Hanging Out in the Holy Land of Advent

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge, La.                                      

It is easy to rush through Advent. Indeed, our lives at this time of year seem especially geared to push us relentlessly forward at an ever more frantic pace.

I am still finishing up a rather exhausting semester. My days this past week went from early morning to late night in a seemingly endless cycle of grading, meetings, and year-end demands and, yes, early holiday festivities.

It seems that our approach to that other penitential season—Lent—is so different. Easter seems far away as we gather Ash Wednesday to begin weeks of abstaining from something important to us, and commitment to fasting, reflection and alms-giving.

In contrast, the beginning of Advent is a mad dash into planning, shopping, decorating, office receptions and parties with their special foods and beverages, and more. It is a time of year when our society does everything in its power to entice us to over-indulge in every way possible, beginning with Thanksgiving and going all the way to Christmas.

For the past few years, many Christians have been quick to complain of a so-called “attack on Christmas.” I am far more likely to bemoan the attack on Advent! The first Christmas tree I saw this year appeared in Sam’s Club… before Halloween! I was stunned and dismayed.

Today’s lessons—Isaiah’s cry on behalf of the Israelites, John the Baptist’s rough-hewn lifestyle and in-your-face preaching—seem truly misplaced amongst the cheery holiday music, fresh greenery and glittering ornaments that have already filled our lives. Who wants to go into the wilderness when we can hang out here in Christmasland?!

But the wilderness has things to offer that we cannot necessarily find in the hustle and bustle and beauty of Christmasland. Holy things. And these passages give us some clues. This morning I invite you to hang out for a time in the Holy Land of Advent. 

 Let’s begin with the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:1-11, NRSV):

Comfort, O comfort my people,

says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that she has served her term,

that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the LORD's hand

double for all her sins.

Of course, Western Christians can hardly hear these words without hearing the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah. But the prophet does not allow us to simply rush straight to the triumph of the Allelujah chorus!

First, even as we are comforted, we are reminded that we need comfort due to the magnitude of our sins and the penalty we have paid. We have suffered as a result of our estrangement from God.

Please do not hear that as a theology of retribution. The bad things that happen in our lives are not God’s punishment for our sins. Rather, things go wrong in our lives and we lose sight of God. We try to comfort ourselves with all the wrong things—mood-altering substances like alcohol, extreme busy-ness, spending money, whatever—and the more we do that, the farther away God seems to be. And we suffer.

Second, Isaiah draws attention to the one thing that most reliably causes humankind to suffer, and that is our mortality. We are flowers, beautiful but fragile, for flowers do not last. The wind blows. We wither and die.

I cannot stand here this morning without being reminded that in the past two months (approximately), many of us have gathered here or at Redeemer in Oak Ridge four times to lay to rest members of this community of faith, whose departure left gaping holes, especially in the lives of the Barham and Brodie families, but also in all of our lives.

This world often seems devoid of the comforting presence of God! We often feel forsaken by God! Isaiah reassures us that God is there in the wilderness of our lives. That God patiently waits to speak tenderly to us, to feed us and to gather us and to gently lead us home.

Turning to today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 1:1-8, NRSV), I’m again struck by these opening words:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

`Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,'"

With this enigmatic opening, St. Mark connects his main character, Jesus the Christ, with the God of Hebrew Scripture, through his lead character, John the Baptizer.

John the Baptizer hung out in the wilderness, and people went in droves to hear him—in spite of the fact that he bore the bad news of sin and the need for repentance. Indeed, in Matthew’s account, John calls the religious elite of his day a brood of vipers!

So why did the people flock to him? As Mark says, he also bore the good news of another to come, one who would share with us the forgiving waters of baptism, but one who had more—much more—to offer.

The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me, John said. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

We go into the wilderness to repent, wait and prepare. In today’s epistle (1 Peter 3:8-15a, NRSV), St. Peter tells us how: Patiently, because God’s days are unlike ours and God has been more than patient with us. Keeping awake, for we do not know when God comes again. Living godly lives, doing the things God has called us to do to hasten the kingdom—which we know from Jesus’ teaching means loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

Dear friends, let us hang out for awhile in the holy land of Advent. For here we find God’s comforting promise of mercy and grace bestowed in the coming of the one for whom we prepare—the one of power and glory who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

Keep Awake

Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
     so that the mountains would quake at your presence. (Isaiah 64:1, NRSV)

And so we begin Advent once again. With the prophet Isaiah, we cry out for God to come to our aid. The human longing for God to be with us is as old as the hills and as new as this moment.

