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I want to tell you a little story about something that happened at my former parish in Sarasota before I retired. Over the years, I’ve had several priest associates, and one of the last priest associates that I had, Fr. Charleston Wilson, is one of the most gifted persons I’ve ever known, and one of his gifts was his sense of smell. He has a very keen sense of smell, and if you’re wearing a particular cologne or perfume, he can tell you what it is, especially if it’s high end. He enjoyed wearing cologne himself, in fact.
Before a main service at Church of the Redeemer, there are usually 14 people gathered in the sacristy – 4 or 5 priests, 5 or 6 lay Eucharistic ministers, 2 senior high school servers, a Verger, and a Master of Ceremonies. Everyone vests in the sacristy and then the prayers of preparation are said. All of the clergy at Redeemer used the same set of vestments, of course, and whenever a priest would put on a dalmatic that Fr. Charleston had used recently, the priest would know that it was he who had used it because the cologne he had been wearing was still strongly noticeable on the vestment. One of our other clergy hated that smell, and when he put on the vestment Fr. Charleston had worn, he would always make a short comment showing his lack of appreciation for the smell, and it would usually be something like “Yuck!” Everyone in the sacristy got a kick out of that whenever it happened. And truth be known, I think the wearer of the perfume tended to lay it on a little thicker as a result! Funnier even than that, I happened to go to our Diocesan camp to celebrate a Mass there, and when I put on the chasuble, I smelled that priest’s cologne. It had been over a month since he’d been there and worn that chasuble! Not to belabor, I can’t not say something about something that happened this week. French President Emmanuel Macron was in the news because it just came out that he wears so much cologne that aides “scent” his presence before he enters the room. It is seen as a deliberate attribute of power. Apparently he sprays on industrial amounts of Dior Eau Savage. It is seen as an element of his authority. Perfumes are big business. I did a little research, which is so easy to do these days! Shumukh, the Spirit of Dubai, is the world’s most expensive perfume, and is a bargain at $1.29 million a bottle. Admittedly, it is 3 L. The bottle it comes in has 3,571 diamonds, totaling over 38 karats, topaz, pearls, 14 karat gold, and silver. DKNY’s Golden Delicious perfume is $1,000,000 an ounce. Take heart, the rest are much more affordable. Clive Christian Number One is a bargain at $12,722 an ounce. Baccarat is a steal at $6,800 an ounce. Chanel Grand Extrait is only $4,200 an ounce. Clive Christian number one is $2,150 an ounce. I could go on, but you get the idea. You’re not going to be smelling any of these fragrances on any of my vestments! Expensive perfumes are not a modern phenomenon. People have been making expensive fragrances for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks, and Romans all incorporated perfume into their cultures. Theophrastos, sometime during the third century BC, wrote about perfume in his work, On Odors. Pliny the Elder, who lived during the same time that Jesus walked the earth, wrote in his book, Natural History, that perfume is a “flower that grows everywhere,” and Dioskourides, who also lived during that time, wrote about perfumes in his book On Medical Material. Lots of different things were used to make perfumes, but two of the most common in earlier times were frankincense and myrrh, two of the gifts the wisemen brought to the baby Jesus. Pliny the Elder wrote that the “price of unguent of cinnamon,” one kind of perfume in that day, “is quite enormous.” He described perfumes as “objects of luxury” and “the most superfluous” compared to other materialistic goods like jewels due to their poor durability. He noted that perfumes could exceed “four hundred denarii per pound,” which was a huge sum during that period. One denarius was a laborer’s typical day’s wage. So, you can see that a bottle of that perfume would cost more than many people made in an entire year. The time for Passover was drawing near. Jesus knew that the chief priests and Pharisees were planning to have him put to death. Nevertheless, he made his way towards Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. On the way, he stopped in Bethany, where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived. At dinner, Mary took a pound of pure nard, an extremely costly ointment made from plants of the honeysuckle family grown in the Himalayas of Nepal, China, and India. She anointed Jesus’s feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The fragrance from the costly ointment filled the entire house. Judas implicitly blamed Jesus for allowing it to happen, saying that the nard should have been sold for 300 denarii and the proceeds given to the poor. St. John tells us that Judas simply wanted that money for himself, for he was a thief. Jesus then gives a mystical meaning for what Mary had done. He knew that as he was going to Jerusalem, he was going to face his death for the sins of the world. Mary was simply anointing him as a preparation for his death, even though she could not have known that she was doing it for that purpose. “Let her alone,” he says. “Let her keep it for the day of my burial.” The next day, Jesus would enter the holy city of Jerusalem, humble, and riding on an ass, to shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel!” And so on this last Sunday before Palm Sunday, we recall Jesus’ anointing by Mary. Just as he was heading toward Jerusalem, we are preparing to recall those events that brought about the salvation of the world. When you were baptized or confirmed, you may have been anointed with a sweet-smelling oil known as the oil of chrism. The sweet smell comes from hyssop, a plant in the mint family. This anointing signified anointing by the Holy Spirit. Let us all pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us during this holiest time of the year, that we may enter fully into those events whereby we have been given life eternal, that our faith may be renewed and strengthened, to the end that we may become more and more the sweet fragrance of Christ for God.
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Of all of our Lord’s parables, the Parable of the Prodigal Father is my favorite. The story of a young man who asks his father for his inheritance, goes and lives in a far country, squandering his inheritance in reckless living, and then returning home, asking to be taken back as one of his father’s servants, is a poignant story that when reading it I am always moved. The Parable of the Prodigal Father is the Gospel in story form. Is this Parable of the Prodigal Father one of your favorites as well?
Have I made a mistake? Did I say Prodigal Father? Is it the Parable of the Prodigal Father or the Prodigal Son? You know, Jesus never gave it a title. As far as I can tell, the word prodigal never occurs in the story. The dictionary definition of prodigal is recklessly wasteful. Then obviously we should call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. But there’s another definition of prodigal as extravagant, profuse in giving, exceedingly abundant. Doesn’t that describe the father? He was exceedingly extravagant in his love for his son. If we use that definition, shouldn’t this be called the Parable of the Prodigal Father? In the end, isn’t that the lesson we want most to learn from the parable, that while our sin is great, God’s forgiveness is even greater? And then there’s the elder brother. He doesn’t appear until later in the story, but aren’t we supposed to gain some insight into our own lives from the elder brother? Isn’t he a prodigal, too? While he doesn’t squander his inheritance in reckless living, he does squander his inheritance by never really knowing how much he’s loved by his father, and in that doesn’t he also waste his father’s love? So maybe we might call it the Parable of the Prodigal Elder Brother. It’s the Parable of the Prodigals. With whom do you identify in the parable? Are you running from responsibility? Are you wasting your inheritance as a child of God, turning your back on your loving heavenly Father, for whatever reason? Or have you been there, done that, and returned, accepting the love of your heavenly Father? Maybe you identify with the prodigal father. Of course, he stands for God. But he’s also a wonderful example of how we should treat others. Maybe it gets even closer to home than that. Perhaps you have a child who has run from your love and returned and you’ve welcomed him or her with open arms. Or perhaps the child hasn’t yet returned and you yearn for the opportunity to welcome your child back. So you identify with the prodigal father. There’s part of us that really does identify with the elder brother. There’re a lot of good qualities in the elder brother. He’s responsible. He knows what’s expected of him and he does it. When the fields need to be planted, they’re planted. When the crops need to be harvested, they’re harvested. His father relies on him. He doesn’t have to go behind him and make sure he did a good job. He trusts him, because he knows he can trust him. Those things that are essential for the family business to prosper are done by this man. And he does it all without expecting commendation. Society needs elder brothers. We couldn’t function without them. If you want something done and done well, you don’t go to the prodigal son; you go to the elder brother. And there’s something else that we like about the elder brother. He leads a morally upright life. He lives in the way his father taught him to live. The younger son does everything his father taught him not to do, but not the elder brother. We don’t have many morally upright people in our society today. There are all kinds of examples of reckless living, but the person who strives to live according to the way he was taught from childhood is rare. Society needs desperately the example of the elder brother. Good qualities worthy of emulation. There’s part of us that cries, “Go for it, elder brother, you’re right on the mark!” But there’s a great sadness about him. He really is prodigal, for he doesn’t realize in his life that he truly has the “good life." He’s always been at home, in the presence of his father, but he’s lived without joy. He hasn’t known how wonderful he’s had it. There’s always been in the back of his mind that his brother had the really good life, doing what he wanted to do, no responsibilities. His anger was always just beneath the surface, and when his brother returned home and was accepted back freely, and a party no less was thrown for him, that anger came quickly to the surface. The elder brother all too often characterizes the attitude of religious people. We try to live a disciplined life, and sometimes we look at those who do exactly what they want to do whenever they want to do it and we secretly, perhaps subconsciously, think they’re the ones who really have the good life. It comes to the surface when someone who hasn’t lived a Christian life has a deathbed conversion, and you’ll hear a Christian say, “Well, he had the best of both worlds!” The elder brother also has a huge moral problem. He doesn’t recognize his relationship to his brother. “This son of yours,” is how he refers to him. And he sulks outside, not going into the party. He couldn’t rejoice that his brother had returned to the fold, that he had repented and changed his life. He saw himself as superior, not recognizing his own faults. That, brothers and sisters, is a big one for us Christians. How easy it is for us to pass judgment on others. We can see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but not notice the log in our own. Jesus never condones the sins of the flesh, but neither does he see them as the worst sins. Jesus is always much harder on the sins of the spirit, that sense of moral superiority so prevalent in the religious people of that time and of every age. But elder brothers, take hope. The loving Father stands ready to receive you back as well. Join the party! It’s the Parable of the Prodigals. With whom do you identify? Perhaps you’re a mixture. Let’s seek the love of our heavenly Father and show forth that love in our lives. Ever get the feeling that things are going to Hades in a handbasket? (I cleaned it up a bit for prime time).
Surprisingly, another phrase that means the same thing is “going to heaven in a wheelbarrow.” In 1628 the English preacher Thomas Adams referred to “going to heaven in a wheelbarrow’ in God’s Bounty on Proverbs: “Oh, this oppressor [the oppressor was one who was wealthy but gave little to the church] must needs go to heaven! What shall hinder him? But it will be, as the byword is, in a wheelbarrow: the fiends, and not the angels, will take hold on him.” Images from medieval times in stained glass windows depict devils carting people off to hell in wheelbarrows. These are tumultuous times. No matter what political side you’re on, things are getting shaken up. You may have done some wailing and wringing of hands yourself. You might be tempted to think things are going to heaven in a wheelbarrow. I’m reminded of something Winston Churchill said whenever I get too negative about our government: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Sometimes I think things are going to hades in a hand basket ( I googled the origin of the saying; it said clues to the origin of such sayings are as scarce as hens’ teeth, but the saying means that things are deteriorating quickly and easily, because a hand basket is light and easy to carry). I’m not suggesting we don’t have serious problems, but put them in perspective. Do you have countless blessings for which to be thankful? In what other country would you rather live? What other time period would you prefer? Take Palestine as a Jew in the 1st century A.D. Or worse still, as a Christian when Nero was the emperor? Rome had a sophisticated legal system, but if you got on the wrong side of the law, you could find yourself suffering the same fate as the fatted calf in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Some Galileans were executed by Pilate in the Temple. A common attitude in that day among the Jews was that people who suffered like that were greater sinners than others. Jesus said that wasn’t so. A tower in Siloam, which was in Jerusalem, fell and killed 18 people. Jesus said these persons didn’t die because they were greater sinners than anyone else. Yet, in comparison with both instances, Jesus said his hearers would perish if they didn’t repent. Jesus didn’t mean that Pilate would execute them or a tower would fall on them. He used physical events to teach a spiritual reality. These people were probably basically happy. They had complaints, of course. They hated the Roman government. They hated paying taxes. They had the usual problems making ends meet, controlling their children. Some were in marriages that had gone sour. But basically life was all right. They knew they were far from perfect, but most of them didn’t feel like they were terrible sinners who deserved the wrath of God. Now Jesus tells them that unless they drastically change the way they’re living they’ll perish. There’s a story about a captain during naval maneuvers who receives a difficult message. During the maneuvers, the ensign races to the bridge. “Captain, there’s a message for you from the admiral.” Well, read it!” says the captain. The ensign reads, “Of all the blundering, bone-headed nincompoops, you take the cake!” The bumbling captain looks puzzled for a moment, then orders: “Have that decoded at once!” It’s hard to accept difficult truths about ourselves — harder, still, to change in the face of such truth. Let’s look more closely at what Jesus is saying and to whom he is saying it. Earlier St. Luke referred to Jesus’ audience as a multitude numbering in the thousands. He doesn’t say to this large gathering, “Some of you are on the right track and others of you need to repent.” He says to all, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” By the law of averages, there had to have been some people there who were more spiritually alive than others. There had to have been some pretty saintly people, who worshipped daily, were generous to a fault, never spoke unkindly about another person, along with people who had no thought about God, didn’t share what they had with others less fortunate, and didn’t understand the spiritual side of life. Jesus lumped them all together: they all would perish if they didn’t repent. What this suggests is that repentance must be a part of everyone’s life, no matter where we are in our spiritual journey, and that there are dangers all along the way, no matter how far we have progressed in our walk with Christ. I was in high school when Apollo 8 was launched in 1968. It was the first manned spacecraft to reach the moon, orbit it, and return to Earth. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders were the astronauts. They were the first humans to travel beyond the low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, and the first directly to see the far side of the moon. It’s a little known fact that Apollo 8 had to make two midcourse corrections in order for it to reach the moon, orbit it, and return to Earth. If either of those midcourse corrections hadn’t been made, the mission wouldn’t have been successful and could have ended in disaster. Apollo 8 is a good metaphor for successful living. Wherever we are in our lives, the danger of getting off the right track, focusing on the wrong things, requires that we stop and make midcourse corrections along the way. That’s what repentance is—looking back to see where we made a wrong turn, looking ahead to make sure we’re back on track, keeping God as our final destination, making sure we’re not going to heaven in a wheelbarrow. God wants us to have life that’s as full as it can be, and he wants us to live with him forever. What midcourse corrections do you and I need to make today, by the grace of God? What makes for a successful life?
