Mary Mother, Not So Meek & Mild

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La., Advent 4

My grandbabies are about to be born! Yes, you heard correctly: Babies! My daughter-in-law will deliver twins—a boy and a girl—probably by C-section, right after Christmas. I couldn’t be more excited. 

 

I don’t need to tell most of you that becoming a grandparent is fun. And part of the fun of it, at least for me, has been watching my son—the kid who wasted untold hours playing video games, who had to be nagged incessantly to make a walking path through the mess in his room, who couldn’t be depended on to take out the garbage until the can was overflowing—that kid! Watching him become a dad before my very eyes has been a delight. He’s a good one already, full of anticipation and love for his “munchkins." 

 

But he’s had to learn a few lessons along the way, not only about being a dad, but about being husband to the mother of his children. I’ll never forget the day he reported that he couldn’t argue with his pregnant wife about anything anymore. No matter what his complaint or concern, she would say, “I made organs today. What did you do?” 

 

He laughed ruefully and conceded, “There’s just nothing you can say in response to that.” I would sum up the lesson my son learned as "you mess with pregnant women at your own peril."

 

  

Today’s Gospel story is about the powerful, spirit-filled meeting of two pregnant women, Mary, the mother of our Lord, and Elizabeth, her cousin and the mother of John the Baptist. We know the story well. The messenger meets the message. John the Unborn leaps in his mother’s womb. He recognizes Mary’s Unborn, just as John the Baptist would later recognize Jesus the Son of God on the banks of the Jordan River. 

 

There’s a 15th Century English Christmas carol called Mary Mother, Meek and Mild. I was surprised when I searched on YouTube yesterday for a recording of it, that all I found was two versions under the title “Maiden Mother, Meek and Mild.” 

 

I have no idea what inspired that title change, but if you search via Google for the lyrics, you will find them:

 

    Mary mother, meek and mild,

    From shame and sin that ye us shield,

    For great on ground ye go with child, 

        Gabriele nuncio. (Gabriel’s messenger.) 

 

Much art and much popular culture tends to think of Mary in those terms. In most representations, she sits or stands with her head bowed and canted slightly to the side. Dressed in the white of purity with a cloak of calm, serene blue, she is the very picture of submissive, demure womanhood. 

 

She said “yes” to God. Her response to Gabriel, when he tells her she is pregnant, is mild indeed. I cannot image myself—or any woman I know—being quite so calm under the same circumstances. She refers to herself in her song as “lowly servant.” 

 

So Mary comes by the “meek and mild” description somewhat honestly. She does say “yes” to God, even when it means a tough road ahead, and that’s an important lesson for all of us. 

 

But if we leave it there, we have done Mary a disservice. We have ignored an equally important aspect of this story. We have downplayed the absolutely subversive aspect of what is happening here. 

 

Diana Butler Bass is a prolific author of books to inspire, challenge and support people determined to follow Jesus, come what may. And she is one of a handful of contemporary Christian leaders who skillfully employs social media to counter the negative forces of divisive politics and Christian nationalism. 

 

So yesterday I paused during sermon writing to check my own Twitter feed, and came across her take on today’s Gospel story. “The only Christmas action movie I want to see,” she wrote, “is about two pregnant women plotting to overthrow empire.” 

 

“Plotting to overthrow empire”? Well, yes, if you take Mary’s song seriously! 

 

The Rural Women's Farmers Association of Ghana gathers often to exchange seeds and farming tips. Photo: Global Justice Now

See, we read the Song of Mary every year—every single year—on Advent 4. It is also a required piece of Evening Prayer. So if you do Evening Prayer with any regularity, you read the Song of Mary often. Suffice it to say, we are familiar with the Song of Mary. 

 

Perhaps too familiar with it. So familiar with it that the words roll off our lips without a thought about the implication of them. So let’s hear them again, but without that disarming bit at the beginning about being a “lowly servant.” Indeed, let’s get to the heart of it. Mary sings,

He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Notice that Mary does not put these subversive actions in the future. She does not say, “He will scatter the proud…,” or “He will lift up the lowly…” Rather, she says, with this pregnancy, God has already done these things. And, indeed, that is exactly what Jesus taught and preached and stood for: lifting up the lowly, challenging and rejecting the proud, self-righteous, and powerful. 

