Good Stuff!!!!!

Check out this op-ed piece from the U.K. regarding the release of the British Soldiers by the nation of Iran.

God's Peace,
Jason+

Surprise, Surprise! I'm a music nerd!

Ran across this quiz over at Bob G+'s Blog Hypersync. To those that know me, you aren't surprised I came up a music nerd.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Musician   Doo doo de doo waaaa doo de doo! (<-- That's you playing something.) Everyone appreciates the band/orchestra geeks and the pretty voices. Whether you sing in the choir, participate in a school/local band, or sit at home writing music, you contribute a joy to society that everyone can agree on. Yay! Welcome to actually doing something for poor, pathetic human souls. (Just kidding.)
Literature Nerd
Social Nerd
Drama Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

God's Peace,
Jason+

Sermon for Easter Vigil 2007, Year C

Romans 6:3-11, Luke 24:1-10

“Do you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

I speak with you in the Name of God the creator, Jesus the savior, and the Holy Spirit that makes all things new. Amen!

Were any of you shocked by our passage from Paul read just a few moments ago? I wasn’t either. It sounds like pretty typical churchy type stuff. Thoughts like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah baptized into death for new life…whoopty do preacher, it is Easter you’re supposed to say that,” might be running through your head. And, I don’t blame you if they are. When I was reading the passages this week in preparation for this sermon, I certainly flew by that first sentence of Paul’s. My hectic, day to day, what’s the next thing to get done, eyes just skimmed right over it with ne’er a thought at all. But something drew me back, and made me look again. Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death;” not his kingdom, not his paradise, not his club, gang, or crew, not even into his family, but into his death.

Let us not breeze past this death, let us not euphemize this death with phrases like, “He passed on,” or “He was at rest,” or “He was no longer with us.” He died! The Christ, the savior of all was nailed to a tree and left to hang there until he suffocated, until his lungs filled with fluid and he literally drowned in mid-air.
We should not, indeed we cannot, overlook this death because death is our common denominator. Despite our desires to the contrary we will all die. Despite whatever advances in the practice of medicine might occur we will all die. Furthermore, death hurts. Be it our own or that of a loved one, death will always entail suffering; either the physical pain of the dying process, or the emotional grief that comes from losing one we love. Death, like love, hurts!

Let there be no doubt on this point, Jesus’ death was a human death, complete with suffering and mourning. He experienced agonizing pain. Those that loved him experienced bewilderment and grief.

But Jesus’ death was more than a human death. Jesus’ death was the ultimate act of solidarity on the part of God. Jesus lives into the name Emanuel, God with us, in the fullest sense when he experiences what we all experience: death. Jesus’ dying on a cross is a bold and clear message that God is with us in our darkest hours, in whatever depths of pain and suffering we might find ourselves, God is there with us.
The cross of Christ is also a conviction; a pronouncement that we reject the love of God. The violent shameful death of Jesus is a clear condemnation that a society based on domination can not handle a freely loving God; therefore that freely loving God must be destroyed. Now, we have no grounds to judge neither the ancient Romans nor the ancient Jewish leadership. For indeed we continue to kill Christ to this day. Jesus told us in Mathew 25 that when we serve the least of society we serve him. Consequently, the opposite is true as well. When we hate, we hate Christ. When we allow people to starve, we are starving Christ. When there is injustice in our laws, we are wrongly convicting Christ. When we fight wars, we kill Christ. Therefore the cross stands before us, a constant reminder of our inability to be what God intends for us, a reminder of our inability to accept the love of God, indeed the cross of Christ will always remind us of our sin.

At this point, you might be wondering if I have gotten my days confused. You might be thinking at this point, “Preacher, this sounds a whole lot like a Good Friday sermon instead of an Easter Sermon. Where’s the glory, the joy, the praise? Why are you dwelling on Death and sin?” Indeed, you are right, the cross is more then solidarity, more then conviction, it is also a sign of Hope. The death of Jesus on the cross is a sign of hope because it points to the Resurrection. Jesus’ commitment to be God with us—the divine in solidarity with human kind—continues on past death, beyond this mere physical existence to whatever is further than death. The Cross points to our hope in the Resurrection because beyond the indictment and condemnation we receive from the cross there is forgiveness in the Resurrection. From the cross and the empty tomb we learn that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even our sinful rejection of God’s love for us shown in Christ Jesus. Therefore, indeed, there is joy today, praise, and thanksgiving; for God, as we have heard this night in the account of salvation history, has been about saving us since the moment we went astray.

But how do we get there? How do we get to this redeemed resurrected holy life? How do we live in this world but not of this world? How do we not look for the living among the dead? How do we come to this table, this altar of God, to receive the body and blood of the risen Christ? How do we get beyond the cross and, indeed, beyond the empty tomb?

The answer is in the back of the room. We enter this resurrected life through the death of baptism, and that is why I linger this evening upon the death of Christ. My brothers and sisters in Christ, through our baptism we are united with the Israelites in their deliverance by God through the waters of the Red Sea. Through our baptism our dry bones are given new life, breath, blood, and tissue. Through the waters of baptism we are united in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through the waters of baptism, “This is the night, when [God] brought our fathers [and Mothers], the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land. This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.” My brothers and sisters, Christ is risen. The lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen!

Quote from Abraham J. Heschel

"An idea or a theory of God can easily become a substitute for God, impressive to the mind when God as a living reality is absent from the soul."

--Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 2, p.1

Good Friday

Greetings,

I'm having an odd Good Friday so far. I feel guilty, but not the way you would think. I haven't been meditating on the crucifixion and come to some deeper understanding of my complicity in death of Christ. Rather I feel guilty because I feel well rested. Holy Week is a busy time for clergy, and I have been busy this week. However, thanks to the shared effort of the leadership team here at my parish, and intentional nap taking on my part, I am not feeling stress, beat-down, haggard, or burnt out. For some reason that makes me feel guilty. Maybe there is some protestant work ethic still left in me that hasn't been completely pushed out. But part of me wonders if I'm letting my team down a bit, if I haven't taken my fair share of the load. I don't want to be worn out or haggard, but I also do not want my team worn out and haggard as well. I especially do not want them burnt out because I didn't take on my fair share of the load. This, my personal mind games and over thinking, is starting to take my mind off of Christ. Hopefully the services today will help me refocus.

God's Peace,
Jason+

Maundy Thursday and the Thursday Four

Greetings,

In honor of Maundy Thursday, this Thursday Four, derived from the Friday five of RevGalBlogPals, is simply this: What four commandments of Jesus do you find the hardest to keep?

Here's my answers:

4. Washing feet.
3. Making sure to store treasure in heaven not on earth.
2. Praying for my enemies.
1. That damn golden rule gets me everyday!

Thanks for playing. Put your answers in the comment section or a link to your post on your blog.

God's Peace,
Jason+

GO TO THE MOVIES!

I rarely give commands, because they are ineffective in the long run. However, for the sake of your soul, go see the movie Amazing Grace. I learned more about being a man and standing up for my convictions than any war film, action thriller, or drama I have ever seen.

God's Peace,
Jason+

Palm Sunday Sermon

Here is a my sermon from this past Sunday, but if you want to read one that is far superior to mine check out the Running Priest.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

May only God’s word be spoken, and may only God’s word be heard. Amen!

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately, more specifically Jesus’ spiritual leadership. It is not surprising thoughts of leadership have been banging around in my skull, since the vestry retreat ended yesterday; even more so because it is lent and we have been following Christ. Christ is leading us toward this day, Palm Sunday and leads us still toward Easter. This Day we follow Jesus liturgically in the invasion of that ancient Middle Eastern city Jerusalem.

Jesus’ act of riding into the city on a donkey colt is leadership because Jesus is showing us the Godly way to establish the Kingdom of God. Picture with me, that scene of Jesus, probably covered with way more travel dirt then paintings and artistic renderings allow, riding into town with throngs of people waving palms and shouting the royal greeting:

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Watching this had to make the “powers that be”, the religious leaders of the day, a bit nervous. In fact, we know some Pharisees were nervous because the scriptures say they tried to get the crowd to shut up. But why they are nervous is not clearly stated. The Gospel of Luke is silent on that point and we are invited to speculate.

Now, I think the Pharisees and other leaders were nervous because they weren’t Episcopalians. See, they had actually read their bible. Now, I know the bible wasn’t complete by this point, and for sure, despite popular misconception, Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem wielding a brown, soft leather bound, King James Translation of the bible with his words marked in Red. I know this. When I say the leaders of Jesus’ day knew their bible, I am, of course, referring to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, consisting of the books of Moses, the writings, the psalms, and most importantly for today the Prophets. They knew the great stories of the faith! See when Jesus rode in on a donkey, the Pharisees and other leaders had to recognize the scene from Zechariah 9:6 where the prophet writes,
“See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

They would see Jesus, and instinctively remember the foretelling of the coming prophet king that would establish peace and lift up the lowly.

Now, you might still be wondering why this made them nervous. Establishing peace sounds like a good thing. Indeed it is, unless you are part of the elite who prosper from the status quo. See, in order for the lowly to be lifted there would a disordering of the system, a reorganizing of the way things are. Like Mary the mother of God says in the Magnificat, for the lowly to be raised, the high must be brought down. Consequently, those that manage the system, those on top of the pile, are loath to lose there station. So seeing Jesus’ paradoxically triumphant entry on a humble mule, would make the Pharisees nervous, would make them ask: what is this prophet-king going to do, and what will this cost us personally?

Now the Pharisees weren’t the only power in town. Jerusalem was occupied by the Roman Empire. The sight of Jesus coming in town and being greeted as a king by the people had to at the very least seem weird to the Romans. See, it was ingrained in the Romans that peace came through victory, Roman victory; and the Romans were very good at victory. Make no doubt about it, in their day they were the only super power. They had the largest military force that was also the best funded and equipped with the latest in technological advancement. Where Rome went, Rome conquered. Rome was in no way squeamish about inflicting great violence upon the conquered. So, the Roman soldier standing a top the walls of Jerusalem watching Jesus amble into town on a colt had to wonder, “What’s the big deal?” “Where is this guy’s army?” This dirty hoard of unemployed unarmed fishermen, tax collectors, and vagabonds can not take on the Roman Empire.

Now, we know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey use to say: a week later Jesus is dead and risen. A few decades later the temple is destroyed and the religious leaders all but exterminated, and the Roman Empire eventually falls as well.
Which leads me to ask, “what are we hereafter today?” How come we Liturgically remember, indeed we re-enact Jesus’ triumphant entry and his last days leading to his crucifixion. I have two ideas about this:

1) We do this worshipful imitation of Christ, because we know about the resurrection, but we don’t understand it. We may intellectually realize that Jesus defeats the powers that be and even the ultimate power of death by his life, death, and resurrection. But we do not get that the kingdom of God is not established by conquest; peace does not come from victory, domination, or control. Indeed, we often are more like the Romans and the Pharisees then we are like Jesus. We still build bombs instead of levies. Our schools are more separate and unequal then we admit. And our battles in the church are more about who we can keep out, more about maintaining the status quo; rather than about how we can share the good news with everyone.