An old farmer was interviewed by a newspaper reporter whose question was, “To what do you attribute your great success in farming?” “Well,” drawled the farmer, with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s 50% weather, 50% good luck, and the rest is brains.” Woody Allen once said, “Success is about 80% just showing up.” Here’s one we’ve all heard, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” Benjamin Disraeli defined it this way, “The secret to success is constancy of purpose.” Sunita Williams and “Butch” Wilmore, the astronauts whose mission aboard the International Space Station is about to end this week, would probably say that success for them at this point in their lives is having spent nine months on the space station and then just getting back to earth. A nationwide survey undertaken by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University in 2020 found some interesting things concerning how people define success in life:
The next four answers were the greatest percentages.
I conducted a rather unscientific survey of several of our parishioners. Here are some of the answers:
How would you answer that question? Our Lord answered the question in many ways. The Beatitudes, which we’ve been studying in the Adult Forum is one definition of success: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the merciful, those who mourn, and so on. Isn’t to be blessed the same thing as to be successful? His Summary of the Law: love God with all of one’s heart, soul, and mind, and love one’s neighbor as oneself. Today’s Gospel gives another: Success for Jesus was to finish his course in going toward Jerusalem, fulfilling the Father’s will in going to the cross. I’ll give you yet another definition. The key to successful living is Jesus, Jesus who saves us from our sins; Jesus who is our example. The first part of the formula is simply acceptance of Jesus as our Savior. That’s what we did, or was done in our name, at our baptism. It’s what we are going to do, whether we consciously realize it or not, when we approach this altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The second part of the formula for success consists of following Jesus to the cross. What that means is living our lives in sacrificial love, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. How can I be successful with my family, my job, my parish, my other relationships? By putting myself out of the center of life, and allowing God to be at the center, and by loving others with the same selfless, sacrificial love with which Jesus loves us. Such a goal takes a lifetime and more to accomplish. Would you consider Jesus a successful person? In the eyes of the world, he certainly was not. While he had a large following at times, he ended up dying the death of a criminal. Furthermore, it was to that death that he said his whole life was pointed. When the Pharisees came to him and warned him that Herod wanted to kill him, he referred to his work thus far, saying that he had cast out demons and cured people of their diseases, but then he focused on his death and resurrection, “for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” As Christians, our calling one way or another is, by the grace of God, to follow Jesus to the cross by living sacrificially loving lives. There are many examples of people who’ve done that. I’m reminded of an Englishman by the name of William Wilberforce who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. A member of Parliament, Wilberforce made his money through slave trading. He was converted to Christ, and through his conversion was convinced that he could no longer deal in the slave trade if Christ was going to be the center of his life. In fact, he felt that because of his conversion, he should leave Parliament and become an Anglican priest. He sought the counsel of John Newton, who once had been a slave trader himself, was converted, gave up the slave trade, and became a priest. By the way, Newton was the author of the hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton’s counsel to Wilberforce was not to enter the priesthood, but instead to stay in Parliament and exercise his faith in Christ in that venue. Wilberforce followed Newton’s advice, stayed in Parliament and fought tirelessly against the slave trade. He was derided and laughed at, yet he fought for 17 years and finally, in 1806, England ended the slave trade. But that wasn’t the end for Wilberforce. He continued to fight against the entire institution of slavery. After 27 more years of laboring against that institution, Parliament passed a law against slavery in all of the British territories. It simply would not have happened, had it not been for this man. He lived according to his faith and God granted him success. But William Wilberforce would have led a successful life even if he hadn’t reached his goal, for he lived according to what he perceived was God’s will for his life. How do you define success? We all enjoy the comforts that this world has to offer; we want healthy, productive, and safe lives; good, wholesome families. But if we focus on these things as ends in themselves, as good as they are, and rely on them for our fulfillment, we’re focusing on a dead end, whose end is despair. The only way to ultimate success in life is to follow the example of Jesus, our Savior and Lord, taking up our cross daily and following him. What does it mean this day for you to take up your cross? During the service in a church where the choir was seated in the balcony, one of the ladies singing in the choir leaned over the balcony rail to see who came in late. She leaned too far and would have toppled to the floor had her foot not caught on the railing. There she hung with her skirts around her head.
The preacher saw the spectacle and shouted, “Whoever looks back will be struck blind!" After a moment one fellow whispered to the guy beside him, “I’m going to risk one eye.” On this first Sunday in Lent the subject of the Gospel is temptation—specifically the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness. This account not only gives us insight into Jesus’ earthly life, but also into the nature of temptation itself, and how we might best deal with temptation as it comes our way. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus was “in every way tempted as we are yet did not sin.” Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, said that the “only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." We’re all very familiar with that way of dealing with temptation. But Jesus was tempted and did not yield. When we say in the Creed that Jesus is God and Man, part of what it meant for him to take up our humanity was to experience what we all experience in being tempted. Thus, he knows from personal experience what we have to face. We’re told by both St. Matthew and St. Luke what at least three of those temptations were. They occurred just as he was preparing to begin his earthly ministry. It makes sense that Satan would be especially active at this critical time in Jesus’ life. An important decision had to be made. What path would he take? Would he be a social reformer, devoted to stamping out hunger, making life better for the disadvantaged? He had great compassion for those who suffer in any way. Wouldn’t it be good to devote his time, talent, and power to alleviate suffering? Yet, his purpose was much higher than that. God the Father had sent him to redeem the world. So he answered Satan with the words of scripture: “One does not live by bread alone." The devil didn’t tempt Jesus to do something morally wrong. He tempted him to do something good, but less than his calling. The tempter often doesn’t tempt us to do something that’s obviously evil. Instead, he would divert us from our primary task by calling us away to some other worthy cause. The tempter might say, “You really are too busy with important things to take any time for prayer. Yes, of course prayer might make you more aware of God’s will for your life, but you just can’t fit it in. Whatever the choice might be, the tempter is working to lure us to choose a path that will make us be less than we can be, and do for others less than we can do. The second temptation, according to St. Luke, was for raw power. The devil showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. They could all be his if he would worship him. Here the devil has clearly shown himself and revealed his purpose. He wants to be worshipped. His goal is to be in God’s place. There have been people in every age, and there certainly are in our own day, who literally worship the devil. They use religious rites; make animal, and sometimes human, sacrifices; and they promote evil of all varieties. Yet, these aren’t the only devil worshippers. There are devil worshippers who don’t even know it, who have sold their souls to him by the way they live their lives. They’re in every walk of life, at every level of society. They’ll do anything it takes to have whatever they want, be it in politics, religion, medicine, art, science. Perhaps they started on their path innocently enough, with small deceptions, small thefts, little manipulations, but eventually it became a way of life. Finally, Jesus was tempted to throw himself down from the temple, to prove that the Father would protect him and to show everyone without a doubt who he was. During his earthly ministry Jesus would perform some amazing miracles, including calming a storm and walking on water. But here he was being tempted to put God the Father to the test and he chose not to do that, again through the words of scripture: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” To have thrown himself down from the temple would have been an effort to manipulate the Father. We’re tempted sometimes to do the same thing. We can use prayer that way, bargaining with God to get what we want. “If I get that raise, God, I’ll give a tenth to the Church, and I’ll even start going to church!" But God will not be manipulated, and in our prayer we should strive always to pray according to that principle which Jesus taught us in his prayer: “Thy will be done.” The temptations of Christ are instructive because they capture how the tempter seeks to influence the life of every person. They show how subtle the devil can be. He even quotes scripture. And often, as was the case with Jesus’ first temptation, the devil never shows himself. He’s most effective when we’re not aware of his presence and he’s never happier than when someone doesn’t even believe he exists, which is the prevailing attitude in our day. His temptations are most effective when we don’t even realize we’re being tempted. These temptations happen to have come after Jesus had spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting and praying in the wilderness. He was spiritually prepared for that attack through prayer. He also was obviously well-schooled in the scriptures. He knew what the scriptures said and could quote scripture appropriately in response to temptation. We need to be spiritually prepared for temptation by regular prayer, frequent reception of the Sacrament, and daily reading and study of the Holy Scriptures. How can we begin to know what God wants of us unless we put ourselves regularly and frequently in his presence? Yes, we fall from time to time, but Jesus has given us a model to follow that, through his grace, will enable us to withstand in times of trial. “As thou with Satan didst contend, and didst the victory win, O give us strength in thee to fight, in thee to conquer sin.” Before the 1979 prayer book, you may remember that we used to call today Septuagesima. Next Sunday used to be Sexagesima. And the Sunday right before Lent was called Quinquagesima.
With the 1979 prayer book, all of that was dropped, and we carried the season after the Epiphany all the way through Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. That’s unfortunate, because it’s so easy to come right up to Ash Wednesday without having prepared for Lent. So I urge you to take some time during the next few weeks to think about what you’re going to do for Lent. What will you take on? What small sacrifices will you make? So in the old days we called today Septuagesima. But today we might call this Sunday Beatitude Sunday. We heard many beatitudes in the scripture readings today. Jeremiah said “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.” And the Psalm for today is one big beatitude. “Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful! Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night. We’re right in the middle of our Adult Forum study of the Beatitudes of Jesus as found in Matthew, and now, lo and behold, the Gospel for today is the Beatitudes as they’re found in the Gospel according to St. Luke. The Beatitudes in Luke are similar to those in Matthew, but not identical. In Luke, Jesus says “Blessed are you who are poor,” not poor in spirit. Likewise, in Luke, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are hungry now,” whereas in Matthew, he says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Matthew has a greater list of Beatitudes, including the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, and peacemakers. That there are two different sets of Beatitudes shouldn’t be a cause of concern, for they’re not in conflict with one another, and it’s likely that Jesus used the literary form of the beatitude frequently in his teaching. What is very different in Luke’s version is the section of woes. “Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full now, for you shall hunger. Woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you...” This part of Jesus’ beatitudes echo what we heard in Jeremiah. “Thus says the Lord: cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength.” Or again in the Psalm for today, “It is not so with the wicked; for they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.” Why would Jesus say that being poor, or hungry, or sad, or hated is a good thing? These things are painful, not joyful. No one desires any of them, and when we’re in any of those conditions, we don’t say to ourselves, “How blessed I am to be poor, hungry, sad, or hated.” No, when we’re in these conditions, we desire to get out of them. Why does our Lord equate these conditions with blessedness? It’s because when we lack any of the basic necessities of life, we know we’re in need, that we have an emptiness within us we’re unable to fill. The same is true emotionally when we’re sad or in mourning; there’s a lack of well-being and an emotional void. Likewise, when we don’t have the goodwill of others, it’s painful and we realize we lack their friendship and fellowship. All of these conditions are needy conditions. All of them, therefore, point out that we’re not in control. For persons of faith, they can lead us to the knowledge of our need for God. Likewise, when we have great riches, when we’re full, content, we can get the idea that we have no need for God. A very successful businessman decided he wanted to develop his spirituality. He went to a famous spiritual teacher to learn from him. The teacher lived as a hermit high upon a mountain, and the businessman had to spend a great deal of money and effort just to travel to see the teacher. Finally, he arrived, and the teacher graciously invited him to tea. When the tea was ready, the teacher began to pour the tea into his visitor’s cup. He filled the cup, but continued to pour. The tea flowed over the cup and into the saucer, onto the table, and then onto the floor. Yet the teacher kept pouring. The man at last shouted, “The cup is full, and the tea is everywhere. Why are you continuing to pour?” The teacher stopped pouring, replaced the tea pot on the stove, and sat down. He said, “You’re that cup. You’re full to overflowing. Until your cup is empty, there’s nothing I can teach you.” Are you in need in any way? As painful as that may be, you’re blessed, for that need can lead you to rely upon God. Do you feel an emptiness in your life? You’re blessed, for that emptiness is a place God wants to fill. It’s not automatic, however. God will not fill that void if he’s not wanted. But if he is wanted, our gracious Lord wants nothing more than to enter our lives and make them whole. True blessedness then is ours. For no matter what the need is, no matter how painful and basic it is, it’s bearable, for our Lord is with us and carries us through every trial. May he grant you and me the grace to recognize our need and fill that emptiness with his loving presence. Are you going to watch the Super Bowl today? A young man was very excited because he just won a ticket to the Super Bowl. His excitement lessened as he realized his seat was in the back of the stadium. As he searched the rows ahead of him for a better seat, he found an empty one right next to the field.
