An Opportune Time

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph – Lent 1

An opportune time. An opportune time for what? Obviously, the devil—whose thoughts we are hearing at the end of today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 4:1-13)—was looking for an opportune time to resume his temptation of Jesus. But—thanks be to God—we know the devil never succeeded in getting Jesus to sin.

 

WE are quite another story. It seems no time is other than an opportune time for us to be tempted to sin! And we, indeed, fall for all the things Jesus resisted at the end of his stay in the wilderness.

 

We do live by bread alone. That is, our own earthly cravings, our tendency to see our every desire as a need, our insatiable collecting of worldly things do dominate our time and attention and energy. The struggle for power is real and we get swept up in refusing to see the shortcomings of “our side” and demonizing the “other side”—as if there were only two sides to everything.

 

Today’s world is pretty much the epitome of the world the devil was trying to seduce Jesus into embracing. Our politics are bitterly divisive. The art of debate, negotiation, and compromise in the name of the common good seems lost forever. The “rugged individualism” that served U. S. America well in our early developing phase has turned into an ugly “my way or the highway” mentality.

 

The yawning gap between the wealthiest in our society and the middle and working classes continues widening. It is entirely possible today to work not just one but two jobs and still have trouble feeding your children—this at a time of corporate profits through the roof.

 

Several of us here this morning just returned from Diocesan Convention, where we heard, first, a stirring sermon by Fr. Michael Bordelon from St. Barnabas, Lafayette, and an equally inspiring convention address by Bishop Jake Owensby. I want to borrow from both of them this morning.

 

First, the Bishop asked us to consider three questions. These are not questions we can necessarily answer off the top of our head, so Lent 1 is a good time to begin reflecting on them.

 

His first question was, “Who am I, really?” He talked about the toxic individualism I mentioned above that our society has devolved into, and he contrasted that with creatures made in God’s image. That’s us, and all humankind. And as creatures made in God’s image we are the very manifestation of God’s love in the world.

 

His second questions was, “How am I my true self in the church?” As Christians, we believe we are the body of Christ in the world, and at least a couple of times a year, we read in church the Apostle Paul’s exposition of what that means. But perhaps our hearing has grown dull with familiarity.

 

Indeed, the first question, “Who am I, really?” can only be answered by the second question. In other words, although each of us is a unique, distinctive being, our very being is also shaped by the communities we are members of and relationships we have entered into. Or, in the African philosophy called “Ubuntu,” “I am because we are.”

 

That is especially true of Christian community, which professes to be the body of Christ doing the work of Christ in the world. Each person brings something to the table, each has a gift to put into the mix, and “the mix” comes together best for the common good when every part of the body is present, contributing and valued.

 

Finally, the Bishop posed his third question: Who should the church be in this dramatically changed and changing world? And this question is what Fr. Michael Bordelon’s entire sermon was about.

 

See, our church has changed more and faster over the past couple of years that anyone thought possible. Yes, change has always been “the norm,” but not the kind of change we have just come through.

 

Well! Let me hasten to say, we think we’ve come through it. We hope we’ve come through it. The truth is, we don’t know if we’re through it or if this is a short-term reprieve.

 

We speak longingly of “getting back to normal” or cautiously of a “new normal,” preferably one as much like the old normal as possible. But I think we know deep down that Covid is now part of the landscape and we must learn to live with it because it is not going away. Moreover, all the experts are telling us we better prepare for the next pandemic.

 

Not only has the pandemic devastated our health and social lives, but the economic consequences are still ravaging our church budgets and personal pocketbooks. Add to that the devastation—physical and economic—caused by extreme weather events—hurricanes, especially. To top it off, we witness today the horror of one sovereign nation invading another sovereign nation, thereby dragging the entire world toward cataclysmic violence—perhaps even self-annihilation by nuclear war.

 

Brothers and sisters, we are in a situation. We are worn out and burned out by pandemic and loss, by political animosity, by fear for our democracy, not to mention the very future of our planet home.       

 

So, I propose that now is an opportune time. What it is an opportune time for is up to us, because, you see, God also waits for opportune times in which to stretch us and move us out of our comfort zone into a world that needs us now more than ever.