2) We do this thing called Holy Week, because deep down we know number 1 is true. We know we are not right. We know we are wrong. We know we are not as God intends us to be. That’s why we say the confession every week. We know that we need to be formed, indeed transformed by God into what God intends. Simply put: we got some learning to do.

I am blessed to be married to an educator, one who is professionally engaged in the formation of others. She reminds me often that absolutely the worst way to teach anyone anything is through lecture. Study after study after study shows that talking at people just doesn’t get the point across. Now, I am a preacher. I like to think that my craft is affective and effective; so, those study result do not make me happy. However, I know they are true. We learn best by doing, by practice. So that is why we are here this week. That is why we processed with palms today, and why we will wash feet on Thursday; why we abstain from communion on Friday, and immerse ourselves in salvation history to await the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil. We do them in the hope that by literally doing what Jesus did we might be transformed to be more like Jesus. That we may continue to hope that we will structure our lives both personal and communal in more Godly ways. Indeed we do them in the hopes of letting the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our victory is in our defeat, our salvation in the cross, and I invite you this day to walk with Jesus to the cross. Come! Receive the bread and wine, the body and the blood of Christ shed for you and for all. Come let this mind be in you! Amen!

The Friday Five

This game originates from revgalblogpals and it is called the Friday Five. Play in the comments section or post a link in the comments to your post on your blog.

This week is entitled: Holy Week, Batman!

1. Will this Sunday be Palms only, Passion only, or hyphenated?

Yes!

2. Maundy Thursday Footwashing: Discuss.

The footwashing on Maundy Thursday is experiential worship at its best. Jesus said do as I do, so we do in the hopes of being more like Jesus.

3. Share a particularly meaningful Good Friday worship experience.

Last year I preached on Good Friday. I think we did three services with never more the four or five people at each one. But inspite of the small crowds, or maybe because of them, I really connected with how lonely the disciples must have felt that day. It really helped me imagine what it would have felt like if God were dead if only for three days.

4. Easter Sunrise Services--choose one:
a) "Resurrection tradition par excellence!"
b) "Eh. As long as it's sunrise with coffee, I can live with it."
c) "[Yawn] Can't Jesus stay in the tomb just five more minutes, Mom?!?"

I'm at a new church so this is my first Easter here. My hope is for number 1, of course.

5. Complete this sentence: It just isn't Easter without...
BRASS lots and lots of BRASS! I could do without the lilies however.

Bonus: Any Easter Vigil aficionados out there? Please share.

Yep! I love the Easter Vigil, especially the readings. I would love to use all nine, but alas that isn't going to happen this year. Anyway, it is a wonderful experience of being immersed in salvation history, of getting in touch with our best story and hoping to live it.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my responses to the Friday Five. I hope I get to blog next week, but I am going to be busy for sure.

God's Peace,
Jason+

The Thursday Four!

I'm ripping this game off from RevGalBlogPals who does the Friday Five game. I should be writing a sermon right now, but since I am not feeling very original at the moment--evidenced by my theft of this game--I am procrastinating; therefore in the comments section, tell me four things you like to do to procrastinate. Here's mine:

1. Blog
2. Read
3. Go to a book store
4. Bug other people in my office to procrastinate with me!

God's Peace,
Jason+

IPOD Shuffle

Another installment in the Ipod shuffle game I picked up from Bob G+, though I believe he picked it up from someone else.

1. Bach, Well Tempered Clavier, Fugue in C# Major, Daniel Barenboim Piano
2. What a Friend in Jesus, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Funeral For a Friend Album
3. Adam Raised a Cain, Bruce Springsteen, Greetings from Asbury Park
4. Bach, Well Tempered Clavier, Prelude in E Minor, Daniel Barenboim Piano
5. Beautiful Day, U2, All that you can't leave behind.
6. Carnival Time, All Johnson, A Celebration of New Orleans
7. Beethoven, Symphony #3, Finale, Berlin Philharmonic
8. Beautiful Savior, St. Olaf Choir, Hallelujah, We Sing Your Praises!
9. Bach, Well Tempered Clavier, Prelude in F# Minor, Daniel Barenboim Piano
10. Cuttin' Out, Professor Longhair, A Celebration of New Orleans.

Thanks for Playing!

A confession

With a title like, "A Confession" for this blog entry, I bet you were hoping for something juicy. Well...I'm not sure how juicy this post is; so you might be disappointed. What follows is a confession I wrote for our "Wednesday night laid back Eucharist" We have been using it during Lent, and last night was the last night. We'll probably pull it out again next year. However, our of my own egotism, I wanted to give it a little longer life. So, here it is...

Gracious God, who creates all there is and loves all there is; you command us to love as you love. We failed, we fail, and we are failing. Too many of your children, our neighbors, went hungry and died today; too many of your children, our neighbors, were oppressed today; too many of us counted our wealth in material possessions instead of your love today for us to call ourselves successful Christians, successful God Lovers. Please forgive us. For Christ’s sake have mercy on us. Give us yet another chance to love ourselves, our neighbors, and you as you want us to. Amen!

God's Peace,
Jason+

of moses and fig trees

This is my sermon from last Sunday. Not my best. Not my worst. But it is like I tell my congregation...I don't take credit for the good ones, and I don't take blame for the bad ones.

“I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you…you shall worship God on this mountain.”

May only God’s word be spoken, and only God’s word be heard, Amen!

