Why this year's Color Run was indeed the happiest 5K

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us..." (Hebrews 12:1)

After my revision surgery on April 22, I was told I needed to wait 4-6 weeks before I could do any exercise that gets my heart rate up, and limit any heavy lifting. (This was torturous as the weather got nicer and I wanted to get out and enjoy it!)

But guess what?... I made it! We made it! I'm past the mark, and I'm able to exercise again and enjoy life to its fullest! WAH-HOO!

In the parking lot of Frontier Field, where the race started.
7am on a Saturday morning!

To celebrate this milestone, Michael and I signed up for the Rochester Color Run 5K. If you are unfamiliar with this event, read about it here. Basically, it started because some folks wanted to get people out and exercising by making it really fun. So they thought, "What could be more fun than blasting music throughout the city, starting and ending with a dance party, throwing color on people as they run so they end up covered in various colors from head to toe? While we're at it, why not make the whole thing a fundraiser for a great cause?" And the Color Run was born. (If you are interested, the link above shows where others are - maybe there is one in your area!) It is not a timed race, so as to encourage anyone and everyone to participate. Hence, you see everyone from kids (running and in strollers), to people being wheeled in wheelchairs, to young and clearly athletic people, to very heavy people who are trying to get out and move more. You can sign up as a team (I was on a team of pastors and friends of the Genesee Finger Lakes Conference - aka my colleagues), and often teams have some unifying costume they wear - a certain color tutu, for example, or silly socks, or wacky hair. Basically, the sillier and more festive you look for this event, the better. The swag you get when you register includes colored headbands, a white shirt with the logo, a wristband, and a couple temporary tattoos you can wear on the big day, but many people go further than this.

Michael and I have been wanting to do some 5Ks since last year, but then my diagnosis prevented us from doing any. This year, this fun event happened to fall four and a half weeks after my final surgery, making it the perfect celebration for the end of cancer. In addition, the charity for this year's Color Run supported was Teens Living With Cancer, which also made this a beautifully full circle event for me, since being a teen living with cancer is where this journey started for me.

So we woke up early on this bright spring day (after having been out late at a concert the night before - ugh!), and put on our color run T-shirts. I donned a pink bandana in honor of the disease I beat twice. And we made our way to the start line with a flood of white shirts and colored accents. We found some of our team and chatted while we waited for the race to start.

In front of Frontier Field (home of the Rochester Redwings). That inflated arch is the start line.

We had both made the goal to start the race off running, and see how far we got. So we set an easy pace and made our way down the streets of Rochester. The first color station came quickly - blue!

Then came yellow...

As we kept running, we found that we could, in fact, keep running. To our shock, even though we were tired, we were able to keep moving and never had to walk the whole time! It helped that every station had people smiling and cheering and throwing color on us. It's a nice pick-me-up. :) Here I am approaching PINK...

And Michael after pink...

We were so proud of ourselves for running the whole thing. Even by the end, my muscles were sore (from lack of strenuous use for at least a month), but I wasn't out of breath.

As I mentioned above, there is a dance party at the end. They hand out extra color packets and everyone throws them at once and it is quite a rush! I found my friend Justin, and we went in together, while Michael and his sensitive allergies stayed back and took this video:

And here is the result: Justin and me after the color bomb experience:

I remember the day that I walked out of my last day of radiation treatment for Hodgkin's Disease. There was a sense of accomplishment. There was satisfaction. There was joy and contentment. When cancer is treated with surgery, you don't get that feeling, because when you wake up from surgery you are groggy and can barely say the words, "I'm cancer-free!" let alone remember that you said them 30 minutes later. And then of course there is the recovery - when you return home especially after a major surgery like a mastectomy, you feel sicker and more debilitated than you did when you went to the hospital. And the recovery is possibly long and painful, and there is not really a mark that says, "I am back to normal." My body still doesn't feel entirely normal, whatever that means anymore. 

But after running five kilometers beside my dear husband, who has been running this race with me for nearly two years, and then throwing color into the air and jumping up and down in a crowd of hundreds of people from all walks of life... I feel like I have arrived somewhere. I feel like if my body can do that, then I might just be able to say, "I'm healthy! I'm back!" 

