Author Archives: Elizabeth Richardson

Heaven

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Easter Sunday (C)
April 21, 2019

Isaiah 65:17-25 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 24:1-12 Amazed at what had happened.

Good morning! I was hoping you’d be here. You look beautiful. Thank you for coming to Emmanuel Church to kick-off the festival of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. I think that the Church gives us 12 days of Christmas, 40 days of Lent and 50 days of Easter, because Easter is the hardest to grasp. I’m glad that you’re here whether you love this holiday, or you don’t so much. Maybe you are here because it matters to someone you love, or you are here for a sadder reason. I love to say, whether you have come for celebration or solace, whether you are energized or exhausted, excited or grumpy, whether you have skipped or stumbled into this sanctuary, my hope for all of you is that, you will leave here today knowing more deeply that you are loved – that even if (and maybe especially if) you don’t feel like you “fit in,” still, you belong here today. Emmanuel Church is a place where we actively practice belonging to one another no matter what. It’s not always easy, but it is always worth it. This is a place where we focus our efforts not on whether we (or anyone else) will get into heaven, but on whether any heaven will get into us.[1]

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Beginning Our Holiest Week

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Palm Sunday (C)
April 14, 2019

Isaiah 50:4-9a It is the Lord God who helps me.
Philippians 2:5-11 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Luke 23:1-49 “????” (So many questions.)

…they had been enemies…

1: All other Sundays we begin the service inside. Why do we begin outside on Palm Sunday?

Every year at least one person tells me how much they dislike our Palm Sunday ritual of blessing and processing with palms – and it’s never been a complaint about how, in the old days, that is, in medieval times, the procession used to be from one church to another and back again, and now it’s just out one door and in the other. “Why do we do it at all?” is the question behind the objection. My response is not intended to stifle the grumbling – grumbling is usually okay with me because it’s a sign of engagement; it’s a sign of intelligent life! My response is that I prefer embodied liturgy and there just aren’t nearly enough opportunities for folks in the congregation to move and pray, or move and sing, between our boxy seating arrangements and our Anglo-Saxon religious heritage, which is pretty buttoned up. I do understand that going outside and coming back in is disorienting and chaotic and chews up time, and it separates those who are willing and able to do it from those who aren’t. Besides, this Palm Sunday is also a day when we have visitors who are in town for the marathon. On the other hand, church is a place where we regularly have the chance to participate in things that we don’t necessarily like, with the assurance that the thing that one person dislikes is the very thing that someone else in the community loves. When we’re doing it right, we take turns liking and disliking things in this community. Sometimes we are giving by our participation, and sometimes we are receiving. Sometimes it’s both.

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Love is about to do a new thing.

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Fifth Sunday in Lent (C)
April 7, 2019

Isaiah 43:16-21 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Philippians 3:4b-14 Press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
John 12:1-8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.

O God of gratitude and hope, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

In my nearly two decades of preaching, I have ranted many times about the story we just heard our deacon Bob read from the Gospel of John. My chief complaint is about the way the lectionary and Sunday School lessons privilege the story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair, rather than the older (and I think truer) story of an unnamed uppity woman anointing Jesus’ head with costly perfume, the way a prophet anoints a king. If you haven’t heard my rant, or want to hear it again, speak with me at coffee hour![1] I have also ranted many times about the Church’s misuse of Jesus’ response to the complaint about extravagance that “you always have the poor with you.” When a complaint about extravagance comes out of the mouth of one who is stealing from the common purse, we know to suspect that the complaint is not legitimate and Jesus’ response is not about ignoring those who are poor whether he is with them a little while or not. It’s just the opposite.

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Bold Action & Wild Patience

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Third Sunday in Lent, March 24, 2019

Exodus 3:1-15. I AM has sent me to you.
Psalm 63:1-8. Love, my Love, for You I search. My throat thirsts for You.
1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Flee from the worship of idols.
Luke 13:1-9. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

O God of our longing, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

When I encounter our three lessons and the Psalm appointed for today, the third Sunday in Lent, I find myself drawn to the story of Moses’ encounter with the Holy One – with the disclosure of the divine – the Great “I AM” and Moses’ response: “Here I am.” It’s a story that is always close at hand in my spiritual topography: the common bush burning up but not burning out; the name of Love that can be translated: “I AM BECOMING WHO I AM BECOMING” or “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE” and the great call to free people from the oppressively narrow places of taskmasters (external and internal). I also want to say some things to you about the language of yearning in Psalm 63.

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Building up Belovedness

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First Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2019

Deuteronomy 26:1-11. You, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you.
Romans 10:8b-13. The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Luke 4:1-13. It is written … it is written … it is said.

