February 27, 2011 - The Reverend Carolyn Estrada


Isaiah 49:8 – 16a Psalm 131 1 Corinthians 4:1 – 5 Matthew 6:24 – 34

Today’s trouble is enough for today.
I’ll say!

Most of us awaken to the news – The Times on our doorstep, NPR on the radio, reporting on the unrest in the Middle East, the war in Afghanistan, or the latest flash points in the economic crisis – union sit-ins in Wisconsin, the reaction of the banking industry to the investigation of its foreclosures…

And many of us, before we even get out of bed, have mental lists running through the back of our heads of what we need to do that day.

“I’m on a dead run all day!”
Gotta go here, do this, accomplish that…
The world – or at least our families, our jobs, our personal lives – depends on how quickly and efficiently we can get everything done.
Naturally there is some anxiety involved:
We worry we’ll be late getting from one point to another;
We worry about how we’ll look on this or that occasion, and whether or not we can acquit ourselves adequately of our responsibilities …
We worry about money, or appearances, or job security…

Our days are filled with stress: we get up to stress-inducing demands, read anxiety-provoking articles in the papers or hear them on the radio, experience the crunch of traffic or the urgency of our e-mails or the demands of our jobs or the precariousness of our health or the uncertainties of retirement or the future of our children and grandchildren.
Will we lose our funding? is only one of many worries gnawing at the center of our lives.

We don’t know what is going to happen.
And we’ve “gotta go! Gotta go!” Life isn’t going to wait for us!

No wonder these words of Jesus reach out from 2,000 years and resonate:
Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

I know, Jesus, I know.
But if I don’t do it, take care of it, who will?
Gotta go, gotta do, gotta…gotta…gotta…
It’s hard not to get caught up in it all!
And so we continue on our treadmill – which, by the way, doesn’t count as exercise! – and get caught up in the rat race, or whatever we choose to call our frenetic lifestyle.
“The Lord helps those who help themselves!” we quip over our shoulder as we go rapidly from one task to the next.
We feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.

Maybe we shouldn’t worry – is that simply one more admonition, one more thing to put on our to-do list? – but SOMEONE has to take care of all these details…

And then we remember Jesus’ comment about trying to serve two masters: God and wealth.
God and wealth.
I’m not sure that the “two masters” in today’s world ARE “God” and “wealth.”
“God” and “survival,” we might define it, at least as we experience it…

But I’m wondering if today’s “two masters” aren’t God and Self, our own indespensibility – so many, so much, depending on US.
God is over here, split off – on Sundays, during our prayer times – but mostly we go it alone.

And then I hear, embedded in this morning’s text from Isaiah, the antidote to our worry:
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

The image these words evoke for those of us with young children or grandchildren, I’m sure, is that propensity of kids to use markers and write on their hands – or the hands of others!… There is something about that marking, that inscribing…

We seem to have a fascination with “branding.”
We buy Coach bags.
We wear designer jeans, and USC sweatshirts.
Some of us get tattoos.
We monogram pillowcases and hand towels.
Our clothing bears our affiliations, our interests, our accomplishments…

Leaving Disneyland, my grandchildren always like to get their hands stamped. It has nothing to do with RETURNING that day – it has EVERYTHING to do with the stamp, with carrying away with them the mark of their day, their experience. They want to take that little piece of Disneyland with them.

These things are IMPORTANT to us, and people can read our affiliations, our interests, our accomplishments, our travel, on our clothing – and sometimes our bodies.
Boston Marathon.
Holland America Cruise Line.
Pebble Beach Golf Course.
Coors Beer.

It’s revealing to compare OUR branding with God’s: See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.

What does that tell us about God?
That God has “bragging rights” to who we are – might God be as puffed up and proud as the fan wearing a USC sweatshirt on game day?
Possibly.
But I think it tells us something even more important:
It tells us that we don’t have to “go it alone”?

When Jesus tells us not to worry, it is not an admonishment, or yet one more thing to put on our “to do” list.
It is a reassurance. A comfort.
The weight of the world is not on our shoulders!
We aren’t “in this” by ourselves!
God is with us.
We are with God.
We are NOT alone! We’re TOGETHER!

If we can relax and allow ourselves to know that experience of being inscribed on the palm of God’s hand, being held in God’s hand, our work, our efforts come out of a very different place; our days take on a very different “feel” and meaning.
What we do – and how we do it – comes from a God-place of power and love!
It may not change the world – but it certainly changes the way we react to the world.