So friends, I'm going to go ahead and say it... I'm cancer-free, better than ever, and ready to move on to more exciting things in life! Huzzah!

We made it!

Sermon: Being the Comforter through loss (May 25, 2014, Easter 6A)

Easter 6a

May 25, 2014

John 14:15-21

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Memorial Day weekend. When we think of Memorial Day, the words that immediately come to mind are: three-day weekend, big sales, BBQ, camping, the start of summer. All very positive things! It’s finally warmer outside, we can pull out our grills and our shorts. Memorial Day is cause for celebration!

            Of course, that’s not really what Memorial Day is all about, not at all. It began after the Civil War, and was then called “Decoration Day.” It was a way to honor and remember all those who had been lost in the Civil War. By the 20^th century, it had been expanded to include remembrance of all those who have been lost to war – and in the history of America, there have been many, too many. As we come to understand the far-reaching effects of war on those who are involved, we might even expand it to include not only those who have lost their physical lives to war, but all those who have lost anything to war – a limb, perhaps, or those who came back with a severe brain injury, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or who found the only way to deal with their post-war lives was to drown them in alcohol. There are so many ways that war causes loss, both for those who have fought, and for those who love them.

            Loss is such a difficult thing to endure – and not just the loss from war, but any kind that we may experience: losing an elderly parent to dementia, or losing your independence, or your passion for your job. Or losing a cherished relationship because of divorce, or someone moving away, or a breach of trust. Even loss that is necessary or ultimately leads to better things can be terribly difficult in the moment. Marriage, or having children, for example, lead to the loss of previous way of life. Indeed, it is not so much change that people fear as it is the loss of something that is familiar to them. And in an ever-changing world, this happens all the time.

Yet even though loss is a common experience to all people, we don’t deal with it very well – either for ourselves, or with other people. I suppose we have trouble with it because we are such an optimistic society, but also  everybody deals with loss differently, so we’re not sure how to approach someone else because we don’t know their particular story or experience. So, we gloss over our dis-ease with platitudes like, “It’ll be okay…” or, “She’s in heaven now…” or, “It’ll get easier. Just get back to your normal life as soon as you can.” Though well-intentioned, these easy-fixes often do more harm than good, and so we often are left to deal alone with our grief, no matter how big or small that grief may be.

            Every now and then, the lectionary text appointed for the day and whatever is going on culturally coincide in a really helpful way, and this is one of those weeks. For Jesus’ disciples are also

dealing with a very real grief and sense of loss, and Jesus knows it and responds to it. Today’s Gospel text comes from Jesus’ words to the disciples on Maundy Thursday, the night he was betrayed, and the night before he would die. Just imagine for a moment what it might be like there in that room on that night. Imagine you are one of Jesus’ disciples, and, having given up everything, you have been following him and learning from him for three years. Now imagine he has just told you, “One of you will betray me,” and, “Peter will deny me,” and, “I am going away to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house.” By now they are beginning to understand that all these things he’s been saying – they mean he is going to die. And that somehow in this he will be glorified, but they’re not sure how. All they know is that he is leaving them – the man they have decided to stake their lives on is leaving them, all alone. Imagine how they feel.

            I would feel scared, unsure of what happens next, about the future. I would feel angry that this apparently has to happen. I would feel lonely, knowing that this dear friend and teacher was leaving me with this bunch of betrayers and deniers. I would feel frantic, wanting to change the outcome if at all possible. Perhaps most of all, I would feel a deep longing – a longing for things not to have to change, a longing to hold onto this moment forever.

            Jesus seems to get that, because then he gives the disciples this wonderful promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” Up until now, he has been their advocate, the one who comes alongside them and walks with them, but now he does not want to leave them all alone in the world, so he is sending another Advocate – the Holy Spirit.

            Let’s dwell on that for a moment. The word in Greek that is translated to “Advocate” is paracletos, and is also sometimes translated as “comforter,” “helper,” “consoler,” or, “encourager.” All of this and more is what the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, does for us. This is the work of the Advocate that Jesus sends when he leaves earth, the work of the one who keeps us from being orphaned and alone in this world: it is to comfort, to help, to console, and to encourage.

