LEVN Commissioning for Mission

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

It’s always funny to stand as a guest in the pulpit and then welcome people, but welcome! If we’ve not yet met, I’m Pastor Casey Dunsworth, and I am in my fourth year of service to the Lutheran-Episcopal campus ministry to UC Davis, and as Program Director for LEVN, the Lutheran Episcopal Volunteer Network. You probably know at least part of that, which is why you’re here!

Thank you for your presence this evening to celebrate the start of our seventh LEVN program year. Though we have a few years of experience in this ministry, we’re also doing a few new things this year! We have moved the LEVN residence from our little yellow house in Davis to the triplex here at All Saints. We have transitioned in leadership from two clergypeople to one pastor and one lay executive director. We are, as always, welcoming a new corps of LEVN volunteers. Our LEVNeers—Livvy, Ryan, Joy, Victoria, Sarah, Ray, and Remington—and our Executive Director, Emily, will be duly installed later in the service.

It’s our fifth full day together as the budding 2018-2019 LEVN community, and these newly-minted LEVNeers are probably already tired of hearing this, but I am a Lutheran. I am a Lutheran pastor who serves a Lutheran-Episcopal ministry. Before coming to serve the Belfry, I was vaguely familiar with the Episcopal Church, because my best friend from high school is Episcopalian and I had some Episcopal classmates in seminary, and—until then—I mostly got away with knowing that it was fancier than Lutheran but not as fancy as Catholic. As I began serving here with the Rev. Jocelynn Jurkovich-Hughes, our recently former priest, I learned as much as the students and LEVNeers did about how ecumenical ministry works.

Among my favorite things that I have learned in this ministry so far is the practice of commemorating saints and other important historical figures. Because Lutherans do a lot of things, I hesitate to say something as general as “Lutherans do not do this” but I cannot name any Lutherans who regularly commemorate saints in their liturgies.

You may have noticed when you picked up your bulletin this evening that the commemoration for today in the Episcopal calendar is twofold: Aidan and Cuthbert, Bishops of Lindisfarne from the seventh century. Before putting together this liturgy I had not heard of Bishop Aidan or Cuthbert, and unless you are Livvy or another equally astute church history superfan, you probably could use a little refresher about these holy men.

Bishop Aidan, who died in the year 651, evangelized Northern England and Scotland, and his life “provides us with a strong example that actions often speak louder than words, and the best kind of Christian evangelism is that which proceeds from godly and charitable living.” Bishop Cuthbert, who died in 687, served during a period of “plague, war, and schism,” but “went fearlessly among his people, ministering to the wounded and inspiring hope in the survivors.”  

You probably did not intend to be inspired by seventh century English Bishops for your year of LEVN service, but you could do worse. The scripture that is associated with this commemoration is some of my favorite, which is another reason why I am so excited to celebrate Bishops Aidan and Cuthbert today.

We sang a hymn as we began our liturgy this evening, called “Light Dawns on a Weary World”. The refrain, in particular, is a paraphrase of the Isaiah 55 text, in which the earth celebrates: trees clap their hands, mountains burst into song, and all creation lives in peace.

The LEVNeers read a book in advance of our time together by an Episcopal author, Barbara Brown Taylor, called An Altar in the World. We’ve been talking this week about how all spaces are sacred, all bodies are good, and that the whole earth is the house of God. Jesus knew this, and Bishops Aidan and Cuthbert knew this, and now you know this.

Throughout the program year, you will be challenged by new scenarios in your community life, at the organizations where you serve, and in the wider world. As you set your intentions for your year, it is my hope that you will learn and grow from these challenges, inspired by the change you are making in yourself and in the world around you.

This is a weary world, that part is not hard to see. You will serve alongside intrepid colleagues, whether they are social workers, or clergy, or non-profit directors, or administrators, or some combination therein. You will encounter neighbors, clients, community members, parishioners, and strangers. There will be days when you feel you truly accomplished something, making a difference in the life of someone else. There will also be days when you feel like you tried as hard as you could and nothing really happened.

You are invited to spend this year paying particular attention, though, to the light that shines in that darkness. The light of Christ is not overcome by even the most exhausting circumstances. Some days, you will be the one shining the light into the dark corners. Other days, you will be the one breathing the sigh of relief as someone else shows up with the flashlight. We’re all in this together.

