Already Here: A Sermon for 24 December 2010

One of the great pleasures of traveling in Europe, as I did in the summer of 2009, is visiting the many churches and cathedrals built in the gothic style. Walking through those spaces created by high pointed arches and soaring, intricately ribbed vaults is a lesson in human creativity and skill put to the task of reaching for God.

Of course, we too reach for God in the design of our own churches, with naves several stories high, like this one here at St. Alban’s, and steeples that reach toward the heavens.

Those of you who have traveled to Alexandria with any regularity probably know the church along Highway 165 in Pollock that has a steeple topped by a hand with finger extended, pointing skyward. Perhaps the builders simply gave up on reaching—and settled for pointing at—God.

Amusing, but kind of sad when you think about it. How could those builders have been through so many Christmases and not know that God is already here?

One of my favorite photographs from my trip to Europe was taken in St. Sebald’s Lutheran Church in Nuremberg, Germany. This church is particularly interesting because it was heavily damaged by Allied bombing near the end of World War II, then meticulously restored to its medieval grandeur and re-dedicated as a monument to peace.

High on one of St. Sebald’s majestic columns I spied a small retablo painting of the Holy Family. I took a picture of it, with pointed arches and tall, slender stained glass windows receding into the background.

I like to put titles or captions on some of my photographs, and so at home, weeks after returning from Europe, I struggled to come up with words to go with that particular picture. Everything about that church—the columns and arches, the artworks and crucifixes, the soaring spaces—had spoken to me of human striving to reach God.

And not just St. Sebald’s but Canterbury Cathedral and all of the magnificent churches I visited had spoken to me of the human desire for God, and of our constant striving for God.. and to build a space big enough and grand enough that God might come to dwell therein.

You Were Already Here                                                  B.J. Kauffman, 2009

And finally I wrote beneath the picture, “You were already here.”

As in, “You—God—were already here,” long before this church, and every other church, not only in Europe but also in the United States of America and around the world.

You—God—were—and are—already here. Before human desiring and before human striving to reach you and to draw you to us, you—God—were and are already here.

In a burning bush in the wilderness eons ago, you were already here. In the utter silence at the mouth of Elijah’s cave, you were already here.

Before the sea was contained and earth formed. Before animals and plants and humankind, before light and dark—you, God—Father, Son and Holy Ghost—were already here.

Why then Christmas? Why a virgin mother, a chaste father, an inn already full? Why a babe in a manger, heralded by angels and worshiped by shepherds? If God was already here, then why Incarnation at all?

Perhaps the answer that springs first to your mind is the one provided by John in chapter 3 verse 16, perhaps the most memorized Bible verse of all time: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

And that’s a good answer. But… perhaps its very familiarity works against it. Perhaps the ease with which it rolls from our tongue limits its impact, for knowing it and saying it is no substitute for Christmas!

Or, maybe in answer to the question, why Christmas? your mind goes immediately to Easter and the holy mystery of God’s plan for our Salvation. Perhaps you ponder and seek to comprehend the uniquely Christian theology of God come to earth for the specific purpose of dying on a cross in order to redeem and reconcile the world.

And that too is a good answer. But… that takes us past the manger and back into the bleakness of human need for redemption with scarcely a pause! Moreover, all the theological explanations in the world, and all the time we might spend studying and seeking to comprehend them.. are also.. no substitute for Christmas.

We need Christmas. We need this annual pilgrimage to kneel in awe at the manger, and to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at God—who was indeed already here—but now come to us—NOT “in human form” as I’ve heard many a preacher say—but fully human—one of us in every way.

We need Christmas to make real for us, to help us to recognize and embrace and experience, the God who was already here. That’s why we humans spend weeks in excited anticipation and preparation, year after year… for an event that has already taken place!

You are familiar with the concept of the “reality check.” You are accustomed to hearing it as an admonition to stay in touch with the grittier and more difficult aspects of life. When someone seems to be viewing the world through rose-colored glasses, we say, “He, or she, needs a reality check.” Or, I might mention that my very own beloved son got a reality check in the form of his fall semester grades!

Tonight, this holy night, consider the possibility that, as usual, we have it backwards. Entertain the possibility, if you will, that Christmas is the ultimate reality check.

As we kneel at this manger gazing at the infant who is the perfect expression of God already here, yet come to dwell among us and within us, may we experience this as the true and lasting reality.

I do not mean to make light of the grittier and more challenging aspects of life on earth in the 21st Century: the losses we have suffered; our estrangements at times from family, friends, each other; our economic woes. This world too is real. But it is a secondary reality. It is temporary, passing away as we speak.

In the quietness of this night, may we pause from our hustle and bustle, may we let go of our hurts and failures, may we be still enough to hear the voice that spoke the universe into being: “I am already here. Yet tonight I come.”

Amen.

No Way, Jesus: A Sermon for 19 September 2010

Sometimes when I read the words of Jesus, I really wish I could look him in the eye and say, “You’re kidding, right? You don’t really mean that, do you?”

Today’s parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13, NRSV) is one of those times. It is hard to know who the hero of this story is supposed to be. Rich men don’t usually fare too well in the stories of Jesus, and although Jesus does not explicitly criticize this one, he does not exactly hold him up to us as a model either.

Besides, we tend to see ourselves as much more on the level of the manager. But Jesus defines the manager as dishonest from the beginning. To make matters worse, we then see the manager showing even more of his true colors—afraid of work, too proud to beg—and cheating his master further to save his own skin. No hero there, it seems.

But just when we think Jesus is surely going to level the conniver with a stern command, on the order of “pay back not just what you owe, but more than you owe,” Jesus commends him instead.. for acting shrewdly! Come on, Jesus, no way!

Like most preachers, I keep at hand a variety of aids to consult when preparing sermons. This particular story is acknowledged by many to be Jesus’ most difficult parable. In fact, two of my sources copped out completely. They advised preaching today on the Old Testament or Epistle lessons instead.

Another source went into mind-numbing detail to explain that the manager was following ancient Judaic money-lending practices, and therefore really did nothing wrong. In other words, they sanitized the story, making the manager’s behavior sound righteous after all.

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Jesus and Luke tell the story that way? I’m sure they both knew ancient Judaic money-lending practices perfectly well!

Another source—a Baptist preacher from Australia who calls his website Laughing Bird—offered two sermons he has preached on this text. And in them, I found something more helpful. He understands this parable to be part of a larger theme in Jesus’ teaching and in Scripture as a whole, namely the notion that God can use anything—even less than honorable behavior like that of the dishonest manager—to teach us something.

And what can the shrewd manager teach us? How about that we should put just as much thought and energy and dedication into developing our spiritual lives as we do into creating financial security for our selves and our offspring?

Perhaps Jesus is saying, 'Just because you are children of light does not mean that you have to be naive, unsophisticated and unwise. Be clever, be smart, be far-sighted, but put that level of intention and energy into your spiritual life, into serving God first.'

Have you ever heard yourself say to a teenager, “If you spent half as much time and energy cleaning your room, or doing your homework, as you do in procrastinating, you would be done in no time”?

As a teacher, I have also observed students investing great energy and effort into figuring out the exact minimum effort they have to put into getting a passing grade. And I have often said to them, “If you just directed that energy and commitment to studying, or doing the assignment, your grade would take care of itself!”