As for the rich, recall the rich young ruler. When Jesus declined to give him the excuse he was looking for, he went away, sad but empty, for he valued his wealth more than following Jesus. 

 

This story of two pregnant women and a babe leaping in the womb of one of them, in recognition of the Holy One in the womb of the other, is a call to us. It is a call to make space for Jesus the Christ to come alive in our hearts. 

 

But more than that. Brothers and sisters, no matter how hard we try to make the Gospel message an affirmation of the status quo, we cannot. To sing the Song of Mary is to say that the Gospel message resists and rejects the status quo, and the relationships of power and wealth that so dominate human societies. 

 

Yes, we should be good church people. We should come to church, study the Bible, break bread as siblings in Christ, love one another. But that’s the beginning. It was precisely the good church people of his time that Jesus was most critical of and with whom he argued the most. 

 

So be subversive! See Christ in everyone. Love them. Share what you have. Seek the common good. Consider the most powerless, poorest person you know and walk a mile in their shoes.

 

When you make room in your heart for Jesus the Christ to come alive and leap for joy, you will also know joy. It will change your priorities. It will change how you view your neighbors. You will not be able to help yourself. 

 

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Choose Joy

 Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La., Advent 3

You brood of vipers! Do not even try to make excuses for yourselves! God knows who you are; he made you. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 

 

So John the Baptizer preaches. Having grown up in a deeply protestant, rather Calvinistic religious tradition, I’ve heard many a sermon like that. The surprise here is that Luke, our observer of this sermon, concludes his account on an upbeat note. 

 

So, with many other exhortations, Luke says, he [John the Baptizer] proclaimed the good news to the people.

You know, if that’s the good news, I think I’ll pass on the bad new! 

Today is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, the “Joy” Sunday. We celebrate this departure from the solemnity of Advent with a pink candle and pink vestments.  

 

Of course, there is good news—and cause for joy—in John’s sermon and I will come back to that. But for the moment, “joy” is a lot more obvious in our other lessons for today. 

 

Take Zephaniah: Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! 

 

Listen to Paul writing to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 

 

Now, you might think from these passages, that Zephaniah and Paul were living in hunky dory times when they wrote these words, right? Everything must have been right in the world for them to experience such joy! The stock market was performing, the economy booming. The nations were at peace. Politics was all polite debate and cooperation. Unity abounded. No culture wars. Right? 

 

But of course, wrong! That’s not how it was at all. Zephaniah was a prophet. His main job was to preach God’s judgement to the Israelites—who at that point in time were divided into two nations that each seemed to be trying to outdo the other in terms of sinfulness. 

 

As for Paul, things were far from hunky dory. He most likely wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail. 

 

Joy is an emotion, and we humans have a strong tendency to think of emotions—like joy, happiness, contentment—as things we experience in response to… well, other things. Our lives are going well, so we are content. Our grandchildren are born, or about to be born as in my case! And we experience joy. Our families gather for the holidays and we are happy. 

 

Moreover, we come to depend on these other things to bring us joy or happiness or contentment. We look to the world around us and wait for the feelings to happen. 

 

Brothers and sisters, consider the possibility that joy is something we must choose, and we have good reason to choose it—regardless of what’s happening in the world around us. 

 

Here’s how I came to that realization. A number of years ago—probably at least 16 years ago—I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We met a woman missionary there who had arranged for us to work for most of a week cleaning and painting and getting an Episcopal day school ready for the school year. 

 

This Episcopal Day school was a very plain, basic school—small classrooms, a bare courtyard for a playground, no technology, no air conditioning, no closets stuffed with crayons, construction paper, markers, and more. In comparison, Grace Episcopal day school is quite luxurious. 

 

But then one day toward the end of the week, we finished our work early and our host took us to tour the community. And she took us to the most utterly poverty-stricken neighborhood I had ever seen, and to this day have ever seen. We drove down dirt streets. Trash was everywhere. Children played in the dirt and trash and weeds in front of houses built of scrap wood, rusty sheet metal, cardboard. Emaciated dogs scavenged for food. Open doorways and windows but no doors, no screens, no window panes. 

