But then I moved to a real city – Los Angeles – where streets like Wilshire and Sepulveda stretched for miles across the entire county. I’d go somewhere for a job interview or to meet a client and I would get directions like “when you see downtown, go east on the Pasadena freeway.” No one told me that the Harbor Freeway, the Arroyo Seco Freeway and the Pasadena Freeway were the same freeway.

          Now this was in the days before GPS and Google maps. I kept a Thomas Guide – remember those? - in my car. But what good is a map when you don’t know what road you’ve gotten yourself onto in the first place?

So one of the many things I learned during my formative Los Angeles days was to give myself extra time just to get lost and find my way again. Because often I thought the road was taking me in one direction when in reality I was headed in another direction altogether.

And that brings us to today, to Palm Sunday. I have to wonder if the crowd that day on that first Palm Sunday wasn’t a little like that also. We know today’s story so well so that it is easy for us to think, just like those in Jerusalem long ago, that Palm Sunday is taking us one place when we’re really on another road – a road we might not have chosen, a road we might not have planned on.  Perhaps an unwelcome road. That’s the point of what we do today.

We began outside waving palm branches. Like the crowds when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, they were ready for change. Oppression weighed heavily upon them, like the Egyptian captivity from which their ancestors had been delivered.  It was Passover week and emotions were running high. The people were hungry for deliverance from another tyrant, from the Roman empire.

Here is Jesus who had healed people, fed people, raised them from the dead, rebuked Pharisees, confounded theologians and captivated the hearts of the people. So when they saw him, they took him for the triumphant king who had come to free them. And they took up the cry, the one we echoed – “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosannah in the highest.”

But the road Jesus was on that day was not going to take him to a castle or a fortress. Today’s passion gospel reminds us of where that road led. The road to Calvary is a composite of humanity’s most difficult moments, a litany of things that harden our hearts, that live rent-free in our heads and separate us from God. 

I’m holding in my hand a nail. It’s also a reminder of where the road led that day. I invite you, as you come up for communion today, to take a nail from this basket. Carry it with you this week, during Holy Week, in your purse or pocket. And let it represent for you that thing that you need to leave at the cross, that thing you need to hand over, to let go of and just hand over to, that missing piece that you believe might make you whole – like a broken relationship that is in need of reconciliation. Perhaps with someone in your family, at your workplace or maybe even here in church.

What is that thing in your life that you need to leave at the cross?  What sharpness do you hold onto that causes pain, sorrow or grief?

I invite you to grab hold of one of these nails today. And come back on Good Friday and pound it into the cross that will be here.  At the altar.  The cross of Jesus Christ.  He knew where the road was taking him that Palm Sunday so long ago and he stayed with it anyway. From the gates of Jerusalem, through the streets of the city, into the halls of judgment. Down the dark alleys of hatred out to the other side to the place of the skull.  He traveled it then and he travels our own roads with us. And he promises to stay with us. That is the road of this week.

So I invite you to take a nail and hold onto it all this coming week. Feel it’s weight, it’s grit. It just might poke you a few times. It might feel colder and harder than you thought it could. Hold onto this nail. Let it live with you this entire week.

And then bring it back on Good Friday to pound it into the cross and leave it here, leave it all here.  And wait for Easter morning. Amen.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In the heart of San Salvador, in the old city, there is a square known as Plaza Libertad. It is surrounded on three sides by imposing government buildings and embassies. On the fourth side stands a church, Iglesia El Rosario. It is a structure so plain and industrial it could be mistaken for an abandoned warehouse. Only a simple metal cross on the roof hints at its sacred purpose.

In February 1977, thousands gathered in Plaza Libertad to protest injustice—first 15,000, and then within days nearly 50,000. As tensions rose and the military presence grew, protest leaders appealed to the newly appointed Archbishop of El Salvador, Óscar Romero: “Please come. Your presence could prevent violence.”
Romero replied, “I will pray for you.”

The violence came. When the National Guard opened fire, people fled into the church seeking refuge. What had been a sanctuary became a place of terror. A bullet pierced the tabernacle holding the consecrated sacrament, the bread and wine that are the mystical body and blood of Christ. But the sanctuary light at the tabernacle did not go out. El Rosario, sacred space bathed in filtered light and dotted with sculptures of the ancient church mothers and fathers, was now consecrated by the blood of those who died there, their memorial in the shattered glass of the tabernacle.

And in the story of Oscar Romero, this moment matters deeply— because he did not come.

El Salvador, a small, beautiful country along the Pacific, has long been marked by struggle—between powerful elites and the poor seeking dignity and justice. In this tension, the Church itself was tested. Many voices were silenced. Many disappeared.

As a young Salvadoran priest, Romero was cautious, reserved, even aligned with the powerful. He was considered a “safe” choice for Archbishop—bookish, predictable, unlikely to challenge the status quo. But transformation often begins where we least expect it. He had a close friend from his seminary days, Rutilio Grande, a priest deeply committed to the poor. Romero admired him but also worried he went too far. On March 12, 1977, news reached Romero that his friend had been murdered. That day, Romero did answer the call to come.

Those present report that Romero stood for a long time over the bullet-riddled body of his friend staring in silence. He later said "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.’ ”  Rutilio Grande was dead. Oscar Romero came alive.  It took the murder of a friend to open his eyes, to allow him to look both inward and outward at the work he had to do.  A piece of him had to die with his friend so that something new could be born.

That night, Romero did do something new—he listened. He sat with the poor, the grieving, the wounded, and heard their stories. The people he had once dismissed, he now turned to in humility. The people at last saw in their Archbishop the face of Jesus. And in that turning, something in Romero died, and something new was born.

This is where his story meets the Gospel—the story of Lazarus.

The gospel story, the ancient Lazarus story, is Jesus’ supreme miracle, demonstrating the power of God over even death.  And in doing so, it is one of transformation and restoration.  This story is rich in images but the one that guides the transformation of Oscar Romero, and Lazarus and all us as we come to the end of this wilderness journey of Lent, are Jesus final words – “unbind him, and let him go.”  Let him go.  Let him go – to embody the gospel promise of life made new, let him go – to be a messenger of hope, let him go to show the hope of restoration for those who are watching and waiting and in incredible need. Let them see restoration happening.

I think each of us at one time or another in our lives know we need to go in a new direction.  But we are afraid of letting go of the familiar, of letting go of life patterns even those we know are unhealthy: certain propensities we have like a need to control, an inability to forgive, a need to be right or the need to constantly be liked. It is precisely these things – things that may seem impossible to ever set aside, that need to die. From time to time, we need to wonder about these things and then to ask, “what part of me needs to die. What do I need to leave in the tomb and be restored?” 

And then – we need to listen, to hear Jesus voice, his LOUD voice, calling to us to come out – to come out to the life we desire, the life that is open to greater possibilities, to parts of us the need to be revived – our gentler, kinder, childlike selves; our convicted, energetic selves where we can move forward in our lives in strength.  The dead parts of our lives are just not meant to stay dead.  But instead, they are like dormant seeds just waiting for the sunlight of God’s lifegiving word. Waiting – and, like Lazarus, listening for God’s call to us.

It might seem like those dead parts are completely beyond the reach of God. That’s probably how it seemed to Martha and Mary. Lazarus was dead.  You can’t get more dead than being in a tomb for 4 days.  Many Jews believed that the soul hovered around the body for 3 days.  So Lazarus, in this gospel, is dead in every conceivable way. But God’s word can awaken us in the most common and the most extreme circumstances. 

Obviously we don’t hear God physically speak to us.  But we very well may have an intense understanding of God at work in soft whispers or the gentle nudge of a human or furry friend. Or maybe more forcefully – like a very bunt comment from a stranger or a friend that startles us; in an intense prayer experience that floods us with peace; in a passage of Holy Scripture that hits us like a thunderclap – even if we’ve read it may times before. Or in the stories told by the poor and abandoned that Oscar Romero heard in the painful aftermath of the death of his friend, Rutilio Grande.  In those moments, we may be moved like never before to forgiveness, generosity, self-lessness and love. We may be moved like never before to a place of restoration with our God. 

After the murder of his friend, Rutilio, Oscar Romero began to speak boldly against violence and injustice. He stood with the poor. His weekly radio homilies named the suffering of the people—disappearances, torture, killings—and called for justice and peace. In his final broadcast, he spoke directly to the soldiers:
“In the name of God… I beg you, I command you: stop the repression.”

The next day in the small church near his home, while he was setting the table to celebrate the Eucharist, he was assassinated. A single bullet ended his life.

Here is the irony about Oscar Romero: death did not silence him. He became more alive than ever. He personifies today the ethos of the Salvadoran people more than ever. The memory of his courage uplifted and inspired them and continues to do so today. Not only does he continue to be the voice of the voiceless but also the name of the nameless.  Because to remember Romero is to remember the thousands of innocent and defenseless people who suffered for the cause of human dignity and peace but who can never be publicly known. And for this he is beloved. 

Death did not silence him. It unbound him.

On this last Sunday in Lent, we remember that we began this journey on Ash Wednesday with a call: to fast from what separates us from God, and to feast on what draws us closer.

Feast on the Christ within each person.
Feast on compassion.
Feast on truth.
Feast on hope.

As we stand on the threshold of Easter, we hear again the voice of Christ:

Come out.

Come out of what binds you.
Come out into the life you are meant to live.

Amen.

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.”

Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in.

Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

John 9:1-41

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

“Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature for the Lord does not see as mortals see. They look on the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. With these words Samuel is tasked entrusted with determining who will be successor to King Saul. Saul had ceased to walk in the ways of God and the Lord sent Samuel to a man named Jesse because one of Jesse's sons would, in fact, become the successor for Saul.

As Samuel arrives Jesse lines up his sons - seven of them - and they all begin to pass before Samuel. But one after another, strong though they may be, kingly looking though they may be, Samuel isn't getting any indication from the Lord that any one of them is THE one. It's not until the youngest one, an afterthought of a son who's off tending the sheep, appears that God makes God’s choice known.  And what a puzzle that turns out to be: he doesn’t seem to be enough in any way.  He has somehow managed to be invisible.

Choosing young David is a disruption to the natural order of things in the ancient world. We see it so many times in Holy Scripture but it's still a disruption to the order of things that we don’t expect. We do recognize that we humans tend to make decisions based on outward appearances.

I wonder how a child who has been bullied because he looks different than everyone else would hear that “the Lord looks at the heart.” Or perhaps someone who has been excluded because they are differently abled, I wonder how they might feel knowing that God sees us differently. But also knowing that down there in the trenches – they know that their peers may still see them as “less than” if they're even visible at all.

Now for a moment I want us to fast forward to our lesson from John's Gospel and a story of someone else who has been pushed to the margins, someone else who, for all intents and purposes is invisible. A man who was born blind. He has been the blind beggar in his community his whole life. And the assumption of everyone around him is that there must have been sin. We can safely assume that the disciples are not the first to ponder this. Likely there have been whispers and gossip since the day this young man was born – a certainty that there was a deep abyss of sin in this family that resulted in his blindness. The community’s debate was not if there was sin, only who was sinner.  And there was no debate about his forever role in the community: he was the blind beggar. They are all comfortable with him in that role, in that forever place -- until Jesus came along.

Jesus it the disrupter of the accepted order of things in the name of God, in the name of Love. Jesus, the son of a mighty and loving God, in giving this man his sight demonstrates something that might be a little frightening for the people. Jesus shows them that this man that everyone supposes is the culmination of his or his family’s sin is worthy of God's favor, that he’s worthy enough to be given his sight, worthy enough to be given a brand new life script and a brand new life path. 

When Jesus gives this man the gift of sight, he not only receives physical sight but spiritual sight. He begins to understand that God the Son has revealed the power of God for him and through him. He begins to understand he is no longer held captive by the limiting thoughts of himself, his family and others. He’s set free. But the community is left behind. They can’t fathom that God could really have been at work through this young man. And they drive him out of the community rather than celebrating the work that God has done.

The world seems to thrive on identifying what’s wrong with our neighbors, with labeling things, with challenging things that seem to be disordered rather than focusing on strengths and abilities.

The challenge for us is to see past the superficial. Just as the Lord spoke to Samuel and to see possibilities, to see God at work and to celebrate that. And that requires us to see the Divine in one another and ourselves rather than labels that we have used identity what is wrong, the labels used to limit.  When we focus on seeing the Divine in one another, and also in ourselves, our whole world is the better for it. When we look past the superficial, we understand that this gospel story is about life without Jesus contrasted with life with Jesus. It is a story of before and after – the darkness, the confinement, the stuckness of life before an encounter with Jesus versus the lightness and freedom of life after an encounter with Jesus. The life that God wants for each of us.

  This Lenten season provides us with a special invitation to see the divine light in all of God’s creation, to see as God sees and to embrace that light. The Pharisees and the young man’s family shut their eyes to the light in self-defense. That may be the intuitive thing to do. But this text encourages us to open our eyes wide. We will not be blinded by the light. We will be saved. Amen.   

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

A Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There’s a small town of about 2,000 outside of Houston called Kemah. It’s one of those places where everyone knows everyone else.  So when a man that no one knows appears on a street corner that gets people’s attention. Everyone wants to know who he is.  He’s there every day, every night, rain or shine. He’s always there. He’s pacing around as though he’s looking for someone or something. And this goes on for nearly three years. People want to know but no one asks.   

Finally one day, a café owner named Ginger decides that she will ask. She figured that she had passed him at least four times a day in her comings and goings over the last three years.  And it was time to know what was going on with him. So she pulled up to him. And before she could say anything, he extended his hand and said “Hello, I’m Victor.”

At that moment he became a man with a name, a man with a story to tell. Victor struggled with mental health problems. He had never completely well. He lived with his mother in Houston.  When she reached the point where she felt she could no longer care for him she drove him out of town, to that corner, dropped him off and left.  And because he didn’t want to miss her when she came back, Victor stayed on that corner waiting and waiting and waiting for his mother to return. 

When Ginger hears this story, she gets ideas about how Kemah can wrap their arms around this stranger.  She gets the word out on social media that he needs everything especially access to doctors and therapists and medication. Victor gets what he needs. Victor was transformed – healthy and whole he was able to communicate.  He gets on his feet, gets a home and then needs a job. Ginger thinks “well, I have a restaurant” and puts him to work.  And Victor turns out to be one fantastic cook. And people love to come and eat his food.

This all happened because one woman stopped in the midst of her life to find out what was going on with a stranger on the corner. And when she did that, she didn’t just bless him.  She brought God’s blessing on an entire community that rallied together to make a difference.

The story of Victor and Ginger and the town of Kemah is a wilderness story and not all that different from the story from John’s gospel that we hear today, of ancient people in their own wilderness and the need for living water.

The people in Sychar in Samaria have no expectation of seeing a Jew at their well. Jews didn’t hang out with Samaritans. We know from all of our ancient historians that Jews and Samaritans really didn't get along terribly well. And even though Samaria right in the middle between Galilee and Judea, and the most direct route between them was through Samaria, Jews were more likely to take a long detour out of their way. They would go out of their way to avoid an encounter with Samaritans.

Factor in Jesus. Instead of taking a detour, Jesus goes straight through the heart of Samaria. This unexpected Jewish man at the well in Samaria where he encounters a Samaritan woman. She's not expecting to see him. She's not expecting any Jewish man to be at that well -- let alone one who's asking her for a drink of water. Because she knows their purity laws probably just as well as they do.  So, of course, she is stunned when this man asks for a drink of water. “Are you kidding? You'll be defiled if I touch water that’s consumed by you.”

And here comes the moment that he introduces her to something entirely different. He starts talking to her about living water. Clearly she has a story -- because the thing women did was to come to the well first thing in the morning to get their water for their chores. They wouldn't be coming in the middle of the day.

But Jesus begins to tell her all about her life, her deep wilderness – all the wrong paths, all the pain, all the abuse that has made her an outcast. The gospel writer doesn’t give her a name, she’s a nobody – but not to Jesus.  He engages her in conversation, takes her seriously and spends several days in her village. 

Whatever hurtful things others have said, however she has been treated - or mistreated - by anybody else, it’s not what she encounters with Jesus. He will not turn her away. Jesus looks upon her with compassion with kindness and patience. Jesus has looked upon her with this invitation to be immersed into God living, into life with God and being found in the Holy Spirit.

She’s so excited by this encounter with Jesus, she goes back and tells anyone who will listen, “you need to come and meet this man, this extraordinary man, who I do believe is the Messiah. I believe he is the Promised One. Come and see for yourself.” And notice that it’s essentially an unfinished sentence: “He told me everything I have ever done...” she says. The end of the sentence is unspoken but clear: “… and he loved me anyway.”

That’s the good news of living water, the very presence of God. This is what Jesus offers her in himself – this constant wellspring of life-giving presence of God that cares not one whit about what has happened in her past but desires only for her the blessings of forgiveness, mercy, compassion, love - if she will only accept it in humility and gratitude recognizing it for the gift that it is. No one has ever offered this to her before. This is her way out of her wilderness.

Her problems are not going away. She’s still a Samaritan woman living a hard life. But now, with the gift of living water, she has the knowledge of God’s powerful love for her to sustain her. And that changes everything. This is her story, this is our story. And it’s the story we need to tell.

Like the Samaritan woman, we all come to the well over and over again to draw water. But I wonder if we think we’re doing this alone, if we don’t see the man sitting at the well or hear his message. Can we see that Jesus does not look down on her. Instead Jesus says that the Samaritan woman has something that he needs. There is something she can do for him.

Hearing this news she is liberated from all that weighs her down. He enters into a relationship with her first. He gives her value. He gives her purpose. He gives her new life by simply letting her know there is something she can do for him. We wonder if we might approach the poor and broken-hearted as he does. Just as Ginger approached Victor – and find his hand extended in greeting.

As we move steadfastly toward Holy Week we remember that as the story nears its conclusion on the cross, Jesus is still thirsty. He is still thirsty today. And we are that Samaritan woman. We come to the well again and again. And again and again Jesus asks us for a drink.

We know the kinds of things for which he thirsts.  Are we ready to bring him a drink? Are we ready to talk with him? And make our full commitment to him?  Jesus is sitting before us right now. He is tired, very, very tired. He asks us to give him a drink. What will we do?

Amen. 

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Today we are celebrating the Feast Day of our namesake, St. Matthias.  His actual day is February 24th and the anniversary of the dedication of our current church building by the Bishop of Winchester, England.  There’s a stained glass window in the narthex that memorializes this.  Why a Bishop from England?  No one is sure, but a quick review of weather in Winchester and Whittier on the 24th showed a significant difference: 30 degrees and freezing rain in Winchester; 89 and sunny in Whittier.  Who can blame the poor English bishop for wanting to spend the feast day of St. Matthias, and perhaps the whole winter, in sunny southern California?

But let’s see what we can learn about Matthias.  It doesn’t take too long to exhaust what we know about him from scripture – he’s mentioned in only a few verses in the Book of Acts that we heard today.  Essentially, the Apostles felt the need to keep their number at 12, the number of disciples chosen by Jesus. Judas was dead.  After they had prayed for divine guidance, Matthias was chosen by “casting lots” – a term for throwing dice, flipping a coin or some method through which the Divine Will was believed to act.

Beyond that, what we know – or more accurately what we speculate - about Matthias comes from tradition.  And a muddy tradition it is. Even his name is variable: the historian Eusebius calls him "Tolmai" instead of Matthias. In various texts he’s confused with Zacchaeus or a follower of Paul named Barnabas. And some scholars believe that Matthias is the same person as Nathanael in the Gospel of John who Jesus spotted sitting under a fig tree.

Like many of the early apostles, Matthias was reportedly arrested for publicly preaching  Jesus Christ as the son of God.  Jewish leaders seized him and sent him out the city where he was stoned or possibly beheaded.  Another version of his life story says that he lived a long life and died a peaceful death.

Whatever or whoever he might have been in ancient times, Matthias currently is known as the patron saint of various disparate groups.  He is the patron saint of gamblers often depicted holding a pair of dice referring back to the way he was chosen.  He is also the patron saint of tailors, carpenters and miners. Why is a mystery but ions of him often show him holding an axe. And he is associated with hopefulness and perseverance, an anchor of faithfulness in the establishment of the church and so is pictured with an anchor.   

While we will never know actual facts of the life or ministry or the circumstances of the death of our namesake with any certainty, we do have a chance to look through the eyes of faith at the portion of scripture where he’s selected as an apostle and in the absence of facts perhaps we can learn some truth about his story.

We know that he was chosen after Jesus had ascended into heaven leaving his disciples with the Great Commission: to go into the world to make disciples of all nations.  In Luke it says that the disciples observe Jesus ascending into heaven and return to Jerusalem joyfully.

What awaits them there?  They have become, through the betrayal and suicide of Judas, a group of eleven.  They are facing what we might call “the terror of the empty chair,” being in the presence of the chair that had been Judas’ during 3 years of Jesus ministry. One of their own is gone leaving an empty space, lingering traumatic memories and feelings of sadness, confusion, and even anger. Ancient Judaism strictly forbade suicide. Life as they understood it was a divine gift. We do not belong only to ourselves, they believed, but to God making self-killing an infringement on God's ownership and an affront to God.

Jesus does not instruct them to find a replacement for Judas. But he does emphasize their relationship to him and to each other. In the lectionary reading for St. Matthias, from John 15, Jesus calls them his friends in a tender message the night before his death, virtually the last time they are all together. He tells them not to be downhearted. He assures them that he is going to God who sent him, that he will prepare homes for them.  He calls them friends.  In calling them his friends, he wants them to be Christ-minded even more than likeminded. This is love in action but is not unique to Jesus and his immediate circle of followers. It is characteristic of all of Jesus’ friends - even those outside the immediate circle of and extending to other followers of Jesus.  People like Matthias.

There’s a lovely story about a mom who was driving a van full of teenage girls to Camp Stevens for the week. It was a long drive with lots of traffic on a Friday afternoon. The girls were really hyped up, sassy and a little geeky.  After a few hours of this, the mom had to admit she was looking forward to the quiet ride home.

They had stopped for snacks and supplies. And when they arrived at camp, she insisted that the girls take the many bags of groceries into the kitchen.  From there, she assumed they’d be off without a word to find their rooms and claim upper bunks. Instead, she found them in the kitchen putting everything away, snacks organized, beverages in the fridge.  She said, “I’m impressed – good job!  And thanks.”  “It’s okay,” the ringleader replied flipping her hair and striking a pose, “that’s what friends are for.” 

That is what friends are for. Friends are gifts given by God who cleverly and persistently loves us in the ordinary settings and everyday people of our lives.  Friends accept us, care for us, make us laugh, challenge and even inspire us to be better.  In telling his disciples that he no longer calls them servants but friends, Jesus is suggesting, I think, that even as he leaves, relationships matter and friendship is a primary setting in which we love one another and grow in the skills needed to refresh the world with our way of life.  Jesus as friend models the best of human love.

So Jesus never specifically instructs them to replace Judas and become 12 again.  But in the midst of the trauma of Judas’ loss, there is work to do and healing is needed.  The terror of the empty chair needs soothing. And I have to wonder if Matthias wasn’t the one chosen to fill out their ranks, because he was just the perfect person to take that chair, that he had a personality that exuded care and concern, that he could bring a spirit of comfort and healing that the other candidate could not. 

There is real healing in friendship. Genuine connections provide emotional support often serving as a buffer against anxiety, loneliness, and depression. Friends help process trauma, offer perspective, and provide a safe space to rebuild trust. This was the role created by the Holy Spirit for Matthias.

Most of us would accept help unpacking groceries any time or an invitation to be friends on social media, but the richness of being a friend of Jesus in relationship with other friends of Jesus provides the setting for learning together the various practices of Christian love.

We’re invited into that kind of relationship. I can’t help but wonder if the most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationships we maintain and the accompanying influences, life qualities and connection in love produced by those friendships.

As he lay down his life for his friends, this is what Jesus asks us to give our attention to: growing in the love and goodness of God, able to astound others with our Christ-centered way of life; loving others as we have been loved. That’s what friends are for.   Amen.

          Using the vehicle of Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 musical “Camelot” is a retelling of a portion of Arthur’s story, and its original cast included Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet.  I mention all this because one of the songs from “Camelot” provides such a marked contrast to the Great Litany and the season of Lent that I feel bound to tell you about it.

          The song is called “C’est Moi” – which is French for “It is I”.  “C’est Moi” is the introductory song for Robert Goulet’s character of Sir Lancelot, and in this song Lancelot sings about the characteristics, both physical and spiritual, which are to be desired in a knight of the Round Table; all the while, of course, identifying these characteristics in himself.  Having said that a knight’s soul should be restrained and immune to the ways of the flesh, Launcelot asks, “But where in the world is there in the world a man so untouched and pure?”

