be controlled by rules and laws if the rules are wrong and the police are corrupt.

If we read the New Testament, we find there that people wondered whether John was the Messiah, the one who would come to bring the good they hoped for. But John said that he was not, so the people wondered who would it be? What would the Messiah be like? Would the Messiah be all that people want and hope for?

And we are no different, though we live in a modern age. We are disillusioned into thinking that we can control our destiny and that God must fit into our expectations. In this we continue to be disappointed.

God did not provide me with a new iPod for Christmas. Well I guess God is not a Santa Claus. God has not balanced the national budget. Well perhaps God is not an economist. God has not wiped out the bad guys in Somalia. Well, I guess that God is not a policeman. And God did not fix a little boy’s family. God is not a magical marriage counselor.

Who is the Messiah, and when will he/she come to us again? Jesus came to the Jordan one day, and walked into the water with everyone else.  He chose to live humbly and with kindness and courage. That is a lesson for all of us. Be authentic. Be our best selves. Accept the reality that we live in a dark and dangerous world, but, above all, be brave and rely on the power of community sensibility to know what is good and right, and to make our decisions based on self-evident truth and goodness.

On Being Yourself

Who are the saints in your life? Lincoln? King? Mother Teresa?

It is probably not a surprise to learn that saints are not perfect. Like you and me, saints are troubled by doubt, tempted by desire, attracted to power and popularity.

So what makes them shine so brightly in our lives?

Marcia Dane was a saint in my life. She was born into a wealthy New England family. In her infancy, Marcia was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Back in those days, doctors did not know as much as they do now about this disorder. Her impairment was referred to as “spasticity,” an attempt to describe the effects of Cerebral Palsy, the muscles of the body move involuntarily, the mouth and jaws twitch, arms flail about.

Marcia’s family provided the best doctors, some offered risky, experimental operations on her feet and ankles. Others provided physical and speech therapy and psychological counseling so that she might live a “normal” life. She would cry about this and beg not to have to work at it. But her therapists were firm. Like a good coach they caught her up short. “Listen to yourself, and make a decision. You either want to improve or you don’t. Make a decision. Right now. Or go home.”

More than anything, Marcia wanted to fit in. She worked harder.

Going to public school was painful for Marcia. No one wanted to be friends with a “Spaz.” Eventually, she was sent to an all-girls boarding school because her parents felt that the people there would be nicer.

Marcia was a fine scholar, but boarding school and college at Mount Holyoke had a troubling effect on her. She learned to control her spasms, but she still walked with a limp, and her mouth still had twitches. She was preoccupied with being popular. She went out of her way to be liked by the sorority girls—organizing parties and arranging dates for the popular girls. She had two handsome brothers, and they had friends, but none were keen on dating Marcia.

In college, Marcia was often lonely in her heart. Listening to the other girls talk, she would pick up on the whispers: “Who would want to dance with her?” “No boy would ever want to kiss her.”

In those days, when the women’s colleges like Smith and Holyoke held dances, men were invited from colleges like Williams and Amherst. Dance cards were distributed to the women, and men would fill them in. Mary would dance the first dance with John Doe, Dance 2 with Adam Jones, Dance 3 with Bill Smith, and so on. Girls shared their dates with their friends. “You can have my Bill for dance #2.” “OK, you can have my Jimmy for #4.” and so on.

Marcia was a wallflower. She sat on the sidelines because no one wanted their date to have to dance with Marcia.

Hurt but ever prideful, Marcia persevered in her quest for acceptance and popularity.

Until mid-term of her senior year.

That was when a big senior social was held. Determined not to be a wallflower for this dance, Marcia asked one of her brothers, a junior at Bowdoin, to come be her date. It was all arranged, but when he arrived he was not alone. He explained that it would not be fitting for her to have to settle for her brother as dance partner, so he brought a friend. When Marcia’s friends saw her date, they nearly fainted. He was a drop-dead handsome, athletic, self-assured gentleman, and he looked like he would be a great dancer. Of course Marcia was all too willing to share his name on all of the other girls’ dance cards, and the girls were all too happy to accept and exchange their dance partners with Marcia.