(By the way, they almost never believe me!)

I think that is part of the lesson of this story. Invest the shrewdness of the dishonest manager into your relationship with God, and other things, earthly things, will take care of themselves. Your relationship with God is the “true riches,” and from the true riches, other riches will flow, like trusting and faithful relationships with each other.

But I have one more lesson to offer from this parable, and that is the lesson of forgiveness. The Gospel according to Luke is full of stories of radical forgiveness, and this is not the only one that gives us pause.

Consider, for example, the prodigal son. We would really prefer the faithful son to be the hero of that story, rather than the son who squanders everything then is lavishly welcomed home when he has exhausted all his resources. We want the father to at least scold the prodigal son and make him ask for forgiveness! But the father doesn’t and we feel the faithful son’s sense of injury.

Likewise in today’s story, we would probably feel better if the master at least chastised the dishonest manager, made him grovel a bit, before commending him for shrewdness. But the master, which is to say Jesus representing God, doesn’t do that. He just says, “Way to go, oh shrewd one!”

And then to his disciples, who were no doubt standing there feeling superior to the dishonest manager, he says, “And all of you, you just might want to take a lesson from this guy.” Ouch!

The story of salvation according to Luke is a story of absolute forgiveness. The prodigal son and the dishonest servant parables are just two examples. Luke’s understanding of God’s forgiveness is particularly welcome—and radical—news to those of us who grew up hearing only about the anger and wrath and judgment of God.

I am not trying to suggest that God never judges and I do believe there will be a judgment day. But I do mean to suggest that—at least since the cross of Jesus Christ—God seeks first and constantly to bring us back into the fold, to draw us back into relationship, with forgiveness and love.

One of the online sermon resources I consult from time to time is a website called Edge of the Enclosure maintained by an Episcopal priest. She also prefers to see the dishonest servant story through the lens of God’s forgiveness. “Only God,” she says, “could appreciate the gifts of the consummate con-man in such a way as the master does in this story.”

Last week Fr. George described how a trained sheep dog works a flock of sheep, not by barking madly every time they stray—which would surely frighten and scatter the sheep. Rather, the sheep dog watches with a keen eye for the sheep to head in a wrong direction, then runs like crazy to lie down in front of them, thereby gently guiding them back in the way they ought to go.

God, too, is quite capable of barking, and sometimes we wish He would—at someone else's shortcomings! But in this parable, Jesus does not bark. He runs like crazy and lays down in a useful place.

God would have us be honest. But if the best we can do on any given day is “shrewd,” God will accept “shrewd,” and use it to love us and forgive us back into the fold.  

AMEN

How should we respond to evil?

Forgiveness can be a very, very difficult thing, and it is made much more difficult by a number of grave misconceptions our culture teaches us about what it means to forgive.

Many think, for example, that forgiveness is a feeling. They believe that to forgive means that feelings of anger and hate toward those who have done evil against us should be immediately replaced with feelings of warmth and love for that person.

Not so. Forgiveness is a decision we make. Relationship with the person who has wronged us might or might not come, in time. But that depends a lot on the other person. Can he/she accept your forgiveness? Can he/she forgive him/herself?

What if the person we need to forgive has already died? Forgiveness is a decision we make, and might very well have to make more than once. Restoration of relationship is a possible benefit, but neither required nor always possible.

Likewise, relationship with God is a benefit—but neither a condition nor a necessary outcome of—God’s forgiveness of us. God does not force anyone into relationship. God seeks to love us into relationship.

Forgiveness also does not change what happened. It is not saying, “Oh, well, that’s okay, I really didn’t mind,” or, “It really didn’t matter.” If it didn’t matter, what is there to forgive? If it really didn’t matter, then I got upset about nothing, and what is needed is not forgiveness but an adjustment of my own attitude!

On Sept. 11, 2001, several thousand people died needlessly and wantonly. It happened. It mattered, and it still matters.
                                                                                              
 Forgiveness is precisely NOT about tolerating evil, not about indifference to evil, not about mere “inclusivity.” It is about confronting evil and naming it.
                                                                                       

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.

Most of all, forgiving is not about forgetting. That popular little notion, “forgive and forget,” is perhaps the most wrong-headed of all. Forgiveness is precisely about remembering. We cannot learn from the past if we forget.

I have an index card I keep on my desk. I don’t remember where I got this quote, but it says, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” In other words, we can’t change the past, we can only come to terms with it… in a way that enables us to move forward.

Bishop Desmond Tutu has written a book about forgiveness that recognizes this important aspect of forgiveness in its title alone. Tutu’s homeland, South African, has long been torn by apartheid and racial strife. Atrocities have been exchanged, revenge taken by both sides. If any place in the world needs the healing power of forgiveness, it is South Africa. Tute aptly titled his book, No Future Without Forgiveness.

In other words, forgiveness is about the past, the present, and the future. In each and every present, we must come to terms with the past because we cannot change it, in order to move toward the future.

So, how do we do that? How do we remember and honor the past, come to terms with it, transform NOT the past but our response to the past, so that we can go about the business of enacting God’s kingdom here and now and into the future?

We have no better example than how God, in the person of Jesus Christ, did it. In the second meditation I spoke of God embracing the evil and suffering of the cross, and that might not be how you are accustomed to thinking of the passion of Jesus Christ.

But I base that understanding on how Jesus himself taught us to remember and honor those events. He instituted the Eucharist, a feast of the bread and wine of daily life made holy... transformed into the real presence of God. And each time we partake, we transform the evil and suffering of the cross into a celebration of relationship among us... and with God.

Likewise, our ways of remembering events like September 11, 2001 can be outward signs of an inner grace, the grace of forgiveness.

A few weeks ago I heard a story on NPR that featured the mother of a young man who was killed in the fall of the Twin Towers. She vehemently opposed the plans to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero, saying, “Every time I hear the bells calling Muslims to prayer five times a day, I will feel the pain of my son’s death all over again.”

I am deeply sorry for her pain and I pray people in her life will find a way to reach out to her and help her move on. But it is incomprehensible to me that a call to prayer in any language could be a source of pain to any believer. Her words are the words of one stuck in unforgiveness.

And, by the way, we Christians are also called to prayer five times a day. It is called “the Daily Office.” We just don’t ring bells… but perhaps we should! I wonder how Lower Manhattan might be transformed, how the whole country might be transformed, if all Christians stopped what they were doing for a moment of prayer each time the mosque bells ring!

I will close with another exchange between God and Mack in The Shack. God has just told Mack that he needs to forgive the man who killed his daughter.

How can I ever forgive that son of a bitch who killed my Missy, Mack cried. If he were here today, I don’t know what I would do. I know it isn’t right, but I want him to hurt like he hurt me…if I can’t get justice, I still want revenge.
    [God] simply let the torrent rush out of Mack, waiting for the wave to pass.
    Mack, for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him.
    Redeem him? Again Mack felt the fire of anger and hurt. I don’t want you to redeem him! I want you to hurt him, to punish him, to put him in hell…
    [God] waited patiently for the emotions to ease.
    I’m stuck, [God]. I just can’t forget what he did, can I? Mack implored.
    Forgiveness is not about forgetting, Mack. It is about letting go of another person’s throat.

AMEN

What is God's answer to evil?