          “C’est moi, c’est moi; I blush to disclose, I’m far too noble to lie.  That man in whom these qualities bloom – c’est moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I.  I’ve never strayed from all I believe, I’m blessed with an iron will.  Had I been made the partner of Eve, we’d be in Eden still!  C’est moi, c’est moi the angels have chose to fight their battles below – so here I stand, as pure as a prayer, incredibly clean, with virtue to spare…the godliest man I know – c’est moi!”

          This is a classic song from a character who is blind to, and therefore doubly vulnerable to, the dangers of temptation; and in fact, in the legends as well as in the musical, Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere, Arthur’s queen, and she with him…and in their love, and their betrayal of King Arthur – which neither of them wanted – in these, lie the unraveling and the downfall of Camelot, the end of Arthur’s united peace, and the death of the dream of the Round Table.

          One author has suggested that “Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed, for its purpose is not to confirm us in our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our radical need of salvation.”  Before his story was done, and much to his own surprise, Lancelot’s iron will and his sense of virtue both lay in shreds; and he found that, like all of us, he too was in radical need of salvation.

          Temptation, sin, and the lasting consequences of sin – plus a glimmer of hope - are the themes of this First Sunday in Lent.  

Scripture talks about temptation in two different ways.  The first is as a “strong inclination to do evil,” evil being understood quite starkly as any action that is contrary to God’s will; “a strong inclination to do evil” even though, and even when, we know that God wills good.  This is “the temptation of Adam,” the temptation of pride, the temptation for us to go our own way, do our own thing, assert our own will, rather than God’s; to claim our own will as being the greatest good – at least for us!

          The second kind of temptation in Scripture is testing, the testing of the strength of our commitment to God.  This test of spiritual strength is Lancelot’s temptation, and it’s also the temptation that Jesus wrestles with in the wilderness in Matthew’s Gospel today.

          We know from all the Gospel accounts that throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus was constantly dealing with crowds and disciples who completely misunderstood the nature of his messiahship.  He too has had to wrestle with his messiahship and come to a resolution about it – and this forty days in the wilderness immediately after his baptism is the time and the place of his struggle.

          Will he be the messiah that the people are waiting and praying for, the messiah of power and of conquest? Will he be the political zealot who will rebel against Rome and take Israel back to independence and glory?  Will he be the Son of God who commands armies and goes into battle, supported by the adulation and the worship of the people?

          Or will he be the Son of God who listens to his Father and who lives the opening words of the Shema, Israel’s ancient confession of faith:  “Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  Will Jesus be a servant messiah, a suffering messiah, a spiritually powerful but politically power-less messiah who will lead people not to the world’s glory, but to the glory of the cross?  Which set of desires, which set of expectations will Jesus fulfill? 

          The point has been made that even though the Gospels describe Jesus’ temptations as separate events that seem to happen consecutively, like scenes in a play, it’s far more likely that these 40 days were filled with continual testing, continual temptation, a continual going back and forth, with Jesus being surrounded by what one author has called “a kaleidoscope of possibilities” as to his identity as Son of God.

          This kaleidoscope of possibilities is much more what we face in our lives too.  Rarely are we “assaulted” – to use the wording of the collect – rarely are we assaulted on only one front at a time, and rarely are our choices as clear as Jesus’ seem to be today.

          Along the lines of clear choices, the story is told of the Anglican vicar who noticed that his Evangelical minister neighbor was having some success at drawing new people into his church through the use of an outside notice board with various slogans or exhortations on it, and the vicar decided to try the same thing.  He put up his own board and, after a great deal of thought, wrote on it, “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN.”  You can imagine his distress when he went outside the next day and saw that someone had added “BUT IF YOU’RE NOT, PHONE PADDINGTON 04655.”

          In our own temptations, we don’t usually get the luxury of choosing between the lady and the tiger, between clear good and clear evil.  Our struggles tend to be more along the lines of bad versus worse, or good versus better.  Which of several is the least of the evils?  Which of our choices will lead to the least harm or the most good?  Ethical positions get murky in these days of sharply divided politics and national interests; of emerging AI technology and how to use it to do good rather than to harm; of the noise and the reach of podcasters and social media influencers; and of increasingly sensitive economic and global relationships; and I think for many of us, the path of responsible Christian behavior in the midst of all the conflict and all the chaos can sometimes be difficult to discern.

          Loving us, God has given us freedom, the freedom to give in to, as well as the freedom to resist, temptation; and in this freedom to choose our own way, we are constantly being challenged by the world around us to remember and claim our baptismal identity and values, as well as to remember and claim our responsibility to the world around us; responsibility that our identity, our values, and our freedom bring.

          C.S. Lewis has written, “All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual:  the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.  For there are two things inside me,” Lewis says, “competing with the human self which I must try to become.  They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self.  The Diabolical self is the worse of the two….Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.”

          As Jesus did literally, during these forty days of Lent each of us is called to go into the wilderness spiritually, the wilderness of solitude where we have no one to confront, no one to struggle with, but ourselves and our temptations:  our Diabolical selves, self-centered, rationalizing, putting ourselves forward at the expense of others, strutting about in pretense and illusion.

          This call into the wilderness can be scary, and I’m just as reluctant to take the plunge as anyone else.  On the plus side however, in 1 Corinthians 10:13 Paul says that “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and [God] will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing [God] will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

          This is a reassuring promise that Paul makes, but it’s also challenging.  It’s challenging because this promise that we’re not alone in being tested, and that God will see us through our time of testing; this promise means that none of us has a legitimate excuse not to go into the wilderness…but at the same time, herein lies the single biggest temptation we face as Christians:  as we perhaps reluctantly turn towards the wilderness armed with Paul’s words, we’re faced with the temptation to not believe him and to not believe the promises of God; to not believe that God is with us in our test, or in our illness, or in our loneliness and our pain.  We’re tempted to believe that “God’s there” for everyone else but not for us, tempted to believe that we won’t in fact find God “mighty to save.”

          It’s been said that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing people he doesn’t exist.  I’d say rather that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that God’s grace doesn’t exist for us.  Because Jesus tells us again and again not to be afraid, the Devil’s greatest triumph is, in fact, our fear:  convincing us not to pray because of our fear that God might not be there to listen; convincing us not to give to others because of our fear that we won’t have enough for ourselves; convincing us not to come to church, not to receive communion, not to live as a member of the Body of Christ, because of our fear that at the end of the day, we’re not good enough for God to love us.

          “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” says Paul…and the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that Paul is a liar.

          But Paul doesn’t lie; and God doesn’t lie.  It’s the Devil who is the liar and the father of lies, and we have the whole witness of Scripture and the life of the communion of saints to testify to that, and to support us in that. 

The wilderness, both literal and spiritual, is a place of risk and of fear…but we are the baptized; we are marked as Christ’s own forever, and if we dare to enter this wilderness during these forty days, we will never be alone.

          “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN” – step into the wilderness, step into Lent -- because in the wilderness of Lent…lies hope.

                                                              Amen. 

Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

It’s been about 15 years since I helped my father move. He and my mother had lived in the same house for 35 years. But their lives had changed. Our family had changed.  My mother was in an assisted living facility where she could get the care she needed.  My father was isolated in their big house with maintenance he just wasn’t interested in taking care of. So it was time to sell it and “rightsize.”  We used that term – rightsize – rather than downsize. They were blessed in this house with an abundance of closet space and storage space and places to tuck away those precious things that had always seemed like necessities, things we all clung tightly to, that no one could bear to part with.

35 years is a really long time to be in one place. And so when we began the rightsizing to move my father to his new home, we realized just how much stuff they had managed to collect. Too much stuff!  All had to be sorted -- stuff to go with him, stuff to go with my brother, stuff to go with me, stuff to be given to my mother’s friends, stuff to be donated, stuff to be sold, stuff to be trashed. A decision had to be made about Eevery. Single. Thing. And as we opened those large, spacious closets and began taking out things that had been tucked away, there were just armloads of things that I knew would not survive this move. Of course at the time that we were accumulating them, it seemed like we could never rid of them.

Faced with our new reality as a family and wondering “what are we really going to do with all this stuff?” the only answer was - it was time to let it go, it was time to shed ourselves of it. It was time to rid ourselves of it.  So that all of us – my father, my brother and I - were taking to our respective homes only the things we would actually use. And we were sharing the things we no longer needed with others.

But there was one more really big benefit to all this purging and shedding. And that was when we got to my father’s new place, and we began looking around, we thought you know that chair that’s always been in the living room, what if we recovered it and put it in the bedroom?  That could go somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be nice if that table that used to be in the den found a new purpose in the office instead? 

And suddenly we realized that all these few precious things that we had that had survived the purge, when we were faced with a blank canvas, that they had a new life and a new purpose. And that we had a new way of seeing them and a new use for them.

We hear the words from the prophet Joel in our Old Testament lesson today reminding us of the of the coming of our Lord, a wrathful time, a hard time, a day of gloom but a day for us to remember something important.  And that is that our Lord is slow to anger and abounding in great mercy and love.

And that what we are to do, Joel tells us - Joel tells the people called Israel -  we are to repent and return to the Lord. We are to be intentional – very intentional - about how we live and walk with our God. We are to shed those things that separate us from a close walk with God. And surround ourselves with those things that make it possible for us to know and love God and our neighbor even better.

And so as we begin this Lenten journey, there are questions that we have for ourselves. To take this 40 day walk with Christ, what are the things that we have that should not survive this journey?  What are the anxieties and fears and things that have stressed us that keep us from the kind of relationship with God that we truly need? How do we purge those, how do we shed them?

How do we shed from ourselves any anger, and bitterness and rancor and hatred and suspicion that we feel towards others?  How do we strengthen relationships that have been fractured?  How do we go from pushing away to hands reaching out. 

How do we shed those things that cause us to walk a path that is not God? How do we dig out of the crevices of those closets the hurt, the bitterness, the wounds – the things that have separated us from loved ones and neighbors. How do we take those out of the closet once and for all and put them away? 

This is the time, during these 40 days, for us to be intentional about how we live in relationship with one another and with our God, determine for ourselves our new reality.  And the amazing thing about purging those things that cause us to live in ways that we should not, is that we make room in our lives for God to fill us.  We make room for God to give us a new canvas – a new way of being and a new way of seeing. So that we can strengthen our relationships. So that we can know more about what it means to walk in love.  So that we can love what God loves, the way God loves – fully, joyfully, fearlessly.

What do you need to shed during these 40 days?  And how can we re-imagine ourselves whole, complete, walking with our God, walking in love and community with those around us.

Having shed these things, having “rightsized” ourselves and made space for God, preparing ourselves for the Easter Feast to come, with what can we fill this space? I believe we are invited to take on…

There are many versions of this practice but Bishop Jose Luis Bhupesi suggests this path:

We can fast from “gossiping”. But don’t stop there. Take on making an effort to talk well about the person you were going to gossip about;

Fast from “using rough words or a rough tone” and take on “speaking gently” to the very people who might be intimidated by you because of your past relationship with them;

Fast from “complaining about everything and everyone” and take on making sure you “count your blessings”;

Fast from “any type of violence or violent speech” and take on “being gentle, being a peacemaker;”

Fast from asking “what’s in it for me” at the time someone needs your help and take on “being supportive”, a selfless supporter of those who will benefit with it;

Fast from “the need for revenge” and take on “praying for your enemy” as Jesus expects from his disciples.

The God of steadfast love and abounding mercy and grace continues to invite us into these “take on” relationships.  God implores us to walk the path that is the God path.  To find our meaning through love. Amen.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There are a lot of what we call “mountaintop experiences” in scripture.  They are places where God is revealed to a pillar of our faith. So it’s appropriate on this last Sunday in Epiphany as we’re getting ready to go into the season of Lent that our texts are all about these revelations of God on a mountain top.

Remember that it was at the top of Mt. Ararat that Noah’s ark came to rest. And Noah received a covenant from God that never again would God flood the world and cause such total destruction.   

And then there’s Abraham at the top of Mt. Mariah thinking that he is sacrificing his second son, Isaac. Instead God provides a ram in the thicket and Isaac was spared. That’s certainly a revelation of God on a mountain top. 

Elijah has a couple of those revelation experiences on a mountain top. First on Mt. Carmel where Elijah that the God YHWH, his God, is the one true God.  And then again at Mt. Sinai, in the silence, Elijah has a revelation of God and of God’s plan for his life. 

Moses gets a couple mountain top revelations of God.  He receives the law on how the people called Israel will live in relationship with God and one another. He goes up into this consuming fire, incredible brightness to be in the nearer presence of God where the law is revealed to him. But it’s also on a mountaintop, Mt. Kisco, that Moses goes to find the land that has been promised to the people, to be able to look upon it and learn from God that he will never enter it.

There are many mountaintop revelations of God. So today we hear about how God is being revealed on a mountain top to some disciples who climb up the mountain with Jesus. 

Peter, James and John have gone with Jesus not expecting this to be an unusual day. But suddenly Jesus is before them – his clothes are dazzling white – and they realize that some deeply felt change has happened to their teacher. 

So this is one of those moments when we can put things into our own context.  What do we do when we’re in a moment that we are surprised, in incredible moments that are not going to be repeated? We know it’s the most incredible moment ever -- what do we do?  We take a selfie.  We grab our phone.  We want to do our best to record the moment. Well, today we hear Peter’s version of a selfie: “I got it Jesus, I’m going to build three booths. We need to capture this moment.  You’re on this mountain with Moses and Elijah.  We need to capture this so we can remember this moment forever.”

And it sounds really great, because we do want those awesome moments to live on.  But sometimes we are so busy capturing that moment that we forget to actually be attentive to what’s going on. We lose the very essence of what is happening in that moment.

But in mid thought, just as Peter’s trying to figure out how he’s going to construct these three booths, God starts speaking words that are very familiar to us because they are the exact words that God speaks in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus is baptized. “This is my beloved, my son with whom I am well pleased.”  The exact words are heard again.  Suddenly everything’s been interrupted by God’s very presence with them. It’s so incredible that they are literally knocked off their feet.  Now they are fearful. 

So God has told them to listen to my Son and what’s the first thing Jesus tells them? Don’t be afraid. If our response to being in the near presence of our God is to be fearful, then the reminder for us in this gospel to us all is not to be afraid.  The reminder to us all is to allow God to speak to us fully so we can hear, so we can know what it is that God wants us to do. Because God has great plans for all of us. 

And as much as Peter and James and John might have wanted to stay on that mountain and just be in the presence of Moses and Jesus and Elijah and see these pillars of their belief in that transformed state - as much as they might have wanted to linger in that moment and not let go of it, they couldn’t. Every mountain top experience needs to come to an end. 

Several years ago I attended a retreat weekend when we still had the Benedictine monastery in Santa Barbara – and I met two ladies there that spent every weekend and some entire weeks on retreat.  They just so loved that mountaintop experience that they would find a church, or some organization who was doing a retreat and sign up.  They had applied for a retreat in New Mexico at Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.  Apparently in their application that had proudly listed the many retreats they had attended. The response they got from the Center for Action and Contemplation lived up to the “action” part of their name.  It was a rejection and an encouragement to them to “come down off the mountain.” 

Peter, John and James had to leave, they had to go back down that mountain. And what they had to go back down the mountain to the throng of people waiting for Jesus. They need him. They want to be healed, they want to be made whole. So they’ve got to come down the mountain to the people waiting for Jesus, for just a touch from him.

They had to come down from the mountain to Jesus’ reminding to them yet again I’m only going to be with you a short while longer. I will die and rise again. I’m going to be betrayed by the people I love. They had to come back down the mountain to that.   

They had to come down the mountain, back in their own existence to live among the ones who want to persecute them and take their lives just for being followers of Jesus. 

Coming back down the mountain is not always a wonderful thing. We don’t always want to come back out of the high, out of the euphoria, out of all the wonder – we don’t always want to come out of that to live in reality. 

But yet, that is what we are called to do. We are called to come back down the mountain, no matter how wonderful that moment has been.  What’s awaiting us is the work we are called to do by God.  And sometimes it’s not a lot of fun. Sometimes it’s lonely. Sometimes it’s frightening to be surrounded by all the things that face us when we come back down. 

There are so many people who are counting on us.  There are people counting on us who have had that mountain top experience, who have been filled to overbrimming with the presence of the Holy Spirit and to have come to them transformed into new beings and ready to walk God’s walk with them.  We’re setting an example for those who do not yet know our God.

That’s what it means to live faithfully in this life. They’re watching us, they’re watching our every move. How do we live after we have enjoyed that moment, how we share God’s love on this planet with all of God’s creation after we have enjoyed that mountaintop.  That is what God calls us to do, to be examples, to be disciples to make disciples. This is how we finish Matthew isn’t it? With the great commission – go out and preach and teach and make disciples in my name.

So today we come back down, we come off the mountain. We’re going to spend the next 40 days with Jesus:  a little of it in the wilderness, a little of hearing him preach and teach and heal.  We have a chance to be really intentional in our relationship with our God.  Setting an example for the faithful to follow us.  We will share the story of God’s goodness and grace. We will walk in the goodness of God’s love.  Amen. 

He was from Terni, in central Italy. While under house arrest of Judge Asterius, and discussing his faith with him, Valentine told him about Jesus. So the judge put Valentine to the test. He had a daughter who was blind. If Valentine succeeded in restoring the girl's sight, Asterius would believe and he would do whatever he asked. Valentinus, praying to God, laid his hands on her eyes and the girl's vision was restored.

Immediately humbled, the judge asked Valentine what he should do. Valentine replied that all of the idols around the judge's house should be broken, and that the judge should fast for three days and then be baptized. The judge obeyed and went so far as to free all the Christian prisoners under his authority. The judge, his family, and his forty-four member household of adult family members and servants were baptized.

Valentine continued his ministry to persecuted Christians, though, was later arrested again. He was sent to the prefect of Rome, to the emperor Claudius himself. Claudius took a liking to him until Valentine tried to convince Claudius to convert to Christianity. Claudius refused and demanded that Valentine either renounce his faith or he would be executed.

Valentine refused to turn away from his faith. So he was executed on February 14, in 269 CE.  Before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to Asterius's daughter, the girl whose sight had been restored, which was signed “from your Valentine” which is said to have "inspired today's romantic missives".

That story is pretty much lost to history. What survives is the cultural pieces that go into acknowledging the day.  Now it’s a lot more about Hallmark and See’s Candy and 1-800-FLOWERS than St. Valentine.

As a child growing up in the 1960’s, it was an annual ritual to give little cards with cute pictures and clever sayings to school classmates.  I put a picture of those on the cover of the bulletin. Like so many things now, you can find photos of them on-line if I include in the search the word “vintage.”

I remember the excitement of going to the drug store with my mom and picking out a box of these little valentine cards.  There were a few sets of 30 or so cards to choose from – it was such fun picking them out.

It was fun – picking out the cutest card for your best friend, picking out a card with a cat for your friend who liked cats.  Writing that note – “to my best friend Lucy from your best friend Carole.”  There always came that moment – when you had to address a card to a classmate you really didn’t like.  Or you thought didn’t like you. 

What to do…?  Just skip them figuring that they wouldn’t notice that a card from you was missing? Or just go ahead and write “to Chuck from Carole” and steel myself for the fallout. Chuck was loud and a bully. And I was shy and sort of artsy. I tried to stay away from him. And hope for the best.

On Valentines Day all the kids brought show boxes they had decorated with a slot in the top. We all played mail carrier, delivering a valentine to the other students.   And that night I remember sitting on the floor of the living room opening each little card, reading who it was from.  It was amazing being surrounded by these colorful little missives of care free fun and “love.”

I wonder if they still do this in elementary schools – this practice of love. I know how it made me feel, but what do children think about love?  And why does it matter?

A group of researchers asked that same thing.  And then they asked seven-year-olds, “what does love mean to you?”  The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone might imagined. See what you think...

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."  (That’s from 6-year-old Nikka – I could have used that advice when I was addressing that valentine to Chuck.  We could use a few more Nikka’s I think.)

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Bradley Cooper. But she’s fibbing."

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."  What an image!

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget to do that."

So children talk about love as tangible actions, deep feelings, and simple, powerful actions. Love is made manifest to them through acts of service, about feeling safe, about deep comfort and shared presence like smiling even when you’re tired. They express love through hugs, kindness, sharing, and simple gestures, learning from family examples and pets, seeing it as warmth, safety, and unconditional acceptance.

Why is this important to us?

Jesus encouraged us to "become like little children." In little ones we see the necessary “heart posture” for entering the kingdom of heaven: total humility, dependence on God, and trusting faith instead of self-sufficiency. In a culture that prizes status, Jesus highlights that the greatest in heaven are those with the humility of a child.

Just as little ones depend on parents for survival, we must rely on God for strength, provision, and spiritual life, crying out to God for God’s strength and wisdom and peace when faced with fear or weakness.

Jesus was not advocating for childishness or immaturity, but rather a "childlike" spirit—a shift from pride to humble dependency.

In doing so we might just fine that Love is the ultimate medicine.  Science and ancient wisdom agree: love is a powerful force for healing. Whether it’s through heartfelt connections, mindful breathing, or simple acts of kindness, love has the ability to reduce stress and strengthen your heart.

The HeartMath Institute has discovered that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart—influencing emotions, thoughts, and even physical health. In fact, research shows that your heart’s rhythm changes based on emotions like love, compassion, and gratitude.

The heart produces oxytocin, a powerful hormone associated with bonding, emotional healing, and stress reduction. Whether you’re hugging a loved one, practicing self-love, or expressing gratitude, you’re actively supporting your immune system, lowering blood pressure, and even improving digestion.

Love isn’t just about romance—it’s also about self-compassion, forgiveness, and connection. Practices like meditation, gratitude, and heart-centered breathing can help us recover from the emotional bruises of PTSD, anxiety, and emotional wounds. Engaging in acts of kindness and compassion allow our bodies to respond with a surge of positive biochemicals that boost well-being.

Research suggests that people who regularly practice love and kindness have healthier hearts and longer lifespans.  That’s the way God made our bodies, that’s our incredibly compassionate God in action, accompanying us through times that are difficult to help us recover from times of grief.

So today, take a deep breath, focus on your heart, and let the love of God lead the way. Amen.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Isaiah 58:1-12

Shout out, do not hold back!

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Announce to my people their rebellion,

to the house of Jacob their sins.

Yet day after day they seek me

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments,

they delight to draw near to God.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see?

Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,

and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose,

a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,

and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast,

a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,

the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness

and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,

and satisfy your needs in parched places,

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

We don’t often hear during sermons about our Old Testament readings but I thought we’d spend some time with Isaiah today.  Biblical scholars date the last chapters of the book of Isaiah to the time that the people called Israel were returning from their exile in Babylon. So the text that we have from the Old Testament today is part of those eleven chapters that tell us what was going on in this community as the people return to their land.

It’s hard for us to imagine in our context what that life must have been like.  These people who are called Israel who were exiled when Babylon took over their land, are coming back to a place some 70 years later that is ravaged. For the oldest among them, home is not the home they remember any more.  For those born in exile, it is nothing like their elders described to them.  The temple that had been the center of their life and their worship is gone. Communities have been destroyed.  Friends and family may have resettled somewhere else and are unlikely to come back.

So they are beginning all over again on this land.  And trying to figure out what the world will look like for them now that they’re starting all over. But one thing that is a constant for them is the practice of worship.  Even coming back into this ravaged place, they begin to do the rituals of worship that have become the rhythm of their lives – not unlike they have a pulse and a heartbeat.

But something seems amiss for them. Because they step back into this rhythm of worship and it seems like God isn’t paying any attention.  “Why aren’t you listening to us? Don’t you see we’re fasting, don’t you see that were doing what we’re supposed to do? That we’re giving ourselves to you in worship? It seems, God, like you’re not paying attention to us.”

And God has a lot to say in response to that. God says “Yes, you’re fasting. You are going through the rhythm of the ritual of worship.  But is also seems like you’re quarreling and fighting among yourselves, it seems like you are oppressing your own workers.” That’s not what giving yourselves to God is supposed to be about. 

What happens when these people start going through the motions, but they forget who God is and what God is?

I want to take a moment and go back to the first offering to God that is recorded in scripture.  And how sometimes our best intentions don’t go the way we think they are supposed to go.

Remember the very first act of offering recorded in scripture is Cain and Able. Cain who is the one of the two brothers who grows things from the ground, of his own volition, kind of out of nowhere, we’re not told what his motivation is, he decides that he’s going to give an offering to God out of the things he has grown from the ground

So off he trots with the fruit of his labor to offer to God.  And Able sees his older brother and decides to do the same thing. Able raises animals, so he takes a fatling and offers it to God. “Here’s my offering, here’s my act of worship.” 