Approaching the man sitting next to the empty seat, he asked if it was taken. The man replied, "No.” Amazed, the young man asked, "How could someone pass up a seat like this?" The older gentleman responded, "That's my wife's seat. We've been to every Super Bowl together since the day we were married, but she passed away." "Oh, how sad," the man said. "I'm sorry to hear that, but couldn't you find a friend or relative to come with you?" “No," the man said, "They're all at the funeral." Some people can get a little obsessive about the Super Bowl! This is an exciting time at Emmanuel. A call has been made to and accepted by Fr. Zack Guiliano. It’s been quite a process. First, the Vestry established a Search Committee and then the Committee had to put together a parish profile and register the position with the Office for Transition Ministry of the Episcopal Church. They began to gather names of people who were interested. The persons had to be priests in the Anglican Communion, which meant that they had to have gone through the extensive process of study and gaining approval from many people at the parish and diocesan levels, a process that takes several years; and some years of experience in ordained ministry was also necessary. All of the candidates completed a detailed application, including what they believed about certain things. They sent the application to the diocese, and then the Bishop decided what candidates he would allow the Committee to look at. Then the committee went through all of the applications, and decided what candidates were close enough to our parish profile to warrant looking at. There were Zoom interviews of the finalists with the Search Committee and Vestry, visits to the candidates in their own parishes, and then visits by the candidates and their spouses to Emmanuel. All of the references had to be called. Finally, when the Search Committee was finished with its work, it sent the finalists to the Vestry, and the Vestry had to decide what two candidates were at the top of their list and who their top choice was, take those names to the bishop, and then he gave his final approval. As you know, they actually went through this process twice. At the end of the second process, the Senior Warden contacted Fr. Zack, told him that they would like to call him to be the next Rector, and he accepted. Then all the details had to be worked out, including background checks and so on. It’s especially appropriate to talk about this today because the theme in all of the readings is God’s call. In the first reading, God calls Isaiah. “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up…” Isaiah’s response to that revelation was a total feeling of unworthiness. “Woe is me, for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” To that response, a seraphim took a hot coal from the altar, touched Isaiah’s lips, and God told Isaiah that his guilt was taken away and his sins forgiven. Then the Lord said, “Whom shall I send?” And Isaiah responded, “Here I am, send me.” In the Gospel, Jesus’ reputation as a great teacher and healer had spread among the people and a crowd had gathered to hear him. They were by a lake, and so to get a position where he could be heard he got into one of Peter’s boats and taught from the boat. After speaking, he told Peter to let down his nets for a catch. Peter expressed doubt about the wisdom of doing that because they had fished all night to no avail. But he went ahead and let down the nets and they had such a catch of fish that the boats could barely contain them. Peter then knew he was in the presence of God in some way through this man Jesus. And what was Peter’s response? Unworthiness – just like Isaiah. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” And then, also like Isaiah, the revelation was followed by a call: “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching people” Luke tells us that when they got “their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.” Both the call of Isaiah and the call of Peter were pre-resurrection calls. The last one was post-resurrection: the call of Paul, which we heard about in I Corinthians. Paul tells how Jesus died for our sins, how he was buried, and how on the third day he was raised from the dead. He also recounted the fact that the resurrected Jesus appeared to Peter, whom he refers to as Cephas, then to the twelve, and finally to some 500 witnesses, then to James and the other apostles. Finally, he appeared to Paul. What was Paul’s response? Unworthiness to receive that revelation. “For I am the least of all the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God,” says Paul. As a result, Paul took up the cause of Christ and became an apostle. And what an apostle! Through his efforts, the Christian faith was spread throughout the Roman Empire. Paul became known for all time as the Apostle to the Gentiles. Isaiah, Peter, Paul: All of them were unworthy recipients of divine favor, yet all felt a vocation, and it was God who gave them first forgiveness and then the ability to do what God called them to do. When Fr. Zack gets here, perhaps he will tell you how he has experienced God’s call, and without knowing the specifics, I imagine it will fit that pattern in one way or another. Does this call process happen only to a few select people—that is, to the ordained? No, it happens to all of the baptized, whether we recognize it or not. If you’ve been baptized, then you’ve been given the gift of God’s Spirit. When you come up to this altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, you’ll take into your bodies anew the presence of God. I’m fairly certain that if God becomes present in a person’s life, then he also gives that person a task to assist him in the work of his kingdom. What’s your vocation? You’ve seen pictures of the city of Jerusalem. Most all of them have a view of a building with a very large gold dome. It’s called the Dome of the Rock and is a Muslim mosque. It’s the oldest Muslim building on earth, having been built in the seventh century. It was built over the rock upon which it’s believed Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac if God hadn’t stopped him. It’s also the place by tradition where Adam was created, and before Adam, it was by tradition the place from which God created the earth. So it’s a very important location for all three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
I’ve actually seen the rock, for I took a group there in 1997. At that time non-Muslims were allowed to go down beneath the mosque and see the rock upon which Abraham was to have sacrificed Isaac. Now, only Moslems are allowed in and under the mosque. The place on which the Dome of the Rock was built is the only place where the Temple can be in Judaism. So as long as there is a mosque there, there can be no Temple. The first Temple was built by Solomon, and the last Temple to have been on that location was built by Herod and was destroyed in AD 70. Anyway, it was the second Temple where today’s Gospel takes place. The baby Jesus is only 40 days old. The Holy Family travelled to Jerusalem in obedience to Mosaic law. In those days, if you wanted to be close to God, you had to go to Jerusalem—not just anywhere in Jerusalem either, but to the Temple. This was the place where the glory of God dwelt. The Mosaic law required every firstborn male to be dedicated to God, in remembrance of how the angel of death passed over all of the firstborn of Israel in the exodus from Egypt. Likewise, the law also required that a woman, after giving birth to a son, should mark the end of her 40 day purification after giving birth by making a sacrifice at the Temple. It’s what happened at the Temple that names the Feast in the Greek Orthodox Church: Hypapante, which means “meeting." St. Luke tells us that living in Jerusalem was a man by the name of Simeon. It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ." So, at the time when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus arrived at the Temple, the Holy Spirit moved Simeon to go there also. When Simeon saw Jesus, he knew that God’s promise had been fulfilled. He took Jesus up in his arms and said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.” From the words of Simeon arise the other designation for this feast: Candlemas. All of these themes—the Presentation of Christ, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hypapante, and Candlemas—are depicted in our stained-glass window above the altar. St. Luke tells us that Simeon was told he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He must have been an amazing man, for he lived his whole life in a hopeful way. Think about the political situation of Israel at that time. They were an occupied country. They could do no business without being taxed by Rome. There was a 1% income tax, import taxes, export taxes, property, grain, wine, olive oil, emergency taxes, and on and on. The polytheism and all of the immorality that went along with it had been introduced into Israel, which was an abomination to every Jew. The Scriptures were full of God’s promises that he would make Israel a great nation, and here they were groveling at the feet of the Romans. You can be assured that there was not a little groaning and moaning about their situation. Simeon had seen it all. And yet he went to the Temple day after day, year after year, relying on the promise he had received from the Holy Spirit, that he wouldn’t die before he saw the Lord’s Christ. That’s a choice he made, a choice not to live in pessimistic despair, but to live trusting in the Lord’s promise. Simeon wasn’t looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, either. He picked up the baby Jesus and uttered a sobering oracle to the blessed Virgin Mary: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul, also.” We, on the other side of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, know what Simeon was talking about. We know how the story ends. Oh yes, there are daily battles between good and evil, both in our own lives and in the larger society of which we’re a part, but we know already that God has won the war through our Lord Jesus Christ. Simeon should be the patron saint of all Christians because of his hopefulness. A pessimistic Christian is a contradiction in terms. I’m not saying we should wear rose-colored glasses. I’m certainly not saying we should tolerate evil in any of its myriad forms. But when it comes down to the final analysis, as St. Paul said, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Therefore, how can we do anything ultimately but rejoice? Do you see yourself as basically a joyful person? Do others with whom you live and work and play see you as a joyful person? If so, that’s the proper attitude of the Christian. If not, I recommend a change. As St. Paul said, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." Take a look at your bulletins. On the cover and on the first page on the inside, it says this is The Third Sunday after the Epiphany. You may recall that the Epiphany is celebrated on the 6th of January. On the Epiphany we celebrated the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. An Epiphany is a revelation or a manifestation. And so, on the Epiphany we recall that the visit of the Magi reveals that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world, not just the Messiah for the Jews.
Epiphanies don't have to be biblical, of course. There are epiphanies of all kinds happening every day. For instance, this past week I read that last October researchers released a completed map of nearly 140,000 neurons in a fruit-fly brain. They think the fruit-fly brain could help experts understand how we humans process thoughts, make decisions, and store memories. It took them 10 years to complete this map. You know how little a fruit-fly is. It’s one-tenth to one and a half tenths of an inch. For something that small to have 140,000 of anything is amazing to my simple mind, and to be able to study it and make conclusions from it to the human mind is even more amazing me. It was a real epiphany to learn about this new discovery. In this season after the Epiphany, the Gospel readings point us to some amazing epiphanies concerning our Lord. Today’s Gospel is one such epiphany. Jesus has returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he had grown up. Here was the son of Mary and Joseph, a carpenter, who had lived and worked among them, returning as an itinerant rabbi. He was given the honor of reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Standing, he read the messianic prophecy, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Then he handed the scroll back to the attendant and sat down, which was the way rabbis preached, and he gave one of the most amazing sermons the people had ever heard He said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." In that sermon, our Lord Jesus gave the people of Nazareth an epiphany, a revelation, for he basically told them, "I am the Messiah. I am the anointed One of God who will redeem Israel." Jesus elaborated on that messianic theme, and probably sensing their lack of acceptance, said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.” Before long the people were so angry with him because of what he was saying that they wanted to kill him by throwing him over a cliff. At that time there was another epiphany for all who would perceive it; St. Luke tells us he simply passed through that angry crowd and went away. Not many people could do that, except perhaps the Son of God. There were many messianic prophecies in what we call the Old Testament and there were even many different messianic prophecies in the book of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus could have used any of those to introduce himself as the Messiah to the people of his hometown. For instance, he could have found this passage in Isaiah and read it: "The government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Instead, he chose the characterization of the Messiah that identifies the Messiah with the lowly and underprivileged, the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed, the needy. This was at the beginning of his ministry, and of course this was the theme he would choose over and over again in many different contexts and stated in many different ways. "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." "Blessed are the poor in spirit." "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Are you pretty much perfect as you are? Do you have no faults, no needs, no sins? Do you understand all truth? Is there no emptiness in your life, no void to fill? Then you probably won't find much of use from what our Lord Jesus has to offer. If, on the other hand, you know you have a need for God, if you haven't got it all together in your life, if you’ve made some pretty major mistakes, if you’re imprisoned in some way by choices you have made, then take comfort because you’re in the right spiritual condition to be able to receive the healing touch of our Lord Jesus Christ. The most important epiphany that can happen to a person is to discover that there is an aching hole in one’s life that can only be filled by God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In my 43 years as a priest, I’ve been privileged to be the Rector of three parishes and Interim Rector of two. In all of these parishes, it was the practice never to have weddings in the season of Lent. In the parish customaries, however, there was always a provision that the Rector could, for pastoral reasons, allow a wedding to take place in Lent.
Only one time in my ministry did I feel that I needed to allow a wedding during Lent, and that was when I was Rector of Grace Church in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1992 I believe. We had a couple from Nigeria, who wanted to be married in the month of March. Their families were going to be in the United States only for a couple of weeks in March and would not be able to be present for a wedding any other time. So, I said that they could be married that March, but I told them it would need to be low-key, not too large, and that the reception could not be elaborate, since, after all, we would be in the season of Lent. They agreed to my stipulations and said that they would restrict it to only family and close friends. The day of the wedding came, and both bride and groom wore traditional Nigerian wedding garb. The bride and the groom wore clothing that was made of the same material, so the bride’s dress, which was made of yards and yards of material, matched the groom’s caftan. The material was brilliant shades of red, gold, and blue. The bride wore a kind of turban to match, and the groom had on a hat that matched as well. Many of the guests had similarly elaborate dress, although none so exquisite as the bride and groom. It was spectacular. I took one look at this couple, and their guests (apparently they had a lot of close friends), and I said to myself, “There is no way that this wedding is going to be low-key! I might as well get used to that fact right up front and go with the flow.“ And it wasn’t low key. It was a very joyous, celebrative affair with a very Nigerian flair. It was quite an experience to be a part of that, one that was unlike any wedding I’ve ever been a part of since. Experiencing that wedding made me really realize why you can’t normally have weddings in Lent. Lent is penitential and there’s no way that any wedding can, or even should be, penitential. Why? Because, of all of the events that take place in this life, nothing is more joyous than a wedding. Our Lord Jesus was just beginning his earthly ministry. He and his disciples went to Cana in Galilee in order to attend a wedding. It’s a several day affair, and the wine gives out. The bride and groom will be disgraced for this breach of hospitality. Jesus’s mother tells him of the crisis and then tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. He directs six large jars to be filled with water and then changes it into the finest wine. And not just a little wine – between 120 and 180 gallons. The party will go on! St. John finishes his telling of this story by saying, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” Now remember, in his introduction to his account of the Gospel, St. John has painted a picture for us, showing us that the God who made all things, visible and invisible, the immortal, invisible, omnipotent, omniscient God at one point in time, took flesh and became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.“ Now this Jesus, this Word made flesh, has come of age. He’s entering his earthly ministry. The first thing he does, after calling his disciples, is go to a wedding and it becomes clear that the wedding could not continue without him. It’s a sign of what has come upon the Earth, or better put, of Who has come upon the earth. St. John calls it a sign, but what’s it a sign of exactly? It was certainly an amazing fete, showing that Jesus, unlike any other human being, is able to alter the matter of nature. As important as that is, St. John sees it as a sign of something even more profound. This miracle is a sign that Jesus is here to usher in a whole new reality. This miracle at the very beginning of his ministry is symbolic of everything that is to follow, for Jesus is changing life at its core for all who will follow him. Just as he changed dull, tasteless water into the richest, most interesting wine, that’s the kind of revolutionary change he will make in a person’s life. This miracle of changing water to wine is a sign that the Messianic Age has begun. That doesn’t mean that life in Christ is one big party. You have to read on to know where the joy that characterizes life in Christ is to be found. To sum it up, it begins and ends in sacrifice, in knowing that Christ died for you and me, and that the way of the cross, the way of sacrifice, is the way to true life. Jesus spoke of his death on the cross as his glorification. When we learn that way of sacrifice, that way of glorification, we will experience water turned to wine. But what does that sacrifice look like? It’s related to what Saint Paul was talking about in his First Letter to the Corinthians. First of all, you discern what gifts God has given you and then you put those gifts to work for the common good. He talks about there being varieties of service and of working. He mentions some gifts specifically like the utterance of wisdom and the utterance of knowledge, the gift of healing, and the gift of working miracles. That’s not an exhaustive list. Whenever we offer our gifts to the glory of God for the common good, we’re living lives of sacrificial love. Look at the lives of the people you admire the most, who are most full of life. Are they the people who have devoted every ounce of their resources to fulfilling their own happiness? Or rather are they the people who give and give and give again of their time, talent, and resources to the glory of God and the benefit of his people? They have discovered how God figuratively turns water to the richest wine in their own lives. This parish is full of people through whom God turns water to wine. You may not have thought of it that way, but it’s true. Thanks be to God. Have you ever heard the slogan, “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven?” I once saw it on a bumper sticker, on a car that had just cut in front of me in traffic. Then I saw the bumper sticker, almost as a taunt: Christians aren’t perfect—just forgiven.