 

So let us ask, What should church be and do in this situation? Going backward has never really been an option. We can engage in bouts of nostalgia but we cannot roll back the clock.

 

To make matters more challenging, at this very moment that the church must think outside the box, those of us still inside the box are, shall we say, a little long in the tooth and gray of the head. The church is aging and we want most of all the comfort of familiarity and stability.

 

 

 And here we are instead, as Fr. Michael preached, called to innovate and to move out of our comfort zone.

 

All of the Canterbury kids and a few adults associated with Canterbury had lunch together at convention. The conversation turned to music in church, and one of the things I learned is that I, myself, must be a bit more open to contemporary Christian music. I love the old hymns! But I myself am also  aware that the theology expressed in many of those old hymns just is not what we believe today and does not up speak to today’s young adults facing and dealing with the challenges of today’s world. What do we do about that?

 

I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do have another idea. We also heard a report from Camp Hardtner at convention and it was a powerful reminder that summer camp is the first and best way for our diocese to minister to kids from primary school through high school. And we were urged to think of that ministry as—not just to the kids of our church family—but to all the kids of Louisiana. I wonder how Christ Church might offer a potentially life-saving experience at Camp Hardtner to some kids from St. Joseph, La?

 

Brothers and sisters, we are in a situation, a challenging, daunting situation. We face our own mortality this Lenten season, not only as individual people but as a church.

 

But a situation is also an opportune time. We can yield to the temptation to look backward and yearn nostalgically for the past, or we can face it head on, step out in faith and follow Jesus to and through the cross. After Lent comes Easter. After death comes resurrection. And we are resurrection people.

 

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

Forgive & Remember

 St. Luke's Episcopal Chapel, Grambling, La.

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend who was going through a hard time. She has an adult daughter who suffers from bipolar disorder.

 

I have experienced mental illness in the family and it is a tough road to walk—a very tough road. Every member of the family is affected by it. You might say, accurately, in my view, that when one member of the family suffers from mental illness the entire family suffers.

 

 

 

My friend described some of her conversations with her daughter and some of the terribly hurtful things her daughter has said to her. Apparently the daughter views her mother as the source of all her problems, and she berates her mother in ways that break her mother’s heart.

 

So I said two things to my friend. First, and I know this doesn’t help very much, but first remember that it is the mental illness speaking, not your daughter per se. Expecting a mentally ill person to interact normally is like expecting a person with a broken leg to run a marathon.

 

Second, I said to my friend, get some help from a professional yourself who will help you set some healthy boundaries with your daughter. I went on to explain that her daughter was saying abusive things to her and nothing in the concept of parental love and nothing in the concept of Christian love requires us to accept abuse at the hands of family, friends or anyone else.

 

I sometimes think we are a bit simplistic in our approach to Jesus’ mandate that we love even our enemies and people who seek to do us harm. That particular friend is not the first or only person to interpret today’s Gospel lesson in ultimately self-destructive ways. 

 

 

 Of course the call to not judge or condemn others and to love our enemies is real and serious; Jesus was not joking when he said this. So our challenge is to find ways to love, on both individual and societal levels, that do not involve acquiescing to evil or to oppressive social systems and cultural norms, or to being a doormat to every abusive person in our social circles.

 

One such way—the best way I know—to love those who do us wrong is by being quick to forgive, unconditionally, and even when the other has not asked forgiveness. This is God’s way, and besides being God’s way, it is also good for us. We forgive for our own sake as much as or more than we forgive for the other’s sake.

 

Being stuck in unforgiveness will eat a person alive. It takes mental and emotional energy to hold on to and nurse our wounds, mental and emotional energy that is therefore unavailable for joy and wonder and gratitude.

 

Forgiveness is not an emotion we feel so much as a choice we make—a choice that liberates us from a shrunken, dreary world of bitterness and anger and fear.

 

Forgiveness also is NOT saying that the evil or hurt or abuse that happened is now suddenly “okay.” We have all heard, and probably have been admonished by someone, to “forgive and forget.” To which I say, “Nonsense.”

 

Back when I was in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, one of our sociology professors wrote a book titled “Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure.” I never read the book because I always felt that the title said it all.