 

I was haunted by what I had seen. We finished our work in the next day or two and caught our flight back to the U.S. But I couldn’t get that neighborhood out of my mind. I had not the slightest idea how to help, and I still don’t. 

 

Oddly enough, very shortly after getting home, I was asked to speak at a worship service over at St. Thomas’. A group of folks—lay folks—were, at that time, meeting Sunday evenings for what we called a “praise service”—an informal worship comprised of singing, prayer, and sharing experiences of God in our lives. No clergy necessary, although a priest occasionally came by. 

 

And within days of getting back from that mission trip, I was asked to speak at that service. I did not know what to say. I was still haunted by the utter poverty of that neighborhood. It weighed on me. I did not feel like singing. I did not feel like praising God. If anything, I wanted to chew God out for letting that happen—as if God were responsible for the messes created by human societies. 

 

I did not feel joy. And so, I told the story, and then I said what I am saying to you today: We must choose joy. Joy is not a feeling we get when good things happen, when the stars align, when our children behave and our spouse gives us just what we wanted for Christmas. Joy is a choice we make. Regardless of what is going on in the world, we must choose joy. 

 

Listen to Creation

And why? Why must we choose joy? 

 

Zephaniah tells us: The Lord your God is in your midst, he says, and he says it not once but twice. He goes on to speak about God’s forgiveness and mercy—things to be joyful about, for sure. But the cause for joy, first and foremost, is—simply—that God is in our midst. In the midst of our sinfulness. In the midst of our political conflict. In the midst of our mess. 

 

St. Paul says basically the same thing: Rejoice…the Lord is near. And how about Isaiah? Look at the last verse of Canticle 9, the First Song of Isaiah: Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel. 

 

We choose joy because God is with us in this troubled and troubling world. We choose joy because no mess we humans have ever made is beneath God’s presence. We choose joy because we know that God has never and will never give up on us. We choose joy because we are God’s beloved, and that is enough. 

 

Does that mean we are always going to feel joyful? Of course not. Does choosing joy let us off the hook of caring for a hurting world? Relieve us of responsibility for cleaning up the horrific messes we humans have created? Of course not. I’m not preaching this sermon to let us off the hook! 

 

So here’s where I want to look back at the good news in John the Baptizer’s sermon. He preaches repentance in no uncertain terms, and indeed people repent. And they say to John, What then should we do? 

 

And John answers: If you have two coats, give one to your neighbor who has none. Share the food you have. He does NOT say, go create world peace. Solve the problem of world hunger. Fix the broken political system.

 

See, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the troubles of the world. It is possible to be frozen in our tracks by seemingly insurmountable problems. It is tempting to do nothing because we know we can’t do everything. Sometimes we decide that we didn’t cause a situation therefore it’s not our job to fix it. 

 

But where is God in that? Those are truly human—but truly joyless––responses to a hurting world and to our hurting neighbors. But where is God in those responses? 

 

Choosing joy is choosing something deeper than the transitory emotions that come from external events and situations. It’s remembering who we are and who we belong to—in spite of what is going on around us, and then sharing that good news in whatever ways we are able––individually and corporately. Choosing joy is making God’s love known to our neighbor however we can—remembering what Jesus taught us: That of those who have much, more is expected. 

 

Brothers and sisters, do not sit around waiting for the feels. Choose joy, for the Lord our God is in our midst.

  

 In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

So you want to see?

 Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La

One of the things I was required to do in the process of preparing for ordination to the diaconate was to complete a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. That means being a chaplain in a medical facility of some kind for a few months.

 

I did my CPE at Jefferson County Medical Center in Pine Bluff, Ark., under the direction of a man whose name I have been trying unsuccessfully to recall since I began writing this sermon Saturday morning!

 

He was an excellent teacher and much of what he taught me is indelibly imprinted on my brain, even if his name is not. One of those memorable teachings was that when you go into a hospital room to offer to pray with people, always ask people what they want you to pray for. Do not assume you know, even though it might seem obvious to you what they need.

 

The story he used to illustrate the point was his own experience of being called to the surgical suite one day at the hospital where he worked as chaplain. An older man had been admitted through the emergency room and he needed emergency surgery.