There’s some truth in it. We certainly aren’t perfect. It speaks to a misperception some people have about the Church, that it’s a place for people who “have it all together,” or at least for people who think they have it all together. Christians aren’t perfect. And Christians indeed are forgiven. We’ve been baptized for the forgiveness of sins. We confess our sins regularly, not to wallow in them, but so they can be forgiven and we can be given a fresh start. But is that really a way to summarize the Christian experience? No, it’s misleading at best. What we celebrate today speaks clearly to what Christians are and to what we’re called to be. Christians aren’t perfect, but there’s much more to us than just being forgiven. St. Luke tells us that John the Baptist preached that after him comes one much more powerful, “the straps of whose sandals he is not worthy to stoop down and untie.” He baptized with water, but this one “will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” After this brief introduction of John the Baptist, Jesus appears on the scene and is baptized by John in the River Jordan. As Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens are opened and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, and God the Father’s words are heard, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” It’s an epiphany, a manifestation, of who Jesus is right at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus is the Son of God, revealed to be so by the Father himself, and through his baptism he’s anointed by the Holy Spirit to perform his ministry. He’s anointed to teach and preach and to heal. But most of all, his baptism is his anointing to redeem the world through his death on the cross. Many wonder why Jesus was baptized since he was without sin. In his baptism, Jesus identifies fully with sinful humanity. Taking humanity’s sin on himself, his going down into the water prefigures his death and burial, and his coming out of the water prefigures his resurrection. Thus, his ministry begins as a pre-figuring of its end. Jesus’s baptism also tells us about ourselves, for his baptism is the model for our own. Through our baptism we receive forgiveness of sins and become children of God by adoption and grace, and therefore it’s through baptism that we actually become Christians. Through our baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God himself. And through our baptism we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ. So, let’s re-do the bumper sticker: Christians aren’t perfect, but forgiven, plus are members of the Body of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, and follow in our lives, by the grace of God, a lifestyle of sacrificial love. Now put that on a bumper! When we’re baptized, we’re initiated into a different reality, and that reality is the Kingdom of God. And, while we aren’t perfect, our goal is perfection. We realize we won’t make that goal in this life, but we continue to strive to become all that God created us to be. That’s such an exciting life, life with tremendous meaning and purpose and great joy. But we do lose sight of the goal. It’s so easy just to go through the motions, forgetting to live lives of thankfulness and praise for all that God has given us. That’s when we really need to confess our sins and return to the Lord and live the life of fullness of joy promised to God’s people. Of what does that fullness consist? It’s summarized in the Baptismal Covenant, which we’ll all renew in just a few moments. Basically, it can be divided into belief and practice—the belief summarized in the Apostles’ Creed, and the practice summarized by the five questions and answers which follow. Fullness of life contains belief, worship, prayer, study, repentance, bringing others to Christ, serving Christ in others, loving those around us, and striving for justice and peace—these are the marks of one living in Christ, and when we really live that way, that’s a life on fire with the Holy Spirit! There’s a story about the famous pianist, Vladimir Horowitz. He gave a brilliant performance one evening. Afterward, a woman who had been in the audience said to Horowitz, “I would give my life to play like you played tonight.” Horowitz answered, “Madam, I have given my life to play like that.” When people see a Christian, they should see a person whose life in every way is so transformed by Jesus Christ, that they want to have what that Christian has. That only happens when Christ truly becomes Lord of every aspect of our lives. Like Horowitz and his music, we must give our entire lives to Christ. Christians aren’t perfect, but forgiven, are members of the Body of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, and follow in our lives, by the grace of God, a lifestyle of sacrificial love. Do any of you remember that ketchup commercial? Rich, thick ketchup takes an inordinate amount of time to ooze out of a bottle. Pounding the bottle fails to make the substance move any faster. Meanwhile, a child sits expectantly awaiting the ketchup’s arrival. The music in the background: “Anticipation.”
That commercial doesn’t exist any more; the technology has changed. Squeeze bottles have rendered waiting for your ketchup unnecessary. Delayed gratification is a thing of the past. We’ve gotten spoiled, haven’t we? It’s not just ketchup. You can throw your clothes into a washer and let it do the work while you’re doing something else. The same goes for the dirty dishes after dinner. In 1849 it took 166 days to travel coast to coast by stagecoach. By the 1860s it took 60 days. A decade later it took a train 11 days. In 1923, an airplane did it in 26 hours, but by 1975, a plane travelled coast to coast in five hours. Today, the Space Shuttle does it in 8 minutes! We don’t much like to wait. This applies to our faith as well. Possibly you’re familiar with the prayer, “Lord, give me patience, and give it to me now!” Perhaps this attitude toward waiting is what causes Advent not to be universally appreciated. Advent’s a season of waiting, of expectation, of anticipation. We await the celebration of the birth of Jesus until the 25th; we look for the coming of Christ at the end of time. We wait. We prepare. One of the prominent figures in helping us to prepare is John the Baptist. Even though he was a prophet some 2000 years ago, the way he prepared for the first coming of the Messiah gives an excellent model for how we should prepare to receive Christ at Christmas as well as when he comes again to judge the living and the dead. So let’s imagine for a minute that you’re part of the crowd that went out to the wilderness to hear him. You’ve heard that this prophet might have something to say that will help make some sense of life, which too often seems more than a little senseless. You live your life pretty much the same as everyone else. You make a living that keeps body and soul together and then some. Most people think that you’ve got it “together.” But there’s still an urge that tells you you’re missing something, something that makes everything else make sense. So you’ve come to hear this man John, who just might have the key. You feel a little timid, maybe a bit foolish, because here you are, a self-respecting citizen, going to the riverbank to hear a man dressed in camel’s hair, with a leather girdle around his waist, whose diet consists of locusts and wild honey. In your saner moments you might have written him off! He begins to preach. His first words are, “You brood of vipers!” (This isn’t getting off to a very good start!). “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits that befit repentance… Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” You’ve forgotten your anger at John about how he’s spoken to you. You’re wondering what you can do to bear fruit. What impossible feat is he going to expect you to do in order to satisfy God’s anger? John’s answer to you: “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; he who has food, let him do likewise.” In other words, “Prepare for the coming of Christ by responding to the needs of those around you, and do what is within your power to fill those needs.” The problem John paints is gigantic—a matter of life and death, yet his answer seems mundane. He doesn’t tell the tax collectors and Roman soldiers to give up their hated professions; he doesn’t suggest taking up a dramatic lifestyle like his own. He simply says, “Share out of your abundance; be responsive to the needs of others, don’t cheat or abuse others in your businesses. Such a dramatic problem and such a simple solution! Yet, it’s the ordinary situations in life that give us the most difficulty in leading moral, faithful lives. Scripture’s clear. Our relationship with our heavenly Father is directly related to how we treat our neighbor. Being prepared to receive Christ, whenever he comes, depends in part upon how we care for those in need—physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional need. I’m preaching to the choir. You are sensitive to the needs of others. You are generous with your time, your talent, and your money for the needs of the Church and for the needs of others. You know the requirements of the Gospel and you seek to fulfill them. But, you know, I suspect you’re rather like the people who went to hear John the Baptist. The ones who probably needed to hear him the most wouldn’t take the time to do that. So, in a sense, I suspect he was preaching to the choir, too. Each of us needs to be reminded of these truths, and let’s face it, probably most of us could be more responsive to need than we are. Furthermore, each of us has something in our lives that is resistant to the Gospel, something that is indeed very basic. If we’re going to be prepared to receive Christ, that something is what needs to be dealt with. And that, my brothers and sisters, is the hard part. By the grace of God, only you know what that something is and only you can deal with it, by the grace of God, When we all do that, as a community of faith, Jesus Christ shines through us. I need this time of anticipation in order to be prepared and I hope you will join me in making the most of this holy season of Advent. A woman went into a post office to buy some stamps for her Christmas cards. “What denomination do you want?” asked the lady at the counter. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Has it come to this? I suppose you’d better give me 20 Catholic and 20 Presbyterian stamps, then.”