And for good reason. Our world seems such a mixed bag.

On the one hand, we have just shared our annual feast of plenty with family and friends. My social media streams were filled with expressions of joy and gratitude, and photographs of gathered clans.

I was personally blessed and renewed by participating in prayers, song and Holy Communion at our first-ever joint Episcopal Thanksgiving Eve service here at Grace. The Kingdom of God was definitely at hand!

But I trust I am not the only one whose Thanksgiving was marred by reminders that the Kingdom of God is also not yet fully here.

Ferguson, Missouri, comes to mind. Much in this world remains in desperate need of God’s justice… and reconciling love. 

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down… 

But our call for and anticipation of Divine Presence is also a bit of a mixed bag. The words of today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 13:24-37, NRSV) are not entirely comforting.

At one and the same time, we long for the peace and unending joy we expect when all the world is finally and fully reconciled to God. Yet we quail at the thought of the suffering that precedes.. and the judgment that comes with.. the Son of Man on clouds at the end of time.

Advent is the ultimate in-between time for an in-between people. By in-between people, I mean those people of God who view the historic birth of a Palestinian babe laid in a manger some 2000 years ago, and a triumphant return of Jesus the Christ at some unknown point in the future.. as bookends of our faith.

In Advent, we prepare to celebrate once again that historic birth. But we do so in part by looking past the birth to the second coming of Christ, with its mixed bag of judgment and triumph.

Advent is a not merely a time of preparation for the joy of Christmas but a penitential season. Here we are in purple this morning!

Advent, the in-between time, should direct our attention to how we—individually and corporately—are spending our in-between time. And I say “should” because the society at large seems to do everything in its power to distract us from doing it!

For the past few years, many Christians have been quick to complain of a so-called “attack on Christmas.” I am far more likely to bemoan the attack on Advent! The first Christmas tree I saw this year appeared in Sam’s Club… before Halloween! I was stunned and dismayed.

My son and I and his fiancé will put up our tree Christmas Eve, between early and midnight masses!

But I am concerned today with far more than when you put up your Christmas Tree. I am concerned with how we spend our in-between time, individually and corporately. I am concerned with how we use Advent as a time of reflection and self-examination.

As many of you know, I teach at ULM. On the very first day of my advanced writing class, I give the students a choice of three topics and require them to sit down at a computer and write 300 words on the spot.

One of their choices is to write their “last speech.” That is, they are to imagine they have been given six months to live, and they are to write the farewell speech they would give to their family, friends and the world.

Quite a few choose this option, and I am usually charmed and even a bit amused at their earnest insistence, in their last speeches, that they have lived well and accomplished much, and that they depart this life with no regrets.

I cannot say the same. It’s not that I have not lived well, for I have. It's not that I fear dying; I don't. It's not that I regret anything more serious than that huge piece of leftover pecan pie I snacked on last night.

It is that every passing day teaches me more about both the breathtaking beauty.. and the utter woundedness.. of this world and everything in it. Every day shows me more that I can and want to do—out of my own imperfect, broken but beloved-of-God humanness—to share God’s love in a hurting world.

One day a few years ago, I went to Waterproof, La., to take pictures and interview for an article for ALIVE! about a ministry of this diocese in that community. It was a medical clinic run by a nurse practitioner with the help of a retired doctor and his wife. And in that community, where so many lack reliable transportation, it was the only medical care readily available to the many who suffer from the diseases of poverty—like diabetes.

Late afternoon, headed home, I passed one of many rundown dwellings on the edge of town. Out front, on the side of the narrow road, an old car had been jacked up and perched on various objects—a cross-section of tree trunk, a couple of cements blocks, and so forth.

 

iPhone Diary: 23 May 2012 (God Play) by Bette J. Kauffman

It looked not at all safe. I wouldn’t have lived in that house or crawled under that car for love nor money. But there was a man, lying on his back on the ground underneath the car, working on it.

I had barely passed that scene when the sky changed dramatically. It had been clouding over and threatening a storm for some time. Now, suddenly, the sun punched holes in the cloud cover and rays of light streamed through, in glorious contrast to the thundercloud backdrop.

Within moments, along a country road near Waterproof, La., I had gone from the heartbreak of human poverty to the glory of God at play. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

As I sat in my car on the side of the road gazing at the sky, one thought flooded my mind: So much to do. Oh, my God, we have so much to do.

My friends, I invite you to a watchful Advent, an Advent of looking for God in everyone and in all that happens, in the breathtaking beauty and the utter woundedness.. of all humankind and the world we live in.