Today is a special day. Not only is the Sun due to peek its head out this afternoon; not only, with the advancement of the clocks this morning, do we have a clear sign that spring is about to be sprung; not only do we get to freely gather here in this house of God and experience the mystery of communion when we come to this table and receive the ultimate gift of God’s grace in the mundane gifts of bread and wine; not only do we get to sing and pray, but we also get to witness the birth of a community.

Just a few minutes ago, we read the calling of Moses, also known as the story of the burning bush. Now we usually get caught up in Moses when we hear this story. We talk about how he is drawn up the mountain, how he is commanded to remove his shoes because he was on holy ground, and how he baulks at the prospect of leading his people because he doesn’t know God’s name. We get so caught up in the figure head of Moses that we forget what God is doing for all the people called Israel.

See, it’s like this: (yall know I’m a recovering camp counselor, right?) When I was working camps, I was on leadership staff. One of my jobs was to motivate the other counselors to do their jobs. Now this was rarely needed, for indeed most of the counselors I worked with are some of the most dedicated, hard working, self-starting people I know. But, after three or four weeks of mainly 20 hour days, hot sun, the occasionally challenging camper, and always having to be up and energetic, a modicum of exhaustion and self-pity is to be expected. Expected or not, it still must be overcome; therefore, us leadership staff folks had a little saying for when the whining began. We would tell the wayward counselor to “Suck it up, your working for God!”

Now, the staff that were able to actually hear that phrase, my self included, gained the most from the camp counseling experience. We, that is to say I learned what it was to be committed to a community, that my actions always effect someone else, and if I fail someone else suffers with me. In short I learned on a deep level that there is no I in Team.

So, yes, God calls Moses. God calls a person to lead God’s people, a person for God to act through. However, who God called is not nearly as important as to what end Moses was called. Moses was called for God to act through for the creation of a community, a society, indeed a nation founded on the Grace and freedom of God. Now, our story today is barely the beginning of the story of the Exodus, but we get a glimpse of what this community is to be when we hear God say, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you…you shall worship God on this mountain.” Now, that might not sound like much to us. That might not sound like a big deal, but to the slaves in Egypt, and even more so their masters, it is a huge deal. The statement that they would worship the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, is crazy; at least to Pharaoh. The God that we call God, that Jesus called father, the I AM, the one whose name is so Holy that the ancients simply said “the Lord” because they did not want the Lord’s name defamed by their unholy lips, pharaoh did not know this God. The ruler of Egypt had not given sanction to the worship of this God. How could Pharaoh be sure this God would tell the people what Pharaoh wanted said to them. What if this God commanded something of these people that undermined his rule. Well, that just isn’t done, that can’t be. We can’t have free Gods running around graciously acting upon the people, calling their allegiance, there devotion, indeed their love and worship away from the State, away from the king, away from pharaoh. But indeed that is what God’s says will happen. Furthermore, not only will they worship God, they will do it on God’s mountain. They will worship God where God says to worship God not where Pharaoh says.

Our reading from exodus this morning is not the beginning of the story nor is it the end. The people are liberated from pharaoh they do indeed journey to the mountain of God and worship God, but it doesn’t stop there either. They build a society, a nation based on a covenant, not with a king or a bureaucracy, but with God and on God’s commandments. And what a weird society it is, a society that is do what God did in liberating the slaves from Egypt. See, in the exodus we learn that God prefers, not pharaoh who had won many battles and much material wealth, but the slaves, the lowly, the ones Jesus called the least.

We see evidence of this preferential option for the poor in the law given to Moses on the holy mountain. The edges of fields are not to be harvested so that the poor and landless can harvest them and have food. A cloak, taken as collateral from a poor person, is to be returned at night; so that he or she won’t freeze. Every fifty years is to be a year of Jubilee where all debts are forgiven and land taken as payment of debts is to be returned to ancestral owners. The care and protection of the alien, the widow, and the orphan—all metaphors for the poor—are the responsibility of the entire community. In short the “good and broad land…land flowing with milk and honey” is to be organized, worked, and used to the benefit of all. The resources available to the community are not to be exploited for individual gain, but managed for the good of all.

So, what does all this have to do with fig trees? I confess I’ve been banging head against this Gospel reading all week. Deacon Bob Henrichsen, had to deal with me repeatedly coming out of my office this week and lamenting my lack of knowledge of the rearing of fig trees. Indeed, to my knowledge no one in the office this week, staff or congregant that happened to drop by, has ever owned a fig tree.
So, where’s the good news in Jesus’ parable about the fig tree. As far as I can tell, where the fig tree is located, is as important as the fact that it isn’t blooming. See, the fig tree is in the desert, resources are scant. For this farmer, if the tree is going to take up water and fertilizer, it had best produce fruit. It can’t take up the resources and time of the community without contributing to the community.

Now, yall, I love you but we’re the fig tree. Jesus is calling us to remember that our actions affect everyone. Jesus is calling us to remember, that we must use the resources of the community for the good of all, not just ourselves. Whether it is in our neighborhoods, our schools, our city, state, nation, or world, we are called to produce the fruit of God for the community. We are called to live in the covenant of God which commands we most serve the poor. Indeed, Jesus says in Matthew chapter 25 verse 40, it is by how we treat the least of society that we will be judged. Not whether we make a lot of money, not whether we win a lot of wars, not whether we wear the latest clothes, drive the coolest car, or live in the right neighborhood, the right house, with the right friends, but by how we as a community of the faithful live for the least, how we as a team, as a people, a congregation, community, society and state suck it up, ‘cause we working for God. Amen!

