General Ordination Exams (GOEs)

Coming soon to a seminary near you!

What's strange to me, is that when I graduated (the first time) in 2007, I was really hoping to take the exam in the next 6 months, or maybe a year later.  Little did I know that it would actually be five years later.  So I dragged my class notes and all my theology books from Denver to Corvallis to Asheville and now, in a heap, to Alexandria. 

Whoo hoo!  The days are finally arriving and I'm so glad.

The review of the seven canonical areas has been, well, filling.

• The Liturgy resources (Book of Common Prayer and every hymnal authorized by The Episcopal Church) are tabbed, labeled, stacked.  
• The history timeline has gathered many long stares - reminding me over and over what happened when {1033? 380? Council of Chalcedon? Anselm? Aquinas? Augustine (which one!?)? etc. etc. (Its the stuff my dreams are made of.)
• The ethics definitions are neatly re-scribbled for pre-test recall.  
• The theology books and notes are packaged in re-usable bags. 
• The contemporary issues have been reviewed, but could stand another look online. 
• The dozen folders of notes from Holy Scriptures courses are stacked in front of me, awaiting a final glance.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible is tabbed and labeled for easy use.  
• The Theory and Practice of Ministry models and notes are neatly waiting a final review. 

The bibliography is prepared.   

Well, a few more bits to re-check and re-call.  Then... drum roll...

I'll SHOW UP TO THE MOMENT and with grace, fear and trembling, humility, humor, and lots of hope... and saying our class mantra, I'll take the exam(s).

"Answer the question, the whole question, and nothing but the question, so help us God."

Restore Us

Today's appointed Psalm 80 has this wonderful refrain, "Restore us, O God: Let your face shine, that we may be saved."  I reflect about this in the last Advent days leading up to Christmas. 

Advent is a beautiful time of waiting, wondering, wandering and of wanting.  In every sense, I cry out to God to be restored. That sense of deep longing for not only me, but us, to be restored, made whole, refreshed, re-newed.

With this refrain, we can remember that it is in the shining of God, the shining face of Christ in every person we meet, in the shining parts of creation around every turn, that we see a glimpse of wholeness, of God's saving grace. 

"Restore us, O God: Let your face shine, that we may be saved." Amen

How Was Your Day?

This question is so simple.  Yet it begs of much, much more.

I was listening to NPR on my short drive to school this week.  On the news was an interview with astronaut Mark Kelly talking about Rep. Gabby Giffords' recovery.  Kelly says how hard it is to be in conversation with someone who cannot ask a question.  He described how her speech was so severely impaired that she was unable to ask any question for months.  Until one day. 

The first question Giffords asked was, "How was your day?"

"It was a big event," Kelly says. "It was so big to me, it completely locked my brain up — I could not remember one thing I did that day. So I had a hard time answering her. So she had this momentous event where she finally asked a question and I had no answer because I was so happy about it."

When I heard this piece of the interview, I nearly pulled over to the side of the road.  Emotionally, Kelly described a moment that was so sacred, so filled with simply love, so momentous for them both in her recovery that it stopped him.  Time stopped. 

And I thought about how many times in the last half year that I have been able to sit across from my beloved and over dinner, ask, simply, "How was your day?"  In our exchanges, we catch up on the mundane and the silly and the sacred.  It's our time together - no TV, no cell phones, nothing but us.  Time stops.  How was your day?  It reminds me to count my blessings and to cherish how the Sacred shows up in ordinary ways, on God's time - kairos - the fullness of time.

I believe this happens in the Holy Eucharist.  We come to God's table and time stops.  We experience the sacred moment of transformation in that space, with those sacred elements.  We share our day with the One who was and is and is to come.  And God listens to our human attempt at responding to How Was Your Day.

And God offers faith, hope and Love. Glory!





How was your day?