[W]hat I say to you I say to all: Keep awake (Mark 13:37, NRSV). Be not surprised to find God already here.

AMEN

            

Doing Thanks

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge, La.

I grew up in a distinctly protestant religious tradition—Mennonite, to be exact. And in that tradition, all things liturgical, especially things like crucifixes bearing the tortured body of Christ, were anathema. They emphasized Christ’s death over his resurrection at the least, and were akin to idols at worst.

I have long since laid aside many of those teachings and find great joy in our Episcopal liturgy and its adornments. Yet, I have a special fondness for Christ the King Sunday and its representation of Jesus as king, in kingly robes and crown, superimposed on the cross but clearly alive and triumphant over it.

Today we are combining celebrations of Christ the King and Thanksgiving, which turns out to be quite doable from a preaching standpoint. What better way to celebrate Christ the King than to give thanks!

The lessons we read this morning are for Christ the King Sunday. And reading them afresh with Thanksgiving in mind, I was totally struck by the relationship between the Ezekiel (34:11-16, NRSV) reading and the Matthew (25:31-46, NRSV) reading.             
 
Look again at Ezekiel. What does God promise God’s people in this passage? 

I myself will search for my sheep… I will rescue them… I will gather them and will feed them with good pasture, rich pasture! I myself will be the shepherd, I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. I, the Lord, have spoken. 

Wow! What more could a sheep of God ask for?! Of course, Ezekiel does put some judgment in the mouth of God, but I will take my chances with the loving and merciful God portrayed throughout Scripture… over the casual cruelty we humans are so capable of in judging each other.

Fast forward to the Gospel lesson. Here Jesus is speaking, and this is more explicitly a judgment scene. Christ the King is on his throne of glory, separating sheep from goats.

Again, to me, that’s good news. I’ll take Jesus, with his impeccable track record of justice, mercy and love, over human meanness, which is often, sadly, carried out in the name of Jesus.

A saying I’ve seen circulate on the Internet goes like this: “Most humans are capable of being mean from time to time under some conditions, but nobody is meaner than the ones being mean for Jesus!” I couldn’t agree more.

But today, in the context of Ezekiel, and glorious thanks giving by Paul for the faith and love of the Ephesians (1:15-23), I see the main point of this passage as Jesus teaching us how to give thanks.

Come you that are blessed, Jesus says, and inherit the kingdom.., for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was a prisoner and you visited me. 

As the passage continues, it becomes clear that the righteous who had done these things did not even realize what they had done. Clearly, they had not done them to earn or merit inheriting the kingdom.

People who do things for a reward would never be surprised to hear that they had earned the reward! Indeed, when we are working for pay, we are likely to keep very close track of what we have done and what we expect to receive in exchange for what we have done.

But the sheep Jesus invites into the kingdom must ask, When did we do these things? And Jesus explains, When you shared the love you have received from me with all of my people. You might not have recognized me, but I was there. That homeless person, that immigrant, that prisoner, that sick person…, that was me you loved, as I have loved you.

You see, the only possible response to accepting God’s loving care of us is to give it away. The only way to be a sheep of God’s rich pasture is to share it with the entire flock! The only way to be part of God’s family is to, well… be part of God’s… entire family…

And in both Ezekiel and Matthew it is eminently clear that we don’t define the boundaries of God’s family! That job belongs to Jesus, thanks be to God.

As a user of social media, I sometimes get roped into various fads that sweep the Internet. A few months ago, one such fad that made the rounds on Facebook was a call to post for seven days straight a list of what you were thankful for each day.

A well-intended exercise, and, indeed, I took my turn when I was tagged by a friend to do so. And doing it did make me think about—and sometimes really have to reflect on—what had happened that day that I could be thankful for.

But listing the things you are thankful for is not exactly what Jesus had in mind! I would even say, spoken prayers of thanksgiving—albeit lovely things and in themselves harmless—are not what Jesus had in mind.

What Jesus had in mind was action. No empty piety here! “Get to work,” is the message.

Notice the verbs Jesus uses throughout: you gave, you welcomed, you took care, you visited, you gave, you gave, you gave.

Not once does he mention what anyone believed! Not once does he mention whom anyone worshiped! Not once does he mention what anyone prayed!

The righteous are those who DO, without realizing what they are doing and without expecting a reward for it. To do anything else is unthinkable to those who understand themselves as God’s beloved and heir’s of God’s kingdom.

Friday afternoon I answered the doorbell to find two young women from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints standing in the carport. They introduced themselves as missionaries; I introduced myself as a deacon in the Episcopal Church.