But something different happened that night, something that changed the course of Marcia’s life.

Marcia was not that bad a dancer. She had learned to manage the impairment well enough to be able to enjoy movement and music. But she had not intended to dance, but eager to introduce her date to her new friends.

How surprised she was when he declined. In a firm but gentle manner, he said, “I came to be with you, to dance with you. Make a decision. You either want to dance with me or you don’t. Make a decision. Right now. Or go sit on the sideline.”

Marcia was puzzled at first. And then he explained: “When your brother described you to me, I had no idea you would be so graceful and charming. Thank you for inviting me. It is my wish to dance every dance with you, and only with you”

The other girls were astounded. They could not understand, especially the glamorous ones, why the most handsome man they had ever seen would want to spend his entire evening dancing with Marcia.

Something began to change in Marcia’s priorities and commitments after that experience. She continued to seek friendships among her peers, but stopped trying so hard to be accepted and liked.

She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1925, went on to Columbia to earn a masters degree, left her family in Boston and headed to Brooklyn, NY to do social work. Later she returned to Cambridge and took a second masters degree in education. Every step was a battle; not only was she a woman, but a “spastic” woman.

Marcia died in 1997 at the age of 92. She never married and never had children. Her life was devoted to rescuing those who had lost their way, men and women with dreams and goals, but without support or means to achieve them.

I was privileged to know Marcia for over 40 years, and I was sitting with her when she drifted into a coma and died peacefully. One of the people she rescued was my mother, and after my mother, …,

… well, that is another story.

The point of this story is that saints are folks like you and me, but maybe more determined. Who is the saint in Marcia’s story? Her mother and father? Her doctors and therapists? Her brother? Her unnamed, handsome man? Marcia?

Saints often start out self-centered and arrogant. Over time they throw off their pettiness and become steadfast in their convictions. They resist equivocation, they do not read the polls first and then make choices according to what is popular.

Most of all, saints choose to live boldly in the world, with all of its mess and shame and suffering. They live with dignity and treat others the same way.

I see saints as those who choose to follow someone like Jesus, not to the next world, but back into this one. They are coaches, teachers, and doctors, cooks, mechanics and fisherfolk—people whose voices beckon the best in us.

Saints see through barriers and follow the truth.

Never let someone tell you a male can’t coach a women’s team, or a white teacher can’t teach black history, or Christians can’t make peace with Muslims and Jews. It simply isn’t true. The New Testament message is not about making a difference but making a connection.

There is a Gospel story in which Jesus calls Lazarus back from death and into the world, and I wonder why. The best answer I can come up with is this. We are all God’s children, and thus we belong to God. But belonging to God is not about being in heaven, admiring angels. It is about being in the world, right here and right now, doing good and calling on others to do the same. Saints encourage others to have faith, and to make decisions, right now.

And when someone like Jesus shows up to dance with them, they dance.

What If?

The idea that God forgives, wants to forgive, continues to forgive, with no strings attached, is not a new idea. It is a pre-Christian idea. Jeremiah passed on these words as the Word of the Lord: “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” I interpret these words as affirmation that God wills that we have joy and abundant life, free from the suffering that results from guilt and sin, and that no person should ever feel that he or she must suffer alone.

One of my mentors, as a young man, was Bishop John Colburn of Massachusetts who said that at the heart of the Christian life there is a great mystery: suffering and joy are inextricably bound together. But the absence of physical suffering is not the same thing as true joy. We all know people who have many more comforts, food, clothing, money, education, health, and many other things, but have not joy.

Bishop Colburn wrote, “There is no abiding joy except that it rises out of suffering. The greatest joy for a Christian is to know that, as he or she gladly embraces suffering for the love of God, a bit of God’s power is released in the world.”