Bono Quote

Don't know if this is real or not, but it is a great quote:

Chris­tians­ are hard
to tolerate; I don't know
how Jes­us­ does­ it.
— Bono

Job Opening at my Church

Greetings,

My church is looking to hire a full time youth and young adult minister. If you are interested please send a resume, cover letter, and 3 references to:

fatherjason@allsaintsomaha.com

or

Father Jason Emerson
All Saints Episcopal Church
9302 Blondo
Omaha, NE 68134

The job description follows:

YOUTH AND YOUNG ADULT MINISTER
ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH

ACCOUNTABLE TO: Rector and Associate Rector

PURPOSE: To serve the church by overseeing and coordinating all youth and young adult ministries, providing for the Christian Formation of Teenagers, their families, and young adults (ages 18-30), and providing leadership to and supervision of volunteers involved in the ministry.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Grow in faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ through worship, personal devotion, and education.
2. Actively participate in the worship life of the congregation through attendance, worship planning, and execution.
YOUTH PROGRAM AREA
3. Work closely alongside Director of Christian Formation
4. Oversee recruitment, training and spiritual growth of leaders for various classes/ministries/groups within the youth ministry, including sexual misconduct prevention training.
5. Support a youth ministry steering committee in the ongoing visioning and development of the youth program.
6. Plan and coordinate High School and Middle School Youth Groups, Journey to Adulthood program, and confirmation; work collegially with other staff to develop, support and grow a Youth Choir and Youth Bell Choir.
7. Maintain communication with youth and parents involved with All Saints through, but not limited to, the writing, editing, and publication of a regular youth newsletter.
8. Manage the youth ministries calendar and involve our youth in diocesan events, coordinating with the parish calendar.
9. Oversee planning of special events, mission trips and retreats including administrative details such as permission slips, medical releases and insurance issues.
10. Attend weekly staff meetings, and other meetings and retreats with program staff.
11. Attend vestry meetings as a resource as requested by the Associate Rector or Rector. Submit a monthly report of youth attendance and activities.
YOUNG ADULT PROGRAM AREA
12. Initiate, Develop, and Oversee the young adult ministry focusing on the ages of, but not limited to, 18-30.
13. Coordinate fellowship programs for young adults to grow young adult membership in the parish.
14. Assist in the discipleship development of young adults through discerning spiritual gifts of young adults and networking them to other ministries in the church such as, but not limited to, Choir, Lay Reading, Adult Forums, Outreach and Social Justice Ministries, etc.
15. All other duties as assigned.
CHARACTER TRAITS, EXPERIENCES, AND SKILLS (candidates should exhibit the majority of these.)
16. A Bachelors Degree with specialized training in youth or educational ministries is required to qualify for this position.
17. Candidate exhibits strong Christian character that demonstrates a close relationship with God through personal devotional, worship, and prayer life.
18. Candidate realizes that God is always working, seeks to join God in God’s work, and is willing to make life adjustments to join God in what God is doing.
19. Candidate seeks to minister to the whole family.
20. Candidate can demonstrate ability to recognize and develop leadership potential.
21. Candidate has Christ like attitude that is accepting and inclusive of all the diverse parts of the body of Christ.
22. Candidate has conceptual skills and can develop an idea into an active ministry.
23. Candidate is Enthusiastic, High energy, Self-starter; Encourager; Visionary, and a People Person who enjoys entering into, building, and maintaining relationships with people.
24. Candidate has demonstrated success at various levels of development.
25. Candidate has been involved in organizations or groups as a leader.
26. Candidate is comfortable sharing the Christian faith from Episcopal perspective with both Christian and pre-Christian people. Candidate is not required to be an Episcopalian.
27. Candidate must be computer literate.

INTERESTED CANDIDATES SHOULD SEND
1. Cover Letter
2. Resume
3. 3 References (including contact information)

To: Father Jason Emerson, fatherjason@allsaintsomaha.com
All Saints Episcopal Church
9302 Blondo
Omaha, NE 68134

Lent I Year C

“For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

I speak with you today in the Name of the righteous life giving one. Amen!

As I have been meditating with our readings this week, I have been thinking a lot about righteousness. What does that word righteous mean? What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to possess the quality of righteousness?
Now, as any of y’all who have seen my office know I Love books. My wife and I are house shopping right now, and it drives her nuts that I ask how far it is to the nearest bookstore from every house that we consider. So, I figured I would put these books to some use, and I went searching for answers to my questions about righteousness. As near as I can tell, and I am probably over simplifying here, but righteous, or being righteous, or having righteousness, is the ability to keep promises. Specifically, in the realm of God stuff, God is the righteous one. God is the one who can and always keeps the promises God makes. Even more specifically, God promises to give life. God promises to Abraham that he and Sarah will have a son, their lives will extend through their offspring. That they will have land, that is to say they will have the means to sustain their life, and they will foster a great nation. God has not only the power to deliver on these promises, God has the will. God is righteous. Righteousness so permeates our relationship with God we can even say: the essence of God’s Godness is God’s righteousness. That is to say God promises life and God delivers. God has the power to give life and does so—not merely a functional, heart beating, lungs breathing, mechanical life, but a conscious, empowered, freedom toting life; the life Jesus called the life more abundant.

At times in human history we mark God’s righteousness. Our reading from Deuteronomy is a story of such a marking. The people of Israel have made it from the death sentence of slavery in Egypt to the God given life of the Promised Land. They are called to remember God’s righteousness by their offerings and saying, “The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” The people of Israel are to say this, not to remind God of God’s righteous acts, but to remind themselves of God’s righteous acts. In this remembrance God hopes the people of Israel will in turn pass on God’s righteous life giving acts to others. This pattern of delivered promise, remembrance, and charge to pay it forward, if you will, continues on through history to us today. We are to be righteous like God is righteous.