Guest Entry: Food Waste on Thanksgiving

I recently read a captivating article that is timely for celebrating Thanksgiving with a spirit of good stewardship.  Thank you, guest writer!
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Despite being pushed to the back of the shelf, there it is – that six-day-old eggplant parmesan – every time I open the refrigerator. It was delicious last Friday, a new recipe made with eggplant fresh from the farm. I know I need to eat it soon before it spoils and must be thrown out, wasted, like one quarter to one half of all food in America.1

My eyes were opened to the enormous waste of food in a NC sweet potato field on a crisp, autumn morning at the Society of St. Andrew’s 19th annual “Yam Jam.” In four hours, more than 800 volunteers gleaned 84,010 pounds of sweet potatoes for regional food pantries. I was shocked at the volume of perfectly edible food that would otherwise have been left to rot and be plowed back under by the farmer. “And this is only one field!” I kept saying over and over to anyone who would listen. How much food is really being wasted in this country, I wondered? What is being done about it? And, how can I help? Though I am no food waste expert, I continue this journey, seeking to become a more informed, engaged and faithful steward.
Food loss and waste occurs all along the supply chain: harvesting, processing, storage, retail distribution, food service, and households. Here are some revealing statistics:
• The US wastes 96 billion pounds of food each year. It costs $1 billion to dispose of this waste.2

• An average grocery store disposes on average 700-800 pounds of food per day. With more than 35,000 stores in this country, total daily grocery store waste is 30 million pounds.3

• Americans throw away 15%–25% of food brought into our homes. Assuming a family of four is shopping on the USDA low-cost plan, spending $175 a week on groceries, they squander $1,365 to $2,275 a year. 4

• Food waste makes up 14% of solid waste entering landfills, where, in decomposition, it produces methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas. 5
Given what I’ve learned, I cannot turn a blind eye to food waste. I see it everywhere, as if I were seeking it out.

While visiting friends in Maine recently we stopped at the local bakery to pick up leftover bread for their pigs. This wasn’t just any bread. We retrieved about 60 loaves of sweet and savory artisan bread that sells for $7.00 a loaf. The bakery only sells bread that is baked fresh that day and throws out what is left when the store closes each evening. I was appalled! Though the bread didn’t feed hungry people, at least we kept it from the landfill and made the pigs happy. (The French toast and grilled cheese sandwiches we humans ate the next day made us happy, too.)

DC Central Kitchen, a Washington DC based organization that turns leftover food into healthy meals, recycles 3,000 pounds of food per day. I see a small portion of this food when I volunteer each week. The food arrives from grocery stores, farms, restaurants, wholesalers, and even Nationals ballpark; much of it is local and organic. Standing at my cutting board, I remove brown, wilted leaves from lettuce; cut blemishes from tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions; then chop, slice and dice them into appropriate sizes. This produce, rescued from certain demise, will be assembled into fifty to eighty 25- serving pans by the end of my three-hour shift. Combined with hot food being prepared in another part of the kitchen, DCCK will distribute 4,500 – 5,000 meals later today (and everyday) to 88 partner agencies serving at-risk individuals. This is food recovery at its best!

Fortunately, there is hope. More people are connecting the dots between hunger, economics, creation care, and food waste. Individuals are choosing to reduce household food waste; groups are recovering food from the waste stream; retailers, educated on Good Samaritan Act (1996), are more willing to donate food; companies are being held accountable to reducing food waste by stricter regulations that carry financial incentives or penalties; and businesses are sending their food waste to anaerobic digesters to convert into energy.

What can we do to reduce food waste?

* Purchase less food.
* Use up leftovers.
* De-clutter our refrigerator so we can see more easily what is in it.
* Eat down what is in our refrigerator and cabinets before purchasing more.
* Plan our meals; make a grocery list; and stick to it.
* Beware of bulk and buy- one-get-one free purchases that may go bad before we can use it up.
* Educate ourselves on “sell-by” and “use-by” date labels.
* Compost.
* Give our food scraps to farmers for their animals.
* Link up with our neighborhood bakery to retrieve unsellable leftovers and take them to the local shelter for homeless families on a regular basis.
* Encourage our grocery stores to donate edible food to food recovery groups.
* Join the Eat Trash campaign, asking Trader Joe’s to initiate a Zero Waste corporate-wide policy.
* Tell our produce managers that we are willing to purchase fruits and vegetables that may not be cosmetically perfect or uniform in size and shape, as we know they are still nutritious and tasty—and then do it.
* Encourage restaurants to reduce portion sizes.
* Take leftovers home.
* Ask every coffee shop, café, and restaurant we frequent what they do with unused food and encourage them to donate it.
* Patronize grocery stores and restaurants who donate to food recovery groups. (There’s even a new app that identifies restaurants in NYC that donate!)
* Volunteer with food recovery organizations like Interfaith Food Shuttle (NC), City Harvest (NY), or DC Central Kitchen. * Glean with an organization like Society of St. Andrew or Senior Gleaners (CA).
* Educate our CSA farm and farmers at the Farmer’s Market about gleaning and ask if we can connect them with a gleaning organization.
* Start a campaign to provide curbside composting for food waste.