“Deliver us from evil.” We say those words each time we pray the Lord’s prayer. And for us Episcopalians, that is quite often. We pray the Lord's prayer at virtually every service. What are we asking for?

In today’s first meditation, I suggested that whenever, wherever evil happens, God is there, that when humans suffer as a consequence of evil, God is there. But is being present, comforting us, getting us through it, God’s only or primary answer to the problem of evil? Is that all we mean when we pray, "deliver us from evil”?

I think not. We Christians believe in a future in which God’s triumph over evil will be complete. In Revelation (21:1-4, NRSV), “the Lamb that was slain” will reign over a new heaven and a new earth. God will wipe away tears; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

John is describing a world beyond the reach of evil, beyond even the shadow of past wrongs done to us. Jesus himself spoke of this (John 16:21-22, NRSV); he likens it to a woman who is in the great pain of childbirth, but the moment the child is born, the power and joy of new life pushes the pain into the background. Our joy will be complete, Jesus says.

These and many other passages point to God’s answer to the problem of evil. And that answer is forgiveness, forgiveness as enacted and represented by Jesus on the cross.

God did not shun evil. God did not come to earth in military might to overthrow evil by force—as the Jews long expected. Rather, God came in the form of a peasant carpenter, a pacifist at that, to wrestle with fear and dread, but nevertheless to embrace evil and suffering, to experience the feeling of having been abandoned by God, and to forgive… even as he still hung dying on the cross.

Forgiveness is God’s answer to evil. But the point of the cross is NOT that the victory was won, and so now there’s nothing left to do. Rather, the cross has won the victory so that redeemed people can begin living out God’s forgiveness in the world.


The church is not merely the “community of the saved,” although some church communities seem to focus almost solely on that. Rather, we are the community of the redeemed, now become a kingdom of priests to serve God in this time between the cross and the ultimate victory of God in the new heaven and new earth. There's a difference between being merely "saved" and being "redeemed." (See N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God.)

And, of course, forgiveness is one of those odd things. We can only experience it by also giving it away. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” we pray.

I wonder how often those words roll easily off our tongues without a thought to their implication. Jesus sought to make them real by telling the parable of the servant who was forgiven a debt by his master, then failed to forgive those who were indebted to him. If you don’t forgive, said Jesus, you won’t be forgiven.

Some people interpret this to mean that God withholds forgiveness until we have done something to earn it, like forgive someone else. I don’t think so.

Jesus died for the sins of the world! And he doesn’t have to keep dying over and over again every time we screw up! It’s done. God enacted forgiveness for the sins of humankind, past, present and future, by embracing the evil and suffering of the cross.

What I believe Jesus means is that until we forgive, we are conditioned and controlled by the evil done us. We have no peace. We are driven by anger and hate that sap our energy and deaden our spirit. Nothing eats away at the human soul like the inability to forgive.

And even though God’s forgiveness is already in place, ready and waiting, we cannot accept it or experience the peace it brings as long as we are stuck in unforgiveness.
                                         

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is the story of a man’s journey back to God after the abduction and murder of his little girl. The following bit of the conversation between “Mack,” the protagonist, and God comes right after God asks Mack to forgive the man who killed his daughter (p. 225):

      "I don’t think I can do this," Mack answered softly.
      "I want you to. Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver,” answered [God], "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly."

AMEN

For this second quiet period, I invite your reflection on forgiveness, both that which you have received and that which you have given--or perhaps not yet.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the second of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the last meditations in the next few days.
                                     

Where is God when evil happens?*

One of the great conundrums of Christianity is the presence of evil in a world created by a good God. Indeed, we believe not only that a good God created a good world, as told in the Genesis accounts, but we believe also that the same one and only God is all powerful and could stop or prevent evil in the world at any time.

Of course, we have the story of the fall of Adam and Eve to explain how evil came into the world. As a woman, I am all too aware that much of humankind throughout history would really like to blame it all on Eve!

But Bishop N.T. Wright points out in his book, Evil and the Justice of God, that all of our discussions that begin with Adam and Eve as the ones who introduce evil into the world really ignore an important question: What was a snake with evil intentions doing in Paradise anyway?

Adam and Eve sure didn’t put it there. I am reminded of a Far Side cartoon that depicted God--as an old white man with long white hair and beard, of course--rolling clay into snakes, and saying to himself, "Boy, these things are a cinch!" Perhaps that's why he made so many of them!

The Far Side, by Gary Larse

How evil came into the world is a subject worthy of consideration; it might be less simple than we tend to think. But  I want to turn our meditations in a different direction.

Nine years ago today, a great evil happened here in these United States. Airplanes crashed into buildings in New York City and Washington D.C. Another plowed a furrow into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Several thousand lives were snuffed out—some instantly, others horribly, by being forced to jump to their deaths from the Twin Towers.

Several thousand families lost loved ones, and thousands more lost friends, co-workers and neighbors. We all lost our sense of security, a certain feeling of invulnerability, and of control of our own destiny, as the wealthiest, strongest nation on the planet.

The horror of those events continues to haunt us today. Their repercussions continue to strain social and cultural relationships and to distort our politics.

Today’s meditations are offered to the glory of God, and with special intention for helping us re-think the questions we ask about evil and how we respond to evil.

When Christians turn their attention to the conundrum of evil co-existing in the world with a good, all-powerful God, it is often with a question that implicitly blames God. “Why did God ‘allow’ that to happen?” we ask. And our answer: “God must have had a reason."

It is almost as if we have to give God an “out,” as if the possibility that evil just happens... is too terrifying for words. Or, perhaps we’re thinking, if God doesn’t have a reason, then God must not be so good after all. And that too is terrifying.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar and Roman Catholic priest who publishes a daily online meditation. He says that “loss of control” is the very definition of human suffering.

I think “reasons” are the product of human attempts to control suffering by explaining it. Who are we to say that God must have a reason? WE need reasons. God does not.

Rationalizing evil typically involves both fixing blame and figuring out “what God wants us to do,” given that God must have had a reason for the evil happening in the first place. I suggest that it is precisely this kind of reasoning that leads to all kinds of problematic responses, from using God to justify one country invading another to a pastor in Florida thinking he is called by God to burn the Koran in protest against an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City.

Let us ask a different question: Where is God when we suffer? Where is God when evil happens?

For a period of several days after the Twin Towers fell in NYC, I was profoundly troubled by the nightmarish TV images I could not get out of my head. Then one night I had a dream. I was on the top floor of one of the Twin Towers. I and a bunch of people were standing in the elevator lobby. We were waiting for an elevator that, at some level, we knew would not be coming. We could smell the smoke and hear the roar of the fire below us. We were terrified. Then suddenly, miraculously, the elevator doors opened. We stepped forward. And just as we crossed the threshold into the elevator, the building, the elevator, the elevator shaft, the smoke and the fire... all fell away beneath us. We were instantly lighter than air. We looked at each other and laughed as we soared off into the heavens.

I rarely claim to receive messages directly from God. I don’t hear God’s voice in my ears or head. I question the source of every thought. But that dream was from God and the message was simple and clear. God said, “I was there. I was there when the Twin Towers fell. I was there in the Pentagon. I was there in rural Pennsylvania.”

AMEN.

