The phone rings. A friend from work is on the line. She’s been going through a hard time, and all she wants is for someone to listen. So there you are, however you do these things, walking around your house or standing stock still in your kitchen, listening for your friend’s astonishing insight or dark secret — and then the signal cuts out. A beat goes by. And another. And then the voice of your friend abruptly returns. Maybe she’s laughing. Maybe she’s crying. Who knows why? Your ability to pay attention has practically disappeared as the internal monologue begins to roll: Do you admit that you have no idea what she’s talking about? Do you ask her to repeat whatever it was that she had said? The thought of doing so is excruciating — maybe only to me — because you wanted to listen. You picked up the phone for a reason; but you were unable at the critical moment to do so. And now! Now you’re miles away, wondering whether or not to embarrass yourself and your friend by confessing to the whole thing. But by that point the conversation is over, and you hope that whatever you missed doesn’t come back to bite you.
Communication can be hard. Maybe it always is! But then there are those moments when the message gets lost entirely. It could be the connection. It could be our forgetfulness. It could be our self-centeredness. Sound familiar? We’ve all had those experiences, when we were told to pick up peas for dinner and got pears instead or when we thought our spouse was angry when in fact they were only exhausted or when the kids’ bickering erupted into a tantrum because we were too busy looking at our phones to intervene. The subtle art of communication — of all that’s involved with discerning what’s true and acting in accord with Reality — is a skill that we as 21st-century Americans aren’t particularly good at. Though we are far from the only people to struggle. In fact, we are in good company. Although some would call it bad. The Corinthian Christians weren’t exactly paragons of moral virtue. Empowered by the Holy Spirit and impressed with themselves, this congregation, which had been planted by St. Paul in one of the most diverse and depraved cities in the Roman Empire, was beginning to fall apart. Parishioners sued each other — in pagan courts, no less — after cheating on each other’s business deals. On top of that, an established member decided it was okay to sleep with his stepmother. And on top of that, the congregation had split up into various factions, each with their own preferred leader and their own preferred teachings and their own kind of preferential treatment. Even the people outside of the church who knew nothing about Christianity knew that what the Corinthian Christians were doing had very little in common with Truth or Virtue of any kind. These folks were behaving like the worst sort of pagans while also claiming Christ. Things were bad. So bad that nearly 250 miles away in Ephesus, St. Paul hears about it — and writes. His voice full of concern and pain, St. Paul warns his spiritual children, “You think you are wise, but you are infants” — and behaving like them, too. Somewhere along the line, the Christians in Corinth had missed or mislaid the message. They had lost the signal; and they were now in danger of dropping the call. The echoes of their past and the sound of their present were drowning out the heartbeat that was what brought them to life in the first place. “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” That Word is no less incredible, no less “foolish” now than it was then. We are, after all, living in a world that looks more and more like an ancient port city, complete with a dizzying array of goods and ideas as well as a seedy and sordid underbelly just a few blocks away. You can see it if you look. You can hear it if you listen. The same kinds of idols, the same false gospels are there, are here — we encounter them every day. If you want to be happy, get rich. If you want to be respected, find power. If you want to be remembered — we’ve moved beyond constructing beautiful tombs. Now we just buy the latest cell phone or invest in virtual reality or dabble in AI because to do otherwise risks obsolescence, a premature metaphorical death in a world that’s moving so fast the human soul can’t keep up. And we are told this is good. But the fact is, it’s not. The life we are called to live is not one measured by our salary or our followers or our fame. It is one that begins and ends in the message of the Cross, where a love stronger than death died, so that even his enemies might have life. This may sound like foolishness. It may look like failure; but it is actually freedom. It is actually power, God’s power, God’s grace to make every moment — the good and the bad — a moment with him and a foretaste of paradise. For God, our God was so zealous for his temple that he came down, he entered into our midst, was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities that we might no longer be pulled apart by the perceived needs and changing fashions of this world, but united with the one who can teach us a better way. And that instruction, that message, that Word could, as the Apostle John said, fill many books and still have more to say because the message of the cross is Jesus Christ, the God who became man so that he might take up our cross and carry it through the wilderness, into the Temple, and beyond the grave — that we might be healed and made whole not by escaping the world or by escaping our selves but by following the one who lived as no one has ever lived before. His was the perfectly obedient, perfectly trusting, perfectly restful life lived in the presence of the One who is Love. What joy life could be if we took him at his Word, if we learned to listen past the noise of the world around us, to find that still small voice in the center of our heart that tells us what is True, that reminds us of the sound that has gone out into all the lands, and the message that rings even to the ends of the world: Someone loves us, and he is not far from us. Indeed, he draws near, he comes close, that he might speak and we might hear. And he never stops doing so. God never stops calling us. Not even when we are at our worst. Not even when we’re at our most ignorant. Not even when we’re distracted. Think of the cross and the message it proclaims: God will not leave us, not even though we kill him. This is the Word that is found at the heart of things, at the heart of everything. The Word that will not rest until all is united through Him with God. And that is happening now, as each of us beseech God to give us the grace to hear with his ears and to see with his eyes and to touch with his hands this glorious world, these glorious gifts that he has given us, that we might enter ever more deeply into his love, seeking him out and finding him in every moment of every day, learning to believe that he is leading us on into glory, no matter what we may encounter. That is the message we hear in every word of Scripture, the Word we taste in the Bread and the Wine, the Reality in which we live and move and breathe. "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." Take hold of it and live. AMEN.
0 Comments
A Jewish father wanted his son to get the best education possible, but Jacob had just flunked out of the eighth grade. Desperate, his father approached the Rector of the Episcopal Church, who agreed to give Jacob a chance in their parochial school.
At the end of the first six weeks, Jacob brought home his report card with an A in every subject. “What happened, son?” the father asked in delighted amazement. “Well, papa, “Jacob explained, “they begin every day with a service in the chapel, and right over the choir is a statue of a poor Jewish boy nailed to a cross, and there’s a smaller statue of the same thing in every classroom. These people mean business! Sometimes our religious art isn’t interpreted correctly… The disciple Peter doesn’t quite understand the meaning of the cross either, but thank God for Peter! He is such a source of hope for you and me, and not in the way that we might expect. Peter—the leader of the disciples, the rock upon which Jesus would build his Church, the chief of the apostles, the one to whom the keys to the kingdom of heaven were given, St. Peter—this Peter is such a source of hope for you and me. I am so thankful that Peter didn’t get everything right the first time, or the second time, or the third time! He didn’t make just little mistakes; he made gigantic mistakes! In one breath, Jesus would praise Peter for his great faith, and in the next he would chastise him for his lack of faith. Jesus wasn’t being inconsistent; Peter was inconsistent. Even we, who struggle with our inconsistencies and doubts, can look at Peter and marvel: “How can you be so thick-headed, so weak at times? When will you get the point, get with the program?” But that’s the aspect of Peter’s personality that should give us all hope. For Jesus was patient with Peter; he stuck with him until he did get it right. He sticks with us until we get it right. He chooses imperfect people to carry out his work. And so there’s hope for you and me. They’re near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. He’s taught them much of what he wants to teach them. They’ve witnessed incredible miracles. So one day Jesus asks the disciples who people say that he is. After hearing their responses, he asks, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter responds, “You are the Christ.” St. Matthew tells us that Jesus praises Peter, calls him blessed, because God has revealed this to him, and then tells him that he is a rock and that he will build his Church on that rock. Then, in the portion of the Gospel according to St. Mark that we heard today, Jesus goes on to prepare the disciples for the purpose of the coming of the Messiah. He tells them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the leaders of Judaism and be killed, and on the third day be raised. Peter doesn’t get the point. St. Mark tells us that he rebuked Jesus. And then Jesus says to Peter, the rock on which he would build his Church, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.” Jesus goes on to say, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Peter was able to say the words of faith, to call Jesus the Christ, the Messiah. What he wasn’t able to do was accept the consequences of that statement of faith. Jesus wants us to praise him not only with our lips, but in our lives. The words of our Lord are no more palatable in our day than in Peter’s day. We live in an extremely hedonistic society. The culture tells us to indulge ourselves, not deny ourselves. I call this Burger King theology: “Have it your way.” If something gives you pleasure, have it your way, do it. If it isn’t pleasurable, then don’t do it, or stop doing it. If you really want something, why wait? Have it your way; charge it. If life is not making you happy, if you’re too sick to enjoy yourself, then end it. If it feels good, do it, and do it only if it feels good. In a nutshell, that is the philosophy of our culture, from the greatest of us, to the least of us It isn’t coincidental that our culture is also plagued by alcohol and drug addiction, violent crime, child abuse, spouse abuse, and a host of other afflictions. Living life with the self as the center ultimately is not only self-destructive, but also is destructive to those around us. Hedonism, living life according to the pleasure principle, is attractive on the surface, but it’s false because its end is destruction—destruction of marriage and family, of morality, of self-respect, of life itself. It simply is false. Our Lord’s response to Peter shows us another way. “If any would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” In saying we should deny ourselves, Jesus isn’t talking about giving up something that we like once in awhile. He is talking about conversion—taking ourselves out of the center of the picture and putting God in the center. That takes effort, because it doesn’t come naturally. Hedonism is what comes naturally, but remember, hedonism is a false path. Putting God in the center means taking the time to pray about decisions we have to make and asking the question, “What would God have me to do?” To take up our cross is to share in Christ’s work of saving the world. It follows naturally from self-denial, as we seek to make Christ known through our willingness to forgive, through standing up for what is right when such a stand is unpopular, through suffering patiently when under attack. In denying ourselves and taking up our cross, we will be following Christ, for we will be living not according to our plan, but according to God’s plan. There are certain religious songs that I learned as a child. I can’t remember exactly when I learned them I learned them, or even in what context. Perhaps Sunday School was the place, or Vacation Bible School. I don’t believe I ever saw them written down. You just picked them up from listening to others around you singing them.
“Kum bay yah, my Lord” is one of them. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” is another. Yet another is, “I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” You and I made that decision when we were baptized, or it was made for us by our parents and godparents. If they made the decision for us, they promised that they would rear us in such a way that we would indeed make that decision for ourselves when we got old enough to know. And when the decision was made that we would follow Jesus, either by us or by our parents and godparents, we were baptized. “Fredrick, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” were the words said as I was baptized. In that act, I was given the gift of the forgiveness of sins, made a participant in the death and resurrection of Christ, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and made a full member of the Church, the Body of Christ. After a person is baptized, the priest takes the oil of chrism, that has a sweet aroma of balsam in it, and with his thumb makes the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead. As the sign of the cross is made, these words are said, “( N ), you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Though the oil gets washed off eventually, the cross remains. You belong to Christ, you’re a marked person, and the sign is the cross. From then on, whether you’re in church, or at the office, or at school, or at home, or on vacation, you’re still marked, because you belong to Christ. You can’t see that cross with your eyes, but it’s there, more permanent than a tattoo, and God sees it. From your baptism on, whether you’re giving out lunches to the needy, or serving on Sacred Spaces, or ushering, or engaging in a bit of gossip, or cheating on your income tax, you’re still marked. Whether you’re a faithful Christian or an unfaithful Christian, you’re still marked. For the purpose of your life has been forever altered. You belong to Christ, and now you are called not to live for yourself, but “for him who died for you and rose again.” Ash Wednesday, and really the whole season of Lent, is a time to acknowledge that we fall far short of the mark, not only as individuals, but also as a people. We’re called to live sacrificially loving lives, but too much of the time we live to please ourselves. We’re called to live in such a way that Jesus Christ is evident in our words and deeds, but all too often his image in us is obscured or even invisible. And so we come here today to seek forgiveness for past unfaithfulness, to acknowledge that we have not lived wholly as “marked” people, and to seek God’s grace in living more nearly according to the cross that marks us. In the same place where we were sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever, there will be placed a cross of ashes, clearly visible to all, reminding us and all who see us, of who we are and Whose we are. Today, by our presence here, by our decision to have a cross of ashes on our foreheads, and by coming forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ at the altar, we are saying, “I have decided to follow Jesus; no turning back, no turning back.” We’re worshipping here on Super Bowl Sunday. We normally think about worship as being a part of our routine. It's something we do as part of our spiritual lives or something we do as a family together.