My job as deacon, I hastened to explain, was to help people in the church find ministries and to aid and support them in being ministers in the world. Their faces brightened. Oh, the confident one said, you mean to be missionaries! 

Sort of, I replied. It depends on how you define missionary. I mean to feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome the immigrant. 

Whether they understood the distinction or not, I can’t be certain. But you do. Of that I am certain. How will you do thanks, not just today but every day, for God’s love bestowed on you?                                                                                                                                               AMEN

Who am I?

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

One of the many prayers attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is a simple, two sentence prayer: Who are you, God? And who am I?

Legend has it that St. Francis spent entire nights on his knees praying those same two sentences over and over again: Who are you, God? And who am I?

 

St. Francis in Ecstasy, by de Ribera

This prayer addresses two crises rather common among humans. The first sentence—“Who are you, God?”—is about our sometimes frantic search for some evidence of the Divine in this seemingly God-forsaken world.

We often look for God in all the wrong places. Like our deist founding fathers, we think God is way up there hovering overhead, instead of right down here, within and among us. You can find a sermon on my blog preached a few weeks ago at St. Andrew’s in Mer Rouge that explores that theme.

The second sentence of St. Francis’ prayer—“And who am I?”—is about that human rite of passage known as “an identity crisis.”  In the 1960s—which I trust most everyone here present remembers—having an identity crisis was all the rage!

But whether you had yours in college or much later in mid-life, all of us had to figure out who we are, or who we would be in this world. For many, especially older generations, the identity crisis came disguised as merely a choice of career, or how we would earn a living.

We did not necessarily—indeed, I would say we most likely did not—connect that decision with our religious or spiritual identity. We grew up in a world of dualistic thinking: the sacred vs. the secular, good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, us vs. them.

But in putting these two things together in one simple, short prayer, St. Francis smashes dualistic thinking. Who I am and who God is are deeply interconnected, perhaps even.. the same thing.

Now… what if Jesus had to go through the same rite of passage? What if Jesus had to undergo a bit of an identity crisis? He was, after all, fully human.

You see, I don’t think the hipppies of the 60s invented the identity crisis. I think it has been going on for a very long time.

Let us briefly consider Moses. Talk about a man with an identity crisis! Born Hebrew, stowed in a papyrus basket to be found by Pharoah’s daughter, to be raised as her son but nursed by his own mother, who was hired by the Egyptian for that purpose. Moses the Hebrew grew into a position of privilege in Egyptian society, only to find himself irrevocably drawn to the plight of the Hebrews.

In fact, drawn to the plight of the Hebrews to the extent that he kills an Egyptian who is abusing a Hebrew, thereby becoming a fugitive in the wilderness, where he comes face to face with God once again.., to become a savior of his people, confronting Pharoah and leading the Hebrews out of bondage.

Who are you, God? And who am I?

So Jesus was hardly the first to wonder who he was and what his role on earth was to be. And like many, he turned to those around him: Who do people say that I am? he asks his disciples.

And they give a reasonable and feasible answer, one that satisfies the secular approach to identity: People say you’re another in a long line of prophets. Your predecessors in this career were John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah and the like.

The disciples did not need to provide the job description. They and Jesus knew what prophets do: They preach, they call us to account, they do signs and wonders.

But Jesus is not satisfied. Jesus already has a relationship with God, an awareness of God in his heart, an inkling that there’s more to it. And so he probes with another question of these, the ones who know him best: Who do you say that I am?

St. Peter

Now comes Peter. Good old Peter. What a saint! What a sinner! I mean, he dares to step out of the boat and walk on the water. And then he gets wet feet and has to be rescued.

On the one hand, he drops his fishing net and follows Jesus everywhere. On the other hand, Jesus must, at one point, say to him, Get behind me Satan.

On the one hand, here he is proclaiming boldly: You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. On the other, he will soon deny that he knows Jesus of Nazareth.

Peter was a saint and a sinner, rolled into one, a living challenge to dualistic thinking. And a lot like us. Or, more accurately, we’re a lot like him.

But, of course, Jesus himself is the best answer possible to dualistic thinking. Fully God and fully human; divine and earthly; eternal and mortal. What more could you ask for as proof of God’s determination to eradicate all divisions and reconcile all things!

And we have a role to play in that because Jesus is our brother. Through him we can know ourselves as beloved children of God. It is essential to see the connection between who God is and who we are.

Today’s generation does not have the same set of dueling categories we grew up with. They probably have some of their own! But most of them don’t have the same ones we grew up with.

