Choose joy!

 Christ Church, St. Joseph, La., Advent 3

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

 

But for John the Baptizer in today’s Gospel story, “joy” is most likely not what he is experiencing. He is in prison. His preaching has gotten him there. You will recall from other readings of his story other Advent Sundays that even though he preached hellfire and brimstone to the religious elite of his day and called everyone to repentance, people flocked to him to be baptized—people, including Jesus himself.

 

At the time of today’s Gospel account, John did not know yet what we know—that he would not leave that prison alive. Nevertheless, I must believe he was anxious, perhaps a bit fearful. I must believe he knew his prospects were not good.

 

Because.. as he faces an uncertain future, he needs to know one thing—one thing… for certain. And so he sends his followers to ask Jesus for a definitive answer: Are you the one? Or are we to wait for another?

 

Before we look at Jesus’ answer, we need to consider the nature of joy. 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; 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 17 years ago—I went on a mission trip with a small group of Episcopalians 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.

 

Toward the end of the week, after we had finished our work for the day, 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 “praise service” over at St. Thomas’. A group of lay folks were, at that time, meeting Sunday evenings for an informal worship of singing, prayer, and sharing experiences of God in our lives.

 

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—even though I fully understand that God is not 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.

 

And why? Why must we choose joy?

 

Well, consider that Jesus’ response to John gives us a clue. His answer is classic Hebrew Scripture code: Look at the signs: People are healed. Their eyes and ears are opened. Good news has come to poor people.

 

In other words, Messiah is here. God is with you.

 

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 about 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 sermons. He preached repentance in no uncertain terms, and indeed people repented. In Luke’s account, the people then say to John, What 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 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? Where is God in those truly human—but truly joyless responses to a hurting world and to our hurting neighbors? We are Christ’s body in this world. We must be the agents of the good news.

 

Choosing joy is choosing something deeper than the transitory emotions that come from those 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, individually and corporately, can. 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.

Where's God?

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

I had the great fun and joy of spending Friday with my grandbabies. You might recall that I have two, a boy and a girl, born December 23, 2021. So they are rapidly approaching their first birthday. Jaxson, the boy, is walking. Madison, the girl, was born tiny and spent her first 48 hours in the NICU, so she’s physically a bit behind him.

 

Nevertheless, the two of them can get into a lot of trouble together already. So… Friday I’m sitting on the couch keeping an eye on them while they travel the living room together, Jaxson walking and Madison right behind with her odd but efficient crawl method.

 

  

Now I do not understand fully the fascination that draperies hold for kids, but soon they ended up on the floor with their heads behind the living room drapes that were just long enough to cover their heads and not their bodies. And so…. a game of peekaboo ensured.

 

I’m sure you know how it goes. I’d call out, “Where’s Jaxon? Where’s Maddie?” And they’d push back the curtain to reveal their faces and I’d say, “There’s Maddie! There’s Jaxson!” and they would giggle, and go back under the curtain for round… umpteen.

 

A childish game for sure. But this morning I propose that we are a lot like those toddlers when it comes to seeing God and being seen by God. One of the ways we are like them, is that we cover our faces and think we are hiding from God. Well, we aren’t, and at some level we know that. Nevertheless, we keep trying to hide from God. But that’s a different sermon, and I’m not going there this morning.

 

Here's where I’m going this morning: We wear veils over our faces—fairly thick ones—most of the time. And those veils prevent us from seeing God. 

 

Remember that two weeks ago, I preached here at Christ Church about the story of Zaccheus. I said that he was seen by God and that it transformed his life. I didn’t mention it then, but, in fact, an historian of his time records that Zaccheus went on to become the First Bishop of Caesarea. Pretty remarkable: From despised tax collector to honored Bishop.

 

I also noted that Zaccheus, as well as the rich young ruler, and truthfully lots of people in the New Testament, met Jesus on the road into Jericho. And then I said, “I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere! If church is the only place you are looking for Jesus, you’re not looking very hard!”

 

 

Today I will say, if the only place you are finding God is in church, then that veil you wear over your face most of the time is blocking your view.