We realize that anxiety is only counter-productive: we do what we have to do – and we let go of the rest, knowing that God has inscribed us on the palm of his hand.
God cares about us!
God is holding us!
We are here – here –

Take a minute right now to know this place-of-being.
In your mind’s eye, see your name, written there in God’s palm.
Take your finger, and trace the contours of your name…
Experience what it is like to be held by God, to have your being in the palm of God’s hand.

As you leave here this morning, and as you go into your week, carry that feeling with you.
For see: I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand, says the Lord.
Amen.
Posted by Mark at 10:15 AM 0 comments
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February 13, 2011 - The Reverend Carolyn Estrada

Deuteronomy 30:15 – 20 Psalm 119:1 – 8 1 Corinthians 3:1 – 9 Matthew 5:21 - 37

See, I have set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity…
Choose life.
Choose life: isn’t that what we all try to do?
  • We fasten our seat belts and look both ways before crossing streets – and teach our children to do the same.
  • We pay attention to our nutrition and take our vitamins;
  • We save money for a rainy day – or indulge in those “life-giving purchases” without which we cannot imagine living: a big screen t.v. or new bedroom furniture – or books!…
  • We go to the gym – or at least talk about trying to get enough exercise;
  • We seek ways to relieve stress: yoga or meditation or massage;
  • We take vacations or go on retreat.
  • We connect with support groups or therapists or spiritual directors.
  • We look for “balance” in our lives to ameliorate the effects of multi-taxing…
The “all time high” sales of self-help books certainly reflects our current culture’s preoccupation with seeking life.
It also reflects how easily we, in our secular culture, many deracinated from our religious roots, have slipped into the position of making ourselves the center of that “life equation”: choosing life has become “all about me” – my needs, my desires, my life – and the ever-increasing rings of “self care” we draw around ourselves only serve to protect an empty core.
Religion has often been central in establishing just what it means to “seek life” – and how – that has often resulted in its own set of rings, resulting in layer upon layer of strictures:
  • No meat on Fridays.
  • No dancing or card playing.
  • Dietary restrictions.
And so on. I have a friend who hired to teach at an evangelical college in the area, and before they could complete the paperwork for her employment was asked to sign a FOURTEEN page statement of belief, filled with things to which she had to agree or disagree, to think, say, or do.
Many of us were raised with some of those caveats, mandates of what we must do and must not do which ironically often took on lives of their own and became gods in their own right – and, I venture to say, they, too, protected what was often an equally empty core.
(I can remember my mother’s comment that as an adolescent religion had so many prohibitions that it seemed to diminish life, and it was only later, as an adult, that she found it could enrich one’s life, one’s relationship with God! A tragedy, which I’m sure would distress God as much as it does us. God WANTS our relationship with God to enrich our life; God wants our life to in God to be abundant! )
There is an Old Talmudic belief – you can build a fence around an impulse. If that’s not good enough, you build a fence around the fence.
Jesus bumped up against lots of fences…
  • His disciples plucked grain and ate on the Sabbath.
  • They worried less about what went into their mouths than what came out.
  • He healed on the Sabbath.
  • He spoke with women, and dined with all manner of folk one wouldn’t normally have at one’s table…
Jesus shows us what it is to “choose life.”
He replaces those fences, fence-upon-fence-upon fence with one thing: love.
We don’t need fences, he is saying; we need a plumb line.
  • We need a way of taking actions and making decisions that reflect care and compassion not only for ourselves, but for our impact on others.
  • We need to measure what we do against God’s overarching desire for justice.
  • We need to act out of a place of love deep within us that can connect us both to God and to our neighbor.
We need to ask ourselves: does this action enhance life – or diminish it?
When Jesus prohibits divorce, it’s not an abstract principle he’s invoking. It’s an example of this teaching within the particularities of his time and culture.
His was a society where women were property, and marriage was a business contract negotiated between two men: the father of the bride, and the prospective bridegroom. A man could divorce at will – just ask for that certificate! – and a women without a man was among the most vulnerable in society, reduced to begging or prostitution for her livelihood.
Not to divorce is living out of a core that “chooses life” – that assumes responsibility and care for others.
The result of living according to the ever-increasing series of commandments, decrees, and ordinances in order to lead blameless lives, often makes our lives smaller and more constricted. Thus, rather than leading lives reflective of God’s abundance, our lives become diminished, bearing witness to a poverty of spirit…
A few months ago The New Yorker had a cartoon showing Moses speaking to the Israelites in the wilderness. He had obviously just descended from the mountain, and was holding aloft the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. One of the crowd, raising his hand, asks, “What’s the takeaway on all this?”
What’s the takeaway on all this?
This morning Jesus tells us.
The “take-away” Jesus says, is to “choose life” – to act in such a way that we enhance not only our own lives, but those of our neighbor; and that we love God.
In another part of the Gospel – which we hear every Sunday morning – he gives us the “take-away” like this: that we are to “love God with our heart and our soul and our mind; and to love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Cultures change with time and geography.
Shell fish, once an anathema and still found in scripture as “forbidden,” is routinely a part of our lives. Unless we are allergic, we don’t even think about eating shrimp.
We are equally able to read scripture selectively (and contextually) around the issue of slavery.
Other issues, however, such as sexuality, have not faded as quietly into the culture, and there are those who continue to try to erect fences around the particularities of life today, resulting in page after page of what we must say and do and believe.
And Jesus offers us a new way to “choose life”:
Does what we say or do reflect love and compassion?
I ask myself how choosing life as Jesus defines it might shape our response to the issues both personally, and as a society. How might Jesus’ plumb line shape our response to issues like immigration or health care? Might they change the content of those discussions – or at least shape for form of them? Or personally – how might that plumb line shape relationships with co-workers? Neighbors? Or even impact that “road rage” we so frequently experience?
Choose life!
A plumb line made up of justice, love, and compassion is both more simple and more difficult than the fences upon fences of commandments, ordinances, and decrees.
It allows the message of Jesus to be timeless.
It also demands we pay attention to our own formation, not simply bumping against prohibitions, but living in such a way that we choose life – not only for ourselves, but for others.
St. Augustine, difficult as he may be sometimes, has said: “Our whole business…in this life, is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.”
Our whole business…in this life, is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen…
The “eye of the heart” sounds like Jesus’ plumb line to me!
The Sufi poet Hafiz speaks of humankind as “holes in a flute that Christ’s breath moves through” and asks us to listen to this music.
There is something about that breath that is life-giving.
Can Christ’s breath be heard through us?
Can we “choose life”?
Amen.