 

This chaplain met him as he lay on a gurney, about to be rolled into surgery. Would you like me to pray, asked the chaplain. Yes, said the man. And then, in spite of what seemed perfectly obvious that he should pray for, the chaplain asked, What would you like me to pray for?

 

A woman! the man on the gurney exclaimed. I need a woman in my life! So the chaplain prayed for relief for the man’s loneliness, since his wife had died a few years earlier, and for him to find companionship.

 

 

Seeing is, by and large, a very good thing. We have many sayings in our culture that convey this: “Show me,” we say, when we want to understand or become convinced of something. “I see,” we say, when understanding happens. “Seeing is believing,” we say, to explain the role of seeing in our lives.

 

Clearly, blind Bartimaeus wanted to see. But notice, that is not what he first asks for. Rather, he cries out for mercy. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! he says. And when others try to shush him, he cries out even louder: Son of David, have mercy on me!

 

Here’s a few things I love about this story. First, blind Bartimaeus will not be silenced by the perhaps well-intended but ultimately clueless people who want order and quiet--and to not be disturbed by someone else’s pain and distress. People who do not want their own comfort zone invaded by someone else’s manner of protest, someone else’s manner of calling for relief from oppression.

 

 

So in their own blindness they seek to silence blind Bartimaeus, but he calls out all the more. Jesus hears him and stops. I take heart from this. We do not need to go easy on God. God is not put off by the loud, raw cries of the distressed and the oppressed.

 

Second, blind Bartimaeus does not have his theological ducks all in a row. He does NOT cry out, “Jesus, Son of God,” as we might think he should. Rather, he cries out, Jesus, Son of David.    

 

Well, Jesus was a son of David, sort of, but that, to us, is not what matters in this context. We might wonder why Jesus would even respond to a person who got it wrong, who apparently did not understand who he really was.

 

We might say, Sorry, buddy, come back when you believe all the right things. We’re Christians here; here’s what you must believe if you want to be one of us. We saw that mentality in action among the disciples just a couple of Sundays ago when they complain to Jesus that someone NOT a member of their little in-group was casting out demons in Jesus’ name.

 

But Jesus is quite unperturbed by that. Over and over, he taught that he was in search of followers, not people who have all the right beliefs. I take heart from this, because I fear I will never have all of my theological ducks in a row either. I have too many questions. I love the questions.

 

The third thing I love about this story is that Jesus does not take for granted that he knows what blind Bartimaeus needs from him. What do you want me to do for you? he asks. 

 

 

 

Now blind Bartimaeus has already demonstrated the depth of his desire and longing. Notice that when Jesus invites him close, he does not merely get up and go. He flings aside his cloak and springs to his feet.

 

I wonder: What was the nature of that cloak blind Bartimaeus throws off? We humans wrap ourselves in so many cloaks to ward off the things we fear, to ward off the things that threaten our comfort and security.

 

We wrap ourselves in bank accounts and investments to ward off the panic zone of financial insecurity—a place where many people in our society live, full time. We wrap ourselves in communities of like-minded people—including our online social media communities—to ward off the anxiety of learning that people we actually know see the world in radically different ways than we do.

 

We cling to familiar narratives that make sense of the world in our terms. We surround ourselves with people who tend to look and think like we do, because difference can be so… uncomfortable. Learning that the social and cultural systems that have served us well, are oppressive, infuriating obstacles in the paths of others is downright painful. We might have to resist seeing it.

 

Blind Bartimaeus wanted to see. He flings off his cloak, springs to his feet and goes to Jesus. And when Jesus says, Go; your faith has made you well, he doesn’t actually go. What he does is follow Jesus on the way.

 

I’m guessing that among the things blind Bartimaeus had to learn along the way is that seeing is a double-edged sword.

 

Blind beggars sit by the wayside, wrapped in their cloak of blindness, and beg for mercy. 

 

 

Those who see, truly see, through the eyes of Jesus have their hearts broken by the suffering and pain they encounter in the world.

 

Those who see, truly see, through the eyes of Jesus.. must do something about it—because that’s what following Jesus means.

