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.

 

The Miracle

9 Pentecost, Christ Church, St. Joseph

In our Old Testament lesson two weeks ago, a passage a few chapters earlier in 2^nd Samuel, we were painted this delightful picture of King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.

 

The occasion was moving the Ark of the Covenant—the centerpiece of Hebrew worship of the One God—from the house of the Levite Abinidab, where King Saul had parked it to collect dust 20 years earlier.

 

Having replaced Saul as King, David gathers together the people of Israel and transports the Ark back to Jerusalem—with a celebration in the fine tradition of the New Orleans Second Line: shouting, dancing, tambourines, sounding trumpets, clashing cymbals.. and more! 

 

New Orleans Second Line, photo by Charles Lovell.

Of course, I’m historically putting the cart before the horse. It would be more accurate and appropriate to say that the New Orleans Second Line is in the fine tradition of King David’s procession returning the Glory of God to its home in Jerusalem!

 

Either way, my point is that David was not merely moving a piece of furniture. He was making a statement about what kind of king he would be. In contrast to his predecessor, he was saying, the One God and the worship of the One God will be at the center of my kingship.

 

Well, yes, David was, by and large, a righteous king. But we also know, as told in today’s passage just a few chapters later in 2^nd Samuel, that David was capable of great treachery. That David fell to temptation, then compounded his sin with an evil cover-up.

 

Oh, what humans will do to try to save face! And the more powerful the human, the more likely their face-saving cover-ups will lead to the death and destruction of innocent lives. We see evidence of that in our national and international politics all the time.

 

So as a model for kingship, David is definitely a mixed bag. Jesus is a different story altogether.

 

Here in the middle of our Gospel lesson, John states, When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

 

I don’t think we need rocket science to figure out that it is earthly kingship—precisely the kind of kingship that contributed to David’s fall from grace—that Jesus is rejecting and fleeing from.

 

Certainly John does a good job of portraying Jesus as a leader, and a strong one at that. One who knows what he is going to do but nevertheless gives his disciples an opportunity to suggest a solution to the problem at hand.

 

Here I think it important to note that John tells this story of the feeding of the 5,000 a bit differently from the other Gospels. For example, Matthew 14:15 & 16 says:

 

As evening approached, the disciples came to [Jesus] and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

 

Luke and Mark are virtually identical to Matthew: The disciples—not Jesus—initiate the discussion. They want to send the crowd away. Jesus says no, you feed them.

 

But in John’s account, Jesus initiates the discussion, and he does it even though he knows already what he is going to do, and he does it as a test of them. It’s almost as if he’s saying, ‘Okay, guys, have you figured out yet what kind of king I am?’

 

Of course they haven’t, and so he shows them, again. And I’ll come back to that part of the story in a moment, but first an aside: I point out that John’s account of this miracle is different from the accounts of Matthew, Mark & Luke, NOT to start an argument about which account is “the right one.” I do not think those arguments are necessary, nor do they lead us to a deeper understanding of the Bible. I think they are distractions from what we can learn from the Bible.

 

Rather, I ask, “What can we learn from each telling of the story? What can we learn from THIS telling of the story, that we don’t learn from those other tellings?”

 

John’s Gospel presents Jesus as a strong, fearless leader, a man in charge, a shepherd leading with a firm but tender hand, a man in charge of his own destiny as well. In John, Jesus’ life is not taken from him; he gives it freely.

 

So.., back to the feeding of the 5,000. The disciples, who have themselves just returned from their first mission trip with stories of miraculous healings and exorcisms, still do not yet fully understand what kind of king Jesus is.

 

So Jesus shows them: I’m the kind of king who feeds people, physically and spiritually. Moreover, you are what you eat. The physical food you eat today satisfies your belly for a few hours. The spiritual food I offer transforms lives.

 

Just what, do you suppose, was the miracle that took place on that hill near the Sea of Galilee some 2,000 years ago? I’m sure God can create out of nothing at any time. I’m sure God can cause molecules of bread and fish to magically multiply.. at any time.

 

But that kind of miracle would be almost unremarkable. After separating light from dark and sea from dry land, after hanging the sun, moon and stars in the heavens, I’m guessing God could multiply bread and fish without breaking a sweat.