But I'd like for you to look at it from a broader point of view. We use a form of worship that Anglicans all over the world use, which means there’s probably no time in a 24 hour period, on a Sunday, when Mass is not being celebrated in an Anglican church. Furthermore, the Mass is the principal form of worship not only for Anglicans, but also for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and other branches of Christendom. But wait, there's more! Not only is that the case today, but also it has been the case for 2000 years—from the very beginning of the Church. Our Lord Jesus set it up that way. He made it possible for us to be in communion with him for all time, for whenever we celebrate the Mass, not only is Jesus present, but also through the Sacrament he enters our lives anew. I’d like to leave you with that thought for a moment, and ask you to imagine everyone who is in heaven—angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, apostles, martyrs, all the saints, and all departed who have entered into heaven are there. Everyone there is worshiping the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we participate in the Mass, we’re experiencing something of heaven. After we come to the end of the Mass on Sunday, our experience of that aspect of Heaven has come to an end for the time being until, once again, we gather together for Mass. God created us, alone of all his creation as far as we know, to have the ability to have one foot on earth and the other in heaven. God has given us the ability to see beyond ourselves and to contemplate the eternal; and even to be in contact with our Creator. We have far more ability to do that than we use, because of our self-centeredness. The more self-centered we are, the harder it is not only to see those around us, but also to be in communion with God, for to be in communion with God the self can't be in the center; only God can be in the center. Jesus came to this earth in order to reunite us with God. We access that relationship through our Lord Jesus Christ through prayer, meditation, and especially through the Mass. And when we celebrate Mass we’re celebrating not just with those in our parish, but also with those in every place who are doing the same thing. We’re doing it with all who are in heaven, the whole heavenly host. We draw attention to this reality at every Mass as the Celebrant says, " Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify the glorious Name; evermore praising thee and saying , ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts: Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, O lord most high.'" We can say that we are praising God with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven because that’s what angels and archangels and all the company of heaven do. They worship the Creator of heaven and earth. Whenever we experience the presence of God, you might say we have one foot on earth and one foot in heaven. When speaking of the Mass, we might call it a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Others have called it a "thin place," where the barrier between earth and heaven becomes very thin. The disciples had been with Jesus for three years, seeing him in all kinds of situations, experiencing his miracles, hearing his teachings. They knew he was unique, and they probably had the idea that he was the Messiah. The Hebrews, however, did not believe that the Messiah would be divine; they believed he would be a ruler in the line of King David and with the charisms of a divinely-chosen and directed ruler. When Peter, James, and John went with Jesus up on a mountain to pray, they experienced a very thin place indeed. They saw Jesus along with the two greatest figures of the Jewish faith, Moses and Elijah. Jesus was transfigured; his clothes dazzling white and his appearance radiant. In other words, they saw Jesus revealed as God. What do we do when we're given such a gift, whether we're speaking of being with Jesus in the Mass, or some other "thin" place? When Jesus and the three disciples left the mountain, St. Mark doesn’t tell us this, but St. Luke tells us they were immediately confronted with a child who was possessed, and Jesus healed the child. Why are we given glimpses of heaven? Two reasons: to lift us beyond ourselves to the presence of God and to give us strength to serve God, just as Jesus was led to serve. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our story today begins in the middle of the action, with the Word of the LORD coming to Jonah a second time. “Get up,” He says, “go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” Though that last verb really should be in the past tense. Because God had already commanded Jonah to go. He just hadn’t done it. Many, if not most of us here, know this story. We know what God told Jonah. We know what Jonah didn’t do. We know how things worked out in the end. The story is practically old hat. Flannel boards and coloring sheets. And yet we hear it again today, we are given it anew now, and we dare to believe that it is a Word from the Lord and that He has something to say. What will he say to you? When God first spoke to Jonah and said “Go to Nineveh,” it was the worst day of his life. Jonah hated Nineveh. He loathed it. The thought of bringing the Word of the LORD there was reprehensible. Disgusting. What could God possibly want with the Ninevites? Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, the sworn enemies of Israel, and the most powerful, most murderously evil empire the ancient world had ever seen. They were ruthless. Cruel — and proud of it. There was a lot to hate about Nineveh and the Empire they represented. But Jonah took it a step further. Whereas most people might shudder and curse when the Assyrians came up in conversation, they more or less quickly moved on. But Jonah enjoyed that rush of anger. He cultivated it. And who could blame him? Who would dissuade him? It’s always been socially acceptable to hate someone or something that is textbook deplorable. Jonah cherished his hatred — which made the command of the Lord impossible for him to obey. Hearing what God wanted him to do, Jonah ran in the opposite direction. “I shall flee from the Lord’s presence,” he declares and goes as far away from Nineveh as he can possibly get. He arrives at the sea, hops on the first boat he finds, and sets sail. We can almost imagine him spitting over his shoulder before settling down in the hull of the ship for a nap, thinking, Those Ninevites can die in their sins. They deserve whatever they’re going to get. He falls asleep. Hours pass. The waters are calm — until dark clouds gather on the horizon. Thunder rumbles. Lightning flashes. The waves grow higher. Everyone (except for Jonah, who is still sleeping) is terrified. The sailors fish out their idols, they pray to their gods, they beseech whatever deity comes to mind, asking them to intervene. But nothing works. The captain of the vessel wakes Jonah up. He asks him if he knows what is going on. If there’s anything he can do to stop what the sailors believe to be their imminent demise. “Cast me overboard,” Jonah says. And eventually the sailors do. As Jonah sinks into the depths, it looks — tragically, ironically — that he’s finally come to a place where the Word of the Lord can’t reach him — though once more, He does. God sends a great fish to swallow up his recalcitrant prophet; and after three days in its belly, the fish spews him right back to where he started. “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’” And Jonah obeys, though he begrudges every step of the way. And we know that because we’re told that Nineveh is vast, three days’ travel from end-to-end; but Jonah doesn’t even reach the middle of the city before delivering God’s message — in five Hebrew words, no less — “Come 40 days,” he cries, “Nineveh will be overturned.” Job done, Jonah turned to go — only to find that the Ninevites had listened. Everyone, from the King to the cab drivers to the cows bowed the knee and bewailed their sins. “Have mercy on us, LORD, have mercy,” they cry. And he does. He does. You’d think this would be the moment that Jonah forgives the Ninevites and embraces them. There were once his enemies. Now, they were his brethren! But he doesn’t. Instead, Jonah storms out of the gates, hikes up a mountain, and sits down, glaring at the repentant city. If looks could kill. They do — though not in the way we expect. Our story concludes with a final tableaux: God causes a plant to grow up to shade Jonah; and then God ordains a worm to kill it. Sweaty and sunburnt, Jonah loses his temper. “Kill me now,” he begs. “It is better for me to die than to live.” To which God responds: “Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. Why are you this way? You are concerned over something so small, a vine you didn’t plant or tend. Should I not be concerned about Nineveh? Should I not be concerned about the thousands of people who live there? Don’t you understand who I am?” But the story ends with that exchange. Jonah doesn’t give a reply. Which means we are meant to supply it. And we can — because we all know Jonah, just like we all know the Ninevites. They’re easy to find, easy, even to understand. They live in our hearts. All it takes is a moment of honest self-reflection, a look inside that reveals the truth: We’ve all had knee-jerk reactions that pop out and hurt someone we love from time to time. And we’ve all been hurt and then cherished our resentment to the point of thinking that maybe God should skip his mercy this time around. Does that sound familiar? It does to me. That’s the beauty and the genius and the humor of this story. It shows us in no uncertain terms that we are all repulsive pagans. We are all reluctant prophets. We are all sinners in the hands of a merciful God — a God who was out to save not just the Ninevites, but also Jonah. He would not be satisfied with anything less. And he is not satisfied with anything less. God does not want any part of his creation or any person in it to be overturned by Sin or destroyed by the hatred and the fear and the selfishness that run rampant in this fallen world. To allow that to happen would be against God’s nature, a death-sentence for the universe he has made. And so it is that just as God spoke to a people who were not his people and just as he rescued his prophet from the depths of the sea, so too, does He pursue us, to save us, not fleeing his enemies, but casting himself into the sea for our sake, so that the storms of this world and the storms in our hearts might be calmed with the power of his grace. Such is his boundless love, love that does not wait or hold back until we’re “good enough” or until we “get wise” or until we respond to his commands with perfect humility. He comes now: Once, twice, three, four times, on and on, again and again, saying, “Follow me, and I will make you who you are meant to be.” That is our hope, our promise, our present reality. The Kingdom of God is nearer than we think. It’s on our lips and in our hearts. And the King says, “Turn away from your wickedness and live.” For true life, everlasting life, begins when we take him at his word and let His Word be the last. AMEN. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What do you want to be when you grow up? I don’t remember the exact age I was when I first heard that question — and as far as I know my daughter hasn’t heard it yet. (Though she might after service.) What do you want to be when you grow up? A firefighter. A ballerina. A nuclear physicist. That was mine — turns out I’m bad at math. You could hear almost any answer to that question. Except for one. “I don’t want to. I want to remain a child.” No one says that. We’re all trained from the earliest age to think ahead, to plan for the future, to make it our goal to become independent, self-sufficient, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of our modern world. That’s what life is all about: growing up, getting a job, buying a house — or at least a couch. To say otherwise is a non-starter, a cop-out, a fantasy. After all, Peter Pan doesn’t look so good when the dishwasher breaks or the rent comes due. And yet there’s a certain wistfulness about that desire — to remain a child or, really, to remain childlike — that dances through each of our hearts from time to time. We catch ourselves thinking, Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just sit like my one-year-old son does and gaze out the window, cooing with delight, content with nothing more than a cool stone floor and a wooden spoon. Wouldn’t it be nice to be still in such a way, to be quiet, to be unaware of all the trials and tragedies that are going on in the world? Too bad life isn’t like that, we think, and then shake our heads and sigh and turn back to what a friend of mine recently described as “the daily grind.” That doesn’t sound so good, does it? Life these days can feel like that though, like we are pressed between bad news and bad news. Tumultuous times are upon us, and the months ahead don’t look like they’re going to be much different. Which begs the question: How will we meet them? Like a child. When the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli, the word of the LORD was rare. It was the time of the Judges — a period in Israel’s history marked by some serious growing pains. The Israelites had come up out of the desert from 40 years of wandering. They had entered the Promised Land. And yet the promised rest did not come; not because God couldn’t give it to them, but because the Israelites didn’t want it. Looking around at their neighbors, the Israelites began mimicking them. They worshiped pagan gods. They followed foreign ideals. To quote a phrase that is repeated many times in the OT book describing this period: “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, so you can imagine what society was like. The rich oppressed the poor, the poor stole to survive, and the enemies of the people of God sounded their trumpets and sharpened their swords for battle. And yet, even amidst the darkness, the lamp of God had not gone out, and the bright lights of righteous men and women and girls and boys continued to burn. We meet one of those people today, asleep beside the Ark of the Covenant. He is a child, and he does not yet know the LORD. Still, the LORD speaks to him. “Samuel, Samuel!” he says. And the boy thinks his master is calling. Samuel gets up and runs to his side. “Here I am, for you called me,” Samuel says. But Eli sends him back to bed. The same exchange happens again. And again. Three times the LORD speaks. Three times Samuel runs to his master. Until Eli finally understands. “The LORD is calling you,” he says. “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” Samuel does just that. He lays down. He closes his eyes. He waits. And just as his breathing slows and his mind begins to drift, the Word of the Lord appears and stands beside him, calling his name. And Samuel says: “Speak, for your servant is listening.” For all Eli’s faults — which were many — there is great wisdom in the counsel he gave. What other statement could convey the disposition one must adopt in the presence of Almighty God? “Speak, for your servant is listening.” There are no demands in those words, no preconceived notions of who or what God is or can be. There is just openness and trust and humility. Whatever message the LORD bears, whatever word he has to say, the servant listens, ready to do whatever his master commands. In our world of constant noise and incessant stimulation, how often do we find ourselves in such a posture? How often do we pause and look around and listen for the Word of the Lord? How often do we slow down long enough to behold the glory that is all around us? We don’t — though that’s not for lack of trying or because we don’t want to. Now more than ever before we are engaged with forces that are designed to diminish our ability to behold, to gaze, to listen. We are presented with an image of happiness, one that is beautiful and tantalizing but ultimately empty, unable to touch the hunger at the center of our being. It can’t be said enough that there is a God-shaped hole in each of our lives, a restlessness in our hearts that will continue unsatisfied until we realize that only the One God of Israel, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, can fill it. Can fill us. And he will. He does. Think of the stories we’ve heard today, of the stories we’ve heard at so many other times — of Moses and Samuel and Jonah and St. Peter and St. Paul: God’s presence and power doesn’t rely on us. God works. God speaks. God acts, even when our eyesight is dim and our hearing is poor and our hearts are hard. That behavior that doesn’t even surprise him. As the psalmist said, “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me." How wonderful! And it is. For what does he conclude after that admission? David says: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. What a miracle! God knows us, knows the fears that keep us up at night, the petty insults we let slide, the secret lusts we all cherish. He knows us, and still he loves us. Each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. Each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made and learning to be like Him. This is what God is doing, guiding us, guarding us, so that we might grow into the full stature he intends for us. Only God knows what each of us will be when we grow up: His child. This is a gift and a grace that human words will forever fail to describe, though we can and should keep trying. Each one of us is known by God and loved by God, and we will come to know God and love God in our own way, learning to walk with him much like a child does — with a lot of falling down and crying and then getting back up. This is the work of our life, the growing up we have to do, traveling the way everlasting with the One who has promised to dwell with us, who chose us and called us, even when we were asleep in the Temple or sitting under the fig tree. Even when we did not yet know the Lord. He is with us, never tiring of our frailty but rejoicing, rejoicing every time we take a step on our own. In every moment and every day, may we continue to take those steps, looking again and again for God, our benevolent Father, who would teach us how to walk and how to speak and how to act so that his glory might shine and his lamp might burn in our lives and in the world AMEN. Let me tell you about a young couple. He’s in his mid-twenties; she’s around the same age. He’s from an upper-class family, accustomed to everything money can buy (which he believes is about everything), reared with conservative values, Harvard-educated, and now a lawyer in a prestigious firm. His name is Greg.
