st. michael’s blog

When I was a seminarian, the church I worked at listed the staff in its bulletins every week in a way that made a statement. The first person listed was the sexton (Episcopal speak for grounds keeper). The last person listed was the rector (or the pastor of the church). In other words, the name of the person with the least amount of power within the church structure appeared at the top of the staff list. And the person with the most amount of power within this structure was the last name listed. It’s not very often that I see organizational personnel schemas laid out with way, but when I do stumble upon such a layout it makes me stop…and usually smile…because this sort of inverted hierarchical thinking signals an awareness of power dynamics and an embrace of what Jesus teaches us this morning.

Today we greet Jesus in his home of Capernaum. His disciples are with him and he is trying –in vain—to teach them his countercultural ways. As usual, the disciples aren’t grasping his ideas. This becomes clear in today’s passage when Jesus asks his disciples what they were arguing about on the way to Capernaum. An awkward silence follows this question because we learn that instead of talking about the idea of servant-hood, the disciples had been arguing about their place in the kingdom and who among them will be the “greatest.”

Jesus’ response? He stops. He sits down. And then gives his disciples what has come to be a well- known pearl of wisdom: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he takes a child and says to them “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” So to follow Jesus – to follow this path of Christianity, we learn that we must strive to break out of the hierarchical schemas of success that dominate perhaps every other area of our life. When Jesus takes that child into his harms and says to his disciples – “you must welcome one such child in my name” – he is saying--within his cultural context--you must welcome the lowly, the powerless, the outcasts. Children in Jesus’ culture were considered to be at the bottom rung of society. So, in this statement, the child symbolizes those at this bottom rung – the people who were the hardest for society to welcome and to embrace.

Given the way our world is ordered, it’s not easy to enact what Jesus teaches us this morning. It seems that wherever we look, hierarchical models of success dominate – the church replicates this pattern, the university system is built on it, so many of our work places don’t embrace the kind of counter cultural thinking Jesus lays out this lesson. So how do we begin to internalize this teaching and model our lives on it?

There is an apocryphal story about a man engaging Mother Teresa in conversation on precisely these sorts of challenges.

The story goes like this…

An obviously well-fed businessman, “dripping with gold and diamonds, came one day to visit Mother Teresa, fell at her feet, and proclaimed, ‘Oh my God, you are the holiest of the Holy! You are the super-holy one! You have given up everything! I cannot even give up one samosa for breakfast! Not one single chapatti for lunch can I give up!’ (Remember they are in India – maybe we would say we can not even give up one latte for breakfast or one In-N-Out Burger for lunch). Well, Mother Teresa started to laugh so hard her attendant nuns were concerned. She was in her mid-80s and frail from two recent heart attacks.

Eventually, she stopped laughing and, wiping her eyes with one hand, she leaned forward to help her adorer to his feet. ‘So you say I have given up everything?’ she said quietly. The businessman nodded enthusiastically. Mother Teresa smiled. ‘Oh, my dear man,’ she said, ‘you are so wrong. It isn't I who have given up everything; it is you. You have given up the supreme sacred joy of life, the source of all lasting happiness, the joy of giving your life away to other beings, to serve the Divine in them with compassion. It is you – you have given up everything.’”

It is within us, this capacity relate to others, to give our life to others and to “serve the Divine in them with compassion.” But often, we don’t recognize this capacity within ourselves until with meet people whose own way of being in the world inspires us and helps us to uncover our own gifts and sense of servant ministry.

Historically, the church and people within the church have engaged in impressive examples of the kind of servant ministry Jesus tries to get at this morning. We need only look to the history of the church in our own country to see evidence of schools and hospitals and other institutions that engaged in a kind of servant ministry that enabled generations of people to better their lives. Today’s Episcopal Church in the United States does less direct social service work, but the tradition of being on the front line of education and healthcare is a major part of the indigenous Episcopal/Anglican churches’ work developing countries like Haiti, Palestine or South Africa. That said, the Episcopal Church in the United States is still very much involved in the timeless work of the church around serving the needs of people’s souls and the nurture of their spiritual lives. Sometimes students – and others ask me – “what’s the point – why attend church?” That’s when I say – “because when you participate in a church community, you are opening yourself and your soul up to being grounded in challenging countercultural lessons not necessarily taught elsewhere that will shape and mark you in profound ways. Religious tradition provides incredibly rich material and content that takes us a lifetime and more to internalize and enact. The church provides us a community to keep us accountable and help us to wrestle with the big questions of life and the difficult lessons Jesus puts before us.

Yesterday I attended an all day meeting in LA with the six candidates who will stand for election in December for two suffragan (or assistant bishop) positions in our Diocese. In the interview group I belonged to, a particular man was obsessed with asking the bishop candidates a question about the nature of humility. He felt that there wasn’t enough humility in the world and wanted to know their thoughts on humility, in addition to looking for evidence of humility in each candidate. The candidate about which I turned out to be most excited, spoke, interestingly enough, on this idea that within the church, we need to remember to function in accordance to the inverted hierarchical scheme Jesus talks about today. That’s to say, we are to do ministry – all of us, out of this idea of servant-hood. And the deacons and priests –the people farther up the traditional hierarchical scale--are to be the servants to the servants. The bishops—the people traditionally at the top of this scale—are to be the servants to the servants to the servants. Ironically and sadly, the church often gets far too caught up in its own sense of hierarchy. It too needs to be reminded of its imperfection and a large sense of purpose sometimes. And that’s why we come back to the teachings of Jesus over and over and over again.

It’s my hope that St. Michael’s – as imperfect as it can be at times – is a place where we can nurture in our selves and help to nurture in one another a sense of servant-hood and servant ministry. Here, amidst yet also apart from the hierarchies of the university and the rest of the world, we are called to meet one another as equals and to “serve the Divine in others with compassion.”

As the old hymn goes “Won’t you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”

The Rev. Nicole Janelle

After a restful vacation, there’s nothing like getting back into the preaching rotation with a Gospel passage like the one we hear this morning. The story of the Syrophoenician woman, as it is known in the Gospel of Mark. In the Gospel of Mathew this woman is known as the Canaanite woman. Historically, people have found this story profoundly uncomfortable. I admit to it making me squirm a bit – how about you? Let’s unpack the details and see what we can make of this surprising encounter between Jesus and the unnamed Gentile woman and what this dialog might be telling us.