 

I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of the online ministry of the Brothers of Saint John the Evangelist, especially their daily meditation, “Brother, give us a word.”

 

A few days ago, the word was “Perception,” and the meditation went like this:

 

"When we label others, [like 'the poor' or 'the protestors,'] we stop seeing them as they are. We see them only as we are determined to see them, as we have decided that they must be. It’s important, then, to ask ourselves, as Jesus [once] asked Simon Peter: "Do you see this woman?" Who is it that I have difficulty seeing? Is there a person – or group of people – whom I refuse to see? Can I set aside my labels and take a fresh look?"

 

To which I add, do I have the courage to throw off the cloaks that protect me, spring to my feet and go see the world through the eyes of Jesus?

 

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Walking in the Presence of the Lord

Grace Episcopal Church, September 12, 2021

If you accept, as I do, that preaching is a form of teaching, and if you are not only a preacher but a teacher, as I am, today’s lessons give plenty of reason to run for whatever kind of cover can be found.

 

Isaiah presents “the tongue of the teacher” as a gift from God, and so it is. And on our better days, we manage to use it to sustain the weary with a word. And I’m going to try to do that later in this sermon.

 

But Isaiah also makes clear two additional and often hard to manage things about teaching. One of those is that your speaking will not always be appreciated. Speaking truth to power is never an easy thing. Speaking truth folks really don’t want to hear—whether they are powerful are not—is equally hard—even though it might be truth they really need to hear.

 

 

The other point Isaiah makes is that listening to those who are taught is critical. It took me as a teacher quite some time to learn to resist filling the air with words, and to allow silence to linger long enough for words other than my own to come forth. Those being taught are so accustomed to not being listened to, that even when invited to speak, the words often come hesitantly, warily.

 

Indeed, I think Isaiah’s point has a broad application, much broader than “official” teachers. Being a good listener does not necessarily come easily to any of us who have words, opinions, often clearly and strongly held points of view. From conversations at the water fountain at work to posting on social media, we are quite willing to fill whatever space is available to us with our words. 

 

 

So I, myself, have not only struggled to learn to sometimes just shut my mouth, bridle my tongue, but also I have been silenced by others—who have announced their own truth in such a way as to define my truth as unacceptable, stupid, crazy, unchristian, before I even open my mouth.

 

James, in particular, lays it out in plain terms: The human tongue has never been fully tamed by an imperfect human. We humans have tamed every other species. But we cannot tame our own tongues. We silence others with our vehemently voiced opinions, we sow wildfires with our gossip, we spread mistrust and cynicism by repeating rumors, half-truths, misinformation. Of late, we have learned just how deadly misinformation can be.

 

But James acknowledges that the tongue is also used to praise God. And, as Isaiah says, to sustain the weary with a word. Ultimately, the tongue is a mixed bag, at best, for, as James states, With it we bless the Lord…, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.

 

Early on I promised to try for a word to sustain the weary, and for that I turn to the Psalm appointed for today. It is often the case when I am at a loss for words, praying a Psalm helps, and that’s true whether my loss for words is due to great heartache or to great joy. The Psalms help us express the full range of human emotions.

 

 

 cThe first 8 verses of Psalm 116 came to my attention in a special way back in the year 2000. It was a time of great personal loss: a few weeks after my husband had died. It was a time of questioning: Why am I still here? What sort of arbitrary God snuffs out one life and not another?

 

This Psalm does not exactly answer that question, but it offers us something way more important. And so, I’m going to read it to you again, now.

 

I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication,
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.

The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me;
I came to grief and sorrow.

Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: "O Lord, I pray you, save my life."

Gracious is the Lord and righteous; our God is full of compassion.

The Lord watches over the innocent; I was brought very low, and he helped me.

Turn again to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has treated you well.

For you have rescued my life from death,
my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

 

Here’s what this Psalm has come to mean to me. God does not promise to save our lives by intervening in the messiness of the world. Indeed, the Psalm acknowledges, we WILL come to grief and sorrow.

But when we are brought low, God hears our cry and is with us and is saving our life—perhaps with so simple a thing as rest. That one line has been a balm to me many times, perhaps because I am one of those people who fills my life with too many things.