She’s from a vastly different background. Her parents, while they have a long-time relationship, never married. They made a conscious effort never to do anything simply because their parents did it or because it was a convention of society. They never saw a tradition that they didn’t break and they never heard a new-age idea they didn't embrace. They were your original flower children, and she was thoroughly immersed in their value system. Her name is Dharma. Dharma and Greg are married. Their life together is a constant meeting and clashing of value systems. Both sets of parents are thoroughly involved in their children's lives, which further complicates the picture. It’s the stuff of which situation comedies are made. In fact, it was a situation comedy 20 years ago or so entitled "Dharma and Greg." In one episode they’ve adopted a baby and everybody’s making plans. Greg feels the baby should be baptized — in the church in which he had been baptized. Dharma, open to all ideas, said, "Fine, where's the church?" Greg said he didn't know street names, but he could drive to it. So they drove around and around, but couldn’t find the church. Dharma suggested that perhaps she could drive and Greg could get in the back seat, since he would have been sitting in the back seat of his parents' car the last time he went to church, which it turns out was when he was around seven years old. They never found the church. Later, in discussing the situation with Greg's parents, his mother said, "Oh yes. That was the Presbyterian Church." His father corrected her, "No, dear, the Episcopal Church." They did end up having the baby baptized. They also had him circumcised by a rabbi and blessed by an Indian shaman. Then they had a reception in which Dharma was heard to say, "We want our son to be brought up knowing all religions and ideas so he can choose for himself." The rabbi said to the priest, "That's going to be one mixed up kid!" Dharma and Greg represent a large number of people today. The Church isn’t a "given" entity in people's lives. And those who have church backgrounds often were so poorly indoctrinated in the faith that it’s easy to move to an entirely different religion without being bothered by the difficulty of changing to a completely different belief system. Greg had been baptized. Is he a Christian? Yes. The seed of baptism has been planted. He’s a member of the Body of Christ, and marked as Christ's own forever. I believe it was St. Augustine who said that the marks of baptism are distinguishable even in hell. But if we mean by Christian, "Is he leading a Christian life?' the answer’s no, for to be able to be a part of a worshiping body of believers, and to be able to receive the Sacrament, yet to choose not to do so, is to choose not to lead a Christian life. Worship isn’t the only response called for in the Christian life, but it’s essential. Another problem in Greg's Christian understanding is in his and Dharma's decision to allow their son to choose what he’ll believe. Christian parents, when they present a child for baptism, vow to do the opposite. They vow to nurture that seed that’s planted in baptism, so that as the child matures, she’ll be thoroughly indoctrinated in the Christian faith and life. She may choose not to be faithful, but it shouldn’t be because the parents were "hands off” regarding religion. We must do everything in our power to stay healthy members of the Body of Christ. We do that by being in as close communion as possible with our Lord Jesus and by following his example. The purpose of his life and the way he lived his earthly life can be seen in his baptism. When Jesus went to the river Jordan to be baptized by John, John asked the question that many today ask. Why was one who was perfect baptized? When John protested, saying that Jesus should baptize him, Jesus responded, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Jesus was beginning his ministry. That ministry was to suffer and die for the sins of the whole world. He begins his ministry by identifying with us so completely as to submit to baptism for the repentance of sin. Then, in going down into the water his death was prefigured and coming out of the water so was his resurrection. The seed of baptism has been planted within most of us here today. Like Jesus at his baptism, we’ve been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our whole being has been changed, for we’re members of Christ's Body, enabled to meet the challenges and possibilities of life with the strength of Christ. The old nature is still a part of us, for we still tend to be self-centered, and so we must continually strive, by the grace of God, to die to self that Christ might have full reign in our lives. It’s never been easy to live a Christian life. Now, more than at any other time in the history of our nation, Christianity is at odds with the culture, as Dharma and Greg illustrate beautifully. And so it’s all the more important for us to immerse ourselves in the things of faith, that we may know God's will to the best of our ability and have the strength and courage to do his will. How do we immerse ourselves in the things of faith? Our Baptismal Covenant is the place to start.
By the grace of God, as we, day after day, do the things of faith, we will reflect more clearly the presence of God in our lives. Yes, our society is increasingly non-Christian, as Dharma and Greg illustrate, but that makes our calling all the more important. Happy New Year! Here are some ideas concerning New Year’s Resolutions:
“My New Year’s resolution, says Jim Gaffigan: I will be less laz.” “Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people, Jay Leno said. So overweight people are now average. Which means you’ve met your New Year’s resolution.” My New Year’s resolution is to be less prefect. Also, remember: A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. My name is Fredrick Arthur Robinson. I was named, kind of, for my two grandfathers. My maternal grandfather was Ferdinand, but my parents thought Ferdinand was too old-fashioned a name, and since my grandfather went by Fred, they decided to call me Fredrick. My paternal grandfather was named Arthur. We had absolutely no choice in the name we were given, to state the obvious. I remember that I went through a brief period in my adolescence when I didn't like my name very much. My friends called me Fred, but my family called me Fredrick, except when I was in trouble. Then I was Fredrick Arthur Robinson! At one point I thought it might be nice to change my “goes by” name to Rick, but that didn't last very long. I thought there might be a David here this morning, so I looked up the meaning of the name David, and it means beloved. James means supplanter—it comes from the original Hebrew word Jacob. Lori means Laurel. Elizabeth: God is my oath. Abraham: Father of many. Stephen: Wreath or Crown Everybody's name means something. My wife Linda's name means “pretty.” She certainly lives up to her name! My name means peaceful ruler. I'm not a ruler, but I hope as the leader of this parish that I do lead it in a peaceful way. Names are very important in our Judeo Christian tradition. When Abram was led by God into a new land, God gave him a new name—Abraham. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses asked God what his name was. God said his name is I am that I am. God told Moses, "Tell the Hebrew people that I Am sent you." From then on, God's name was considered to be so holy that it could never be uttered. Thus, when reading the Hebrew text of what we call our Old Testament aloud, when Jews come to the name for God they substitute a different word for him, rather than to say his name aloud. That tradition is followed in our own English text from the Old Testament today. If you look at the Old Testament reading in your bulletins, you will notice the word LORD is spelled in all capital letters. That means that in the Hebrew text God's name appears. That name we believe is pronounced Yahweh, but no one really knows for sure because it was never uttered aloud. Instead of printing Yahweh, the New Revised Standard Version substitutes the word LORD, and signifies the substitution by printing the word LORD in all capital letters. Why did they treat the name of God in such a fashion? It was thought that to know a being's name was to have some control over the one named. Thus, when God gave Adam the job of naming all of the animals in creation, he was giving Adam power over the animals. In trying to sell you something, the sales person wants to know your name right away, and he or she uses your name not once but probably several times. Using your name draws you in and so it does indeed give the salesperson a bit of control. At any rate, the Hebrew people believed that a name contained something of the essence of a person's being. They had an almost magical understanding of knowing someone's name. It would be totally inappropriate to believe that one had some kind of control over the being of Almighty God. Thus, his name was never said aloud. Therefore, when a person underwent a change in being, it was significant that the person be given a new name. Abram became Abraham; Jacob became Israel; in the New Testament Saul became Paul. In the early Church, when a person was baptized that person was given a new name, signifying a change in the person’s being. On the eighth day after Jesus's birth, he was circumcised and given the name Jesus. It means Savior. Not only is his name known, but it is also utterable, and he could be seen and touched. He is in the weakness of human flesh. Through Jesus, Almighty God indeed has become familiar to those who know him. The best way to know God is to know Jesus. In fact, since Jesus entered this world he is the only way to the Father. As his name reveals, Jesus is the Savior and it is only through him that humanity can be saved. St. Luke proclaims, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, elaborates: "God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In knowing the name Jesus, however, we certainly do not have any power or control over him. In fact, it’s just the opposite. When we utter the name Jesus we proclaim that he has power over us, that he is our Lord and Savior, that it is he through whom we dare approach God as Father. And yet, we realize that there is power in his name, just as the apostles realized in the New Testament, and so we pray in his name, we heal in his name, we preach in his name. One resolution we should all make this day is to be more thankful for the grace given us through Jesus, our Savior and Lord. Unless, as the song goes, your true love gives you gifts on each of the twelve days of Christmas, most likely your gift-giving took place seven days ago, Christmas Day, the day of the Nativity of our Lord. Through gifts we often are given precious memories by our friends, memories that will last well beyond the twelve days of Christmas.
Gift giving at Christmas hasn’t always been universally accepted. The Puritans forbade the observance of Christmas and everything associated with it. And while Charles Dickens helped to popularize the giving of gifts at Christmas, others have tried to dampen the practice because of its obvious materialistic dangers. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, thought it best not to give gifts, but to sit still and think about truth and purity until her friends were all the better for it. Can you imagine the reaction of your family and friends if you had told them that instead of giving gifts this year you meditated on their behalf? It’s a nice gesture, but it wouldn’t have the impact of a nice, tangible gift. As we find ourselves on the First Sunday after Christmas Day, it’s good to reflect on the meaning of that event that brought all of our celebrations about. The Gospel that’s read on this day is the first 18 verses of the Gospel according to St. John, and its placement on this day is precisely for the purpose of reflection on the meaning of Christ’s birth. These verses have come to be known as the Prologue of John. John is seeking to answer the question, “Who is Jesus?” Before we examine what John says, I’d like for you to imagine what you would say if someone who knows absolutely nothing about Jesus were to ask you who he is. How would you respond? Some might say Jesus is the Son of God. I watched a television program in which Jesus was referred to by one of the characters as the Great Communicator. Some folks would say that Jesus was a great teacher or a great moral leader. Some would say he’s the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy concerning the awaited Messiah. The apostle and evangelist St. John, in beginning his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, says he is the Word. Being familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, John starts his account of the Gospel in the same way that the book of Genesis starts: “In the beginning.” But John’s story of Jesus actually begins before creation, when nothing existed but God himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So, when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” he’s speaking of much more than a mere utterance of speech; he’s speaking of God himself. John’s using a concept of the Word that was familiar to both the Jews and the Greeks of his time. For the Jew, a word was something in itself; it was an event, an action, and it had power. Genesis proclaims, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Each part of creation came to be through God’s uttering a word. Words had a life of their own. When Isaac gave to Jacob his words of blessing, even when they were to the wrong person, the person not intended by Isaac to receive his blessing, they couldn’t be taken back. The event had happened through the utterance of words. The prophet Jeremiah records God’s words: “Is not my word like fire, and, says the Lord, like a hammer which breaks the rocks in pieces?” By around 100 B.C., because the name of God—Yahweh—was considered too holy to be said, whenever the scriptures were read in public, when the reader came to the name of God, he would substitute “Word” for Yahweh, and that practice was in use at the time John wrote his account of the Gospel. In calling the Word God, John is not doing anything surprising to the Jew of his day. Likewise, for the Greek, logos, which is the Greek word for word, means reason. It suggests the order that characterizes creation, and ultimately, it is the mind of God. And so, to the Greeks, for John to call logos God is no surprise. What is a surprise to both Jew and Greek is what John goes on to say, for he says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” This Jesus, who was born as a baby in Bethlehem, at a particular time in history, existed from before all time, and is God himself. We hear a lot about keeping the true meaning of Christmas, and this is what Christmas really means: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God taking flesh in a particular human being at a particular time in history has at least two profound theological implications. First, it means that God is intimately acquainted with human nature, from the inside. He knows what it is to be hungry, to be anxious, to be rejected, to be tempted. The incarnation shows us the extent of God’s love for us and the fact that there’s nothing that we experience that is beyond his compassion, his concern, his forgiveness. Jesus wasn’t born in a church and reared in a protected, insulated environment. He chose and continues to choose to be involved in every aspect of human life—our relationships, our businesses, the tough decisions we have to make. God isn’t aloof from life, but is intimately involved. And second, the incarnation gives to the Church the model for faith. We’re called not simply to think good thoughts, not just to say our prayers, as good as these things are, but to live out our faith in our deeds. And so we build hospitals to care for the sick, schools to educate the young. We hand out lunches to the hungry, build homes to help the poor break out of the cycle of poverty, provide counseling to troubled youth. Wherever there’s a human need, there’s the Church, incarnating our belief that God is intimately involved with our every need. That is the meaning of Christmas. So keep giving gifts at Christmas as tangible signs of your love for your family and friends, but don’t let it stop there. Let us make giving a way of life, modeling ourselves after the self-giving love of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us. The greens have been hung. The frontal has been changed. Flowers of red and white bloom from cold stone and dark wood.