 

I’m guessing a greater miracle happened on that day so long ago. I’m guessing Jesus blessed the bread and fish.. and through his compassion and his act of love and thanksgiving and praise, God became known to the gathered throng in that breaking of the bread.

 

“You are what you eat.” Our Bishop loves to say that. When he offers consecrated bread and wine in the feast of Holy Eucharist, he says, “Become what you receive.” The physical food you eat today satisfies your belly for a few hours. The spiritual food offered in the breaking of bread transform lives.

 

Photo by World Food Programme

 

Because when God becomes known to humankind, our hearts are opened and miracles happen, miracles of giving and sharing even when we ourselves are in hard times, of welcoming strangers, of caring for the least among us. So much so that we have more blessing left over than what we started with.

 

You’ve heard it many times: “I went to the homeless shelter or the food bank or the mission field to give/help/do something for people who are less fortunate than me,” people say, “and I got more out of it than I gave.”

 

When God is revealed to us, when we recognize the Divine within and among us, when we see ourselves and our neighbors—all of them—as God’s beloved, human hearts are transformed.

 

Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and Franciscan monk of the 14^th Century, said it this way (from Edge of the Enclosure, 7/30/11):

 

For not only bread
but all things necessary
for sustenance in this life
  are given on loan to us
    with others
    and because of others
    and for others
    to others through us.

 

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

Blessedness

 Pentecost 7, St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

Blessed be…God .., who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing, Paul writes to the Ephesians. And then he goes on to detail those blessings:

·      Adoption as God’s children through Jesus Christ our brother

·      Redemption and forgiveness of sins

·      And in the fullness of time, to be gathered up in him…

 

The riches of grace, indeed, lavished upon us by the God who IS Love, first, last and always.

 

To me, the most striking thing about today’s lessons is the stark contrast in emotions I experience in reading them. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is all joy and gratitude. It’s all reassurance of God’s love for humankind. It inspires confidence. It brings peace and trust that all will be well.

 

Not so much the other two. I will return to Paul’s description of blessedness, but first we need to look at these other two stories to see what is there for us.

 

In 2nd Samuel, we have King David leaping and dancing with abandon before the Lord, and all the people celebrating with him with music and dancing. This is, in fact, a delightful picture!

 

They are transporting the Ark of the Covenant from the home of the Levite Abinadab, where it had been deposited by King Saul after the defeat of the Philistines. It had sat there for 20 years, sort of out of sight and out of mind.

 

Now that he is king, David is not merely moving the Ark, but making a statement about who he is and how he will lead. He is saying, I want the Glory of the Lord near me in Jerusalem. With the Ark in a special tent put up for that purpose, he is declaring his intention that worshiping God would be at the center of his leadership—not just for him, but for the people as well.

 

 

 But here in the midst of this joyous image of dancing and leaping with joy before the Lord comes a statement.. shocking in its harshness. It’s like taking a bight into a beautiful apple and finding a worm—worse, a half a worm—and we are brought up short. David’s wife Michal is watching from a window and, we are told, she despised him in her heart.

 

What in the world could it be about the scene before her that causes such a hateful reaction? We do know earlier in the story of Michal and David, as told in several passages of Hebrew Scripture, that she loved him very much.

 

The writer of 2^nd Samuel does not explain her change of heart, so we are left to wonder. Was she perhaps jealous of David’s relationship with God? Perhaps fearful that her husband’s first and highest loyalty was to God, making her second in his affections at best? Or was she disdainful of his “let it all hang out” abandon, finding it unbecoming to his station in life to leap and dance for joy before God and the people?

 

I am ruefully reminded that I, myself, have been known to kind of look down my nose at people whose manner of worship includes everything from waving hands in the air to speaking in tongues to, indeed, dancing up and down the aisles of churches. Give me stately ritual over spiritual drama on Sunday, pleeeeeze!

 

Pick your answer or come up with another, but recognize that Michal is offered to us here as a mirror. Paul draws for us a picture of blessedness. God’s desire is to gather in—not just us but all things in heaven and on earth. It’s a picture of heaven on earth.

 

But our feet are so often stuck in the muck of earthly things. Our jealousies and our fears, our disdain for those who do not live up to our standards of worship, lifestyle, morality—whatever. Those very human responses get in the way of our inherited blessedness. Instead of joining the dance, we stand back in fear, in anger, or passing judgement.