            What’s more is that this is the same Spirit that came down onto Jesus at his baptism, and that comes into each of us at our baptism. That is to say, that the Spirit of comfort and encouragement, of consolation and help is in each member of the Body of Christ. So when Jesus tells his disciples, and us by extension, that he will not leave us orphaned, that he is sending an Advocate, a helper for us – he is also telling us that we are to be that helper, that advocate, to one another.

            So the question becomes: how does that look in our church? How do we encourage one another? How to comfort one another? How do we advocate for one another?  How do we face the various losses that we each experience and not offer mere platitudes and dismiss it, but truly offer love and care and comfort in its wake?

            I think there are several ways that this happens. We can live out our Spirit-given identity by being willing to simply listen to one another, without trying to fix anything. We can do it by being willing to acknowledge that loss – our own and others’ – is real and valid even if it seems small and insignificant. We do it by being willing to hold one another in prayer even if we can’t exactly understand another person’s story.

            And above all, we do it by trusting in Jesus’ promise to us that we will not be left orphaned and uncared for, but that in fact Jesus is with us, the Spirit is with us, now and forever – there to comfort and console, to help and encourage, to advocate for us when we have any need.

            As I close this sermon in prayer today, I invite you to consider your own losses, whatever is weighing on you this day. I will leave a space for you to speak those losses aloud, if you like, or to just hold them silently in your heart. And we will pray for and comfort one another in this way, starting here and now. Let us pray…

            God our Advocate, even though we sometimes pretend everything is fine, our hearts are often heavy with the losses we endure. We lift up those losses to you now… Take and hold these, Holy Spirit, and comfort us in whatever grief we may be feeling, and help us to be Spirit-filled comforters for one another, being your Body in the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: The Way to heaven (May 18, 2014)

Easter 5A

John 14:1-14

            There has been quite a lot of buzz lately about the book and now the movie, Heaven is for Real. Even as I was wandering around St. Martin’s garage sale this week, I heard people talking about it to each other across the tables. It isn’t just this book-turned-movie, either. There have been a slew of books written lately about people’s near death experiences, and their encounters with Jesus and/or heaven. People love them – they are flying off the shelves.

            I can understand why. Death is for many people their greatest fear, largely, I imagine, because it is such an unknown. Not many people die and live to tell to the tale, after all! Lazarus is raised from the dead… but he never tells us all about the experience. Jesus hung out for a while after his resurrection, but he also does not elaborate on the experience, at least not visually like we so long to hear about. So death remains a frightening unknown, and we humans don’t do well with the unknown. And so when someone does die and then comes back to tell about it, especially through such innocent eyes as young Colton, whose story is told in Heaven is For Real, we cling to it, looking to it for answers, for peace with the prospect of dying, for hope, and for proof that our faith in Christ is legit.

            I’m as intrigued as the next person by these stories, and I have read a couple myself. And I admit I do find some sense of calm and even some validation in them. But as a pastor, I also find a bit of concern. Not in the stories themselves – I’m not one to judge people’s experience or their telling of it. Life and death stories are some of the very best, and I do believe that people’s telling of their experience is true – at least for them, if not also in some broader, more eternal sense.

            So if I believe the stories, what is my concern about? First of all, it is that when we read such accounts, we are tempted to turn heaven into a distant location, a place with a zip code, an almost physical destination that is what our existence is all about. Of course we’re in good company on that one – the disciples in today’s Gospel reading do the same thing. The part we hear today of Jesus’ story

actually brings us back to Maundy Thursday, the day before Jesus died. Jesus has just washed the disciples’ feet, and given them a new commandment, to love one another as he has loved them. He has foretold his death. And then when he says he is going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, and they will know how to get there, Thomas immediately goes to the same place we do, assuming “there” is a physical place, and he blurts out, “But Lord, we don’t even know where you are going, where this house is that you speak of. So how are we supposed to know the way?” He wants Jesus to give him what to plug into his GPS, so they will be sure not to get lost, and avoid any tolls along the way.

            It is an honest question, an authentic question, and one I would probably have asked as well. But as we can see from Jesus’ response, Thomas misses the point. Jesus responds with what have become some of his most famous words: “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” Taken alone, it is a pretty bizarre response to Thomas’s very practical question. But remember the context in which Jesus says it: he has just given them the new commandment, to love one another as he loves them. He has just sat before them and washed their feet. And now he is saying, “I am the way.” Like in English, the Greek word for “way” can mean a pathway or route as well as a “way of life” or practice. Given that Jesus has just shown them in the profoundly humble act of washing their feet that he wants them to love and serve one another, it seems likely that when Jesus says, “I am the way,” he is referring to himself as a way of life, rather than the pathway to a destination.