And yet we wait. Advent may begin in the dark, with the thundering voice of John the Baptist ringing in our ears; but it ends in the light, with glad tidings lifting our hearts. Can you feel it? Anticipatory smiles are on our faces. Good humor is already tugging at our lips. We know what is coming in just a few short hours. The music, the cookies, the shrieks and squeals of delight (at least in my house): the gift of Christmas is about to be opened — because the baby is coming. He’s almost here; but this morning on the last Sunday of Advent, his mother is still in labor — though not as we might expect. For with the words “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” the pain of childbearing begins to fade, the sin of Eve begins to be redeemed, the curse itself begins to lift. Because Mary — our Mother, God’s Mother — bowed her head and with her whole being said, “May it be to me according to thy word.” Her “yes” was the beginning of it all, the beginning of the rebirth of everything — man, woman, child, bird, beast, rocks, trees — everything reborn in the birth of the Virgin’s Son. Mary couldn’t have known what would happen the day Gabriel appeared. She may have been sweeping the floor or doing dishes when suddenly an angel spoke. And he addressed her as one would a queen: “Hail! Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” And Mary, that righteous woman, fell on her knees, afraid — in awe — of what was about to be revealed. Her spirit was troubled. What could this greeting mean? And so she was silent. She waited, and she watched, and the peace of God which passes all understanding filled her heart and settled her mind and stilled her body. Because Mary knew God. She knew him. She knew that the Holy One of Israel Is Who He Is and Will Be Who He Will Be, never changing and always surprising us. And so it was that she believed that this Word she had been given was Good News. God is on the move. Messiah is coming. He is drawing near to save his people; but he comes not as a conquering king, approaching only as close to his servants as he could stand. He comes as a King who, setting aside his crown and taking off his royal robes, humbles himself until even the smallest, weakest child can behold him and know without a shadow of a doubt that this God-Man is Love. As the Apostle John put it so poignantly, the Word that was born of God before creation began, through whom all was made — He was born of Mary. God tabernacled among us, trading his glory and power for the helpless fragility of a baby in his mother’s womb. And Mary loved him for it, loved him as her God and as her very own Son. How could she stay silent any longer? “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me. And holy is his name!” The Blessed Virgin waits. Mother and child are about to meet. It is the quiet of the morning before the dawn of the last night — and we wait with her. Joyful. Expectant. Bearing Christ in our own way and in our own time. Praying with his Mother, our Mother, that the Child born in a manger might reign in our hearts — not just at Christmas, but always. AMEN. Christmas is a time when memories are made. For me, many of those memories have
to do with the Church. For as far back as I can remember, the bulk of my Christmases have been spent in church. Before I was a priest, I was in church choirs. Christmas for church choirs is a very busy and time-consuming holy day. For example, our parish choir sang for our four o’clock mass and now for our 11 o’clock mass, with rehearsals prior to the services. That was my experience, too, as I was growing up. So many of my Christmas memories are tied up with the music of Christmas. It’s so beautiful and heart-warming. The Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah is a favorite, especially “For Unto us a Child is Born” and, of course, the “Hallelujah Chorus.” But the music that’s most beloved are Christmas carols. Many of us learned those carols at an early age and we look forward to coming to church and singing them each year. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without that beautiful tradition. When I was young I knew all the words to the carols, but I didn’t catch the subtleties that are so important to me today. Take for instance “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” written by Philips Brooks in 1868. Three years earlier he had traveled to the Holy Land and had seen Bethlehem and the place where it’s believed Jesus was born. When he returned to his home in Philadelphia the memory of Bethlehem stayed with him and inspired him to write his now famous hymn. As in so many of the hymns of the Church, there are at least two levels of meaning in the hymn. The first is literal and the second figurative. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light” recalls not only the dark streets of Bethlehem in the first century, but also the dark streets of Philadelphia in the 19 th century. How dark those streets were, as in every city in the United States at that time. The Civil War had only ended three years before. So many had been killed, the economy was in a shambles, places where the war had been fought were still having trouble getting back to normal. But he also knew that if his hymn happened to survive the test of time, those words would speak to every age. Those dark streets of Bethlehem are not so much a place as they are a condition of the soul. Those dark streets speak of a sense of isolation from God and one another and even from oneself; the dark streets are the wounds each one of us has that have left their scars, some still not even healed. Those dark streets speak of grudges still being held, consciences nagged by secret sins, selfishness and greed in the midst of hunger and want. Those dark streets are in New York and London and Moscow and Kyiv and Champaign, and every place where human beings are found, because those dark streets are in the human heart. It is into those dark streets that Jesus, the everlasting Light, wants to shine. Just as that Light shone on the streets of Bethlehem, so he continues to shine in our day, “where meek souls will receive him.” I see that Light in the lives of the people of this parish and I’m inspired by your witness. The famous preacher, Fred Craddock, who died in 2015, tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the Gospel in India toward the end of World War II. After many months the time came for him to return home for a furlough. His church wired money for him to book passage on a steamer; but when he got to the port city, he discovered that a boatload of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world, literally looking for a place to live. These particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city. It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, “Merry Christmas.” The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, “We’re Jews.” “I know that,” said the missionary. “What would you like for Christmas?” In utter amazement, the Jews responded, “Why, we’d like pastries, good pastries, like the ones we used to have in Germany.” So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port. Of course, then he had to wire home asking for more money to book his passage back to the States. As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what had happened to the money they’d already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews. His superiors wired back, “Why did you do that? They don’t even believe in Jesus.” He wired in return: “Yes, but I do.” The dark streets in that very dark time had a Light shine in them that night, for Jesus Christ came to that little community of Jews through that missionary. Each one of us is called to bring the Light to those in our families, our workplaces, our clubs, our schools. The people with whom we associate may not be Christian, but we are, and that means that Jesus can be present wherever we happen to be. O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. “Who are you?” they asked. “Who are you? The Messiah? Elijah? Tell us. We must know.” In the Greek text of our gospel lesson today, the urgency in the priests’ and levites’ voices is unmistakable. A man has come, from the wilderness, from who knows where, and he is preaching, proclaiming a message that sounds different than anything the Jewish people in those days could remember hearing. This man in his hair shirt and his leather belt, beard unkempt and voice blasting, sounded like a prophet — but a prophet from another time and another place. He spoke like Moses. He spoke like Elijah. “Who are you?” they asked him. “We must know. Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
And John said: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” St. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, knew who he was. And who he wasn’t. He knew it was his role, his purpose to step out in front of the Messiah, proclaiming that his advent was at hand. And then he would fade away, his job done. Which is what happened. Imprisoned by an angry king, John was killed. Beheaded. John once said that “I must decrease, so that he, so that Christ, can increase.” And that happened. Literally. John the Baptist has always been a formidable figure, defying easy categorization, offending just about everyone. Like the season of Advent, in which he features so prominently, this last prophet of the Old Covenant straddles two worlds and two times at once. It’s really no wonder he’s grouchy. All jokes aside, his intensity, though off-putting, is right on the mark. St. John the Baptist understands like no one else did or does what was about to happen not simply in Judea during the 1st century AD but in all places and for all times. God himself was coming, coming to save his people, to save his creation. “Make straight the way of the LORD.” On this third Sunday in Advent, we cannot forget that imperative. The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness won’t let us. His words echo throughout our music and in our liturgy. Even the collect for today is on John’s side: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; for we are sorely hindered by our sins.” But what does that mean? As we’ve heard this week and last, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And hundreds, thousands of people from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem came running and were baptized, confessing their sins — a scene that never seems to make it onto any Advent calendars. Perhaps because such a spectacle can’t really be called festive. If there’s anything more discomfiting than talking about John the Baptist, it’s that s-word, “sin,” which if we were to poll most people would be one of the topics that is strictly off-the-table for holiday gatherings. Sin is not the stuff of polite conversation. And yet we keep hearing about it. John the Baptist keeps talking about it — for a reason. He knows what is at stake. He knows that it is for our good, for the well-being of our souls, to reckon with the fact we still need rescuing, because Sin — with a capital “S” — is still among us. And by that I don’t mean that we’re all terrible people who should do more to feel bad about how bad we are. Sin isn’t just about the misdeed, the white lie, the one-too-many drinks. Sin is a power. An adversary we’ve all met, whether in the tragedy of a loved one’s death or in the never-ending medical bills that accompany chronic illness or in the sudden rush of irrational anger or the surge of irrepressible fear that plague us when we’re driving to work or failing to sleep at night. That is Sin. It is alienation from God. It is a negating force that works its way through families, cities, and nations, breaking and brawling until we’re afraid that everything will go to ruin. We shouldn’t be surprised that our culture’s Christmas season has become so long and so extravagant — because Sin and all that accompanies it is so clearly visible: on TV, online, on our phones. We never seem to get a break from bad news. And we are all desperate for relief. We are all hungry for love. We are all longing for good news. And we don’t want those things to be a nostalgia-fueled dream we live for a few months out of the year. We want to possess the reality. Which we already do. The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed. In the paradox of our life in Christ, which is the paradox Advent puts on full display, we are reminded in no uncertain terms that happiness is not found under a Christmas tree. Happiness, true happiness, is found at the foot of the cross. And that, contradictory as it sounds, is the Gospel, the good news, the cry of victory, that still applies to us. For we are sorely hindered by the sorrow and the sickness in our world and in our hearts; and yet there is One who is not. There is One who has triumphed over all the forces of darkness, who willingly, actively accepted the worst the world could give so that he might deliver his beloved from Sin and Death and clothe her with the garlands and the jewels of holiness. From slavery to salvation. Christ would do, he does do the same for us, coming daily, hourly, moment-by-moment to strengthen and transform his bride. And that is not just a hope. Not just a figment of our imagination. That’s real. It’s our reality. Someone who loves us, who knows us, who promised not to leave us, is working for our good at all times. He is there, even now knocking on the door of our hearts, saying “The LORD has sent me to bring good news to you.” Christ has come. His Advent is at hand, and he has been sent by the Father to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, to comfort all who mourn — and not just that, but to build us up and send us out, so that the ruined might raise up the ruins and the devastated build back the former devastations, until paradise begins to take hold now. But how? And where? And why? Those are Advent questions, the questions that characterize a Christian life, which is one of learning to see Christ and then walking straight toward him. That posture, that watchfulness and wakefulness, will change us, will make us the kind of people who look for the light in every eye, for the good in everything, who thereby find Jesus and follow him wherever he might take us. As St. John the Baptist prays, so do we: That we might become less and less and Christ become more and more. For He alone is our Hope. He alone is our Love. He alone is our Joy. “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.” AMEN. Gazing out over the walls of Jerusalem, you would have thought that all was well. The King in those days, Hezekiah, had recovered, miraculously, from a terrible illness. And, on top of that, he had stopped Babylon, that insatiable empire, from destroying the last vestige of Solomon’s once-glorious kingdom. There was peace in Judea. Peace in a world at war. The end they all feared — from the kids playing ball to the elders sitting in the gate — had not come. Yet. “Hear the Word of the LORD of hosts,” the Prophet Isaiah said. “The day is coming, O King, when all that is in your house will be taken to Babylon. Even your own children will be taken there and serve in its courts.” And Hezekiah, thinking that there would be peace and security in his day, said, “The Word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.”