 

Forgive, and remember.., because only by remembering can we establish and maintain healthy boundaries in our interpersonal relationships.

 

Forgive and remember because only by remembering can we learn from and overcome the evils of the past. 

 

Post World War II Germany is the best example I know of a society seeking to do that. Nazi concentration camps and the site of Hitler’s rise to power in Nuremburg have been converted into teaching museums that confront the evil that was the Holocaust with gut-wrenching honesty and lay out details of how and why it happened—all to the cause of making sure it never happens again.

 

These not-so-United States of America need to do the same. We need to confront and own the evils of our own past—the genocide of Native American peoples and the building of our country and economy on the backs of enslaved Africans.

 

We as a society have not done that. Far too many are still engaged in denial and in rejecting responsibility because the actual perpetrators are long dead. But we as a society will never heal from the divisions rooted in those evils until we have named them and claimed them, fully and with brutal honesty.

 

 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his priest daughter Mpho turned their own experience of and struggle against the evil of apartheid into a book called “The Book of Forgiving.” In it they write:

 

Forgiving does not require that we carry our suffering in silence or be martyrs on a cross of lies. Forgiveness does not mean that we pretend things are anything other than they are. Forgiving requires giving voice to the violations and naming the pains we have suffered.

 

So we love our enemies and those who hurt us by forgiving them because it is good for us and frees us from tending our pile of hurts. We forgive and love for our own sake.

 

We also love and forgive because mercy and forgiveness are God’s way, which we are committed to following. We forgive for God’s sake.

 

But finally we also forgive for the sake of those very enemies, the sake of those who have hurt us, for it is through forgiveness that we acknowledge their humanity. By forgiving, we set free those we are forgiving to change, to grow, to become more fully human.

 

Only in the context of forgiveness can transformation happen. It might be a long time coming. We might never live to see the transformation our forgiveness makes possible. But only in the context of forgiveness can transformation happen.

 

I will give the last word today again to Desmond and Mpho Tutu, who wrote:

 

Just as we take a leap of faith when we make a commitment to love someone and get married, we also take a leap of faith when we commit ourselves to a practice of forgiveness.

 

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

Go Deep

 5 Epiphany, Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

I must begin with a bit of a confession that I think you folks here in proximity to a lovely lake might appreciate. My confession is that I’m not wild about “fishing” as a metaphor for evangelism. 

 

Of course, the soon-to-be disciples of Jesus were fishing with nets in the story we just heard. Nevertheless, I have done plenty of fishing in my life, and I associate fishing with a giant hook in the jaw and being rudely reeled in against the hapless critter’s will! 

 

 

 

Somehow, that’s not an imagine of evangelism that works today.  Nevertheless, this story has a lot to offer.  

 

The first thing I take from it is, don’t be scared off by failure. Simon Peter and his crew and partners had been fishing all night and had not caught a thing. So when Jesus says to put down the net, they were understandably reluctant. What’s the point? they were very probably thinking. And I can hardly blame them.

 

I’m reminded of my dear, deceased father. When it came to fishing, he had more patience, more persistence, than I thought humanly possible. He always loved it when I agreed to go fishing with him. And—another confession—I didn’t do it very often! Why? Because I knew that I would be stuck in that boat the entire day, sun up to sun set, whether the fish were biting or not.

 

My dad was undeterred. Me? After a few hours of fishing without a hit, I was more than ready to go home. My dad? No way. He was absolutely convinced that in spite of 5 hours without a bight, the very next cast would produce the big one—the fish of a lifetime. Maybe, actually it is entirely possible, my father was influenced by this story!

 

In any case, Simon Peter is reluctant to expend more energy on fishing that morning. You can hear it in his voice: Well, Jesus, if you say so… And he lets down the net and, indeed, hauls in the catch of a lifetime. Don’t be scared off by failure. Success really could be just around the corner.

 

Of course, the corner you must turn might not be the one you expect. This is the second thing I take from this story: Dare to think outside the box. Jesus doesn’t just say, put down the net. He says, put down the net into the deep water.