            Taken that way, faith in Christ is no longer about ending up in heaven, a location that can be described and pinpointed, and which is lauded as the ultimate goal of the Christian life. Rather, it is about a journey, walking a walk, walking the way, the truth and the life. Life with Christ is not about a destination or an achievement. It is a way of being, and a way of becoming. And so going back to where I started this sermon, I get concerned when we are so focused on the destination, a place called heaven, and also about who is going to be there and who is not, that we forget that following the Way, the Truth, and the Life is not just about then, it is about right now.

            We talked about this just yesterday in confirmation class. In the midst of talking about Jesus’ crucifixion, a question came up about how we get to heaven and who is there, and I told them plainly what I believe about heaven: that it isn’t so much a destination, or a physical location, as it is an eternal existence within the loving and light-filled embrace of God, a place ruled not by sin and brokenness, but by God’s love and grace.

            But even beyond that, I don’t believe it is something we just hang around and wait for, nor something to be thought of as a reward, or a carrot to dangle, or a threat (like, “do this if you want to go to heaven”). Rather, it is something that we seek and pursue even here on earth, even now.

That is the reason, after all, that God decided to come down from heaven, to be God-with-us, Emmanuel: it was so that heaven might come to earth, so that God’s kingdom, might be present here and now. That is what we pray each week, after all, in the words of the Lord’s Prayer. We pray, “thy kingdom come,” and not, “to thy kingdom, we go.” This we pray so that we remember that not only is God’s kingdom a place where we hope to someday go, but it is a place that comes to us – that comes to us when we love one another as Jesus loved us, when we truly believe and behave like Jesus really is the way, the truth, and the life.  

            And this is where my second concern about to-heaven-and-back stories comes in. How tempting it is to place our hope in these stories – when really, our hope is in the story of a God who would come from heaven to earth to be with us and show us the way, the truth and the life. Our hope is in the story of how that man named Jesus would suffer on our behalf and die, bringing all of our sins with him to the grave. Our hope is in the story of how Jesus defeated all our fears and rose from the

Photo by Bill Madigan, walking "The Way"
(the Camino de Santiago) in Spain with his wife, Sue,
who was my 4th grade teacher. (They are there now!)

dead to prove to us that death doesn’t get the final word; God does. Our hope is in the promise that Christ continues to be with us here on earth – when we hear the Word of God proclaimed, when we are baptized, when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, when we gather to pray, to worship, and to praise, and every time we love and serve one another as Christ has loved and served us. And in the end, when we have done all we can to participate in an experience of heaven on earth, then we enter into the eternal glory that is life basking in God’s unfailing love. And what a hope that is.

            Let us pray… God, our Way, our Truth, and our Life: We search for hope in so many places. Help us to always place our hope in you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Sprit. Amen.

Sermon: On having life abundantly (May 11, 2014)

Easter 4C

May 11, 2014

John 10:1-10

            I came across a story this week about a man who came to Christ later in his life, as an adult. A successful businessman, he found the flashiest and what seemed to be the most successful church in town. He felt right at home there in his designer suits, as he parked his Mercedes alongside the others in the parking lot, and felt this was the perfect community to encourage him in his walk with Jesus.

After a few months, however, he had an economic crisis, and lost much of what he had. Now in a more modest car and the same clothes week after week, he noticed he stood out from the other members of this church. It wasn’t long before two church elders approached him and asked if they could meet with him at home. When they arrived at his modest, mostly empty home, they asked that he please find a new church. They explained that his circumstances “no longer witnessed to the abundant life” that members of that church were called to live.

            I hope this story made you cringe as much as it did me! It is discouraging and disheartening on so many levels – socially, biblically, theologically, and more. What is most infuriating about it for me is that even as I exclaim to myself, “That’s not what abundant life means!” I recognize that for many, that is exactly what it means. Abundance means making lots of money and having lots of stuff. There is a whole segment of Christianity that follows this mindset, known as the “prosperity gospel.” If you love and serve Jesus, Jesus will reward you with material riches, good health, and many influential friends.