When the Prophet Isaiah recorded the exchange I’ve just mentioned, when he wrote that familiar cry in today’s OT lesson, Jerusalem was on the edge of disaster. The tension was palpable. Smoke rose from ruined cities to the North and to the East and to the South. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Babylon came knocking on Jerusalem’s door. It didn’t matter what Hezekiah thought he heard. The time for intervention was up and the time Jerusalem’s reckoning was at hand. There was little they could do but wait. There was little they could do but lament the failure of their leaders and regret the idolatry, the faithlessness that had brought them to this point. And there was little they could do but hope — for it was at that time that God said, “I am coming.” During the season of Advent, we, too, walk that fine line between despair and hope, between the already and the not yet, between darkness of Sin and the light of salvation. During the season of Advent, we, too, feel that holy dissatisfaction with a world that is so out-of-step with the pain all around us. During the season of Advent, we, too, are the people of Israel, who wait for a miracle. Who wait for Someone to come and save us. But during this season of Advent in particular, that feeling is stronger than it has been in years — because we can’t forget that we need saving. Smoke rises from almost every corner of the globe. The poor are oppressed. The widow and the orphan go hungry. And the last vestige of virtue and civility, the foundation of our society, is crumbling away. Has crumbled away. To quote a Chinese curse I’m sure you’ve all heard, We live in interesting times. And we would like very much to have it any other way. But the strength of our wishing doesn’t accomplish much. Like the people of Jerusalem, we watch as the end of something — whether the precarious post-Cold War peace, or the power and prestige of our own nation, or the blessings of modernity that we’ve long taken for granted — begins to wither away. Everyone knows we’re close to something dark and dangerous. And it doesn’t matter how much Christmas music is piped into every grocery store in town, we can’t drown out the silent scream of a people who can no longer see the humanity in each other for the fear and anger in their eyes. Possessed by worry, hardened by hate, we all, every one of us — yes, us here, too — are in danger of losing our way, of losing our life, not to a literal physical death but to unreality. To non-being. To evil. Babylon is still among us, prowling around like a hungry lion, longing to devour the people of God. She knows we are weak. She knows we are vulnerable. But that is precisely where our strength lies. We never could live life on our own. We never could fight our battles like the last survivor in a sea of enemies. We never could find recovery or reach the good without Someone else’s help. And we never needed to. The battle is over. The strife is ended. Although we so often live like war is raging around us, it is in fact finished. Darkness once covered our eyes, ice enclosed our hearts, and we did not know it. We lived as though asleep, asleep to the glory and the grandeur and the grace that is all around us. And yet Someone has been fighting on our behalf. Someone has been laboring for us, never ceasing to seek out and save the lost. No matter what condition we might be in. Our Savior doesn’t wait. He doesn’t wait until all is well to make his Advent among us. He doesn’t wait until we are fit for his presence. He comes. He comes now. And that is the beginning of the Gospel. The voice of one is crying in the desert: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” He is on the way. When our leaders have failed us, when doom is imminent, when all hope seems lost, God speaks — to our hearts. “Comfort, comfort my people.” Undeterred by the ruin, unafraid of the flames, unashamed of our faithlessness, Christ comes. Gaze fixed, heart sure, hands steady. He comes with might. He rules with strength. He would stretch out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that every one might come within the reach of his saving embrace. Our Lord would gather us up, each one of us, with the tenderness of a shepherd with a lamb, with the tenderness of a mother with her newborn child. He gathers up the lame and the leper, the weak and the wounded and loves us back to life again. His Advent is at hand. Not only at the end of time when he comes to judge the quick and the dead; not only in the manger where the one through whom all was made makes all things new, as he cries for his mother; but now. He comes now — into the wilderness of our hearts. He would raise the valleys and lower the mountains and dwell with those who need him, who have seen in their own selves their need for a Savior, and who are looking for him — only to find he’s been there all along. As the psalmist said, God’s salvation is near to those who fear him — on our lips and in our hearts, speaking peace to a people who can hear that we are all poor in spirit, dry and dead without the living water of Christ to cleanse us and nourish us and lift our gaze once more toward the world where Christ is all in all, where his footsteps are there for us to follow. “Comfort, comfort my people, says the LORD. I AM coming.” AMEN. We have come to this marvelous season called Advent. Here in the church, the signs of Advent are unmistakable. The liturgical color is a rich purple, the flower arrangements are more subdued, we began with the Decalogue and a prayer of confession, the hymns and other music speak about expectantly awaiting the coming of Christ, and, of course, the Advent wreath is in place with only one candle lighted on this first Sunday.
Advent is a first cousin of Lent; it's penitential but not as penitential as Lent. Unlike Lent, it has no prescribed fast days, but abstinence is encouraged, especially on the Fridays of Advent. It follows the ancient custom of providing the Church with a season of penitence before the celebration of a great feast, in this case, the Feast of Christmas. The biggest difference between Advent and Lent, however, is that Lent is not controversial, but Advent is. And it all has to do with how Christmas is celebrated. In our culture, we are now fully in the Christmas season. Shops and malls, neighborhoods, many homes, even of Christians, are decked out with Christmas trees, beautiful lights, and all other kinds of decorations. Christmas programming and advertising are ubiquitous on the television and radio. Such will be the case through the 25th of December, and then all of it will disappear and Christmas music will be heard no more until next year. The only place you currently don't see Christmas decorations and hear Christmas carols playing in the background is the Church. If you weren't accustomed to the tradition of Advent and came into the church for worship on any Sunday of the season, you might even be irritated that this is the one place where the birth of Christ is not being observed! You might even be a little indignant! "What kind of a church is this?!" you might exclaim. Even some Episcopalians think that the penitential emphasis of Advent is inappropriate and they refer to this traditional understanding as Sadvent, whereas they would observe Gladvent! The fact of the matter is that the Church is obviously not going to change the culture in which we live so that everybody observes Advent, and Christmas begins on the 25th of December and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January. Likewise, the culture is not going to change how the Church observes Advent. And we are a part of the Church as well as a part of the culture, so during this period before the 25th of December we Episcopalians lead a kind of split-personality, schizophrenic life. And I think that's probably the best we can do. Yes, if we tried hard enough, we really could decide that we’re not going to participate in any Christmas activities between now and the 25th of December. We could choose not to accept any party invitations and we could refuse to give gifts or accept gifts until the appointed time. When people wish us a Merry Christmas during Advent we could give them a disapproving look and wish them a blessed Advent. Another way of dealing with the incongruity of this time of year is simply to accept the fact that worship in the Church emphasizes something entirely different from what's going on elsewhere and that we just forget about the meaning of the Advent season in the rest of our lives. I don't recommend either of these approaches during the season of Advent. The better choice is truly to be schizophrenic about the season! We can engage in what the culture does at this time of year, but also incorporate the things of Advent into our daily lives. Advent devotionals at meal times are a wonderful way to do that, using an Advent wreath, which is also a visible sign of the season. Heed St. Paul's warning, incorporated into today’s Collect, "to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." Think about making a sacramental confession, or at least take time to confess your sins in the privacy of your own home. What works of darkness are still a part of your life? Confess those works of darkness, ask for God's forgiveness, and replace them with the things of faith. This Advent write a letter or send a card to someone who is lonely; incorporate more prayer into the midst of your day, not long periods of prayer but short prayers of thanksgiving, calling to mind that Jesus is present in your life and you in his. Finally, when Christmas really does come, keep it for a whole 12 days. Make your family celebration of the Christmas season truly a joyful proclamation of the incarnation. Do you believe Jesus is coming today? He may! He tells us, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning---lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.” Enter into the mystery of Advent, and you and I will be ready when he comes. Several years ago I sent my then First Assistant Priest, Fr. Charleston Wilson, who is now the Rector of my former parish, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I wanted him to go because it enriches one’s ministry in countless ways. I have been blessed to go several times, taking a group of pilgrims each time.
When Fr. Charleston got back, he told me that a question he asked a Hasidic Jew was whether they have Jews from the Reform tradition of Judaism in Israel. Hasidic Jews are orthodox Jews to the Nth degree. The Hasidic Jew’s dismissive reply was, “Reform Jews are of no consequence. You know, they’re kind of like Episcopalians in the Christian faith. They don’t believe anything.” Of course, he didn’t know he was talking to an Episcopalian. What an inaccurate picture of Episcopalians he had! Or did he? I cringe inside when someone calls us “Catholic Lite.” “Lite” is good when referring to calories; when speaking of our faith it’s a terrible indictment. This is the last Sunday of the Church Year. On this day, the year comes to a dramatic close as we celebrate Christ as King. King of what? King of Christians? King of heaven? King of creation?—King of all that is or ever will be, King of the universe. King of kings and Lord of lords. I can’t ever hear that verse from Revelation without thinking of Handel’s immortal setting of that text: King of kings and Lord of lords. The designation of Christ as King is a curious one for us Americans. Our picture of kings is not altogether flattering. One might even say that we have an innate distrust of kings. While we enjoy watching the royal family in England, a monarchy in America is unthinkable. Thomas Jefferson said of monarchy, “There’s not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.” Jefferson was speaking of Episcopalians, by the way! Mark Twain expressed American distrust of monarchy even more concisely in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: “All kings is mostly rapscallions.” But the real problem lies not in the concept of kingship, but in the inability of most kings to be what a king should be. To quote another famous American, William Penn, “Kings…should imitate God; their mercy should be above all their works.” God is the model for kings, and Christ is King of kings. In the today’s Gospel we have a vision of Christ coming in glory at the end of time. He’s seated on a glorious throne, surrounded by throngs of angels, and all people from throughout the ages, from every nation on earth, are gathered before him. It’s Judgment Day. He separates them into two groups, the sheep and the goats, the sheep destined for heaven, and the goats destined for everlasting punishment. Every time we say the Nicene Creed, we say Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Yet this picture of the King Jesus as a stern judge, actually sending some people to eternal punishment is unsettling. We want the Jesus who’s merciful, infinitely loving and forgiving. This picture of Jesus shows a point of no return, that what we do here on earth matters eternally. What’s the criterion for deciding whether one is a sheep or a goat? The showing of mercy to those who come to us in need. Not only that, Jesus tells us that in showing mercy to the needy we’re actually showing mercy to him; and in withholding mercy to the needy, we withhold mercy to him. Even as you feed the least of the hungry, give drink to the least of the thirsty, visit the lowliest of prisoners, you’ve done it to Jesus. It seems so simple. Our eternal destiny rests on such a simple thing. We’ve experienced mercy ourselves—our sins have been forgiven through the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. St. Paul states that “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We have accepted him as Savior and Lord. Now we must live our lives with mercy as our prime directive. Our lives are to show the love of Christ, and as we show that love of Christ we actually meet him. St. Francis of Assisi was riding his horse on his way home one day. Struggling with God and the call on his life, yet still enjoying the benefits of being a rich man’s son, he felt his horse shy under him. He looked up to see the most feared sight in the 12th century world—a leper. Fighting down his fear and loathing, Francis dismounted, went to the leper, and put some money in his hand. Then, impelled by what he regarded as the unseen power of Christ, he took the leper’s hand and kissed it, putting his lips to the leper’s rotting flesh. The leper took hold of him and gave him the kiss of peace in return. Francis reciprocated, then got back on his horse and rode home. From that day he began to visit the lepers, bringing them gifts and kissing their hands. In his will, Francis wrote, “The Lord led me among them, and I showed mercy to them, and when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of body and soul. As this Christian Year comes to a close, we do well to reflect on what we mean when we call Christ King. Let this part of the Episcopal Church, the only part that we can really influence, be known for our great faithfulness, our devotion to following our Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, our generosity to the mission of Christ in this place, and our devotion to serving the poor. When I was a child we sang a song in Sunday School that went like this: “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning. Give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning, keep me burning to the break of day.”