In the opening scene of today’s Gospel, we encounter a Jesus who is hoping for a bit of an escape from his work. He’s just come from feeding a large crowd, performing healings and miracles among Jews and educating people about the importance of the heart when it comes to dealing with purity issues. So we can surmise that Jesus might be feeling a bit tired, a bit cranky and he’s seeking out respite that will allow him some perspective on his own people and an opportunity to recharge. In other words, Jesus is looking for his own Labor Day rest. Unfortunately, things don’t work out as he might have liked. He enters this house in Tyre – a region known for its extreme paganism – and he encounters a woman who does not let him fade into the background. Instead, she corners him, bowing down at his feet. This woman, we learn, is at her wits end. Her daughter is sick --- afflicted with a demon she says. We can assume that this woman has tried to seek help within her own culture and community, but to no avail. And so in her desperation she reaches out to Jesus, a man she might have heard works miracles and might just be able to heal her daughter. What ensues in the dialog between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman is shocking. She begs him to cast the demon out of her daughter and he replies with this statement that suggests he is only willing to heal some and not others. In other words, Jesus flat out REFUSES to heal her child. The woman doesn’t miss a beat. She calls Jesus on his problematic, hypocritical position and offers him another way – a path that invites generosity, abundance, inclusive compassion. “Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs,” she says. In response to her retort – her invitation – Jesus heals her daughter.

Interestingly enough, Jesus goes on in the following pericope (or piece of scripture that we read) to heal a deaf man. And in the process of this healing act, he utters this word “ephphata” – translated as “be opened.” It is perhaps an example of Jesus not only instructing others, but self correcting his own behavior. In this healing story, Jesus puts into practice what the Syrophoenician woman teaches him – that the old categories of clean and unclean need not exist, that one is to trust in God’s abundance, that there is enough for all.

The story of Jesus and Syrophoenician woman can be uncomfortable to us because it takes Jesus out of the boxes we so often put him in. You may know the boxes I am talking about:

• The box that highlights his divinity over his humanity.
• The box that keeps us thinking that Jesus is there solely to comfort and never to challenge us.
• The box that tells us that Jesus is always right, rather than a human being who like us, has limits, prejudices and flaws.

We should rightly wonder as one preacher has: “Who is this Jesus who is scornful of other nationalities and religions? What kind of savior doesn't want to heal a young girl simply because of who her family is? What are we to do with such an indifferent and despising Christ?” (Karen Keeley, The Witness) The encounter between Jesus and this foreign woman exposes Jesus’ humanity in way we are not accustomed to seeing. It’s kind of like those family secrets that can remain buried for decades or even a lifetime before being exposed. Upon learning the truth or in this case, reading about the truth, our response may range from discomfort and disgust to solace and comfort in knowing that we are bound to a God who himself struggles with the bumps in the road on the journey towards wholeness.

In the human tendency to avoid, rather than to wrestle with the troubling aspects of this passage, generations of preachers have encouraged a domesticated or sweetened version of this story. They prefer to point out for example that the dogs in this passage really refer to “small dogs.” The point this out, rather than grapple with the implications of Jesus’ behavior. But to borrow and redirect a great quote of our time, “Jesus came among us to both comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” so too must we apply this destabilizing spirit to our reading of this encounter and our reading of the Bible as a whole.

The exchange between Jesus and this woman most likely destabilizes the usual ways we think about Jesus. While it may not be readily apparent to us living in today’s world, the mere encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman destabilized the customs of that day – that Jews were not to associate with Gentiles, that men were not to associate with women, that women were not to speak to men with the authority this woman does, that one who was clean was not to touch one who was unclean.

The destabilization of our faith or any aspect of our lives for that matter, may not feel particularly comfortable, but it can be an opportunity for new growth to emerge. When we tidily box up God, we risk limiting ourselves to the fullness that relationship has to offer. “Trust in abundance and generosity; trust that there is enough,” the Syrophoenician woman tells us. “Ephphata” – be opened, Jesus implores us.

Each of us knows the places our in ourselves where we need to “be opened.” The parts of ourselves that feel tight – parts of ourselves that might benefit from being less anxious and more generous or compassionate.

The Syrophoenician woman points out to Jesus what we enact every Sunday – and that is, that we all gather around the same table to eat of the same food. The kid, the dog, the adult – we’re all there seeking nourishment, no one being excluded at the table. And as Jesus knows from his feedings of thousands of people, that we all need the same sustenance and that when we share, there is enough to go around.

We can be comforted by the fact that in times of fear, anxiety or simple exhaustion opening ourselves up to others is something Jesus knew the difficulties of all too well. That’s why we need God, the untidy texts of the Bible and one another to jolt us into a different posture when we have grown too comfortable or too closed off. As noted preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “Jesus knows the truth about us and our judgments about one another, especially when we place some of God's children on the other side of a line that we draw…The danger is not out there, with the people who frighten and disturb us. The danger is in here, in the part of us that wants to cut ourselves off from them. There is actual evil in the world, no doubt about it, but until we meet up with the evil in ourselves, we cannot do battle. We cannot fight the shadow we will not own. Will our own hearts and minds, then, be opened up to receive God's abundant, overflowing grace?”

This week as we celebrate the ending of summer, the anticipation of another school year and the fruit of our labor, may we strive to “be opened” in new ways by God and the people around us.

The Rev. Nicole Janelle

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  As I rolled this week’s gospel around in my mind, allowing it to percolate through my synapses toward sermon preparation, the image that kept recurring was that of Howard Beale, as played by actor Peter Finch in the film “Network.”  In that 1976 film, writer Paddy Chayevsky skewered the media, but his morality play actually illuminates a much broader theme, dealing with the total dehumanization, commercialization and economization of American life.  By “economization” I refer to the trend to express all values in financial terms, the assignment of a dollar value to everything, and a concomitant trend to trivialize as naïve any ethic that seeks to resist this trend.

In the film, newscaster Howard Beale, given two weeks’ notice for lousy ratings, experiences a breakdown and threatens to commit suicide on the air.  Given an opportunity for a more dignified goodbye after his disturbing outburst, he instead uses the time to rail against society’s ills.  His ratings soar, and he becomes the centerpiece of a new show focused on his populist ranting.  When this show, too, begins to decline in the ratings, the corporate powers-that-be arrange to have him shot to death, assassinated on the air.  The last scene in the movie is a wonderfully cynical montage.  As the narrator comments that Beale was the first man ever murdered because of bad ratings, an array of televisions play newscasts reporting the incident matter-of-factly, intermixed with the noise of commercials.   The film won a slew of academy awards.  It was considered groundbreaking in its time, but it turned out to be shockingly prescient, considering that we didn’t dream that media featuring the likes of Howard Stern,  Don Imus, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh could ever become reality.  Those of us raised on the journalism of Eric Severeid and Walter Cronkite find it hard to understand that we would have to rely on Court Jester John Stewart, interviewing CNBC’s Jim Cramer, to provide the defining journalistic moment of the current financial meltdown.    The budding ecology movement and problems of economic justice of 1976 seem almost quaint next to the environmental and economic crises facing the world today.  The state of the planet today gives Jesus’ anger in the Temple real piquancy.