For this first period of quiet, you might want to read Psalm 73, for it expresses both our lack of understanding of evil and the faith that, indeed, God is with us when evil happens.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the first of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the other two meditations over the next few days.
                                         

Words and Wisdom: A Sermon for 22 August 2010

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

--Rudyard Kipling. 

I use that quote as a signature line that automatically prints at the bottom of my campus e-mail messages. I figure it is one more reinforcement for students of my role in their life at this time, which is to mark up their papers with copious amounts of red ink, to chastise them for choosing weak words, ungrammatical words, imprecise words, words that obfuscate rather than clarify… in the papers they write.

So important are words to humankind that a quick Google-search of the Internet will yield hundreds of “quotes about words.” Here are a few:

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

--James Earle Jones

The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship.

--Larry Flynt, publisher of sex magazines, who probably contributed to their misuse

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

--Voltaire, who surely had politicians in mind when he said it.

Even more famously, Voltaire also said: I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That one, it seems to me, is on the endangered quotes list in today’s political climate of gross exaggeration and shrill accusation.

And finally, the Chinese proverb, A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles. Who among us has never spoken that “bad word” we desperately wish we could take back?

Turning to our Old Testament lesson for today, we find Holy Scripture not only affirming the importance of words, but also telling us very clearly that sometimes our words come from God.

The prophet Jeremiah (1:4-10, NRSV) seems to have experienced in some physical way the Lord putting words in his mouth. How incredible! It is hard for me to imagine being able to speak at all… after experiencing so directly the touch of God.

What a powerful story for Christians called to testify to the Good News of Jesus the Christ. We often feel inexperienced and unworthy of the part. But if we take God’s words to Jeremiah seriously, that’s not an excuse. Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you. Who can argue with that?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus heals, as he often does, first by speaking the words: You are free, he says to the woman (Luke 13:10-17, NRSV). In other stories, his healing words are Your sins are forgiven and Your faith has made you whole.

The letter to the Hebrews often challenges me with the complexity of its words and phrases, and I can’t begin to unpack today’s entire passage. But I will draw your attention to this amazing and powerful word and sound picture of Judgment Day.

The one who is speaking, whom we should not refuse, is surely God. In times past, God spoke on earth through the prophets, and those voices shook the earth. But once again, God will speak and shake not only earth but also heaven, and shake and shake… until all that is of the earth is shaken away and what remains is only God’s kingdom, the kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Hebrews 12:18-29, NRSV)

Those of you who took the Handel’s Messiah class last year during Advent and Lent will recall that stunning passage based on a Psalm in which God’s voice is represented in words as music: shake, shake, shake sings the bass, reinforced by the agitated sound of the entire string section of the orchestra.

These lessons evoke questions that have haunted me most of my adult life:
    How do we know which words that we find in our hearts and minds, on our tongues, and in our text messages, e-mail, and so forth, are from God?
    How do we know they are not from one of the other powerful and constant influences on our oh-so-human ways of thinking and speaking?
    How often, before we speak or write, do we even ask the question, Are these words from God? Or from my own social, cultural and political point of view?

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann put this very concern into eloquent words. Praying at the beginning of one of his Bible study workshops, he thanks God for the joy of words given us.

But then he acknowledges that we are also subject to other influences: Our own rich imaginations, cowardice, arrogance. We are, on most days, Brueggemann prays, a hard mix of true prophet and wayward voice.

We are a literate people. Our days are filled with words: printed and spoken, in books, newspapers, magazines, online, radio and television, and on our ever-present smart phones, iPads and laptops. Witness the ease with which I located hundreds of quotes about words… from which to pick and choose the ones that served my purposes this morning.

I am especially concerned about the quality of our political discourse today. It seems that no idea or project is worthy of debate on its own terms. Rather, truth and reality must be exaggerated and distorted in order to be worthy of our support or opposition.

And so an Islamic community center that includes prayer space at 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan becomes “the Ground Zero Mosque” if you’re against it, and if you’re for it, a mere basketball court and culinary school that nevertheless stands for the entire principle of religious freedom in the U.S.

Oh, to know with certainty when the words on our tongues are those of true prophet and not wayward voice!

Of course, Jesus does offer us help with this problem. In another passage in Luke (20:15, NRSV), he promises his disciples, I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand.

We humans are social, cultural and political beings. We cannot and should not check who we are, and the points of view each of us brings to public debate, at the door of our common and communal lives.

But we must, if we are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, choose our words prayerfully and thoughtfully—not just when we are in church, but in all aspects of our lives. We must use our words, not to bludgeon each other or those we perceive as our enemies, but as the eloquent, precise tools of communication they are intended to be.

Dare I suggest that our words can be the outward and visible sign of that one, ultimate Word spoken by God—namely Jesus the Christ—dwelling within.

Today my prayer is, “Fewer words, Lord, but greater wisdom in discerning which are from you and how we might use them to testify to your most holy name.”

AMEN.

                                                 

Jesus the Plumb Line: A Sermon for 11 July 2010

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for educational opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

Foucault pendulum, Pantheon, Paris.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It is a weight on a string that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down— regardless of what you hang it from. Or, in the case of the one in Chicago, it is—as I recall—a huge brass plumb bob shaped like a child’s top, suspended from the center of the dome on a cable.

And it moves because the earth moves! In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—the ceiling of that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust it’s position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so it gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see. (Click on the link below the picture to see an animated drawing of the pendulum's movement.)

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very rotation of the earth itself.

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at a Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s Old Testament story, I remember it as a reassuring experience rather than a threatening one. Of course, plumb lines have more than one use. They are a builder’s tool for keeping things straight and upright, and a similar kind of discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos.

“Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,” God says. “In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

And if that sounds a bit like Jesus.., well, you’re with me all the way! And today’s lesson from Luke is a perfect example of Jesus being a plumb line.

It begins with the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer, and the lawyer is up to nothing less than entrapment. He knows perfectly well that some of Jesus’ teachings and practices have been rather unorthodox, and so he asks a question to which everyone present knows the “right” answer, the Scriptural answer.

It is a question designed to make the asker look pious, even as he is hoping that Jesus will go out on a limb that he can then chop off. “What must I do to be certain I’ll go to heaven,” he asks.

But Jesus doesn’t rise to the bait, nor does he strike back. Rather, he invites the lawyer to share the Scriptural answer everyone knows, and the lawyer obliges: “Love the Lord your God.., and your neighbor as yourself.”

Ask a simple question, and get a simple answer! Standing there with egg on his face, the lawyer tries again. Surely he can engage Jesus in a face-saving debate if he asks him a truly legal question! “Who is my neighbor?” he says.

And so Jesus tells the story that is probably the most familiar one of the whole Bible, the story that we can’t hear anymore because we’ve heard it so often. So let me try to make it a bit strange so that you can hear it again for the first time.

I’m guessing you are already thinking about the guy in the ditch, the victim of the beating. And maybe you’re wondering if you would “measure up” in the sense of being the one to help the victim as the Samaritan did.

And that’s fine. That’s part of the point. But now shift your attention from the guy in the ditch… to the Samaritan. Notice that Luke does not say he’s a “good” Samaritan. Luke just says he’s a Samaritan. WE added the “good,” and I suspect it has the same meaning as when someone tells a demeaning joke and then follows it quickly with, “I’m really not a bigot. One of my best friends is…” black or Asian or gay or whatever the particular category of people was slurred by the joke.