As we all begin to make preparations for Christmas, with gift purchasing, and the sending of cards, and some of us even beginning to decorate for Christmas—here we are in the Church being very counter-culture in a very visible way. You don’t see any Christmas trees, no festive lights. There are fewer candles on the altar. The color is purple, suggesting penitence. There are a few decorations: the Advent wreath—a plain circle with four candles, only one of which is lit today; a stable with animals; the picture behind the Lady Chapel altar is covered with a purple cloth; a picture of the Annunciation is on the altar; and three outdoor wreaths with purple bows are on the red doors. For throughout the Church this is not the Christmas season. It’s the season of Advent, a season of waiting. And Advent is not just a season of preparation to celebrate the birthday of our Lord. It’s a season that focuses, first and foremost, on preparation to receive him when he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. It’s a season devoted to contemplation of last things, the traditional themes being death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Advent is a time for examination of our lives and confession, for resetting our priorities, and for special acts of devotion and self-denial. It is as if to say that when we are prepared to meet the Lord when he comes again in glory, then we will also be prepared to celebrate rightly the annual observance of his first coming as the Babe in Bethlehem. With the exception of the first reading from Jeremiah, the readings appointed for today, as well as the Collect of the Day, point us in this direction, toward the Last Judgment. St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, urges them to be abounding in love toward one another and to all people, and live holy lives so that when Jesus comes again he may find them blameless before God. In Luke we have the familiar warning that “there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the seas and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” If you were living last month in Sarasota, Florida, where Linda and I are from, when both of the hurricanes struck, you might have thought this biblical prophecy was coming true! A dear friend actually died from fear during Helene. With what’s going on in the Holy Land and in Ukraine and Russia, just to name a couple of nations, it might seem to some that that’s enough distress among nations to qualify as a sign of the end time. In this prophecy of things to come, Jesus tells his disciples that the Son of Man is coming in a cloud with power and great glory. The earliest Christians truly believed Jesus might come at any moment. Early in his ministry St. Paul clearly believed that Jesus would come again before Paul died. Every day was Advent in the early Church. t took some 40 years after the resurrection for the first account of the Gospel to be written. Have you ever wondered why there weren’t disciples cranking out best sellers immediately after the resurrection? They believed there was no need for a written record, probably that there wouldn’t be enough time to get one written, before the Second Coming; and time would be better spent in getting out the word. And so they had no problem living each day as if it would be their last opportunity to get their lives in order and to proclaim the message of salvation. Some 2000 years have passed. The Son of man still has not returned, yet the readings in this season remind us that the promise has been made. Jesus shall indeed come again. That coming may still be a thousand years away or it may be today. And that coming will be a time of final judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. The idea of judgment is based on the presupposition that there is such a thing as right and wrong, that there is such a thing as sin, that God intends for his people to have a certain standard of life, and that there is a way to break out of the cycle of sin. That “way” is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. Is there any doubt that the world is just as much in need of a Savior now as it was 2000 years ago? Watch any news report on any given day and you’ll find many examples of our world’s need of the Savior. They’re filled with examples of war, violent crime, reports of divorces, stories of neglected and abused children. I don’t agree with William Bennett on some key issues, but I think he got it right in an article published years ago titled “Redeeming our Time,” when he stated that “there are other signs of social decay that do not so easily lend themselves to quantitative analysis….For there is a coarseness, a callousness, a cynicism, a banality, and a vulgarity to our time. There is a sense in our time that there is no such thing as sin, and if there is a God, he doesn’t much care about how we live our lives and we certainly are not going to be held accountable. Advent, all four weeks of it, reminds us that the world still needs the Savior. It reminds us that our thoughts, words, and deeds do have eternal significance, and we will be held accountable. It calls us to get our priorities straight and to be the sign to the world of all of these things. Yet our preparation for the Second Coming, as well as our preparation for Christmas, is a joyful preparation, in a quiet sort of way, for we know the Savior and we want to make him known. There is a solution to the problems that face us as individuals and as a society, and that solution is the One whose birth will be celebrated this Christmas Eve. I invite you, during this beautiful season of Advent, truly to make it a time of preparation—to examine your lives and make your confession, to reset your priorities, and to make special acts of devotion and self-denial, all to the end that when our Lord Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The ballots have been cast, the votes counted; but the outcome of our latest presidential election hasn’t solved anything. Whatever one’s feelings about our former and soon-to-be Commander in Chief, I think we can all agree on one thing: Our politics are ailing. And I’m not talking about legislation or the core issues of the Republican or Democratic parties. I’m talking about how people talk to one another. How they treat one another. How they see and portray their political opponents. The United States is now known globally for the intensity of its political discord. For the vitriol each party hurls at the other. It’s not just the problem of the Right or the Left. It’s everyone.To quote the Apostle Paul, “No one is righteous, no not one.” And most people can recognize that. Most people can recognize how ungracious and suspicious we’ve all become if given the chance. We’re just not often given that chance because politics in the United States has taken on the weight of religion, which politics was never meant to have. When we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America or when we put our confidence in a particular political party and its leaders, we will go wrong if our ultimate devotion does not lay elsewhere. As the psalmist says, “Put not your faith in rulers, for there is no help in them.” It’s ironic, actually, that he would write those words. According to tradition, the Prophet David composed the psalm we recited just a few minutes ago. Of all people, you’d think, David would be the last to caution us from relying on our leaders and the governments they control. He was, after all, a king. And yet, king though he was, David knew from terrible experience just how quickly those in authority can fall. All it took for him was a glance out of the window on a sultry summer evening. David knew that even the wisest ruler can stumble over his own desires or twist the use of his office to his own ends — because David knew that even the wisest ruler is human. And human beings are not perfect. Much as we might want to think it, we do not exercise ultimate power or, more importantly, faultless self-control. We are too mortal for that. We hunger, we thirst, we want. We need. And, in the end, we die. There is no help in us. There is no help in us because, like the flowers of the field, we will fade away. We will return to the earth, and in that day all our thoughts will perish. Which is a conclusion that has a double meaning. We human beings and our institutions are mortal and, therefore, what we do and what we say has great importance. Our actions are not trivial. Each of us is wholly unique, and no other life will be lived like ours ever again. But at the same time, we human beings and our institutions are mortal and, therefore, what we do and what we say stops short of having ultimate significance because we are not ultimate. We participate in what is ultimate. We interact with what is ultimate, but we don’t own it. We can’t control it. Our lives are but a breath. We cannot know what the future will hold. There is only One who can. There is only One who does. Only one Lord lives forever. Only one King conquers to save. Only one God is truly God. He is ours, and we are his. “Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is in the LORD their God.” Happy are they, happy are we, when our confidence is in the LORD our God, for he made heaven and earth. He hung the stars in the sky and set the bounds of the sea. He keeps his promise forever. God does not change. He is not fickle or capricious. He does not hesitate to defend the weak and chastise the strong. God speaks, and the mountains tremble. He shouts, and the forests fall. He cries, and his blessed mother picks him up and cradles him at her breast, whispering stories of creation into the Creator’s ear. Our God is like no ruler who has been or ever will be. He fights for us like a lion and then dies for us like a lamb. But he doesn’t die for us alone. God’s salvation is for all people — because all people need him. From the youngest to the oldest, the richest to the poorest, we all need God’s grace in our lives because our hearts are divided, our minds distracted, our bodies exhausted. Like sheep without a shepherd, we are harassed and helpless without him. And God knows that. He knows how much we long for peace; he knows how much we long for justice; and he knows how much we won’t find those things apart from him. God is the source of all good. The foundation of all holiness. The life-giving spring bubbling up unto eternity. Every loveliness, every satisfaction, every truth comes from him. And so he draws us, ever so slowly and ever so gently into the knowledge of his life and love not only in those moments of truth and beauty but perhaps more effectively in and through the trials and triumphs of the everyday realities of our lives. But this is not a passive process. It’s not just something God does to us. We are coworkers in this, however small our part, a part that is at times harder to play. When David wrote the opening lines of the 146th Psalm, he described the fundamental posture of the human being: Praising the Lord. God has given us everything we have — our breath, our being, our very life — and we are called to return it to him with thanksgiving. With praise. But it’s really not hard to imagine that there were times for David and times for us when that doesn’t work out as we might wish. There are times when we can offer our whole selves with gladness unto the Lord, thankful to our bones for what he has given us. And then there are times when all we have are two copper coins — which are actually worth much, much more. When we are thirsty and pour a cup of cold water for someone who thirsts; when we are hungry and buy someone else a meal; when we strive to look beyond our neighbor’s political affiliations in order to behold one who is also made in the Image of God, we will find God in his might, taking even the smallest gift offered in faith and with a pure heart and multiplying it. God takes copper and turns it into gold. He takes five loaves and two fish and makes them into a feast. He takes our most hard-fought, most infinitesimal spiritual victory and turns it into the beginning of total transformation, where are hearts become that much more like his heart and our hands that much more like his hands and our words that much more like God’s Word — until Christ is all in all. For he is our King. Christ is our king, and he is a king who helps. Who heals. Who alone can save. This is our hope, a hope that is not dependent on outward circumstances, a hope that teaches us to leave unknown futures unknown, knowing that God’s guiding hand is with us at all times and in all places (Henri Nouwen). Happy are they who put their trust in him, our Lord who reigns forever, our God throughout all generations. Hallelujah! AMEN. Did you watch the Illinois/Michigan game yesterday? We watched it on television. It was an exciting game, but not nearly as exciting as last week’s game.
Last week Linda and I actually went to the Illini/Purdue football game. Roger and Sarah Burrus invited us. The game started at 2:30. We parked at the church and walked a couple of blocks where we got on an express bus. Like most all of the fans, we were wearing our orange Illini T-shirts. The express let us off just a block from the stadium. We got off the bus and within sight was a parade. It was the Illini Marching Band! How lucky could we get? So before walking to the stadium, we stood and waited for the band. We were probably within 5 feet of the closest band members as they walked by. The drum majors with their batons led the way, then came cheerleaders and other acrobats, and then came the band. It’s a huge band! And they made a huge sound! The flutes marched by, and then the clarinets and saxophones, lots and lots of trumpets, and then finally the tubas. I counted 25 tubas! I have to say, it was thrilling to watch that band march by as they made their grand entrance into the arena. If you didn’t know anything about football and what to expect in the stadium, just watching that band march on their way to the stadium would put your expectations into the stratosphere. This was going to be quite a show! The visiting Purdue team entered the stadium to the booing of the crowd. Then the Illini came in, and the crowd roared its appreciation. They clearly were the favorites! It was a great game! By the end of the first half, it was pretty clear that the Illini would win the game. During halftime, the marching band gave a stunning performance, after which the two teams entered again, ready for combat, but this time, things were different. Purdue quickly made up for a weak beginning and by the end of the second half the score was tied, 43 to 43. They went into overtime, the Illini scoring the first touchdown, followed by completing a field goal, making the score 50 to 43. Then Purdue got a touchdown and were poised to tie it up once again, but instead of kicking, they decided to run the field goal which would have won the game for them. But they didn’t make it and so Illinois won the game 50 to 49 and the crowd went wild. From start to finish, the game was like a huge drama of which even we in the stands were a part. The stars were the players, of course. Everyone was wearing clothes that fit their part. It had a plot. But the exciting part of the plot was that no one knew exactly how it would turn out. Have you ever thought about our corporate worship of Almighty God as a kind of drama? It really is, you know. Just like the football game, we are participants in the drama. In this drama of worship, we hear of how God has acted with his people in ages past as members of the Body of Christ read portions of scripture. We hear a rousing sermon from a priest who has been ordained by God to proclaim his Word. Sometimes we may even be moved by the scripture readings and sermon. We remember all those in need in prayer and we recall how we have failed in being faithful in the past, after which we are given absolution. Finally, we present bread and wine to be offered on the altar, and then we reenact Jesus’ sacrifice, as if we are actually at the cross as well as at the empty tomb. The climax of the drama is when we go forward to the altar ourselves and receive God into our lives anew through the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s a drama unlike any other. Everyone present is an actor—an actor, not as one playing a role but as one who acts. There is passion, humor, human failing, and human victory. I don’t know about you, but I am often moved by what happens in our worship. Just as I was really excited about the thought of going to the game a week ago, as Sunday draws near, I get excited about our getting together. Through it all, God is active, and his redemptive power is at work. From that great drama we go out and do the work of the Church—educate our children and youth in the faith, proclaim the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it, and serve those who are in need. It is the divine drama of which we are a part. It has tremendous consequences, eternal consequences, not only for us, but also for all of humanity. I give thanks for this community of faith, for what it has meant for past generations for over a hundred years, and for what it will mean for generations to come. But most of all, I give thanks for each one of you, for your faithfulness, your generosity, your passion for the work of our Lord Jesus Christ in this place and at this time. Today we’re starting the stewardship season that will end with the Ingathering of pledges on 17 November. As you think and pray about your gift to Emmanuel in 2025, think about what a great blessing we all have to be able to be here Sunday after Sunday, holy day after holy day, and whatever you decide to give, I hope it is in a spirit of thanksgiving for all of us being able to be part of this great drama of redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ. After mass one Sunday, years ago, someone said to me, “Fr. Robinson, you spoke of Satan today as if he really exists. Do you really believe there is such a thing as the devil? I’ve always assumed that the devil is more of a metaphor than a reality; you know, kind of like angels.”
