Next week is one of my very favorite weeks in the calendar of St. Luke’s. Next week is Summer Celebration. Summer Celebration is our version of Vacation Bible School.

When I was called to St. Luke’s five years ago, I made a special effort to be here for this week. I’m glad I did. This year our theme, thanks to the good folks at Group Publishing, is PANDAMANIA; WHERE GOD IS WILD ABOUT YOU!

One of my very favorite parts of the week is to watch the enthusiasm of young people for the promises of God and the way in which they learn to care for one another. Since I’ve been here for this many years I’ve had the good fortune to watch campers become crew leaders and really give back what they’ve received over the years.

Karen Ward, formerly the pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Seattle a joint effort of the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, has focused much of her ministry on reaching those without a faith background. She and Holy Apostles set a goal that they seek to help folks make the transition from being guests to becoming hosts in a community of faith.

That’s just what Summer Celebration is here at St. Luke’s.

Sustaining enthusiasm is difficult, but it needn’t be so seemingly hard that we don’t even try. My hope is that the Holy Spirit continues to turn guests into hosts, one generation at a time and in so doing the face of the Church will be renewed yet again.

Here’s to Summer Celebration here and Vacation Bible Schools all across our Churches!

Though I’ve not been posting in some time, I’ve been hard at work reading and thinking on what the shape of the Church might be in age to come. (Like I’m unique in that, right?)

Part of what I’ve been doing is reading Bonhoeffer with colleagues for presentations we gave this past Saturday on the 66th Anniversary of his execution.  It seems to me that Bonhoeffer was having the ‘Emergent’ and ‘Missional’ conversation in his writing in the late 30′s up until the time of his death in 1945.

Much of our interest was coincided with the publication of Eric Metaxas’ new biography of Bonhoeffer entitled Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy. Though I have not read the book, the reviews are interesting in that they comment (generally) that Metaxas comes close to claiming a generally ‘evangelical’ reading of Bonhoeffer’s thought and work on ecclesiology.

Rather than get hung up on that, I suspect that what make Bonhoeffer so appealing to Christians of many different traditions are the deep truths he speaks and how he doesn’t shy away from ambiguity and is willing to wrestle with the issues of discipleship, worship, prayer and community that resonate with the age in which we find ourselves.

His work at Finkenwalde could well be seen as an expression of what we’ve come to call ‘the new monasticism’ in the Church today.  I guess it’s really “true, there’s nothing new under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9)

At any rate here are a couple of resources to check out on the life and work of Bonhoeffer and its meaning for the Church (read ‘Body of Christ’) in this “world come of age” (Bonhoeffer from Letters and Papers from Prison)

The Bonhoeffer Site

Jeffrey C. Pugh talks about his book Religionless Christianity and the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Lessons Appointed for Use on
All Saints’ Day
Year C RCL

Sermon Audio from November 7, 2010-All Saints Day (transferred)

By the Rev’d Warren Earl Hicks

Daniel 7:1-3,15-18

Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31

Sermon Audio-April 18, 2010; The Rev’d Warren Hicks

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this series of pictures speaks volumes about who is Jesus is and why we dare follow him for the sake of the whole world.   Good, Good Friday all!

In previous professional lives I’ve been, variously a chef and a seafood salesman. As preparation for ordained ministry, I recommend both highly.

Tonight I get the privilege of cooking and serving the main course in our final session of Disciples of Christ in Community (DOCC) at the parish.  I also get to preside at the Eucharist following that meal.  I’m very blessed.

Part of what makes the preparation of a main dish for special dinner so special is choosing the ingredients.

One of my candidacy interviews ended with this question, “If God were to ask you to prepare the heavenly banquet, what would you fix?”

I thought to myself, “What a great question!” and then I realized in an instant I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what to say. My mouth opened and I heard my voice say, “I’d find the best ingredients available and prepare them as authentically as possible.”

I still think, some 9 years later it was a very good answer and that ‘flesh and blood did not reveal this’ to me. I believe it was the Holy Spirit expressing what I have come to understand as the primary goal of discipleship.

Listen for the present truth of the word and pass it along as faithfully as possible, trusting the quality of the thing itself to satisfy those who feast at the banquet of God’s grace.

As a seafood buyer and salesman, I had a similar task, though one level removed from ‘the consumer’. My work was to find the freshest, most authentic, untainted, valuable (in the sense of best quality for the best price) product I could find and match up the customer with the product so that they might satisfy those who come to them hungry.

That’s ordained ministry, to be sure, but more basically than that, it’s what all of us as disciples are called to do.

Rest assured there are more than enough quality ingredients to go around and, just as in the feeding stories, there are bound to be wondrous leftovers.

May the feast you share with the people of God be of the best quality and as authentically presented as possible.

By the way, tonight’s entree:

Pan Seared Steelhead Trout with Grapfruit & Lime Marinated Scallops and Dill-Butter accompanied by Sauteed Asparagus, Summer Squash and Cremini Mushrooms!

If only I could tell you with confidence that following God in the way of Jesus would prevent sadness and tears in your life.  But I can’t.  The human condition in the world shows us again and again that we are going to have to endure trials of all sorts.  The promise of a life lived in relationship to God is the ultimate ordering of all things in God’s purposes.  If any portion of Scripture is a mantra to that promise it might be these:

Psalm 126:6-7

6

Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.

7

Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, *
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.

These are the last two verses of the psalm appointed for today in the Lection of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, remembering the Martyrs of New Guinea.  Your trials may not include the physical martyrdom endured by these Missionaries remembered this day, but the fact of the matter is that every life lived in faith and discipleship is going to require a death of one sort or another.

In Sunday’s gospel from Matthew (16:21-28) Jesus makes clear that dying to self is a requirement of discipleship.  Jesus makes clear that surrender and emptying of self, abandonment of personal agendas and a radical trust on God in times of severe trial and bad news is the narrow way to living the life of Holy Union with God in Christ that we are all invited to tread.

For today (and face it that’s all we can face right now), I choose to believe that every road of sorrows I’ve traveled with weeping in my heart and tears on my cheeks, will be overshadowed by the marvelous homecoming bathed in unbridled joy which the Psalmist speaks of here.

May all our tears be followed by the songs of joy that come only from God, the creator of all.  The one which is in all and is the hope of our salvation.

This text from Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 39:11 concluded the Hebrew Scripture reading for the Feast of Bernard of Clairvaux, celebrated today throughout Christendom.

If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand, and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him.

Bernard is in many ways one of the fathers of modern monasticism. Born to privilege he abandoned it all in order to spend his considerable gifts in the passionate pursuit of establishing truly Christian communities. Though few of us today in full-time pastoral ministry are setting out to establish monasteries we are engaged in very similar endeavor to that of Bernard.

Bernard’s passion (often at the expense of sleep and other frivolous activities) for building the Kingdom through the establishment of praying communities ought to be what the leader of every congregation would do well to imitate. Bernard sensed that the traditions of Jesus and The Way were threatened by an increasingly hostile or at least indifferent secular reality. If we’re honest with ourselves, we live in a similar age, asking for the same kind of compulsive, passionate and thorough proclamation by the Gospel by communities of praying, serving, studying and compassionate followers of Jesus.

We may, none of us, live long enough or cast as long a shadow as Bernard to remembered more than a thousand, but should we spend even a few days chasing as passionately  the life of discipleship for ourselves and those whom we pastor as did Brother Bernard—that will be enough.

Thanks be to God for Bernard.