It is hard for most of us to walk before others in righteousness. We may not even know what that kind of journey means. But history notes that there have been saints who have endured suffering and even death with dignity and courage. Their faith released some of God’s power in the world.

Two years ago, I went on a trip with my students to South Africa. We learned a great deal about the apartheid regime. I discovered that an Anglican monk named Michael Lapsley had been part of the movement against apartheid. Months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Fr. Lapsley received a letter in the mail. Placed between the pages of a religious journal was a letter bomb. The explosion left him with no hands, one eye, shattered eardrums and other injuries. He spent a long, long time in hospital. His story was printed in a recent Lenten Study pamphlet put out by Episcopal Relief and Development. I found the following most compelling. It says that when people inquired about how Fr. Lapsley survived, he answered: “Somehow, in the midst of the bombing, I felt that God was present. I received so many messages of love and support from around the world that I was able to make my bombing redemptive—to bring life out of death, good out of evil.”

Out of pain came Fr. Lapsley’s greatest calling as a priest. He founded the global ministry Institute for Healing of Memories. “I am more of a priest with no hands,” he said, “than I was with two.”

My question today is: how can we bring more joy into our own lives? Maybe one way is to believe that there is an interrelatedness of the Spirit in and through all relationships—in families, communities, political groups, and nations. When all is said and done, the greatest gift we can give each other is to accept our own suffering joyfully for the love of God and thus release as much of God’s power into the world as we can, that our friends and families, enemies and world powers, may be strengthened by God’s Spirit to carry the crosses of suffering with authentic dignity and true courage.

On Global Care

A familiar hymn begins, "Morning has broken," and this morning was a good morning, a very good morning. As the words of the hymn state, "Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, … ." May we appreciate this and every morning as a sacred gift.

When I was 14, it was June of 1967, I woke up to the news that Israel was carrying out surprise air strikes against what was then called The United Arab Republic. It was a quick (six days) and decisive victory for the newly founded nation of Israel. Israel wanted to control the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in place of Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in place of Jordan, and the Golan Heights in place of Syria.

What I did not know then was that The Jordan River was a huge part of Israel's modern strategic plan, and that the river is still a major factor in the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts in the Middle East.

Imagine that River.

Water is essential to Life. The first sentence of the Bible is about water. Our Jewish ancestors tell us that God was about to utter those unforgettable words, “Let there be light…, let the waters be gathered together…, Let the earth put forth vegetation…”

And there was life.

But not before there was water.

Water and wind were first.

Water and wind made up the formless void.

We thank you, God, for the clean air we breathe and the clean water we drink.

For the past two days, I have been away at the Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Church in Delaware. At the close of the convention, a spokesperson for Episcopal Development and Relief in Delaware rose to speak; and as he did, he took a sip of water, clean and sparkling water. And he asked each of us (2 or 3 hundred people in the room) to raise our hands if we had had a drink of water that day. And we all did. And he asked if we had washed our hands that day. And we said yes. And he asked, did we know that 884 million people on this planet have no access to clean water—to drink, to wash in, to reflect on, as we do this morning, on what was present when God was said to have breathed life into this planet—884 million people who cannot imagine it because they have never known what it is like to have clean water.

884 million people have no access to clean water. Imagine a community where everyone has clean water except those on the other side of the tracks. Imagine your half-quadrant with no showers, no drinking water, no bathrooms at all. That is what it is like for the 884 million.

Brothers and sisters, reflect with me, if you will, on the story of Naaman, a commander of the Syrian Army, who suffered from leprosy, a highly contagious and debilitating skin disease.  I did a little research on Naaman and found that, in Bernhard W. Anderson’s extensive and scholarly work, Understanding the Old Testament, Mr. Anderson makes clear that the Syrians and Israelis were at war with each other in 850 BCE. The war was over water rights.

They are still at war! And the war is over water rights.