Reducing food waste can help feed hungry people, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save money. We all eat, so we all can make a difference. As I John 3:18 reminds us, we love “not in our word or speech, but in truth and action.”

I’ll be having that eggplant parmesan for dinner.

Leah McCullough, a United Church of Christ minister from North Carolina, is spending a sabbatical year in the Washington DC area. While there she is listening more deeply and exploring a potentially new call to “Feed my sheep,” perhaps by recovering some of the staggering amounts of food waste in this country. She may be contacted at leah62367@yahoo.com



1 Jonathan Bloom, in American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), (Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press, 2010), xi.


2 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Waste Not, Want Not: A Guide for Feeding the Hungry and Reducing Solid Waste Through Food Recovery,” last updates on November 1, 2011, http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/pubs/wastenot.htm


3 Bloom, 150.


4 Bloom, 186-187.


5 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Basic Information about Food Waste,” last updated on November 1, 2011, http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/food/index.htm

Sermon for Chapel, November 3

Sermon – November 3, 2011 ~ Vicki Hesse, Seminarian

Text: Luke 15:1-10

Listen to the audio on YouTube - click here 

We humans have an

insatiable hunger for Lost and Found stories. 

Surely there are people

much smarter that I

who can name this

psychological archetype ~

lost thing goes missing,

lost thing is found,

much rejoicing occurs. 

For example, on the national news

there was a story about a cat

that had been lost on August 25

at JFK Airport, “Jack.”[1] 

Jack’s owner had handed him over

to the airlines

for shipment to San Francisco,

but Jack never arrived. 

When the story aired last week,

after two months,

Jack had been found,

having fallen through the ceiling tiles

at the airport.

By that time, he had 22,000 friends

on facebook (“Jack is Back”).

American Airlines agreed to fly his mom

back to New York for the reunion and rejoicing. 

Or how about the Massachusetts folks

that got lost in a corn maze last week.[2] 

The couple and their baby

entered the maze at daylight

but got lost as darkness fell.

They had to call 911 to be rescued.

The Police K9 unit found the family

in 7 minutes. 

While the couple was embarrassed,

the farm was rejoicing

with all the media coverage. 

Apparently, many more people

wanted to experience the maze,

thus their revenue increased. 

Even last week at the beach,

a man scanning the sand with a metal detector

told me how exciting it is

to find lost items on the beach –

especially after a storm,

when the coins and jewelry turn up

all in a bunch. 

His whole life revolves around

finding lost items… recovering The Lost

is his passion in life.

And in today’s Gospel,

we have the “lost” people –

the tax collectors and “sinners” –

and the “found” people –

the Pharisees and scribes –

who have come to listen to Jesus. 

The Pharisees grumble about Jesus,

thinking that he is lost

and must be found (out). 

Jesus, of course,

knows they are trying

to trick him. 

So, he tells two Lost and Found parables –

from today –

[followed by the Lost “Prodigal” Son parable,

but we have to wait for Lent for that lectionary.] 

These Lost and Found stories are familiar –

The shepherd leaves 99 sheep

to find the lost one

and when finding the lost sheep,

rejoices and celebrates

with friends and neighbors. 

The woman with 10 coins leaves 9 alone

to find the lost coin

and when finding the lost coin,

rejoices and celebrates

with friends and neighbors. 

These stories touch our own primeval

desire for lost and found stories

So where are we?  

who are we,

as seminarians, staff, faculty –

in these stories? 

Are we the lost ones –

in whole or in part? 

Is it possible that

maybe we are not wholely, totally lost,

but perhaps we can say

that we might have lost

part of our faith? 

Too much messy church history,

too much deconstruction of scriptures,

too much preoccupation with Greek? 

Have we lost our faith

in the midst of seminary? 

Or, as priests-in-training,

are we the searchers

looking for lost folks to “save”? 

Or, are we grumbling

about who else is lost

and must be “found out”?