It’s not uncommon for someone to say something like this to me: “I don’t go to Church because I’m too much of a person of science to believe the major doctrines of the Church.” Many of you have probably heard the same thing from friends and relatives. Such things have been said about the supposed conflict between science and religion for at least a couple of hundred years, and before that it was between the supposed conflict between reason and faith. The major doctrines of the Christian faith have been basically the same since its beginning, but as we know, science changes and what was considered to be scientific truth a century ago, or even a year ago, can be overturned and completely the opposite of what science considers to be the truth today. For instance, in July 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot twice, in the arm and in the back, but neither wound was fatal. His doctors, acting on the medical science of the time, didn’t believe in the germ theory. His primary doctor, without washing his hands and certainly without having on any plastic gloves, simply reached into Garfield’s backwound and fished around until he found the bullet. Of course, the president eventually died from infection, eleven weeks later. It wasn’t long after that that medical science came to believe in the truth of the germ theory. The science changed, and medical science took a great leap forward. Furthermore, while science seeks to answer the questions what and how, it cannot answer why. That’s the realm of religion. Why is this world here? Why do I seek for ultimate meaning in my life? There have been scientists who have claimed that God doesn’t exist. They had no more proof for God’s nonexistence than we have proof for God’s existence, but that didn’t stop them from proclaiming their belief from the house tops, or better put, from the university lecture halls. One such atheist was Britain’s Antony Flew. Known by some as the world’s most renowned atheist, his writings in the latter half of the 20th century were used widely to support a scientific and philosophic view of a godless universe, supposedly based on the science of the time. Flew was a philosopher, not a scientist, but he based his atheism on the science of that time. Toward the beginning of this century, Flew reversed himself. He said that he looked back on that atheistic argument as a “historical relic” due to scientific research since 1966. Philosophers, he said, must contemplate the “argument from the order of nature to God as its Intelligent Orderer. He said this approach “becomes progressively more powerful with every advance in humankind’s knowledge of the integrated complexity” of nature. Furthermore, science has undergirded “the fine-tuning argument” for such an omnipotent intelligence: If the constants of physics were “to the very slightest degree different, then no planet capable of permitting the evolution of human life could have evolved.” Remember, this is Antony Flew, once known as the world’s most renowned atheist, who said this. Flew therefore considered it “reasonable” for followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam “to see the fine-tuning argument as providing substantial confirmation of” their belief in God – though he didn’t embrace those religions himself. Because of his change of mind, he became a strong, vocal advocate of public schools teaching the Intelligent Design theory of creation! So, persons who say they can’t believe in the teachings of Christianity because of science had better look at the science, because the science has changed, as science is wont to do! But throughout all of the changes of science, throughout all of the various periods of history, in good times and bad, in times of persecution of the faith and in times of wide acceptance, the truths of the Christian faith have remained constant, not the product of human reason or of science, but the product of that divine, omnipotent intelligence revealing himself to his people, and most fully in and through the person of Jesus Christ. Reason and science need not be in conflict with that revelation, yet that revelation transcends reason and science. Today we are celebrating the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. Angels have a prominent place in scripture and appear throughout Scripture in very important moments. An angel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would conceive and bear the Son of God. Angels announced his birth in Bethlehem to the shepherds. Angels ministered to our Lord after his temptation in the wilderness and during his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were present at his resurrection, and in today’s Gospel Jesus foretells them ascending and descending on the Son of Man. While angels are not mentioned in the creeds, every time we celebrate the mass the Celebrant mentions that we are joining with angels and archangels in singing, "Holy, holy, holy," recalling that angels surround the throne of God in heaven and chant his praises continually. Angels are not people who have died, gone to heaven, and "gotten their wings." When we die, we remain people; we don't become angels. Angels were created by God just as people were created by God, although angels are pure spirit. Angels are probably one of those difficult things for some folks who feel that science contradicts religion, but once again, they may not be provable except through the eyes of faith, but they certainly are not disprovable either. The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels calls attention to the wonderful spiritual reality of angels in helping us and defending us on earth. This feast gives us a chance to give thanks for their ministry. Blessed Michael and All Angels watch over us this day and all of the days to come. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“What were you arguing about on the way?” Jesus and his disciples had just arrived in Capernaum after walking through Galilee. The days they spent together had been remarkable. Together, they had healed the sick and fed 5,000 and heard Peter’s astonished declaration, “You are the Christ.” But now, no one would meet Jesus’ gaze, let alone answer his question. On the road, in the moment, it had felt so good to bicker about who was the best, who was the favorite, who was the greatest. Each of the disciples, whether or not they would admit it, wanted to be the first. Think of the admiration, the inside information, the confidence that would surely come with being Jesus’ right-hand man. As the silence continued, though, the disciples began to realize that they had missed the point entirely. Who is the greatest? Most of us recognize that question or at least recognize the impulse behind it. We’ve heard it enough and maybe even participated in arguments of that kind. At home or on the playground or in the staff break room, we’ve wondered and sometimes we’ve wagered on whether or not we were the best. Mom likes me most. I deserve the promotion. No one will forget my name. It’s there in so many of our histories, that desire to be sought out, to be assured of our worth, to feel certain of our being loved — a whisper in our hearts of a better present or a brighter future that could be ours . . . if only we were great. Maybe then she would love me. Maybe then I would be happy. Maybe then I’d get respect. That voice comes to us so often when we’re afraid, when we’ve been confronted with our own frailty or lack of control. It could have been because of the failings of a parent or the death of a friend that our un-invincibility came to the forefront of our minds and stayed there like an ominous shadow. It’s natural to want to get out, to establish ourselves in such a way that we become untouchable, unable to be harmed — but such a desire can harm just as much as it can help us. There is a fine line between virtue and vice when it comes to greatness or ambition or pride. In our own way, each of us wants to excel, each of us wants to be appreciated — and for good reason: God gave us good gifts to use for his glory in communion with him and his creation. But when we forget him, when through fear or faithlessness we seek after the world’s ideal of “greatness,” we enter dangerous spiritual territory. Think of the disciples, who began arguing over who was the greatest right after they heard that Jesus would suffer and die. As St. Mark tells us, they couldn't talk about what Jesus had said. They were afraid. Afraid of losing their way, of losing their lives, of losing their friend. And so it was that the disciples retreated to the safety of their own egos and lost the sense of what God’s kingdom is all about. Like a kid at recess who declares himself king of the castle, the disciples argued about who was the greatest because they could not bear the threat of uncertainty or the need of the Other or the cost of discipleship — lest they be wounded by the love that awaits us all. That’s what fear does: It changes our perception, tempting us to believe that life is short and sorrowful, with no remedy when it comes to its end. And if that’s the case, why not grab what we can and do what we want and ignore the still, small voice that says there is so much more for us in store. Sitting down, Jesus called the twelve to him and said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then, taking a child into his arms, Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me — and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Our world is a complex and chaotic place, one that pushes us toward greed, toward selfishness. We all want to survive. We all want our due, and it’s so easy to make that our priority. But to do so is to miss the point, to miss the freedom, of Christ’s rule. In God’s kingdom, who is the greatest? The disciples couldn’t seem to answer that question either. They struggled to comprehend the upside-down nature of God’s kingdom. Just as we do. We are so accustomed to the machinations of power, to the dog-eat-dog world that rewards those with influence and money and acclaim. It doesn’t seem to matter how long we’ve been a Christian, that ideal, that vision is still attractive to us. It still whispers to us on our lowest days that happiness is one paycheck or purchase or accolade away. And yet, if that’s what it means to be happy, then we can never truly attain it. The greatness of the kingdom of earth is fleeting — the stock market will crash, the promotion will pass us by, the relationship won’t live up to its potential. Nothing is certain here — except the one who sits down in our midst and reminds us of what is truly great. In the Kingdom of God, it is the one who humbles himself, who serves the least, who attends to the weak, who becomes like a child who has achieved the stature God desires for his people: which is nothing less than the greatness of God’s Son, who knew the suffering that lay before him and did not turn aside but gladly and willingly accepted death that we might be saved. That is what greatness is about. That is what greatness looks like. And it is ours now, no matter our professional success or our physical stature or our age. Every time we catch ourselves pursuing the kind of power and prestige the world offers; every time we stop ourselves and reckon with the root of our desires; every time we set aside our own priorities for the sake of our Neighbor, we grow in God’s greatness. We grow in the ability to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves. And when we do so, we not only bless the world but we ourselves are blessed. For the simple exercise of virtue cleans our hearts, restores our vision, makes us more aware of the love God bears for us: love that is never-ending and always faithful, full of mercy and loving-kindness. That greatness is ours now as we follow the Crucified Messiah. Even now he is with us. As we pass through our own Galilee, as we face our own fears and wrestle with our own temptations, Christ is with us, covering us with his grace — grace the empowers us to feel the anxiety and angst life gives us and then let it go, drawing near to God like a child to her mother, eager for his mercy and comfort. And we will find it. We will always find that limitless love when we draw near to the One whose weakness is our strength, whose death is our life, whose resurrection is now our own. He will make us great, no matter what may come. AMEN. We’ve become a news-hungry people. When I was growing up, we had, of course, the newspaper and weekly news magazines. There was a morning news show, The Today Show, and the 6 o’clock news, and the late 11 o’clock news. That was pretty much it, as I remember it.
Then along came special editions like 60 Minutes and more than a decade later, CNN and around the clock news coverage. Now there are ways to find out what’s happening in the world 24 hours a day, both in our own “neck of the woods,” as well as anywhere around the world. As soon as the horrific shootings at the Apalachee High School in Georgia took place, everyone in the country knew about it. Millions watched follow up procedures by the police. As soon as the arrest of the shooter was made, we knew about it. Likewise, when the father was also charged, we knew about it immediately. We can watch the market rise and fall right as it happens. You don’t have to go to the stadium anymore to watch how the Fighting Illini are doing in any given game. True fans know how to get it on TV; and, of course, there’s always the radio. We take it for granted, but our knowledge of what’s happening in the world as it happens has never been greater than it is in our day. Obtaining knowledge of what’s happening outside of our own immediate circles hasn’t always been so easy. In the late 1700s they had newspapers, but no fast way of getting information from one place to another, and so, when John Adams negotiated terms of peace with King George III in England, it took six weeks for the results of that agreement to get back to the States. Once it got back, then the printed word could spread the news relatively quickly to urban areas. Before movable type was invented news took much longer to spread and, I suspect, the accuracy of what was reported was much harder to control. Word-of-mouth would have been the usual method for passing news, and that was the case for thousands of years in the human family. Thus, in the days when Jesus walked the earth, there was no vehicle for spreading his teachings beyond those who came to hear him. They couldn’t grab the remote control to see the itinerant rabbi casting out demons and healing the sick. Wouldn’t a photographer have had a terrific time filming five loaves and two fish feeding 5000 men, plus some women and children, with plenty left over? Many of the religious leaders didn’t like his methods. You had to be there or else hear about these things from someone who had been there, but slowly Jesus’ reputation was spreading. People were talking. So Jesus one day asks his disciples what people were saying about him. John the Baptist had been beheaded by this time, and some people thought John had returned in the person of Jesus. There was also a strong expectation that before the Messiah would come, Elijah would return. Some thought Jesus was Elijah. Or if not Elijah, then maybe Jesus was Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. The news had spread! Jesus was certainly a man sent from God, but then Jesus asks his disciples a much more personal question: “OK. People have their ideas about who I am. But what I really want to know is who you think I am. You’re the ones who have seen and heard everything. You’re the ones who have come to learn from me and who will continue my work. Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The final question that our Lord asked his disciples is the same question he asks every person. “Who do you say that I am?” You, or your parents and godparents on your behalf, at your baptism gave the same answer as Peter gave. “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?” The answer was, “I do.” All that is to say that we believe Jesus is the Christ, God’s anointed, the Messiah, Savior and Lord. In this service alone, already we have referred to Jesus as our Lord at least eight times. It’s a pretty important belief in our Christian faith. Saying the words and living what we say, though, can be two different things. How many times in the last week have you actually thought about this one we call Christ and Lord? How many times has our Lord played a part in a decision you or I made concerning our relationships at home, or at school, or at work, or at play? Does it really mean something to you that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? How important is it to you? Or perhaps did it once mean something more to you than it does now? Or maybe it means more to you now than it ever has. It’s not enough that we once confessed Christ as Lord. That confession needs to be renewed every day. As our circumstances change, we need to reevaluate what it means to call Christ Lord in those circumstances. What does it mean to call Christ Lord in whatever business you happen to be involved right now? What does it mean to call Christ Lord as a student, or a teacher, or a parent? What does it mean to call Christ Lord when we retire, the kids have left home and we now have grandchildren, we actually have a little time, and a few more resources? When I really want to say, “I’ve been involved in the Church for years while my children were growing up. It’s time for the younger people to step up and do their part,” is that allowing Christ to be Lord of our lives? Could it be that he still has something he wants us to do to his glory? We are in the beginning of a new program year. There are many ways for each person here to be involved. I believe that to call Jesus Lord includes taking our part in the worship, study, and work of parish life. Singing in the choir, reading the scriptures and prayers at mass, carrying the cross and torches in procession, setting up the sacred vessels for mass and cleaning up afterward, handing out lunches to the needy, ushering— these are just a few of the tangible ways that we can work out our devotion to Jesus Christ as Lord right here at the church. When you become involved in a fuller way in the life of the parish, you’ll find that it helps you in following him as Lord in the daily chores of life. We live in a news-hungry society. We’re bombarded with news from all over the world. But the best news is and will always be the Good News of Jesus Christ. “Who do you say that I am?” Sermon preached by the Rev’d Fredrick A. Robinson Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church Champaign, Illinois 17th Sunday after Pentecost 15 September 2024 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come to save you.” Israel needed to hear those words. Early in the 8th-century BC, all of Jerusalem watched as the Assyrian army approached the city gates. Everyone knew what followed that mighty force, and had been reminded by the mouthpiece of the emperor himself, who stood at the base of Jerusalem’s walls and yelled: “Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. See, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?” With the voice o their enemy ringing in their ears, Israel wavered. They were full of fear and did not know whom to trust: the sight of their own eyes? Or the Word of the LORD? “Be strong, do not fear! [Your God] will come to save you.” As the armies of Assyria gathered before Jerusalem, the entire nation of Israel fought a preemptive battle — a battle with which we’re all familiar. In whom or in what do we put our trust? That is not a question most 21st-century Americans ask. We live in a peculiar time and a peculiar place, historically