That was an appropriately "churchy" thing to say. I say things like that all the time. Love as God loves, forgive as we are forgiven, do justice because God is just. We say things like this with such frequency; that I have to ask what’s the catch? Well here it is: We don’t get to control God’s righteousness. We can and should be righteous like God. We can give life. We can set the oppressed free, we can remove the shackles of poverty and ignorance. We can alleviate the burdens of injustice and inequality. But we do not however get to control God’s Righteousness. We don't get to control who God wishes to give the abundant life to. We don't even get to control what the nature of the life God wishes to give us. But boy we are tempted to. Boy, I am tempted to.

In our Gospel today, we hear of Jesus being tempted after forty days in the desert. In the last temptation Jesus is asked to test God’s righteousness, God’s Promise. The devil whisks Jesus up to the pinnacle of the temple, and challenges him to hurl himself to the ground. He issues the challenge using psalm 91 which we also read today, “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus is tempted to test God’s righteous instead of having faith, tempted to take God’s promise and control it himself. As one commentator put it, “The temptation was to take the promised protection of God into the control of his own will and act. That would have shifted the power of the promise from the free sovereignty of God to individual willfulness.”

Now y’all, I might be over simplifying again, but if Jesus doesn’t get to control God’s righteousness, we certainly are not allowed to. Admittedly, none of us is going to be whisked in an instant to the top of the temple by the devil and challenged to jump, especially since, as our confirmands should know the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. However, what about our prayer lives? How many times do we pray trying to get what we want instead of what God wants? How many times do we pray trying to control God’s righteousness, trying to control the life God wants to give us?

We have entered the season of Lent, and many of us have taken on Lenten disciplines as part of our devotional practices. But I ask today, did we take on these disciplines for our reasons or for Gods. Did we give up chocolate because we want to lose a few pounds? Did we receive the imposition of ashes this past Wednesday so we can walk around town with smudged foreheads letting everyone know we are in the Christ crowd? Did we decide to try and live the Golden rule with our families hoping it will improve our relationships? Did we give up shopping because we want to save a little money? Deciding to do these things is not bad in and of itself, but the fault comes when we try to control the outcome. All these acts of devotion are prayerful actions, basically they are prayers. But as a mentor of mine, and son of this parish, Fr. Scott Barker recently wrote on his blog, “…praying is not about getting what we want. Praying is about getting what God wants.” So this lent I invite you, even challenge you to take on a prayerful discipline, but not with a desired outcome. I challenge you to enter into a journey with Christ not knowing where it will take you. I challenge you to let God be God, to let God be free to be righteous, to give you the God intended life God wants to give you. This Lent do not pray for what you want, do not pray for what I want or Father Tom wants or anybody else. This Lent pray for what God wants. Amen!

Testimony before Nebraska Legislative Committee

This past Monday I was blessed with the opportunity to testify in front of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee regarding a bill that will help make Nebraska Roads safer and will face the honest reality of our current immigration situation. The text follows:

Greetings:

My name is Father Jason Emerson, Associate Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church. Thank you for your time and hearing today. I wish to speak in favor of LB 266. I support this proposed policy simply because it is good for me, good for the people of my parish, and good for all people residing in Nebraska.

Moving LB 266 out of committee, where it will hopefully be passed on the floor of the unicameral, is in my interests because I drive a car in Nebraska. Both my work and my leisure consist of driving not only the streets of Omaha, but the entire state as well. Licensed insured drivers are safer then those without either. Passing this legislation will increase the percentage of licensed and insured drivers; therefore my safety is increased, and when accidents do happen my health and property are insured. Passing this legislation will mean increased safety for both my wife and me.

For similar reasons this bill is good for the people of my congregation. Whether they themselves are drivers, or they have children or others that they drive to church, I want them to be able to arrive at church for worship, Christian formation, and other events safely. Once again they will be helped by this bill because of the raised level of public safety it will provide.

Finally, I hope for the passing of LB266 because it is good policy for all people of the state of Nebraska. Not only could it decrease the amount of uninsured motorist and therefore the amount of uninsured accident claims, making it fiscally sound, it is also morally sound. I am an Episcopalian. We take an oath at our baptism, which we repeat at least five times a year because it is central to our practice of faith. The last question of that oath asks, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” The proscribed answer is, “I will with God’s help.” I believe that respecting the dignity of every human being, that is to say every child of God, involves giving every child of God the opportunity to obey the law. There are many children of God in the state of Nebraska that would like to obey our driving laws. They would like to be licensed and insured drivers, but are not currently allowed.

Today an opportunity is before you. Rarely do we get to help large quantities of people with simple actions, but today you can take a step towards not only improving my safety, not only the safety of my parishioners, but also the moral fabric of our state. I urge you to deeply consider what you have heard here today, and to vote to send LB266 to the floor of the legislature. I urge you further, once the bill is on the floor to speak in favor of its passing. Once again, thank you for your time and hearing of this matter, and may God help us all!

Keep it real!

Keep it real! is a slang term these days with a host meanings determined mainly by context. It can be both compliment and exhortation, critique and confirmation. However, at its core is the truth that pretense is a bad idea. We should be grounded in reality, not in what we would like reality to be or what think reality might be. I am an Episcopal priest and one of the things I love about the Episcopal tradition is its willingness to shed pretense in favor of reality. Now, most of us in the Episcopal church would read my last sentence and at least scoff but more likely outright laugh in disbelief. Truly, one of the things that bother me about the Episcopal tradition, or more correctly Christian congregations in general is our stupendous ability to be pretentious. Indeed, the practice of 'putting on airs' may have literally begun in American churches. I certainly would not be surprised if it did.