How is this lost and found metaphor

playing out in our life?

Are we losing and finding? 

Speaking of losing and finding,

Last week’s news reported

the results of a government study.[3] 

It noted that the rich are getting richer and

the very rich are getting very richer. 

Over the last three decades,

the richest 1%

saw an income growth of 275%. 

Yes, 275%. 

Meanwhile, the middle income growth was 40%

and the lower income growth was just 18%. 

Certainly we have some

lost and found stories in this financial report –

which may be fuel

for the “Occupy” movement. 

In over 70 cities and 600 communities, “Occupy”

protestors (who feel like they are the “lost”)

have set up camp. 

Their rallying cry is “We are the 99%!” 

But wait –

didn’t the “lost” sheep parable

say that the 99 were left behind

while the shepherd went and found the 1? 

So who is lost in this real-life parable? 

Who is found?

At these “We are the 99%” protests,

perhaps a message is that everyone

is affected by the 1%,

the “manipulating ruthless profiteers,”[4]

which could be something

like the Pharisees and the Scribes

in today’s lesson. 

The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling. 

And Jesus found with them common ground.

Yes, the Tax collectors and sinners were “lost”

and God would find them. 

Jesus emphasized the compassionate,

searching nature of God –

the rejoicing, celebratory nature of God. 

The Pharisees would have agreed with this.

The subtle reversal occurred

when Jesus said that

rejoicing in heaven happens

whenever anyone repents,

or has a change of heart. 

That would include the Pharisees and scribes –

whenever one turns,

there is rejoicing in heaven!

The good news today

is that God’s mercy extends to all –

not just the lost 99%

but the Pharisees and scribes, too. 

What about that

“We are the 99%” cry? 

If you listen,

you can hear a double-entendre. 

Yes, the majority is suffering

from systemic manipulation

AND we are all, in some way,

complicit in creating and resolving

what ails us. 

In other words, “We are the 100%”. 

In God’s economy,

there is only an “us.” 

One person who stood squarely

in the midst of a

Lost and Found, reformation-age

Controversy –

one in which parties cried

about “systemic manipulation”

is Richard Hooker.[5] 

He is as important today

as he was in the 16^th Century. 

And not just if you are studying for GOEs,

but for the way he defined our “via media”

way of doing theology. 

Hooker made an active attempt

to confront, reconcile and hold in communion

the deeply opposed “lost” and “found” groups. 

In finding this middle way –

this “via media” –

Hooker crafted

what we now call

“Anglicanism”

in his masterful response

to the Puritans. 

His response was

the multi-volume book

with the snappy name,

“Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.” 

(The subtitle could be “How to build and run a church.”)

Hooker is important because

he defended the ideas and practices

of the Church of England,

with sensitivities to the Puritans. 

He valued the catholic aspects

of polity and worship,

yet sought reformation. 

Famously,

he denied the bible as the only authority,

he argued that reason was a gift from God to be used and valued in interpretation, and

he held up the traditional ceremonies as recovered from their original intent. 

Et, voila!

The Three Legged Stool –

scripture, tradition, reason. 

What was lost in religious controversy,

Hooker showed, could be found

in what we now call Anglicanism. 

There is much more to say

about Richard Hooker. 

He is for me a great inspiration.

He continues to inform

why I love the Anglican Church. 

One reason is that

he emphasized participation,

not grumbling and analyzing. 

Hooker would not argue

about what happens

to the bread and wine at Communion,

but held that transubstantiation

occurs in us

when we take and eat –

to quote,

“there follows [in communion]

a true change of both soul and body,

an alteration from death to life and

a sharing in Christ.” 

In other words, transformation occurs.

Transformation –

a turning,

a change of heart,

a repentance –

all of which

Jesus emphasized

in today’s lost parables. 

The good news today

is that in our community,

in our being lost,

in our Holy Communion,  

we are found.

Found by a compassionate, searching God. 

This is a God

who rejoices over one sinner –

over one part of the whole –

who is transformed, changed, turned. 

Will you rejoice with me?

Amen.