 

Again, I know from experience that deep water is not where you usually find the fish. If you’re fishing for bass, you put your boat over the deep water and cast back toward the shore, into the shallower water. If you’re bream fishing, you’re typically putting your bait into relatively shallow water.

 

But Jesus instructs them to think outside of the box. Go deep, he says. Try something different. Put your net into the deep water. 

 

This is a harder lesson. We humans really don’t like change, by and large. We are devoted to the comfort zone of doing things the way we have always done them. Even after those ways no longer produce the results they once did because of changing circumstances, we tend to keep doing them. We might even double down and do them with even greater energy and commitment—hoping against hope that we will get a different result.

 

And here, brothers and sisters, is where we encounter probably the hardest part of all: Of all the institutions of our society that need to think outside the box, try something different, cast our net into deeper waters… the church might well need to do it the most. Yes, the church.                                         

 

Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has written several books. I think it is in Crazy Christians that he talks frankly about the church and how desperately the church needs to change. See, the pews in our churches are not thinly populated today because people no longer need or want the church. More importantly, they are not thinly populated today because people no longer want or need Jesus!

 

Michael Curry says, and I agree, our churches are thinly populated today because people are no longer sure they will find Jesus here! Or, maybe it’s that the “Jesus” they will find here has been turned into a stay-in-my-own-lane, middle class rule follower!

 

That’s just not the Jesus of Holy Scripture. The Jesus of Holy Scripture argued with the religious leaders of his day about their devotion to rules, especially rules for “doing church,” rules for being devout followers of God, and he argued with them more about that than about anything else.

 

You’ve got it all wrong, he said to them. You follow the rules and totally miss the point. Love God and your neighbor as yourself,  he said; that’s what matters. Love even your enemies, he said, do good to those who persecute you. How much more subversive can you get than that?

 

 

See, I will accept that the death of a church is inevitable when there are no people left within walking or driving distance of that church who need Jesus. Because if they need Jesus, they should be able to find Jesus—the true, think-outside-of-the-box, go deep, rule-breaker Jesus—who defined the Kingdom of God over and over as the absolute subversion of the norms of religion and society... they should be welcome and able to find that Jesus here.

 

Our Bishop has said, “People come to church looking for Jesus and all they find is us.” I have also heard him say many, many times: “Go ahead and try stuff. Risk failure. I’d rather you step out of your comfort zone, take a risk, try something… and fail, than do nothing and die comfortable.”

 

Sadly, too many of our churches will not risk thinking outside the box, will not risk casting their net into the deep water. They would rather die comfortable than change. And, BTW, a church does not have to literally vote to die. But they do vote to die figuratively by declining to think outside the box, refusing to take risks, rejecting change.

 

Of course, one of the risks of casting your net into the deep water is that you can’t necessarily predict what all kinds of fish you might bring up! Your catch might not be limited to the fish you are accustomed to seeing in church. Some might be rather exotic looking, some might look dangerous to our eyes that are so comfortable with seeing other people in church who mostly look just like us!

 

So be it. That’s the kind of company Jesus kept, so he will be right at home in the midst of the mess.

 

Indeed, there’s a bottom line to what I’m saying, and it’s this: Ultimately, we cannot tame Jesus, no matter how hard we try. We can die trying, but Jesus cannot be contained inside our comfort zone. He cannot be contained inside our churches. He is already out there, in the world. To follow him, we must go out there. To know him, we must learn to see him in the face of every other human we meet.

 

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

The Jesus Method

3 Epiphany, Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La.

Every Sunday in Episcopal churches across the country and around the world, people—ordinary people like you and me—stand and read Holy Scripture.

Typically a passage from the Old Testament is read first. The Christian Old Testament is, of course, one and the same as Hebrew Scripture, the bible of the Jewish people.

The second reading is called “the Epistle” because it is taken from one of the many “epistles” or “letters” written by Paul or one of the other apostles that make up the bulk of the New Testament.

Then finally, and just before the sermon, we hear a passage from one of the four Gospels—that is, from the “good news” of the story of Jesus the Christ—each one written with a slightly different emphasis by a person who knew Jesus on his earthly journey.

I mention what might seem obvious to you in these Episcopal pews this morning—especially you cradle Episcopalians—that the history of the scripture-reading portion of our worship—the “liturgy of the Word,” we call it—goes way, way back. We are participating in a centuries-old pattern every time we do it.