And what happens?  It seems that God likes Able’s offering a little better more than God likes Cain’s offering. And God warns Cain not to allow himself to succumb to this darkness that is in his heart. “Don’t do it!” But he does. Cain gives in to the darkness, to his anger. And he takes his brothers’ life. All of this around an act of worship that somehow has gone all wrong. 

Even from that very first offering, our own motivations aren’t always kept in check are they?  So we go through our lives, we go through the ritual. We do what we are in the rhythm of doing but do we ever stop to ask consider how God might react? 

God tells us in Isaiah, God isn’t really interested in how we go about the rhythm of our worship.  What DOES God ask?  To look around, to be aware. Do you see any hungry folks around you that haven’t been fed?  Do you see any workers around you that are being oppressed? Do you see folks around you that need clothing? Do you see someone around you who is suffering from injustice. Do you see…? Because that’s the act of worship I’m looking for, God says, I’m looking to see how we love one another, how we respond to those around us who are in need.  And God says “if you do that, well then you have honored me.”

Something else – God makes some very weighty promises around that. You will be the light. Your light will shine forever. People will know what I’m about. People will know my goodness, my love, my grace because they will see that light emanating from you.  That’s what God says.  God promises that the people called Israel. “I will be with you, I will guide you I promise that.  I will make you the foundation for generations to come.  I promise that. But I’m counting on you.  I’m counting on you.” 

I’m not sure that there has been a point in our world history where God is counting on us more than right now. God needs the light and love of God to be radiating throughout the world.  It begins with every one of us.  It begins with everyone of us every day.  What have we seen that we knew down to our very core that was wrong and yet we fail to speak?  What bad joke did we hear at the expense of marginalized people and we failed to say no, that doesn’t work for me.  When did we see people who were being cheated, who were being pushed aside, when did we see that - and not speak up?  When did we see someone in need around us and think next time...  

What God wants from us is our hearts, what God wants us is for us is our commitment.  What God wants from us is to see the world as God sees it – filled with God’s creation made in God image and likeness and worthy of God’s love. That is what God wants us to see.  It’s what God implores us to see every single day. 

Because we are tasked with being the light in the world.  We hold so much in our hands and there is so much for us to do to show God’s love to everyone.  And every day becomes a new day for a new commitment from us – individually, and as a community. Every day becomes a new day for us to say - we are standing with those in need. We are standing with those who have been pushed to the margins. We are standing with those who do not know the love of God.  Because our light makes a difference. Our light draws them in. Our light brings them home. 

So today I ask you -- think as you go out into the world about the faces of God’s children that you see.  How can we be light?  How can we be love?  Because every day there is a new opportunity for us to show God’s love, to show God’s mercy, to show that God has been faithful and loving to us from the beginning of time. Someone you’ll meet today needs to know that.  From us.  Amen.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In 1950 a tiny hospital in the deep south, somewhere in Alabama opened its doors to patients.  What was significant about this tiny hospital – it only had 9 or 10 beds - was that it was the only hospital in the state of Alabama at that time that had been created to serve the medical needs of African-Americans - in the entire state.

It actually was formed when the Catholic diocese of Alabama decided that it was long past time for there to be a hospital that would serve people of color in the state.  And so, it was founded largely through the efforts of that diocese.  And they named it after St. Martin de Porras, a Peruvian man, who had himself given much of his life for the care of others.

De Porras story is a complicated one: his father was a Spanish nobleman and his mother was a slave.  So he belonged to no world.  He didn’t belong to the world of European nobility nor did he belong to the world of enslaved people.  But everywhere he went he was immediately judged and rejected based on his outward appearance that revealed that his mother was of African descent.

His heart was a heart that longed to help others even as a child. When he saw others who had even less that he had, he would feel compelled to try to help them.  And by the time he was a teenager he just knew he was called to the priesthood. So he presented himself to the Dominican Order in Lima, Peru and said, “God has called me and I wish to become one of your brothers.”   They looked at him with the skin and features that once again revealed that his mother had been a slave and they said “no.”

Martin was determined and continued to believe wholeheartedly that this is what God called him to do and be.  He kept going back and kept going back to them.  And finally they said, “okay we will make you a lay brother of this Order.”  And so he lived out his life with that Dominican Order cooking and cleaning and laundering.  But he was never ordained a priest.

His commitment was to those who had nothing.  He saw them with eyes and a heart that made him want to help everyone he encountered them.  And so he gave food to the hungry. He took care of the sick.  And he took away all those distinctions around race, and ethnicity and social class.  If you had a need, he was going to take care of you.

This was how he lived out his life, making visible to the church, those had been invisible to those who had been marginalized church, those who had never been known to the church.  That was the way that St Martin de Porras lived out his life.  So it’s no surprise that this tiny hospital in Alabama that was created to serve invisible, marginalized people was named for someone who committed his life to doing that work.

The poor, the sick, the disenfranchised are always around us.  But so often they are not visible to us. We move about living our lives and far too often, the invisible among us continue to be invisible.

So for a few minutes I want us to step into the first century world of Jesus Christ.  He starts his ministry by calling a few fishermen to come and join him. And the first thing he does is not to go to the temple authorities, to the elite, and schedule meetings with them and say, “I’m here, let’s get on with taking care of everyone.” No, that’s not what he does.

His first order of business is to go among the poor, and the sick and the marginalized and the disenfranchised who have been put down, pushed away and ignored – that is his first order of business. 

And what an incredible message he has for them: blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who are mourn, blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty, blessed are those are being persecuted in this oppressive society in which we live.

Blessed are you.  Because if you have been living your life believing that you are invisible, if you have bought into the idea of this narrative that you are unimportant, unloved and uncared for, there is good news – the good news is that you are not invisible to God. The good news is that God sees you, God knows you, God loves you.

Jesus has delivered this incredible message that those who have believed that they are not part of God’s plan, now he tells them they are legitimate, they are part of God’s plan.

That had to be one of the most dangerous messages that the Roman empire could expect someone to deliver.  Because when you have subscribed to the theory that you are no one and that your life matters to know one, you make the oppressors’ job really easy. But the oppressor’s job isn’t easy when you truly believe that you are a child of God and that your presence and your voice matters. 

And Jesus has become an enemy of the state from Day I for delivering the message that no one in the empire wants to hear.

How do all these people who have been pushed aside for so long, how did they hear that good news “I am somebody, I am a child of God” when the whole of your life you have heard the opposite?  What a joyful day that had to be for the throngs of people who have come to Jesus to be healed, to be made whole and to be restored to community.

The saints who have come before us have dared us to see the world with compassionate eyes. They have dared us, as the church of Jesus Christ, to see the world as a place filled with God’s beloved. To see the world as a place where we are stakeholders with our sisters and brothers and where we are called to lift the fallen, to love those who have believed that they are unlovable and to share the message of God in Christ.  They have dared us to be that bold.

Are we? Are we bold enough to follow saints like Martin de Porras? Are we bold enough to look upon those who are being told they are nothing and nobody and to say to them, “your life matters.  And because your life matters to God, it also matters to me and I will put myself out there.”

In light of the violence that so occupies our hearts and minds these days, the Bishops of our Episcopal church published a letter yesterday morning. It’s written to all Americans and signed by more than 150 Episcopal Bishop’s.  It addresses the events happening in communities across the country but especially in Minneapolis. 

Many of you have expressed concerns about what you are seeing and how, as people of faith, we are to respond.  So I want to share a portion of this letter from our Bishops who ask what they believe is the core question facing America — whose dignity matters?  Here’s what they say:

“What happened a week ago in Minnesota, and is happening in communities across the country, runs counter to God’s vision of justice and peace.

We cannot presume to speak for everyone or prescribe only one way to respond. For our part, we can only do as Jesus’ teaching shows us. We call on people of faith to stand by your values and act as your conscience demands.

We must keep showing up for one another. We are bound together because we are all made in the image of God. As bishops in The Episcopal Church, we promise to keep showing up — to pray, to speak, and to stand with every person working to make our communities just, safe, and whole.

Every act of courage matters. We are committed to making our communities safer and more compassionate:

So children can walk to school without fear. So families can shop, work, and worship freely. So we recognize the dignity of every neighbor — immigrant communities, military families, law enforcement officers, nurses, teachers, and essential workers alike.

In the face of fear, we choose hope. Safety built on fear is an illusion. True safety comes when we replace fear with compassion, [replace] violence with justice, and [replace] unchecked power with accountability. That’s the vision our faith calls us to live out — and the promise our country is meant to uphold.

The question before us is simple and urgent: Whose dignity matters?

Our faith gives a clear answer: Everyone’s.

Retired Bishop Steven Charleston wrote of his desire to recognize that we are living through a time when anger and blame are epidemic. And he offers something we can all do together: being Spiritual Medics.

“I have committed myself to be a Spiritual Medic in these days of chaos. I hope you will join me and become one too. If you do, here is what you will commit to for the duration of the turmoil:

To sustain the healing of creation.

To connect with others with intentionality.

To pray protection each day at noon.

To help diminish suffering.

What these four commitments mean will be up to each of you, and every other medic, to decide. There is no hierarchy. All are welcome and all needed.”

So on this day of blessing, we look upon our sisters and brothers with the teachings of Jesus in our heads and hearts, with the saints behind us cheering us on and saying “let them know how much God loves them, let them know how much God cares. We all have value, we all have worth.”  Amen.

“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,

on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—

the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,

and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to hear the account from John's Gospel of the call of the first disciples. We had John the Baptizer playing a very prominent role in that account as he literally pointed the way to Jesus “this is the lamb of God” for those who had been following him around in the wilderness.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Today we have a very different look from Matthew's gospel. Today we see Jesus returning to the Galilee after he has learned that John the Baptizer has been arrested.  And now Jesus carries on the message that John had been proclaiming on Jesus’ behalf telling everyone to repent because the kingdom had come near. Just to put this in context, we are at the very beginning of Jesus earthly ministry. We start to get insight into the particular, unique kingship of Jesus that we’ll see develop through the season.

We hear that he withdraws – not out of cowardice or self-preservation – but forming an alternate vision of kingship which is nonviolent and nonretaliatory. He is both the Messiah and the Son of Man who has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus, the King of the World that is and is to come, is a displaced person in this world.

But more than anything else, this gospel is a call to ministry story.  We find Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee where he calls the first of the disciples: “come and follow me.” He's out walking by the Sea of Galilee and he seems to see some unlikely people to call as his first disciples.

They are fishermen - first Simon Peter and Andrew.  And then James and John.  They're in the midst of their living their lives, just getting ready for another day fishing. Just as many generations of their families before them had done, and just as they always expected they would do.  But that Jesus calls with a mysterious, cryptic invitation, “follow me I'm going to make you fish for people.”

And the account that we're given is that they just walk away. They walk away from the boats and the nets. James and John walk away from their father.  And we hear that and we think and we’re amazed from our 21st century mindset that that could happen.

But it might have been even crazier sounding to Matthew’s first century listeners because family was everything in their culture. You didn't walk away from your family. It’s counter intuitive. What would make four rational people walk away from everything to follow Jesus? 

There are theories that the four had known Jesus for many years, they knew this was coming. But none of the gospels say that.  And if we make that assumption we’re cheating ourselves and minimizing God’s capacity to call us out of what we plan for ourselves and into God’s plan.  God who knows out gifts, our strengths and fears better than anyone, better than ourselves.

 The 4 fishermen already have something useful and important to do. They’re not looking to make a change. They’re not looking for a new life. They don’t seek Jesus, he seeks them.  The call of Jesus doesn’t fill an obvious need in their lives. Like the call to the prophets in the Old Testament, it is intrusive and disruptive.  

So perhaps they say “yes” and follow Jesus because this invitation in like nothing they’ve ever known.

Call stories are amazing and uplifting, call stories like we hear from Carson:

"During high school,” a young man named Carson, says “I became very sick and ended up with liver failure. I was in orchestra and was supposed to be in advance music composition and had an internship in conducting my junior year, but I ended up being too sick to commit to the course of study. The next year, senior year, I had a bunch of open hours in my schedule, so my guidance counselor told me I should take the EMT class. I became enthralled with medicine and went straight from high school to paramedic school.

Carson gave up a full-ride scholarship in music to Illinois University that he had worked towards most of his life. He gave up the path that he had set in place years before to go do what he has a true calling for - work on an ambulance, for poor pay, and exposure to people on the worst day of their life.

“However, when you join EMS,” he says, “you gain a family that will support you through anything. I wake up (almost) every day happy to go to work. It's not a job if you love what you do, and that can't be more true for me. That was thirteen years ago and I haven't looked back. I still love music but being a paramedic and helping my community is what I was born to do.

Some individuals know from a young age they are destined for a specific path, often described as a "tug" or pull toward a purpose. Others like our paramedic friend Carson find their calling accidentally, after discovering a passion. This highlights that a "calling" often feels like a pull toward a specific purpose rather than just a job.

I know many of you have your own amazing call story. You are teachers, nurses, parents. You’ve felt that pull, that compulsive tug. And I can’t help but wonder if the disciples didn’t feel that also.

We can be sure that these four men know everything everything about fishing. But who had valued them, in the course of their lives, for something other than what they bring to market?  Jesus sees something else in them. Jesus sees gifts in them that perhaps no one else has ever identified. They are valued, they are respected in a way that they have probably never experienced.

For someone to have that kind of confidence in them and say “follow me I'm going to take these great gifts that you have to get fish and I'm going to help you fish for people with me.” That's an invitation it would be hard to turn down.

So they walk away from everything that they have known, literally and figuratively, to follow Jesus.  And Jesus immediately, we're told, goes out and begins proclaiming the good news and curing all of these sick people.

Now what all four Gospel accounts share, even though they all have very different details about how it is that Jesus went about calling the first disciples, is that Jesus really doesn't start his ministry until he calls these disciples. Let’s think about how this plays out.  From his first moments with those who will share ministry with him, he is forming them for the last moments, for the time when he will no longer be with them and their discipleship will be needed more than ever.

So off they all go. And as soon as Jesus starts preaching and teaching and healing, he’s almost instantly rock star status.  Because all of these people who have been so sick, all of the people who have been in need, who have been without hope, have now found the light.  Throngs of people are following Jesus everywhere he goes. And the disciples are probably thinking initially this is a pretty good gig, this is pretty good. Because we're welcome everywhere we go.

But it doesn't take long before they start to get really weary. Throngs of people clamoring for Jesus make for days that are long and hard. They start quarreling among themselves. Jesus’ teaching can be confounding. They realize that this call business is not easy.  They're up close and personal when the tide of public sentiment turns against their beloved teacher. His life is in danger and by extension their own lives are in danger. It’s enough to make one of them even deny that he knows Jesus.

And that could have been the end of the story. But it's not. It's not the end of the story because even though they may have been disheartened, even though they may have wondered in their own minds, “what was I thinking, why did we ever say yes to this?” God’s call is there. It never gives up on them, God only strengthens and affirms their call through the message of the empty tomb.

The message from the empty tomb: “he's risen! Don't give up! Don’t fall away. Love lives.” And we see them come back to make that choice all over again - to follow Jesus, to proclaim the good news, to pick up his ministry, continue the message of love and God’s salvation all over the world. And ultimately to give their own lives for that message.

This whole business of being disciples is not easy not easy. Because the days are long and the work can be tiring. And other folks may look at us and think, “what's wrong with you? Don’t you see what a mess the world is in? Why are you wasting your breath talking about love? Why are you talking about caring about God's people? Why are you showing up in places where people are hurting? Where justice and mercy are in very short supply. People may think we as the church are nuts.

It’s what we are called to do and be every single day of our lives. God doesn't give up on the world or on us as individuals. God is always there to remind us with just those little glimpses, that what we do matters, that what we do is important, that our call to serve is real and valid.

There's still a lot of sickness in our world that need God's healing - the sicknesses of division and strife and war that need God's healing. And that starts with us, with every act that we hate that starts with us. As we open our doors and invite others to come with us on faith journeys. Because God still needs all of us he needs us as individuals and God still needs us as a church - just as we are with the gifts that we bring, God needs each of us.

And every time those doors open and someone else comes into this place to journey with us in faith, every child who is taught here every time someone comes in our midst to learn with us and grow with us to bring about healing in God's world.  The church is more important now than ever.

We can't forget that.  We can't forget how important we all are to the delivery of God's message in this world. So if we start to feel disheartened, if we start to feel that we're tired, may we be reminded always that those first disciples didn't come with any special equipment, or special skills. They didn’t come with anything more than the grace of the love of God. And that grace and love is upon all of us as we answer our own call to go forth to bear the message of the good news to everyone that we need.  Amen.

January 18, 2026

St. Matthias Episcopal Church, Whittier, CA

The Rev. Jeannie Martz

          “I have a question for you.”

          This simple statement can have quite an effect on us.  The nature of the effect varies with context and setting of course, but the statement itself still puts us on notice that something is going to be asked of us, something will be required of us.  Whether the question is a mental challenge or part of a game, a simple request for information or the one card that will cause the house to fall down; even if it’s the greatest fear of most Episcopalians:  “What if I mention my faith in public and someone asks me a question??” – to be told a question awaits us, any question, calls us to attention.

          No one asks better questions than Jesus and so today I want to focus on three of his most important ones:

          What are you looking for?

          What do you want me to do for you?

          Do you want to be made well?

All three of these questions appear at least once in the Gospels, and in each case the person at the receiving end of the question has never encountered Jesus before.

          The third question I listed, “Do you want to be made well?” comes from the fifth chapter of John, a little further along from today’s reading.  While Matthew, Mark, and Luke in their Gospels have Jesus traveling to Jerusalem only once as an adult, a journey that will end at the cross, John places the adult Jesus in Jerusalem three separate times.  This conversation takes place during his second visit:

          John writes, “Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes.  In these lie many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed.  One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”        

          In this morning’s Gospel reading, John the Baptizer specifically says that he didn’t recognize Jesus as the one who is “greater than he” until he witnessed the revelation of Jesus as the one on whom God’s Spirit remains.  In this Gospel, revelation precedes recognition, and the man in the porticoes at Bethzatha – also known as Bethsaida and Bethesda – this man has received no such revelation.  To him Jesus is just some stranger who has stopped by the mat he’s been lying on for thirty-eight years and has asked him a question that seems to be a bit of a no-brainer.

          But questions in John’s Gospel operate in more than one dimension.  They operate first in the dimension of the story where they’re part of the flow of the narrative; but they also have a spiritual dimension – so that Jesus isn’t just asking the man if he’d like to be healed physically; he’s asking both the man and everyone who hears this question in any time or place, any century, any fellowship, including us, if we want to be healed, to be made whole; if we want salvation, because in the Bible wholeness and salvation are two sides of the same coin.

          At the story level, the man may have heard Jesus’ question as a reproach, because his response is more an explanation than an answer.  The footnotes in the NRSV say that some of the other ancient manuscripts of John include the sentence, “…an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.”

          With this in mind, it makes perfect sense for the man to say to Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”  Yes, the man wants to be made well, he’s been trying to be made well; but he can’t get to the water by himself.

          Every time we hear this question, “Do you want to be made well?” we need to ask ourselves if we have the same courage this man has, because to be made well is to be transformed; to be made well is to receive new life; and to set aside all the wounds, large or small, that may have defined us in the past; all the wounds, large or small, that we may be clinging to, allowing their familiar pain to shape our identity, to frame how we see the world and how the world sees us.  If Jesus makes us well, if we become whole, then who are we?  Then what do we do?

          To the man, Jesus says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”  “At once,” says John, “the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”  (Jn. 5:2-9)  In the man’s healing, and in ours, is the revelation of who Jesus is.  Within the revelation of who Jesus is lies the imperative for us to respond.

          The second question, “What do you want me to do for you?” is a popular one in retreat and meditation settings.  Included by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Mark’s version reads (Mk. 10:46b-52):

          “As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’  Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’  Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’  And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’  So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.  Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’”

          As I said, these days, encountering Jesus and hearing him ask this question is often the climax of a guided meditation, or perhaps the focus of a prayerful reading of Scripture.  In such a guided meditation – and this is a general example - the facilitator slowly leads us, within our own minds, to a place of beauty and safety, sometimes a favorite place of our own that we’re encouraged to visualize.  Very gradually, we’re invited to see a figure standing before us, or sitting next to us, shadowy at first, but then recognizable as Jesus, face to face.  Radiating love, Jesus looks deep into our eyes and asks, “What would you like me to do for you?”  The answer, coming from the depths of heart and soul, is ours and ours alone to give.

          One of the ironies in Mark’s story, of course, is that from the very beginning, the only one who really sees the face of Jesus, the only one to whom Jesus’ identity as the Messiah has been revealed, is the blind man.  While he’s shouting “Son of David!” – a primary messianic designation – everyone else is trying to keep him quiet.  When Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, because he already knows Jesus to be the Messiah, Bartimaeus doesn’t hesitate to ask for wholeness.  In response to Jesus’ question, he promptly says, “My teacher, let me see again.”

          “Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’  Immediately [Bartimaeus] regained his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.”

          In complete faith that Jesus is God’s Messiah, Bartimaeus asks him for healing, for transformation and new life – and receiving what he has asked for, he goes forth into his new life as a disciple.

          We sometimes say, “Be careful what you ask for, or be careful what you pray for, because you might get it.”  We say it tongue in cheek, making a little joke out of it because we know it’s true, and because we know it’s scary:  as we pray, as we encounter Jesus face to face and hear this second question, we might find ourselves faced with the invitation to be transformed, to receive new life.

          The third question, the one we heard this morning, is the greater context for the other two.  “What are you looking for?”  These are the very first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John.  “What are you looking for?”

          At Christmastime the shepherds were looking for a newborn.  At Epiphany the Magi were looking for a king.  Today, in this season of God’s ongoing self-revelation, John’s disciples are looking for the Messiah, and in response to Jesus’ question, they ask him where he’s staying.

          True to form, this question also operates on two levels.  On the level of the story, John’s disciples are literally asking Jesus where he’s staying.  They’re near Jerusalem, near the Jordan where John has been baptizing, and they want to know where they can find Jesus again.

          At the spiritual level, this is a deeper question about discipleship.  In the words of John the Evangelist, John the Baptizer says that he saw God’s Spirit descend upon Jesus at his baptism and remain upon him – the Spirit is permanently with Jesus; it won’t come and go, leaving him sometimes in the power of the Spirit and sometimes not.  In the same vein, the two disciples are now asking Jesus if and how they too can share in this relationship that he has with God through God’s Spirit.  In John’s Greek, asking where Jesus is staying is the same as asking where Jesus is remaining.  And Jesus says to them, “Come and see,” a response one author has called “an offer to see Jesus with the eyes of faith.”  (NIB, 531)

          Another author has said, “You will see the kingdom of God, but it will not be what you expected to see.  And you will see the day when you will rejoice that [the kingdom] was so much more than you could have expected.”  (Christian Century, 12/21/16, p. 21)

          What are we looking for?  When we come together in this place, when we come together to worship, what are we looking for?  Fellowship?  A sense of belonging?  A place to give, to serve, to do the Loving Thing and make a difference in our community and in the world?  Certainly these are aspects of our life together here at St. Matthias, but they’re not unique to this parish or even to the Episcopal Church.  Each of these things can be found and experienced in other organizations as well.

          What would we tell Jesus we’re looking for?  That we want to know and feel God’s love?  That we want to show the world a new way of being and living together, a way that honors and values all people?  That we want to share in a life that has eternal significance?  Yes, and more.

          C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters purports to be an exchange of letters between Screwtape, a senior demon in the Nether Regions, and his young nephew Wormwood, a junior demon stationed in the world and charged with winning human souls for Hell through what are disconcertingly ordinary means.  The “patient” (as he’s called) that Wormwood is currently working on has recently had a conversion experience and is a new churchgoer, filled with faith and idealism, and Screwtape gives his nephew the following advice:

          “Wormwood, the Church is a fertile field if you keep them bickering over details, structure, money, property, personal hurts and misunderstandings.  One thing you must prevent: don’t ever let them look up and see the banners of victory flying, for if they see the banners flying then you have lost them forever.  Never let them see the Glory of God.”

          What are we looking for?  We are looking for transformation and new life; we are looking for a relationship with Jesus and with each other in the presence of God and in the power of God’s Spirit.

          We are looking to carry Christ’s banners of victory and transformation into the hurt and pain of this world, so that all of us may see the Glory of God everywhere. 

“Teacher, where are you staying?”

“Come and see.”

Amen.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

One of the oddest stories of baptism was told to me by a priest living in Montana – where it snows a lot this time of year. Her two boys were very young -- 4 years and 18 months.  Her 18-month-old, Jamie, had been baptized on Epiphany Sunday a few days before.  She picked them up from preschool, strapped the youngest into his car seat while 4 year old Stephen – she thought – stood nearby.  Then he got into the car and into his booster seat – and threw a snowball at his little brother.  And asked “Jamie, did that remind you of your baptism?” Of course, mom was shocked but no harm was done.