---

[1] “Jack The Cat is Lost in AA Baggage at JFK” on Facebook

[2] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/couple-lost-in-corn-maze-call-911.html

[3] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/income-for-the-top-1-has-soared-over-past-three-decades.html

[4] http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/80050_130158_ENG_HTM.htm

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Glorious-Companions-Centuries-Anglican-Spirituality/dp/0802822223

Rhythm

Walking on the beach, I notice the sound of the waves.  Over and over, recurring, recycling, ...

It's quite soothing.  My feet feel the sand and walk, too, in rhythm to a different beat.  That beat is the one connecting my heart and my breathing to the pitter-patter as I shuffle along. That beat includes silences long and still between every thought.

I believe that God is alive in this rhythm, too, in the splash-gush splash-gush of waves.  God awakens the inspire and exhale of my breath.  In the kerthump, kerthump of my heart beat.  In the flitter of the tiny birds who scatter after gobbling sand crabs. In the lumbering swelling of water just before it crests into a wave.

Rhythm.  A new name for God. 

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Matthew 11:28 (The Message)

Sermon: It's All God's

Sermon for Proper 24, Year A - October 16, 2011

St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Arlington VA

Text: Matthew 22:15-22

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Sometimes it helps to ask a child.

When asked, what it means that God created human beings in God’s image,

Eight-year-old Rachael gave some keen insight 

First, she asked a clarifying question,

“What’s an image?”

 “Ummm,” Grandpa replied, “something like a photograph.”

 “Oh,” Rachel thought.

“That’s strange.  God is invisible. 

How could there be a photograph of God?” 

Grandpa remained silent

while Rachael thought about this. 

Her wheels turned.

“Maybe…maybe it’s more like God is in the image of human beings.”

“Only it couldn’t be just one human being,

it would have to be lots…”

“…And they’re all different. 

Each one is different,

like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. 

So you would have to fit all the pieces together…”

“…Then they would be a community,

and a community is more like God.”

The insight of this eight-year old

could easily stand alongside any commentary

about how to understand God’s image. 

In the puzzling text we hear today,

this eight-year-old gives insight to

what it means to put the St. Andrew’s

mission puzzle pieces together:

joyous, growing, inviting, and caring.

The Gospel text we heard took place

while Jesus was visiting the temple,

on his journey to Jerusalem.

Up to this point, the chief priests and elders

had questioned Jesus’ authority. 

So as we enter the picture this week,

we understand there was already some tension –

an ongoing controversy

between Jesus and the Pharisees.

In this scene, the Pharisees had joined forces

with the Herodians

to ask Jesus a question.

Isn’t that puzzling that there,

in the temple,

there appeared two factions

that otherwise would be at odds

with each other,

but both wanted to entrap Jesus. 

They asked him a question,

prefaced by flattery and

were a bit obvious, as well,

repeating Jesus’ own words

(from the parable we heard last week),

“What do you think?” in posing their question. 

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

Jesus was aware of their evil intent,

and called them on it, those hypocrites.

First, he asked why they were testing him,

hearkening back to Deuteronomy

“do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Second, Jesus knew that

no one who claimed to follow religious laws

should have had a coin with an image

in the temple; that was sacrilege.

So, Jesus said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”

They replied, “The Emperor’s.”

It’s helpful background to note that

the word Emperor is the noun used

in the bible translation

by our church. 

However, in the Greek,

the word used is actually Caesar. 

Caesar was specific Emperor

whose image was accompanied

by an inscription considered

blasphemous by the Jews:

“Tiberius Caesar,

august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.”

In addition, the tax

was a specific census- or head-tax

that was quite oppressive.

One could only pay that specific tax with that specific coin.

So, when he said to them,

“Whose head is this, and whose title?”

and they replied,

“The Emperor’s,” the tension rose. 

Jesus knew it was a trick–

they intended to trap him.

If he said to pay the tax,

he would alienate the Pharisees

and would be persecuted

as a collaborator with the government. 

If he said not to pay the tax,

he would alienate the Herodians

and would be arrested for sedition. 

It was a political conundrum. 

How could Jesus have pleased both factions,

not taken sides,

and stayed true to his faith?

How can we please

competing factions in our lives,

while staying true to our faith?   

Isn’t that puzzling?

We may feel trapped,

as if two (or more) groups

have plotted against us,

forcing us to prove our allegiance

to one faction or another. 

We use coins that say

“In God We Trust”

and yet we rely

on our own strength. 

Each of us has complex choices to make. 

