Message on Light and Authentic Service

7/20/15 Asbury Camp and Retreat Center

Evening Campfire Reflection 

Joshua Barrett

Jesus said “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5-14:16) 

I want you to take a moment and look at the flames before you right now. Go ahead….  Now look at my phone’s LED light…. Notice some difference. Now, as I continue to speak, keep your eyes on the fire till I ask otherwise.

Watch the flames dance as they jump and twirl and waltz around. Soak in the visual and radiant warmth this ember glow gives. Even at the center of these flames, there is some shadow, isn’t there? Light and dark. The seen, and hidden. Revelation and mystery.

Okay now you can stop looking at the fire.

I want to talk to you guys (and gals) about light this evening. When I asked you to look at the fire, I hope you actually thought about it. It is quite a different light than the one that we use on our cell phones, or we use indoors. Flame looks and feels more genuine and authentic. It doesn’t feel so cold and sterile like the LED lights. The LED light almost felt harsh, and offensive, compared to the light we have from the fire. Author John Donahue thought that “Flame is earth’s light, it is the light most friendly to the soul, it is soul light”. I think he is onto some great thought here. We should seek a genuine light of the soul.

Have you noticed that people tend to open up when they are around a fire or in candlelight? I have personally experienced sitting around a fire late at night, our first night together, with a huge group of campers at my childhood summer camp. There was 20 of us, all around 17 years old. I couldn’t see their faces, they were veiled in shadow, but the flames lit up our silhouettes just enough to determine the thing we were talking to was human or not.  That mix of revelation and mystery to one another gave us the chance to open up our genuine selves, in a genuine light. I will never forget that night or the connections I made to those veiled people, whom later became some of my closest friends that week. I still don’t know exactly who in that group I talked to that night, but I do know, we were shining on our hill.  

Jesus names us as lights, in the shining context of our service to others. But we must be careful to not serve with our LED light. Jesus wants us to shine our authentic lights like a flame, bright and open. Open to God and open to one another. To serve those we are helping this week in our LED light would be unauthentic. But to serve with the flame that God gives us, our wonderful individual lights, can warm those around us, including those we serve this week.

Yesterday, we discussed with Bethany what service means. We heard how Jesus makes himself one with those in need. Jesus’s earthly ministry was soaked in the upmost importance in concern for those who need assistance or help, and upholding the dignity of everyone. In serving others, we serve Christ himself. Those good works we do this week, should shine with our flame. We might get tired, we might get sunburned, we might even get a few paint stained shorts or shirts by the end. Know that what we do matters. It matters to this group, it matters to those who we serve and it matters to God. I encourage you to shine. I also encourage to let your true light, your true authentic flame shine, in this sacred space here at Asbury. Amen. 

Christian Community

The following was preached on July 16th 2015, at Asbury Camp and Retreat Center, Family Camp Evening service. 

Community is one of those words we hear often. Almost too often. We hear it at school, PTA meetings, church services, our towns, cities and villages. All these are different types of communities that have something to offer the greater good. We can often find ourselves being pulled into many different directions by them. There is one community that is radically different than all the others that weave into our daily lives. This community is often the hardest to want to be a part of. This crucial and life-giving community, is a Christian community.

Christian community can be alternatively thought of as being in one big family, where baptism marks us with Christ, our common denominator. In Ephesians (2:19) Paul says: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God”. God has a big house and there is space for all people who want in on his family. One of my favorite authors, Barbra Brown Taylor said “Jesus did not despise the family, but he did redefine it. For him, family was not a matter of whose chromosomes you carry around inside of you, but whose image you were created in”.

Now, we have a little better idea of what Jesus likes to think about community. Birthed in the creative love of God; his gathered community, his church, even this group of people here at Asbury on this retreat, have to find ways of maintaining   community. How on earth do we keep Christian community? Love. Not romantic love, that’s weird for a group of people. Not a simple tolerance of each other, that’s superficial and unauthentic. God calls us to an agape love. Agape in Greek, means unconditional love. It is used to describe the love that Christ has for us, and the acceptance and dignity we should give each other. This kind of love calls us not to a blind free for all, feel-good-vibes, love, but one that weaves concern, support and accountability to and with one another. This kind of love calls us into the new human community.

In the scripture we read together from Ephesians, we see Paul trying to appeal for unity among diversity. He tries to balance the divine calling of being one with each other, and the human responsibility for putting in the effort to maintain it. With the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”, we name God at the center, and go to work, reflecting our common denominator, Christ. This concern should not exclude those who are “not with us” but should serve as a reminder that we should be in concern for all those we encounter, even those we disagree with, have hurt us, or exclude themselves.

One regular reminder we have as Christians to be in and maintain community is the one God forms in Holy Communion. It is a mystery how God takes simple bread and wine (grape juice), uses them to carry his love and power to us, and bring us into his very heart. In this action, we as humans are forced to see one another as welcomed and wanted by God. The reality that God loves each one of us so much, and calls everyone to his table shows that even those we least expect, or want to think, are just as beloved and called as you are. This common bread and common cup teaches us that it isn’t us who is the host of this Holy Meal, but God, and that others are God’s beloved sons or daughters too. We begin to see each other as God sees us. Rowan Williams said “For that short time, when we gather at God’s table, the Church becomes what it is meant to be- a community of strangers who have become guests together and are listening together to the invitation of God”.