And so today we come to another odd baptism story, another moment that is shocking: Jesus, who was without sin, who has no need of repentance or change of life practices, whose death saved us from our sins, presents himself to his cousin, John, to be baptized in the river Jordan. It’s been the subject of mystery and controversy pretty much since it happened. Imagine it in more modern setting: 

It’s kind of like running into Jesus at the St. John the Baptizer traffic school. You know, the school for people who need a second chance before their driver’s license is taken away.

So, of course, we all show up ready to do whatever it takes to hold onto that precious piece of ID.  And to our surprise, Jesus is there when we arrive – not teaching the class as we might expect; not passing out donuts and coffee to sustain us. Not even being the tech guy who gets everything going.  Nor is he the judge who commutes all of our sentences.

What we don’t expect, the oddest thing of all, is that Jesus - who we know never ran a red light or went faster than the speed limit  - is that Jesus is in the seats alongside of with us. In other words, it doesn’t make sense.  What is Jesus doing in the water, in the mud, with the riff-raff who need cleansing of their sins?  And why do we hear this story every year right after Christmastide and at the Epiphany?  The heavens burst open and the voice of God is heard. And the spirit in the form of a dove comes to rest upon Jesus. “This is my son, the beloved. In him I am well pleased.  We don’t understand it. But we don’t have to. It just is.

And it is a message counter to most of those we hear all the time, counter to the voices of our culture even those we claim not to hear. One expert has calculated that the average American encounters over 2,000 advertisements every day. It adds up over time – it adds up to something like an entire year of our lives – a year when we are prompted and prodded and inundated with messages that tell us that plastic surgery and Botox will make us more loveable.

That same expert, Jean Killbourne, authored a documentary called Killing Us Softly. It details the damage that these kind of messages inflict upon our souls, our identities and our way in the world.  So much so, she says, nearly that nearly half of all girls ages 3-6 years old worry about their weight. Think about that - 3 to 6 years olds.

Where can we look for the antidote for these messages?

Opal Singleton created “A Million Kids” a non-profit organization dedicated to halting the on-line trafficking of our children. She says that just four simple words from any adult or all the adults in our children’s lives are the most powerful antidote to these harmful messages.  Four simple words: “I believe in you.” 

Today’s story of Jesus’s baptism is an Epiphany story. It is a revelation in the moment of baptism when the true identity of Jesus is revealed. Not to reign from some far away heaven, but by taking the plunge with all of us, in the water, in the mud, in the flesh. And so it is also our story. We are reminded of our own identities in Christ. An identity that can never be revoked or taken away.  We remember that Jesus’ ministry is our ministry. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us and we receive spiritual gifts to last a lifetime.

And God has a few simple words for us too: “You are my beloved.  In you I am well pleased.”

I used to visit someone who had a picture of an old time revival baptism where everyone’s gathered at the river’s edge. And all the church ladies are there dressed up with their hats and gloves on. There’s someone in the water and people ready to dunk him. I admired it on our visits.  My host said it always reminded her of the moment we join our spiritual ancestors in saying yes to God. “It reminds me, she said “of becoming a place where God happens. Of claiming my identity.” No matter what the voices of our culture say, in baptism those are drowned out with the only voice that really matters: “You are my beloved… in you I am well pleased.” 

Whatever was before is no more.  Wherever we may have been doesn’t matter.  Whatever messages the world sends us, we emerge from the waters of baptism a new creation, forever changed, forever a place where God happens.

Through baptism we grasp the presence of God and live in it. Through baptism we live at God’s hand, trusting God’s purposes. We find joy where many think that joy cannot be found. We find meaning and grace that make our total lives stronger than death itself. Living at God’s hands. Should God ask great things, God will supply great means.

In a few minutes we will renew our own baptismal covenant. The liturgy is in your bulletin. I invite you take it home with you and choose one of those promises to focus on during the Epiphany season. Pray about it daily and invite it to work on you. If you do, I promise that your spiritual life will be transformed. Perhaps you will focus on

·       Continuing the apostle’s teaching, the fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers. 

·       Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever – not it, whenever you fall into sin will you repent and return to the Lord?

·       Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Jesus Christ?

·       Will you seek and serve Jesus Christ in all persons loving, loving your neighbor as yourself?

·       Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?

Let it grow within you. The rest of the sentence – is the key.  Can you say with your whole heart. I will.  I will with God’s help.

Ultimately this is about what God through Jesus Christ has already done for us. Jumping onto the waters of the river of life and all for love of us. 

However odd this baptism story is, it is our story even if we think it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It just is.

It’s the story of creation formed out of such dark waters as these.

It’s the story of a young Jewish woman visited by God in a way that confounded her fiancé but made her sing. 

It’s the story of a wild man out in the desert proclaiming a new kingdom of water and fire.

It’s the story of one without sin who was baptized with sinners like us whose death will save us.

It may feel like a snowball in the face. But it is our chance to claim Jesus who first claimed us. The one who never asks us to go anywhere he has not already been. From dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. From the cradle of the waters of baptism to the grave he knows what we are up against and has shown us how to live so that life never ends.

Choosing to go God’s way, choosing whatever will bring us closer together and above all, choosing all the things of the earth – doves, water, mud, flesh, love – to carry out the purposes of heaven.  And murmuring to us over and over again: “You are my beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”  Amen.

`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

This very rich and interesting gospel lesson this week gives us a chance to look at the qualities and character of two very important men in the story – Herod, King of Judea and Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.

Let’s start with Herod. By all historical accounts, he was a brilliant man. He was responsible for much building in Israel. Those who have traveled there have had the opportunity to see what still remains of his efforts, the ruins of many of the things that Herod built. There is evidence that he was remarkable, a genius, a smart man -- who for a brief time, had so much potential to do all kinds of good.

Matthew’s is the only gospel that talks about the Magi’s visit. This story jolts us with a cruel reality that Luke’s gospel does not. Luke’s gospel is full of lovely images of angels singing and shepherds with lambs kneeling before the newborn baby. Matthew’s story, though, has all the intrigue of a Hollywood blockbuster -- rampant ambition and greed, fear and lust for power with a lead character who was so insecure that he executed his mother, his wife and three sons because he feared that they were plotting to take his throne. Herod’s encounter with the Magi on their quest to find the infant king triggers his cruel behavior once again.

This one encounter with some wise men who had journeyed a long way and who tell Herod that somebody else has been born King, is bad, bad news for Herod. Because Herod, in his insecurities and paranoia, and in his need to be the only King, is willing to sacrifice the lives of all the male children in the kingdom to ensure that one baby is no longer a threat to him.

That's a destructive course for a man who's had so much potential, a man whose coming to Judea could have left a productive legacy. It’s believed that Herod whose ancestors had converted to Judaism and who had been raised in its beliefs and traditions, could have had the interest of his God and the interest of his people at the forefront of his thinking.

But instead, through the choices he made, he became a destructive force among the people that he was charged with governing. Because he lacks something vitally important at the time we find him in Matthew's gospel: he lacks character and he lacks an understanding of what it means to walk with his God.

          So then we have Joseph - who has been put to every kind of test and whose character is revealed in the decisions he’s made. He's had to face the shame of his people in taking a wife who was already with child, a child that wasn't his. He is now being told by an angel messenger who comes to him in a dream and tells him to leave the land of his people and to go to a place where his people were once enslaved. Joseph must have known all of that history and tradition. 

What must have gone through his mind?  Can’t we just imagine him thinking, “you're asking me to go to Egypt. And what I know about Egypt is that my people were once brutally oppressed there. You want me to believe that this is a safe and good thing?  You want me to believe that I am called to go there, to take this young, new mother and child whose welfare has been entrusted to me and to go to a frightening sounding place.”

Whatever questions may have been going through his mind, Joseph is obedient. And he gets up and he goes by night to take his wife and this child to safety.  

In reflecting on this text, we remember that Abraham's descendants had not become the numerous and strong family that God promised they were going to become until they had gone to Egypt. It's only after a boy named Joseph of many, many years earlier, a son of Jacob, is sold by his brothers into slavery and taken to Egypt. Genesis chapters 37-41 tell us this important story.  

It was only after Joseph’s father and those same brothers had followed him to Egypt because their lives were in danger, that they risked starvation during a famine if they stayed home. It's only when they get to Egypt that these descendants, promised to Abraham, become a numerous people on a foreign soil far from home.

In Matthews account of this story, this is where Joseph is being told to take this child. Yes back to the land where his people were enslaved. But also back where they grew in number and in strength. And this child named Jesus would begin to be formed in a place that held so much meaning to all the descendants of Abraham.

So what is the difference in these two characters that we are encountering today in this text? Herod who presumably has every advantage and immense power and authority to bring whatever he desired to fruition and ought to be faithful is not. And Joseph, a working class man not known beyond his own tribe, who has little power and few options in life but proves always to be faithful to God in every way that God asked of him.

The difference between how these two men see their relationship with God and neighbor is what author David Brooks talks about in his book, “The Road to Character.”  Brooks talks about character in a refreshing kind of way distinguishing between external achievements, which he calls résumé virtues, and internal character strengths which he calls eulogy virtues. Resume virtues are things like being a hard worker, having marketable work skills and achieving awards.

Eulogy virtues are qualities like honesty, kindness, courage, and love. He emphasizes developing a closer relationship with God through cultivating those eulogy virtures. Strong, enduring character is built not by shying away from but by embracing opportunities for internal struggle, self-restraint, and contemplating a sense of one's own limitations rather than impulsive self-expression. 

And so when we see Herod’s concern play out as “how great can my Empire be? How long can I rule? Will I be remembered as a strong ruler?” it's all about Herod.

For Joseph, it's all about something else. It's all about taking care of the child who has been entrusted to him. It’s all about putting himself last. It's all about following the guidance of God. It's all about being able commitment to the ideal that nothing he does is more important than giving everything he has for this child, Jesus.

So here we stand today at the beginning of a new calendar year. And I know folks are thinking about new year’s resolutions. We love to make resolutions and we have the best of intentions when we do. I have a few I know I need to make. And keep.

But I wonder if perhaps somewhere in all of that thinking about what we would like to do and be in this coming year, we’d do well to reflect on character. Given the choice, don’t we want our lives to look more like Joseph than Herod? 

What if our resolutions for the new year mirror Joseph’s actions that we hear about today:

I will do whatever I need to do to stand for Jesus.

I will do whatever I need to do to make certain that Jesus comes first.  

I'll suggest to you that when our reflection becomes, “I need to live for the sake of the one who came to live among us, for the one who came to show us God's love,” then all of God's people can be cared for.

 When we are willing to pick up and go even to a place that is uncomfortable, that may seem counterintuitive to us, we will take on the capacity to love unconditionally. We will have depended on the kindness and the love and the welcome and the mercy of strangers, and we will have the capacity to extend that same to others.  

So we sit at the beginning of this year with lots of blank pages to write in our 2026 book. How will we write them? How will we fill those pages? I don't know about you but I want my pages to look more like Joseph than Herod. I want my pages to be pages of faith and obedience. I want my pages to be pages of love. And I know you do too.  Let’s do that together. Amen.

Today is Christmas. Today Jesus Christ is born — God enters the world in a new and startling way. This baby boy, born to a poor family in occupied Judea, born, as far as the world can see, as a child of adultery from a backwater town, forced to flee his homeland as a child to escape political violence — this baby boy is truly, fully, utterly God.

We talk about the incarnation often in Church. We recite the creed each week and remind ourselves and each other that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”, and in our familiarity it can be easy to lose sight of what this means. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I can stand here and unravel the full implications of the Incarnation in the next 5 minutes, but I want to at least try to enter into one aspect of this great mystery while we are gathered for a moment this morning.

What comes to mind when you think of God? What images fill your mind? A ‘bright blur’? A bearded man on a celestial throne? A father? A mother? What attributes come to mind? Power? Knowledge? Wrath? Wisdom? Love? What does this God in your mind expect from you and others? Purity? Holiness? Perfection? Good morals? ‘Traditional values’?

All of us carry around these ‘god-images’ within us. We build them up from our formative experiences as a child, from the things we learn to think of as ‘good’. Often we take images of people who have shaped us and project them onto God, or we take whatever we think of as good — our values — and blow them up to God-size in our minds. Whatever we’ve learned to think of as powerful or beautiful or valuable — take that and multiply it by 1000x — and there’s our ‘god’. Sometimes this is shaped by our experiences with our faith, with church, with the Scriptures, but often those are only a piece of the image.

This means that all of our images of god are a bit different — sometimes very different — from one another. Sometimes our god-images just aren’t compatible, because what I think is good and true and beautiful is actually opposed to what you think of those things. Sometimes when this happens and we come into conflict with one another, we wave our hands and say, ‘God is infinite; God is unknowable. Who can say what God is really like?’ And sometimes there’s some truth and humility in that statement.

But here’s the thing: Christmas means that we don’t get to wave our hands like that anymore. On Christmas, God enters in, bodily. Emmanuel — “God is with us”. Jesus is not a really ‘godly person’, Jesus is God. This means that there’s not some other, bigger, vaguer, more mysterious God ‘behind’ Jesus that we don’t really get to know. As the author of Hebrews says, Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being.” “The Word was God.” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

Despite Jesus’ love of parables and sometimes cryptic seeming sayings, he doesn’t spend his life acting as some kind of vague, mysterious figure, cloistered away from the public, shrouded in mystery. He lives publicly, ministers to huge crowds, gathers students, teaches, performs signs, gives sermons to thousands. He doesn’t leave us to wonder what God is like, he speaks and lives what God is like before our very eyes. And his witness, his revelation of what God is like is so rich that there are four gospel books and a whole New Testament chock full of his followers recording it and trying to tease it out for us.

The incarnation means that if we want to know what God is like, definitively, we are not left in the dark — we look at Jesus. We read the gospels from the lectionary each week because our tradition knows this. It knows that there is nowhere else for us to go, if we are going to encounter God clearly. The birth of Christ means that we are left with no excuse. God has come into the world bodily and told us who he is, and he’s there for all of us to see. We just have to decide if we’ll listen.

And this is a big ‘if’! In Jesus, God comes into the world in ways that don’t look like what we expect. God’s power is revealed in Christ’s suffering. God’s glory is revealed in Christ’s humility. God’s wrath is revealed in Christ’s self-giving love. We look for a king, for a glorious leader to give us security with his wealth and power, and Christ comes to knock on our door as a migrant carpenter, with no home to lay his head. We look for a teacher to give us neat definitions and clear do’s and don’t, and Christ comes as a prophet and a healer who confronts our definitions and asks us to love our neighbor. We look for someone to tell us we’re right, and our enemies are wrong, and Christ comes with his misfit band of followers of all kinds and tell us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

This is the mystery of the incarnation. This is the revelation of God that shatters all of our images of him, all of the idols that we make and carry around with us. Christmas reminds us that, if we are to be Christians, to be Christ’s people, we must make sure we are looking at Christ, learning from him first what God is like, allowing our images of God to be shaped by the way that God makes himself known in Christ.

“The goodness of the Lord is the kindess of the Lord / The glory of the Lord is the mercy of the Lord / The beauty of the Lord is the suff’ring of the Lord, / is Christ upon a tree, stripped of dignity. / The power of the Lord is the meekness of the Lord / who bore humanity with brave humility.”

God has given himself to us in Christ on Christmas Day. May we have the courage to meet him there, and the humility to be continually transformed by the encounter. Amen.

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Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, the season of preparation and anticipation for Christmas, for the coming of Christ into the world. I know that you hear this every Advent season, but (along with today’s Collect) I want to remind us that Advent is not only about looking back and remembering the coming of Christ as a baby in a stable in Bethlehem 2000-some-odd years ago — nor is it only about looking forward with anticipation to the Final Coming of Christ, at the end of the age, to do away with death forever and make all things new. Advent is also the season where we learn to watch, day after day, for the coming of Christ here and now — for ‘God’s daily visitation’ —  for the moments where the Holy Spirit overshadows us, presses in upon our lives, and calls us to faithfulness, to join him here and now, in bringing God’s life and love into our world.

I think Joseph is an excellent image of this kind of faithfulness to God’s ‘daily visitation’. The narrator clues us in that we should pay attention to Joseph’s actions in today’s gospel by telling us right at the beginning that he is a ‘righteous’ man. What does that ‘righteousness’ look like? Well, when we meet Joseph, he is facing a crisis — one of those moments of disruption and decision, where the future we imagined for ourselves has shattered, and we’re not sure where to go from here.

Joseph has just found out that Mary, his betrothed, his beloved, is pregnant and, so he believes that she must be an adulterer. As far as he knows, he has been betrayed by the one whom he has committed his life to, the woman who he has (literally) been building his future around. I’m told that it was the custom among Jewish families of this time that, once a betrothal had been confirmed, the families entered into a time of preparation before the marriage was consummated, much like the period between an engagement and a wedding in our day. Rather than this period being just focused wedding planning, however, the groom would return to his home (which was often the family’s ancestral property), and begin to ‘prepare a place’ for his bride. He would build a new home (or an addition) on the property for them to live and raise their new family in. As far as Joseph knows, this home will now stand empty, a public monument to his grief and shame.

Yet Joseph does not respond as many of us would to this betrayal. Remember that in this time, marriage was not primarily a private, romantic affair between two individuals; it was a public arrangement between two whole families with big financial and legal ramifications. One of the 10 commandments forbids adultery and elsewhere in the Torah, the punishment for adultery like this could escalate all the way to death. At this point, Joseph believes he has been deeply and publicly wronged, but he does not respond by taking Mary to task in front of their community. He does not demand restitution or accuse her of adultery before the scribes and Pharisees. Joseph understands that Mary is far more vulnerable than he is, that the life of a young woman with a child born of adultery would be at best a life of insecurity and struggle, shame, and likely poverty. Mary’s reputation is already ruined among her community, but instead of ruining her life further, Joseph decides to do what he can to save her from as much harm as possible and to divorce her quietly. Even in his grief and pain, instead of insisting that he get ‘justice’ for the betrayal, or insisting that the Law be upheld and Mary punished accordingly, he decides to prioritize Mary’s well being and the life of her unborn child. He decides that extending care to this vulnerable woman, even though he believes she has wronged him, is more important than ‘getting what he deserves’ or even enforcing the Torah’s laws in his community. This decision, Joseph’s choice to choose compassion and humility in the midst of crisis, this, it seems, is what makes him ‘righteous.’

But it doesn’t stop there. As he makes this choice, Joseph has a dream where an angel visits him and tells him — as though he is a character in one of the ancient stories of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob — that he has not been betrayed after all. Mary’s child is not only a miraculous baby boy like the one Sarah had in her old age, but something infinitely more: the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was coming to save God’s people from their bondage and sin, the one whom prophets like Isaiah foretold hundreds of years before. Remarkably, when he wakes up, Joseph says ‘yes’! He does not dismiss the dream or insist that it’s impossible. Somewhere along the way, Joseph has become the sort of prayerful, discerning person who recognizes that this was more than just a crazy dream from someone in the middle of a big life crisis. He’s become the sort of person who’s willing to listen and act on what he believes God is telling him, even though it would have been easy to explain it away.

He receives Mary as his wife after all, despite the fact that, in the eyes of his community, she is an adulterer, Jesus will be seen as a child of sin and shame, and he will be seen by many as a pathetic enabler of one of the biggest sins in Jewish Law. Joseph would also know that, if this baby really is the Messiah, it means that he is saying ‘yes’ to making himself a target for the powerful rulers and leaders in the land who might not be so happy about someone claiming to be the promised king of Israel — and this is exactly what happens with King Herod in the chapter after this. But Joseph  says ‘yes’ anyway, he accepts God’s invitation, risking his reputation and later his life, to be faithful to the call that he heard in a dream. And this decision, this ‘yes’, along with Mary’s ‘yes’, is how Jesus comes into our world and brings the kingdom of God with him.

This is what God’s ‘daily visitation’ looks like. Christ comes to us not only in joys and little moments of kindness and love, but also in the crises in our lives — in whispers and intuitions and dreams when things are not easy or clear — at moments when saying ‘yes’ might require taking a path that seems strange or shameful to many around us. Joseph shows us what it looks like to receive Christ’s coming in the midst of our lives here and now, what it looks like to be righteous: Becoming the sort of person who is prayerful and attentive enough to God’s presence that we hear the invitation and take it seriously, rather than filling our lives so full of distraction that we can hear nothing at all. Choosing courageous, humble love in the face of pain and crisis. Choosing to obey when there are so many excuses and ways to dismiss the call, when we don’t fully know what it will cost, but we know it won’t be easy. And look what Joseph’s ‘yes’ brings into the world — the Messiah, salvation, the presence of God among us, transforming everything, showing us all the path into abundant life and unbreakable joy.

We cannot know what God will birth in us, in others, in the world around us as a result of our daily decisions to choose compassion and humble love, and we often don’t get to see the fruit that that our choices might bear, but the Holy Spirit just might bring new and surprising life into our world if we learn to say ‘yes’ to God’s ‘daily visitation’, to look for and to receive his ‘coming’ in our life here and now. With Mary and Joseph, we also might help Christ enter our world through our courageous choices of love and faithfulness — we might become like new Bethlehems — ourselves and our communities becoming the spaces where Christ is born anew and from which his love spills out into the lives of those around us.

May it be so in us. Amen.

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’

“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I was at an event on Friday and ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in quite awhile. Of course I asked about their families. One friend told me that earlier in the week, his wife had called him about noon and asked him to pick up their daughter when her ballet rehearsal ended at 4 o'clock. So my friend says okay I'll leave work a bit early pick her at 4 o'clock.

At 3:05, my friend receives a call from his seventh grade daughter who says “dad, rehearsal ended early. Can you come get me right now?” My friend said, “all right I’ve got to wrap up some loose ends, finish a Zoom meeting. And then I’ll come get you.”  The distance between seventh-grade daughter and the church where he’s serving is about a 10 minute drive.

At 3:15, my friend receives another call from his daughter, “Dad, where are you?” “I think,” my friend said, “I need to help my daughter reset her expectations.”  And I thought of Advent and John the Baptist and our gospel today.  That’s a great way to look at Advent, this season of expectation in which we find ourselves.  But also one where we are invited in to examine and even reset our own expectations.  

Our lessons this morning, I think, reinforces this. First we hear about the relationship between the people of Israel and John the Baptist. Israel expected the prophet of the Messiah to come in and confirm them - confirm their righteousness to comforting them because of their heritage and rich traditions. But instead, they are summoned to the wilderness where they are confronted and challenged and called to repentance.

Today I think we’re also hearing Jesus help John the Baptist to reset his expectations. We find John in prison, a stark reminder of how his prophetic witness had been received. In the first century, prison was a way station and not a final destination.  People were kept in prison awaiting trial until they were exonerated, exiled or executed.  During their incarceration, prisoners could have contact with supporters and so be able to keep up on the news of the day. So it’s John likely heard from his own disciples of Jesus’ teaching and healing.

John, as he sits in prison, most assuredly knows that his own path on earth will likely end there. There is no realistic scenario that will allow him to continue preaching and proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God. And it seems he is having a severe existential moment about his life's work. He's hearing things that run slightly contrary to his expectations of the Messiah. This is very common and understandable. All the gospels report that those who encountered Jesus were regularly confused about who he really was. Jesus himself eventually asked his disciples “who do people say that I am.” They think you are Elijah.  They think you are Moses the answers came.

Do we now find John questioning his lifelong path and wondering did he misunderstand from the beginning what Jesus was about?  So John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask that crucial question – “are you the one we’ve been waiting for?”

In response, and so lovingly, Jesus replies with a blessing. John knows the prophecies of Isaiah and Jesus reminds him: the blind see, the lepers are healed, the dead are raised.  It's already happening, Jesus tells John’s followers. And in doing so, Jesus helps John to see and to hear that the kingdom of God is always nearer than we expect. It's more likely nearer to the street corner where the needy gather than it is to the great halls of power. Just like today: the Kingdom of God is a lot nearer every weekday from 3 – 4 on our patio than it is 2 blocks away at Whittier City Hall.

In our epistle lesson written about 12-15 years after the death of Jesus, James is helping the church itself to reset its expectations. This entire letter is written to a church in conflict but it's a conflict that James sees as a positive. It's what happens when the church decides it’s serious about wanting to be agents of peace and ambassadors of reconciliation, that it really wants to be the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ in the world. Which is complicated stuff.

And so there are going to be disagreements. There are going to be differences of opinion. But James writes to the church: are you going to grumble against each other just because you're going through conflict and you've got some bad actors who are misbehaving? Are you going to turn on one another? Or are you going to work through it together remembering you share the same mission? James likens them to a farmer who has to wait between the rains - between the early rain and then the late rain. The farmer is situated in between, during a season that requires a lot of work and a lot of faith and a lot of patience. It's a dry time. But the rains will come.