The traditional divisions of race, religion, social class, gender and sexuality by and large make little sense to them. The strict moral code we grew up with makes little sense to them. They tend to not see the world in terms of categories of right vs. wrong, black & white, us vs. them.

And that has led to a bit of a church identity crisis! The church is supposed to be Christ’s body in the world, as Paul explains to the Romans.

But what young people see when they look at the church is that we say all the right stuff, but we don’t follow Jesus. In fact, we reconstruct Jesus and try to make him the originator—or at least endorser—of our dualistic categories of right vs. wrong, us vs. them, “our church” vs. God’s church.

But that’s not what Jesus taught and it’s not what Jesus did.

Our Bishop has asked us to read this book, “People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity,” by Dwight J. Zscheile. The titles of the chapters are revealing.  

Who are Episcopalians? How about “A People… Sharing Communion.” Sure! No shock there. We love our Holy Eucharist! But that’s followed by “A People… Reconciled in Difference.” Not “reconciled in sameness.” “Sameness” does not need reconciliation! Reconciled in difference.

How about “A People… Seeking the World’s Hospitality”? That’s about the church becoming homeless. Fr. Whit Stodghill and I are working on starting a worship service with the homeless of Monroe in an empty lot next to the Desiard Street shelter. One of my Canterbury kids has already requested that we have an open-air Eucharist in Bayou Park on campus this fall.

What if the church gave up its addiction to buildings and became homeless like Jesus was? What would that do to our us-vs.-them categories?

Who are you, God? And who are we?

To know that we are God’s beloved, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us, is to be people of the way. And to be people of the way is to be saints and sinners every one, but to be living as disciples and organized for mission—God’s mission that we the church carry out as Christ’ one body in the world.

AMEN

The Art & Power of Conversation

St. Luke's Chapel, Grambling, La.

So today we talk about talk. Each one of today’s lessons tells us something about the art and power of talk.

And it’s timely. Today’s society seems addicted to talk. We tweet. We post status updates on Facebook and other social media. Our news media provide talking heads 24/7.

Talk, talk, talk. And so often, it seems that, rather than talking with each other, conversing, if you will, we are screaming past each other.

I no longer try to have serious discussion of important topics on Facebook. Too often have I witnessed such talk turn into ugly, personal attacks. These exchanges are more like drive by shootings than conversations, or even arguments—which can be totally civil and useful when done well.

So what does each of our lessons tell us today about the art and power of talk?

First, the story of Joseph and his brothers from Genesis tells us about a relationship between talk and reconciliation. Look again at two key sentences in this passage.

Verse 3b: But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. And the last verse: And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

What happens between these verses? What makes it possible for Joseph’s brothers to talk with him?  Love and forgiveness! Specifically, the one who is wronged reaches out to the wrong-doers. The betrayed reaches out in love and forgiveness to the betrayers.

It is noteworthy that Joseph’s brothers do not ask for love or forgiveness. At Joseph’s self-revelation, they huddle in embarrassment and fear. Joseph tells them how God has redeemed what began as a betrayal. Joseph beckons them closer. Joseph falls upon their necks and kisses them.

And then they talk. Conversation and reconciliation go hand in hand.

Turning to Romans, Paul is drawing attention to cultural and social difference. He clearly identifies himself as an Israelite, and then says, ‘But here I am talking with you Gentiles.’

Now, our immediate response might be, ‘Don’t keep talking about difference. Why do you draw attention to difference? That just exacerbates the problems!’

Indeed, I have heard people say this. These are the folks whose answer to racism is to pretend that race doesn’t exist or matter, and whose answer to socio-economic divisions in our society is to insist that everyone is middle class.

Nonsense, says Paul. In fact, he says, I’m willing to brag a bit about my ministry of reconciliation with you, the Gentiles, because through it I show that God’s reconciling love is available, not only to my own people but to the entire world.

In other words, it matters who we talk to, and when we talk across the social and cultural boundaries that typically divide, we are enacting God’s reconciliation in an especially powerful way.

I have probably mentioned to you before that I participate in a broad-based coalition of institutions called Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith. For the past year to two years, Interfaith has met with elected officials, both locally and during the legislative session in Baton Rouge, and has conducted meetings and civic academies around the issues of how low income people fall into the debt trap through payday lending practices; how sentencing policies have led Louisiana to have the highest incarceration rate in the world; and how declining state support for higher education has decimated our schools and contributes to incarceration and economic decline statewide.