In other words, we’re quite willing to recognize “good” examples, exceptions to the rule, of categories of people we look down on. So get rid of the Samaritan because Samaritans don’t mean anything to us today, and put in his place a representative of the group of people you fear the most, like the least, resent the most, whatever: An illegal immigrant, perhaps? A smelly street person? Someone who deviates from sex or gender norms? A Muslim?

Put in the story the last person in the world you would expect mercy from, the last person in the world you would think capable of the act of mercy at the center of the story.., and now ask yourself, Am I willing to see that person as my neighbor and my equal in the eyes of God?

That’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is: God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Dine with me. And all will be well. And you will never again have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

AMEN.

God's Politics: A Sermon for Pentecost*

The cover of our service leaflet this morning tells us beautifully what we celebrate today. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” it says, and the image is a dove on an orange, flame-like background.

If you were to go home and do a Google image search for the word “Pentecost,” you would find that human creativity has had a field day with this event.

My search produced more than 700,000 hits! I did not look at all of them, and I’m sure there were duplicates. But I can tell you that just the first page of results contained 21 images, each of which was unique but all of which were recognizable by most any Christian as images of the event we call Pentecost.

What would be the common elements of those images that make them so readily recognizable? Tongues of fire, of course, and almost always a dove. 

From the blog Walking in Light with Christ

But we just read the story from Acts, and doves are not mentioned. Only tongues of fire. So… why do most of our Pentecost images include doves?

The doves are, of course, a reference to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer in the Jordan River. On that occasion, the Gospel stories tell us, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many, many Christians down through the centuries have been baptized on Pentecost. And that brings us to another name for this particular Sunday. It is a name that comes from our tradition as part of the Anglican Communion, which began as the Church of England. The name is “Whitsunday,” which comes from Old English and means, nor surprisingly, “white Sunday.”

Why “white Sunday”? Because many people were baptized on this particular Sunday. And the color people wore to be baptized? White, of course.

The Christian church has always understood and affirmed a powerful and direct connection between the baptism of our Lord by water and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and the baptism of the disciples by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire on Pentecost.

Now, I want to go back to those Pentecost images I found with my Google search for a few minutes. In addition to the dove and the tongues of fire, what would they have in common? Who do you suppose they depict receiving the Holy Spirit?

If you are thinking the 12 apostles, you are correct. Almost every image contains exactly 12 male figures… plus one woman. And who would that woman be? Mary, the mother of our Lord, of course. 

                                      

So, how does that fit with our story? Actually, not very well! Luke the historian, who wrote the book of Acts, begins his book with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Then in chapter 1 verse 12 he tells us that Jesus’ disciples return to Jerusalem and all were together in one place to await the coming of the Holy Spirit—just as Jesus had instructed them.

In Acts chapter 1 verses 13 and 14, Luke names some of the people who were there: The 11 apostles are named in verse 13. And then verse 14 says, “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”
                                       

From The Sacrament of Pentecost

At the end of chapter 1, Mathias is chosen to replace Judas. The story makes it clear that he and another man were nominated from a larger group then chosen by lot. In other words, many scholars think about 100 disciples of Jesus were probably present at the first Pentecost, and a number of them were women!

Our artists over the centuries have tended to simplify the picture a great deal. Again, many depict just 12 men and Mary receiving the Holy Spirit. A few of the images I found depict 12 men, Mary, and two or three other women. Only a couple of images actually show the larger crowd that was there, a larger crowd that includes a number of women, and children!

From The Bridge Online

So, why is that important? It is important because Pentecost has another meaning that tends to get lost in all the imagery of doves and fire and apostles and Mary.

The other meaning is that with Pentecost, God let it be known that the Gospel message and the Holy Spirit of God are for everyone. Not just a handful of Jews, but everyone. Not just men and one or two women, but everyone. Not just people who looked and thought alike, but everyone.

To fully appreciate how this happened, we need to go back to a story that is told in Genesis (11:1-9)—the story of the Tower of Babel. You will recall that the people of the earth at that time all spoke the same language: “one language and the same words,” says Genesis.

To us, that actually sounds rather good. Wouldn’t it be easier for us all to get along, to communicate better, if we all had one language and the same words!

What happened, of course, is that things went so smoothly that people got rather cocky and over confident. They decided they didn’t need God. And so, in Genesis 11, they say to one another, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

Now the Lord God comes to check out what they’re up to, and does not like what he sees. The Lord sees that the people are arrogant, and that they think they can build their way to heaven, without turning to the Lord their God.

And so the Lord puts a stop to the nonsense. The Lord goes down and confuses the people’s language, makes them speak all different languages so that they no longer understand each other, and the Lord scatters the people over the face of the earth.

This is often referred to as “the curse of Babel”—that humankind around the world developed different cultures and different languages. And it certainly made it harder for people to communicate and to understand each other and to get along.

But Pentecost changed all that. Pentecost reversed the curse of Babel, and today’s reading from Acts describes how it happened. The Holy Spirit comes, first, with the sound of a violent wind, and then tongues of fire. And, Luke says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

But that’s only half of the miracle! The other half is that the listeners “from every nation under heaven…each one heard them speaking in the native languages of each.” And what a diverse array they were: Parthians, Medes, Elamites… etc., etc.

At Pentecost, God demonstrated that it was okay for people to speak different languages, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit, people could in fact understand each other and worship together anyway.

In fact, there’s a special kind of unity, a unity of the Spirit, that comes precisely from diverse humans of different languages all worshiping the same God together. The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed human diversity from a curse that divides… into a miracle that unites.

AMEN.

*This sermon was preached at St. Luke's Episcopal Chapel in Grambling, La. as a dialogue with children. The adult congregation listened in and enjoyed it too.
                                      

Let Go and Love: A Sermon for 16 May 2010

Last Sunday at St. Luke’s in Grambling, I preached a sermon called “Love and Let Go.” Today, my sermon is called “Let Go and Love.”

You might be tempted to think that I just can’t get enough of my own clever alliterations with words! But in fact those titles help me focus on a truth brought home by this moment in the church year. (And, by the way, this is a continuation of that sermon, not a repeat.)

The truth those titles focus on flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as God’s truths often do. We say, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too!” And if it is cake we’re really talking about, that’s fine and good.

But if it is God’s love we’re talking about, then that saying can lead us down the wrong path. The truth about God’s love is we can only have it by giving it away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life, from chocolate and ice cream, to a nice dinner at a restaurant from time to time, to retirement and travel.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess. And then something happens that drives home the illusory nature of possession. The economy nosedives. Hurricanes, tornadoes and floods demonstrate their power.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then life happens. Children grow up and leave. Friends and family die. We must let go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

“To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

This truth, that we must give away God’s love in order to have it, is brought home by this last Sunday of Easter. Throughout Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again.

Remember, he left them seemingly for good on Good Friday, only to return in resurrected body three days later. But even as they were struggling to adjust to his appearing and disappearing at will, entering and leaving rooms without using the doors, popping up to cook breakfast on the beach, looking not quite like the Jesus they knew… yet undeniably him…

Even as they were struggling to grasp this new reality, he was preparing them for something else. Two Sundays ago, he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. Last Sunday he said, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” What a contradiction in terms!