That song refers to the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, which we just heard in today’s Gospel. Weddings in the days when Jesus walked the earth lasted an entire week. All regular activities were suspended. Religious obligations were dispensed with by law. It was to be a celebration from start to finish. The highlight of the week was when the bridegroom went to the home of the bride and took her in procession to his home. No one knew when he would come. It was always at night, and he’d try to arrive after the bride and her ten bridesmaids had gone to sleep. So the groom would make his surprise arrival, wake up the ladies in the middle of the night, and they’d make their way to the bridegroom’s house, lighting the way with their lamps. Once they had arrived, they would go into the house and have more partying. The doors would be closed and barred so that beggars and thieves couldn’t get in. Wouldn’t it have been fun to attend a wedding like that?! Jesus was comparing life with him with a wedding. He’s the bridegroom; the Church is the bride. We’re the ones who are at the celebration. Is Jesus implying that if you’re a part of the Church life is one big party? I don’t think that’s his point. I do believe that he’s saying that no matter what’s going on in your life, if you’re living in him and with him you’ll have a kind of joy that cannot be extinguished. Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Robert Louis Stevenson had it right when he said, “To miss the joy is to miss all.” That applies whether we’re talking about experiencing the birth of your first child, or a baptism, or the first day of school, or, of course, a wedding; whether we’re speaking of a serious illness, or losing a job, or experiencing the failure of a marriage. It applies even when we go through the valley of the shadow of death. No matter what, good or bad, happy or sad, Jesus wants to be present with us and in us to give us greater understanding, to guide us, to comfort and console us. As is his custom, though, Jesus puts a twist into the parable that’s uncomfortable. When the bridegroom arrives, unexpectedly, five of the bridesmaids’ lamps have gone out because they didn’t bring extra oil. They try to borrow some from the wise maidens who had prepared, but they don’t have enough for themselves and for others. So the five foolish maidens go out to buy more oil. By the time they arrive at the groom’s house the door has been shut and barred and they can’t get in. You may be a part of the Church, a believer in Christ, a part of the wedding party, yet find yourself outside, wanting to get in but unable to do so. Tennyson, in “The Idylls of the King,” captures this moment in life poignantly: Late, late, so late! And dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! But we can enter still. Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for this we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now. No light: So late! And dark and chill the night! Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now. Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in, tho’ late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! Ye cannot enter now. Our faith is that Jesus will come again, at the end of time, to judge the living and the dead. But that’s not the only time Jesus will come. He comes at unexpected times as well. He wants to be with us in our day to day activities. He wants to be able to help us through the crises of our life. Yet for him to be able to do that, we must prepare a place for him in our hearts. As Phillips Brooks said, “Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.” In other words, we need oil in our lamps for the light of Christ to burn within us. If we’re going to be prepared for him when he comes again in glory, we need to be prepared for him in the ordinary and extraordinary times in our lives. How do we prepare? Receive Holy Communion. Read, mark, and learn Holy Scripture. Regularly examine your life and make your confession. Give generously of your time, talent, and treasure for God’s work. These things are oil for our lamps and prepare us for the coming of the Bridegroom. The whole point of the parable is that it’s not yet too late for us. Will you be prepared when the Bridegroom comes? When he does, we want to be able to sing Hosanna at that time. Remember how the song ends? “Sing, Hosanna, sing, Hosanna, sing Hosanna to the King of kings. Sing, Hosanna, sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna to the King.” Just as the days are getting shorter and the air is getting cooler, our world grows darker, human feeling grows colder, and people from every tribe, tongue, and nation brace themselves for whatever it is that will happen next.
At this time of year, we close our doors. Pull our blinds against the chill of autumn. The temptation is to do the same with our hearts. When history is unfolding at such a break-neck pace, how could we not? Humans are wired for survival. We excel at detecting threats. And now, they’re everywhere we look. After all, the war in the Gaza Strip, the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Myanmar, the battles stretching across Africa — they’re not simply overseas. Each one is playing out in our back pockets. And so it is that it’s that much more important, that much more providential that today, now, at the turn of the seasons, when the harvest is over and the plants have died, when sunlight is scarce and the winds of change drive us indoors, that the Church flips on the lights and cries with one voice, “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb.” Much as we might believe that what we see is all there is; much as we might fear that evil will triumph even if good wins, the reality of our life, of our world, of all history is summed up in the shout of the saints. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have come before us, who stand even now in the throne room of God — and they will not let us forget the truth. The saints, our brothers and sisters in Christ, are people throughout the centuries who have shown us what it means to live a life totally devoted to Christ. The saints saw Empires rise and Empires fall. Some fought against heresy. Others fought against demons. But they all weathered the same catastrophes, the same hatreds, the same fears as we do today. Gathered at the tombs of the martyrs, the early Christians would meditate on their witness and come to believe that they, too, could persevere, even amidst great suffering. “If they can do it, so can I.” And so it has gone from person to person, saint to saint from the earliest days of the church until now. Whether a martyr of third century Rome or a wealthy merchant’s son of 12th century Italy or an expatriate nun in 20th century Paris, the diverse and different people of God speak as though with one voice. “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb.” These are the words the saints must cry, the witness they must give, the good news that bursts forth from them because they know with their whole being that the One who makes the hills to dance, who brings rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, who names the stars and knows each sparrow as it falls — He is the one to whom the worst has already happened and been repaired (St. Julian of Norwich), and he is beside us every step of the way . Salvation belongs to him. It is in God’s nature to save, to heal, to love past the point of death itself. In God alone is our hope — and we see that embodied, incarnate, in the communion of saints. When faced with famine, pestilence, war, and death, the saints knew that no one and nothing could offer them shelter but God. The things of this earth will always fail. Money can’t always buy us out of our troubles; family can’t always love us back. Power, passion, pleasure: They all pass away in the end. Only God remains and remains the same. And only he can give that which the world cannot take away. Dwelling within us, the Lord reworks our hearts and reshapes our wills, turning earthenware pots into precious vessels of His mercy and fine instruments of his peace, never doubting or departing from us as he removes the scales from our eyes. Step by step, moment by moment, the Lord works, and in the light of his presence, we see the truth (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross [Edith Stein]): God is everywhere we look, in all things and in every place. In the good and in the bad, in the garden and on the cross — we learn to see Christ in all that is (Alexander Schmemann). This is what the saints teach us. It’s how each one of them lived. And it is the wisdom we need so desperately today. Because anger and hatred and violence breed darkness; and in the fading light, the temptation to take the very weapons of our enemies and recast them as the sacred servants of justice is deeply attractive. Even the best people can be corrupted by the desire for vengeance. Even the holiest, in her own strength, can forget the image of God in her neighbor. The saints teach us to not be numbed or hardened by the cruelty we behold (Etty Hillesum) but to go on seeing, even if it causes us pain — because when forgiveness, when mercy, when love disappear, the best of the human dies, and what we are left with is weeping and the gnashing of teeth. The saints knew this. They knew, more than most, the depths to which humankind can sink — but nevertheless be redeemed. Holiness does not mean perfection. It means becoming whole. Holiness is a process. A path. A long obedience in the same direction (Eugene Peterson). When we follow our Lord on his way, we dare to risk our life — which doesn’t usually happen in an arena, surrounded by wild beasts, but in the hidden, secret death of dying to our own desires, deliberately sacrificing our own ego, for the sake of Christ and our neighbor. And yet, in losing our life, we shall find it. Paradoxical as it may sound, what we learn from our teachers the saints is what Jesus was saying all along: We must hate the world so that God can teach us to love it aright (St. Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia). This is the constant conversion our lives in Christ will take: Turning, always turning, away from the things of this world toward the love that knows no end, the foolish love of God (St. Nicholas Cabasilas), that changes the world by changing us. Even the smallest among us — the youngest in terms of age or in terms of faith — can do this good work. Take courage, the saints say, for the most insignificant act done in pure love makes visible the grace of God (St. John of the Cross and Brother Lawrence). That witness to the truth makes present the One who holds us in his hand, who has promised to bring great good even out of great evil, and who has done it in the resurrection of his Son. To act in such a way may smart from time to time. It may cost us our pride or our self-righteousness, but what we gain vastly outweighs whatever we lose; for with every act of love, with every step on the path of life we come more fully awake to the fact that we live and move and breath in a world charged with the grandeur of God (Gerard Manley Hopkins). We walk amongst a great cloud of witnesses, who sing with endless praise, who know the truth and that truth has set them free, to take what they were given — the good and the bad — and give it back to God with thanksgiving for this miracle that is life now. Even now, when the world is dark, when the days are short. God speaks in his Word and in his saints. He calls us to persevere in our faith, to imitate the ones who came before us, who are praying for us that we might see what they see and taste what they taste — for they know that all things pass away; God never changes (St. Teresa of Ávila). And those who have God lack nothing because Christ is everything: Joy and life and light, transforming every moment of every day into a foretaste of his kingdom (St. Porphyrios Kafsokalyvia and Alexander Men). This is ours, even now, as we open our hands to pick up our cross and join the great crowd, the numerous throng, in singing “Salvation belongs to God and to the Lamb.” Despite what the world might say and what we might fear, it is finished. Truly, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” (St. Julian of Norwich) for those who cling to Christ. AMEN. We’ve come to that time when we’re asking for your pledges for the coming year so that your Vestry knows how to budget for next year. So, this is my opportunity to talk about my favorite topic and yours! I say that it’s my favorite topic and yours with tongue in cheek, for after talking about stewardship for the 41 years I’ve been a priest, I know fully well how a sermon on stewardship is viewed by the average person in the pew.
I’ve had people say to me things like this: “I invited my friend to come to church with me today, but if I had known you were going to talk about money, I wouldn’t have done that.” My answer to that is, “That’s why I didn’t tell you I was going to talk about money. I wouldn’t want you not to bring your friend to church.” Or there’s this one: “All the church ever talks about is money!” My answer to that is, “Not so!” Or this: “You shouldn’t ask people to pledge. You should live on what people put in the plate and let it go at that.” My answer to that is, “How would they know what they should put in the plate if you never talk about it?” And then there’s this one: “When I come to church, I want to hear about Jesus, not about money.” Well, I’m glad you said that. Jesus talked a great deal about money. He used it to teach about the kingdom of God, as in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price and the Parable of the Lost Coin. In fact, 16 of the 38 parables deal with money and stewardship. He warned us that money could be a barrier to our salvation. For example, he taught us that where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. He actually told one rich young man that for the good of his soul he needed to sell all of his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus realized that young man couldn’t love God and his neighbor with all of his heart, mind, and soul because he loved money too much. And Jesus lifted up as a virtuous example the widow who gave all that she had to the temple treasury. Jesus talked a lot about money. Why? Because money is one of the most powerful forces in life. We all know it’s power. We know the stress produced when there isn’t enough of it, and for some persons there’s never enough. It can ruin friendships and marriages; it can destroy trust; it can become more important than anything else in a person’s life. It’s so crucial to life that three of the 10 Commandments deal with it, including the first and the last. While there’s much negative power in money, it’s also a powerful force for good. It builds churches, hospitals, and schools; it enables the creation of great works of art and music. Linda and I watched the Ohio State /Wisconsin football game last night. Go Buckeyes! What would college football be without a strong financial foundation? Money helps those who are called to spread the good news of salvation; and, not to be overlooked, it has enabled the ministry that goes on in and through Emmanuel Memorial for over 145 years, where the sacraments have been administered, the Word of God taught and proclaimed, the sick and shut-in visited, and the poor given relief. It’s this work that makes it necessary to have a pledge drive, but if we didn’t need to have a pledge drive, if all of our financial needs were met, we still should talk about money, because how we deal with this powerful force in life affects our relationship with God. If we don’t deal with it properly it can be a barrier to our relationship with God and, therefore, to our salvation. Our stewardship theme this year is “Take the Next Faithful Step.” I love that slogan because it speaks to us no matter where we are in our spiritual journey. We’re not told what the “next step” is, because the next step is different for every individual. It depends upon the place from which you’re starting. “Take the next step” challenges each of us to progress in his or her stewardship of the gifts God has given us. Only you can decide what that next step is in terms of your pledge. Is it to work closer to a tithe of your income? Is it to exceed a tithe? Perhaps it’s simply to make a pledge for the first time. Prayerfully consider what the next step is for you, and may it truly be a step that brings you closer to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re here today to receive what our Lord Jesus wants to give us, and that is himself, in his Body and Blood. Yet, he wants to give us himself so that we, in turn, may give ourselves to others, through the giving of our time, talent, and treasure. As one of our hymns puts it beautifully: “To give and give, and give again, what God hath given thee; to spend thyself nor count the cost; to serve right gloriously the God who gave all worlds that are, and all that are to be.” Take the next faithful step. Sermon preached by the Rev’d Dr. Fredrick A. Robinson Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church Champaign, Illinois 22nd Sunday after Pentecost 29 October 2023 One Sunday a priest told his congregation that the church needed some extra money and asked the people prayerfully to consider putting a little extra in the offering plate. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns.