Those are the issues we have been working on, but even more important is our method, which is to purposefully and systematically cross the boundaries of difference that typically divide. I was at a meeting Friday afternoon in which the first item on our agenda was to find a black male leader to co-chair an upcoming meeting with a white woman.

We NEVER have one person chair a meeting, and the co-chairs of our meetings ALWAYS cross the boundary of race: one black, one white, and whenever possible, one male and one female. And we carry that principle throughout everything we do. 

Interfaith takes this message from Paul very seriously. We talk with each other across boundaries of race, religion, social class, and politics in order to demonstrate the reconciling power of the love of God and make our communities better places for everyone to live.

And now, finally, the Gospel passage. What do we make of the very un-Jesusy behavior of Jesus himself when approached by the Canaanite woman? I mean, first he ignores her. When she persists, he tells her she is no better than a dog! And that he is not going to stoop to minister to her! 

Holy smokes, Jesus! What are we supposed to do with this?

Some biblical scholars interpret this story as Jesus just testing her and pushing her to become bold in demanding his attention. I disagree. I think that neutralizes the power of the story.

We say we believe that Jesus was fully human, as well as divine. And if Jesus was fully human, than perhaps this is a very powerful story of Jesus learning and discovering who he fully is as the reconciling love of God incarnate through the art and power of conversation over boundaries of difference. 

Consider this: He was male and she was female, and the two were definitely not equal in Jesus’ day. He was Jew, she was Gentile, a Canaanite, despised by the Jews of Jesus’ day. They were enemies.

Nothing about who he was and nothing about who she was would lead anyone then or now to think that they should, or even could, converse with one another. But they did.

And humility is the ingredient that made conversation possible. She could have stormed off in fury, called him names. But she persisted--with humility. He could have gotten angry at challenge to his view of the world. But he listened--with humility. 

Humility makes it possible to consider that one is wrong. Or not yet fully right. Or simply uninformed about another's point of view. How different would our politics, our policy debates, our talk-talk-talk be... if we spoke with humility?

Humility, my friends, is key to the art and power of conversation, through which the reconciling love of God can heal us, our communities and the nations of the world.

AMEN

Not a Show-Off God

St. Alban's & St. Thomas' Episcopal Churches, Monroe

Last spring I attended the triennial assembly of the Association for Episcopal Deacons. Our keynote speaker and workshop leader was Eric Law, an Episcopal priest and author of several book, including “Holy Currencies: 6 Blessings for Sustainable Missional Ministries.”

Law has gone from writing books to founding a center for congregational development and stewardship called the Kaleidoscope Institute. Our Bishop has just decided that some of Law’s work needs to be in the curriculum of our Diocesan school of ministry for lay people. So, the St. Thomas’ chapter of the Daughters of the King is a step ahead of everyone else on that because they studied this book together last spring!

To kick off his workshop at the deacon’s conference last year, Law had the assembled deacons—as I recall, around a hundred of us—play a silly little game that ended up making a big point. With the help of the organizers of the conference, a bunch of these bookmarks were handed out. Some people got none, some got 2 or 3 and a few got 5 or 6.

Then, Law said, this game has just two rules. 1) If someone gives you a bookmark, you must take it, and 2) the person who ends up with none.. wins. When I give the signal, Law said, you will have 10 minutes to give away all of your bookmarks.

Well, I don’t remember if anyone won that game. And I don’t remember how many bookmarks I ended up with, but I’m pretty sure it was more than I started with. I got down to zero a couple times, but no sooner had I done so than someone would come along and thrust a bunch into my hand.

Now, you might be thinking, “Well, duh! The rules of the game were set up to make sure that happens!” And, indeed, they were. The value of the game was not that it was a “fair” or “objective” test of anything. The value of the game.. was in what it revealed about how humans think!

The first few minutes of the game, I was being totally rational and measured. My plan was to give one bookmark to each of however many people I needed to, to get rid of them all. That way I could spread my generosity over the maximum number of people. And if anyone gave me a bookmark—“a” bookmark; I was assuming everyone else would be as rational as I—I would find one more person to give it to.

And isn’t that how we do our charity?

But Jesus said, “Get rid of it all. Give it all away. Sell all you have and give it to the poor.”

There was a moment in Eric Law’s silly little game when I was flooded with two things: 1) The enormity of what Jesus asks of us: give it all away; and 2) the powerful human tendency to gather, to collect, to keep, to secure our future, indeed, to hoard. 

Today’s Gospel lesson is about exactly that. It is my favorite miracle in the Bible, and not just because I love to eat.