 

See, that’s what I think today’s Gospel story is all about: It’s about looking for God in... well, not exactly the wrong places, because God is definitely here. More accurately, it’s about looking for the limitless, unbounded, living God.. in limited, bounded, mortal places.

 

God does not need this building. Any more than God needed an elaborate “tabernacle” constructed of fine wood and gilded with gold to be carried across the wilderness by our early ancestors, the Israelites. God did not need the First Temple, built of fine materials by Solomon and decked out in gold and jewels. God did not need the Second Temple, begun by Herod the Great and under construction for 46 years--the one Jesus predicts will fall in today's Gospel story.

 

Of course, God graciously met the faithful in those temples and continues to meet people of faith in all manner of temple and synagogue and church across the face of this planet. But God does not need these buildings. Every one of them will, one day, crumble to the ground.

 

We need them. We humans need the buildings. Or at least we think we do!

 

Because the limitless, unbounded, living God does meet us in these limited, bounded, mortal places. And it is good for us to take a shower, dress up nice, put on our best behavior and come to meet God here on a weekly basis. Good on us for doing that!

 

The problem comes when we confuse “a house of God,” like this church, with God’s home, which is the universe and everything in it, including us. We are the home of God! How many times does the Bible tell us that? How many ways did Jesus say it? The one I remember best is when he said, “The Kingdom is among and within you.”

 

So what is the nature of the veil we wear that leads us into the trap of conflating our “houses of God” with the constant and ubiquitous presence of God “out there” and everywhere we turn?

 

Well, I think part of it is we’re not so sure we want God everywhere out there and with us constantly. Maybe this sermon is a little bit about hiding from God after all! Because if God is everywhere and within me, how can I curse and flip a bird at the guy or gal who’s driving way under the speed limit in the passing lane? 

 

A dead sperm whale that washed up on the shore of Indonesia had 13 lbs of plastic trash in its stomach.

More seriously, if the home of God is the universe, how can I continue a lifestyle that produces the almost 6 pounds of trash per day that is the average per person in the U.S.A. BTW, only about 1.5 pounds of that gets recycled. The rest of it ends up in massive, smelly landfills in God’s living room, and acres of trash clogging God’s—and our—water supply and tons of plastic in the bellies of one of God’s most extraordinary creations—the whale. 

 

In other words, we really prefer to meet God primarily on Sundays when we are scrubbed and dressed nicely and on our best behavior!

 

I think another thing that contributes to our tendency to seek God here and not out there is fear. Because.. what if we really did see God in the face of all other human beings? How would that change our lives? We would have to give up our most fondly held prejudices, the ones we use to reassure ourselves that we are the “good guys” and those other folks over there who do not behave or think or value as we do are the “bad guys.”

 

In his letter to the Thesselonians, Paul says that people should work, and if they don’t work, they shouldn’t eat. I don’t have to ask for a show of hands to be pretty sure we all agree with that. But let us not get self-righteous about it, because our very agreement raises a question we would probably all rather avoid.

 

That question is, if we work so we can eat, why then do we have in the United States about 38.1 million people, that’s 11.8% of us, who are classified as “working poor,” meaning that they work—real jobs, essential jobs—but live below the poverty line. They make daily choices between food for the table and repairing the only vehicle they have to get to work, or between food and medication, or food and paying the electric bill.

 

The veil we wear over our faces that inhibits our seeing God everywhere, in the Universe and in everything in it, including our fellow humans, protects us from uncomfortable truths. It protects us from having to consider how we might need to change our own lives so to honor God’s creation and treat it justly and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

Pulling aside that veil is not child’s play. It takes courage. As Jesus says, it will separate you from family and friends, who do not want to hear about the working poor, or how human behavior is destroying God’s creation at an alarming rate, people who prefer to keep the veil in place.

 

But there is also joy to be found in lifting the veil. It’s the joy of meeting God at every turn. As Jesus says, the joy of gaining your own soul.

 

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Being Seen

 October 30, 2022, Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

A few weeks ago, I saw a cartoon in a friend’s Facebook feed that really grabbed me. I do not remember all the details, but it was about something I do a lot. It poked gentle fun at people like me, who continue to buy books long after they already own many, many books they have not yet read.