 

King Herod and his wife Herodias mirror human treachery and its capacity for destruction even more clearly and starkly. In this scene, we get just a hint of potential blessedness. King Herod is drawn to the message of John the Baptizer. He can’t quite put his finger on why, but he wants to hear what he has to say.

 

He would probably be happy if John were to leave the neighborhood, but he doesn’t want to harm him. Indeed, Herod protects the prophet from his own wife, whom he loves dearly but who is clearly infuriated by John’s truth-telling about their marriage, which is unholy in the eyes of Jewish law.

 

In the end, Herod succumbs to his own lack of courage and character. His wife cynically manipulates him by exploiting her child’s budding sexuality. He yields to his own lasciviousness and swears a foolish oath. Then, having made a sweeping promise, he must save face and not disappoint his blood-thirsty base. Murder is the outcome.

 

 

 The earthly muck of pride, fear, the need to save face, self-righteousness, the pursuit of power and earthly wealth, sucks at our feet constantly. It prevents us from seeing and joyously embracing the blessedness that God desires for us and offers us as our inheritance.

 

Now, I need to say a few more words about the nature of blessedness. It has become commonplace today to attribute everything to being blessed. We get promoted at work, “I’m blessed,” we say. A bigger house? A newer car? Yes, yes, I’m blessed. A great vacation? Our freedom from political oppression? We don’t hesitate to call these things “blessings.”

 

But that’s not what Paul is talking about. The blessedness that comes from God that Paul is describing here is spiritual, not material. I do NOT mean to say that we should not be grateful and thankful for material things, or political things like freedom to worship as we choose. These are good things. We should be grateful for them.

 

But there’s two problems with calling them “blessings.” The first is the unfortunate implication that because we have these material “blessings,” God must therefore bless us more than God blesses those who are poor and those who live under political oppression. Not so. Indeed, the Bible—and the Hebrew Scripture and the Qu’ran, BTW—all tend toward the opposite.

 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” “Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have eternal life.” “Do it to the least of these and you do it to me.” Etc. The passages that convey a bias toward those who have little are many.

 

The second issue with calling material gifts “blessings” is that it tends to obscure some very important and serious realities, a primary one being that earthly economic structures are not designed to produce “blessings.” They are designed to produce economic rewards, and those by no means equally. Some labor is valued much more highly—and profitably—than other labor.

 

Moreover, the labor market does not reflect the values we profess. If it did, teachers might just be paid more than football players, and we all know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon! Of course, as a retired teacher, although I love to complain about football player salaries, I’m also painfully aware that my labor has been valued much more highly than the absolutely essential labor of many others. I think of food workers, retail workers, people who clean homes and businesses, and those who save countless lives by picking up our garbage and carrying it away.

 

My point is, simply, that calling the products of our economic and political structures “blessings” conceals both responsibility and privilege. I have become very, very careful about what I call a “blessing” because I do not want to lose sight of my own responsibility to work for just political and economic systems, or my privilege as one who does way better by existing structures than many, many others.

 

Now, I’m not trying to start an argument about whether the labor market—or any other market, the stock market, the commodity market, etc.—is fair or not. And I’m certainly not trying to say that markets are bad. Markets are good! They promote the circulation of beneficial earthly goods. We just need to make sure we manage them—for they are vehicles of our own creation—so we need to manage them to make sure they produce the outcomes we want.

 

What I AM trying to say is that earthly economic and political structures do not produce “blessings.” Blessings are from God, and as Paul explains and illustrates, God’s blessings are spiritual in nature. Moreover, they are equally offered to all creation: everything in heaven and on earth, as Paul says.

 

 

And if we can find it in our hearts to fully accept and live into God’s gracious blessedness, to set our eyes on spiritual things, to know and live as God’s beloved, as redeemed and forgiven, then we will pass it on. We will overcome and rise above the muck of human pride, greed, idolatry, jealousy, and hate. We will become channels instead for God’s love, forgiveness, mercy and generosity toward all people and all creation. We will see Jesus in every other person and we will work for justice and peace on earth as our baptismal covenant calls us to do.

 

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