Perhaps today’s miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is the greatest miracle Jesus performs! Greater than bringing dead things to life because that happens all the time. That’s a pattern of the universe. We see it happen before our eyes every spring.

I imagine many people think the feeding of the 5,000 is about Jesus multiplying molecules of bread and wine such that 5 loves and 2 fishes magically turned into hundreds of loaves and fishes. That’s what I was raised to think it was about.

But.. how’s that even a miracle? That wouldn’t be a miracle. That would be God showing off! Surely the creator of the universe can multiply molecules of bread and fish without breaking a sweat!

It is certainly an appealing idea. God has superhero powers; God made the rules of the universe, therefore can break them any time God wants to!

The problem with that, of course, is we’re left to struggle with the question: Since God can do that without breaking a sweat, why doesn’t God do it more often?

Why do people go hungry in a world of plenty? If God is good and loves us all, why doesn’t God fix the Middle East? Why must children in Gaza die horrific deaths? Why must children on the southside of Monroe play in dirty, trash-littered streets among burned out and boarded up houses?

Why do the children of St. Joseph, Louisiana, come to Vacation Bible School so hungry that they must be fed before they can concentrate on the lesson?

The answer is pretty clear: Our God is not a show-off God. Our God chooses to work through humans—US—in all of our misbegotten glory. We are beautifully and wondrously made…, and yet stiff-necked, insecure, self-centered.

You see, I think the real appeal of the notion of God as multiplier of molecules of bread and fish is that it leaves humans completely off the hook. Oh, that we had a show-off God! Would that not make life a whole lot easier for us!

I mean, we could sit around and wait for God to fix it, whatever “it” is: the violent Middle East, the children collecting on our southern border fleeing violence and starvation in their own countries, the escalating gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. economy.

And if God doesn’t choose to fix whatever it is that needs fixing, well then, it must not be meant to be. Too bad for those dying in Gaza. Too bad for the poor. Too bad for those kids… and I really do looooove them, but… I’m a mere human. All I can do is pray for God to work a miracle.

But our God is not a show-off god. It IS up to us. And the problem almost never is an absolute shortage of molecules of anything. The problem is maldistribution. Whether we’re talking food or cash or relative freedom from violence, the problem is not shortage, it’s maldistribution: some have and keep, others don’t and suffer.

Here's a little story that helps make the point. A member of Christ Church in St. Joseph, La., started a Shepherd Center in that little town to make available good used items to poor folks for a minimal price. One day, two volunteers had locked the door for the day and were about to leave when comes a knock on the door.

"I'll go tell her (the woman at the door) we're closed for the day," said one volunteer to the other.

"Oh, no, you go on home," said the other volunteer, "I'll see what she needs."

So one volunteer left and the other went to the door. The woman needed shoes. She had lost everything, she said, and most of all she needed shoes to replace the tattered flip-flops on her feet.

"Come in," said the volunteer, "I'm sure we've got something your size here somewhere."

And so the hunt began. They  searched through the shoes on display. Nothing. They searched through shoes ready to go on display. Nothing. They go through piles of unsorted stuff. Nothing.

By now the woman is apologizing and telling the volunteer to go on home and not worry about it. But the volunteer persists. Finally, she spies a box of items in the corner that has not yet been opened. She picks it up, turns it upside down and out falls a pair of brand new sneakers in the woman's size.

I don’t believe for one moment that God created sneaker molecules out of nothing and hid them inside that box of stuff for the woman to find. What God did is transform the heart of the woman, such that when she was confronted with another human being in need, she saw Jesus. And Jesus needed shoes.

Shoes for Jesus, Here I Am

She did not need to know if the woman was deserving or not, had lost her stuff through bad decision-making or not, was in need because she was lazy… or not. She saw Jesus, and Jesus needed shoes.

Brothers and sisters, the world does not need more molecules of anything. The world needs human hearts that have fallen into the hands of God and been transformed. That’s the miracle looking for a place to happen… Every. Single. Time.                                                                                      AMEN

Looking for God in All the Wrong Places

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge

So.. what do a Baptist church in Pollock, La., and the Washington Monument have in common?

The Baptist church in Pollock sits on the west side of Highway 165. You pass it every time you go to Alexandria. Like most Baptist churches, it has a steeple. But unlike most churches with steeples, it does NOT have a cross on top.

Anyone happen to know what is on top of the steeple? It’s a hand with one finger pointing heavenward.                                              

Now the Washington Monument does not have a hand on the top! It has a 4-sided aluminum cap, each side containing an inscription. Three of the inscriptions have to do entirely with the building of the monument: names, dates, etc.

The fourth inscription says what? It says, “LAUS DEO,” which is Latin for “Praise be to God.”

Now, a quick side story. The inscriptions on the cap of the Washington Monument are not visible from inside the monument. They are visible only to those who might be hovering in mid-air over the peak of the monument, in other words, people in helicopters and, presumably, God.

So the National Park Service created a replica of the cap that is on display inside the museum at the base of the monument. A few years ago, in the mid-2000s, the replica cap was moved to a tent on the grounds while the museum was renovated. When it was moved back indoors, instead of being placed catty-corner to the wall so that all four sides could be read, as it had been before, it was placed with the LAUS DEO side against the wall, which prevented visitors from seeing it.

An uproar ensued. The Park Service was accused of being ashamed of the Christian foundations of our nation. On snopes.com you can find a letter from the head of the Park Service stating that it was an accident, they had meant no offense and that it would be fixed. Since the letter is dated 2007, I assume the problem has long been corrected.

One interesting thing to me about that story, however, is that no one seems to notice or mention that “Praise be to God” is much more common as an expression of Muslim piety than it is as an expression of Christian piety.

Of course, Muslims typically say “Praise be to Allah,” and they routinely say it often: in times of gratitude and in times of distress, before beginning an important task and at the end, and on and on.

But if you accept that the God of all three of the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Islam and Christianity—is one and the same God, then “Praise be to God” sounds much more Islamic than Christian. Christians are more likely to be heard saying, “Praise the Lord,” or “Thank you, Jesus!”

But whatever the builders of the Washington Monument had in mind when they inscribed “LAUS DEO” on the top of the monument, they, like the builders of a Baptist church in Pollock, La., were looking for God in all the wrong places.

What these two structures have in common is that they propose a god who is up there, way up there in heaven.., hovering above us.., looking down on us. The Baptist church points to this remote god and the Washington Monument launches praise into the heavens in hope that this god is not too far away to read it.

And that is not what Jesus taught. Somewhere off up in the sky is not the imagery Jesus uses.

Dirt, he says in today’s Gospel. Down in the dirt is where Jesus directs us to look for God. Down in the dirt where we put a seed to die and then be born again. Down in the dirt where we human’s might hide our treasure.

Or in the belly of the homely oyster, attached to the bottom of the sea. That’s where we’ll find God, Jesus says.

And some remote, uninvolved god is not what Jesus himself represents. Indeed, Jesus himself was and is first and last proof that it ain’t so.

Indeed, of the three Abrahamic faiths, Christianity is the only one that professes God Incarnate. At least we SAY we believe in Incarnation. The evidence of our lives and behavior is not always so clear.

My favorite of the images Jesus uses in today’s lesson is the yeast in the bread. I have made bread. I have taken yeast, dissolved it in warm water, stirred it into the dough and then kneaded that dough until the yeast is evenly and thoroughly distributed throughout the bread.

And then you put the dough in a lightly greased bowl, set it in slightly warm place—like a sunny window—that’s what my mother and I always did. And you cover it with a cloth so the surface doesn’t dry out and then you wait.

And when you return a couple hours later? Miracle! The dough has magically expanded to double its original size!

My friends. Can you wrap your mind around the possibility that we are the dough and God is the yeast? That we participate in Incarnation? That the indwelling Holy Spirit can no more be separated from our being than you can remove the yeast after kneading the dough!

Or, if you prefer, consider that we are God’s mud pies, and that God’s DNA got mixed with dirt in the act of creation.

Dough or dirt, God’s DNA is in us. It’s the yeast or the tiny seed we call love. God’s love for us, which we yearningly return. Our love for each other, a fragile moment of God’s love for us.

Does your heart expand at the thought? Mine does. I become bigger. I become bigger than my pill of a dog, who drives me nuts with her pestering. I become bigger than the jerk who kept me waiting at the intersection because he didn’t use his turn signal.

My heart expands so much I think it is going to burst out of my chest. And the only possible response is an outpouring of love for all of humankind and creation.

At least until ego and fear and self-doubt rear their ugly heads and tell me that such a total and gratuitous gift is not possible.

Do you not know, Jesus says in Luke 17:21, the kingdom of God is within you. 

If that is so, brothers and sisters, we are bigger than the worst this world has to offer. We are bigger than national borders. We are bigger than political parties. We are bigger than race, and social class, and even religion. We are big enough for all people to find rest in the shade of our branches.

Can we… dare we… live with that kind of dignity, responsibility, and freedom?

AMEN