 

It said something along the lines of, ‘Really, I am on track to read all the books I own. I should be finished by the time I’m 564 years old.’

 

I laughed. And then I posted a comment. “I feel seen,” I said.

 

 

 I’m guessing most of us have had that experience. We look at a screen or a show or a meme, we watch a movie or read a cartoon, and we feel seen. We feel understood. We recognize our selves. Often we laugh.

 

And perhaps most powerful of all, we realize that we’re not alone. Someone else in the world is like us in some way.

 

Today our Gospel story is about a guy who ‘gets seen’ in the most powerful, life-changing way possible. He gets seen by God.

 

I think it’s important that Zaccheus gets seen by God because he goes to extraordinary lengths to get a look at God. Of course, he didn’t know it was God he was trying to see. I’m sure he thought Jesus was just an itinerant prophet passing through town.

 

But something he had heard or something about his own life, or maybe some combination of Jesus’ reputation and Zaccheus’ circumstances or experiences, came together and compelled him to go get a look at Jesus, indeed, to go the great indignity of climbing a tree to try to get a glimpse of him.

 

See, Zaccheus was not exactly just an “ordinary guy.” He was not the town drunk who climbed the tree in a stupor. He was not a kid who climbed trees for the fun of it. He was a wealthy man, very wealthy, because he was a tax collector and not just a tax collector but the chief tax collector for the town of Jericho.

 

And that means he might well have been the most powerful and the most despised guy in town. He had the backing of the oppressive Roman regime to collect taxes as he saw fit—lining his own pockets as he wished, as long as he gave the Romans their due. But the social price he paid for that was to be thought of pretty much as a traitor, a Jew who worked for the enemy.

 

I’m sure his wife dressed in finery. But I wonder how she felt about being the wife of the town pariah. I’m sure his kids had everything they wanted, but I’ll bet they got teased unbearably in school. I imagine Zaccheus knew the hard way that money and power do not bring happiness or contentment. Maybe that’s why he was so ripe for the picking.

 

But ripe for the picking he was. Here’s this wealthy, powerful guy climbing up a tree, risking everybody on the ground looking right up his skirt…  hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus and, in all likelihood, assuming Jesus will never once look up at him.

 

Why would he? Why would the prophet and healer, the most righteous man he had ever heard of, take note of the biggest sinner of them all?

 

But of course he did. Indeed, Jesus calls out to Zaccheus before he even gets to the tree. He doesn’t just happen to look up and see this guy perched in the tree. He doesn’t wait for the fruit to fall. He calls out, “Come down, man, I’m on my way to your house!”

 

Wouldn’t you love to have seen Zaccheus come down from that tree? I’m betting it took a fraction of the time it took to climb up. I’m guessing he grabbed a limb and swung to the ground, because there he is in the blink of an eye, face to face with Jesus.

 

I said earlier that Zaccheus was “ripe for the picking.” At this point it is worth comparing this story to another well known story about a man who goes looking for Jesus.

 

I’m speaking of the man known as the “rich young ruler” in the story told in Matthew. So there’s similarity right away. Both Zaccheus and the young ruler are wealthy.

 

And there’s a second similarity: They both go to encounter Jesus on a road Jesus is traveling, Zaccheus on the road into Jerisho, the young ruler while Jesus is traveling about Judea healing and teaching.

 

Neither of them, you will notice, goes to church or the synagogue to find Jesus. Indeed, the people Jesus encountered in the synagogue mostly criticized him, argued with him, or chased him out of town!

 

I think there’s a lesson for us in there somewhere. If church is the only place you are looking for Jesus, well… you’re not looking very hard! You’re taking the easy way out. However hard it is for us to drag ourselves out of bed on a Sunday morning, it’s nothing like actually following Jesus out into the world where he carried out his ministry and called upon us to follow him!

 

As the Franciscan friar and priest Richard Rohr has somewhat famously said, “It’s a whole lot easier to go to church than it is to follow Jesus.” It’s perhaps my favorite of his sayings.

 

But back to the rich young ruler and Zaccheus the tax collector: there the similarity ends. The rich young ruler walks away shaking his head. He encountered God with a capital “G,” but it did not change him. He already had his god with a small “g,” namely his wealth.