Ezra reads God's law.

 

Look at the story we have this morning in Nehemiah. It’s one of my favorites of the Old Testament. Why? Because the people are so moved and so captivated by hearing Holy Scripture read out loud that they stand for hours listening, heads bowed. Indeed, they are ultimately moved to tears by it—so much so that a few verses farther on from the ending of today’s lesson Nehemiah instructs them to not be sad but go celebrate and rejoice.

The context of the story is that the Israelites have fallen away from the teachings of the law. Nehemiah was leading them in the process of restoring Jerusalem, fending off Israel’s enemies all the while. The Torah scrolls were found in a forgotten recess of temple rubble.

Nehemiah had them dusted off and a platform built. The people assembled. The scribe Ezra was called to read—and not just to read but with interpretation. He gave the sense, so that the people understood.

And the people stood with heads bowed and listened, from early morning until midday, we are told. Wow! Could you do that?

In fact, today’s lectionary passage consists of excerpts.., because we have to keep it short…! But in one of the verses missing from what we just read, the people are so moved by hearing again the words of their Holy Scriptures that they begin to weep. That is why, at the close of our passage today, Nehemiah is instructing the Israelites to not mourn what is past, but eat, drink, share with those who have nothing and celebrate being reunited with their Holy Scripture.

So, when we read and interpret holy scripture as an act of worship, we stand in the midst of an ancient and ongoing lineage of people of faith. Jesus was part of that lineage as well.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus is reading and interpreting Holy Scripture as part of temple worship. And I think we can learn some things about how to read and interpret Holy Scripture by paying attention to how Jesus did it.

So let’s look at it again. Jesus stands to read and is handed the Isaiah scroll. I’ve always been curious: Did Jesus ask for that scroll specifically? Or was the temple using some kind of schedule or rotation like our lectionary? Or did the scribe who handed it to him choose it, maybe because Isaiah is so full of hell fire and brimstone preaching and prophecies? We don’t know.

  

Whatever the case, Jesus knows what he wants to read. He knows his Holy Scripture and he turns straight to Isaiah 61 and reads…

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
   because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
   to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

And he rolls up the scroll and sits down. Now, do you know what the very next line in Isaiah chapter 61 says? I didn’t either until Fr. Richard Rohr directed my attention to this.

It says this: and the day of vengeance of our God. Hear both lines again. The last one Jesus reads is to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the next line is, and the day of vengeance of our God.

Kind of changes the tone, doesn’t it? Right away, I’m thinking, am I going to be one of the ones who receive good news, be liberated in the year of the Lord’s favor? Or am I going to feel the fire of God’s vengeful wrath?

See, here’s what you’ll see if you put together all of Jesus’ quotes from Hebrew Scripture: He never quotes the many passages that appear to legitimate violence or that paint God as vengeful and judgmental. Never.

Rather he quotes passages that paint God as loving and merciful. Here’s another interesting tidbit from Fr. Rohr’s analysis: The book of Leviticus is a book of rules. I believe the official count is 603—603 rules, most of which are negative. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t eat whatever, the punishment for such and such is thus.., and on and on it goes.

Jesus quotes the book of Leviticus exactly once. And on that one occasion, what did he choose to quote?

He quoted the one clearly, unequivocally positive law in the book: Leviticus 19:18b, …you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.

In other words, in stark contrast to so many Christians today who love to pick a verse, especially from the Hebrew Scripture, to tell people how wrong or sinful or unworthy they are, Jesus.. never.. does that! Jesus always picked and quoted biblical passages that comforted people, that turned people in a merciful and loving direction.

 

That’s “The Jesus Method.” And it’s a bit of a struggle because it is pretty human to want to make the world behave according to our standards and morality. How convenient it is when we can find a passage in the Bible we can use to beat up on people. Make them behave. Justify our judgment of them.

But that’s not what Jesus did. Jesus used Holy Scripture to build people up, to heal them, to show God’s love in the world. Let us follow Jesus. Let's use The Jesus Method to love people through our use of Holy Scripture.

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

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.