This week’s gospel gives us a fascinating glimpse of a different facet of Jesus, one that may give us pause, but which may also give us a certain inspiration.   The story of Jesus’ rampage in the temple appears in all the gospels.   In all but John, it comes at the end of the story, when Jesus enters Jerusalem before being crucified. One can imagine Jesus being a bit edgy at this point in his ministry.   John places the event at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Shortly after baptism, and right after the wedding at Cana, he flies into a rage and trashes the forecourt of the Temple.  The placement of this event at the end of Jesus’ ministry in proximity to his death  in a sense softens the event, while placing it at the beginning  places source of the anger in high relief.  We are invited to consider the message that Jesus sent with his anger as being part and parcel of his teaching throughout his ministry, not just a dramatic one-off under stress at the end.    Sometimes when reading the gospels, it is hard to understand how what Jesus was doing scared the agents of Empire so much that they found his death to be a necessity.  Imagining the message exemplified by his acts in the temple as a continuous thread in his teaching makes it clear:  his message was an unambiguous challenge to the established order of things.  He had to go.

So.  Instead of asking WWJD, “what would Jesus do,” our question for today is “What would Jesus be furious about?” which is where it gets interesting.

Today, our Older Testament lesson highlighted the core of the Mosaic law, the ten commandments.  Jesus didn’t enter the temple raging about the ten commandments, attacking thieves for stealing, adulterers for their fornicating, soldiers for their violence, or children for dishonoring their parents.  No,     Jesus storms into the temple, whip in hand, and crashes about denouncing, well, denouncing the religious for the economics of their religiocity.  

The temple was the place where people went to worship, to experience their relationship with God.  And Jesus enters the temple at the Passover, a time of critical religious observance.  The temple functionaries, from the high priest right down to the lowliest cleaner-up of pigeon guano were all really there for the same reason:  to meet the needs of the worshipers, to help people with their worship.  You couldn’t put Roman coins in the temple offering box, it had to be Jerusalem shekels, so if you came from out of town you needed to deal with the money changers.  (and of course, the many who had no coins at all couldn’t even enter.)  But, the tables of the moneychangers provided a needed service.  If you wanted to offer God an unblemished lamb or a bullock or a turtledove, as scripture required, you had to buy one- it made sense to have the livestock traders handy.  All could be justified as necessary, as providing a service, helping people worship God appropriately.

Ouch!  This is Jesus turning over my table.  This is not somebody else’s problem, this is us.  This is Jesus banging in here, kicking this pulpit over, tipping over the font, and flinging our Book of Common Prayer out the window.   Jesus is mad about the way we try to domesticate God,   the way confine our faith to church, and turn church activities into another item on our “to do” list between grocery shopping, servicing our car and pilates.   He is appalled that the God of love, compassion and power beyond imagining, is diminished to the level of a business transaction.  Vending machine faith:  put a little money in this slot, and we’ll dispense a little dose of the divine to make you feel good.  We come into the faith service-center empty on Sunday, and get topped up with enough energy and inspiration to make it through the week.   Are clergy just dispensers of a product, hawking the wares, trying to keep up the market share for a particular brand while offering you something you are looking for?  We’re all complicit in the transaction.

I see this so clearly in myself.  I hunger for an meaningful encounter with the Holy Awesome God of the Universe, but when the rubber hits the road I find myself disturbingly ready to preach about a “three point plan for spiritual wellness” that offers to help us “touch base with our spirituality.”  Not to plunge headlong into it, or abandon myself to the God of the burning bush, or, for that matter, take sides with the one who bursts into the church, whip in hand, overturning tables and driving confused animals up the aisles.

Which brings me to the ten commandments.  God’s covenant with humankind was not given to us because the commandments are the most reliable means to help us get what we want to satisfy our own selfish desires.  They are intended to expose our weakness, to remake us into God’s people,  dedicated to make God’s vision for humanity a reality.

Jesus is not a very satisfying guru for those who are after nice, acceptable, feel-good religion.  What we are called to do as Christians is to hand ourselves over, body and soul, to the God of the Universe, to the often frightening and all-consuming God, the one who calls us to ultimate table fellowship through his Son, to turn the mercantile vision of the world of scarcity into one of radical abundance for all people.  This is a table to approach with reverence and awe, not with a mere nod of familiarity.  When we ask God to pour out God’s holy spirit on the bread and wine we share, and to pour it out on us that we may be the body of Christ, just what do we think we are asking for?  Do we just mouth it without seriously considering the implications?   Do we really want that Holy Spirit to infect us?  If the Spirit does come to us in all-consuming fire and motivate us to be Christ in the world, there is no turning back.  All our worries about whether to pursue a master’s degree or a doctorate, whether we can afford a new car, or whether to seek a new boyfriend or girlfriend or a new job pale in comparison.    The personal implications of the economic crises on our own 401(k) are minimal in comparison with the havoc being wreaked on all of creation by the forces of empire and shortsighted economics of scarcity and greed.

Looking around the world today, reading the papers, seeing the newscasts, we should be mad as hell, but that righteous anger has been trained out of us.  Jesus’ example in the temple is thus an important example.   And expressing such righteous anger, speaking truth to power,  can be unpleasant, but it is utterly necessary.  As Jon Stewart said at the end of his interview of Cramer:  “I hope that was as uncomfortable to watch as it was to do.”

We complain about inequality and financial rapaciousness, about global warming and economic meltdown, but we must fact the fact that the forces shaping these problems are selling to us what we ask for.  We can’t respond to the enormous problems facing us by saying “Oh dear, how dreadful, but what can I do?”  We need to get good and angry, and then use that anger, in a loving way, to effect change.  Anger may help us expose and express the wrongs around us, but anger is not how we solve them.  Jesus makes our job tougher:  we must eschew violence, we must love the opposition, and try to love a new world into being.  Ultimate love, not ultimate fighting.

When we pass the Eucharistic bread, it is really like passing a live hand grenade, because if its transforming power really takes we must say goodbye forever to our wan and sensible religion.  When you hold the bread in your hands, you are holding the most volatile and mysterious power in the universe.  And you can’t take that lightly, because if your hands become the hands of Christ, they could find themselves doing amazing, life-changing things.

Before us is a God who offers everything, who sacrifices everything~ but God will crash the tables over rather than accept less in return.  Are we ready?  As Christians we are called to be angry about what Jesus would be angry about, and to do something about it.  And the way to act lies not in mimicking the violence of the powerful, but through love and sacrifice, shown to us in the ultimate form on the cross.  

Amen.

The Rev. Colleen K. Sterne
March 15, 2009 (3 Lent, Year B) St. Michael’s
Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19;  1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2: 13-22

Dear St. Michael’s Community Member:

Open your mailbox any day and you’ll be deluged by bills—Cox, SoCal Ed, the Gas Company, Visa, DMV, insurance, and a host of others.  Then the computer generated requests for money from charities and political organizations of all sorts, plus credit card offers and it all adds up to stress. This letter from St Michael’s stewardship team is a personal heartfelt plea to support our church this coming year with a pledge of money, time, and talent.  In the Gospels of Matthew & Luke Jesus says, “For where your treasure is there will be your heart also.”