And then, he goes. Just like that—and seemingly without warning—he lifts up his hands, prays for them and blesses them, and rises into the clouds.

How mystified they must have been! The Gospel accounts say they “gazed” into heaven. Older translations say, “Their eyes were fixed.” In other words, they stared after him.

And now here we are in that same pregnant pause. Jesus of the resurrected body is gone. The words of his magnificent prayer for us ring in our ears. We are those who “believe…through their word,” that is the word preached and written first by those disciples, the word that has continued to be spoken down through the centuries.

We are those who have received his glory, so that we may be completely one as he and the Father are one. So that we may know the Father’s love as Jesus the Christ knew the Father’s love, and so that we may share that love with the world, which does not know the Father’s love.

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

But we have an advantage the disciples did not have at that moment of watching Jesus leave them--again. We know about Pentecost; they had yet to experience it.

We know that by letting go of Jesus the resurrected body, they—and we—receive him in a whole knew way. They did not yet know.

Yes, Jesus had tried to tell them that too. “I will go away, and I will come to you,” he had said. The Father will send a comforter, he had said. And he had breathed on them. Yet they did not know.

They had to let him go, to watch him go. And then, when they began to share the love he had for them and the Father had for them through him, he came again on that glorious Pentecost day

And he comes again, over and over, whenever and wherever believers invite him.

Because we are doing Morning Prayer today, we skipped the Epistle reading. It is the closing verses of the Revelation to John, and I want to read it now because it ends with a prayer. Most obviously, this prayer is for the final coming of Jesus the Christ. But it is a prayer we can pray at any time, and it is perfectly suited to this breathless moment between the Ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Here's the reading:

“At the end of the visions I, John, heard these words:
    ‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’
    Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
    It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22: 12-14, NRSV)

And now here is the prayer:
    "The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who is thirsty come.
    Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
    The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
    Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
    The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.” (Revelation 22: 16-17, NRSV)

AMEN.

Love and Let Go: A Sermon for May 9, 2010

Lydia, the seller of purple cloth, is one of my favorite Bible characters. Perhaps that’s because purple is my favorite color. Or, perhaps it’s because I was once a seamstress, and couldn’t manage to pass through a dry goods store without lingering long over the many colors and textures. All too often, I went home with yardage that was already fashioned into something wonderful in my mind, but that ended up in a drawer, one of many unrealized projects.

I imagine Lydia, her colorful goods spread around her, leaning forward to listen eagerly to Paul preaching the Good News (Acts 16:9-15, NRSV). The workings of the Holy Spirit often seem hidden from human eyes. But the power of the risen Lord was quick to show itself through Lydia. Her heart was opened; she and her household were baptized. Then, having brought her household into the faith, she brought Paul and his mission team into her household.
                                                                                                                                                                  

I don’t know if the designers of the lectionary predicted the possibility of the 6^th Sunday of Easter falling on Mother’s Day, but they couldn’t have made a better choice. Lydia was a mother of the church in more ways than one.

She Worketh Willingly With Her Hands by Elspeth Young

Some sources say she was Paul’s first convert in Europe. As a merchant, she was no doubt a woman of some influence in the community. She not only brought her own family into the faith, but also turned her home into the beginnings of the church in Philippi.

Today’s lessons are full of “good things,” of which the work of the Holy Spirit in leading Paul to Philippi and in opening Lydia’s heart and mind are but two. “Good things” is even the theme of today’s collect. It begins, “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding...” (BCP, p. 225)

For the writer of today’s Psalm (67, BCP p. 675), the good things include God as equitable judge of all peoples and guide of the nations. They include a good harvest. These verses are all about interactions between a loving Creator who sheds light and generous blessings on those who love and praise God.

Light is also a big part of “the good life” in the new Jerusalem of John’s vision in Revelation (21:10,22-22:5). This holy city, which descends from heaven, needs no sun or moon because “the glory of God IS its light and its lamp is the Lamb.”

The gates of this wonderful place are never closed. The river of the tree of life runs through it, and the tree of life feeds the peoples and heals the nations. And all the people will bask in the light and worship the Lamb.

“O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things!”

In today’s Gospel lesson (John 14:23-29), Jesus is also in the business of handing out good things. The first is a promise: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,” he says, “and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The second good thing Jesus hands out in this passage is an outright gift: “Peace I leave with you,” he says, “my peace I give to you.”

Wow! The peace of the risen Christ freely given! And in return for our love, God the Father and God the Son in the person of the Holy Spirit take up residence in our lives.

What more could we ask? Yet so often, our lives do not seem the least bit peaceful. They are too full of unreasonable demands and unfair situations, death and destruction, and conflicts of all sizes and shapes, from road rage to the news of yet another oil spill and yet another suicide bombing in the Middle East.

Who could ask for a better deal than God-With-Us, in exchange for nothing more than our love? Yet so often, we can’t love God for all the unlovable people in the way! From the guy who curses our hesitation in traffic to the suicide bomber, from the slow cashier determined to test our patience to the teenager whose appearance and mannerisms are designed solely to shock our sensibilities—the children of God come to us disguised as the unlovely.

 “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things… as surpass our understanding.”

Hmmm. We are accustomed to not understanding evil things. But good things? What’s to not understand?

I love chocolate and ice cream. I love cool mornings to work in my yard. I love my son. These are good things. What’s to not understand?

Perhaps what is difficult about good things from God is that we can only have them by giving them away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life: the chocolate and ice cream, a yard to work in, Mother’s Day dinner at a nice restaurant with our children.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing of goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the lovable people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then something happens that drives home our utter lack of possession of the people in our lives. Children grow up and leave, and we must let them go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

 “To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

During this Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again. Last Sunday he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. This Sunday he says, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” How mystified they must have been!

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives—the lovable and the unlovely—has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

AMEN.

Practice Resurrection: A sermon for Easter, 2010

Just three months ago, we gazed in awe at God come to earth some 2000 years ago in the form of a babe in a manger. The Incarnation isn’t a stretch for Christians. We’ve believed that for a very long time. Not quite 2000 years, but getting there.

A bit more of a stretch was considering the possibility that incarnation happens on a daily basis. That God has been in the business of coming to earth for a very long time, and comes again, every time people of God rise up and go out to do God’s work in the world.

Today, we consider a similar thing: Resurrection did indeed happen some 2000 years ago, in a burial garden near a place of death in the ancient Middle East. Again, believing that is not much of a stretch for Christians. We are pretty comfortable with understanding our faith in historical terms.

The challenge is to know our faith as a living thing. It is to get over the notion that Christianity is about a promise of future glory… based on events that happened centuries ago. It is to see that the Kingdom of God permeates “now” and that we along with Christ our brother are it. The challenge is to live our faith, rather than to merely believe in it.

Like incarnation, resurrection happens on a daily basis. God has also been in the business of breathing new life into mere mortals throughout human history. Indeed, it would be fair to say that human history is a history of God breathing life into mortal flesh, from Adam forward.

Look at the disciples in the Gospel accounts of the hours after Jesus died on the cross! They aren’t physically dead, but they just about as well be. The eleven and others huddle together behind locked doors. Some have scattered, heading home to Emmaus and, no doubt, other communities surrounding Jerusalem to try to disappear into the woodwork.

They are a classic example of troops in full retreat after the death of their leader. Clearly, they had understood little of what Jesus had told them. It was over.