Turn to your rest, O my soul, for the God of the universe is with you, the God of the universe loves you—whether you get all that stuff done or not!

God saves my life with other things as well. I have a folder on my computer titled “What’s saving my life right now.” And in that folder are photographs, mostly photographs of beautiful skies: brilliant sunrises, thunder clouds forming, the sun’s rays steaming through an opening in the clouds, gorgeous sunsets.

Beautiful skies have saved my life many times. It might be something entirely different for you: faces of your loved ones, blooming flowers, waves rolling into a beach. Whatever. I strongly recommend that everyone start a collection that shows how God saves your life over and over again.

But it’s the last line of this Psalm that is the clincher for me:

I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

Back in 2016, a man walked into the Pulse nightclub in Florida and opened fire, slaughtering 49 people and wounding 53 more. One of the young men in my campus ministry group organized a time of prayer and grieving and remembrance at a bar in downtown Monroe. He asked me to come and speak.

I read Psalm 116:1-8 to the gathered crowd. And then I said words to this effect: Bad things happen. Horrific, inexplicably horrific crimes against humanity are committed by other humans. We are left to wonder. Where was God in that? Why those people and not me?

I cannot answer those questions. All I can say is that we, the living, must carry on. Our time, for whatever reason, has not yet come. And that means we have an obligation. We must go on, we must walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

Today, we are surrounded by remembrances of the inexplicably horrific crimes against humanity that happened September 11, 2001. And we are caught in a seemingly endless pandemic that has caused much grief and sorrow. Our political life is ugly, divisive. It feels a lot like being in the grip of the grave.

 

And so I conclude again with my final words to the crowd gathered after the Pulse shooting: To walk in the presence of the Lord means, we refuse to hate. We refuse to be divided by race, ethnicity, class and politics. We forgive instead of seek revenge. We are kind in the face of unkindness.

And most important of all, we spread love, God’s love, because God’s love is the only answer. In the words of Mother Teresa, Yesterday is gone, Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.

Gimme a sign!

Grace Episcopal Church, August 1, 2021 

When I first read the lessons in beginning to prepare this sermon, it struck me as a bit ironic that I was called upon to speak to you about “the bread of life” on this day when we will NOT have communion! 

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed an opportunity. After all, we Episcopalians are people of the Eucharist. Our prayer book is centered on the rite of Holy Eucharist, so much so that when it is not offered, attendance typically drops. Many thanks to you who showed up anyway! 

So maybe we don’t need another sermon about how Christ is our manna from heaven, our “bread of life” known to us in the breaking of bread. We got that! 

 

Maybe there’s some other point we need to take from today’s Gospel. The story is that some of the 5,000 who had been fed the previous day (last Sunday’s Gospel lesson) had hung around. But when morning came they realized that Jesus and his disciples had departed. They were no longer out there on the hillside. So they—the remains of the crowd—got into boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. 

And they find him and this strange dialogue takes place, “strange” because it is so clear that they sort of talk past each other. The crowd begins with a very literal, earth-bound kind of question: Rabbi, when did you come here? 

But Jesus isn’t interested in getting drawn into a conversation about worldly matters, like “when…?” and “how did you get here?” and so forth. Jesus wants to talk about spiritual things and so he challenges them right away. You’re here because your bellies are growling again, he says, not because you experienced God in what happened out on that hillside. 

And the people respond with another pretty earth-bound request: Ok, then just tell us what to do, they say. Give us a step-by-step, like ‘Go do this and this, and you’ll please God.’ 

I’ve known people like that. I’ve been that person. You know: ‘Don’t ask me to think. Don’t ask me to discern. Don’t ask me to become aware or tune in to other people and what’s going on with them. Just give me a “to-do” list, I’ll do it and we’ll be square. Right, God? 

So Jesus attempts to say again that experiencing God is less a to-do list than a condition of the heart and soul, the awareness of God in the person standing right in front of us, the awareness of God in the world around us. 

And what do the people want next? A sign! Give us a sign, they say. Remember, these are some of the same people who witnessed the feeding of the 5,000 some 24 hours earlier. 

I laughed out loud when I read this line again a few days ago. At this point, we might well ask, What is going on with these people? 