However, if we look closely is that really what is happening at church? Are we really pretending to be something we aren't, pretending to be better then we are? In some sense, yes we are. We are at church to practice being the loving creature God intends us to be. Just as God is love we are fated to love divinely. The problem comes in when we believe or pretend to believe that we are somehow better then other folks. We aren't! Everyone is just as intended, just as fated for love as we are. But we need practice at being what God has made us for, and we need reminding of what that is, and we need correction when are not becoming that. So in actuality we aren't pretending to be someone we aren't, we are pretending to be what we are becoming and what we already are. (I realize that sounds like a contradiction, and I promise to post an explanation later...wait for it!) For now, there is another problem. We, to often in our congregations, act like everything is perfect, that there is never discord or strife, and if you just follow the rules your life will never have any pain or suffering. This is when we are no longer Keeping it real. Indeed the scriptures tell us a different story. The scriptures both Hebrew and Christian tell us that the path to being what God has intended is through the wilderness, through the rough, torn, disorienting landscape that is the desert. We can not avoid pain and suffering, and when our worship denies that reality then we are definitely not keeping it real, and we are no longer relevant to any experience anyone might have on this planet. We see this most often in our church music, especially a lot of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). To often in a CCM worship song life is just a little too perfect a little too wonderful to be real. Walter Brueggemann in his book The Spirituality of the Psalms put it like this:

The problem with a hymnody that focuses on equilibrium, coherence, and symmetry...is that it may deceive and cover over. Life is not like that. Life is also savagely marked by incoherence, a loss of balance, and unrelieved asymmetry."

This is where the season of lent functions as a corrective for our natural tendency to white wash things. Lent invites us, for a time, to strip away all pretense, to ask who exactly we are, to be brutally honest with ourselves and to "keep it real" not so that we keep things the way they are, but in order for us to move through the wilderness to the promised land. Moving from pretending to be the body of Christ to actually being the body of Christ in the world.

Gracious Morning

Greetings,

So, I have been at my new gig for about two weeks. Yesterday I was blessed with a God moment, manna in the desert if you will. I was walking from the bathroom to my office(where else would God speak but in the middle of the mundane!) and I had an epiphany that I was called here to All Saints to be myself. This wasn't arrogance or self admoration, merely a grace filled notion that God put me here not to be something else, but that I had spent the last decade of my life becoming what God wanted me to be and that is a good thing. Now God will use that good thing in ways that I probably can't imagine, but the good will come from God. And when I stray from that good direction, when I part from the path of righteousness, when my acceptance of my gifts as tools good enough for God's purpose truly does become arrogant and self-aggrandizing, I am blessed to have beautiful people around me to burst that bubble. Gracious folks that love me and respect me enough to call me to repentance yet again, not for any gain of there own, but because there is work to be done and my baggage doesn't need to be in the way. Thanks God for the moment, keep 'em coming.

God's Peace,
Jason+

Sermon for Third Sunday after Epiphany Year C, first at All Saints delivered on Anniversary of my ordination

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

I speak with you today in the name of the ever present God. Amen!

