Proper 6, Year C
17 June 2007 (Father’s Day and Jazz Mass)
Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis

We’re doing something unusual today. I gather that Jazz masses are not an everyday occurrence around here. Sad thing, that. Especially since jazz is not a bad image of what God is up to. Theme and variation, theme and improvisation, hear each member play with what we were given to start with, sounds like creation to me, especially the ongoing creation we call evolution. I look around at the vast and awesome variety of creation, and I see innumerable variations on a common theme. Among animals, a central theme is a creature with a head-tail axis and varying numbers of appendages. Not just human beings, primates, mammals, and vertebrates, but insects, crabs, and even squids Even things like starfish and sponges and jellyfish have a pattern like that in their DNA. Creation is God’s riff on what a creature needs. We might call it God’s riff on the jazz of bodies.

By the way, and speaking of bodies and origins, Happy Father’s Day to all of you out there who qualify. I am immensely grateful for my own father, I wouldn’t be here without him, and immensely grateful for a lot of what he gave me, a love for flying, for going fishing, and a deep sense of what integrity is all about.

It’s a day of fathers, and in our culture it is father’s names which are more often remembered. On Friday, I was privileged to be part of the Faces of Fatherhood celebration here, highlighting a ministry that equips young men to claim that honored role more effectively.

The question about how do we contribute to the well-being of children and others around us has really consumed this community over the last few days. Your strawberry festival not only fed 20,000 people a taste of heaven on Thursday, but it built a resource that will permit you to serve the needs of many hurting folk near and far away.

The theme had another variation in the conversation yesterday about Millennium Development Goals. People came together from Ohio, Wisconsin, even Alaska, and all parts of Indiana to talk about feeding neighbors near and far away, caring for and educating children across the globe, malaria, and empowering women.

That last goal is an essential one, because when women are empowered, their families and communities are also transformed. The theme Jesus played about abundant life is meant for all humanity, not just one sort or condition or gender or race or nationality of human being.

We marked the passing of two remarkable women last Thursday. Pat Harding began your strawberry festival, and she nurtured that offspring for 42 years, and did not go home to God until this one was safely and successfully put to bed. Another, Ruth Graham, was far less well known than her husband Billy. We mourn them both, one an Episcopalian, the other a faithful Presbyterian married for 64 years to a Southern Baptist. There’s a riff in there, too, all those variations on the basic theme Jesus played 2000 years ago. Ruth’s obituary included a significant piece about her marriage, and the fact that she had written before she married that she knew she would always play second fiddle to her husband’s love of Jesus. That’s a lot like knowing how to be part of a band or orchestra, each one playing her or his part. She had a very traditional understanding of her role as a woman, to be a supportive wife, and to take an active role in raising her five children, despite the long separations from her husband. An ancient theme, there, woman left alone, caring for the children, while father goes off about his lord’s business.

Similar things happened to Bathsheba, her husband sent off by lord David, but with very different aims. Billy went off to make more of life; Uriah was sent off to find his end. But theme of life continues, and in this riff on David, another death. This composition has God singing the blues, till finally Nathan comes along to add a new theme. Now David wakes to wrong he has done, and forgiveness joins the blues. Eventually, not today’s story, new life wakes once again.

Woman in the gospel also alone,
no mention of her connections,
and maybe that is why she is called sinner in this tale.
She comes alone, unveiled, hair a-flying,
to join a group of men uninvited,
at their meal. Scandal, pound those drums!

Vamp she seems,
whether musical form or femme fatale,
you may make your choice,
but vamp she remains.

So this nameless one walks in and stands by Lord,
to bathe his feet and wipe them dry.
Then kiss each one and scent them full,
scandal yes, pound those drums!

Hold that theme, for the same we see,
right here in front this nave to be-
become a Christian each and all,
wash, and dry, scent and bless,
and kiss each one to peace we trust.

Baptize we do
in forms the same
as that vamp queen of dinner fame
judge not so fast, for Jesus asks
each and all to do the same

Go, teach, baptize and call
All to follow
This forgiving way.

And that is central theme of all,
forgive, and love,
and join again
to God the father who makes us all,
in bodies each, varied all,
to love and be loved, and
Give us pause when judge we do.

For vamp called sinner stand we all.
Like John Baptizer comes she in
She does not use words to turn us round
But only tears and hair and kisses sound-
soundly given, act of forgiveness known and shared.

Who would we not forgive?
Father, mother, mayor, prez
Saddam, Hamas, David, whore
Each is God’s own beloved one
Each is open to God’s grace
Who are we to shut the door
Insist “impossible” that face?

Open wide the door, baptize and bless
Our own dirty feet will here be kissed
Each time we offer love, adore
Another whom He is for.

The world is full of those who judge.
God’s reign is for those who need
Another opening than shame
Another life, new found game
Of forgiveness, blest and playful and creation new
Like tunes once blue
Now joyful turned.

Rejoice, give thanks, and sing
God’s forgiving varied theme.
Of love for all, you and I and all outcast.
God loves best, not least the last
And lost, and left outside.

Now we, too, who would exclude
Like the Pharisee, dinner scold,
Can turn again and let our feet
Be kissed and blessed and
Turn again to kiss and bless
The feet of those not less
Than we, but just as much
Forgiven and just as much
God’s true friends, beloved all.