Y’all may have heard about the huge undertaking that was getting this program year off the ground. Our move across the causeway could not have happened without the generous contributions of household goods and furniture from our community, or the countless hours put in by volunteers to move all of those household goods and furniture, and to prepare the apartments for the LEVNeers to move in. Several days out of the last few weeks, friends of the Belfry shined a flashlight for me and for Emily. This community is not just seven LEVN volunteers, or our staff, or our board, but the whole network of people who come together to build it,  piece by piece.

This year, I hope you feel like you are part of something. I hope you feel like you are invited and welcome to be all of who you are, whether you’re even sure who you are. I hope you feel like the other people here are learning alongside you, and that you—as individuals and as a community—are growing. I hope you feel like, as we talk and learn and read and sing and laugh, that you belong here.

There’s another Episcopal author named Diana Butler Bass who has written several books about church. She wrote one called Christianity After Religion that looks at what we’re going to be in this age of “spiritual but not religious”-ness. It’s an interesting book, but it has one part that I’ve carried with me since I read it several years ago. She says that in the old way of being church, there were three B’s: Believe, behave, belong.

You went to a church because you believed the things they believed (or wanted to) and then learned from them how to behave according to those beliefs, and then once you’d gotten all of that squared away, you could “join” the church officially. You could really belong there. That probably sounds familiar, and maybe doesn’t sound entirely problematic to you.

But what if we flipped it? She asks. What if instead, we belong and then behave and then believe? What if we are invited and welcomed into a community, no questions asked? What if, then, we see how others act and we learn new ways to love ourselves and our neighbors? What if, then, we come to believe the truths they teach?

You may not find this particularly radical, because you have been part of a community that operates this way. Or, you may be surprised to hear that such a way is possible. In either case, you belong here. This is a year of discernment, where you may change your mind about just who you are and how you belong here. That’s okay! That’s actually great!

If you discern that you’re Lutheran or that you aren’t; if you discern that you’re Episcopalian or that you aren’t; if you discern that you’re queer or that you aren’t; if you discern that you’re called to be a pastor or that you aren’t; if you discern that you’re going to go to graduate school or that you aren’t. You belong here.

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans that we just read from, he names outright that we are all bringing different things to the table. This year’s seven LEVNeers come from five different states, not counting the other states they lived in before that, or the countries they’ve lived in and served in. Y’all come from seven different families, communities, specific Christian traditions, and ways of being in the world.

This is the greatest strength of the Body of Christ. The seven of you and the wider community that supports the ministry of the Belfry are made up of prophets, ministers, teachers, preachers, givers, leaders, and helpers—just as Paul suggested. Our common life only works when each of us lives fully into the whole self that God has called us to be.

We talked this week about purpose and vocation, wondering about our passions and gifts, and how we can combine those into something beautiful and meaningful and life-giving. As this year continues, you will be amazed at how many different component parts make up the LEVN whole. You will begin to see the connections in the broader network of this diocese, this synod, this non-profit community, this city, and the Body of Christ. I don’t know where we’ll be when we gather to close this LEVN year, eleven months from now. But I know we’ll get there, together.

As we prayed the Daily Office together this week, one of my favorite prayers we prayed  was written by—you guessed it—Martin Luther. I love it because it acknowledges that the journey we embark on—whatever that journey may be—will be difficult, but that God will always accompany us. We will need our wits about us, and we will need to be courageous. Not because we are going it alone, but because God gives us the capacity to reach just a bit farther; to take the first step, even when we cannot see the whole road. Please join your hearts in prayer with me, one more time.

Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Go Feed a Sheep—A Sermon at the end of a LEVN program year

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

Here we are, y’all. Our final Monday evening together in the Ranstrom Chapel. We’ve come together to these creaky chairs dozens of times over the last 11 months. Our first weeks together feel like simultaneously yesterday and years ago. Some of you have remarked throughout the year that it has gone faster than you thought and slower than you thought at any given time.

When you came to Davis for your year of service—whether you’d never been to California, or had lived just a few hours from here all your life—you knew this was going to be different. You shared a house with complete strangers, and formed relationships you’d never have expected. Whether you’re a Lutheran, or an Episcopalian, something else entirely, you’ve thought about and talked about it more than you ever have before. You’ve prayed new prayers and sung new songs. You’ve eaten foods you hadn’t encountered before, and even cooked for your vegetarian program staff. You served the people of your placement sites faithfully, meeting new people and going new places and acquiring new skills.