St Michael’s is a treasure, a beacon of spiritual light in Goleta and Isla Vista.  Our fabulous new vicar has energized the college crew, brought the Isla Vista and Goleta community into the sanctuary with Community Bilingual Yoga and Compline, added mariachi music to our joyous Lessons and Carols, and so much more.  But ordinary Sundays at St Mike’s are also a special time, for we are a small congregation, a face-to-face church like so many in the early years of Christianity.  No could mistake us for a mega church!  We participate in the life of the church by reading the lessons from the Hebrew Bible or the Epistles, sing the creed and the Lord’s Prayer. We greet each other warmly exchanging the peace, newcomers, old timers; young children, college students, and our stalwart group of elders.  We pass the collection plate to support our church with money.  And we gather around the altar for communion, renewing our baptismal commitments in taking the bread and wine.

In these tough financial times we are all cutting back on expenses.  Everything seems to cost much more--gas and groceries for a start.  But think of St Mike’s as a source of spiritual energy and food for the soul.  It is easy to give when times are abundant, but when times are hard, giving is tough.

Now think about where your treasure is. And then renew or make a new a pledge today.  At Lessons and Carols on December 7 at 7pm we will bless the pledge cards—and once again give the fantastic prize to the first one to pledge of the Virgin Mary night light.  Through all our pledges we help bring Christ’s light to Isla Vista and Goleta.