Posted by Mark at 10:15 AM 0 comments
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Food: Life-Sustaining or Life-Defining?

Chai Tea and designer coffees.
Locally grown.
Organic produce.
Free range…
Whole Foods and Mothers’ Market…

These words have become a part of our vocabulary – that is, a part of middle class, food-conscious-speak.  But, as Newsweek pointed out in a recent issue (Nov. 29, 2010),  “What you eat for dinner has become the definitive marker of social status.”  It’s easy to become self-righteous and dismiss off-hand people who don’t eat as we do as being ignorant, “irresponsible” for their carbon footprint, or “deserving” of the obesity epidemic we see in our culture.  Yet, while we worry about the what’s and how’s of what appears on our table, there are many people living not so very far from us who are what is termed “food insecure” and worry about whether there will be any food to get to the table.

More than three million Californians eat meals wholly or partially funded by food stamps, and it is estimated than at least another three million would qualify for food stamps, but for one reason or another don’t receive them.  Although the food stamp program operates on a “sliding scale,” with the expectation that people are able to supplement their food budget with their own income, for many that is simply not the case, and they are forced to live on what their food stamp allotment will provide.

Thinking about that “great divide” created by food-as-consumer-product vs. food as sustenance, and the ever-increasing popularity of reality shows about food, has started me thinking about food as a spiritual issue:  what does our relationship with food tell us about ourselves?  Our relationships with others?  With God?

So this year, at Messiah, I am proposing a challenge:  rather than giving up something like chocolate or wine during Lent, I am suggesting that we agree to eat as though we were on food stamps; that is, restricting our total food-spending per month to a formula used by the government ($200/mo. for one person; $367 for two, etc.)

Lent is another month away – Ash Wednesday is March 8 this year – so you have some time to prayerfully consider what we are asking.   Obviously, we want to support you in this endeavor should you choose to accept the challenge – AND we are interested in your struggles, your successes and your failures, what you found easy – and what you found difficult.  So – we will be providing everyone who signs up with a packet of information which hopefully you will find useful; we have reserved the Bride’s Room at 9 a.m. for Sundays during Lent for people to meet informally to support one another; and, we are asking our wonderful technology experts to set up a blog where people can share their experiences/frustrations/insights/questions/etc.  (I’m anticipating that one of the more difficult challenges (at least for me) will be social – how do you go out to lunch or dinner with friends if your total food budget is $200/mo.?  Or monotony.  On the other hand, there are also implications for “withdrawals” from addictions to the morning latte – or bottled water!)

We also understand that the whole idea of undertaking this challenge for 40 days may be a bit overwhelming (or impossible, if you were having to travel for business, for example), so we are offering the opportunity to sign up in one-week increments, hoping to get as much participation (if only on a limited basis) as possible.