This morning, the third Sunday of Advent, we lit the candle of joy the candle. It represents not so much the joy that we have but the joy that we hope for. It's not so much the joy we possess as the joy we are promised. This is not the joy you get from clicking and ordering something and the next day - with free 2-day shipping - it shows up on your front porch. All that is fine. But it’s different. Joy that we're reminded of through these lessons. It is the joy that Christ comes to us in forms of healing and repentance, in recommitment and renewal calling us to reset our expectations in faith, to help one another have faith between the rains.

It is James after all who sets expectations in his letter this way: consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you endure the testing of your faith. For the testing of your faith produces endurance and endurance will have its perfect end: our maturity and our completeness in Christ. That’s a sweet promise.

But it was that hard question that John’s disciples posed to Jesus that really grabs our attention today. John’s question is for Jesus but also for all of us perhaps to help us discern why are we here at this time and in this place today:  Are you the one we’ve been waiting for?

Are you the one whose service to others is going to give them new insight into what it means to be a servant of God? 

Are you the one who is going to identify the yearnings of the world, bring them into the church and challenge people there to respond with energy and love?

Are you the one who will bring the compassion of Jesus to heal the hearts of family and friends, even when your own heart is breaking?

 Are you the one that will so beautifully, so joyfully reflect the light of God into the world that others say to themselves, “I want that, too.”

Are you the one who will stand with victims of abuse, who will find the voice to speak for those who cannot speak?

Are you the one who has no idea what you’re being called to do but is willing to be open and receptive to the workings of the spirit confident that you will see, that you will hear just what that is?

This Advent season we wait for the tiny infant who will teach and inspire and startle and redeem all our longings, and give life to all our questions and inspire us to answer them.   Amen.   

For so many of us, this is the first Christmas after a major life event, such as the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the loss of a job or a home, a natural disaster, or the onset of a life-limiting physical or mental illness for ourselves or for a loved one. And I know that so many of us this Advent are grieving multiple losses at the same time. The relentless refrain that “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” just rings false.

There is a disconnect between our actual feelings and what we imagine we should be feeling at this time of year. That’s why we call it a “Blue Christmas.” What we crave today I think is hope and hopefulness.

In my own experience of trying to hold onto hope, in the midst of darkness, I have found it helps to remember that hope is not the same as optimism. As David Steindl-Rast notes, “To have hope is to remain open to the possibility of surprise when everything turns out worse than we could ever imagine. Despair assigns reality a deadline, whereas hope knows that there are no deadlines.”

Sometimes we need others to help us remain open to that possibility of surprise, to find the hope when we cannot find it ourselves. In her autobiography, Color is the Suffering of Light, poet Melissa Green offers a beautiful image of how we can help one in difficult times. Green invites us to imagine a shadow-woman sitting in a rowboat, gazing at the shore and watching the city in which she has lived collapse around her.

The shadow-woman weeps to see the destruction of all she has known, though it has cost her dearly to live there. In that excruciating moment of pain, she becomes aware that someone else is in the boat with her, someone she calls “The Beloved Companion.” The Beloved Companion says, “I know you are in despair and cannot see where this journey will take you. I will hold the hope for you until you can hold it for yourself.”

“I will hold the hope for you until you can hold it for yourself”–  what a powerful description of how we can be as Christ to each other in difficult times.

So what does holding the hope look like in practice? This year, I’d like to invite you to prayerfully consider three questions that can create a space for hope while acknowledging the reality and the pain of loss. You can use these questions for yourself, or you can share them with someone else.

If you would like to try out this practice now for yourself, there is a post-it in your bulletin and pencils in the pews for you. If you are joining us on Facebook, take a moment to find a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. And don’t worry–this is just for you. We won’t be sharing them in the service.

One more thing: this is completely optional. If it is just too hard to think about right now or if this exercise just doesn’t speak to you, that’s fine. There are times in life when we just need to be, without any doing. Feel free to just rest quietly here. You are among friends.

But if you’d like to try this way of holding the hope for yourself or for another, here are the 3 questions to ponder:

What has been lost?

What remains?

What is still possible?

Take a couple minutes to jot whatever comes to mind for you.  We’ll take them one at a time, and I will give you a minute or two to think and write before moving to the next one.

The power of this exercise is that it creates a space in which grief and hope can co-exist. It is important to be honest with ourselves and with God about what we have lost, and to grieve those losses. And it is equally important that we take time to consider what remains and what is still possible. It is a reminder that we do have some agency in how we respond to things that happen to us.

 I imagine that Mary and Joseph had their moments of doubt, perhaps even despair–moments when hope was hard to find. But the Good News is that God is with us at all times, in all places, and in all experiences. We are never truly alone. We can bring our pain, our anger, our grief–all of our sorrows as well as all of our joys–to the God who loves us so much that He chose to dwell in a human body, experiencing all the joys and sorrows of earthly life.

I find my hope in the faith of Mary and Joseph, who said “yes” to the unknown, who trusted that God would be with them in their darkest moments, who held the hope for each other.  Jesus–Emmanuel, God with us—remains. As the Gospel according to John reminds us, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The story of that first Christmas reminds us that even when the world is a very dark place, there is light to be found.

May we all share that light, holding the hope for each other, inviting one another to consider what remains and what is still possible.

And so in the midst of our helplessness and deepest grief, let me share with you a prayer by Bishop Steven Charleston-a retired Native American Bishop of The Episcopal Church. He writes “Fill me again, God of the universe, God of resurrected life, with all that I need to make it through this life of mine. Fill me with the vision I need to see clearly and with the strength I need to keep going, to sail on.

My faith is a great sail. When it is filled by the breath of your Spirit, it takes me all around creation as I search for a deeper wisdom and discover the sacred in ordinary places I would never have encountered.

My ship is my heart, what I love and respect, the values of a lifetime gathered in joy and sorrow. I trust the deck beneath my feet for I have weathered many storms, guided by the stars of my ancestors, brought home by the anchor of my tradition.

We who love you and are devoted to you are mariners of hope sailing the mystery that surrounds us. Grant us tonight a little courage and lot of wisdom, as much hope as you can spare…please bless us again, dear Spirit, for I use up your blessings so quickly in these dark  times. Please come into my life once more and fill me up that I may thrive on hopefulness and then empty my heart each day in gratitude for what you have given me. Amen.

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 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.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Just for a moment, I’d like you to imagine with me a scene from the busy streets of Manhattan. Just an average summer afternoon: lots of people coming and going, rushing around, doing all the things that people do in the course of a normal day -- going to work, to school, just running errands. I’d like you to image that typical busy day in New York City. And then I’d like you to imagine for a moment that from somewhere a voice is heard that sounds something like this:

(singing)  “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

It's just a singular voice but a clear one with a distinct message, one that the people cannot ignore. Imagine that you start to see people beginning to respond to the voice. They stop what they're doing. Office workers drop briefcases, students toss backpacks aside, a waitress takes off her apron, a messenger leaves his bicycle. And walk purposely… but towards what…?

They begin to follow that voice until they arrive at a fountain in Central Park. And there they see the singer – an odd-looking fellow in very bizarre clothes singing those words of invitation in the middle of a huge fountain. And they’re all drawn there – the office worker, the student, the waitress, the messenger and many more to jump into the fountain to be immersed and to be cleansed.

Their joy is clear -- with all kinds of hope and expectation and celebration they jump out of the fountain they shed themselves of all of the remaining stuff that they had, all the burdens that they had before they came to that fountain. And they head out now preparing the way of the Lord.

If you recognize that little tune you might know that it comes from the musical Godspell which is based on the Gospel of Matthew. And it is John the Baptizer, who is always wearing odd clothing, always going to look a little unusual, he’s the one who's standing in the middle of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park singing his heart out, singing the invitation to get ready. And these disciple kind of folks arrived so filled with hope and expectation to prepare the way of the Lord. At the end of the scene, off they go – cleansed and filled with joy to do just that.

So I hope you’ll keep these images in your mind as we begin to unpack our lesson from Matthew's Gospel today. Because as I was praying about it and studying it, that scene just kept coming back to me. I kept seeing these joyful people prepare the way of the Lord. Not frightened, not anxious, not worried, not stodgy and judgmental - but joyfully preparing the way of the Lord.  

And it made me wonder about all those folks who were coming to meet John the Baptist out in the wilderness by the Jordan River. I wonder if they were joy filled. I wonder if they were being filled with hope and expectation.

This introduction that we're given to John the Baptist in Matthew's Gospel is very different than the one we’re given in Luke's Gospel. This is not the John the Baptist who was leaping for joy in his mother’s womb when Mary came to visit. This is not the John the Baptist that Zechariah, his father, dedicates to God.  No -- this is the John the Baptist who just kind of appears in the wilderness and begins preaching repentance. He is preaching repentance because the Messiah is coming. And people need to hear what he has to say – hard as it is, strange as it may seem. 

 They need to be reminded that the Messiah is indeed coming, to be ready because you don't want judgment to come if you know you should. Turn it around now. This is the hour, this is the time.

And I wonder about all those folks who have come out into the wilderness to an uninhabited place, to the quiet place, to the place where they can actually stop and be reflective. They come to that place away from the noise and the hustle and the bustle to where they can actually hear God and be reflective enough to ask, “what does my God require of me?” The prophet Micah probably said it better than any of the prophets: “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

So here is John the Baptizer out in the wilderness.  And so many people go out to see him there. But what were they looking for? What were they hoping for? What were their hearts hoping to find? Were they hoping for reassurance? Were they hoping that someone would tell them one more time what they needed to do and be? For what were they hoping?

But I guess more than anything, the question is how they left him. Because John doesn't mince words with them. “Oh by the way – being descendants of Abraham doesn’t give you a free pass. Don't rest on that one because what’s required of you, is what has always been required of God's people.”

So did the people leave their encounter with John with the same kind of hope filled joy we was portrayed in that one scene in Godspell “I'm ready to go do it God!” Or did they leave more somber, less secure, less certain? Were they asking questions: have we lived faithfully? We're here, we're repenting -- but have we really done what God would have us do?”

Matthew probably more than any of our Gospel writers, links the world of the prophets of the Old Testament prophets and the world that is to come. Matthew shows us the tie back for the people called Israel, shows us that the promises then of God with us are still God’s promises. And that the Messiah will come, that the world will be made right when the Messiah comes. And also that the Messiah will be our judge and so will have questions. The Messiah is coming to ask questions about who we are as God’s people. And have we lived faithfully according to what God requires of us. Did you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength? And did you love your neighbor as yourself?

And even today as we sit in this space, we ask ourselves those same questions: have we lived faithfully into what God requires of us? How have we as individuals, how have we as the church, lived faithfully into what God requires of us?  There have been some times in the history of the church that it did not live as faithfully as it could have lived. That there have been some times that the church was less than faithful in its work.

That doesn't mean that we can't live better every day. That doesn't mean that we can't redress our own wrongs and admit our faults. The great Maya Angelou said, “when you know better do better.”  We can say “we are preparing the way of the Lord in the way that we walk, in the way that we talk, in the way that we engage with God's people every single day.”

John the Baptist's knew hearts needed to be changed. There's still some preparing to do in our hearts. There are things that we know that we can stand against. We can stand against notions of hatred and bigotry and recognize that we are all God's people made in the image and likeness of God. We can stand against separatism that would break us apart and recognize the fact that together we do more. And we can stop and look at the one who has fallen next to us and but I can support you. We can stand against anything that does not foster a sense of loving God and loving neighbor. Those great Commandments. And we can truly begin to look at one another in ways that we may never have looked at one another before and to commit again that nothing - nothing - will separate us. Because the love of Christ is what makes us one.

Let’s go back to that scene from the beginning to Godspell and remember all of those joyful people rushing out of that fountain. And I think they're on to something. Because it's that joy, that exuberance, that kind of hopefulness that helps us understand what it means to prepare the way, to shed the baggage that we don't need and recommit ourselves to our relationship with God. Advent is the time to do that, to be on the path to God. We prepare so others can prepare.

And for everyone who does not know our God, who does not know what it means to believe in the coming of the Messiah, we are part of their story. We are part of the ever unfolding story of God's mercy and God's love and God's grace reflected in and through us to a world there needs to see God's light.  Amen.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

You may have heard a story that re-circulates now and then. A story we might call “The Story of an Unfortunate Intruder.”  A man in Rochester New York decided one night he was going to break into the home of home of a person who lived there. It was an unfortunate choice on his part in a couple ways – first because he chose the home of a woman named Willie Murphy. Willie was a petite lady of 82 years young – emphasis on the young – and a trained body builder. 

And so she heard a knock at her door late at night and heard a voice saying, “please open the door, I need you to call an ambulance for me.” She didn’t open the door. She called 911 instead to report someone at her door. In the meantime, the would-be intruder decided to break in.

 That’s his unfortunate choice number 2. Don’t mess with an 82-year-old body builder grandma. So the intruder comes into the house and the body builder grandma started working him over - throwing at him anything she could get her hands on to protect herself – started with a broom handle, threw a table at him, even sprayed shampoo in his eyes at one point. She was a highly courageous and resourceful person. The intruder had clearly underestimated the petite powerhouse that was Willie Murphy.

And when she was done working him over, she was able to drag him out of her house and deposit him in her driveway for the police to put him in handcuffs. It might be the last time he decided to mess with an 82-year-old body builder grandma. One wonders if the intruder wasn’t happy to see the police.

When we hear this story, the first thing we think of is that there’s nothing pleasant about the idea of someone breaking into our home   No one wants to face that, to be in the midst of that with an intruder. So why does Jesus, in our lesson from Matthew’s gospel, use this as imagery to talk about the unexpected nature of the coming of the Son of Man?

Because even if it’s unexpected, since we can't know the day or time, to say that someone could be coming into our home, a thief sneaking into our home, the thought of us trying to figure out how to prepare to prevent or resist that creates for us imagery that is uncomfortable. We don't like that imagery because we certainly don't want to be the ones to have to fend off a would-be intruder.

But I don't think Jesus is talking about fending off anything. This idea of being prepared is a different kind of idea indeed. And so we stand here today on the first Sunday of Advent and we can think about all of those things that we are preparing ourselves for over these next 24 days. And most of that imagery is around an infant in a manger and beauty and hope and expectation. Yes, of course it is.

But Advent is a season during which we recognize that there’s more to it than just the coming of the Christ child. We also recognize the second coming, that coming again of Christ. We say in the Nicene Creed “he will come again to judge the living and the dead.” I'm focusing us on that word – judge. He is the one who will come to judge”.

We probably don't love that word “judge” a whole lot. If we’re honest, we’d like to sort of skim over it and go right to “his Kingdom will have no end.” We do love the imagery of that child in a manger. And we love the imagery of grace and love and mercy. We’re okay with pushing aside that notion that when Christ comes again, it is to judge.

Today is a good opportunity to ask ourselves how we can get a little more comfortable and a little less anxious with this idea of Christ as our judge. Advent it a good time to do so. We have this incredible window of opportunity during which we are to prepare. And preparation is the antidote for fear.

Now Willie Murphy the 82-year-old body-building grandma prepared by going to the gym every day. What a good idea – I bet many of us would like to be able to do that wouldn’t we? She prepares by going to the gym every day to strengthen her body and probably to strength her mind as well. But what do we do when we're trying to prepare for the coming of Christ?

Because we can tell ourselves all kinds of things about what we think that looks like. And we can have all kinds of really good intentions. But the reality is, the coming of Christ is something for which we have to be preparing all along. We actually have to be in the process of preparing -- just like going to the gym daily, or just like we might read scriptures regularly, or pray at a set time each day. It is a constant work of preparation for us to grow in the knowledge and love of God, for us to do and be what God wants God's people to be.

It's not a seasonal “add on” to our schedule that we’re going to take on someday, or one of those things we think we can just do that tomorrow. It’s a pattern and habit of life. Because that's the way we humans are. The way we learn, how we grow and make new habits.  This is our time of preparation.

 So it's not a time to settle for a life of fear. That’s not what God wants for us. It's a time of preparation when we have the opportunity to choose to get up every day and ask ourselves what is it that God calls us to do and be, to ask ourselves how do we grow stronger in that knowledge and stronger in that work so that when Christ comes, he finds us ready with our spiritual muscles built up like 82 year-old Willie Murphy’s muscles built up from having spent that time in focused preparation for doing God's work.  

This muscling up in some ways is counterintuitive. It makes us consider Advent in totally different ways of thinking. We might find ourselves thinking not about what we want, but how we support others. There are reminders throughout the scriptures about taking care of the most vulnerable among us, turning our focus away from ourselves and instead out into the world.

I saw an interview with a young woman on Black Friday at The Citadel. She was carrying several shopping bags. The reporter asked her whether she’d found good deals. Yes! she gushed and described all the things she purchased. They were all for herself. At the end of the interview, she said a little sheepishly that she was going to do some shopping for gifts for her family that day too. You could practically see her make that transition from thinking inwardly to outwardly. 

Advent is our chance to turn inwardly and ask, “how am I part of the coming of the kingdom” and then to rededicate the outward work of our hands and hearts giving ourselves wholly to the work that God has called us to do. The world needs to see us do that: to see the Christ in us, to see our commitment to those in needs, to see that we are able to push aside those things of the world that would distract us, to distance ourselves from divisiveness and instead refocus on coming together in love to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give strength and support to the grieving. In filling these 24 days until Christmas with this discernment, we strengthen ourselves and one another.

It's how we keep one another going and growing in the love of God. So this time of preparation, we don’t want to think of it as the fear of pending judgment but a process of strengthening our spiritual muscles – how we have muscle memory for love and commitment to service.  Because that muscle memory is what we will call on and return to over and over and over again as we commit ourselves to one another and to our God.  

This day and all of our days, we grow together. We prepare together and we anticipate together. And we hold one another accountable because when judgment does come - we say that every week when we affirm our faith  - when judgment does come we hold ourselves accountable to one another so that we can each learn what it means to be godly. But also to see the God in one another. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

But the church calendar goes by Kairos time, that is to say God time.  All times belongs to God, of course, but the church calendar marks time in seasons that focus on our tradition and our spiritual life.  Today we conclude Pentecost the season of hearing about the teachings, the healings and miracles.

Today we will celebrate Jesus as King of Kings. We’ll sing “rejoice the Lord is King, your Lord and King adore.”  And I think it’s worthwhile today to think about how we live that out. How do we express our adoration? Show our devotion to our King? Maybe it starts by letting Jesus in.

Musician and former Beatle Paul McCartney was being interviewed by Howard Stern who asked Paul about a time when a guy named Jesus came to his house. “Yes,” Paul says, “the Beatles were in the middle of a recording session at my home when there was a knock on the door.” “And instead of calling police,” Howard says, “you let him in?”

 “Yes,” Paul says. “I asked him what he wanted. It was just an average looking bearded guy. And he said ‘I’m Jesus.’ So I said to him, ‘well you better come in.’”  Paul fixed him a cup of tea and started chatting with him. And he thought well he’s probably not Jesus. He might be a hippie, maybe he’s schizophrenic. But you never know.  “And I’m not going to say ‘go away Jesus,’” he told Howard Stern.

So he says to Jesus, “look I’ve got this session going on and you’re welcome to hang out with us.” Apparently Jesus thought he would do that. So Paul said he went into the others who were there, the other Beatles and the recording crew, and tells them “he says he’s Jesus and I don’t know if he is or he isn’t. But I’m not going to take any chances here. Is it okay if he just sits in the corner?” And Paul tells Jesus “just sit here and don’t say a word, okay? Just be Jesus.”

Just be Jesus. Howard Stern leaves the story there but I have so many questions. I wonder what Paul had in mind when he said to him “just be Jesus.”  What was the expectation?  What would any of us expect if we thought it was possible that Jesus was standing right in front of us?  It doesn’t sound like he looked or acted much like a king.

But then what we know about Jesus, what we have heard him say and seen him do through out this season of Pentecost – as we have seen and heard him “be Jesus” there’s no evidence of what the world considers to be kingly.  The point is, that in spite of everything Paul let him in.

In the events leading up to today’s gospel, Pilate asks Jesus a most intriguing question, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Pilate really wouldn’t have known much if anything about the history of the people called Israel. He may have heard the names of some of the kings.

There was the first king, Saul; then David who was mighty in battle but personally deeply flawed. There was Solomon that built that first temple. But Pilate’s only concern is if Jesus truly poses some competition to the Roman Emperor.  Beaten and bloody, Jesus bore as much resemblance to a king as the guy who appeared on Paul McCartney’s doorstep.

The great priest and prophet Samuel warned the people called Israel that they didn’t want a king – “you really don’t want a king,” he told the. “Because human kings will fail you. They will take everything you have and then they will enslave you. You really don’t want a king.”

They did though. They wouldn’t be talked out of it. They wanted a king because they wanted someone to lead them into battle and avenge the terrible things that had been done to them by their enemies.  And so they waited – and waited and waited – for that king to come and make everything right.

Except Jesus was not the king that anyone was expecting – including those who engineered the events that bring us to the gospel reading today.  Pilate knew a whole different meaning of empire and kingdom.  Pilate understood hierarchy, and power and authority which served those who were at the top of that hierarchy and commanded power and authority by fear. But Jesus came to serve not to be served.

 Pilate understood an empire that used violence and intimidation to keep everyone in line and obedient to the emperor. Jesus came wielding peace, calming storms, feeding hungry crowds and creating a whole new understanding of what is good. 

Pilate’s empire knew sickness and disease and poverty.  Jesus brought healing to the sick in body mind and spirit, to make what was broken whole.

That wasn’t what Pilate or anyone else was expecting in a king. Jesus had come to live among us, to be among us and to show us a different path. To show us what being whole and well could mean. To show us what community could mean if we could just love God and love our neighbor.

But old habits are hard to break. And loving God’s way and envisioning God’s kingdom takes some energy and focus and practice.  It is not what is reflected in the secular world around us that we must live in. Jesus was here to show a kingdom like no other, a kingdom centered in the needs of our neighbors and being willing to step into the breach to service those around us that God calls us all to embrace, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

So we ask ourselves this Sunday, this Christ the King Sunday, who is really the king in our lives? To what and to whom have we really given our devotion? Have we let Jesus in?  Are we devoted to the King of peace and love? Or have we given our devotion to something else – to secularism, to popular culture, to tribalism, to speaking instead of listening? 

Have we given our devotion to healthfulness and concern and care?  Or have we given it to destruction or neglect?  Have we let Jesus in?

Because at the end of the day, what gets reflected into the world is how those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus live our lives and show his love back out into the world.

Can people look at us in the way we live our lives, in the way we serve our neighbors, in the way we care for everyone around us -- can people look at us and say “yes, I see the reflection of God’s love coming from that person?”

That’s the question for us – this day and every day: how does the world see the love of God radiating from us?

We pray together at each Eucharist “thy Kingdom come.” And God’s kingdom will come through us – individually, corporately as the body of Christ that is St. Matthias – that’s the beginning of God’s kingdom come. And it comes through the way we live and love and serve.

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday by recognizing and recommissioning members of two of our ministries here at St. Matthias that have committed themselves to reflecting the light of Christ back into the world: our Stephen Ministers and Daughters of the King. In doing so, we send them into the world with our blessing, rejoicing that they have answered their call to serve God, to reflect God’s love into a hurting world.

Stephen Ministers offer a one-on-one ministry to those in our faith community who are going through difficult times, whether long or short, they are committed companions for the journey. Stephen Ministers are spiritual caregivers, not to try to fix problems, but instead focus on the caregiving process in which God is the cure giver.

Our Daughters of the King pledge to live a life of prayer, service, and evangelism. They make a lifelong commitment to follow a personal "Rule of Life," which includes praying daily for the church and for others, and engaging in service within their parish and community. Their motto is one that especially resonates today:

For His Sake…

I am but one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

What I can do, I ought to do.

What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

Lord, what will you have me do?

So it’s a good day for us to ask ourselves to whom and to what have we given our devotion. It is a good day to ask ourselves if we have fully let Jesus into our lives, if we’ve let him be Jesus?  It’s a good day to ask ourselves can the world see his love reflected through me?  Amen.  

Now, Jesus has spoken to them before about the coming of the Son of Man and the great destruction that would take place in those days, but this is the first time he tells them clearly that this apocalypse is coming for them, for the people of God, for the very temple where they believed that God’s presence dwelt. How could this be? The Temple was one of the greatest building projects of that era of the world. It was massive, opulent, and imposing — built like a great fortress that would protect the people of God and their holy places. The first Temple, Solomon’s temple, had been rejected by God and destroyed in the exile many centuries before, but God had proclaimed through the prophets long ago that he would raise up a new Temple that would never be destroyed! This was God’s house, wasn’t it? How could it be thrown down?