Yours in Christ,

Madeline Blickley
Sarah Cline   
Tim Cooley, Bishop's Warden      
Mark Juergensmeyer   
Dan Lowrey       
The Stewardship Team

~~~

What Stewardship Means To Me...

"Where is God?" our then two-year old daughter Sona asked me one evening, as she splashed in the bathtub. It's one of those questions that almost all parents must face from their children, but I had thought and hoped that it would come a little later, perhaps after Sona was toilet trained. Perhaps then I might be able to explain to her the doctrine of the Trinity. But it seems that our child and God always have different schedules than the one that Julie and I rigorously try to plan.

A big gulp. "You know when someone does something nice for you, or when you are nice to someone? How does it feel?" I point to her soapy chest.

"Good."

"Right. That's where God is." Inwardly, I pat myself on the back for this succinct statement of the immanence and transcendence of the divine.

"Oh."  Long pause. "Is God also where I feel sad?"

Leave it to God to reveal God's self to a toddler, in order to teach her parents what the faith we practice is all about. God isn't a heavenly benefactor who dispenses good things to the good people by taking away blessings from those whom we consider undeserving of our-and therefore God's-love. God's presence isn't a zero-sum game for whose attention we compete. God is where we feel good and where we feel sad: what Sona taught me that evening is that God is not God in our image, but rather we are the image of God.

What this means for us is that God is most obviously present to us when we feel the wonder and beauty of the God's creation: the sight and smell of wildflowers along the freeway, the family that gathers around a delicious meal, the hand on the shoulder at the communion rail, the chaotic vibrancy of a first kiss. But God is also where we are sad, when things fall apart, when the world around us collapses because of sickness, death, dissolution, calamity. God is most present when we experience the radical discontinuity of sadness and grief, the despairing loneliness at the heart of the human condition, what Alphonse de Lamartine best encapsulated when he wrote, "Sometimes, when a person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated."

But Lamartine also wrote this: "Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys." It is where and when we are sad that God reveals God's true self to us. For as much as our lives are a constant search for God's will in our lives, the converse is also true. The great civil rights activists and theologian, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, called this "God in search of man"; it is the story that we retell over and over when we recite Scripture in church and in our daily lives, that God makes a pastoral call to God's people whenever God's people are down on their luck. And it is the story of the cross that we look to, to the person executed because he wanted to remind us that at the moment we felt absolutely alone in this world, God looked for us in the example of a Palestinian Jewish peasant whose destiny was to take the world's sadness and say, God is where you are sad.

Stewardship for me means that we honor God's standing with us in our most vulnerable moments by standing with each other, holding one another aloft in both our despair and joy, reminding ourselves over and over that God is where we are happy and where we are sad. Stewardship is our response to God's persistent story of being in search of God's creation, in constant care to the places and people where God's people hurt most in the world, by becoming God's colleagues in turning the earth into God's kingdom. Most of all, stewardship invites those of who call ourselves followers of God through Christ to show ourselves as agents and examples of God's liberating demolition of isolation, alienation, and loneliness by giving of ourselves all the gifts that God gives to us to the rest of God's world, so that our work might be part of God's great plan to transform the human race into the human family.

Jim Lee, an enthusiastic pledger and supporter of campus ministry, teaches in the Asian American Studies Department at UCSB. Jim makes his spiritual home at St. Paul’s, Ventura.

Nearly sixty years ago, back when Isla Vista was a sleepy place with unpaved streets, inexpensive vacation cottages and ramshackle dwellings, a forward thinking priest from Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Santa Barbara challenged his parishioners during their annual meeting to think about the opportunities for mission that awaited them at the new UCSB campus in Isla Vista. Shortly after that meeting, the Methodist husband of one of the Trinity congregation members handed the priest a check for $5,000 to "see what could be done" in Isla Vista. And so, on December 11th, 1949 the rector of Trinity and a small group of parishioners erected a sign amidst the grass and eucalyptus trees announcing the future plans for this small piece of property that we now worship on. By 1954, the first chaplain had been called to the new university mission. A 34 year old former journalist and practicing physicist, he served part time in Isla Vista and part time on the staff of Trinity. He named this new church community "St. Michael's."

 

It is unclear exactly why the mission was named for Michael the archangel. One theory is that the new chaplain named it St. Michael's after a parish he had previously served before coming to Santa Barbara. The more interesteing and appropriate theory, of course, is that he chose the name of St. Michael & All Angels for this church, in honor of the saint whose feast day coincides with the start of the school year. In the calendar of saints, St. Michael's feast day is celebrated September 29 and known as Michaelmas Day, one of the four quarter days on which accounts were settled and, in England, when the terms began in universities.

 

Regardless of the first chaplain's particular motivation to claim Michael as our church community's patron saint, Michael's link to the university calendar is certainly fitting. There is also a whole lot more to the legend of St. Michael that bears exploration and celebration. As I've commented before: "Thanks be to God, we certainly don't draw our identity from the lore of a lame saint!"  And just like we might draw inspiration and strength from the meaning of our own names and the stories of our own families and communities, so too can we be challenged and strengthened by knowing the story of the person for whom our church community is named and knowing our faith community’s own history.

 

There are many, many stories in many, many religious traditions about St. Michael. In Jewish tradition he is known as the protector of Israel. In Islam he is know as a good angel, bringing "peace and plenty." In Christian tradition, the Book of Revelation – the text we just read this morning -- tells the story of Michael's triumphant battle over evil. He is often depicted with sword in hand and known as the good angel of death and field commander of the Army of God. Popular Christian lore casts Michael as the patron saint of paratroopers, police officers, mariners, paramedics and grocers. His profile as a healer is especially well developed and legend has it that he even caused an outbreak of the plague to cease!

 

I think it's fair to say that Michael never shied from being in the "thick of it all."  Cosmic battles. Infectious disease. Warring nations. The magnitude of these forces never prevented Michael from being able to envision possibilities for a new, more peaceful, world order.

 

Having a tendency to be drawn into the thick of important questions and issues isn't bad DNA for a church! Over the course of its communal life, St. Michael's University Church – along with the students, faculty, staff and community members it serves -- has found itself drawn into precisely these sorts of conversations, ministries and work. In fact, the bell we ring every morning as the first act of communal worship, was christened "The Prophet Isaiah" – and is seen as a modern-day sword-being-turned-into-plowshare story. And so one could say that from the first ring of the bell each Sunday, we are drawn into professing and living out the sort of  radical transformation that both Isaiah and Michael engaged in.

 