            Of course, that fits right into our cultural mindset. A study of advertising reveals this right away.

Since the 1990s there has been a trend in advertising called “emotional branding.” The purpose is to show you that there is some lack in your life, something you are seeking, and this product, whatever it is, can fill that void for you. Suddenly owning a particular product isn’t so much about how well it functions or your genuine need for it as it is about feeling a part of something, and about what owning that product represents for you. In other words, owning that thing, whatever it is, makes us feel better about ourselves, makes us feel richer, gives us the illusion of abundance.

            But having lots of stuff, or even the right stuff, or even stuff that genuinely makes us feel happy for whatever reason… that’s not really abundance, is it? At least not in the way that Jesus means in today’s Gospel lesson when he says, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” So if owning the latest iPad or the coolest car or the smartest phone or whatever it is for you is not abundant life, then what is? How would you define abundant life?

            I’m serious. Take some time to really think about that. Consider what choices you have made in life, what strategies you have employed, and what you have relied upon, to bring you to what you perceive is an authentic, abundant life. And then ask yourself: am I satisfied with that? Do I really feel that I live a life of abundance, does my cup runneth over – or do I still feel myself wanting?

            The reason I ask you to think about that is that I think often, we don’t really know what abundant life looks like, and so we don’t know what to look for. So let’s deal with that first, and just try to define what Jesus might mean by “abundant life.” Looking at our other texts today, it seems that abundance has less to do with stuff and more to do with relationships. Just look at the description in Acts of those first Christian communities. They centered around sharing their stuff, and spending time together, and breaking bread together – which could be a reference to worship and the forgiveness we receive when we gather around Christ’s table, but likely also means sharing meals outside of worship.

They did all this with glad and generous hearts. These early Christian communities were characterized by gratitude, generosity, and gladness – certainly all keys to recognizing and embracing abundance! Appreciate what you have, and be eager to share it with others.

            Psalm 23 offers another perspective on what abundance looks like. It, too, is about relationship, but where Acts is about relationship with one another, Psalm 23 expounds upon our relationship with God. God is with us in the dark valleys and by the still waters and all along the path. Because of our relationship with God, and God’s relationship with us, the Psalmist tells us, and because God leads us and cares for us like a shepherd, we shall not have want. Or said another way, because God is with us, we experience abundance instead of want.

            So that is a good start for understanding what abundant life could look like for us: it is relationship with God and with one another. What, then, still keeps us from it?

            Here’s a thought: are we afraid of abundance? Think about it – whenever we feel a sense of joy or contentment, we are extremely vulnerable. Think about looking down at your sleeping child, and the overwhelming joy you feel… and in the next breath you recognize all that could go wrong, all that could rip this child’s life out of your hands. And it’s terrifying. Joy can be like that – because when we relax just a little bit, something or someone could come and snatch that joy away. If we don’t protect and guard it, our abundance could be gone. And so we don’t do as the early Christians in Acts do, sharing it with one another – because what if we run out? We don’t give thanks – because what if while we’re busy giving thanks, something happens to make it disappear?

            Embracing the abundance God has provided, you see, does require a certain level of vulnerability. Loving other people, and allowing ourselves to be loved by them, requires us to let down our guard. That’s a scary thing to do, because it is so easy to get hurt when your guard is down. Is it really worth it to risk your heart and your feelings with the carelessness of others for the possibility of abundant life? It is worth trusting God when there have been so many times in life when it didn’t really seem like God was with us in those dark valleys? What if we let down our guard and look for abundant life, and we don’t find it? It’s no wonder we are always looking for more things to fill the potential, the possibility of a void.

            But the promise of the gospel is that with God, there is never a void. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Jesus already came – to show us how serious God is about wanting to be with us. Jesus already died and rose – to show us that even death cannot have the final word, even death cannot take God away from us. Jesus already promises to be the gate – the doorway into relationship with one another and relationship with God, and to be the good shepherd – protecting us and showing us the way. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

            Let us pray… God, our shepherd and our gate: believing in the promise of abundant life is sometimes very hard and scary for us. Give us faith in you as our shepherd, leading us ever into relationship with each other and with you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.