The women go to the tomb to do the last thing they can do for their Master: Prepare his body for eternal death. When they come back with the story of the empty tomb, the reaction of the disciples is disbelief. They thought it “an idle tale.”

Then comes this comical Keystone Cops routine of men running to the tomb. First they run together. Then one surges ahead, but loses heart at the last moment and stops at the entrance. He who lags behind rushes in with last-minute bravado.

But, John says, the empty tomb is not enough. At least one of the disciples “saw and believed,” John says, but “as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” I imagine them shaking their heads as they walk away.

What an odd contradiction. They saw but did not understand. They believed but headed back to the safety and security and comfort of home.

It is only later on, when Jesus appears in their midst and breathes on them, that they are resurrected.

And, as we are fond of saying, the rest is history! That little band of folks—eleven and a handful of others, we know not exactly how many—goes out and changes the world. Forever.

Resurrected people do amazing things.

Nora Gallagher is a journalist who has also written several books about her own spiritual journey. One of them is called Practicing Resurrection. It is an account of how the loss of a beloved brother throws her life into a tailspin, and of her return from walking straight down a wrong vocational path, dragging a failing marriage.

Gallagher’s struggle back requires her to re-examine everything: her call, her work, her marriage. It leads her finally to an exploration of nothing less than life after death. She concludes that “experiences of resurrection" really aren't about "believing six impossible things before breakfast.” Rather, she proposes, “Maybe resurrection, like everything else, needs to be practiced.”

We have all been there, in some way or another. Human existence is a process of marching resolutely into dead ends and struggling to find a way back out again.

We don’t have to be “control freaks” to long for some control, some ability to maintain our balance as we face big challenges and small ones of daily life. But we have so very little. Fr. Richard Rohr defines human suffering precisely in these terms. “When are humans suffering?” he asks. “When they have no control.”

It often seems to me that it is precisely when we think we finally have it together, that we are finally on top of our game, that life hands us the most deadly, life-destroying blows. And we suffer.

Someone we love dies or becomes seriously ill. A spouse or lover leaves us. A best friend betrays us. We are downsized by our employer. Our company fails. An economic downturn takes most of our nest egg. Our politics turns nasty. Our children and grandchildren are sent half way around the world to fight a war that we are just not sure is worthy of the sacrifice of young, beautiful lives.

Evil abounds. We aren’t in control, and much of the time it looks like God isn’t either.

But God chose to become human, to suffer and die on a cross in order to rise again in power over death. How do we understand that? As a one-time event? An economic transaction in which Jesus paid a “price” to God.. or was it to the devil? ..so that we can live happily ever after.. some day in some glorious future?

That kind of thinking certainly creeps into our religion through the words of hymns, sermons, meditation guides, and so forth. But it is wrong-headed. It makes this glorious gift of life in the midst of this glorious creation something to merely “get through” for whatever period of time.

We cannot control all of our circumstances or other people. We can choose how we respond. And we can choose, not merely to believe and huddle together in the safety and security of church, but to live our faith in the world.

Fr. Richard says to follow Christ, we must practice dying. The thing that must die is our own beloved ego, because it is human ego that leads us to destroy others in myriad ways, in order to preserve our own illusions, pretenses and sense of control.

And if we practice dying, if we let go of our prideful clinging to being right, being in control, being safe and secure… If we can empty ourselves of all the false selves the world presses upon us, then we can hear God speak our name, as Mary did in the garden.

Like Mary in the garden, and like Mary the mother of the babe in the manger, we will be filled with new life. We will rise up from the ashes of our hurts and losses and failures. We will run to tell the world, “I have seen the Lord!” We will practice resurrection.

AMEN.

Amazing Grace: A sermon for 21 March 2010

So here we are, rounding the bend and heading down the home stretch of Lent. Today begins the fifth week of our annual journey into the wilderness, following the example of our Lord.

This week culminates with Palm Sunday, a moment of celebration that kicks off the somber events of Holy Week, leading up to the ultimate joy of Easter. Thus today’s lessons not only help us to look back at our Lenten journey, but also offer us a glimmer of what is to come, both the somber and the celebratory aspects.

The prophet Isaiah (43:16-21) is quite explicit in bridging past and future, and placing the emphasis on hope. The context of this poem or hymn is that the Israelites have been exiles in Babylon for nearly 50 years. By the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, they have heard that they will be allowed to go home.

But Babylon and Jerusalem are a long ways apart when travel is by foot and camel. The way is rough. It goes through wilderness, where food and water is scarce and animals of prey do their thing.

And so Isaiah begins by reminding the Israelites that the Lord has seen them through danger before. He made a way for them through the sea, the same sea that then “extinguished” the Egyptian chariots and warriors that pursued them.

But then Isaiah makes an about face. Don’t dwell on that, he says. The Lord is “about to do a new thing.” Notice how the poetry switches into future tense: The Lord will make a way in the wilderness. The Lord will provide water. The wild animals will honor the Lord their God.

Had I begun preparing this sermon a little earlier last week, I might have e-mailed Ed and asked that we sing “Amazing Grace” today. For the most significant, unifying factor that ties together all of our lessons this morning is the good news of the amazing grace of our God.

My study Bible suggests that Psalm 126 was most likely written after the Israelites have returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. It is a hymn of thanksgiving that also begins in the past tense, but on an even more upbeat note: “[T]he Lord restored the fortunes of Zion” and we were so happy we had to pinch ourselves to make sure we weren’t dreaming. We laughed and shouted for joy, and bragged about our Lord to anyone who would listen.

Then the psalmist too turns to the future. This will happen again, he says. We can count on the Lord our God. Tears and weeping are part of the human condition, but with God’s help we will “come again with joy.”

The apostle Paul’s testimony in his letter to the Philippians (3:4b-14) is a very personal variation on the theme of God’s amazing grace. Paul’s look backward is at his own life and accomplishments. He enumerates them: circumcised on the 8th day, an Israelite of the esteemed tribe of Benjamin, not just a Jew but a Hebrew, a Pharisee who knew and followed the law flawlessly, a zealous protector of the faith as he understood it, even to the point of persecuting the church of Jesus Christ.

But now, Paul says, all of that is worthless. It is rubbish. Again, my study Bible says that the Greek word Paul used here actually has a stronger connotation, the connotation of “excrement.”

Having come to know God in the risen Christ, Paul turns his back on such egoistic claims and attempts to earn righteousness through the human worthiness competition. Instead, he says, righteousness is a gift made possible by the amazing grace of God. It is given and accepted through faith by all who have been made God’s own, through Christ Jesus.

Notice two things about this passage. First, suffering itself is transformed. It is no longer something to beg God to relieve us of at the first possible moment. Rather, it is precisely that which draws us closer to Christ. “I want to know Christ,” Paul says, “and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”

Second, human striving is no longer a worthiness competition. It is no longer directed at being more religious or more pious or more moral or better behaved or whatever… in relation to other people. Rather, Paul says, let us keep our focus on the only worthy goal, which is the heavenly call of relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Thereby we will receive the only gift worth having, which is the righteousness of God.

And so we come to today’s Gospel lesson (John 12:1-8), and it is here we find most explicitly the foreshadowing of the somber events of Holy Week.