 

Zaccheus is transformed. He does not wait to be told what he needed to do. The words tumble out of his mouth. He has been seen by God and he knows he has been seen. He is humbled, and he knows what to do.

 

Again, notice the contrast. The rich young ruler asks, “Teacher, what must I do…” “What must I do…” He had an agenda. He was looking for another rule to follow. He did not expect or want to be seen for who he really was.

 

Zaccheus came with no agenda other than to see. And he got more than he bargained for. He seeks God with an open heart and mind, and so he accepts the gift of being seen. You’ve seen me Lord, he acknowledges, now here’s what I’m going to do.

 

And that’s the most powerful lesson of all: Being seen by God can transform us. It can heal us. It can change our lives.

 

But we must be ripe for the picking. We must put our own agendas aside. We must know that we have been seen as the sinners we really are, not as “the good church people” we imagine ourselves to be. Only then will we be transformed.

 

In the name of God, father, son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.

God-Saturated II

 Trinity Sunday, Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, 6-12-22

A few years ago driving home from St. Joseph, La., on a Sunday afternoon I stopped at the edge of a swamp just over the Mississippi River levee that runs along the east side of Hwy 65. It was a favorite place to photograph dragonflies, and that particular day I went out on a rocky point that extended about 20 yards into an open water area of the swamp. 

 

I was crouched near the edge of the water stalking dragonflies when something compelled me to look up. There about 40 yards out from me in the water were ‘gator eye bumps, focused on me. I assessed my situation, looking back to my car to make sure my route was clear should I need to hastily depart. 

 

The 'gator did not move but lay in the water, eyes on me. Should I leave? I decided to stay. The 'gator appeared to just be curious. At that moment, a tiny dragonfly--one of our tiniest called eastern amberwing, that has wings like gold filagree--perched on an eye bump. I laughed out loud at the incongruity of it. 

 

I have since seen that happen many times. What’s the attraction? Why do dragonflies perch on 'gator heads? And what does it have to do with Trinity? I'll try to make a connection later!

 

Today is Trinity Sunday, which means I have the impossible task of trying to make sense of our theology of Trinity—God as three in one, one in three.

 

Well, I can’t! But I’m also not content to just say, “it’s a mystery,” and sit down.., although you will be forgiven for wishing that I would!

 

I don’t remember who said it or where I read it, but a favorite quote goes like this: “If you think you have God all figured out, whatever you have figured out is no longer God. By definition, it is no longer God.”

 

I can’t explain Trinity, but I can share some thoughts about the God-saturated universe in which we live and move and have our being, a universe that points constantly and consistently to Divine Trinity.

 

One of the influences on my thinking about Trinity is Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar, who has written a book about Trinity I’m reading right now. It’s called “The Divine Dance.”

 

You might have noticed that I just said “Trinity” several times without putting “the” in front of it. That was quite deliberate and I got it from Rohr’s book. Trinity, he says, is how God is being God.

 

When you put “the” in front of any word, that word becomes a noun: the book, the desk, put the book on the desk, etc. When you take the “the” away, the noun begins to move. Even “the book” can become a verb, as in “Book him, Dano.”

 

So remove the “the” and liberate “Trinity.” Think dynamic relationships, a circle dance of relationships, God being God—rather than a ”thing.”

 

How we talk... matters. If this doesn’t make complete sense right now, or if you think I’m nuts, just try it. Try creating a few sentences that refer to “Trinity” without putting “the” in front of it and watch what happens. It just might begin to expand your thinking about God being Trinity.

 

Another influence on my thinking about Trinity is the many hours I have spent studying the natural world and exploring it with my camera. I kid you not, I consider many of those hours to be prayer.

 

So here’s two ideas I have about God that are deeply rooted in and continuously reinforced by the hours I spend interacting with creation. The first is that God loves diversity and the second is that God loves relationship.

 

Here’s one little story that begins to illustrate the point. Restoration Park over in West Monroe on the south side of I-20 is exactly what its name says: a park created by restoring 70 acres that had been used for various industrial purposes over many years—a gravel pit and a dump being two of them, as I recall—and returning those acres to their original, natural forest and wetland state.