Water is life! Since the beginning of time, living things have organized their societies in places where there was water.

Around 850 BCE, a little Jewish girl was abducted by the Syrian Army and put to work in Naaman’s house. One day she said to her mistress, “I know a man who can heal my master Naaman. He is a holy man who lives across the Jordan River. He is the prophet Elisha and Yahweh is his God.” To make a long story short, Naaman, the Syrian army commander, was granted permission by his king to go check out this miracle cure. The doctor, so to speak, was the prophet Elisha, and Elisha simply wrote a prescription. Naaman was offended by this because he thought that he should be seen in person. Elisha declined to see Naaman, but on the advice of his servants Naaman decided to trust the prophet and so he washed in the Jordan River. Scripture says, “So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”

Friends, I don’t know about you, but I want to live in a world where miracles like that can happen, do happen. I want to live in a community where the message from the wise and the faithful is one of hope and promise. The message of the Old Testament is that God is a God who makes covenants—promises, that both side are bound to keep. Jesus broke bread and poured wine on his last night with friends, as a sign of the new Covenant—a promise that God wants something better for you and for me.

Morning has broken, like the first morning is a reminder that we are living a sacramental existence, older than anyone reading this blog.

I remember hiking with my wife, Mary, before we were engaged to be married. We were young and had stronger legs than we do now. We were hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and we were thirsty. We had stumbled onto a stream. Parched and dry, we knelt to drink the cold, clear water at a place called The Basin, where the water flowed down from the mountain. It tasted great. It was refreshing beyond our imagination. Could we do that today? Is the water flowing in our planet’s streams safe or polluted?

Friends, the planet is sick right now. Planet Earth has leprosy, and we are not doing enough to cure its disease. We are exploiting our fragile earth, our island home, in order to make temporary profits, profits that will pay a one-way ticket to oblivion and reserve a front row seat for our children to unknown suffering and disease.

Some say that small sections of the Jordan's upper portion, near the Sea of Galilee, have been kept pristine for baptisms, but the 60-mile downstream stretch is polluted. Environmentalists say the river might recover, but it would take decades to restore its quality to safe standards. In 2007, Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) named the Jordan River one of the world's 100 most endangered ecological sites.

I will finish with one last story. When a group of students and teachers visited South Africa two summers ago, we spent several days at St. Mark’s School in Jane Fyrse. At one of the morning chapels (they have one every day to start the school day), we were asked to share what we had imagined about South Africa before we came. Our students from America said things like: beautiful stretches of land, jungle animals and exotic birds. Then a student from St. Marks stood up to share, and she said one thing. There was one thing she imagined about America. Can you guess what it was?

Water.

“I imagine a place where everyone has plenty of clean water.”

Water is life. The Naaman story is a sweet reminder that The Jordan River has a mysterious power to heal. We must be mindful that for many nations and religions, The Jordan River represents Life and Spirit. In it Jesus was Baptized. I believe that it is our sacred responsibility to protect it and all our natural rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, seas and oceans.

"Morning has broken, like the first morning, … praise for the singing, praise for the morning, … praise for springing, ... ." Praise for courage to do all we can to ensure that future generations can stand and sing, "praise this new day."

Where is God's Voice in Today's Church

Where is God’s Voice in Today’s Church?

The Holy Scripture begins with God’s voice (Genesis 1). The Psalmist affirms that God’s voice is strong, majestic, powerful and confident (Psalm 29). The Holy Gospels describe God’s voice as parental, tender and loving (Mark 1). Holy Scripture teaches that God’s voice breathes life into things, brings light into dark places, and blesses all creation. God’s voice is central to everything.

Churches are places where there is quiet enough for communities to gather to hear God’s voice. The men and women who plan, build and maintain churches consider God’s voice central to the purpose and meaning for The Church. Every brick and beam they place and paint, creates sacred space for God’s awesome voice. 