In preparation for today, as I reviewed history the of St. Mike’s documented by one of its former vicars in a "paper" written in honor of the church’s 40^th anniversary in 1994 (thanks Mark Gardner!), I found story after story of transformation. Here are just some highlights: During the 1950s, “Teen Canteen,” an effort to diffuse Latino-Anglo racial tensions in Isla Vista brought high school youth together at the church for social events and mutual understanding. The police estimated that it cut delinquency rates by 50%! Around the same time, a group of students from the Devereux School for developmentally disabled kids began to attend the church on a regular basis -- for a while they constituted half the community members present at the service. By the end of the decade, this chapel in which we now sit had been constructed – the architecture meant to represent in modern design the simplicity of the Isrealites’ tent for God during their wilderness wanderings. In the 1960s a group of committed parishioners helped to establish a community nursery school on site. St. Michael’s also welcomed Bishop Pike – a restless and radical visionary who had been forbidden to preach or celebrate in this diocese; he “preached the announcements” on Easter Sunday at two services attended by over 550 people. In the 1970s, Bishop Barrett who in his retirement helped to “irregularly ordain” the first 11 women priests in the Episcopal Church known at the "Philadelphia Eleven", became a member at St. Michael’s. Following his participation in these ordinations, he and a well-known outspoken Catholic bishop, Daniel Corrigan, gave a forum at St. Mike’s to discuss their views on women’s ordination. Barrett remembers that the people of St. Michael’s were “quite receptive” to the idea of ordaining women, and a Roman Catholic official appeared to be implicitly sympathetic by attending the forum.” As community and student participation flourished at St. Mike’s, so did the nursery school. It soon gave birth to a secondary ministry called Operation Kids, which allowed disadvantaged children in IV to receive care and educational enrichment while their parents, mostly single mothers, worked. In the 1980s, St. Mike’s established Transition House (housed in the Little House)—a place where homeless people could make the transition back to mainstream life. The chaplain also led students in a series of humourous and dramatic gospel plays in place of the homily on Sundays. Students also developed an outreach to nearby Friendship Manor Retirement Community, regularly joining with residents there to say Evening Prayer. During the 1990s and early part of this century, St. Mike’s sold a part of its property to Hillel, engaged in a major renovation of its buildings and grounds and in its desire to become a spiritual oasis for the community, experimented with sober block parties for the neighborhood. Today we engage the student and neighborhood community through various spiritual formation, educational and activism opportunities. And of course, just as Michael would have it, our ministry continues to evolve and grow in new and perhaps unexpected ways in response to the people, issues and needs among and beyond our community. (If you'd like to read more about the history of St. Mike's in "Our First 40 Years" -- please speak to the chaplain!)

 

+++

 

Some of you know that I've in the middle of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon through my DVDs by mail program. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a television series about a high school student named Buffy who has been anointed as a slayer of vampires. She and her team -- which consists of school mates and her adult "watcher" who also serves as school librarian – make it their business to keep the forces evil at bay. And so, Buffy trolls graveyards armed with crosses, holy water and spikes to save the world from the encroaching forces of cosmic evil. These forces of evil, however, are resilient and stubborn things, however. They fester below ground in the underworld until they gain the strength to surge from the hell mouth to claim their next victims. Each kill, each act of evil, gives them the energy they need to continue the battle.

 

Despite the 90s clothing styles, suburban high school setting and sometimes cheesy vampire creatures, this television series is not what you might expect at first glance. Upon close examination in fact, Buffy is a sophisticated and relevant theological and progressive commentary on the battle between good and evil and other events we read about in the Bible. It's a modern take on the ministry and work of Jesus, St. Michael and a whole host of others – the ministry of imagining the possibility for a more peaceful world – and working to realize this vision. Flanked by ancient wisdom, imagination, adventure, desire and a moral compass, all of these figures challenge the society of their time and push their communities to explore previously unknown territory.

 

I'm currently at a point in the seven season series where Buffy is struggling with identity as a slayer. Many days, she just wants to be a normal high school student at Sunnydale High, yet she is anointed and called to be the slayer. In this identity crisis she is forced to confront questions like: How will she find a balance between her vocation and her life as a high school student? How will she come to terms with her relationship to an immortal "good vampire" named Angel who is a vampire cursed with a soul?

 

I raise this topic of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not to digress or to grace you with more pop culture knowledge – but because 1) I think that like the TV series Buffy, there is a lot about St. Mike’s – especially to our neighbors – that may not be apparent at first glace. 2) These questions that Buffy struggles with about her own vocation may also be relevant to us at St. Mike’s. Being a vampire slayer is no easy vocation, nor is it easy to follow in the footsteps and tradition of our patron saint Michael! Yet this is precisely our call – to be a community that works to bring about justice, encourages conversation about big questions and cares about the physical, psychic and spiritual needs of our neighbors. It may be of surprise to your average Isla Vistan, perhaps knowing nothing about St. Mike’s or never having thought about church in an expansive way, to hear that this is the vocational DNA of our church community.

 

So our challenge this morning is to go out and tell and live the story that is a part of our DNA! To seize the invitation to enter the “thick of it all.” To think about how we wish to shape the future! And as we celebrate the life of this congregation and the feast day of our patron saint, may our guiding light Michael the Archangel continue to be a constant source of challenge and strength to us all, inspiring us –individually and collectively-- to explore new realms and possibilities within our often fractured, anxious and hurting world.

 

The Rev. Nicole Janelle

Feast of St. Michael

28 September 2008

Back when I was in middle school, Magic Eye books were all the rage. You might remember that these books are filled with page upon page of what appears at first glance to be an intricate computer generated colorful pattern. But when you take a closer look at the pattern, a three-dimensional image or even a whole scene emerges through the fuzz of these blotches of color. Every person seems to have his or her own system of accessing that 3-D image. Some people plaster the book to their nose, others cross their eyes, and still others stands on their heads in an effort to see this image pop out among the blotches of color! The trick to activating your Magic Eye is being able to see and seize the world that lies beyond the chaos of the page.

 

Life is sometimes like contemplating a page of a Magic Eye book. At first we may only see static or chaos and then after a good long stare the static blurs and if we are focused we’re able to feel ourselves cross over a threshold into a new world. This new world may come quickly into focus – and then maybe quickly out of focus for a moment – but with patience this new realm is ours to marvel at and to explore.

 

Today’s reading from the Hebrew Bible presents us with a bunch of nervy, subversive women who were able to cross into a new world. In this lesson we learn that Pharaoh, weary of the prosperity of the Israelites in Egypt, has ordered the midwives to kill all male babies bore to Hebrew women. From the moment we are introduced to these midwives, we know that something exciting is about to happen. Women are not often named in the Bible and so for us to fall upon two named women (whom the text suggests may not even be Hebrew women) we are clued-in that Shiphrah and Puah must be a critical part of Israel’s story. Well, it turns out that they are extraordinary women; spurred on by their awe or fear of God, they single handedly subvert the orders of the king to ensure the survival of Israel. And when pharaoh reprimands the midwives, they feign incompetence (wink, wink!), insisting that Hebrew women are a rare breed – they are so vigorous that before the midwife can come, they give birth. This story is followed up of course by tales of more brave women who aid in rescuing and saving Moses.

 

These stories are especially powerful because they introduce us to people who boldly and unabashedly defend life, even at considerable personal risk. Through their inner compasses, some might say their “magic eye”, they see another way out of the chaos and are able to transport their communities into a new world – a new realm – the Kingdom of God.

 

You may know that one of the things I did during my time away this summer, was to visit the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. And coming off of that experience I find myself with a renewed sense of awe and appreciation for people and groups who are able focus on a way forward amidst chaos and injustice to bring about new reality. I traveled to Haiti to assist in a non-violence training for young adults, sponsored by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. My week long jaunt to Haiti was extraordinary – I got to meet many young adults and hear about their lives, I was able to preach in lively Episcopal Church as a part of a four day diocesan wide “spiritual renewal,” I celebrated Eucharist with several congregations including a group of elderly folk at an Episcopal nursing home (Foyer Notre Dame) and I visited a new pediatric hospital that is serving the poorest of the poor in Port au Prince. Those of you who may have visited Haiti know that it is a country in chaos and it is a country that is suffering – and yet in the midst of this chaos the Episcopal Church is doing amazing things – operating and building schools, universities, retirement communities, a seminary, medical clinics AND organizing children’s choirs, orchestras and church programs.

 