After the offering plates were passed, the priest glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $1,000 bill in the offering. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with the congregation and said he'd like personally to thank the person who placed the money in the plate. An elderly lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand. The priest asked her to come to the front. Slowly she made her way to the front. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanksgiving asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three most handsome men in the building and said, "I'll take him and him and him!" We’re soon going to start our stewardship drive and I thought that might be a good way to begin! Today’s Gospel is about money, too. The religious leaders don’t like Jesus. He has been repeatedly critical of them. He chooses to keep the company of sinners while rejecting them. His popularity among the Jewish people is increasing. The Jewish leaders see him as a threat and they are plotting among themselves how best to neutralize his popularity and influence, and if possible, they’d like to get him in trouble with the Roman authorities. So they ask him a question, calculated to evoke an answer that would be a problem for Jesus, no matter how he answered. The question is: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” If he answers, “Yes, it is lawful,” he’ll make his Jewish followers mad, for they hate paying taxes to Caesar, not only because people in every age in every country don’t like to pay taxes, but because it was against their religious sensitivities for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, if he says, “No, it’s not lawful,” then the Herodians and their sympathizers, who like the benefits that came from being a part of the Roman Empire, will be turned against him. Besides, then he could be turned over to the Roman authorities as a troublemaker. It was a clever question. Some of the best minds in Israel at the time had come up with it. But, in addition to being a very spiritual man, Jesus is also smart and clever himself. He turns the tables on them. He asks for a coin, and they give him one. In doing just that, they are entrapping themselves, for in possessing a Roman coin, which was the property of the Roman government, they could hardly object to giving some of it back. Then he gives his answer: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” So Jesus answers the question not by a simple yes or no, but in such a way that they have to come up with the answer themselves. He’s paid due respect to Caesar, but no more than necessary, and he’s kept the faith with Judaism as well. Jesus’ answer is very satisfying to Jewish teaching. Why is that, while at the same time it’s not really an answer at all? Because everything ultimately belongs to God, even taxes paid to Caesar. The religious leaders knew that. In fact, every good Jew knew that, and springing from that tradition, we know that, too. “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” We remember the exchange between Jesus and his detractors and we still marvel at his clever answer. But we shouldn’t stop there. We need to take to heart the basic truth which that answer recalls, especially as we approach our stewardship season. We need to remember that all that we have and all that we are comes from God, and that all that we have belongs to God, and we belong to him. We need to remember that God continues to sustain us and that he will provide for us. That’s why it is important that we remain faithful in giving back to God his due. We continue to be faithful in prayer and in reading of scripture. We continue to be faithful in attending mass. And we continue to share our time, our talent, and our treasure for the work of the Church and to help those who are in need. Have you ever thought about why we make such a big deal out of the offertory? Every Sunday the choir makes an offering of music, your gifts of money are ceremonially collected in beautiful, brass basins, and then with great solemnity, as the organ swells to the fullest, the gifts of money, bread, and wine are offered and placed on the altar. It’s not that the money, bread, and wine, are important in and of themselves. These substances represent our lives, and as they are placed upon the altar, they represent the offering of our lives upon that altar. By the time of the offertory, we have heard the word of God read and proclaimed, we’ve confessed our faith, prayed for the needs of others, confessed our sins and received absolution, and offered to one another signs of peace. All of that has led to the offering of our whole self, just as God transforms ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so he can, and does, transform our ordinary lives into extraordinary lives, fitted for his service. We give to God from his bounty, but we can never outgive God, for what we give to him, he returns to us, transformed into even greater, more precious gifts. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Writing from a prison cell, the Apostle Paul assured his beloved brethren in Philippi that despite every indication to the contrary, there was no reason to fear. His imprisonment only served to further the gospel. His rivals, unwittingly, did the same. Paul’s hands were bound, but his spirits were free. You can hear it in his voice: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” After a week like this past one, when we’ve watched the body count grow, when we’ve found that old hatreds are alive and well, when we’ve seen with horrific detail the fact that there is no winner in total war, we hear this word. Rejoice. The Lord is near. Do not worry. Tell him what you need. He will protect you. This exhortation, this encouraging reminder, is important always; but now it is essential, especially when each morning we look at the news and expect to see something worse unfold. Worry stands to become our constant companion. How could it not, with this level of uncertainty. Despite the amount of information at our fingertips, we can’t know what will happen. Good outcomes, bad outcomes, miracles, disasters — hundreds of scenarios race through our minds, until we look up and realize that the day has gone or the night has passed, and nothing has changed for the better. Tired and confused, we buy an extra coffee and check our phones again, hoping to find something that will give us a sliver of peace, a moment of rest, but nothing seems to take the edge off for long. Rejoice. The Lord is near. Do not worry. Tell him what you need. He will protect you. When the Apostle Paul wrote to his church in Philippi, he knew that they were struggling. Their founder (St. Paul) was jailed. And when they sent a beloved member of the congregation to bring him aid, that man became terribly ill. The Philippian Christians thought he had died. And while they waited for news of his fate — and of Paul’s — the community was suddenly beset by people who contradicted everything they thought they knew about God and his Christ. Afraid and unhappy, the Philippian Christians began to argue with one another. Old friendships ended. New strife emerged. Their future looked bleak. So Paul told them to look at something else. It’s not for nothing that we tell our kids: Be careful little eyes what you see. That age-old wisdom dovetails with Paul’s concern. Where we bestow our attention will inevitably color our perception, which in turn, shapes our reality. Paul knew that if the Philippian Christians focused on their fears to the exclusion of all else, they would become that fear. If they focused on their anger, they would become that anger. Paul wanted his spiritual children to be free, to be people of faith, hope and love – regardless of circumstance. Earlier in his epistle, Paul writes this: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him . . . . that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” At times like these, when our world shakes and shakes us with it, when we can’t help but search desperately for any small measure of peace, the Apostle Paul reminds us of where to look: There is only one God who can make a table in the wilderness. Rejoice. The Lord is near. Do not worry. Tell him what you need. He will protect you. When we seek Christ, when we take hold of the gifts he has given us, we begin the lifelong process of learning to see with the eyes of faith. We begin to recognize that the peace we crave is there not because of how hard we’ve tried to find it, but because Christ is at hand. He is in our hearts and on our lips, and he gives generously to all who call on him. As we allow ourselves to dare to believe that what our Savior says is true — “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” — that wholeness, that rest, that light everlasting will begin to shine in everything we see: in the sun rising and setting, in the faces of each stranger we meet, in the Bread and in the Wine and in the Word; until, our hearts re-tuned, our vision realigned, we wake up to the fact that the banquet has begun and that the king has called us friend and that the worry and the weeping and the gnashing of teeth fade away before the Lamb who was slain for our sake. Rejoice. The Lord is near. Do not worry. Tell him what you need. He will protect you. AMEN. In The Rapture of Canaan, by Sheri Reynolds, Leila was the matriarch of a large rural family. Her husband was not only patriarch, but also the leader of the church to which the family belonged, the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind. He ruled with an iron hand, meting out reward and punishment as if from the hand of God, and his punishments were severe. He also regularly used his wife as an illustration of a sinner in his sermons, subjecting her to that humiliation in front of the whole family and community.
Leila, though not very pious, was always supportive of her husband, and really the truly religious one of the two. One day she was talking to her granddaughter Ninah: “Grudges are bad things, Ninah… There’s only so much room in one heart. You can fill it up with love, or you can fill it with resentment. But every bit of resentment you hold takes space away from the love. And the resentment don’t do no good no way, but look what love can do.” Forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel. It’s the purpose of the coming of Christ. We’ve been baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Every celebration of the Holy Eucharist re-presents the sacrifice of Christ on the cross—for the forgiveness of our sins. Forgiveness is at the heart of the Gospel, and thus, the heart of our faith. Peter asks the question, “How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Poor Peter, wrong again! Jesus responds, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” That works out to 490 times, but he was really saying, “Your forgiveness must be boundless.” Peter wasn’t prepared for that answer and neither are we. Throughout my ministry I’ve known many people in many different circumstances. One of the great privileges and responsibilities of being a priest is that people trust me with the deep secrets of their hearts, the wounds that haven’t healed. One theme recurs again and again and again, and that’s the difficulty of forgiving someone who has truly hurt you. It’s relatively easy to forgive the small transgressions, but when you’re really deeply hurt, forgiveness is difficult. A lying friend, a cheating business partner, a child who continuously disappoints his parents, an unfaithful spouse—these are just a few of the wounds that are difficult to forgive. If there’s one thing that each of us understands, it’s when someone says to us, “So and so did such and such to me, and I’m having trouble forgiving.” Jesus knows how difficult it is for us to forgive, but he won’t let us off the hook. In fact, the hardest aspect of his teaching on forgiveness, which is found scattered throughout his teachings, is that God’s forgiveness of us depends upon our forgiveness of others. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.“ And there’s the parable in today’s Gospel, which gives the clearest reason behind our Lord’s teaching on forgiveness. A servant owed the king 10,000 talents. A talent was the equivalent of about 20 years’ wages. The king summoned the servant, and since he couldn’t pay such a debt, ordered that the servant be sold, along with his wife and his children, and all that he had, and the money given to the king. The servant begged for mercy, and the king simply forgave the debt. What unimaginable generosity! Then the servant came upon a fellow servant, who owed him 100 denarii. A denarius was a day laborer’s wage. In today’s figures at minimum wage, 100 denarii would be about the equivalent of $5000– not a small sum, but certainly a debt that could be paid overtime. His fellow servant fell down and begged him to have mercy, and give him some more time to pay his debt, but the man had him put in prison. He had been forgiven an amount that would run a small country, but he would not forgive a much more reasonable amount. The irony of the situation didn’t escape the king’s other subjects. Greatly distressed, they reported the incident to the king, who summoned the servant, and said, “You wicked servant. I forgave all that debt because you besought me, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” Then he sent him to prison until he could pay off all his debt, which meant forever, for he could never begin to work off that debt in prison. The parable really is a metaphor in which the king stands for God, and the unmerciful servant, for any of us who chooses not to forgive. God has forgiven us, and continues to forgive us our countless transgressions of his law. We confess those transgressions generally at every Eucharist: “We have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed. We have not loved God with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” Again and again we accept God’s forgiveness. The parable asks us and the faithful of every generation, “How can you, who have been forgiven so much by your heavenly Father, have the audacity not to forgive anyone else for any transgression? It’s the height of ingratitude and hypocrisy. I once confessed to a close friend that I was having difficulty forgiving another friend who had deeply hurt me. My friend to whom I made the confession was surprised. She said, “How can you, a priest, indulge yourself in holding a grudge?” She continued, “You have no choice. If you’re going to be faithful, you have got to forgive. How can you choose not to forgive?” I felt duly chastised, but she was right, but not just because I am a priest, but because I am a Christian. Do you have a broken relationship in your life because you choose not to forgive? Don’t wait even one more day. Free yourself of that burden and accept our Lord’s teaching. Besides, as Leila so wisely put it, “Resentment don’t do no good, no way, but look what love can do.” If you look at it on paper, there is no reason why today shouldn’t be the very best time to be alive. We have more money, more medicine, and more information than ever before. Our lifespan is longer, our health better – we can even eat strawberries in the middle of August.
We live in a day and age that is rich, full of everything that you could ever possibly want. And yet, you don’t need to read the New York Times or possess a degree in sociology to know that beneath the facade of ease and happiness are the same fears and feelings that have accompanied humankind since the very beginning. We’ve just gotten better at hiding them — which only serves to intensify the pain when it comes. And it is coming. We don’t need a prophet to tell us that the next year will be a minefield. And we don’t need a historian to affirm that the last three have ushered in an age of uncertainty and instability the likes of which have not been seen in a generation. No one brave enough to really look at our society will like what they see. And though we hear that better education or better politicians or better social media will fix our problems, the reality is that nothing worldly will do. What we need is a miracle. What we need is a mystery. What we need is a mother. We need someone who can take us, fractious children that we are, and love us and lead us on to what is good and right and true. We need someone who will help us grow up, without giving up on us in the process. We need someone whose tenderness and compassion knows no bounds. We need a mother. But not just anyone will do. We need Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin Mary has long been esteemed in the church catholic as worthy of the highest honor and praise — for through her, we have Christ. Through her flesh, God the Word took on flesh. This is no small thing; and she is no ordinary person. Mary birthed the Savior, nursed him, cared for him, raised him, and then walked with him as his disciple. She was at the wedding where he transformed water into wine. She was at the foot of the cross when he was crucified. She was on the mount when he ascended into heaven and with the Apostles when the Holy Spirit came down in tongues of fire. The story of Jesus is inseparable from the story of his Mother. She was there from the beginning to the very end. Her love never failing, her “yes” always constant. More than anyone, Mary accepted the will of God and dared to live within that, even when it felt like a sword to her spirit. Even when she watched her Son die. Through it all, Mary refused to let go of hope, for her whole life was alight with the knowledge of the One who brings life out of death and joy out of sorrow as surely as the flowers bloom and leaves unfurl each Spring. And so it is that the same song would always be hers, even when it hurt to sing: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day, all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me, and Holy is his Name.” She sang with astonished joy at her Son’s conception. She sang through the tears at her Son’s death. The tone of her voice changed, but the truth did not, for God is always bringing up the lowly. He is always feeding the hungry. He is always ready to give in abundance to those who lack. And we see that born out again and again in the Blessed Virgin’s life: for the woman who was bereft is now the mother of many children. She is ours, and we are hers, just as surely as God is our Father. Now more than ever, when we feel the world pulling us apart, when we are afraid, when we are sorrowful, know that the Mother of our Lord loves you, is praying for you, is pointing you toward Him who is infinitely good. In her life and death, in her assumption into heaven, we receive so much hope: for she is there, even now, sitting beside her Son, never again to be parted. And she is praying that that end might be ours, too. AMEN. You’d think a person (who shall remain nameless) would learn to carry an umbrella, especially at this time of year, when the high temperatures clash with low pressure, and the cool breezes of autumn provoke the lazy heat of summer. You’d think that, having experienced sudden rain storms for almost three weeks in a row, this person would remember to always have an umbrella in the car. You would be wrong.