You have seen and been part of how non-profit organizations and churches and the capital-c Church work diligently together to change people’s lives. You have also noticed how non-profit organizations and churches and the capital-c Church perpetuate human systems and concentrate power at the top. You have lamented this, and you have considered how you will be part of changing this.

One of my favorite things about being your LEVN program director is learning. You are learning, and I am watching that and sometimes facilitating that, but also I am learning, and you are sometimes facilitating that. We are learning together, as we work to follow Jesus out into the world.

As you probably learned when you picked up your bulletin, the commemoration for today in the Episcopal calendar is Bishop William White, a bishop from Pennsylvania in the 1800s. I had not encountered Bishop White until I was putting together tonight’s liturgy; like I said, we’re always learning. Other than Jocelynn and perhaps other astute Episcopalians among us, you are about to know as much as I do about him:

“As a clergyman in Philadelphia, White had exhibited an unusual sensitivity for the poor, the unfortunate, and those who were in trouble. He was president of the Philadelphia Dispensary, which supplied medical aid to the poor; of the Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf; and of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. He was concerned about religious education and was instrumental in the founding of the first Episcopal Sunday school in America.”[1]

Do you know about the origins of Sunday school? In the time that Bishop White was serving, child labor was legal, and so children worked in factories or on farms and didn’t go to school. Sunday schools were formed so that children could learn—probably by reading the Bible. This was an incredible service that the Church began to provide—and all sorts of churches provided it, in cities around the country. Eventually, child labor laws were enacted and many children were able to attend traditional schools, but Sunday schools remained for those who couldn’t, and eventually became places for supplementary religious education, like we know them today.

Like any person, but particularly any white religious leader in the 18th and 19th centuries, we can be assured that Bishop White acted in some ways that we would critique; for example, he opened a separate school for black and Native American children. Two steps forward, one step back. But as we read the gospel text assigned for tonight, we can see how we and Bishop White do our individual parts of the collective work begun by Jesus and his disciples.

The words of Jesus we heard tonight are words you’ve probably heard many times before, and will hear many times again. “Feed my sheep,” the Good Shepherd says. This year, we’ve talked about all sorts of different sheep who are part of God’s flock. You’ve learned, day in and day out at your placement sites, that there are plenty of hungry people out there—literally and figuratively. And you, too, have hungered. You, too, have learned what it is like to receive hospitality from strangers. You, too, have struggled.

This gospel text is interesting, because, though we only get a little sliver of it, it connects us to so many other stories. Jesus is asking Peter three times, “do you love me?” and Peter is replying, with increasing exasperation, that yes, of course he does! This parallels Peter’s increasingly vehement denials of Jesus just a few chapters before. And, in the verses that precede this portion, Jesus appears to the disciples for the third time after his resurrection. They’re out fishing, and Jesus cooks them breakfast.

I sense Jesus’ disappointment with this scene. Before his arrest and crucifixion, they were working hard, traveling the countryside spreading the good news that the reign of God has come near. And now that he is risen, and they have seen him, they have returned to their former lives of fishing. Yes, they probably needed the income, because their itinerant gaggle of teachers and healers had basically disbanded. Nobody was hosting them, or feeding them, or washing their feet anymore. Seeing that Peter is the one who has led them back to their boats, I see Jesus shaking his head softly, with a knowing sigh.

Rather than strike out on their own, taking a risk to continue preaching the gospel, they have returned their old lives. And because “Jesus has shown that there is no need for Peter to be preoccupied with his own needs, Jesus now demands that Peter, the leader, train his attention on the needs of others—the followers, the ‘sheep’ of Jesus’ flock.”[2] Do not simply get into your boat and go fishing to feed yourself and to make a buck. Get off of this beach and get to work feeding the whole body of Christ.

Peter is one man, and Peter is a stand-in for the whole capital-C Church. María Teresa Dávila, a lay Catholic woman liberation theologian, calls the Church to task. “Like Peter, our religious leadership needs the direct confrontation with the resurrected Christ, calling our duplicity and hypocrisy to task, in a dialogue that is both incriminating and transforming, recommitting us to the sacrificial love required to tend the flock.”[3] 

As you look out on the transition from your little yellow house to the rest of the world, how will you take what you’ve learned this year and use it to feed the sheep? How will your life of love and service be challenging and transforming to your communities, to your workplaces, to your churches, to your nation? This is the duty and the joy of the Christian life. As members of the body of Christ, you are voices in the chorus and you are thorns in the side.