speaking: Even as war has raged around us, all over the globe, for the majority of the last century, American soil has remained relatively untouched. At the same time, however, the failures of our presidents and the failures of our nation have fostered a pervasive sense of distrust and dissatisfaction that grips us. The average U.S. citizen, for example, is now less likely to believe our government or our schools or our churches are acting for our benefit — and that doesn’t even address one’s faith in God. We may not be facing the terror of imminent invasion; but that doesn’t mean there aren’t forces arrayed against us. They're just more subtle. A well-crafted image. A tantalizing lead. A quick click of the mouse. We are tempted, and in a way, we are taught to rely on ourselves, to believe the sight of our own eyes and the sound in our own ears and the slant of our own newsfeed. We don’t tend to throw ourselves on God’s mercy because we simply don’t have to; and so it is that when fear or sorrow strikes, we struggle to trust that God’s word is true. Sometimes we struggle to remember it at all. So God speaks again. “Be strong, do not fear! [Your God] will come to save you.” In the end, Jerusalem was not conquered by the Assyrian empire. Against all odds, the Jewish people routed the Assyrian army and returned to their city victorious. They remembered that the LORD was on their side — and that made all the difference, for they were able truly to see and truly to hear. They were able in that moment and for that day to recognize God for who he is and what he does. As the Psalmist puts so beautifully: The LORD gives justice to the oppressed and food to those who hunger. He sets the prisoner free and lifts up those who are bowed down. God is who he is and will be who he will be. God reigns forever. He does not change. God remains the same. From before time began and on past its end, God is perfect holiness. Perfect righteousness. Perfect love. At once unfathomable and inscrutable and also nearer than our very breath. Quick to bind up our wounds, always ready to deliver the one who trusts in him, God saves those who approach in faith and ask him for aid. And we know that definitively, finally because God himself wrote that good news with nail-pierced hands. “Be strong, do not fear! [Your God] will come to save you.” Every time we remember those words, every time we dare to trust, to exercise those spiritual muscles our society neglects, we actually encounter the LORD. We encounter the God who came to right every wrong and amend every injustice by taking the pain and the penalty, the vengeance and the violence on himself — so that we might be free. Free of the fear and the anger that can so easily control us. Free to see rightly the world around us, to respect our rulers as imperfect servants of the same master, to honor our neighbors as fellow bearers of the image of God, to offer ourselves and everything that we have and everything that we are to the the One who alone is trustworthy. The kingdom of heaven is not simply an otherworldly reality. For those whose eyes have been opened, whose lives have been touched, whose hearts have been moved: we have been given the grace to see God in his Son now. And he does not delay in pouring out his blessing, nor does he hold back his grace from those who ask. God hears the cries of his people — and acts. “Be strong, do not fear! [Your God] will come to save you.” AMEN. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“She wears her heart on her sleeve.” Not so long ago, that was a bit of a dubious compliment. People who fit that description — and this really could be men and women — were seen as wildcards, all sense and no sensibility. A good time, perhaps, but also quite likely to get themselves and their friends into trouble. Within the last decade, though, wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve has become a good thing. A badge of pride: He’s authentic. She’s genuine. He really does speak his mind. Such a development is in keeping with the natural progression of our particular brand of individualism, where, in the words of one philosopher, “Everyone has a right to develop their own form of life, grounded on their own sense of what is really important or of value. People are called upon to be true to themselves and to seek their own self-fulfillment” (Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 14). Which doesn’t sound too bad, does it? But he was writing before the Internet. And before Facebook. And before smartphones. What he and many others identified as problematic has become what we all experience now at a much higher level. The individual reigns. We hear about it. We see it. We subscribe to it. On Twitter, on TikTok, on Taylor Swift’s every album, the individual stakes her claim, bares her soul, reveals her heart. And we hit “repeat.” One must wonder, though, what that kind of “authenticity” does — to the people we admire and to us. What happens when the thoughts of the heart are given total complete command? When anger and desire drive us, and we just go along for the ride? What happens is that we all discover, sometimes in 160 characters or less, just how conflicted and chaotic and capricious a place the human heart can be. As Jesus said in our Gospel reading today, “it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” Evil does come from within, no matter how hard we try to ignore or explain away that fact. Some sickness, some malady grips us, and we are unable to break free; and in our society we don’t seem to want to break free. Even Christians, of every stripe, find plenty of justification for the vitriol we express toward our neighbors. “I’m sorry but I just have to speak my mind,” we say. “I just have to say what’s true,” or, really, “I just have to say what I think is true,” which may very well not be the case. We cannot see the heart. Only God can. And he knows what he’ll find there. God knows the terrain. He knows the shifting emotions, the racing thoughts. He’s familiar with the good and evil that lay side-by-side in each one of us. God is no stranger to the wilderness that is so often characteristic of the centre of our being. He’s been there before, and he will go there again — for God would make of our hearts a heaven, a Promised Land, where we might dwell together in peace. Think of that old Evangelical prayer: “Would you like to ask Jesus into your heart?” It’s sweet and simple and means so much more than most people realize because our heart is exactly the place Jesus longs to be. Walking with his disciples, gazing at the crowds, speaking with the religious leaders, Jesus saw that they were all harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, forever confusing the way of death with the way of life, forever trying to find a shortcut to happiness, a one-way ticket to rest, and forever failing to do so. We need help. We are lost on our own. We need someone who knows that evil comes from within and who will nevertheless not run away. We need someone who will stay with us past the bitter end, until the light of resurrection dawns in our lives, which is what the Word of God, what the Love of God, has done and will continue to do. He makes the blind to see. He sets the prisoner free. He raises the dead. Entering into our hearts, welcomed into the core of who we are, God begins his work: tending, keeping, healing the heart that ever so slowly begins to recognize him and his grace. Like a master craftsman, like a skilled surgeon, Jesus identifies what is sick within us. He reveals what is bruised and broken. He binds up our wounds and refines what is good. God transforms us from the inside out — and keeps on doing so until our heart looks like his heart and our voice sounds like his voice and our hands work like his hands. Until we become whole and holy, perfected in the splendor of our own unique personhood. We are that precious to him. God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to save it. To save us. To renew all of creation, one heartbeat at a time. And he will. He does. God is with us now, on our lips and in our hearts, speaking softly, knocking gently at the door, ready to transfigure the one who desires him. AMEN. In Inquirer’s Class, our class for people who are interested in becoming Episcopalians, we always have one class devoted to the meaning of the Holy Eucharist. Just one class isn’t a lot of time to deal with such a huge subject, but all of the subjects we cover in Inquirer’s Class are huge, so we’re only able to touch on the most important elements of whatever it is we’re talking about.
In one such class, after I had talked about the Real Presence of Christ in the Mass, how the bread and wine actually become the Body and Blood of Christ, after class, one of the participants came up to me and said, “Fr. Fred, I really have trouble with the idea that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. I have problems with the whole idea that Jesus himself is really present in the bread and the wine.” I responded to him, “So you believe that Jesus is really absent in the bread and wine? You believe in the real absence of Christ.” He thought about that for a moment, and then he said, “Well, that’s really not what I mean either.” I said, “Well, Jesus is either really present or really absent. It’s one or the other.” The whole subject of the body and blood of Christ has a complex history, beginning with when our Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples about his body and blood. Jesus said, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.… So he who eats me will live because of me.“ “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” St. John tells us that “after this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” If you’ve been in church every Sunday since 28 July, you may have noticed that we’ve read through the entire 6th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, Sunday after Sunday, until we have completed the whole thing with today’s Gospel, with the exception of the final two verses, which don’t go thematically with the rest of the chapter. On 28 July, we started out with the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. John makes a point of saying that the feast of Passover was at hand, which is an important detail in understanding the rest of the chapter. You know the story. Beginning with only five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus was able to feed the crowd of 5000 men, plus the women and children who were present. Out of very little, the Lord Jesus was able to make a great feast, and at the end 12 baskets were filled with what was left over. This miracle was a sign that Jesus was the Messiah, who would save his people. The people of that day expected the Messiah to be a savior in the worldly sense of the word In other words, they expected the Messiah to free Israel from Rome and make it a great nation again. They expected the savior to be a human being, but a human being with great charisma and skill who would be even greater than the greatest king in their history, King David. We know, however, that Jesus is God incarnate and that he is the Savior of the world by saving us from our sins. He would suffer, die on the cross, and on the third day be raised. Just as a lamb was sacrificed every year at Passover to recall God saving Israel from their bondage in Egypt, Jesus would be sacrificed for our sins by the shedding of his blood on the cross. That sin that separates us from God and one another would be washed away by his blood. Earlier I said that an important detail in the feeding of the 5000 was that the Feast of Passover was at hand. Remember how God saved the firstborn of Israel from death when he killed the firstborn of Egypt? The Hebrews were to sacrifice a lamb, putting some of the blood of the lamb on the door posts and the lintels of their houses. By the blood of the lamb, God would know to pass over those homes to spare the firstborn of Israel. The firstborn of Israel were therefore saved by the blood of the lamb. Every year thereafter, on the anniversary of that first Passover, the people of Israel were to remember that salvific event, but in a very special way — not as a past event, but as an event that they would participate in anew, each year, as if they were there at that very first Passover. Passover to this day is celebrated by the Jews as if they are at that first Passover. When our Lord Jesus celebrated that first Eucharist, as he and his disciples were celebrating the Passover, Jesus gave them this particular way to remember his sacrifice, a remembrance that would be similar to the remembrance of the Passover. Every time they would eat his body and drink his blood in remembrance of his sacrifice, it would be as if they were present at his very sacrifice on the cross. Our Lord Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross never has to be repeated because every Christian in every age in every place can access that sacrifice by being present at Mass. Every time we receive his body and blood, we are present at the Cross, receiving anew the benefits of his sacrifice. That’s why we never say we take communion, but instead we say we receive communion because we are receiving these benefits from God in Christ. Every three years at this time of year, we read through this sixth chapter of John. Today is the last day and next week we’ll be into a different topic. These last five Sundays have been rich with Eucharistic teaching, which is so important because the Church is not just a place where communion is celebrated; the Church is first and foremost a Eucharistic community through which we meet the risen Christ in his body, the Church, in the word read and proclaimed, and in the Sacrament of his body and blood. This is an exciting day as we anticipate baptizing Calvin Moe! As Calvin grows up, I hope
he’ll be very acquainted with this church building. There’s a whole lot more to the Christian life than this building, but there is so much about our faith in this very room. When you have opportunity, you should take some time to look at our stained glass windows. They tell the story of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus: The Annunciation, the Nativity, the Epiphany, the boy Jesus in the Temple, his Baptism, the Wedding at Cana, the Transfiguration, his Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, his crucifixion, the resurrection, the Ascension, and over the altar, the Presentation. There is one window, however, that’s the key to all of them: the resurrection window. If it weren’t for the resurrection, we wouldn’t remember any of the other things. In fact, if it weren’t for the resurrection, there would be no Church. It’s the greatest miracle of all. It’s the reason we worship on Sunday, for every Sunday is a little Easter, a little Day of Resurrection. And the Altar, the central focus of the entire church building, is a symbol of the resurrection. At the Altar, at every mass, we remember all of salvation history, in an abbreviated form. The culmination of that salvation history is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the salvation of the world and on the third day rising from the dead. That sacrifice is re-presented as the bread and wine are consecrated to become the Body and Blood of Christ. Each communicant receives the benefits of the sacrifice of Jesus by receiving the Body and Blood of the risen Lord. How important is it for us to do that? Jesus says it’s a matter of life and death. He doesn’t say it exactly that way. He just says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” What does Jesus mean by life? Obviously, there’re millions of people who are breathing, functioning human beings who have no part in Jesus, many of whom would describe themselves as leading very fulfilled lives. The society in which we live takes little notice of Jesus, and in many places he’s openly ridiculed. On the other hand, there are people in the Church, who receive his Body and Blood regularly, for whom life holds little meaning, and who would even describe themselves as basically unhappy. Do they have the life Jesus is talking about simply because they consume his Body and Blood in the Eucharist? Normally, I’d preach about the Real Presence on this Sunday when given this particular text for the Gospel, for Episcopalians believe all sorts of things when it comes to the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, all the way from a very high view, that what we’re receiving is the Body and Blood of Christ (that’s what we teach in this parish), to a very low view, that Christ is truly absent in the Sacrament, an unfortunate and unsupportable view, given the teachings of Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church Catholic from earliest times. Yet the concept of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament shouldn’t be seen as an isolated reality. The risen Christ is present in his Church not only in the Sacrament, but also in the Word read and proclaimed, and in his people, the Body of Christ. The Sacrament is essential to the Church, but also essential are these other elements. For one to have the life Jesus is talking about requires all of these elements. It isn’t unusual for a person who isn’t active in the Church to say something like this: “I don’t attend church, but I try to live a Christian life.” What that person doesn’t realize is that you can’t live a Christian life alone. It’s a contradiction in terms to say, “I’m not a part of the Church, but I try to live a Christian life.” To be a Christian is to be a part of the Eucharistic community that’s the Church, as far as that person is able. Of course, when one is sick or shut-in, he or she cannot be present with the Church in worship, and the Sacrament is brought to that person. Our life in Christ begins with baptism, when we’re initiated into the Eucharistic community. That community requires a certain unity of belief, summarized in the Apostles’ Creed. It requires worshipping with the community of faith every Sunday, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament, hearing the Word of God read and proclaimed, and being in community with other members of Christ’s Body. As St. Luke tells us in The Acts of the Apostles, “They continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.” It requires living a morally upright life, following the commandments of God, and when we fail to live accordingly, which we all do, to confess our failures, seek the forgiveness of God and his Church, and return again to following Christ. It requires sharing our faith with others, to bring others to Christ through his Church. It requires serving those in need, starting with those in our very midst. And it requires striving for justice and peace among all people. If this seems familiar, it should. It’s the Baptismal Covenant, which we’re all going to reaffirm in a few moments. To have the life Jesus is talking about is to do all of these things, not out of obligation, but out of love for God. When that happens, we have life, and we have it abundantly. Of course, we are obligated to do these things, but the goal is to move beyond obligation to doing them for the love of God. This may sound to some to be a little legalistic, as if to say if you do certain things, then God will reward you with certain blessings. In other words, some may think that what I’m saying implies a kind of works righteousness, that our salvation depends on what we do and not on what God does. My answer to that is that it all starts with God’s action on our behalf through Jesus Christ. But God does require a response from us, and the requirement is nothing less than everything we are. I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words in Cost of Discipleship concerning grace. He has a wonderful chapter entitled Costly Grace, but he starts by talking about cheap grace. “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate……Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person his life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life.” To eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his blood includes partaking of his Body and Blood at mass, but it means consuming Christ fully and being consumed by him. As the Eucharistic prayer from Rite I states it, “that he may live in us and we in him.” That’s the reality into which Calvin will be baptized this morning and it is the faith that will give him life. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We all learn at a certain point in our lives that it is dangerous to give ourselves wholly to anything or anyone. Maybe it was the first blush of unrequited love that broke our adolescent heart; or maybe it was the failure of a parent to care for us when and in the way that we needed them. Whatever the case, we have all learned this hard lesson — sometimes in a moment — from the school of life: Love hurts. There are some of us, though, that took that lesson more literally than others. Much has been said about people born between 1985 and 2010. Millennials and Gen Z are statistically the most depressed and least connected out of every demographic. Regardless of the fact that we have instant access to one another’s thoughts and feelings because of texting and TikTok, we are significantly less likely to have close friendships, to get married, to want children — for many and complex reasons, I’m sure; though one common explanation is this: We’ve seen too much go wrong. In our homes, in our schools, in our churches, in our nation, we have witnessed and sometimes experienced the cost not only of love’s absence but of love run amok — so many of us have opted out altogether. But it’s worth saying that the besetting sin of one generation is indicative of the sins of all the rest. What we see in full-color and high-definition in today’s young people is there in each one of us, hidden, perhaps, but present every time we allow the softness of our hearts to harden into cynicism. We all do it. The casual dismissal of a person because of their political views; the justification of anger or violence when it serves our purposes or protects our interests; the inability to maintain a conversation or even to listen to someone without glancing at our phone. These behaviors all come from the same place: a response to pain or to a perceived threat where we choose to preserve our own ego rather than risk the self-diminishment we fear will come when we open ourselves to someone or something else. The logic is easy to follow. Totally understandable. But you don’t need to be a priest or a prophet to notice the consequences of such an attitude. The next few years, maybe even the next few months, will be pivotal, both for us collectively and individually. We will all be challenged to ask and answer whether or not we will we succumb to the spirit of the age. Will we fall back on our own defenses? Will we let our hearts be hardened by cynicism or disgust? Or will we follow a different path entirely? Will we dare to keep moving forward, open and honest and maybe sometimes afraid — but still filled with faith? The way is there, stretching out before us. Although it’s narrow, the road is crowded. Angels and archangels, apostles, martyrs, saints living and dead are all walking toward, all looking for the One who promised to be with us always. He is with us; and so is someone else. Like mother, like child. Like child, like mother. The Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary stands at the head of us all. Greater than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, chief of the saints, Mary is honored not simply because of her role in the story of salvation but also because of her unassailable faithfulness and her unquestioning love for the God she bore as Son. Mary, more than anyone else in the world, knows that deep love can cause deep grief; and yet she always said “yes.” She always loved more. She always believed that God will make good of every evil in the end. Mary believed that with her whole heart, mind, soul, and strength not because she is different than us; but because she allowed the love of God to fill her so completely that it was heaven simply to be with him in everything — which did come with pain. The words of the Prophet Simeon were never far from her mind: “A sword will pierce your own heart, also.” Tradition tells us that Mary lived for a time as a child in the Temple; she would have heard just what was foretold of God’s Messiah, the Christ: He would suffer. He would die. He would be rejected by all those who once had welcomed him as king. Mary knew what was coming; and she soon experienced it. King Herod and his soldiers. Losing Jesus in Jerusalem. Losing Jesus to his ministry. Hearing her son speak before thousands of people. Sensing the plots of his enemies. Mary had no control over any of it. No choice in the matter. Her freely chosen act of love in bearing Jesus Christ came with much she did not choose, much she did not want. Still, she loved him. She loved her Son and her God with such compassion and tenderness that she kept saying, “let it be to me according to your will” even when that meant watching, helpless, as he was nailed to the cross. That was its own death for her. But she never ran away. She never looked away. Her resolve never failed. Mary would remain with Jesus in life and in death — which is why she and the other myrrh-bearing women went to the tomb on Easter morning, only to find that Jesus was not there. He had risen and was going on ahead of them to Galilee. Going on ahead of them to heaven, where Mary dwells with him now, never to be parted. That happy ending could not have happened if Mary hadn’t dared to risk the unknown of total surrender to God’s will. And that surrender could not have happened without the love that, burning in her heart, made her the vessel, the ark, the Mother of God Incarnate. And so it is that we look to her as our example and our hope. She knows what it means to suffer, to be sinned against in ways we could never anticipate and for which we could never fully prepare. Mary knows. She’s lived it; and she nevertheless remained holy, alight, illumined with love for God. She prays that we might be so filled with that love that we might say “yes” to God’s will and so find ourselves on the same journey that she has taken — which is the only way to find what we all really want. Peace. Safety. Comfort and contentment. These things can never be secured out of a state of fear. We can never truly be happy, never truly flourish if we’re constantly retreating into the confines of our personal space. Love and life are found on the outside, in the open, on the road where we meet Christ in our friends and in our enemies and as we walk with our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in the faith. That is where we become who we are. That is where we become who we are meant to be. Love hurts. It’s true. But perhaps that pain is simply the beginning of the Spirit’s labor in our lives, wherein we will all give birth to Christ. And if that is our life, if that is the Christian life, who better to teach us than God’s mother, who loved and lost and learned just as we all do and persevered regardless. She abides now in glory, beside her beloved Son; and she prays that we might make it there, too. AMEN. A new Abbott arrived at a monastery and the monks’ first introduction to him was at Morning Prayer. The first words they heard from him were chanted, “Good morning.” So the monks chanted back, “Good morning.”
The next day, once again they gathered for Morning Prayer, and the Abbott sang, “Good Morning,” and they all chanted back, “Good Morning.” This went on all week, then on Friday morning, after he greeted them with, Good Morning,“ and all of the monks chanted back, “Good morning,“ one monk way in the back of the chapel sang, “Good evening.” There was an awful, tense, silence. Finally, the Abbott broke the silence by chanting, “Someone chanted evening.“ When your new Rector arrives, I recommend singing only the expected responses! “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” In every parish with which I’ve been associated, those parishes have been filled with hard-working people, “movers and shakers,” people who have lots of “irons in the fire.“ I’ve moved primarily in church circles for so long that I don’t know if I can generalize to the extent that I can say all people are like this, but many of the people I know are busy people, people who do know what work is about. But what kind of work is it? Does that work have a clear direction and goal? Is that work for that which ultimately has meaning or not? One of my favorite characters in literature is Sherlock Holmes, and if there’s one characteristic that impresses me most about Sherlock Holmes, it is his determination in solving a mystery. In one story, Holmes has a serious illness. He lay dying on his bed for three days. He’d not had anything to eat or drink. He charged his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, not to call a doctor, not even Dr. Watson. But on that third day, it was obvious to Mrs. Hudson that Sherlock Holmes was not long for this world. So she told him that with or without his consent, she was going to call in a doctor. Holmes weakly responded that if she was going to call a doctor, at least she should call Dr. Watson. When Watson arrived, he found that Holmes had diagnosed his own disease and that it was a rare eastern disease that only one man in London knew anything about. He told Watson to go to this man and beg him to come and help him. Watson did as he was told, making sure he followed Holmes’s instructions not to get near him, so as not to catch the deadly disease, and fetched the expert. After hearing how ill Holmes was, the expert, Mr. Culverton Smith, went to see him without hesitation. When he saw Holmes’s condition, he refused to treat him, however, for he confessed to Holmes that it was he who had arranged for him to catch the disease by sending him a box which, when opened, would prick the opener’s finger and inject the virus into the bloodstream. Of course, this confession was exactly what Holmes wanted to hear. His act of illness now could end, and with Watson, who had been hiding behind the bed, having heard the confession, Smith could be convicted of a similar murder to which he had also confessed. The amazing aspect of this case was Holmes‘s willingness to go without food or water for three days in order to be convincing in his act and thus catch the culprit. Over and over again in the stories of Sherlock Holmes it’s apparent that Holmes has only one aim in life, and that is to solve mysteries. Any sacrifice is worth making to achieve this one goal. It’s this single-mindedness of Sherlock Holmes that is so like the single-mindedness that is required of us in the Christian life, in working for the food that does not perish. We Christians have one goal, and that goal is to follow Christ in all that we think, say, and do. That’s what it means to call him Lord. That’s what we have pledged to do by virtue of our baptism. Some might think that to be so single-minded about religion is to be fanatic, and no one wants to be labeled fanatic! But to be single-minded about life is really not that foreign to our nature. I’d venture to say that most all of us tend toward single-mindedness of one type or another. It’s called living by a life principle, although we very rarely articulate the principle by which we live. Some live with happiness as their life principle. Some live with familial well-being as their life principle, or their career, or making money, or amassing possessions, or having the respect of others, and the list goes on. But we all tend to live according to a life principle, and we tend to be single-minded in our pursuit of the goal. Unhappily, just because we’re here worshiping today doesn’t mean that working for the food which is imperishable is our life principle. It may mean that some of the aspects of Christian faith fit in well with our life principle. It’s good for family life; it makes us feel good; it’s good for business, gives us a certain degree of honor, recognition, or power. The one thing that most all life principles have in common, however, is that they tend to be self-serving. When Jesus calls us to work for the food which is imperishable, he’s calling us to accept a life principle that goes against our fallen nature, he’s calling us to a life like the life of our Lord, a life that takes us to the cross. So he’s calling us toward accepting a principle that is in conflict with the one by which we naturally live, whatever that may be. Some of what we call hypocrisy is, therefore, inevitable in the Christian life, for the Christian takes on a life principle that’s in conflict with the one by which he or she would naturally live. St. Paul said, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” For us to live with Christ as our life principle doesn’t mean that we have to sell our possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then go live in a monastery. It means devoting all of our activities, in thought, word, and deed to the glory of God, and seeking to do all things in accordance with God’s will. We want to strive, by the grace of God, to be able to say along with St. Paul, “For me to live is Christ.” May God grant us the grace to work for this food that is imperishable, that endures to eternal life. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
At about 4:30 in the afternoon at my house, you can feel the tension growing. Snack time has passed, but my children don’t remember that. They think I’ve never fed them. Pepper paces the kitchen floor, then opens the refrigerator and looks my way. “Can I have a cheese stick? Can I have a chocolate croissant? Can I have a popsicle?” We both know the answer to every question; but she asks anyway because Pepper is an intensely hopeful person and thinks maybe Mom will change her mind this time. Simeon just bites my leg. Day after day after day, the same routine. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner punctuated by an obscene amount of clementines (which may just be my house). Sometimes it feels like all we humans do is eat or think about eating or worry about thinking about eating — which is ironic given the number of grocery stores and restaurants in this town. Not that long ago, our ancestors would have marveled at the abundance we enjoy. Fortified breakfast cereal. Vitamin D milk. Fifty-seven brands of tomato sauce. They were one bad storm or one late frost away from disaster. A failed crop meant less food in the winter meant less calories for the sick baby meant poor bone development and so on and so forth. For us, though, storms don’t register unless they knock out the power, and frosts melt away before we look up from our screens in the morning. Very few of us worry about going hungry because most of us haven’t ever felt what that really means. Humans are curious creatures. The everyday details of our lives, the stuff we take for granted — the eating, the drinking, the getting dressed, the going to sleep — these things teach us something true about the total reality of our existence. We will always need. We will always need more. And we will always be confronted and curtailed and sometimes controlled by that dependence, no matter what we do or who we are. Try as we might, we cannot escape the fact of our own insufficiency. Nor should we — because that is precisely where God meets us. When Jesus sat down on a mountainside to the east of the Sea of Galilee, he knew exactly what the vast crowds were seeking as they followed him. They were hungry for salvation — salvation from sickness and sorrow. Almost everyone there that day had heard that if you just touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe, the shake in your fingers or the pain in your side would disappear. Instantaneously. Who wouldn’t walk a hundred miles to find that relief? But now the sun was about to set and the nearest town was miles away and dinner was on everyone’s mind. “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus asked, to the consternation of his disciples. No one had that kind of money. Not even half-a-year’s wages could feed the crowd gathered there that day. Besides, the question was moot because there was simply no food to be found — except for a kid’s lunch. “And what good is five barley loaves and two fish for so many people?” they asked. A question to which Jesus did not respond, though we know his answer in effect: It is enough. And it was. It was more than enough. That evening more than 5,000 people ate their fill with plenty to spare. All because they had followed the path set down by their own neediness and formed by their own suffering and so had found God himself. Surely, as Jesus walked among the men and women and children seated on the grass, the faithful among them would have been thinking, “The eyes of all wait upon you, O LORD, and you give them their food in due season.” That is not a truth we are accustomed to contemplating or even accepting nowadays. And why would we? We don’t wait for anything. Our food appears as if by magic on grocery store shelves. Every imaginable consumer good can be delivered to our doorstep in less than two days for the low price of $14.99/month. Modernity, in the West and especially in America, has done its best to eradicate human need and eliminate the minor and major suffering that goes along with it — which is a project that certainly has its place, but one that also has its dangers. People don’t look at each other any more when they meet in the grocery store or on the street. They don’t talk. They tweet. Somewhere in the mad rush to meet every physical need and satisfy every physical desire, we lost the other, more subtle essentials. It’s almost as though in this age of super-human intelligence and super-human abundance we’ve forgotten what it really means to be human. It’s a good thing we get hungry. It is a very good thing that we get hungry, that we get tired, that we feel the pain of not having what we need or what we want because those are signposts anchored in the present, pointing us toward the one who gives all, who makes all, who made us. We are his. We are not our own. And our limitations — our creatureliness — remind us of that in no uncertain terms. Every time we go to bed. Every time we get up. Every time we skip breakfast. Every time we eat lunch, God is there. The giver of every good gift is there because he designed us to find Him in all that we do and in all that we are. God designed us to live with Him and in Him, to taste of his love at dinner, to rest in his companionship at night, to wait on his arrival every time we wait in line. The great philosophers and sages, theologians and saints of history intuited this (some knew it): we are most ourselves not when we stay at home, but when we go out. When we look beyond ourselves for help of any kind, we meet the God who is near to those who call upon him. We meet him in the dimpled apple that is both tart and sweet. We meet him in the subtle word of a friend that soothes our fears. We meet him in that stillness that is peace beyond understanding. In the reality of our neediness, we meet God, a God who will heal us. A God who will feed us. We are not so far removed from that mountainside where the Bread of Heaven gave himself for the life of the world. God can do miracles. He still does. AMEN. |
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