 

In restoring it they preserved human access in the form of well-maintained trails and a boardwalk over the wetland part. It’s lovely and indeed a testimony to the fact that nature is quite resilient and given a little help from humankind, the environment will heal itself.

 

So... a funny/not-so-funny thing happened. The wetland portion of the park consists of two small, shallow lakes—formed by the activity of resident beavers that dammed up the streams running through the park. These small, shallow lakes have real value—a significant value being that the park serves nicely to capture run-off from the surrounding West Monroe community, slowing down the water, reducing erosion and reducing flash-flooding downstream. That’s how wetlands function and why the loss of wetlands can be so devastating.

 

But sometime last winter, the beavers started to chew the balustrades of the boardwalk. We don’t know why. Pressure-treated lumber is not their natural food. But they did.

 

And so the city of West Monroe decided to do something about the beavers so they wouldn’t have to keep repairing the boardwalk. I’m happy to report they did not kill them. They live-trapped them and moved them.

 

Do I need to describe what happened next? The beaver dams fell apart, the water drained out of the little lakes, and invasive plant species quickly made their move to take over. The boardwalk was safe, but who wants to walk a boardwalk over a field of dry, cracked mud and a monoculture of weeds?

 

The good news is that a couple members of the local chapter of Master Naturalists who live in West Monroe spotted the problem. With some advice from the restoration ecologist on the ULM biology faculty, they spent some time making like beavers, and until the beaver population recovers, we Master Naturalists will do our best to keep the park alive.

 

We humans have such a limited understanding of the absolute interconnectedness of nature, the myriad ways every single thing is in relationship to everything else, that we make damaging mistakes all the time. It really is true that a butterfly flaps its wings in Louisiana and the weather changes in Beijing. Tug a spider web and something moves halfway around the world.

As for diversity, it too is the norm. All you have to do is look at a drop of pond water under a microscope, or count the critters that live in your back yard—bugs included, or try to identify all of the plant species in a half mile of road ditch.., or walk into a grocery store and look at the people there, for that matter.

 

So… what does that have to do with Trinity? It certainly does not explain it. But maybe it gives us a toehold. Maybe thinking about diversity and relationship helps us to grasp for just a moment that diversity can be unified in relationship and unity through relationship can be expressed as diversity.

 

Maybe Trinity is the very epitome of diversity in relationship. Maybe the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the model for relationship in diversity for the whole planet.

 

The very best news is that this Trinitarian circle dance of diversity in relationship and relationship in diversity is open. Not closed, but open. And we are invited to participate.

 

God is love. Love keeps the dance going, but love by its very nature cannot be contained. You have heard it said that love is the one thing we can have… only by giving it away. Better yet, love is less a thing than an action verb.

 

I began this sermon with a story about an encounter between me, a ‘gator and a dragonfly. It had no direct bearing on Trinity. Rather, it was one of many, many moments that shows me that we live in a God-saturated universe.

 

The outpouring of love from God in the persons of Father, Son and Holy

Spirit meets us at every turn and draws us in. We can and do resist, always to our own detriment. But love wins and will win all in the end.

 

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

Abandoned

 7 Easter, Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

I am a teacher. I have earned my living primarily with words. Then I became a deacon and my diaconal ministry consisted of more talk, working together with other folks across the social, economic, and religious spectrum to shape public decision-making to benefit the common good.

 

Being a deacon includes preaching. But today, because of the confluence of events and the church year, I stand before you charged with the task of filling this space in our worship with words… and I have none. I feel abandoned. Quite utterly abandoned.

 

 

And not just by words. Jesus the Christ has left us. We have spent the last several weeks reading about and contemplating his resurrection appearances. Last Sunday he told us clearly that he was going and that we could not go with him. He ascended into heaven several days ago, according to the church calendar, and the Holy Spirit has not yet come.

 

Before he left us, Jesus prayed for us. We call it the High Priestly prayer. It is a wonderful, multilayered expression of his love for his followers.

 

Only the Gospel according to John records this prayer. It is a long prayer, the longest prayer Jesus prays in his time on earth, at least according to the written record. Thus our lectionary divides it into 3 parts: Year A gets the first part, Year B the second part and Year C—the year we are currently in—gets the 3^rd part, which I just read to you.