O God of our many songs: grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

Earlier in the week, when our Deacon Bob suggested that our Gospel lesson be read by both of us, to emphasize the dialog, I jumped at the chance to read (and embellish) the lines given to the devil because, in my experience, the voice of the devil always sounds reasonable, and I am nothing if not reasonable. You might know that the Greek word for devil, diabolos, or the Hebrew word, satan, can refer to anyone who brings charges or challenges against someone else. It’s the role of prosecutor. According to Luke, Jesus had just experienced at his baptism, a voice assuring him that he was the beloved child of the Holy One. Then, curiously, Luke adds Jesus’ 78 generation genealogy. It starts with: He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi…and so on, about 50 more generations through David, back to son of Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah….and back 16 more generations to son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. According to Luke, Jesus is (by adoption) “son of God” because he is a direct descendant of Adam, who was the son of God. The point is, Jesus has heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved,” and Luke has listed Jesus’ lineage, back to son of Adam, son of God.
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Subversive Alleluias

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany,
March 3, 2019

Exodus 34:29-35. Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone.
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:12. Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry we do not lose heart.
Luke 9:28-43a. And all were astounded by the greatness of God.

O God of glory, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Those of you who have heard me preach before will know that my desire to preach against the ways that the Christian Church has promoted supersessionist theology (that is, the idea that Christianity supercedes Judaism) gets stronger every year. Supersessionism is very much like racism – it’s systemic, it’s oppressive, it’s insidious, it’s often internalized, unexamined, and always wrong. It distorts our vision and injures our souls.
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A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

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Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 17, 2019
Jeremiah 17:5-10 In the year of the drought it is not anxious and it does not cease to bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 The first fruits of those who have died.
Luke 6:17-26 Blessed…blessed…blessed….blessed….woe….woe…woe…woe.

O God of healing, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

With the beautiful Brahms motet and the brain-scrambling passage in 1 Corinthians about resurrection, I don’t know if you could hear the connections between Jeremiah and Luke, but I want to call them to your attention. This is a lectionary pairing that is striking to me – possibly because we haven’t heard it read in church for a dozen years. (Having a sixth Sunday in Epiphany in our lectionary year C turns out to be rare because of church calendar idiosyncrasies.) The prophet Jeremiah is addressing his nation with judgment and lamentation for its apostasy – its abandonment of its covenant relationship with the Holy One. He says the ways in which the nation has missed the mark (of Love) are engraved on the hearts of the people because their obstinate and cowardly behaviors go so deep, they are marred to the core. Jeremiah employs the metaphor of a dried-up shrub to describe the nation that has turned toward its own strength and away from the Holy One. The nation is so compromised that it will not even see when relief comes – when good comes. It’s an ancient way of saying, “they wouldn’t know a good thing if it knocked them in the head.”

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Always a Catch

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Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany (C)
February 10, 2019

Isaiah 6:1-8[9-13]  Keep listening but do not comprehend.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Luke 5:1-11  Put out into the deep water.

O God of the deep, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

 

This morning we heard a part of Isaiah that I bet most of you are not familiar with. The verses that follow the famous call story of Isaiah, explain just exactly what Isaiah is being called to do: say to the people “listen but don’t comprehend, look but don’t understand,” so they will not turn and be healed. “How long, O Lord?” Isaiah asks. Until the desolation is complete, says the Holy One. Until there’s nothing left. If Isaiah agrees to be sent, this is what he can expect if he does his job: God’s Word will not be comprehended. People will not repent. I hear echoes of this story in Luke and in our own time. Is this prescriptive or descriptive? I don’t know – but I find it true.

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2019

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29 January.  We celebrated John Harbison‘s 80th birthday in our Parish Hall with some of his jazz songs, a piece composed by Michael Gandolfi with libretto of Lloyd Schwartz‘ selections from John’s recently published book What Do We Make of Bach, and a tower of cupcakes wheeled in by Pat Krol, Executive Director of Emmanuel Music.

John Harbison at the piano provided by M. Steinert & Sons with Don Berman, Lynn Torgove, Pat Krol, and singers of Emmanuel Music.

  • Thanks to a generous grant from the City of Boston’s Community Preservation, Commission restoration work on our Newbury St. façade began under the direction of Vestry member Peter K. Johnson.  The multi-year project involved repair and refinishing of five sets of doors with their tympana, masonry work for our central entrance and several staircases, and roof work to prevent ice dams.
  • cover of book on Bach

    Craig Smith directing our orchestra with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on viola; Don Wilkinson, Paul Guttry et al. in the chorus.

    Pendragon Press published Bringing Bach’s Music to Life, a compilation of Craig Smith’s program notes for 24 cantatas, edited by Pamela Dellal, in its series of Monographs in Musicology.

From Solitude to Community to Ministry

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Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (C)    

February 3, 2019

Jeremiah 1:4-10   Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a ….
1 Corinthians 14:12b-20  Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking; rather, be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults.
Luke 4:21-30  They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.

O God of healing, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Last week, we heard the first part of the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, according to Luke. Jesus, filled with a spirit of holiness, announced that, like the prophet Isaiah, his ministry was about setting people free – free from hunger, illness, disability, poverty, prison, debt, and from all kinds of oppression. Luke’s reports Jesus asserting that God’s promise in Isaiah was true in the distant past of the Babylonian exile, perhaps true in some unforeseeable future, but most importantly, true in the hearing of those listening (and that includes us). In this second half of the story, things take a sudden turn from amazing good to amazing bad, as my daughter Grace once said in despair.

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