The disciples, and most of the Jews of Jesus’ day, saw more than a great building when they looked up at the Temple. They saw the place where they believed God met his people, the center of his presence and power and protection in their midst. Here they offered their sacrifices and tried to fulfill the Law, here the priests and scribes and pharisees preached and taught (and fought) about what it meant to be faithful to God. Here millions of them would come, three times a year, to meet God together in celebrating the great festivals and to remember their history as God’s people. As long as this building stood, they could believe that all would be well, that they were God’s special people, that they would one day be lifted out of their troubles and their enemies crushed beneath their feet. This was, in short, the center of their trust, the place where they pinned their security, the object of their faith.

But here’s the thing: Jesus’ words reveal that this building was never meant to be the place where they placed their trust — was never actually the place where God would dwell forever. This Temple, like Solomon’s before it, had a dubious history. Everything the disciples marveled at had been built just a few decades before by Herod the Great, the same Herod who is famous for murdering the innocent children of Bethlehem in the wake of Jesus’ birth. Herod the Great, we are told by the historians of this time, had a penchant for grand building projects. You see, he wanted to make a name for himself, to be remembered, to be ‘Great’, and he saw his biggest opportunity to do this by rebuilding the second temple, transforming it from the modest original building constructed after the exile into the huge and elaborate building that the disciples ogled at. However, gigantic, gold-encrusted buildings are expensive, so he built the temple by imposing crushing taxes on the people and reinstating the temple tax on top of the building taxes. Herod even marked the signs that stood at the entrances to certain parts of the temple, so it was impossible to forget who was responsible for this grand building. This temple existed at least as much for the glory of Herod’s name as God’s, and the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable was built into the very walls. It’s no wonder, I think, that Jesus goes to ‘cleanse’ the Temple of the money lenders and temple tax collectors as soon as he enters Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel.

After proclaiming the destruction of the temple, Jesus goes on to tell them that not only would the temple be destroyed, but a time of great violence and instability would be coming. Nation would rise against nation, natural disasters would ravage the lands, and even they themselves would be persecuted — arrested, imprisoned, even some of them killed — by their own people. A time was coming where it would seem like everything the disciples knew and trusted would be shaken and even Jesus’ own special followers would not escape the trials and tribulations to come. This was not what they expected, not what their teachers had promised them. When Messiah arrived, he was supposed to deliver them from their troubles, bring wealth and plenty, establish and secure the Temple forever — I think their shock and confusion is understandable.

So Jesus begins to speak to their anxieties; he tells them that in the midst of the instability and turmoil to come, God will not leave them alone. The destruction of the Temple does not mean that God is abandoning them. When they are persecuted, He will be with them, putting words in their mouth and wisdom in their hearts to witness to the truth and love of God in the face of the hatred and fear that will surround them. They will not escape the pain and insecurity of the coming days, but God will guide them through this time — will be their companion and their teacher — protecting the very hairs of their heads, sustaining their souls with life eternal even as they seem to be surrounded by death. “By your endurance, you will gain your souls,” Jesus says.

In retrospect, we know that it was in the fires of this time that the church was forged. The destruction of Jerusalem pushed the church out into the rest of the world. The persecution of Christ’s earliest followers, and the way that they continued to witness to truth and love in the face of that persecution, is what drew people throughout the known world to join them and encounter the presence of God in their midst.

In this moment in the gospel, however, the disciples haven’t yet come to realize that Christ’s body, of which they would become a part, is the true Temple, the place where God had come to dwell with his people forever. Herod’s Temple had become an idol to power and security, it was never meant to hold the people’s faith and trust. God’s dwelling place was coming into their midst, within and between them as they came to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to love one another with Christ’s love. God’s presence could not be taken away from them, even when everything they thought was safe and secure and sacred became uncertain. 

And this is where we find ourselves as well. We also are a part of Christ’s body. In our baptism, at this table, and most importantly in our love for one another, we are joined to Christ and God is revealed in our midst. We also face a time of uncertainty and instability, a time when many of us feel alienated from and at odds with those we have known and loved, and when many of the institutions we have trusted (in our society and in the Church) do not seem quite as steady and stable as they once did. We also hear reports of ‘nation rising against nation’ and ‘kingdom against kingdom,’ and in the Episcopal Church we have even seen some of our own clergy under fire in the public square from the ‘kings and governors’ of our time. Christ’s words to the disciples are for us in these days too. We may not be able to avoid the trials of our time, but we will not be alone in them. Like the disciples, it is our job to keep telling the truth, to keep loving our neighbors and our enemies, to keep witnessing to the love of God, no matter how scary things get. If we endure, if we keep the faith together, Christ’s words and wisdom will remain with us, and we will see the presence of God shine forth even in the darkest of places.

May we come to know and to trust that God remains faithful, that God is with us, even when it feels like everything else is falling apart.

Amen.

God is God not of the dead, but of the living…” Luke’s gospel tells us. This is one of the most ancient claims about God made by our Jewish siblings. The ancient Hebrew moniker for God, Elohim Chayim, means “living God” or “God of life.” Here in Luke, chapter 20, Jesus drives home that idea.

But wait a second: Don’t we as Christians believe that when our mortal bodies die, that is the gateway to life with God? Don’t we in our Eucharistic prayer at funerals recall “for to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens”?

So, what could Jesus possibly mean?

The first thing that Jesus does is give a gentle grammatical correction: it isn’t enough to say that God is alive or the God of the living; rather, God is life. It is from God that all life flows forth. And in returning to God, all life finds its ultimate fulfillment. We do not live in some kind of finite system created by God a long, long time ago, then left mostly to run its course; rather, we live in God’s universe which is constantly being energized with the ebb and flow of life.

Jesus is, thankfully, making a teachable moment out of a ridiculous question. It’s ridiculous because the Sadducees, as Luke says, didn’t believe in the resurrection in the first place. They don’t believe there is anything after descent into the Land of the Dead. They aren’t seeking wisdom or instruction from Jesus. They don’t care about the woman or the resurrection. They care about shaming and exposing Jesus to gain an advantage over him. It’s not even an issue at that time:

Leverite marriage as this was called when a surviving brother was required to marry his deceased brother’s widow, was no longer practiced in Jesus’ time.  Death, however, was omnipresent. Infant mortality was high and life expectancy was about 35 years. For much of human history, death was an agonizing ordeal. As Jesus was dying on the cross, he was offered wine mixed with myrrh, an herbal pain reliever, and likely one of the few medicines in existence at the time that was in any way effective at relieving pain.

Now, thankfully, the landscape looks quite different. Thanks in large part to the advances in modern medicine and science, and the great advances in palliative and hospice care, the agony and brutality of death can largely be treated and managed much more successfully than at any other time in human history—though access to this important care is still shamefully limited in many areas.

While the holy work that palliative and hospice care centers do must be celebrated, somewhere along the way, as our fear of the physical agony of death began to subside, much of the Western world began to try and make peace with death—to treat it as something other than the final enemy.

And to understand and explain death and eternal life in an earthly context – continuing the things we like and avoiding the things we don’t.  I heard a eulogy once where the speaker hoped that there was a chance in heaven to do a lot of fishing, which the deceased enjoyed, but that he would never have to bait the hook, which he did not. 

All that is well and good.  But we have questions.  Legitimate ones, not absurd scenarios meant to entrap like the Sadducees concocted. But heartfelt ones calling answers that offer relief.

While I was working in Temecula, I rented a room in a house across the street from one of my parishioners. He had told his neighbors, jokingly, that they better start behaving because a priest was moving into the neighborhood.

A woman who lived a couple doors down approached me one night as I was unloading my car. It was late and very hot that summer night. But she was very determined to talk to me. And with little more lead in than telling me her name and where she lived, she asked whether she and her husband would be together in heaven.

He had died recently and she was in despair. He had been married before, she told me, and she was so afraid that in heaven he would be with his first wife and she’d be alone for eternity. “You’re a pastor,” she said, “you must know what heaven is like.”

The fact is, I’m like everyone else. I don’t know. I don’t know if the streets will be paved with gold as my great aunt sincerely believed. I don’t know if St. Peter will be checking names at pearly gates. I don’t know if there’s really a rainbow bridge that our pets cross when they die.

What I do know is that the love we have for each other here does not end. Marriage is an earthly function, not a heavenly one. The lives we make together here will end. But the connections of love that bind us are a reflection of God’s love for us and that is eternal. Love is life, eternal life.

The details of eternal life are, properly, the mysterious work of God to be revealed how and when God chooses.  At every corner of our existence, at every moment since God called forth creation out of nothing and called it good, God is at work, swallowing up the defeat of death in the victory of Christ’s resurrection and life. That is the reality and promise of our faith that we rightfully claim and hold onto.

I also know that as Christians, we must work to ease suffering and to bear one another’s burdens together. To sit vigil at the bedside of a loved one who is dying is to come on bended knee onto holy ground. It is the place where we recognize and make peace with last things and first things. I’d like to share with you a litany called The Living of Last Things by Douglas McKelvey:

“I know that I am not long for this world, O Lord, that I am even now, perhaps already living a litany of last things, some long-since completed before I even knew to name them so:

Last conversations with people I love

Last outings to places I delight in

Last enjoyment of spring flowers or autumn leaves

Last times savoring favorite foods

Soon there will be a:

          A Last sunset and a last sunrise

          A last marveling at the moon or wondering at the stars

          A last awareness of the color blue

          A last shared joke or story told

          A last visitor

          A last hand held, a final squeeze

          A last letting go

And then – there is that first hello. That first opening of my eyes in a place I’ve never seen but have always known as home. And there, my king and my Christ, is where the real wonder begins. Yes, in dying I must first release everything that I hve stewarded or enjoyed in life, for I cannot seek to hold any of the things or this world. They have been temporary gifts foreshadowing greater glories and richer joys.

For when this world is remade, and I walk again in a renewed creation, all of these last things that I now grieve will be somehow redeemed and restored to me in their truer, better forms. So let me see with a more penetrating gaze even now, O God, the holy ini every good thing to which I must bid goodbye. You are the one thing I need never release nor big goodbye.

For you already have been through this, through this willing laying down of all things at your death that you might attain instead the unfading joys set before you.

You will remain with me, Lord Jesus, as I follow the trail you blazed, as I also pass from life to death to life – as the last of these last things gives way to the first of those first things of eternity.”

“God is God not of the dead, but of the living…”

For the Sadducees, death was simply the fate of every human when we’ve run out of life. But God isn’t satisfied with that outcome, it seems. No, to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, is to believe in the God who is life; who is love; who creates life, sustains life, and ultimately, is the God who breaks death’s back once and for all in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

“God is God not of the dead, but of the living…”

We affirm this at every funeral, when we stare death in the face and sing that ancient song of defiance: even at the grave we make our song Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

May the living God; the God of love who is the author of life, continue to sustain us until we stand at last among the saints whom no one can number, whose hope was in the Word Made Flesh, as the words of our Savior enliven our hearts: “Servant, well done!” Amen.

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

We’ve had a few stories in our gospel readings lately about Jesus interacting with rich men.  This week we meet Zacchaeus, another rich man, who is just as an entitled and selfish as some of the other rich men we’ve met in some of the other parables. What’s lovely and unique about this one is how he undergoes a life-changing experience.

The first thing to notice about Zacchaeus was that he was a chief tax collector.  This means that he was a regional contractor for the Roman government.  This would have been a lucrative business, because Jericho was a rich city. According William Barclay Jericho had a great palm forest and world-famous balsam groves which perfumed the air for miles around. Its gardens of roses were known far and wide. The Romans carried its dates and balsam in world-wide trade and fame. It was such a beautiful and temperate place that in 4 BCE, Herod the Great built a palace there as a winter retreat.

And Zacheus was rich. The Romans did not collect taxes themselves. They got the Jews to do it for them. In the whole scheme of tax collecting, Zacchaeus was not some small time operator; he was a powerful and wealthy business person.

But this wealth and power cost him something.  He was ostracized and rejected by his community.  We read in verse 6 that he was considered “a man who was a sinner.”  They would have regarded him as a traitor and a collaborator.  He sold his soul to Rome for a pot of money. He had everything he could want except the love and respect of the people around him.

The name Zacchaeus means “pure one.”  Which says to me that at the beginning of his life, his family had great hopes for him. What happened to bring him to a reputation of living an impure life we cannot know. As far as the people of Jericho were concerned he was a lost cause. Wealth can you buy you many things, it can’t buy you respect and belonging. So there must have been an emptiness in his life. Deep in his soul - gnawing sense of isolation and alienation.

So when Jesus came to Jericho, Zacchaeus was eager to see him. Now this is not idle curiosity motivated by Jesus’ celebrity status. He is not interested merely in “seeing Jesus” but wants to know “who Jesus is”. He goes to extraordinary lengths to fulfill his quest, even enduring the shame of climbing a tree despite his adult male status and position in the community as a wealthy “ruler,” however notorious. That he goes to such lengths shows his deep longing. 

Unfortunately, the crowd isn’t very accommodating.  Verse 3 continues, “he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature.”

If Zacchaeus was short, that in itself should not have prevented him from seeing Jesus.  All he had to do was work his way to the front.  What really stopped him was the hostility of the crowd towards him. They tried to prevent Zacchaeus from seeing Jesus.

But he so strong was his commitment to know Jesus, he did something that a rich pampered man was not likely to do.  He climbed the tree like a little boy, and without realizing it he fulfilled Jesus’ word that unless we become like children we will not see the kingdom of God. (Matthew 18:3).

Now what Zacchaeus didn’t realize is that Jesus wanted to meet Zacchaeus, just as much as Zacchaeus wanted to meet Jesus.  Jesus stops at the bottom of the sycamore, looks up and says.  “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

How did Jesus know Zacchaeus’ name? Politicians and posh people usually have aides who stand beside them with a list of the people that they’ll be meeting that day. Then they can whisper their name to their boss giving the illusion that the politician really knows them.  I doubt that Jesus had such an aide; but he did know Zacchaeus and he called him by name.

How do you think that made Zacchaeus feel? Humbled? Amazed? Grateful? Even --- loved?

Jesus’s words “I must stay at your house” imply a divine necessity. The word “must” when it appears in the scripture is often code for “this is God’s will.”

So -- who is seeking whom? We discover at the outset that Zacchaeus is on a quest, to see who Jesus is, only to learn in the end that, in accordance with his divine mission, Jesus has been on a quest for Zacchaeus, to bring him hope, to bring him redemption, to being him salvation.  Hoping to see Jesus, Zacchaeus is seen by him.

There’s a lovely old hymn that puts it this way:

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.

It was not I that found, O Savior true, no, I was found by thee.

And that is the good news for us in this story. Before we ever come seeking Jesus, Jesus is seeking us. He stops in front of whatever tree we have climbed, or whatever corner we feel backed into, or whatever place we are happy and dancing and calls us by name. Jesus knows each of us by name and he wants to spend time with us.

Jesus’ word, transformed Zacchaeus.  He was filled with joy, knowing that he was forgiven and loved.  No longer an outcast, he was now a part of the family of God. 

And then Zacchaeus hit the ground running as a changed person.  In verse 8 we read, ‘And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.”’

Notice two things.  First, Zacchaeus made restitution for his past failures, but that restitution was greater than what the Law required.  Leviticus 6:2-5 says “if you have defrauded you neighbor [that would be Zacchaeus] … you shall repay the principal amount and shall add one fifth to it.”  In other words, to make restitution you paid a 20% penalty.  But Zacchaeus promised to make restitution at a rate of 400%. 

I suspect this is something we can all relate to something about us as people that is still true of us 2,000 year later. And it’s this:  when God’s grace touches our heart, we not only want to put right what we did wrong, but we also want to bless those whom we have wronged.  Zacchaeus had tasted the kindness of the Lord and so he offered a feast to those whom he wounded so they too could taste the kindness of the Lord.

Second, Zacchaeus promised to use half of his wealth to help the poor on an ongoing basis.  The verb “I give,” is in the present continuous tense.  That means that he not only immediately liquidated half of his assets and gave it to the poor, but that he also promised to continue to support the poor by giving them half of his annual income. 

Can you imagine the impact that had on his community?  Jericho was a rich town and good place to live if you were rich, but not so good if you were poor.  But Zacchaeus’ gift would have made a tremendous difference for all those who were widows, orphans, blind, sick or disabled.  By using his wealth to help others, he brought good news to the poor and proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor. Zacchaeus has made Jesus’ work his own. 

So I have a challenge for you today. In the quietness of your heart and presence of Jesus, ask yourself how you are living. What is your shortcoming? How can you repair it? Ask Jesus to help you. Thank him for his loving care that always seeks out the sinner. And having done that hard work, may you follow his example, by the way you live and the way you give. Amen. 

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."

"But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

"Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

"Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

"Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Recently I received a video of a friend’s granddaughter being called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah. It was a privilege and a joy to watch this service, this rite of passage because it was so rich with tradition. I knew she’d had a long period of preparation as she approached her 13th birthday. She had been learning Hebrew. She actually lead the service helping to read and chant in Hebrew and English.

But she also received the gift of the family’s faith tradition. I watched as it was being handed down to her quite literally, through the generations of the family. Because as the Torah scroll is being passed down, the scroll from which she would read was passed by the oldest members of the family to the next generation to the next and finally to the youngest, passing from one set of hands to the next.  Not only is it passing God’s word from generation to generation. It’s even more than that. It’s passing on the knowledge and tradition of faith. It’s a powerful experience. 

As I was watching this sweet child receiving the Torah through the generations of her family and being vested with a prayer shawl that has been worn by 4 generations in her family, I thought about this day in the Christian church -  this day in which we celebrate the saints who have come into our lives and who have handed down to all of us, generation by generation, God’s word and the traditions of our own faith. And I thought about how powerful that image really is.

We can think about Abraham and all of this progeny, about Moses, about all the prophets who foretold the coming of Jesus.  We can think about the four evangelists who shared the story of Messiah.  We think of the women who were witnesses to the resurrection and who spread the good news of the resurrection so all of us can live in that victory over death.

And then we get personal about All Saints Day and remember those people in our lives who have been our saints: we think about our parents, and grandparents and aunts and uncles, people who have been part of our church family, about teachers and friends and neighbors – so many people who have paved the way for us to walk in the knowledge and love of God.

We also think about Joseph Wardman, William and Charlotte Pritchard, Wayne Frei, Rhea Kirk, John and Charlotte Williams, Minnie Kellog Brown and Cornelia Swaine.  If they don’t sound familiar to us in this generation, they likely did to earlier congregations here. Those are the names of the St. Matthias members for whom the stained-glass windows we see each week were dedicated long ago. 

And when we stop to think about this, this day becomes a very emotional one.  There are so many lives, so many people who have given so much of themselves so that God’s gospel message can continue through all the generations.

But there’s a piece of that that we cannot forget, a piece that today we need to claim.  And that’s where we fit into that story. Because it’s not just about what we’ve been given that we celebrate today. It is also about what we have to give.  

In someone’s life, we, too, are saints. We are called to help pave the way for all of those generations who will come behind us. Because without our commitment to keeping that story alive, it doesn’t stay alive.  Every one of us is called to keep God’s story alive.  And to keep that tradition alive in all the generations who will follow us. That’s a significant and high calling.

What words would we use? What would we say to the young person who is coming behind us wanting to know what is the message of God? 

Two thousand years ago on a hillside, besieged by crowds that were following him, this incredible teacher named Jesus looked out and saw all those who had come to hear this story -- for any word of instruction, for any wisdom he could impart to them. They gathered. And Jesus began the incredible message that we see in Luke’s gospel today

Blessed are you when people hate you.

Blessed are you who are sorrowful.

Blessed are you who are hated.

Blessed are you who are left out.

Because your time of goodness is coming, the kingdom is coming. And all will be well with you.

And we imagine that for those who are living under the oppressive thumb of the first century Roman empire there just isn’t a more beautiful message. They’re likely saying that those folks who have been persecuting us are going to get theirs and all our troubles will be over. And this is the good news. Thank you, Jesus, for sharing this message with us. Because this is what we needed to hear.

Everything is really good. Until Jesus goes on with that message: oh yeah and how you get long together, how you live with one another, how everyone knows who you are  -  that’s the rest of this:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek offer the other one also. If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt. If someone begs from you, give them what you’ve got. If they take what you have, let it go, it’s okay.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or as one of the saints in my life would say don’t every think about repaying evil for evil. When they do evil to you, do better by them. 

Can you imagine the confused looks in the crowd? Can you image they’re looking at each other asking, “what did he say? I can’t have heard that correctly…” 

Did he tell us to love our enemies? Love those people who are hurting me and persecuting me and letting us die of starvation, you want me to love them?  You want me to love people who have taken from me? You want me to take care of them.

There’s a scenario that makes its way around social media now and then warning us about what can happen at the gas station. We’re warned not to leave our purse on the front seat of our car with the car door unlocked. Because while we’re wrestling with the gas pump, a sneaky thief comes up and grabs the purse and is gone. Someone who was a victim of this theft and posted it on social media and has all kinds of 4-letter word descriptives for sneaky thief and fantasies about what evil things she’d like to happen to him.

It shouldn’t happen of course. Taking what does not belong to you in not okay. But that’s on him or her. For our part, we can’t imagine that if someone does something like this to us that we should look upon them with eyes of love and understanding. We can’t even begin to imagine that sometimes. 

So here we are 2,000+ years later. We like the first part of this sermon. We might also struggle with the second part. But yet these are the people God has called us to be.  And this is the message we are called to share. It’s a very different message than the world’s message.

It seems to me that its harder to watch the news these days than it used to be. It seems there is a lot less love in the world than there used to be, less tolerance of one another. It seems that people are angry and looking for vengeance.  And that too many of us forget too often that even the sneaky thief from the gas station is a child of God, made in the likeness and image of God. We don’t know his story, we don’t know if there’s desperation. We don’t know what’s going on with him. But we do know that even the sneaky thief is a child of God.

So how do we respond? How do we pave this path for those who are going to follow us - to know how to love God and to love neighbor?

Here’s something we might think about as we approach our neighbors, that we can love even those with whom we disagree. We can love them fully and holy and perhaps when we are in disagreement we should be called more to prayer and seek reconciliation.

We can love those who have done us wrong. And pray for eyes that will help us understand and know that there is more than one side to every story.  We can look with compassion upon those who are struggling.  We can look with love and mercy on those who have been shoved to the margins and told that they’re not good enough to be with everyone else. Because now this message of love is on us. It’s on us to keep this story alive.  It’s on us to share the message of God’s good news.

So we honor those who have come before us by allowing the light of that love to shine through us. And we honor those who come after us by making sure it radiates in us, that it’s not dimmed.  We celebrate the saints as we take our own place among them. May God bless us as we pass on the knowledge and traditions of our faith to all those who will follow. Amen.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I’ve had the opportunity to go to the holocaust museum in Los Angeles a couple times. It’s currently closed, under renovation. I hope when it reopens next summer that they still have the area where you can watch film interviews of survivors of the Holocaust. When you purchased your entrance ticket, they gave you a card with the photo of someone, their name, where they were from and in which camp they were imprisoned. You carried this card, this person with you, throughout your visit.  And towards the end of the displays, you had the opportunity to learn what happened to this person. Did they survive? Or if they did not, when they died.

The last time I was there, I learned that my person had somehow managed to survive internment at Auschwitz even though he was just a boy. And I got to listen to an interview with him. The boy realized after he arrived that an older man from his hometown, a man who was a pillar of his community, was also there. He would often try to share his food, share what he had with this older man although he would never actually let him do that. 

And he noticed, day after day, most of the folks in the camp tried to find time to find time to pray. He noticed that this gentleman was praying throughout the day.  So he was curious about that and tried to pay attention to what he was saying. He realized that this man was praying prayers of thanksgiving throughout the day. At Auschwitz. He wasn’t sure what to make of this, being so young.

One day when they were alone he asked him, ‘’Why do you pray when it’s not time for us to pray? And why are you praying prayers of thanksgiving when we’re here?  Look around us. Why on earth would you pray any prayers of thanksgiving when by the end of the day more of us will be gone?” The older man hesitated a moment before he spoke. And slowly he said to him, “I am thanking God that I am not one of the murderous creatures that is holding us here.”

Those words lived on with the boy who managed to survive Auschwitz and became a rabbi, although he was well into old age when the recording was made. But the words stuck with me too.  Because it reminded me of just how quickly our fortunes can turn.  That even when we’re imprisoned, even when our lives and way of living are being threatened, even when we don’t know what’s coming at us next, we still may have a sense that we are better than someone else. Because at least we’re not doing what they’re doing.

          When I heard that interview, it reminded me of this gospel lesson. “Thank goodness I’m not him.” So says the Pharisee. Who has gone to the temple to pray. “I am the pillar of my community. Thank goodness I’m not that guy - because there’s always someone I don’t want to be.  Thank goodness I’m not him – not a thief, a rogue. Really thank goodness I’m not that tax collector guy. I tithe. I fast, I do everything I’m supposed to do. Thank God I’m not someone else.