 

And it is in the 3^rd part that Jesus prays specifically for US. He prays not only on behalf of those with him at that moment, but, he says, also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word. That, friends, would be us.

 

So reading this tender, loving prayer, in which Jesus invites us into communion with himself and the Father, and invites us to experience his glory, and offers to fill us with his love… Reading this prayer for us should be comforting.., should it not?

 

Usually, for me, it is. “Comforting” is exactly how I have experienced it many times in the past.

 

But not this year. This year reading this prayer floods me with grief, and helpless anger, and most of all.. an overwhelming conviction of unworthiness. Utter unworthiness. Hopeless unworthiness. For we have failed. Again. And yet again.

 

I mentioned a confluence of events with the church year, and to that I must turn our attention… dragging my feet every step of the way.

 

Some of you will recall that just over 4 years ago, I was on the docket to preach here at Grace Episcopal just days after the murder of 17—teenagers and teachers—at a high school in Florida.

 

I’m not going to preach that sermon again today. Should anyone want to review it, it is still available on my sermon blog here.

 

But, sadly, that sermon is as relevant now as it was the day I preached it. So today it seems, simply, futile. Futile, because the same empty excuses about why we can’t do anything about gun violence began to flood our airways and social media almost before the sounds of the shots in Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX, had died out.

 

Here's one thing that’s changed. Today I’m a grandmother. My precious grandbabies turned 5 months old just a few days ago. In a couple of weeks, they will be baptized and made Christ’s own forever.

 

And I know just as surely as I stand here this morning that even though they are infants now, I will blink my eyes and they will be going off to school. I am terrified at the thought.

 

Yesterday, writing this sermon, I got to exactly this point, and stopped. I didn’t know what to say next. So I went outside and pulled weeds, and hosed down the carport, and dug up a couple of oak saplings that had taken root in a flower bed. And after several hours of intense yardwork, I came back to my computer and… I still didn’t know what to say next.

 

And so I turn to prayer, the only kind of words I know of that have much chance of changing us, because I believe changing us is the first necessary thing.

 

These words come from a group of Episcopal bishops who responded to a mass shooting by writing a litany to commemorate the dead, to comfort their loved ones, and to honor survivors and first responders. It has been updated many times and is very long. I have arbitrarily edited it down to include only mass shootings in schools.

 

If you share in my heartbreak and rage and despair, feel free to join in the response, “Let light perpetual shine upon them.”

 

Let us pray.

 

God of peace, we remember all those who have died in incidents of mass gun violence in this nation’s public and private spaces.

 

Thirteen dead at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Twenty-eight dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Six dead at Santa Monica College, California.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Five dead at Marysville Pilchuck High School in Washington.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Ten dead at Umpqua Community College, Oregon.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Seventeen dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Ten dead at Santa Fe High School, Texas.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Four dead at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan.
Give to the departed eternal rest
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

Twenty-one dead at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Give to the departed eternal rest
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

All those who have died in any incident of gun violence.
Give to the departed eternal rest.
Let light perpetual shine upon them.

 

To survivors of gun violence, grant comfort and healing.
To those who have lost loved ones to gun violence, grant peace.

Protect and strengthen first responders who care for victims of gun violence.

Move us all to act in whatever way we can to end the evil of gun violence in our society.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

 

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

Material Guy

 Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

I think St. Thomas the Apostle gets a bad rap when he is called “Doubting Thomas.” I think he was just “a material guy,” albeit not in the sense Madonna intended when she sang about a “material girl.” Here’s what I mean.

 

Our Biblical stories of Christ’s passion and resurrection are vivid and full of details that engage all of our senses. I’m sure I’m not the only one who shudders as Jesus is whipped, who cringes at the sound of nails through flesh into wood, who shrinks from the sight of the bloody man on the cross.

 

On Easter morning, I crumple to the ground with grief-stricken Mary. I feel the earthquake one of the Gospel writers describes. I am blinded by the light of the angels seated inside. I run with the disciples and always wonder: Would I be the one who gets there first but hesitates at the entrance? Or would I bring up the rear but dash headlong into that cold, dark space?