The Episcopal Church of course isn’t the only bright light in Haiti, there are many other organizations that are bringing infrastructure and hope to place that has been torn down by decades of devastating foreign policies and internal corruption. The now famous American physician Paul Farmer, who has established a comprehensive healthcare system on Haiti’s central plateau, is another example an individual who along with others has been able to carve out a space for healing, hope and justice among the chaos. Some of you may have heard Dr. Farmer speak about Partners in Health this winter during his visit to Santa Barbara – I know I brought a few students to his lecture. I mention Paul in particular, because it turned out that he was on my flight from Haiti back to the States – which I found incredibly serendipitous!

 

People in the Diocese of Haiti, Paul Farmer – these are examples of folks who have seized the same decisiveness and determination to preserve life as the women of today’s reading. These individuals are making their way out of stasis and chaos to realize a new vision – and making it happen!

 

During our nonviolence training, each young adult was asked to complete the following statement: “If I weren’t afraid, I would __________” It’s a brilliant exercise because follows is extremely telling. Think for a second, how would you answer that question? We know how the women in today’s lesson answered that question. The young adults in Haiti talked about putting an end to the kidnappings, the corruption, the hunger, the unemployment, the general violence, the violence against women and children, the lack of opportunity for education and advancement and absusive foreign policies. A funny thing happens when we answer the question -- it takes the edge off that thing we are afraid of doing, doesn’t it? I have no doubt that the mere exercise of vocalizing a response to this question empowered these young adults to go out and create change in a way they throught may not previously have been possible – we’re talking small change, of course, baby steps, but a change nonetheless.

 

Whenever I talk to people about the Magic Eye books as a metaphor for their spiritual lives, I always have to confess that I am one of those people who has tried in vain to enter the three dimensional world of the Magic Eye, but with little success. My sister, who has tried and tried to explain exactly what she does with her eyes to see beyond the page, assures me that there are other like me who can’t quite get the knack. I still haven’t met these people, but I assume that they exist. Regardless, I’ve heard in such detail what she and others see that it doesn’t matter that I am not able to actually see this world for myself, because through my imagination I am able to be in that world.

 

Regardless of our ability – or lack thereof – when it comes to the Magic Eye, it’s important to know that the realm beyond the page – the Kingdom – is there and it is ours if we can see it and seize it. For some, this process might be swift – the focus will be immediate and sharp. For others, focus might emerge more slowly and may involve creative means.

 

Thomas Merton, the Catholic monk and contemplative writer, wrote that his moment of seeing came out of the blue, on a street corner in Louisville. “I was suddenly overwhelmed [he recounted] with the realization that I loved all people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness…It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.”

 

We are blessed to be part of a rich tradition of people who can be challenging conversation partners in our journey to uncover the Kingdom of God. Brining about the Kingdom is no easy task. But like the midwives, once we are able to see what needs to be done, the blessing of God carries us through.

 

Amen.

 

The Rev. Nicole Janelle

St. Michael's, Isla Vista

Year A, Proper 16

24 August 2008 

This summer the Episcopal Peace Fellowship sponsored a nonviolence training conference in the Episcopal Diocese of Haïti. Over 100 young adults gathered in Port au Prince from around Haïti for this four day seminar. I was privileged to tag along for the ride -- aiding our facilitator, engaging with participants, preaching and celebrating Eucharist in French, struggling to decipher Kreyol. And to top it off, I left Haiti with Paul Farmer, co-founder of Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health, on my flight (and yes, I was too chicken to talk to him...)! You may see more photos of our time in Haïti here.

La Rev. Nicole S. Janelle
Sermon sur le thème « La paix est un don de Dieu »
Eglise Episcopale d’Haïti
Paroisse Ascension, Thor-Carrefour
08.14.2008

Je voudrais commencer par remercier le Père Fanfan pour m’avoir invitée à prêcher aujourd’hui. C’est un honneur d’être ici parmi vous, d’apprendre de votre bon travail dans l’église du Haïti.

Un petit mot sur mon travail: Je suis chapelain et pasteur d’une communauté universitaire cent milles au nord de la grande ville de Los Angeles, dans un quartier universitaire et Latino. Je travaille principalement avec la communauté universitaire, mais aussi avec tous les membres de notre quartier pour offrir des programmes bilingues qui encouragent le développement de la vie spirituelle des participants. Ce voyage au Haïti est mon premier, mais j’espère que ce ne sera pas mon dernier. Ce sermon en français, c’est aussi mon premier, et ce sera peut-être more dernier – on verra !

 « La paix est un don de Dieu. » Cela est le thème de notre temps ensemble et le thème sur lequel on m’a demandé de réfléchir.

Cette année une étudiante Juive est venue à plusieurs de nos services dans ma paroisse. Elle a beaucoup aimé son expérience et une journée elle m’a présenté une liste des aspects favoris de notre culte. La première chose sur sa liste: La paix du Christ. Elle écrit : « Que la paix soit avec vous. Ou plutôt, la paix est cool. J’aime l’idée que nous n’oublions pas cette idée de la paix dans notre vie quotidienne. Je crois que c’est un geste positif et que c’est quelque chose qu’on devrait prendre l’habitude, de la paix chaque jour dans notre vie et notre monde. Ça me semble trop facile d’oublier que la paix peut exister dans un monde plein de violence et de guerre. La meilleure partie de ce rite est la chance de faire contact avec les autres membres de la communauté – on peut toucher la main pour mieux connaître les gens. C’est un geste chaleureux. » Parfois ça prend le commentaire d’une personne de « l’extérieur » pour que l’on puisse voir et apprécier l’importance de nos rites. Il y a 40 ans aux Etats-Unis, les étudiantes marchaient en masse dans les rues pour la paix et la justice. Aujourd’hui, nous ne voyons plus de telles manifestations. Et c’est pour cela que la présence d’une église qui enseigne à ses membres le travail de « créer la paix » est tellement importante.

Dans l’Evangile de Matthieu, Jésus se trouve dans les montagnes avec ses disciples. Il leur enseigne dans son fameux sermon sur le mont: « Heureux les artisans de paix, car ils seront appelés enfants de Dieu! » Jésus parle de beaucoup de choses dans ce sermon – mais cette ligne « Heureux les artisans de paix, car il seront  appelés enfants de Dieu » est unique à l’évangile de Matthieu. Cinq chapitres plus tard, on retrouve Jésus qui dit « N’allez pas croire que je sois venu apporter la paix  sur la terre; je ne suis pas venu apporter la paix, mais la glaive. Car je suis venu opposer l’homme à son père, la fille à sa mère, la brue à sa belle-mère: on aura pour ennemis les gens de sa famille. »

À première vue, c’est un peu difficile de comprendre les différences entre ces deux textes. D’un côté Jésus propose l’idée que ceux qui procurent la paix sont en train de faire le travail de Dieu. De l’autre côté, il propose une sorte de guerre entre ses disciples et une absence de paix entre les membres de la même famille. Que peut-on faire de ces textes?

Le maître de la non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi disait que la paix nécessite non seulement l’absence de violence mais la présence de justice. C’est ce que Jésus prêchait. Il savait que la paix a souvent son prix, des travaux durs, des risques à prendre, même la mort. Il savait que la paix ne marche pas la main dans la main du statu quo, mais qu’elle demande beaucoup d’efforts pour l’atteindre et pour la sauvegarder. Quand Jésus parle de la paix, c’est la paix qui a sa racine dans le mot « Shalom » qui signifie plus que l’absence de conflits, mais aussi la présence d’harmonie et de communion. Les artisans de paix ne doivent pas éviter le conflit, mais ils doivent en plus confronter le mal pour qu’il ne continue ses ravages. Heureux les artisans de paix, car ce sont eux qui choisissent de prendre des risques face à la violence, à la recherche d’un monde où l’on subvient aux besoins de chaque humain et où l’on pratique le respect pour tous.

Récemment, j’ai lu un article dans le New York Times à propos d’un réchercheur d’épidémiologie à Chicago qui a une nouvelle façon d’aborder le problème de la violence. Il soigne la violence comme si c’était une maladie infectieuse, un virus. La violence des gangs est un problème infectieux dans les grandes villes des Etats-Unis. Chaque fusillade, chaque meurtre laisse une dévastation profonde dans la communauté. Il y a beaucoup d’experts qui pensent qu’on ne peut améliorer la pauvreté urbaine sans rompre ce scénario habituel de violence. Dans ce but, on augmente les ressources pour la sécurité, et on impose des peines de prison plus lourdes, ce qui rarement contribue à solutionner le problème. Mais ce réchercheur voit le problème autrement. Il croit que la violence imite les infections comme la tuberculose et le SIDA, et alors, il propose de traiter la violence d’une façon semblable. C’est à dire, traiter le plus infecté d’abord pour supprimer l’infection. La tuberculose engendre la tuberculose. La violence engendre la violence. Il propose d’interrompre la prochaine transmission de violence, le prochain geste violent. Pour le moment son plan a l’air de marcher. Les artisans de paix dans ce programme de santé publique sont les anciens membres de gangs. Ils s’entraident et ils reçoivent l’appui de ce programme pendant qu’ils travaillent dans la rue pour interrompre la violence. Ils se rencontrent avec les membres des gangs et les familles touchées par la violence – des groupes qui ont le pouvoir de perpétuer cette violence – et ils essaient de persuader ces individus de ne plus se venger. La glaive que ces interrupteurs apportent dans ce milieu, c’est le don de paix.