Yet, one has to wonder: Did those who built the holy spaces for God before the Internet imagine the voices that would one day compete with God’s voice in this complex world? Let us, for a moment, count the ways that other voices tempt us from God’s tender call, demanding our attention and distracting us from the all powerful and loving voice that is God speaking from the heavens, “You are my son. You are my daughter. In you I am well pleased.”

These competing voices call to us from ipod and laptop, Skype and Foursquare. We stream our TV programs. We download lectures and music from itunes. We share and view video clips, send thank you notes and greeting cards on email. We can be reached anytime, day or night, in the car, at the supermarket, at graduations, weddings and funerals.

One online add I read just yesterday said: “With this app you can access sounds from anywhere.” 

Where is God’s voice in all of this noise?

The technology and education seminar I attended last week ended with a three-and-a-half-minute barrage of the voices that will revolutionize our intellectual and social landscape over the next four years. You can view this at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCsdFSt5bXI

Here are just a few of the messages from that video:

• 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute; 

• Facebook has over 750 million active users; 50% go online every day; 

• Google is the fastest growing network in the history of the world; 

• Facebook tops Google in US visits and use; 

• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

• 1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook; 

• If Wikipedia was a book, it would have 2.25 million pages. 

• Wikipedia is 80% accurate.

All this is happening as I write, and the media revolution is moving ahead at a rapid pace. 

By the end of the 3.5 minutes I was literally sick in my stomach, dizzy and nauseous at the thought of how this revolution is changing our social and spiritual lives.

The lesson of technology is: “Don’t sit around waiting for the storm to end. Learn to dance in the rain.”

Last week, I was given a glimpse into a thundering storm, with a dissonance so loud it knocked me off balance. I heard nothing but noise. Tempted by must-have technological creations, I asked myself: “What if God were to speak again? Would God’s voice be heard?”

Once upon a time, long ago in the human understanding of God, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually …  and it grieved God’s heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’”

And God caused a great flood, and only a remnant was preserved.

Is God sorry about the Covenant made with Noah? 

Is God troubled about today’s social media frenzy? 

Did the scoffers and doubters who witnessed Noah’s alternate path think his ways were passé? Did they laugh and say, “What’s all the fuss about a storm? Come dance in the rain!”

In the town, where I live, a group of clergy meet once a month at a local Starbucks. You will not be surprised to hear that many of our conversations are about what some fear is a storm rising in The Church: Interest in parish life is falling off, pledges are down, Sunday School attendance is at an all-time low, young parents and children spend more Sunday mornings at the fields and gyms than in church. Sometimes a priest will call attention to this or that “other” church—the one with a big screen video, a rock band, 5000 members that meet in small groups made up from all the “best” people, especially those in thriving local businesses and politics. 

And the question is: “Should we become like them?” That is when I hear the still small voice of Jesus say, “Lead us not into temptation.”

Dear reader, I do not fear for the Episcopal Church in today’s social media revolution because I know that when I go to church or lead a service, there is only one voice, one focus, one reason to come: To hear the voice of God, the only voice that really matters. And I know that, as long as there are people who truly search for God, they will seek that still small voice. 

Now don’t get me wrong, the social media revolution offers many wonderful, useful, awesome and life-changing opportunities to access God’s voice. Just as the Bible was a more practical and compact way to compile, organize and package scriptures and scrolls, our ipads and smart phones give us easy and practical access to a world-wide “Bibliothèque.” Perhaps we should name this media revolution the Software Standard Version, having already been bitten by The Apple.

The Gospel of John opens with these words: “In the beginning was the Word,” reminding us that God’s voice was in the beginning framing life and naming things into being. Later God would say to Noah, “Never again will I curse the ground … this is my sign, a bow in the sky;” and when Jesus came to John at the Jordan, God spoke and said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

As long as there are human beings who venture forth in faith and with courage, they will come to church; and as long as churches remain true to a mission of love, and a purpose of service to others, their doors will invite us to hear again the only voice that matters.