Have you considered your relationship to food recently?  What assumptions do you make about it?  Is it life-sustaining – or life-defining?  Will you consider taking our “Lenten Food Challenge” this year?
Posted by Church of the Messiah at 12:58 PM 6 comments
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Transition Timeline


May 2010
  • Father Brad announces retirement effective October 2, 2011

June 2010
  • Vestry meets with Los Angeles Diocese Transition/Deployment office
  • Wardens conduct interview with Associate Rector

August 2010
  • Profile & Compensation committees approved by Vestry
  • Spiritual Director for the process appointed by Vestry

September 2010 – March 2011 *This is the current step*
Profile committee will:
  • develop parish survey, disseminate and evaluate
  • conduct focus groups
  • conduct history day
  • develop rector profile
  • develop parish profile

Compensation committee will:
  • develop compensation package for rector
  • develop budget for rector search

January 2011
  • Vestry will approve Search Committee

April 2011
  • Vestry will accept parish profile and compensation package

Diocese will:
  • generate candidates from church deployment office database
  • vet computer generated list with background checks

Search Committee will:
  • accept the Diocesan approved list
  • information packages sent to chosen candidates
  • candidates will submit resume, biography, sermons and written responses to essay questions
  • candidates interviewed by phone and/or in person
  • site visits by candidates and/or visits to their parishes
  • three qualified candidates are selected and presented to vestry

October 2, 2011
  • Celebration by bishop and parish of the work of Father Brad Karelius

Interim Rector Begins

2012 
Vestry will:
  • Review finalists
  • Call the final candidate
  • Conduct negotiations
  • Complete agreement
  • Make announcement to parish
New rector arrives
Posted by Mark at 8:45 PM 0 comments

Prayer for Rector Search

Gracious and loving God, we gratefully remember your guidance and presence as we reflect on our own lives as well as on the life of this church. Help each of us listen with our hearts for your direction as we journey through this process of searching for a priest to lead our congregation. Strengthen our desire to pray daily. Empower our commitment to the task that lies ahead. Increase our openness and trust in discerning the leading of the Holy Spirit: in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Posted by Mark at 8:40 PM 0 comments

The Search for a New Pastor

The retirement of our beloved, long-standing pastor, the Reverend Canon Brad Karelius in October of 2011 brings a tear to our eye and a challenge to the Vestry and congregation. The search process is on and we have a lot of gratifying work to do. Keep an eye on this page as all updates will be posted here as quickly as possible. Here follows a letter from our Senior Warden, Dee Tucker:

September 20, 2010

Dear Messiah parishioner,

"What is happening with the rector search?" "When will you be interviewing candidates?" These are questions we have been hearing the past few weeks. In talking with other churches and the diocese, your Jr. Warden, Lorna Adkins, and I have been counseled not to rush the process. Calling a new rector is a spiritual undertaking which, if done thoughtfully, will provide an invaluable opportunity for the entire parish to review and restate the hopes, dreams, and needs of Messiah.

But the long process has begun! The Vestry has approved the Profile Committee, chaired by Kitty Crary, which will develop a parish survey. We will all be asked what excites us most about Messiah. What are our strengths? areas that need attention? Using this information, the committee will produce a profile of the parish and of the future rector. Please participate when asked!

The Vestry has also approved a Compensation Committee to develop a financial package for the new rector and a budget for the search process, including travel expenses for committee members and final candidates. Bob Ward has agreed to chair this segment of our process.

Karen Goran, our spiritual director for the process, has written a prayer that is shared here in the form of a card. Please use this prayer daily as we know prayer makes a difference!

Only after the profile and compensation work is complete will the Vestry select the Search Committee. We anticipate that the actual search for a new rector will begin next spring. We do not know how long that process may take. We ask for your patience and faith in the process.

Many of you have asked, “What about Carolyn Estrada?” Lorna and I have conferred with her at length and have determined that she would be very willing to continue serving at Messiah. We are in discussion with the diocese regarding the exact role that Carolyn will play in the transition.

We thank you for your continued life-giving participation in this parish and for your prayers. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact any Vestry member or chairs of the committees.

And we ask one more thing: that each of you helps to make Father Brad’s last year his best ever!

Blessings to you,
Dee Tucker, Sr. Warden


Please offer prayers for the work of the Search Committee

Profile Committee:
Kitty Crary, chair
Angela Casares
Peggy Connery
Cov Davis
Beca Westerman Hendrickson
Royal Lord
Tony Miller
Richard O'Neill
Maria Rodriguez
Nicole Stults
Cecile Whiting (Vestry liaison)

Compensation Committee:
Bob Ward, Chair
Len Hightower
David Sonksen
David Stoneman
Lorna Adkins (Vestry liaison)
Posted by Mark at 8:36 PM 0 comments
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