Dans mon état natif du Maine, un autre programme qui s’appelle Les Grains de Paix regroupe des enfants qui viennent d’endroits en conflit – notamment l’Israel et la Palestine—pour du camping et un été de dialogue non-violent. Ce sont des enfants qui grandissent dans des pays voisins et qui apprennent à haïr l’autrui. Arrivés dans le Maine, ils apprennent à vivre ensemble, à se parler, et ils deviennent des artisans de paix qui peuvent imaginer un nouveau monde. Cette colonie produit depuis quinze ans un cadre d’amis pour la paix, qui comme adultes, travaillent, en politique internationale, dans le monde des affaires, en médecine, dans les organismes à but non-lucratif et dans les médias. Rentrés dans leur propre pays, ils risquent tout, même l’opposition de leur famille, leurs amis, et leur communauté

La paix est un don de Dieu. Nous devons lutter pour l’atteindre et ce n’est jamais facile. Il y cinquante ans, le vendredi saint 1968, des milliers d’activistes anti-nucléaires britanniques manifestaient à Londres. C’est à ce temps qu’est né le symbole de paix que nous connaissons tous aujourd’hui. Le cercle représente le monde et les symboles à l’intérieur représentent le désarmement nucléaire. Ce symbole s’est répandu à travers le monde, utilisé par les anti-militaires de la guerre au Vietnam, les hippies, et le mouvement pour les droits civiques. Certains ont dit que le symbole à l’intérieur représente le désespoir d’un être humain qui se traine les bras par terre

Aujourd’hui, comme dans le temps de Jésus, la famille humaine est en désespoir et la paix est en danger. D’un côté, la paix est un concept inconnu pour ceux qui vivent dans la violence. De l’autre côté, on a domestiqué la paix pour ceux qui vivent dans l’aisance. C’est dans la complexité de l’enseignement de Jésus où l’on peut trouver notre chemin. Jésus comprenait l’interconnectivité de la communauté humaine. Et c’est peut-être en saisissant cette idée – que mon bien-être dépend de votre bien-être, et que votre bien-être dépend de mon bien-être – que nous pouvons commencer à découvrir le don de paix. Jésus savait que le chemin vers la paix ne serait pas facile, plein d’obstacles. Malgré tout cela, nous pouvons trouver à travers le monde des signes encourageants, des niches de paix : les interrupteurs de violence à Chicago et les grains de paix qui se forment dans le Maine. Dans mon diocèse de Los Angeles, nous avons commencé un nouveau programme pour les jeunes, La Colonie de Paix, et une vingtaine de jeunes gens y ont passé une semaine pour se transformer en artisans de paix. Vous connaissez sûrement tous des artisans de paix qui travaillent déjà dans vos églises, dans vos communautés. Ce sont nos rayons d’espoir.

Chaque août, nous commémorons la dévastation de la ville de Hiroshima par les forces armés des Etats-Unis. Lié à cette tragédie est l’histoire de personnes qui se dévouent pour la paix, qui deviennent des artisans de paix. Vous connaissez peut-être l’histoire de la jeune Sadako qui avait à peine deux ans quand la bombe fut larguée sur Hiroshima. Toute jeune, elle semblait athlétique, vigoureuse et brave. A l’âge d’onze ans, elle fut diagnostiqué leucémique, la maladie de la bombe atomique. C’est alors que son amie lui récita le vieux conte japonais qui prétend que notre vœu le plus cher nous sera accordé si l’on plie mille grues en origami. Sadako espérait rétablir sa santé et pouvoir un jour courir et jouer avec ses amis. Elle s’est mise à l’œuvre et a réussi à compléter plus de mille grues en papier multicolore avant sa mort à l’âge de douze ans. Sadako n’a jamais perdu courage. Inspirés par l’exemple de Sadako, ses amis ont eu l’idée de construire un monument à la mémoire de Sadako et de tous les autres enfants japonais, victimes des bombardements atomiques. Les enfants à travers le Japon ont amassé les fonds nécessaires en trois ans. On a érigé dans le Parc de la Paix une statue de Sadako tenant dans la main une grue dorée.  Les enfants ont aussi fait le vœu inscrit sur une plaque au pied de la statue: « Notre supplication, notre prière, c’est la paix dans le monde. » Aujourd’hui partout dans le monde, les gens plient des grues en origami et les envoient au monument de Sadako à Hiroshima.

Que Dieu vous bénisse et bénisse votre trajet comme artisans de paix. Comme les enfants de Hiroshima, que vous ayez le courage de surmonter les obstacles sur le chemin, la force pour persévérer, et la créativité pour semer les grains de paix, selon vos besoins, à travers vos communautés. La paix est un don de Dieu!
 
Amen.

Address to UC Regents 7.15.2008

My name is Nicole Janelle. I’m a member of Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice as well as the Episcopal Chaplain @ UCSB and priest of St. Michael’s University Church in Isla Vista.

This morning, to help orient your moral and ethical compasses, I wish to share with you a short story about a woman named Muriel Lester – a women who was a friend of Gandhi’s and an important champion of social justice in the Christian tradition.

At the turn of the century, Muriel--then a teenager raised in relative wealth and security--would frequently take train through London. On these train rides she routinely observed passengers push up their open windows as the train approached East London, in order to keep out the stench. Problem was, they couldn’t keep out the stench. And eventually, Muriel would learn that the stench that filled East London came from the soap factories – factories that manufactured the same sweet smelling soap she used on a daily basis.

What is sweetness for some is stench and bitterness for others.

The sweetness of a well-run university by committed, hard-working workers is sweetness for many. And it is bitterness for these workers.

This morning I implore you to search your conscience to do right by these workers, lest the stench of their misery further invade and weaken the fabric of our entire community.

Thank you.

 

Our neighbors are struggling financially, members of our congregations and neighbors in our communities, whose voices are rarely heard, whose paychecks are among the lowest in the area.  Who are these neighbors? Healthcare workers and custodians who work for UCSB, the largest employer in Santa Barbara.

8,500 University of California workers began a strike at UC's ten campuses and five medical centers on Monday, July 14. These workers are the backbone of the UC system, doing the daily work of maintaining the university by cleaning rooms, serving food, driving shuttles, and much more. 97.5% of workers voted to authorize this strike; an overwhelming majority believe that it is time to show the UC executives how important this contract is.

Did you know?

+That custodians and healthcare workers  at UCSB, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME),  are paid less for the same work than other University of California campuses, the Community College and State University systems, and the City and County of Santa Barbara, despite the high cost of living on the South Coast?

+That decisions about their healthcare and pension coverage are often made without their negotiated input?

+That in order to support their families many of these workers commute long distances and work multiple jobs?

+That many of these employees have been working without a contract since 2007?

+That dignitaries such as former President Bill Clinton, retired General Wesley Clark and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., refused to speak at graduation ceremonies at UC campuses this year until a new contract is agreed upon, to show their support for the 20,000 AFSCME workers employed by the UC system?

+That the University has been working hard to improve the wages of their lower paid employees despite this difficult budget year? In 2007, the University provided special increases for employees earning less than $40,000 per year.  Yet this is not enough.

(From Jennifer Bailey, Executive Director of Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice, Santa Barbara)

Gracious and holy God,
Creator of life -- earth, wind and fire.
May our prayers, entwined with the flames that ravage our mountainside,
be set forth in your sight as incense,
the lifting up of our hands,
our common supplication to you.

Bless all creatures in the path of harm's way.
Strengthen the firefighters and all those working tirelessly to keep us safe.
Comfort those whose beloved homes are threatened by flame.
Soothe those who are anxious and in need of rest.
Hallow the good earth and the fire that surround us.

O God of all creation:
In the midst of uncertainty, help us to find community.
In the midst of tragedy, help us to find a semblance of peace.
May we know your
compassionate,
restorative
and healing presence
in our souls as we labor on.
For only in you do we rest in safety.
All this we pray in your holy name, AMEN.