We have learned this year that loving your neighbor—your housemate, perhaps?—is not simple or easy or trivial. Love is hard work. “Love is, indeed, the prescription to heal our denial of the reign of God, to accept the task of leadership that is handed to us, to guide and teach the faithful in the ways of God’s realm. For many, leadership grounded on a witness of love has meant true martyrdom in the name of justice, restoration, reconciliation, and love.”

It is my hope that when you hear a familiar gospel story like this one, in your future, you will not gloss over it as one you’ve heard a million times times before, but will hear it anew each time. That you’ll take stock of your circumstances, of how the world has changed since you heard it last, of how you have changed since you heard it last, and that you’ll develop new ways to feed the lambs and tend the sheep, as Jesus has asked. It will not be simple, or easy, or trivial. It will be hard work.

We do not expect you all to leave this place and go on to become quote-unquote Religious Leaders in the traditionally recognized sense. Becoming a pastor or priest or deacon or theology professor is an excellent vocation, and if any of you find yourselves called to those things, we will rejoice with you and keep you in our prayers.

But more importantly, to me, is that you will go out into the world of education, and art, and the non-profit sector, and the law, and medicine, and politics, and wherever the Spirit moves you, and find that in all of those arenas, there are sheep to feed. Placement site supervisors and members of the Belfry board are prime examples; being part of the ministry of LEVN is above and beyond their job descriptions. With LEVN and through LEVN and post-LEVN, you, dear ones, are equipped to feed the lambs and tend the sheep.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

_____

[2] Allen Dwight Callahan, “John”, in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary, 210.

[3] María Teresa Dávila, “Third Sunday of Easter”, in Preaching God’s Transformative Justice: Year C, 201-202.

Love Your Housemate as Yourself—A Sermon at the end of a Program Year

Wow, here we are, on our final Monday night in the Belfry together. What a year it has been!

When I look at your faces and think back to the first week we spent together in this room, 11 months ago, I remember the infamous group photo, now plastered all over our social media and marketing. I remember our first retreat to Camp Noel Porter in Lake Tahoe; the adventures you went on around town, the murder mystery film you made. I remember the long car ride to and from Diocesan Convention, and all the hard work you did to such praise from the event coordinators. I remember our Reformation Day games, pinning the theses on the door, lovingly painted by a handful of you for years of future Belfry students to roll their eyes about. I remember our Advent craft party and the Star of Bethlehem collage we made out of advertising, which I am keeping in my office forever. I remember our Liberation Theology retreat at the Bishop’s Ranch, a heavy weekend of films and essays and hard conversations. I remember sending Pastor Jocelynn off on her sabbatical, and wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. :) I remember the Monday we tried and failed to make rosaries, and then the other Monday where we tried again, and still didn’t really manage to get it just right. I remember Holy Week and Easter, where we were sadly not together, since it was also Spring Break. I remember our spring retreat to my beloved Berkeley, where we wondered aloud about the movement of the Holy Spirit.

It was certainly the movement of the Holy Spirit that brought you here, to this yellow house. You probably wondered a few times about what you’d gotten yourself into, and it may be still quite some time before you figure out what this year even was.

From my perspective, this year has been one learning experience after another. I am blessed beyond measure to be in community with the eight of you, here in this place. This is not to say that it has been a walk in the park. Y’all have challenged each other. Y’all have challenged me. Y’all have challenged yourselves.

Working in ecumenical ministry, in general, is full of challenges for me. For example: we Lutherans do not have the same relationship with saints that Episcopalians have. I had to spend some time noodling around online, and eventually just texting a friend, to find out what it meant that today we celebrate Saint Bartolomé de las Casas—let alone if there was anything problematic about him. He lived in 16th-century Spain, and is considered a human rights activist, but didn’t have it totally together. He was opposed to the developing practice of enslavement of the native people on the island of Hispaniola, currently the Dominican Republic and Haiti. However, he advocated for the enslavement of Africans instead, so, not really a winner. Once he became a priest—the first one ordained in the Americas—he realized he’d been wrong, and that slavery of any kind was contrary to the Gospel. So deep was his conviction, Saint Bartolomé spent 50 years of his life arguing for the full humanity and emancipation of enslaved people, and went so far as to refuse absolution—the forgiveness of confessed sins—to slave-owning Catholics. It is for this that he is celebrated. [1]

Like Saint Bartolomé, we’re all learning on a spectrum. There’s a steep curve sometimes, especially when it comes to matters of deep human suffering and our personal convictions. Sometimes, we take what we believe to be principled stands, only to discover that we’ve inadvertently excluded or offended someone. We can also learn from Saint Bartolomé, though, just how strong we are when we stand on the Gospel. When we look out into this messy society, and read tonight’s lessons, words repeated throughout scripture—“love your neighbor as yourself”—we can see that it doesn’t match up. We can see that our neighbors are not listening, and our neighbors are not being heard, and our neighbors are not loving, and our neighbors are not being loved.