Another man comes to that temple that day to pray, too. And he’s a tax collector. Quick note on the tax collectors in the ancient world: these were not anyone’s favorite people to spend time with. He is a Jew, he’s come to the temple. He’s a Jew who collects taxes on behalf of the Roman empire. So he’s probably nobody’s best friend. Because the reputation of tax collectors have is that they cheat people – their own people, other Jews – to make their living. They added a generous amount for themselves on top of the taxes that they’re collecting for Rome. So they grew rich out of the misery and deprivation of other Jews.

We’re told that the Pharisee stands apart from everyone. We have this sense that everyone around him is immediately concerned about whether they’re good enough to be in his presence. He’s some kind of spiritual rock star. He’s just so upright and righteous.

And in comes this tax collector who, no doubt, knows that that no one is happy to see him there. So without a sense of confidence, without that sense of self-righteousness, he’s not even able to look up. He, too, stands away also, out of his own sense of shame.  He stands apart. And the only words that he can muster up are “have mercy on a sinner like me. I know I don’t have any friends here. Have mercy on a sinner like me.”

And so we’re told that our lesson from all this is to remember to humble ourselves.  There’s a lot to take in here: because yes, that big lesson is that we are all so dependent on God. And just as this tax collector realizes, “I must be dependent on God because I really have nowhere else to go.”  But the Pharisee hasn’t quite yet figured out his need to be dependent on God. He’s depending on himself and his reputation and his all of his good works. He cannot see and name his dependence on God.

Two thousand years later this parable still speaks to us about a lot of things: it still speaks to us about our incredible need for God. And if at any moment we think we can replace our need for God with our own sense of self-sufficiency then we are setting ourselves up for a lot of pain.  Because it is only by God and with God and through God that we can do the work Jesus left us to do on this earth.  ‘

And equally important to that message is the message that we need one another.  We need to be able to count on the love of one another to support us and uphold us in even the most difficult time. We are not made to be silos.

We forget that. We forget to support one another. We forget the grace of humility.  Humility seems like an increasingly rare trait these days and a difficult characteristic to emulate.  But what is it? What does it mean to be humble?  Humility is the act of being modest, reverential, even politely submissive.  It is the opposite of aggression, arrogance, pride, and vanity.

On the surface, it appears to have a sort of wimpy quality that is devoid of power. But on the contrary, it grants enormous power because it gives greater connection to God. It offers complete freedom from the desire to impress, to be right, or get ahead at someone else’s expense. Frustrations and losses have less impact, and a humble person confidently receives the opportunity to grow, improve, and reject society‘s labels. A humble life results in contentment, patience, forgiveness, and compassion – all gifts to us from God.

At some point in our lives, we’ve probably been both of these characters, haven’t we? Haven’t there been moments when we’ve probably been the very self-righteous Pharisee?  “Look at me -- at least I’m not him. Everything is good because I’m not him.” At some moment in our lives we’ve occupied that space of the tax collector. When we’ve been so beaten down and beaten up by the world. And we’ve lost that sense of whose we are. The only words we can even begin to muster are “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.”  Because we feel so distant from divine love and so unworthy.

We’ve all probably occupied both those roles – the one who condemns and the one who has been condemned.  The one who has isolated himself, the one who has been forgotten.  The one who has been pushed aside, the one who has puffed himself up. We’ve probably at some point in our lives occupied both those roles. 

And yet God still speaks to us through these words to remind us that we need God and we need one another.  And perhaps even more importantly, in our world today, when we come up with all these ways that we divide ourselves and align ourselves and forgot completely that in community we love, in community we serve, in community we are God’s hands and hearts in the world. 

So today this parable comes back to remind us we should never be standing apart, we should never be alone. We must not give credit where credit is not due. We are called to remember our need for God and remember our need for one another as God’s created beings. Because when we remember to come together with humility as our guiding star, we are able to do more than we could ever do apart. We are able to move all the mountains that God needs us to move. God is constantly inviting us back into love where we can find the outpouring of God’s grace and mercy, more than enough for all. Amen.  

If we look back a few verses, we’ll see that Jesus is talking to the disciples. After being asked by a Pharisee about when and how the Kingdom of God would appear, Jesus turns to his followers and begins to speak directly to them. In unnerving language, he tells them that ‘the days of the Son of Man’ are coming, but that they will be different than expected. This language is from the book of Daniel, and the ‘day of the Son of Man’ for Jesus’s audience would have been a sort of shorthand for the people’s Messianic expectations — the day of God’s triumphant appearance in the world, when he would expose and destroy the corruption of Israel’s oppressors, liberating and bringing justice to his chosen people. Jesus tells them that these times are coming, but that they will come with suddenness and with terror, like Noah’s flood or the rain of fire that consumed Sodom & Gomorrah. When the Son of Man is revealed, Jesus says, it will happen after he has been rejected by his people, in a time of terror and violence, when many will be lost. When the disciples ask where this will happen, Jesus simply answers, “where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather,” — and then our gospel reading begins.

Luke’s audience, reading these words around the end of the first century, would recognize that Jesus seems to be talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, when the city, the temple, and the nearby region were besieged, starved, and brutally destroyed by Roman armies. Jesus is warning his followers that they were about to enter a time when political and religious turmoil would become even more intense than it already was and would begin spilling over into violence, when injustice in the land would finally reach such a fever pitch that it would bring about its own destruction in a catastrophe terrible enough to be compared to Noah’s flood and the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, and that somehow ‘the Son of Man will be revealed’ in the face of all this. ‘I will be with you and God’s justice will be revealed’, Jesus is saying, ‘but it won’t look like it at first. Dark days are ahead, and I want you to be ready.’

To prepare them, he tells them today’s parable, ‘about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.’ Why this? Why now? Destruction is going to rain down on the disciples’ world, after they wait for almost four decades for Jesus to return, and instead of telling them to go stock up on canned goods and potable water, to build a bunker in the desert caves, to pass out pamphlets and preach from street corners about the destruction to come, or to stockpile swords and bows to protect themselves from what is coming — instead of all this, he tells them a story about a stubborn old widow and a corrupt official. He tells them that this woman fought for justice to be given to her by a judge who didn’t care about justice, who ‘neither feared God nor had respect for people.’ She was so tenacious and persistent in her appeals that the corrupt judge finally granted her justice, just to keep her from continuing to bother him. And, he says, the disciples should be like her, because if she could get justice from this evil judge, how much more will God grant them justice when they cry out to him in prayer with persistence and faith. The parable ends with Jesus asking the disciples a question, almost wondering aloud: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The question is striking — why wouldn’t he find this kind of faith on the earth? 

The widow, we’re told, is a picture of what it means to ‘pray always’ and to ‘not lose heart.’ She stands in a long line of faithful women in the Scriptures who cultivated the kind of faith that endured in the face of long suffering and waiting. She is like Sarah, who was promised a child in her old age and waited something like 25 years before she saw that promise fulfilled, like the widowed prophetess Anna, who spent decades in the temple fasting and waiting to see God’s chosen Messiah until toddler Jesus arrived there, or like Elizabeth and Mary, who each believed that there would be a fulfillment to the promises they received of a miraculous child, despite the doubt and ridicule they would have endured from their community. The list goes on and on; the Scriptures are full of faithful women who cling to God’s purposes and God’s promises, in spite of the opposition, exhaustion, and long waiting that they faced. The widow is also like Jacob, who is willing to wrestle for an entire night, fighting for hours and hours through weariness and pain, blood and sweat, ferociously demanding a blessing from God until he gets it, even though that blessing comes with a shattered hip and a limp that would mark him for the rest of his days. 

I think as we remember some of these examples, we start to see why Jesus wonders if he will see this kind of faith. I have had seasons, sometimes even long ones, where my prayers are frequent and consistent, where my rhythms of prayer nourish and uphold me day in and day out, and God feels close, but this is only the beginning. To be like Jacob or one of these women — to have a faith that continues in prayer, that believes God will make good on his promises, that he is still working and moving and bringing justice, even if I can’t see it, even if I have to wait months, years, decades to see it — to have a faith that cries out for God to act and believes, insists that he will show up, even in the face of great grief or pain or darkness — to have a faith like this that prays ‘and does not lose heart’ — this is something else entirely. Many of you know how different it is, how hard it is, to not lose heart when it seems like your prayers are falling on deaf ears, when injustice continues unchecked, when your pain drags on and it would be so much easier to just stop believing, to say ‘I guess it isn’t God’s will’ and to explain away God’s silence, when the waiting goes on and on and continuing to pray in earnest feels unbearable. Some of you know the kind of faith that Jesus is describing, because you have wrestled through the dark with God, clinging to him through long suffering, loss, and grief, stubbornly insisting that the love of God will have the last word, no matter how long it takes to see it.

 This is the kind of faith that Jesus is talking about, the kind of faith that his followers will need, the kind of faith that could nourish a community and sustain them through the long waiting, adversity, and destruction that Jesus is warning his disciples they will face. This is the kind of faith that Jesus says will bring about God’s justice, will see God’s promises fulfilled, will reveal the presence of God in the midst of a land that appears to have been forsaken by God. 

This is also the kind of faith that we need, and that Jesus is inviting us, as his followers, to cultivate in our time. I’m sure it’s not lost on any of you that the world we live in doesn’t sound all that different from the one I’ve been describing in the years leading up to the destruction of the temple. We too know what it’s like to look around and see increasing political and religious turmoil, to open up our phones and be met with another story of hatred or of the lust for power bubbling over into some fresh injustice enacted upon the vulnerable, to be shocked and exhausted in the face of another act of devastating violence — and for so much of it to be cloaked in the name of God. Like the disciples in Luke, we also live in a time when it is not always easy to discern the presence and love of God in the world around us, let alone to know how to respond faithfully, to follow him through the turmoil of these darkening days. The Spirit holds out this gospel to us today — we too must become like the widow, because if we learn to pray and to not lose heart, to cry out for God to show up and to follow him where he leads, to stubbornly trust that he will fulfill his promises no matter how hard things get, then we too will become the instruments of God’s love and justice in the midst of a darkening world.

May we each become like the faithful widow, learning to pray always and, by the grace of God, to not lose heart. Lord have mercy. Amen.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There are many stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing people. Beautiful stories. This passage that we hear today has another side of Jesus. Although people are healed of their physical illness, the point of the story is on how those who are healed respond. The point is gratitude and the healing found in it.

Our first clue that it isn’t strictly a healing story comes early on. Ten lepers approached Jesus and asked him for mercy. Instead of doing something or saying something that tells us that healing is happening or has happened, Jesus gives them a command: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” The actual healing of the lepers then occurred as they traveled away from Jesus, away from the center of the narrative. The healing happened “offstage” leaving Jesus standing in the center.

“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed turned back praising God with a loud voice.” This one man reentered the scene. He came back to Jesus and offered thanks. This expression of gratitude met with Jesus’ approval and he asked what happened to the other nine who did not return. “Were not ten made clean? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Note that the other nine did what they were told by Jesus to do. It’s hard to find fault with that. They weren’t disobedient. Yet clearly it’s making the decision to pause, to turn to God is what the key. So what is it with this one guy? What made him different from the other nine?

All ten of the lepers were faithful enough to go on their way to the priests even though there had not yet been dramatic or definitive healing.  All ten believed enough to start a journey that might have resulted in disappointment and derision. All ten had a mustard seed’s worth of faith in a mighty, healing God. Yet the text tells us that only that one “saw that he was healed.”  Did the others not notice?

They had more to gain from continuing on their way to the priests. For them, the priests were the vital next step in the process – their way back, their way to life. The Samaritan had no such incentive. What hope was there for a Samaritan in Jewish rituals?

Remember that Samaritans were despised in Jewish society. This man was caught up in active animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans going back hundreds of years. They had been one people, but changes and tensions wrought by exile and return put them at odds regarding beliefs about scripture, worship, what it means to be holy. Think Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia, rival street gangs in Los Angeles and you’ve got the picture. Sadly there are many, many apt comparisons.

Not only that but Jesus’ encounter with the lepers takes place in the “region between Samaria and Galilee,” a potentially hostile locale at the border, neither inside nor outside Jewish territory.

Everyone in this story is outside their comfort zone except Jesus who knows that people who are forced to survive on the margins of society see things differently from those in the center. They may be less invested in and less worshipful of the status quo. They also may be more open to change when the current structures are of little benefit them.

Instead of seeing healing as way to return to an old life, he saw it as a miracle from God - in a place and time where miracles were likely in short supply. His only possible response was praise.

The Samaritan kneels at Jesus’ feet, face in the dust in gratitude and wonder. And it’s then, for the first time in the story, that Jesus speaks words of healing: Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.”

This raises an important question: Is there one healing in this story for the Samaritan or two? Jesus final words to him might be an affirmation of the healing from leprosy that already happened. But could it be that there is for this man a new level of healing that goes more than skin deep?

Only the Samaritan remembered and connected the gift with the giver.  He demonstrates a faith that claims relationship with God and cannot and will not remain silent in response to what God has done in his life. Expressing gratitude is not a precondition for being healed by Jesus.  All the lepers find themselves healed of their skin disease. However, the Samaritan turns around and comes back. He turns towards God.

Is there a second healing?  I believe there is: and it is a restoration of wellness that comes through the Samaritan’s relationship with God. He has found peace, joy and wellness -- gifts that can be ours each day as we too give God thanks and praise.

Our earthly lives are a similar journey, somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, between illness and health, between rejection and acceptance. We are all travelers on the way. Because of the frailty of our bodies we will all succumb to illness at some point in our lives. Because of the devices and desires of the human heart, we will all suffer from the fear and distrust that separates us from our neighbors and from God.

And we all know that not everyone is healed of their illness. We pray, we beg, we ask God for healing for those we care so much about and for ourselves.  And still we find ourselves saying good-bye, heartbroken and disappointed. And wondering where God is. Wrapping our lives in gratitude throughout our lives is the antidote, when there is a cure and when there is not.

To practice intentional gratitude is life-giving.  It can also change a congregation’s life.  When Christians practice gratitude as the abiding mindset in their lives, they come to God open to receiving the goodness that is the very essence of God.

We acknowledge intentional gratitude in our Eucharistic prayers asking God to forgive us for coming the Eucharist – which means “thanksgiving” by the way – for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.  The work that God calls us to do as believers changes from duty to a gathering of grateful hands and hearts. God created us for grateful joy!

This story of one who returns, drops his face in the dust and gives thanks points us to some truths: first, to stifle gratitude may prove as unnatural as holding one’s breath. Second, “Go on your way, your faith has made you well” is no longer a problematic saying, one that seems to apply to others and not necessarily to us and our circumstances.  Instead it is a description of a life of blessing for us and sending for the church to go into the world living as people thankful and blessed.

As we go on our way, we rejoice and give thanks, for in giving thanks in all things we find that our extraordinary God is indeed in all ordinary things. Rather than remaining within the darkness of our despair and keeping ourselves at a great distance from others, God calls us to come close. God awaits our cry for mercy and responds by making us whole, by restoring us to life with others. God keeps scanning the horizon, looking for those he has already healed, who will realize one day that they too are already forgiven, that they too are already being made whole, who will return and give thanks and praise to God.

In his memoire All I Could Never Be, Bev Nichols, recalls an experience of gratitude in his garden. “It was inevitable, I suppose, that in the garden I should begin, at long last, to ask myself what lay behind all this beauty. When I had the flowers all to myself, I was so happy that I wondered why at the same time I was haunted by a sense of emptiness.

It was as though I wanted to thank somebody, but had nobody to thank; which is another way of saying that I felt the need for worship. That is, perhaps, the kindliest way in which a person may approach his or her God.  There are endless theories on the origins of the religious impulse, but to me, Nichols says, it is simpler than that. It is summed up in one person at sundown, watching the crimson flowering of the sky and calling out to the great expanse before them — ‘Thank you. Thank you.’”  Wellness restored, peace and joy found in turning towards God.   Amen.  

A mustard seed isn’t a soft marshmallow-y kind of thing. It’s solid. Small but solid. Jesus’ words are meant to encourage the disciples by reminding them of what they already know, those solid moments of faith: Holy Scripture is full of examples of the strength of small groups of faithful people, and the power of seemingly small or insignificant people.

Remember David?  David slew the giant Goliath with a slingshot, against all odds. The rock that flattened Goliath was no doubt larger than a mustard seed. But it was just one rock aimed high by one boy with solid faith. And it was enough.

Remember the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter. In a mustard seed-sized moment, she summoned enough courage to get in Jesus face to remind him that even the dogs eat the crumbs from under their master’s table and so her daughter and her illness were worthy of healing. “Woman, great is your faith,” Jesus told her.

In Acts, when the first followers were known to gather in small clusters and pray and share all things in common, great numbers came to them and became followers:  mustard seed-sized faith in themselves and their fellow Christians on the journey was all it took for others to see and be drawn to them.  So the message of faith’s victory is consistent in the Bible. And yet, the tasks seem overwhelming. How can a mustard seed of faith meet any kind of test?

The Order of the Daughters of the King has a motto that speaks beautifully to this:

For His Sake…I am but one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

What I can do, I ought to do.

What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

Lord, what will you have me do?

It’s a worthy question.

I belonged to an interfaith clergy group in Temecula. They met monthly and frequently invited a speaker.  One month, there were two ladies from an organization that provides shelter and services to women with children. They tossed out incredible numbers: hundreds of families housed, thousands of meals served, tens of thousands of after-school snacks, bars of soap, disposable razors, Bibles, ping pong games, tutoring hours and all manner of things provided.

It was impressive…and a little bit discouraging. Driving back to the relatively small Episcopal church I was serving, I knew we could make a positive impact on the needs of the community but nowhere near like I’d just heard. I felt small. “Lord,” I asked “what will you have me do?”

Then God rescued me as God always does. That afternoon, a young man came to the doors of the church and asked if he could have some water and sleep that night under the eaves of the church. Of course I said yes. I got him the water, some fruit and snacks and invited him to use the restroom.

He told me that he had walked several miles in the last few days, how tired he was and how vulnerable he felt.  He said, “but then I looked up and saw the cross [on top of the building.] I was so relieved. I knew I was close to a church and that I’d be safe there.” 

That little bit of faith, that tiny mustard seed-sized faith, was all he needed. And it was reassuring to me that a place to rest, a few bottles of water and some food from our little church were all that he needed to reinforce his faith that God would provide for him and that everything was going to be okay. 

Like the Daughters, like David, like the Canaanite woman, and the traveler on his way, we can all say “Lord I’m here, I’m ready. I have a mustard seed – I’m not afraid to use it. So Lord, what will you have me do?” Amen.

But Abraham said, `Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.' He said, `Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house-- for I have five brothers-- that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.' Abraham replied, `They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' He said, `No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Not long ago while I was driving to a pastoral call. And I came up to a red light at busy intersection where a man was standing precariously on a small center median and holding a sign saying “hungry anything helps.”  Now sadly that’s not an uncommon sight. But what was striking about this particular man were the physical challenges he had. He appeared to suffer from cerebral palsy or something similar. And so his ability to be out in that heat – it was a very hot day - and to move quickly to a car if someone wanted to hand him a dollar or two was clearly very difficult for him. He moved slowly.

The light changed. I was not in the lane next to him but was one lane over and a couple spots back from a pickup truck that I could see was loaded with a couple lawnmowers and some rakes and other equipment. So I assumed the driver had a lawn mowing service and was out taking care of customers.

When the light changed to green, the man in the truck was the first vehicle in the lane. But he didn’t move. He had lowered his window and was clearly having some conversation with the man holding the sign. The two chatted for what seemed like a a good long while.  And the man in the truck, reached over to the passenger seat and picked up a foil wrapped package, looked like maybe his lunch. He handed that out that window as the man with the sign made his way over to him. Then the driver reached back and got a bottle of water and handed that out the window to him as well. And with some parting words, the mane with the sign and the gifts he’s just received made his way back to the center median.  And the man in the pickup truck drove ahead.

Now all this was happening while the light was very green. And impatient LA drivers, who normally would have been honking like crazy, shouting and yelling at the driver of the truck. But this day in this place, nothing.  No one honked, no one yelled.  No one did anything but watch this scene unfold.

There was a sign on the side of the pick-up truck with the name of the company and phone number and I wish I’d thought at the time to jot it down or take a quick photo. Because I’d really wanted to call him.  And to thank him – not for sharing his food.  Because lots of us share something when we see folks in these situations. And goodness knows we at St. Matthias offer food to our neighbors in need at least 5 days a week.

I know people who routinely carry a few one dollar bills in their car to give to out.  And one friend carries some fast food gift cards to give. Because she figures that if someone is homeless, giving them an hour or two to go inside and being able to get something to eat while getting out of the heat or the cold, depending on the season, and having a place to rest might be better than giving them anything else. Everyone has their way of responding.

So I didn’t want to call and thank him because he gave the man food and water. I wanted to call and thank him for making everyone at that intersection that day have to stop, and have to pay attention to someone that otherwise might have been completely overlooked.

We have a wonderful collect in our Book of Common Prayer that reminds us to be attentive to those who could easily be forgotten.  And this poor man was one of those people who could easily have been forgotten but for a landscaper who dared to sit under that green light and carry on a conversation with him and share what he had. 

Why is that important?

Let’s take a look for a moment at our lesson from Luke’s gospel today. This is the second of two parables in the 16th chapter of Luke that Jesus recounts that start with the words “there was a rich man..”   He is an unidentified rich man, because we never seem to get his name. But in neither of these parables do things go well for the rich man. The rich man in the first parable that we heard last week is told, you can’t serve God and money.  You have to choose. One leads to life, one leads to death. Make a choice.

Today, the rich man, who has lived a full life, a wonderful life, somehow has not encountered poor Lazarus who lies just outside his gate. We don’t know the full story so we have to consider a couple scenarios: one is that he’s a really busy person who was inattentive, just didn’t realize Lazarus was there. He’s the oblivious type. That’s probably the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario for the rich man is that he was willfully negligent.  He knew Lazarus was there, he knew that a poor, hungry, sick man lying at his gate. He sees him but he just doesn’t feel like there’s any reason for him to be bothered by that fact. 

But regardless of how the story unfolds, Lazarus suffered terribly while the rich man did well. When everyone had died, there’s a conversation across the chasm. It’s not pretty, or comfortable. This is not the text we really love to encounter is it?  Luke has some hard, hard texts. This is one of them. What does father Abraham say to the rich man? “You’ve already had yours. Lazarus suffered greatly at your gate and he will be comforted now.” 

It’s hard to hear. It’s hard to think that maybe our inattention to the needs of others has consequences. But I think that is exactly what God is trying to tell us. Our inattention to the needs of others has consequences for them and for us.

And so, Lazarus has gone off to live for eternity in comfort with Father Abraham. The rich man says, “send him back, because my brothers need to know this. My brothers need to know what fate they will suffer if they don’t pay more attention.”  And Father Abraham dismisses this request out of hand. “They’ve had the prophets. How did they miss this?”

          The scriptures are filled with all kinds of reminders to us about God’s expectation that we will care for those around us. If we miss it, then we need to be more attentive. We need something to draw our attention to God’s call to us to serve all of God’s people. We need something to remind us. And maybe what we need to remind us isn’t the Lazarus of our time, because that may not do it. Sadly there are so many, the need is so great it can become numbing.

But maybe what we need to remind us is the guy in the truck holding everyone’s attention, ignoring the green light. The guy in the truck who draws our attention to a man that most folks would have driven by and not noticed at all.  We need that person who just brings to mind that we have been called to do and to be more than we ever expect to do and to be.

Next Sunday our Bishop will visit and confirm or receive members into our faith community.  And what a joyous time that will be! The Bishop will lead the confirmands and all of us in the Baptismal Covenant.  And one of the questions will be “will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” The final question is “will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”  In other words, will you be attentive? Will you look outside your own gate and if you see Lazarus there, will you respond in love?

All of the questions asked in the baptismal covenant start out “will you…”  Of course they point us to the future and our future commitments. “Will you?” it asks. We’re not so concerned about the past but very much about the future. Confirmation is not a destination. It’s not an end point. It’s the beginning. It’s not so much about the journey so far – that’s significant for each of us, about how we have been formed. But confirmation is about the journey to come. “Will you…” the Bishop with ask.  And our answer to each question is “I will, with God’s help.”  We acknowledge that we all we do to expand the Kingdom of God here on earth is blessing by God and seen by God.  God is paying attention.

Every day that we continue to live and our spirits continue to grow and our lives continue to grow we’re in a new place. Next Sunday, take it all in – and ask yourselves “how is God calling me to live out that baptismal covenant? How do I help people in this place and beyond our doors? 