 

 

Our Easter story is tactile, visible and audible. Those firsthand witnesses send it down to us through the generations using words that enable us to experience it again and again.

 

But let’s back up a bit further and recall that this whole story of our faith, from beginning to end, is about incarnation—that is, God becoming a material being—the same God’s breathe-enlivened matter... of which we are made.

 

I love how Fr. Richard Rohr sums up the meaning of incarnation. “Matter matters,” he says.

 

I think it interesting and relevant that Thomas doesn’t ask just to see Jesus. No, he says ‘I must touch him, I must put my hand in his side…” And sure enough, artistic renditions of this scene show Thomas not merely peering at Jesus’ wounds, but putting his finger in them.

 

Thomas was a material guy and he had known Jesus as a material being. And seeing, in fact, is not always believing!

 

Witness, for example, the many stories of Jesus appearing to his disciples post resurrection, and not being recognized by them. I have always tended to think that was because Jesus’ appearance had been rather dramatically changed by death and resurrection.

 

Well, it probably was changed somewhat, but… remember the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who did not recognize Jesus, even though he walked along with them and taught them the scriptures for an entire day. In that story there’s a line that clearly states, their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

 

Now what would keep eyes from recognizing a person they knew well? I can think of several things. First, there’s fear. Fear clouds our vision. And our judgement. Nations have gone to war, people do hurtful things to each other.. out of fear.

 

Jesus’ followers had good reason to be fearful. We know that thousands died at the hands of the Roman state because they would not denounce God and worship the emperor. Their fear was legitimate and it could have clouded their vision.

 

 

Second, I think of grief. Grief clouds our vision. One moment the world is bright and sunny and full of promise, and the next it is dark. The future is grim; we despair. Been there, done that.

 

Last night I read a tweet from a woman I scarcely know but see occasionally on Twitter. It was a simple, desolate, 2-line tweet. She said, My husband died today. I will never be the same. Social media creates some issues for sure, but one of the great things about it is that we can reach out to people in their times of trouble.

 

But the third thing I thought of that clouds our vision is probably the hardest of all to overcome. And that thing is.. having our minds already made up and our expectations set. Sometimes what we already think, believe and know about how the world works is our worst enemy.

 

Speaking as a teacher, nothing is harder than teaching something to someone who is sure they already know!

 

So… what we know gets in the way of seeing something new. And Jesus was something new. Resurrection was new. Yes, Jesus had told them, more than once, but the Gospel writers tell us over and over again that even his disciples just didn’t get it. They couldn’t hear it, and now they couldn’t see it. It was just too contrary to reality as they knew it.

 

Moreover, it wasn’t just the resurrected Jesus that was new. Consider that this Jesus—the material being they had followed and loved—was NOT what they expected. The Messiah of the Hebrew Scripture they expected was to be a conquering king who would liberate Israel from the cruel reign of the Roman Empire.

 

How could this carpenter’s son, this man of humble origin who taught love and peace and would not even act in self-defense, nor allow anyone else to act in his defense.., how could this material man… be the one?

 

Jesus the Christ was a new creation in every possible way. Add on the layer of newness of being a resurrected body—not merely spirit, not merely disembodied eternal soul, but resurrected body… and it’s absolutely no mystery that his followers did not recognize him by sight alone. Jesus the Christ challenged everything they thought, believed and knew… about both God and reality.

 

And so today, we have St. Thomas the Material Guy to thank for reaching out and touching that resurrected material body. Otherwise, how would we know? I wonder.., after Thomas, did any of the others have the courage to touch as well?

 

 

Of course, the New Testament does give us a few other ways for us to know the Risen One. The disciples on the road to Emmaus knew him in the breaking of the bread. And that is surely what keeps us coming to Holy Eucharist again and again.

 

Mary Magdalene knew him when he said her name. I think God says our name many times and in many ways, for example, by putting people in front of us who need our loving touch. I would even count my happening to read the tweet of a woman who had just lost her husband as God saying my name.

 

How is God saying your name? What is the material situation right in front of you that needs your touch? What do you already think, believe and know that might be clouding your vision and your understanding? These are the questions I urge us to reflect on today.

 

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