In the spring of 1996, I made an important phone call to my father. Now, let me give you a little history as to why this phone call is important. My father is a retired Southern Baptist pastor, which means I have been in church since 9 months before I was born. The spring of 96 found me wrapping up my second year of college at Middle Tennessee State University in Murphreesboro, Tennessee. Since leaving my parents house and my home town two years prior I had maintained a very consistent church attendance practice. I consistently didn’t go! In my first year and a half or so, I think I might have been in a church maybe once, and it definitely was not a Baptist church. I called my father that day to tell him I had started going to church.
At first my father was very excited. He had been praying for me to find my own church home literally everyday since I had moved out. However, his excitement was tempered by the news that I wasn’t attending a Baptist church. It I turns out, I had been going to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and attending their campus ministry for about a month and a half. My father was still happy with this news but a little dubious since he had extremely little knowledge about the Episcopal Church, it practices, and its beliefs. He immediately wanted to know what was different about St. Paul’s. I told him, “Well, pop (pop is a southern expression for father not for a flavored soda drink) they serve communion every week.” He replied, “Every week? Doesn’t it lose its special-ness having it every week?” I said, “No, it’s the most important part of the service instead of the sermon.” Now, my father is an old school preacher. He can bring it from the pulpit week in and week out, and is very studious and dedicated to the craft of preaching. So, I think I got a snort in response to that statement.
Now, you need a little bit more background, a little bit more information about my father to understand the next part of our conversation. See, my father is not just a Baptist; he is not just a Southern Baptist; nor is he just a Southern Baptist Pastor. He is a Tea-totaling Southern Baptist Pastor. He comes from a tradition in the Baptist church extending from the temperance movement that considers all alcohol consumption, no matter how small an amount, to be a grave sin—not merely a sin, and definitely not a minor infraction, but a grave sin. So, yall can probably guess what the next difference of Episcopal practice I had to report. I told my father, “Now pop, they use real wine in the communion.” There was a long pause on the other end of the line. A weighted pause—if you will—that made me wonder if I was still part of the Emerson family. Finally, my father replied, “Well, maybe that little bit won’t hurt you.” And we moved on to other conversations.
Over the years both of my parents have come to appreciate and maybe even love the Episcopal worship service, and I am proud that both my parents not only attended my ordination and received communion, but my mother was one of my presenters and my father was one of the clergy that laid hands on me this weekend just one year ago.
I have told the humorous story of this phone call many, many times. However, the important part is not its entertainment value. The important part is at the beginning. I had returned to church. More importantly, I had returned to trying to live a life of faith. See, I had left thinking there were greener pastures and more harrowing adventures outside the church. But something called me back. There were things both internally and externally that compelled me to return to the faith.
In our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures today, the people of Israel are culminating a return of their own. They had been in exile, the city of Jerusalem in ruins and their existence as a race and culture in danger of extinction. Our reading today is a culmination of the near century long restoration of the temple, the Law of Moses, and the walls of Jerusalem that occurred after a 50 year exile. But their time away from God preceded their physical removal. See, the history of the kingdom of Israel from Solomon on is a time when the people had forgotten the graciousness of God. The times were marked with a widening gap between the rich and the poor, conscripted military and public service, burdensome tax laws, and no respect or provision for the alien, the widow, or the orphan. All these things were against the Law of God given to Moses, against the society that God had called for and created in the Exodus.
Our reading from Nehemiah today is the culmination of their return to the community, to the societal structure, the urban planning, to the political constitution that God intended. And what did they do to mark their return? What did they do to guide their return back to God, to make sure they headed back in the proper direction? They read the scriptures, the holy story; the account of God’s graciousness that, not only created them as individuals, but also created their community. God says, “Here Oh, Israel. I am your Lord, the one who brought you out of Egypt and made you a great nation.” They are returning to their story, to their God, to who they were intended to be.
We all experience times in our live when we go astray; times when we individually, as congregation, as a community, society, and world head in a “non-God-ward” direction; times when we are not becoming what God has intended us to be. We know this. We can feel it “deep in our bones” as they say that something just isn’t right. This ingrained notion is also the roots of our longing for God. We instinctively look for the source of who we are to make things right. Somewhere within us we long for justice and that justice comes from God. The prominent English Bishop, scholar, and author, N.T. Wright in his book Simply Christian, argues that longing for Justice is the root of the Christian faith.
Our Gospel reading today, backs up the good Bishop. Jesus is returning as well. He has spent forty days in desert resisting temptation and discerning his ministry and has returned to his childhood region and begun to preach and teach in the synagogues. Our Gospel today is his first sermon back in his home town of Nazareth where he lays out his mission statement for his ministry, where he tells them what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen now that he is in the game. Jesus unrolls the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and reads,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then Jesus does the craziest thing. Jesus has the gumption to sit in that room with the people who taught him how to read, with the people who probably caught him skipping his chores to go fishing when he was a kid, and say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The year of the Lord’s Favor, the year of jubilee when all debts are forgiven, land is returned to ancestral owners, when wealth is redistributed and everyone is given a clean slate, Jesus proclaims that day has come.
Now we don’t have to look a newspaper for very long at all to think Jesus is crazy when he says this. We the human race still fight for food, energy, resources, and sometimes just plain power. But while I can empathize with the other people in the synagogue who might have been thinking Jesus had spent a little too much time in the Sun, I’m going to err on the side of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I think when Jesus says he is here to “bring good news to the poor” to “let the oppressed go free”, and to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” he means it.
So, how come we still have all this pain and suffering in the world? And when I say all, I mean all. From our internal demons be they alcoholism, drug addiction, anger, depression, selfishness and greed, to our external family struggles and physical illness; from our battles over education to violence in the streets; from wars, famine, and oppression, to hurricanes, tsunami’s and ice storms; I want to know, “How long oh Lord, how long?”
Now, yall, you will never hear me claim to have all the answers. However, if I may be so bold, I think the apostle Paul offers us some insight today. Paul writes that we are all part of the body of Christ. We are the physical manifestation of Christ in the world.
Paul goes on to write that we each have a role, a function within the body of Christ. We have been given spiritual gifts for ministry in the world. Paul lifts up three of these gifts as goals that each and everyone of us can strive for: apostle, prophet, and teacher. As I meditated with these scriptures this week I realized that all these gifts are outward focused. Apostle means sent out to tell the good news; a prophet is one who cries out against injustice; and a teacher guides the way for others. Each of these ministries can be lived out in a myriad of ways by anyone. They have nothing to do with ordinations or professions. Paul writes that we are all to strive to live out these greater gifts regardless of our age, our career, our gender, our race, or our status. Just as Christ, God in human flesh, took the sufferings of the world upon his shoulders, we are called to bring joy where there is pain, forgiveness where there is guilt, light where there is darkness. These are not merely descriptive metaphors but calls to concrete action.
So what are we to do, and how are we to do it? One of the best parts of my job is that I get to meet and know new people. I been getting to know a few people here at All Saints and I have many, many more to get to know. But I can tell you this, in the few people I have met so far, the Spirit of Baptism, the force that empowers us as the Body of Christ is alive in All Saints Episcopal church. Gifts for ministry are being discovered and applied. I have heard stories of love and compassion, growth and grace over and over again. I am excited to get to know more of you, but I suspect there are more movings of the spirit occurring within us that will be carried to this world. The potential for good from All Saints is unlimited for indeed we can do all things through Christ who strengthens. Moreover, we not only can do good, we must. For as the Apostle Paul writes, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
But we must journey in a God-ward direction. To do that we must stay connected to that divine story salvation. We must come here to this house of God, hear the word of God, pray for ourselves and others, confess our sins, and most importantly we must come this table. We must come to this table and receive the bread and wine. We must receive the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood broken and poured out for us. We must receive the body of Christ so that we can then go and be the body of Christ in the world. Amen!