God invites us to be together in faith, hope and love. God consistently calls us to the way things will be, and points us to that with offensively simple things like bread, wine, water and words. God’s calls us to the way people should be, together as a family. 

Marked as Christ's Own Forever

Marked as Christ’s Own For Ever
February 22, 2015

Just this past September I made a very permanent decision. I got my first tattoo. It is a Jerusalem cross, with equally long sides and four smaller crosses in its corners. I was extremely excited for this symbol to be on my wrist. My mother, however, did not share my excitement. This cross on my right wrist is not just an arbitrary symbol to me, it is a reminder. It reminds me that I am marked as Christ’s own forever.

In our church’s baptismal liturgy, after we baptize the individual, the priest marks their forehead with a cross of oil, claiming that the individual is Christ’s own for ever, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. “To be baptized is to recover that humanity God first intended” (Williams, Rowan). I needed to be reminded of that cross that I too carry, but in ink. It reminds me that I am unconditionally loved and accepted by God, while being called His beloved son. It also serves as a reminder that when I shake someone’s hand, I should seek the Light in them.

I did not always possess this awareness. To arrive at the point where I am know, it took a lot of personal struggle and confusion.

I am an openly gay man. I grew up in a religious and social atmosphere that was as stuffy and strict as the air lock at Carrier Dome, where being openly gay was not really a social norm. From very young I was taught that being gay was wrong. I was taught that to be gay, was to be somehow intrinsically disordered. Not acceptable. You can imagine that when I came to the realization of my sexuality, I was absolutely terrified.

For two solid years I lived in a place of self-loathing. I believed that If only I could change my sexuality, I would be able to be loved by God again. In the efforts to change myself, I hopped from church to church. At one point, I tried being a Pentecostal, ya know the ones that speak in those mystery languages when they were “slain in the spirit”? I was one of those for a while. I attended that church in the hopes that it could find a way of “curing me”. They obviously did not succeed. There was also a time where I simply did not go to church at all, sick of not finding answers.

I roamed around the spiritual life for quite some time. I was lost in a turbulent ocean of teachings and doctrines that would rock me back and forward until I ended up completely lost within myself and with God.

Every single night, I would pray only one prayer. Only one. I would ask God to take away this fault, deformity, and defect I felt I had. I felt completely isolated and alone. It was like God turned his eyes away from me. When I reflect back on that time in my life, I can only muster up an image of extreme chaos inside. There was no light in my eyes. None to have and none to share.

One night, I changed my prayer. I simply asked God if he loved me at all. In that very moment, something incredible occurred. It was as if God spoke to my heart, and said “I love you just as you are. You are mine. You are my son”. That moment changed my life. I discovered for myself just what God actually thought of me; that he rejoiced in me, exactly as he made me.

With this knowledge of my newly found acceptance, I came out to friends, who accepted me graciously and showed me love. But the challenge came, when I came out to my parents. My parents loved me unconditionally, and that was clear, but in their search for understanding they went to the family priest. This man made it extremely difficult for me, in my family and religious life. My family, was thrown into an immediate sense of extreme tension and struggle. My parents tried very hard to understand. They wrestled with my sexuality for quite some time. This was not at all something they expected. I specifically remember the screaming matches that were the result of me even bringing up my sexuality.

The family priest decided that I was simply just in a fleeting phase of my life, and made it clear of his disapproval of me. To this day, I am not made welcome in the very church that raised me from infancy. With the sting of rejection I searched in the wilderness, with only the Spirit as my guide, for a church community that did not just simply accept me, but celebrated me as a gay child of God.

One Sunday, I stumbled up the steps and through the bright red doors of the local Episcopal Church. Which also is named, St. Luke’s. In that building of sandstone and mahogany I found not just a parish family, but a whole denomination that accepted me and loved me just as I am. The liturgy was breathtaking, the hymns were majestic, the people, incredibly loving, but what really hit me was that all were welcome to God’s table. All meant all. The “all” included those who were lost and those who were found. All meant young and old, weak and strong, gay and straight, those who come to the altar often, and those who arrived there for the very first time. To see God’s radical welcome put into practice was amazing. It made me feel as though I belonged there with those people, and at the altar. Which of course, we all do in fact, belong.

Through the finding and acceptance I found in the Episcopal Church, I experienced God’s grace. As a spiritual refugee, I found a home. Now a confirmed and active member of the Church, I can say that we really don’t realize how lucky we are to be in a community of faith that proclaims God’s love for all, and is fearless in their welcome to God’s love. We have something special here, in our denomination. I wish I knew about a church like this when I was younger. People are looking for what we have to offer. I have experienced God’s love through this church, and I couldn’t be more thankful. Here, I have become more myself.

As one of my favorite Celtic theologians J. Phillips Newell said: “Grace…is given not to make us something other than ourselves but to make us radically ourselves”.

I think the most wonderful part of getting to share my story, is that God does not just call me his son, but that those words extend to each and every one of us. My tattoo reminds me of my baptism.

I don’t remember the details of that August afternoon, but I do know that the same love splashed on my forehead that day, is my sharing with Jesus in his family, that I am so lucky to have found. The cross on my wrist that will quite literally mark my skin forever, reminds me of how far I’ve come, and how grace will meet us where we are, but will never leave us where it found us. Sometimes it drops us off in the best of company.
Amen.