Well, like us, their feet are stuck in the muck of earthly things and earthly thinking. Jesus is talking about spiritual things, things of the kingdom of God. They are occupied with the daily grind of human things, like food on the table. 

Jesus offers spiritual food. They need food for their physical bodies. Jesus offers the presence of God in this world hear and now. They want a to-do list. Jesus gave them a sign. They saw only a miracle. 

So here’s a good place to point out that the word “miracle” does not occur in the Gospel according to John. Not once. The changing of water to wine at the wedding in Cana is there.., but it’s a “sign” according to John. The healing of the paralytic at Bethesda is there, but it’s not called a “miracle.” It’s called a “sign.” And so on, throughout John’s Gospel. 

 

So what’s the difference? A “miracle” is most commonly defined as a supernatural phenomenon of some kind. It’s something we humans cannot explain by any of our usual methods: reason, science, logic, whatever. All we can do is marvel at it. 

And notice that we can leave it at that. Marvel and move on. Not so a “sign,” because a sign points to something beyond itself. A sign says, there’s a greater, larger, more profound meaning that this thing right here points to. 

Ignoring a sign has consequences, like getting a speeding ticket because you didn’t attend to the speed limit sign. Or ending up in the hospital because you ignored the sign that you needed to go to the doctor about something. 

Miracles don’t require action on our part. In fact, they kind of discourage action because we know full well we can’t do them. All we can do is ask God to do one for us. 

A sign, on the other hand, does encourage action. Turn here. Slow down here. Go to the doctor now. Call a plumber before this drip turns into a flood. Etc. 

At the very least, a sign says, ‘Consider the larger meaning here. What is this sign pointing to? What does this sign require of me?’ 

And so the people who saw a miracle ask for a sign. They got their bellies filled, but they missed the point. Now Jesus has challenged their literal, earthly thinking, asked them to think spiritually, and they ask for a sign. To which Jesus rightly and succinctly responds, ‘I’m it. I’m the sign.’

Did they get it? I don’t know. Probably not fully or permanently. Do we get it? Maybe, partially, momentarily. 

So… here’s what I want us to take away from this strange, ships-passing-in-the-night dialogue today. I have two points, and I’m going to tread on the first one kind of lightly because I don’t want to give a wrong impression. 

The first one is this: Have we perhaps gotten so caught up in the rite of Holy Eucharist that we can’t and/or don’t encounter God any other way? 

 I mean, we understand Holy Eucharist as a sign, a sign that points to things far bigger than a wafer of bread and a drop of wine, a sign whereby we experience oneness with God. Hallelujah! 

BUT, if we are only encountering God here, in Holy Eucharist, we are impoverished. We are fetishizing THE sign when we are surrounded by a world full of signs. We are looking for God, open to God, in church and not in the world. 

God IS here in the breaking of the bread. Absolutely and positively. But God is also out there, in the guy standing on the street corner with a sign, penciled on cardboard, that says “homeless, please help.” 

That’s the second point, the one I want to tread on harder. God is out there. God. Is. Out. There. 

I don’t mean only in the homeless guy standing on the street corner, although I do mean that. And, as an aside: Whether he is actually homeless or running a grift is between him and God. Let’s err on the side of helping, rather than risk not helping someone who really needs help. But I mean more. 

 

The homeless person is, him or herself, not merely holding a sign, but a living sign of structural issues in our society, issues that require our attention as followers of Jesus. A few of those issues that person could be pointing to are 1) inadequate access to mental health care, 2) treating addiction like a crime rather than a disease, 3) lack of affordable housing, 4) stagnant wages that relegate essential workers to living in poverty. 

 I’m not going to stand here and spout glib answers as to exactly how we address these issues. As usual, the devil is in the details. But I will acknowledge, I am keenly aware, that it is much easier to hand a couple of bucks to a homeless person, than to confront the systems that create homelessness. 

So let me conclude with this: We are called to encounter God inside these glorious sanctuaries and at the Holy Table. But that’s the beginning, not the end. As followers of Jesus, we are called to encounter God out there, in carrying out the greatest commandment, the “to-do” list Jesus indeed gave us: Love God and your neighbor as yourself.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.