Sometimes these choices are

between the good and the better. 

We feel trapped when we have to choose. 

The choice might be

“spend extra time at work to meet a deadline” or

“leave early to enjoy the family.” 

The choice might be

“visit the in-laws for the holidays” or

“stay home and participate in a church event.”

The choice might be

“volunteer at Arlington Food Assistance Center” or

“attend a bible study.”

Sometimes these choices are

moral dilemmas. 

The choice might be

“accept how my cousin uses hateful language” or

“stand up for the respect and dignity of all persons and confront my cousin to stop spreading hate.”

The choice might be

“step back away from this person of whom I fear,” or

“step forward towards this person and engage in meaningful conversation, seeking Christ in them.” 

Many people today feel trapped. 

How do we fit the puzzle pieces together?

How do we respond?

Jesus responded. 

He said, “Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s

and to God the things that are God’s.” 

Jesus said, in effect,

it was not unlawful and

not against the Torah. 

He saw the trap they set

and liberated the Pharisees and the Herodians

from their small way of thinking.

Now, imagine that after saying

“Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s,”

he paused. 

Imagine he put his arm around the questioner,

looked at him, loved him. 

Then, with a wink and a slight hug, he offered,

“and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus didn’t choose either/or, he showed the both/and. 

It’s all of God; especially you, dear questioner. 

Jesus showed that

God’s image appeared

in the midst of this

messy human scene,

in the midst of the mixed up

puzzle pieces strewn about in tension and

now filled with grace. 

In a moment of compassion,

Jesus reminded them

that the world belongs to God. 

Jesus knew the scriptures,

and without mentioning it

probably had on his mind

Isaiah’s affirming words –

from the last lines of today’s first reading,

“I am the Lord, there is no other. 

I form light and darkness, weal and woe. 

I am the Lord, I do all these things.”

In a scene filled with God’s grace,

Jesus transformed the challenge;

he showed the picture on the outside of the puzzle box. 

He replied, in essence,

“Caesar can stamp his picture

and pedigree on the coin,

but Caesar can’t come close

to the true commerce

that animates the world.

Caesar’s image conveys oppression and power-over. 

Anyone can do that. 

Recognizing what is God’s image

Takes real compassion.” 

Jesus reminded them that

God had imprinted God’s image

on each of them

(and of course on every human being).

When the Pharisees and Herodians

knew what he meant,

that all people are

to give their whole selves to God

and only dross to Caesar,

they went away to think again.

Do we know what Jesus meant?

How do we respond?

How do we fit the puzzle pieces together?

Through God in Christ, we are liberated from the trap. 

It’s not one or the other, it’s both/and. 

God created everything that is,

including each “Caesar” and each “faction”

that might give us angst. 

To give to God what is God’s

begins with noticing God in everything. 

Noticing God’s joyous incarnation in every person we meet.  Noticing God’s growing revelation

in this community, St. Andrews.

Noticing God’s invitation to love each other deeply.

Noticing God’s care for this community to sustain it for more than sixty years through thick and thin. 

What is God’s?  It’s all God’s.

Jesus invites us today

to look at the puzzle image on the box

as St. Andrews,

a joyous, growing, inviting, and caring community…

These four are the corner pieces of

our community jigsaw puzzle. 

Joyously, we continue in the apostles’ teaching

and fellowship, breaking bread and praying.

Growing, we proclaim by word and example

the Good News of God in Christ.

Inviting, we seek and serve Christ in all persons,

loving our neighbor as ourselves.

And caring, we strive for justice and peace

among all people,

respecting the dignity of every human being.

Underneath and throughout our community

is the kiss of light in our eyes

and the watery sign of the cross on our foreheads. 

This is what we give back to God. 

All of our joyous, growing, inviting, caring faces

are together the images of the divine that God sees. 

The 8-year old Rachael in our opening story

challenges us

to look at connecting individual puzzle pieces

into God’s image,

into God’s community. 

The divine image is not fulfilled

by unique puzzle-piece images,

until they fit together. 

The sacred individual,

the sacred community,

the sacred resistance to the tyranny of Caesar…

when we place all these puzzles together,

we think again about God, the Image,

the community,

and the jigsaw puzzle of humanity and earth and heaven.

All things come of thee, O God,

and of thine own have we given thee.

Amen