This Gospel text is part of the Sunday lectionary during the season of Lent. During Lent, we are prepared and we are preparing. Sacrifice, discipline, work, prayer. We sit in the desert and wallow in our existential desperation, right? Though we are far from Lent, the world around us these last few months has been dreadful. Terrorism at home and abroad have relentlessly overwhelmed our television screens and twitter feeds. The epidemic of gun violence in this country has somehow worsened from the last time we thought it was as bad as it could get. We have been flooded with anxiety as a nation, as a church, as a community here in this room. All of us are operating, maybe even without noticing completely, with an added layer of fear and distrust of our neighbors. This generalized anxiety rubs off on even our smallest interactions, whether it’s with a barista or our coworkers or our housemates. We bristle, and we put up walls, and we protect ourselves.

We know, though, that living in community cannot, fundamentally, be done alone. Eight isolated human persons do not make an intentional Christian community. Renita Weems, a womanist scholar, reminds us that “As human beings, we are all mutually connected to each other and dependent on one another for our emancipation and our survival.” [2]

Eight people who are learning together, struggling together, eating together, praying together, laughing together, arguing together, singing together—that’s what you’re made of.

And conflict in community is unavoidable. Never has there been a community without conflict—never has there been even a singular human being without an internal conflict! When we read these words of the Apostle Paul, written millennia ago to a community in Rome, we might ask, “What are the lessons for those of us who are church today?” Well, “conflict in the church is not a scandal or a shame; rather, living that conflict, together in love, has been the work of the church from its beginning.” [3]

Every time we read the letters in the New Testament, there’s some issue that the Apostle Paul is trying to help a community solve. Their problems aren’t all unique to the first century—though some are—and our problems are not all unique to the 21st-century—though some are.

The questions continue. “How do we live when we hurt and anger each other? How do we live the gospel daily?”

This is what you’ve been working on all year. What does it look like when we talk the talk and walk the walk of Christian life? What does it look like when we don’t agree about all the ways we talk and walk the Christian life? We go back to our fundamentals. We listen to the words of Jesus, quoting the Torah, cited by Paul: love your neighbor as yourself.

Show up for your neighbor. Commit to your neighborhood. Commit to your common life. Be present, here, in this chapel, at this table. Shelley Douglas puts it beautifully when she writes:

“We maintain our common meal, our sign of unity and redemption. We love each other and follow God’s commands. When relationships break down, we do our best to resolve conflicts in love….We are reminded here that as a community we are not only to nurture and affirm each other, but also to guide, teach, and remonstrate. Behind every action, however, must always be the rule of love.” [4]

When you leave this yellow house next week—though you may come back—you will be leaving the community specific to the 2015-2016 LEVN program year. Never again will all eight of you live and work right here in this place. You have one week left to love these neighbors in this way. You have been doing it, for the most part, for the better part of a year. After next week, you’ll never again have the opportunity to live this particular common life with these particular beloved children of God.

But you’ll have the opportunity—for the rest of your life—to forge Christian community with your new neighbors. Your new housemates. Your new coworkers. Your new friends. Your new siblings in the family of God. Every time you come to the table, you’ll be in community with everyone else who has ever and will ever.

I am so grateful to have been in this particular community with you for this year, and I look so excitedly forward to how I’ll continue to be in community with you after you leave this place. Keep up the good work, dear friends. Continue to nurture and be nurtured; continue to affirm and be affirmed; continue to guide and be guided; and when you continue to protest each other’s actions and to have your actions protested, remember the love that underlies your life. Love and be loved.

Amen.

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[2] Renita J. Weems, "Womanist Reflections on Biblical Hermeneutics," in Black Theology: A Documentary History, ed. James H. Cone and Gayraud Wilmore (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993).