Perhaps you, unlike this person who shall remain nameless, would learn that a clear sky can’t promise you anything. But, unfortunately, in the case of this individual, that lesson has never sunk in. Which is why I’ve found myself standing in a parking lot with rain dripping off of my nose while wrestling two kids into their car seats — not once, not twice, but three times in a row. Are you like me? Maybe. Though I’d hazard a guess that we’ve all been that person who heads out the door unprepared for the storms that will cross our path. Such is the nature of our world: we can’t always be ready for everything we meet. We can’t always control the tempests that come our way — which puts us in the very same boat as Jesus’ disciples. For all they knew, this journey across the Sea of Galilee would be like any other, not smooth sailing, surely, but not this. This was different. The wind snapped at their hands, the rain stung their faces, and the waves rose higher and higher. Nothing but thin boards stood between them and the fathomless depths. Worse than all that, though, was the fear. The helplessness. No feat of strength could save them. No carefully constructed plan could rescue them. They were at the mercy of the elements, which did not know and did not care that 12 lives might end that night. Trapped aboard that fragile vessel, the disciples faced the heart-wrenching, gut-twisting fact of their own mortality. Of their own limits. Something we’ve all encountered in our own way and in our own time: you don’t have to be in the ocean to know what it feels like to drown. Maybe it was the difficult work conversation that drastically changed your career. Or maybe it was the same fight replaying night after night at home. Or maybe it was the doctor who couldn’t look you in the eye when he said there was nothing more to be done. The storm clouds gather, the temperature drops, and before we know it, the proverbial waters are up to our neck. What we wouldn’t give at those moments to run away, to escape the storms without, which are so often accompanied by the storms within; for the rain as it falls reveals much, much that we might otherwise be free to ignore. We may once have believed that our own strength or our own ingenuity or simply the sheer force of our will would see us through anything and everything. But at moments of crisis or at times when the burdens we bear just get to be too much, that illusion will be torn away, and we will see and we will feel how small and weak and helpless we are. “When evening came . . . the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.” Broken open, we, like the disciples in that frail craft, close our eyes and bow our heads, waiting for the waves to descend, waiting for the sound of wood cracking and water rushing, followed by silence. But at that moment, Someone speaks. At that moment, Someone walks toward us, unhindered by the waves, unafraid of the storm, raising a hand, saying, “Be of good cheer, I AM.” When the winds blow and the fires rage, when the earth quakes and all you can see is how wrong everything has gone: Listen. Listen. God is there, the stillness the sign of his presence, his wholeness revealed in the nothingness, in the cry of our hearts, “Lord, save me!” Our Lord is always the same, always drawing near to the broken-hearted and the needy. Always ready to help those who call upon his name. For as we do so, as we tell his story, as we allow the Word of the Lord to dwell in us richly, we come to expect, to hope for our salvation, which is life with Christ now, union with him, rest in him, security in his love no matter what winds may blow. No one can prepare for all that is to come. No one, truly, can be ready for the trials and tribulations that will come our way — because we cannot know what the future holds. Ours is not the power to command the seas to still and the rains to cease. All we can do is look for the one who walks on the waters as though they were dry land. He is coming our way, even now. Even now, he is here, holding out his hand, ready to join you in the darkness or in the light of day, ready to bring you in safety ot the other side — for only he knows the way. When they stepped back into the boat, the winds ceased. The rain stopped. And the disciples looked at Jesus: “Surely, you are the Son of God.” AMEN. One day, Joe, Bob, and Dave were hiking in the wilderness when they came upon a large, raging, river. They needed to get to the other side, but had no idea how to do it.
Joe prayed to God, saying, "Please God, give me the strength to cross this river." Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs. He was able to swim across the river in about two hours, although he almost drowned a couple of times. Seeing this, Dave prayed to God, saying, "Please God, give me the strength and the tools to cross this river." Poof! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about an hour, after almost capsizing the boat a couple of times. Bob had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed to God saying, "Please God, give me the strength and the tools, and the intelligence, to cross this river." Poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, hiked upstream a couple of hundred yards, then walked across the bridge. I love hiking, but I I’ve never had an experience quite like that! When I’m out there in the beauty of creation, walking for miles, hour upon hour, it’s incredibly peaceful, and I find myself doing a lot of thinking and praying. I especially love hiking in the mountains, getting to the top, and walking along the ridges. I find that I do a great deal of praying when on a mountain. In encountering God on the mountain I’m in good company. On Mt. Horeb Moses encountered God in the burning bush that wasn’t consumed. Moses also went up on Mt. Sinai and spent forty days and forty nights. It was there that God gave him the Ten Commandments. Elijah went up on Mt. Horeb to encounter God. On Mt. Horeb Elijah didn’t hear God in the wind or in the earthquake or in the fire, but in a still, small voice. God said to Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I’ve been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with a sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.” It was on that mountain that Elijah discerned what God wanted him to do. God calmed his fears, assured him that there were others who had not forsaken him, and gave him the direction he needed. Likewise, hundreds of years later our Lord took three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, up on a mountain to pray. While Jesus was praying, those disciples witnessed Jesus with Moses, the Law-Giver, and Elijah, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Luke tells us that Moses and Elijah were speaking with Jesus about his impending suffering and death. This was truly an epiphany for Peter, James, and John. They knew Jesus was the Messiah. Peter had recently confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. What that meant exactly, no one knew at that time. Now Jesus is seen with the two greatest figures in the history of Israel, Moses and Elijah. Peter’s response was to make a memorial right there on the mountain. He proposed that they build three booths, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus. He most likely came up with that idea because of the Jewish festival of the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles, in which the Israelites commemorated annually the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai to Moses. But what was happening on this mountain was not the giving of a new law, but a much greater reality. And then they heard the voice of God: “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him,” and when they heard that revelation, Moses and Elijah had disappeared. Only Jesus remained. What are the lessons for us of the Transfiguration? First, it was a revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, and so it calls for a response, not only from Peter, James, and John, but also from all who would come after them and hear of this theophany. Second, it’s another example of Jesus as a man of prayer. There’s no one closer to God than Jesus. In fact, he is God. Yet he needed prayer and regularly sought out times to be with his heavenly Father in prayer. Jesus sets the example for all of us to pray frequently and regularly. Third, prayer didn’t take the difficulties of this life away from Jesus. In fact, this event served as a preparation for the ordeal he was to face in his suffering and death. We often view prayer as an attempt to escape the difficulties we face, and sometimes God does give us that. But more often, prayer leads us to deeper levels of commitment, taking us into the fray, rather than out of it. You see, in prayer one of the things that happens is that we begin to see things from God’s point of view, rather than from our own. Are you having trouble in your marriage? Take it to God in prayer. But don’t think that God’s going to say, “If you’re having some problems, then you should get out of the marriage. After all, I want you to be happy.” Divorce is a very complex issue, and there are times when divorce is the lesser of two evils. But divorce is certainly not where God is going to begin. He’s much more likely to say, “Work at it. That’s what your vows are for. Remember, you said ‘For better, for worse.’” Jesus is revealed as God’s Son. He gives us the example of a life grounded in prayer, and just because we pray doesn’t mean life’s going to get easier. It might just get harder. God wants us to be happy, but true happiness can only come from living according to his will. When we do that, we experience that peace that passes understanding. You and I don’t have to go hiking up a mountain to meet God on the mountaintop. We’re on the mountaintop right now. He gives us this opportunity not only for our own good, but for the purpose of sending us into the world in witness to him. That may not always take us to comfortable places, but it will give us peace. One of the great blessings of being in ministry for my wife, Linda and me, is that we’ve lived in several different parts of the United States. When I was a Methodist minister, I had a parish in Jackson Center, Ohio. Once I became an Episcopalian, I served for a year at St. Boniface, Mequon, Wisconsin, as a Seminarian Assistant. After that year of seminary graduate work, I was a curate at Saint Mark’s Church in Arlington, Texas, and then later on the Rector of St. Andrew’s in Grand Prairie, Texas. After Grand Prairie, we went to Grace Church in Monroe, Louisiana, and after Monroe, we went to Sarasota, Florida, where I had my longest term as Rector, 26 years, at Church of the Redeemer. After I retired, I was Interim Rector of St. John’s Church in Tampa. And now, of course, we are at Emmanuel Memorial, where I am once again the Interim Rector.
We have loved every parish, and every parish was different in one way or another. Each of the parishes has been relatively “high“ liturgically, and each of them was a little higher after I got there! And each of them were fairly social places. They loved the worship of the church, but they also loved getting together and enjoying a good meal and socializing. People tell me I have a fairly healthy appetite, some might even say robust. I’m glad I do, because that makes eating pleasurable. There may be something circular in that reasoning, but I’m not going to worry about it! And I have to say that the most unusual place we lived with respect to cuisine was Louisiana. There’s a wonderful point of contact between my experience in Louisiana and the Parable of the Mustard Seed which we heard in the Gospel this morning. When we first moved to Louisiana, I heard that all Louisiana recipes start out with the same five word sentence: “First you make a roux.” That certainly is how gumbo is made, and gumbo has an interesting history. Back when New Orleans was getting established, the wealthy families who moved there brought their French chefs with them. Many of the ingredients with which these chefs had learned to cook were not available in New Orleans, so they had to improvise, using ingredients that were native to their new surroundings. One of the ingredients they discovered was okra. They wanted to make bouillabaisse, but they had to improvise, and the new ingredient they used was okra. Okra has an interesting history as well. That history is really the reason I’m talking about gumbo this morning. Okra isn’t native to Louisiana, but to Africa. The black women who were taken to New Orleans from Africa as slaves, hid okra seeds in their hair, so that they could plant them in their new home. The fruit of this African plant is what the New Orleans French chefs used to make a creole version of bouillabaisse called gumbo. Small okra seeds brought in faith from Africa by black slave women brought about a delicacy now known around the world. If God had chosen Louisiana for the setting of the incarnation, I’m sure we would have a parable or two about okra, rues, and gumbo. Instead of a parable about okra seeds, what we have is one about a mustard seed. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” The things of faith may seem small, even insignificant, but actually produce a life that is richer and more abundant than anything else in life. Our Lord may have told this parable to encourage his disciples concerning the growth of the Church. After the resurrection, as they spread the Gospel, they would encounter systematic and determined opposition. Jesus warns them that they would suffer persecution, and even martyrdom for his sake. He was encouraging his disciples not to let those who opposed them, those who are much bigger and stronger, to cause the disciples to think that their cause was hopeless. At one level, the parable of the mustard seed is a prophecy that the seed God planted in Bethlehem 2000 years ago would indeed become an organism that would reach to the ends of the earth, transforming the lives of people in countless generations. Yet there’s another level of meaning in the parable. It’s what you and I probably think of first when we hear of the tiniest of seeds becoming the largest of plants. It has to do with our faith. It’s the tiniest of seeds because the things of faith are basically very simple. Say your prayers, read your Bible, go to church on Sunday, forgive those who wrong you, help the needy. Do the simple things of faith, things that taken separately look very small and insignificant, and eventually that faith will be the most meaningful, most fulfilling, most important aspect of your life. Furthermore, your life will become so attractive that others will find peace and refreshment just being around you, not because of any particular thing that you do, but because of who you have become. For in the process, God has made a dwelling in you. God has a purpose for you and me in calling us to be a part of his Church. We must never think that our role in the Body of Christ is insignificant for the growth of the kingdom of God. We’re a part of the Church, and specifically, we are a part of Emmanuel Memorial, for a purpose. Through prayer and through talking with other Christians, we discern as best we can what that purpose is, and then we exercise that ministry, by the grace of God, and to the best of our ability—doing all to the glory of God. And all the while, we continue to do the simple things of faith, for those things are what provide a foundation for an effective ministry. God wants our life of faith to be like a good gumbo, with all the ingredients working together to make for a rich, rewarding life. |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |