In the End Is Our Beginning

A sermon for Advent 1, preached at St. Thomas' Episcopal, Monroe, La., 29 Nov. 2015.

In a cartoon circulating on the Internet, a man and a woman walk along a city street. The woman is speaking. “My desire to be well-informed,” she says, “is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

If you cannot identify with that sentiment this morning, I would seriously have to wonder where you have been and how you have been spending your time.. such that you could be so out of touch with what is happening in the world today.

Another item making the rounds online last week was a short bit of poetry, author unknown. It went like this: 

The Physician’s hands gently touch the earth: Where does it hurt?

Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere 

That one puts a lump in my throat every time I see it. Indeed, our world hurts. Everywhere.

Today we stand poised once again in the doorway between an end and a beginning. Last Sunday, we ended the church year celebrating Christ the King. 

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth its successive journeys run;
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, til moons shall wax and wane no more.  
(Watts; BCP, p. 544) 

And now here we are, just 7 short days later, standing on the brink of apocalypse. 

Jesus tells us through St. Luke (21:25-36, NRSV), that, indeed, not only the moon, but the sun and the stars will seem to have gone haywire. And it will be a terrifying sight. We will faint from fear.

I don’t know what the sun, moon and stars going haywire might look like. Perhaps that is Jesus’ way of saying, “the universe will feel topsy-turvy.”

But we do know what “distress among nations” looks like. It is our everyday reality—at least if we are paying any attention at all!

And it does feel as if the entire universe has lost it’s bearing. We have so little power in the face of humankind run amok. We cannot control the behavior of others, neither individuals nor nations.

Fear is a natural response to lack of control over forces that threaten our world and our worldview. Fear might cause us to faint. But fear also causes us to become indistinguishable from the forces that threaten us in the first place.

Thursday morning I drove to Baton Rouge to spend Thanksgiving with my son and his bride. And what a wonderful time it was! What could be more fun—and more holy—than being the honored guest as newlyweds initiate their first family holiday tradition!

 We prayed together, feasted together and played together. And the world seemed at peace. And it was easy to have faith in a bright future. I hope and pray your Thanksgiving was equally restorative.

But late in the evening, I went to my computer as usual to catch up with online friends and the news of the day. And there among the Thanksgiving greetings from friends all around the world, many of whom do not celebrate this very U.S. American holiday but know that I do…

There among the blessings was a news story that chilled my soul. In Irving, Texas, Muslim worshipers emerged from afternoon prayers to be greeted by protesters carrying rifles and shotguns.

This is what happens when humans assume they know the mind of God and seek to take the vengeance of the Lord into their own hands!

Today’s lessons offer us alternative responses to our fear and perceived threats to our existence. They ask us to take a longer view, and to give ourselves over to a power greater than ourselves.

They draw our attention to the fact that at this moment, even as we prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus the Christ as a babe in a manger, we must look forward to his coming again in glory and power. And that in this in-between time, we are his light and his love in the world.

We interpret the prophet Jeremiah’s reference to a righteous Branch [springing] up for David (33:14-16, NRSV) to be about the very coming of God into the world in the form of the baby Jesus. But even as we read it that way, we also know that peace has not yet come to Jerusalem. That justice and righteousness do not yet rule the land.

Again through the words of Luke, Jesus the Righteous Branch instructs us in how to conduct ourselves in this time of waiting. Stand up and raise your head, he says. …Be alert at all times. 

What a far cry that is from ‘hunker down and cover your head.’ Know what is happening in the world around you, even if it threatens your sanity! But that does not mean be so distracted by it that we forget who we are—and whose we are—and react in kind.

In Fredericksburg, Virginia, three-quarters of the way across the country from Irving, Texas, an Islamic Center applied for a permit to build a new, larger mosque nearby. This faith community has occupied the same spot without incident for 15 years. Like its Christian neighbors, it supports the local homeless center, has potluck meals and conducts events for the neighborhood, like “farm fun day” featuring horse rides and a petting zoo.

But the public hearing to present their proposal turned ugly. Citizens with legitimate concerns about traffic were drowned out by raw, anti-Muslim rhetoric. The senior pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church attended the meeting intending to “speak toward peace,” but gave up. “It’s really wrong to paint with such a broad brush,” he said. But the crowd wasn’t ready to hear his message of peace.

The Way Is through Light and Shadow, by Bette J. Kauffman

How often the fear that leads to faintness of heart goes hand in hand with acts designed to induce terror in the hearts of those we perceive as the threat. How sad when fear turns us against our very neighbor, such that the sheriff must shut down a civic meeting to prevent violence. 

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you, prays the psalmist (25:1, NRSV), who then reminds us that God is our salvation. Not national power, not the guns we carry, not legal protection of our hate-filled behavior—but God alone is our salvation and worthy of our trust.

The psalmist also asks for teaching and guidance in the way of the Lord, then in verse 9 tells us what that means: All the paths of the LORD are love and faithfulness. 

In his first letter to the Thessalonians (3:9-13, NRSV), Paul gives thanks for that new community of faith and prays for them. Today, I make Paul’s prayer our prayer: That we may increase and abound in love for one another and for all as we look forward to the coming of Christ—both as babe in the manager, a beginning, and at the end of all time with all the saints.

AMEN.

Let My Ego Go

St. Luke's Episcopal Chapel, Grambling, La., 27 Sept. 2015

One day in heaven, St. Peter is standing at the pearly gates doing his usual thorough job of checking IDs and deciding who gets in and who doesn't. 

Along comes Jesus, who watches for a minute then says, “Hey, Peter, how’s it goin’, man?”
“Well,” says St. Peter, “I have a complaint. You know, Lord, I’m scrupulous about my job here.  I interview each soul arriving at the Gate of Heaven, and I check to see if his or her name is written in the Book of Life.  I turn away the people not worthy to enter heaven, but a little while later I turn around and I see those very people wandering around on the inside!  I don’t get it! What’s going on?”

Jesus chuckles and say, “Yeah, well, that’s my mother for you! Those people you turn away? She’s letting them in through the back door.” 

In today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 9:38-50, NRSV), Jesus’ disciples are ego-tripping. This is actually not an unusual occurrence. We get to see the Chosen Twelve ego-tripping with some regularity, like when they argue about who is the greatest while Jesus is trying to teach them about being servant of all.

Today’s ego-tripping has to do with insiders vs. outside. They—the Twelve—are, after all, the ultimate insiders. They travel with Jesus. They hang on his every word—even when they totally don’t get it—which is also with great regularity.

And so they are upset when they see someone else acting like an insider. They see someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and they try to stop him. He was not following us, St. John says, and you can hear the petulance in his voice.

And Jesus says, in no uncertain terms, ‘Get over it guys. Back off! The cause of Christ is what matters, and whoever does it, whoever gives a cup of water in my name, is on my side.’

Indeed, Jesus is sufficiently disturbed by their ego-tripping that he sets a tone of danger in what he says next. Do not be a stumbling block, he says.

Do not let your pride get in the way of anyone else’s soul journey, he says, or you really will wish you were dead. Sounds a lot like Proverbs 16:18, which we popularize as “Pride goeth before a fall.” Jesus cited the Hebrew Scriptures a lot!

This form of ego-tripping is epidemic in our hyper-partisan national politics today. It is exactly what leads to stalemate in government. It leads people in power and those who support them.. to reject ideas and refuse to negotiate on the basis of which party is behind those ideas at a given moment in time.

We are all too quick to turn political leanings, like “liberal” or “conservative” into missiles we fire at one another, without pausing to hear what each other has to say on real issues that concern everyone. We really don’t want to consider the possibility that both—or all—points of view are essential to finding the best path through thorny problems, like how to create an economic system that works for everyone.

Wherever matters of identity and points of view divide people from each other and become stumbling blocks to working together for the common good, ego-tripping is involved—even when it involves religious people like ourselves.

A couple of years ago, Bishop Jake appointed me to head the Diocese’s Dismantling Racism Commission. About a year ago, as part of that work, I began traveling to St. Joseph, Louisiana, about once a month to do some community organizing, using the methodology of the Industrial Areas Foundation, which I learned via my long-time involvement with Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith.

St. Joseph, Louisiana, is a deeply divided community along several lines. Probably the greatest of these is race, but in that area, race is deeply intertwined with socio-economic status and geography. To put it quite simply, the town is made up primarily of poor and working class black folks, whereas nearby Lake Bruin is surrounded by middle to upper class white folks.

Ironically, one thing that motivates these very different groups of people to consider trying to come together is that the lovely, middle class white churches are all located in the poor, black town of St. Joseph. So… Sunday morning is the most integrated time in St. Joseph.

Of course, the black folks and the white folks aren’t INSIDE the same churches. But they are all in town… all sharing the same pot-holed streets, run-down and boarded up buildings, and derelict water system.

Let me assure you, this is exhilarating but exhausting and frustrating work! At this point, we have formed an organization we call Tensas Faith Community, and we have two white churches and two black churches involved.

At times, we are in perfect harmony. At others, we struggle with fear, distrust, and, yes, ego-tripping. People are always free to come and go, stay or leave as they choose, but…. it becomes really tempting to draw lines in the sand.

“What do we stand for?” someone wants to know. “We need to put it into writing, so I can decide if I’m in or out!” Or, “if we get involved with that, I’m outta here,” someone says, before we’ve even discussed and heard each others’ points of view about what getting involved with that means.

I believe that human ego is the biggest of the stumbling blocks to our own faith journey, and the biggest stumbling block we throw in the way of others’ faith journey. I believe Jesus is telling us in the story, “Let your ego go.”

I don’t know what divides the community of Grambling, Louisiana, but I’ll bet something does. And I’ll bet human ego is part and parcel of it. And whatever it is, Jesus wants us—St. Luke’s in Grambling—to be in the business of dismantling it.

Black and white South Africans hold hands at a rally celebrating Nelson Mandela's release in 1990.

We Episcopalians inherent a long tradition of being the establishment church. From the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. to St. Thomas’ in Philadelphia—the first ever black Episcopal Church in the U.S.—Episcopal Churches have been the spiritual home of the Middle Class and on up. We have produced presidents and politicians at every level, academics galore, and religious leaders who have left their mark on all of Christendom.

But we have not always been the best at what Pope Francis is demonstrating as we speak--namely standing in solidarity with "the little ones" and "the least of these."

We're good at charity. We are generous with our dollars. But I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about seeking to see the world from another's point of view, and suspending ego and judgment long enough to give relationship a change. I'm talking about being in relationship across the lines that divide. 

AMEN