Jesus sits at table in the home of his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. We have met these people before. The presence of Lazarus, who was dead and now lives, foreshadows what is to come for Jesus, although none of those at dinner save Jesus have an inkling of what is to come.

Martha serves, as usual. Mary expresses her extravagant love and devotion to Jesus, as usual. She takes a pound of costly perfume, anoints Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair. For this she is criticized by Judas Iscariot. Why wasn’t that perfume sold and the money given to the poor? he asks.

But John makes sure we see the falseness of Judas’ piety. Of the four Gospel accounts, John’s is the one most preoccupied with making a case against Judas by seeing signs that lead up to his betrayal of Jesus.

Jesus, on the other hand, is rather gentle in his rebuke. He reminds Judas that the poor aren’t going away. They will always be here.

I have actually heard this passage used by people to excuse not helping the poor and to justify opposing social safety nets for the poor. “Jesus said the poor will always be with us,” they say. And their piety is as false as that of Judas.

It is always possible for the self-righteous to take something out of context and make it mean whatever serves the selfish interests of the moment. Jesus’ teaching about how we are to love and care for the poor, as recorded over and over again throughout the Gospels, is eminently clear.

In this story, what Jesus most likely means is that the apostles can take care of the poor tomorrow and the next day and the next, but at this very moment, what they need to do most is begin to come to terms with what will soon happen. And what will soon happen are the somber events of Holy Week.

I like to think that somehow, through her devotion to Jesus, Mary intuitively collaborates with him in this scene by anointing his feet with burial perfume.

The Lord is indeed about to do a new thing. That new thing is, by the grace of God, the most amazing gift of all time. It is no less than the salvation and reconciliation of the world to its Maker. But it comes through the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN.

I Want You: A sermon for 18 March 2010*

Last week when asked if I was interested in preaching tonight, I was fresh from consecutive Sundays of what had seemed to be reasonably successful sermons, here at St. Alban’s two weeks ago and last Sunday at St. Thomas’. And so I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

It was not until two days ago that I realized the readings I would be preaching from are in celebration of a saint—Cyril of Jerusalem—whose feast day is March 18 on Roman Catholic and Episcopal church calendars, but who does not even appear on the Lutheran church calendar, which doesn’t recognize anyone outside of the Bible as a saint with a capital S in any case!

I’m sure Garrison Keilor could do something really creative and funny with this situation. For me it’s a lesson: Beware of becoming proud of preaching. You will live to regret it!

Fortunately, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an equal opportunity message. It is no respecter of denominations. This evening’s lesson from Luke is an excellent “unity” passage.

But before I go into that, I do want to say a few words about Cyril of Jerusalem. He is an important figure in the history of all Christians, and he is especially important to those of us who have similar liturgical traditions.

Cyril was Bishop of Jerusalem for most of the second half of the 4th Century. He is credited with developing liturgies we still use today during Holy Week. We know this not only from his own writing, but also because of a Spanish nun by the name of Egeria (i-JEER-ee-uh). Egeria made a late 4th-Century pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, to our great benefit, she kept an account of her travels in the form of a long letter to her sisters back home.

She was in Jerusalem at a time when the church year we are so familiar with today, with its seasons of Advent and Lent, and principal feasts like Christmas and Easter, was still in formation and becoming widely adopted. In fact, she helped with the dissemination of those early church practices, such as Bishop Cyril’s liturgies for Holy Week, by her detailed descriptions in an eyewitness account. In fact, she’s still doing it due to the wonders of modern technology. You can buy her account in book form today on amazon.com, complete with many annotations that demonstrate how historians have pored over it.

It’s also important that when Cyril was Bishop of Jerusalem, the early church was in great turmoil. The divisive issue of that day was how to understand Jesus, specifically how to understand the divinity of Jesus.

To put it as simply as possible, one pole of the debate is expressed in the Nicene Creed we still use today: Jesus the Christ is “eternally begotten of the Father” and “of one Being with the Father.”

The folks at the opposite pole of the debate in the 4th Century believed that the Son was divine but lesser than the Father and not eternal. In their words, “there was a time when the Son was not.”

I daresay most of us don’t debate that issue much anymore. It seems pretty well settled to us. But in the time of Cyril, it was not. In his 36 years as a bishop, Cyril was exiled three times by superiors from opposite poles of the debate. Ultimately he spent nearly half his years as Bishop in exile.

In other words, Cyril, being a moderate, managed to rile both extremes of the debate. So I admire Cyril. I have often thought that people who provoke both sides of a polarized debate must be doing something right.

Every time I look at church history, I am struck anew by two things. On the one hand is a history of divisive issues, issues that caused blood to be shed in many cases, and in others, the splits and splintering into the many denominations we know today.

On the other hand I also see an extraordinary continuity in such things as the worship practices many of us share. And not just those denominations represented in this worship space this evening.

A few years ago I was privileged to go to the Dominican Republic on a mission trip along with a handful of folks from St. Thomas’. One of my lasting memories of that trip is worshiping with brothers and sisters in the faith, each of us speaking in our own language but united by the familiarity of our common liturgy.

To a great extent, whether we see division or unity depends on where we focus our attention . The church as a whole and every denomination has plenty of divisive issues facing it today. It also has plenty of unifying beliefs and practices. What you see depends on what you focus on.

Looking at the history of the church helps keep these things in perspective. But an even better way to keep things in perspective is to focus on the Gospel message. In tonight’s passage from Luke, Jesus is speaking to some of his disciples. We do not know how many or which ones in particular.

Earlier in this last chapter of Luke, Jesus appears to two men on the road to Emmaus. After he leaves them, they rush back to Jerusalem to join “the eleven and their companions,” we are told in verse 33. I’m guessing the women who went to the tomb and are named at the beginning of the chapter are among them, but we just don’t know. Luke has a much more important story to tell.

Suddenly Jesus appears. He once again explains the scriptures to them and this time, because he has opened their minds, they get it. He establishes a context, reminding them that what has happened is not an accident of history but fulfillment of the Divine plan. He repeats the essential elements of the Good News: Christ has died, Christ is risen, repentance and forgiveness of sins must be preached to all nations.

And then he puts it to them: “YOU are witnesses,” he says. “You are witnesses of these things.”

Occasionally I wish we liturgical denominations weren’t quite so traditional in our worship liturgies. This evening, for example, it would be kind of fun to have the advantage of gigantic screens here at the front of the church, high on the wall on both sides of the pulpit.

If I had such a resource, I know exactly what I would put up there tonight. It would be that much-published poster of Uncle Sam, with his white curly locks and goatee, his stovepipe hat bedecked with stars, his red and white striped trousers and blue tailcoat. He leans toward the viewer making stern eye contact. He points his finger right in our face. “I WANT YOU,” he declares, in all capital letters across the bottom of the poster. And we all know that he isn't addressing us as southerners, or from Iowa. "I want you" means every one of us.

Jesus does not address us as Episcopalians or Lutherans or Roman Catholics or Baptists or whatever. He does not address us as black or white or Hispanic. He does not address us as U.S. Americans or Africans or Europeans.

He addresses us as believers, as a community of faith in all of our diversity. “You are witnesses,” he says. Go. Tell the good news.

AMEN

*This sermon was preached to a congregation of several denominations participating in a Unity in the Spirit ecumenical Lenten series.