God has blessed and privileged this parish St. Matthias, to be able to be a pillar in the worshipping community here in uptown Whittier, to minister to all the people we encounter on Sunday mornings and all week long. This is our privilege – to be called, to be here and to serve.

We make it possible to help more and more of God’s people to find God’s love and God’s grace. It is Jesus who erases those chasms, who calls us to serve the world in his name and to draw others to him.  Amen.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I’ve never actually done a count of this myself but I’ve heard it said, from reliable sources, that the topic that Jesus most frequently talks about is – can you guess? – love. What comes in 2nd? The second most often talked about topic by Jesus is money. That was a surprise to me. I would have guessed forgiveness or healing.  But it’s money, wealth, what we do with it, where we do right and where we go wrong. And that includes this parable today. I think this parable connects something very ordinary in our day-to-day lives with the extraordinary nature of God.  And Jesus wants us to consider how our handling of earthly wealth prepares us for handling spiritual wealth. 

The hard part about this parable is figuring out who is the good guy here? It’s not at all clear. The rich man is probably an absentee landlord who fires his manager on a rumor of bad behavior and yet expects him to continue working by giving an accounting of what he’s done. Not much heroic here. 

Then there’s the lazy, self-serving manager out to save his own skin by cuddling up to the people he’s been cheating all these years. We listeners lean forward to the end because we want to see this scoundrel get what’s coming to him. And when the masters finally speaks, we’re shocked. He congratulates his for being so clever.

The ending is anything but satisfying because instead of being defeated, he triumphs. His plan succeeds. His former boss praises his ingenuity.  Adding to the listener’s dismay, the parable ends with Jesus saying “The scoundrel gets it, the believers do not.” This guy of questionable character and ill repute understood something that the children of light couldn’t grasp: this man understood how to use what was entrusted to him to serve a larger goal. Believers take note, Jesus teaches: how much more must the children of God understand the riches entrusted to their care?

With the end in mind, the manager redeemed whatever he could about his present situation.  He understood that, in order to end up where he wanted to be in the future, how he handled today counted big time.

Solomon wrote in his proverbs: Where this is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18) This parable of the manager speaks especially to those times in our lives when we have lost the big picture. Who are we are people of God? How do we understand ourselves and what are we called to do? At those times when we have lost our vision of who we are and what are mission is, the treasures in front of us are not treasures at all.  They are simply things that have no larger value, are objects to be used, misused and manipulated. 

Here is another way to read this text. See how it resonates with you:  Among those in the crowd when Jesus tells this parable are the Pharisees who Luke characterizes as “lovers of money.”  Leaders of God’s chosen people, keepers of the treasurers of God, they were like the dishonest manager. They had lost their vision of who God had called them to be. They had traded their call to be God’s people to becomes servant of the treasures of the present day. Controlled by wealth, by money, by strident voices, by complacency, they had blended into society and lost their vision.  To these Pharisees Jesus says ‘you can serve this present age and love its treasures or you can love God and serve him in this present age. But you cannot do both. One leads to death. The other leads to life.’  Jesus has put them on notice that they have lost their vision of who God is and who they are as children and servants of God.

Their lesson is not lost on us 2,000 year later: Jesus warns us that we, too, are susceptible to losing focus. We don’t remember our shouts not too long ago of “he is alive” and instead we whisper our faith.  We stop believing that Jesus was resurrected and life was made new. Somewhere along the way it becomes easy to serve all the pressing demands of people, of schedule.  Somewhere along the way the vision for God’s call becomes cloudy and muddled. We stop hearing God’s voice and join the crazy survivor-take-all mentality. The challenges seem so much bigger than the answers. So we huddle up in an effort to save whatever is left and forget about living for something great. We have buried our treasure.

The Coventry Cathedral in England has a welcome sign outside their church. It’s a big sign. Whether you’re there for the first time or a regular attendee you can’t miss it. This lovely sign is the antithesis of buried treasure – it is the living, loving treasure of their call – in spite of what they’ve been through. Coventry is a village that during WWII was bombed along with its ancient cathedral nearly out of existence by the Nazi regime. It was a village of no strategic value at all in the conduct of the war. In bullying fashion, they leveled it because they could. And goodness knows countless treasures were lost. 

The current cathedral stands next to the ruins of the ancient one.  This is what the welcome sign says:

Jesus’ praise of the manager is not an endorsement of unethical behavior; rather, his praise of the manager is an affirmation of his personhood; of his identity as a beloved—albeit broken—part of the Body of Christ, just like all those folks that are welcomed to Coventry Cathedral. And he tells this story to point us to the ones we’re to be most concerned are about, our neighbors - the ones living on the margins, longing to emerge from the shadows of poverty; if we are to remember always that our treasure is the chance to offer welcome and relief to those most in need. 

And at the end of the day, perhaps Jesus is calling us to second-guess ourselves; to err on the side of mercy and forgiveness and authentic welcome. Because when we do the Kingdom becomes just a little bigger, and the Body of Christ becomes just a little stronger.  Amen.

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

When I spent time as a seminarian in El Salvador, we lived in a house that backed up to an elementary preschool. Each morning we heard one of the teachers playing guitar and the children singing “Yo tengo gozo, gozo, gozo en mi Corazon!”  “I have joy, joy, joy in my heart.”  And they weren’t singing standing still, hands politely folded. They were dancing, bouncing around, with loud voices, grinning ear to ear.  And they would sing as they entered the school.  That’s how they started their day, like a fiesta of joy. I used to imagine that Jesus was watching over them also smiling, maybe also dancing. And making sure each of those sweet lambs found their way into their classroom.

Today we have a couple stories that are sometimes referred to as the Parables of the Lost.  Perhaps they’re called that because all of us can relate to loss, we can remember a time when something precious to us was lost or missing. 

The first parable is about a lost sheep and the second a lost coin.  But neither one will stay lost for very long because these are stories of restoration, return and the joy of finding.  Note that Jesus mentions “joy” and “rejoicing” 5 times in just 10 verses. That’s what these stories are all about. That’s what’s important here. 

Though each parable ends with celebration, they begin with the grumbling and discord. Too many tax collectors and sinners are coming to Jesus so his opponents are grumbling about appropriate behavior and appearances. They seem to be singing their own worn out chorus of legalism – “if you were really one of us, you would comply with our laws and norms!  We are separate for own protection! We’ve never done it this way before!”  They see Jesus’ offer of hospitality to sinners as dangerous, irreverent and just plain unpleasant. These grumbling people were religious people, and seem pretty sure that they themselves were safely in God’s sheepfold, safely deposited into God’s change purse.

Notice that Jesus does not dismiss them; he doesn’t give up on the grumblers. He tells them stories that only the most miniscule of hearts could fail to be moved by the compassion of a shepherd so caring that he not only finds the one lost sheep but also carries it home. The echoes of the prophet Ezekiel must have sounded in their memories: “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” (Ezek 34:11)  And they are led by Jesus to imagine the devotion of a woman so committed to her search that she will burn the midnight oil itself to find the one missing coin.

All of us, including those grumblers, have known the anxiety of losing things, because everyone loses something sometime. No one is exempt from the pain of losing something made precious by time, devotion or love. Armed with these experiences, we go to great lengths to prevent a repeat of them: we install doorbells with cameras to keep an eye on things when we’re not home, we microchip our pets, we download apps onto our cell phones to track them if they go missing, we employ Amber Alert systems to locate lost children and the elderly. Jesus, I think, knows that when confronted by the anxiety of loss, we humans will burn nearly every resource to gain the return of that which was loved.

If you have Netflix, you might have seen a recent documentary called “Amy Bradley is Missing.” It’s the story of a family that went on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate their daughter Amy’s college graduation. The mom, dad, son and daughter had a fun day on shore followed by an evening of entertainment.  Mom, dad and younger brother when to bed around midnight but Amy told them she wanted to check out the disco.  She danced until after midnight and left the disco with one of the band members. She was never seen again. The documentary traces the events that followed, the searches, the sightings and give various theories for what might have happened to Amy.

As you watch, you notice the clothing and hair styles and realize Amy has been missing a very long time. Since 1998. It’s been more than 10,000 days. Her family has searched for her each of those days. In the documentary, her mother, Iva, pleads with the viewers for the one clue they need to find her. It’s just heartbreaking.

Because in our economics, we’d say it’s just been too long.  You’re not going to find her or find out what happened to her. Just accept that and move on with your lives. But not the Bradley family:  They are convinced that Amy is alive and trying to come home. They are certain they will find her and that there will be rejoicing. And I pray there is. That level of faith is extraordinary. That level of relentless pursuit of your beloved is God-like. Because God always believes that the one lost soul is worthy of the search, worthy of being found.

These side-by-side parables remind us that God is vigilantly searching until all are found.  Jesus is offering a grand invitation to a fiesta of joy, saying all the while, “Rejoice with me.” God still yearns to gather us all up, so that not even one more person ever feels lost, as if they have to do it on their own, as if they’re not worth a cent, because even just one is precious to God.

Maybe it’s significant that when the woman finds the coin that had been lost, she throws a party for all her friends. Can you hear the dissonance in this: the woman may be thorough, but she’s not miserly. She may be meticulous, but she is not a wizard of home economics. She found one coin, and then spent who knows how many to throw a party! Is it irony or is it grace?

When the lost is found, the heart explodes with joy. It is joy so loud and rejoicing that even the angels take note. Of course, Jesus folds the point of his teaching back to the original charge. Just as a shepherd and a woman can rejoice over one object, heaven itself rejoices when one lost soul is found.  All of us fall short and get lost along the way. 

If we are the coins in the story, so precious to God that even just one is worth everything, and the occasion of finding just one is cause for great celebration, then we are God’s coins, and our lives are to be spent in the cause of seeking and finding and celebrating. God doesn’t just tuck us away in some safe-deposit box, a heavenly coin collection waiting for our value to increase. God says, let’s have a party and let’s have it now. Let’s be joyful now. Let’s live joy.

Because joy lives in human hearts, deep down in hearts that have been fine-tuned by God’s grace to trust a God who is so caring that whenever 1 of 100 is missing, the search is not abandoned, because God never stops believing that even one lost soul is worthy of being found.

The joy is God’s too. Jesus says, “Just so, I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents that over 99 righteous people who need no repentance.” No matter how lost the people become and by whatever means they lose their way, the promise is never exhausted: the lamp is burning.  The shepherd is searching, God is watching and believing that the lost shall be found until the journey home is complete by every lost, struggling soul.

In our worship, we practice God’s economics. We gather, acknowledging that all we are and all we have comes from God, belongs to God, is loved by God, can be given and offered and spent for God. We offer our time, our talents, our money, and the produce of our hands and our minds in God’s service here in this place, out in the neighborhood, and in the world.

Our ministries are varied, but each one is valuable, each one is important to God, because even just one enables us to continue God’s work of seeking and finding and celebrating.  Even just one. Even just you. Even just me. Precious to God. And precious here, in God’s house, in God’s family.  Amen. 

If you’ve been around St. Matthias the last couple of years, you’ll know that I’ve had the honor of somehow always ending up preaching on particularly hard or strange gospel readings, and it looks like I get to keep my streak! Or perhaps Jesus is just often saying things that are confronting and challenging, things that cut us open and speak to our core, if we can manage to listen. Regardless:

What are we to make of these words from Jesus? Are we really meant to hate our parents, our children and siblings — all the people we are usually taught to love most — before we can become disciples? Is our life meant to be full of suffering, full of ‘crosses to bear’ to be truly a Christian? Do I really have to sell or give away all of my stuff? In a few short sentences, Jesus has managed to threaten our relationship to most of the things and people that we cling to for comfort, security, and meaning. Most of us spend most of our time and energy trying to accumulate more possessions or trying to love or be loved by our parents and families, not to forsake them or give them away.

I’m going to tell you up front: Bad news; I can’t make this pill easy to swallow. I can’t do some exegetical or mental gymnastics to take the teeth out of this reading — it is meant to challenge and unsettle us — but what I can do is try to open up the reading a bit, to remove some misunderstandings and try to help us see things a bit more clearly as the gospel, the good news, that it is.

So let’s begin by looking at some context. If you were here last week, you would’ve heard a reading about a parable Jesus told when he was at dinner with some Pharisees, about how those who try to exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. He goes on to tell them to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” to their banquets, if they want to be blessed. After this, Jesus keeps going with the theme and tells another banquet parable about how most of those invited to God’s banquet end up rejecting the invite because they’re too busy and distracted with their own business and possessions, and so those who end up at the banquet are the poor and disenfranchised. In other words, today’s reading is in the midst of a chunk of teachings where Jesus is subverting expectations about who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s Kingdom, about who is included in the family of God. Spoiler alert — it’s not who his listeners expected. I think today’s passage is meant to be read as a part of this larger context about what kind of person fits in God’s people.

First, some grammar: The word we translate, ‘hate’, here is miseo in Greek. ‘Hate’ is a bit of a misleading translation. In our usage, ‘hate’ usually means that we feel intense or passionate dislike for someone, that we wish them ill, that we would be glad to see harm befall them. Miseo can include these feelings in the right context, but it might more appropriately be translated as ‘disregard’ or ‘rejection’, a ‘turning away from’. Jesus isn’t telling us that we have to ‘hate’ our families and wish them harm, but rather that we have to radically re-prioritize our relationships to our parents, children, siblings, and even our own life, if we are going to follow him. We have to be willing to ‘turn away from them,’ to regard them as secondary to following the way of Jesus. This does not mean that we are not supposed to ‘honor our father and mother’ a la the 10 Commandments, but that the way that we love and honor our families is reshaped by a fundamental love and allegiance to Christ.

Something similar, I think, is happening with our relationship to our possessions at the end of the passage. Jesus says “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” The greek for ‘give up’ here literally says ‘say goodbye to.’ Now, let me be clear, I think God very often asks us to quite literally give up or give away many of our possessions, and that we are simply lying to ourselves if we read the gospels and dismiss the possibility that God might ask us to give up all of them some day. More fundamentally, however, I think that Jesus is saying that we cannot follow him without holding all of our stuff with open hands. Our money and resources and influence and comforts and prized possessions are gifts that we steward — resources to be leveraged in answering the calling of God to love our neighbors. Holding on to them in any other way makes them a stumbling block, something that gets between us and God, and if we keep reading Luke & Acts or look at the history of the early church, we see that from the beginning, the followers of Jesus are defined and known by the ways that they sacrificially give and share their resources, holding them in common and using them to care for those in need rather than clinging to them for comfort and security.

These interpretations may be clarifying, but they do not let us off the hook! Sure, it’s nice to know that we don’t have to ‘hate’ our families, but I’m sure many of us know how agonizing it can be when we have to ‘turn away’ from our families, when our values and sense of what is right — of what it means to love God or others — comes into conflict with the thoughts, feelings, or beliefs of those who raised us (or who we raised). Similarly, while God might not be asking you to literally give away every single thing you own today, I’m confident that we all know the struggle and internal conflict that comes when we see someone in need who we have the resources to help but are afraid of the vulnerability that comes with giving away our ‘stuff’, of the fear that can accompany giving up our money or resources, especially when we feel like we’re in a tight spot ourselves.

The verbs throughout this passage are in the present tense, and my understanding is that in Greek, the present tense is usually the present progressive tense. This means that when Jesus talks about ‘hating father or mother’ and ‘giving up your possessions’, he’s talking about a continuous, ongoing action, about a choice that we make over and over everytime our commitment to loving God and neighbor rubs up against our desire for security in our possessions or desire to be loved by our dear people. Imagine if we became the kind of people who really listened for the voice of the Spirit every time we faced one of these conflicts — what might God ask of us? Would we be willing to say, ‘yes’?

This reading is bookended by Jesus’ declarations about those who “cannot be his disciples”. Sometimes when we hear this language it can be tempting to think of this as an exclusion, as Jesus saying “no, you’re not allowed to be my disciple”. The Greek, however, simply says “you are not able to be my disciple,” and I suspect that this is about our capacity, our ability to follow Jesus. I think Jesus is saying, if you do not ‘hate father or mother’, if you do not ‘say goodbye to your possessions’, you are not capable of being my disciple, because that is simply what is required in order to follow me, in order to be a part of God’s people. Who will be there at God’s banquet? Who will follow Christ into God’s Kingdom? Not the rich and powerful, not the religious leaders, not those who stand on stages and give big speeches or go on and on about ‘Christian values’, but anyone and everyone who is willing to count the cost and give themselves to the way of Jesus with everything they have. Anyone and everyone who is willing to figure out how to love their neighbors as themselves, to reach out and care for those in need, even if it causes tension in their relationships, even if it costs them the comfort and security of their possessions.

And why does Jesus insist on this? Because this is the way to abundant life, to the true joy and peace and community that is offered in the Kingdom of God. Learning to love this way is how we become the kind of people that can receive the life that God in Christ is offering to us.

Like Moses in Deuteronomy, Christ has set before us today life and blessings in the invitation to be his disciples. May his Spirit empower us to become the sort of people who choose to receive them.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There’s a board game that’s been around forever called Chutes and Ladders.  I think everyone has played this at some point in their lives either as a child or as a grown-up with a child.  Since it is a game for little ones, it’s simple and straightforward to play: You spin the arrow and move around the board. As you go, you hope for ladders and to avoid the chutes and slides. Land at the base of a ladder and you get to advance all the way to the top beyond where even the highest spin can take you. Land at the bottom of a chute and - oh no! – you have to slide way down, back to a place you’ve already been.

Chutes and ladders gives us some insight into the culture in which Jesus lived. Scholars tell us that first century culture operated under the binaries of honor and shame. This basically meant that people’s behavior was shaped either by the threat of being publicly shamed or the promise of being publicly honored.  And not just your shame or honor but the shame and honor of many people who mattered to you. Our individualistic culture makes it a little harder to feel the import of that, of how terrible a setback it was to be shamed or how being honored moved you forward in a big way. It was akin to Chutes and Ladders

I sometimes wonder why these upright religious folks kept inviting Jesus to dinner parties, because he always caused a ruckus. At a dinner party at another Pharisee’s house, a disheveled and disreputable woman crashed the party, threw herself at Jesus feet, and began weeping. The host of the part got very upset, but Jesus apparently told everyone that she had done a beautiful thing.

He may be he’s invited so they can rip him up, take his temperature.  But Jesus, in the end, always takes theirs. And today he’s done it again. In today’s story, when we hear Jesus is invited into the home of a Pharisee for a meal. You just know there is going to be trouble. 

Jesus arrives, maybe he makes a little small talk, and then he watches how the guests jockey with each other for a seat at the cool table. They called it a table of honor but it’s the same thing. You know they’re all doing that delicate dance that has all the subtlety of a junior high cafeteria where everyone wants to sit and be seen at the cool table with the cool kids.  

So Jesus watches this for a while, and then he launches into a story, which basically skewers the pretensions of all the guests. He says, “When you get invited to a banquet, don’t seat yourself in a place of honor, because someone more important than you may come along, and then you will be asked to give up your seat, and you will be disgraced in front of the whole party.”

It’s like Jesus, too, has played Chutes and Ladders and is telling them: you will find yourself at the top of the chute and you will have to slide from the seat of honor all the way down to the seat of shame. Oh what a long, lonely walk it is from the first table to that one in the back near the swinging door to the kitchen.

And then, to make sure they do not confine this thinking to dinner parties, Jesus utters the great saying, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Those who make their own honor the goal of their lives will be ashamed of themselves in the end. And those who are humble, repeatedly putting others first, will experience the true, deep and lasting honor of the Kingdom of God.

On the one hand, this is very practical advice, the kind of thing you might find in a Poor Richard’s Almanac. Humility – true humility – is always the best mindset. It is preferable, Jesus says, to let others recognize your achievements than to address them yourself.

And on the other hand, these parables go much deeper than practical advice. They speak to the arc of our lives.  What if the point is not about climbing all the right ladders of achievement and prestige?  What if our true purpose is to slide down as many chutes as possible in compassion and companionship, standing with our neighbors? 

Psychiatrist Robert Coles tells a story about his first encounter with Dorothy Day, the great social activist, who was living and working with the poor in the slums of New York City. Coles was in Harvard Medical School at the time, proud of his status, and also proud that he had volunteered to work with Dorothy Day in helping the poor. He arrived for his first meeting to discover the famous Day deep in conversation with a dirty and disheveled street person. When she noticed Coles had come into the room, she asked him, “Did you want to speak to one of us?”

Robert Coles was astounded by Dorothy Day’s humility. She had identified so completely with what society would call a “nobody” that there was no distinction between them. Coles said it changed his life. And, he said, he learned more in that moment than in his four years at Harvard.

He saw in her a groundedness, a genuine humility. And I think we’d so ourselves a favor to understand genuine humility: it is open to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our strengths, our imperfections and our opportunities for growth.

Genuine humility does not deny or downplay ourselves, our gifts or our accomplishments. It does not embrace low self-esteem or meekness. It does not let people walk all over us.

It is not taking on a certain posture of lowliness in order to try to curry favor with God. Indeed, the God who created us with all our strengths and challenges looks to us to utilize those strengths while working out those things that challenge us. 

True humility involves understanding our contributions in context, in relation to both the contributions of others and our own place in God’s Kingdom. True humility says “I’m here to get it right, not to be right.”

I started today talking about a game, Chutes and Ladders and I’ll finish with another, slightly more challenging one: Jeopardy.  Ken Jennings won $2.5 million dollars playing 74 consecutive games. Now he’s the host.

During a recent taping of the show while they were resetting the stage, Ken asked the studio audience, “Any other questions for me while we have a moment?” A gentleman asks him. “Do you ever finish a particular Jeopardy episode and at the end realize “boy, that contestant don’t know a darn thing?” Ken laughs out loud. Then he replies, “I lost to a lovely lady from Ventura named Nancy. She knew Final Jeopardy and I didn’t. And you know what she thought? “That guy doesn’t know a darn thing.”  True humility. Ken let’s others sing his praises. And he pokes fun at himself. Because he knows he’s smart guy and he knows what he did. And also he know he still has more to learn.

We can’t free ourselves from the status system. Jesus points that out by assuming that there will always be a table and there will always be fighting for higher positions at the table. Where we have a choice is where we choose to sit. And if we ask, Jesus to be with us to help us take the lower seat, help us to embrace groundedness and save us from false humility.

We won’t need to make a big show of it. We will know our true worth. We will know deep in our bones that our worth is not determined by where we sit, but by whom we are loved. And we are loved by Jesus. Amen.

As a former scuba diver, I loved the book because diving and underwater scenes are a big part of the story, and it brought back some great memories.  I’ll probably read it again, savoring the underwater imagery and the various family relationships.

              (Once upon a time, my kids would say about a TV program or a movie, “You’ll love this, Mom – it’s about religion.”  Then they moved on to, “You’ll love this, Mom – it’s about relationships.”  They’d probably still say that today!)

              In any event, the story of Whalefall takes place just south of Monterey, and as I read, I kept googling all the places mentioned and the geographical claims the book made, and I found they’re all completely accurate.  I had no idea that there’s an underwater canyon twelve miles offshore between Carmel and Point Lobos that’s ninety-five miles long and over a mile deep, about the size of the Grand Canyon – and this underwater canyon is part of a greater canyon system that reaches depths of almost 12,000 feet.  You gotta know some interesting stuff lives down there!

              Needless to say, the underwater canyon plays a part in the book, as does how much air the “beat-the-clock” character has left in his tank.  On a recreational dive, which is defined as being less than 100’ in depth, a diver goes into the water with 3000 psi, pounds per square inch, just like tires, of oxygen in their tank.  They head gradually for the surface at no less than 500 psi, not ascending any faster than their bubbles, and they should be back on the boat with 300 psi left after a 3 minute safety stop at 15’.

              As I said, I loved the book.  I literally couldn’t put it down.  I sent a copy to my longtime dive buddy back in Florida, but her reaction was the same as my former mother-in-law’s reaction to hearing me preach for the first time:  “Well.  That was interesting.”  Eh – so I guess my dive buddy’s not into relationships!

              The reason that I’ve spent this time talking about Whalefall is that once the “beat-the-clock” diver, whose name is Jay, gets into the predicament that shapes the book, a recurring theme is, “Everything you need you brought with you.”  Everything you need you brought with you.

              Everything you need you brought with you in terms of experience; in terms of old lessons long-forgotten; in terms of confidence; in terms of what you can make do with.  You already have everything you need to help you survive, even if you don’t know it.  Now, hold onto this assurance for a bit.

              There is a link between Whalefall and this morning’s reading from Luke, the healing and restoration of a woman crippled and bent over for 18 years, but I need to lay some groundwork for the link.  Last Sunday, Rev. Carole’s sermon highlighted that Gospel reading’s focus on the cost of discipleship, on the price we may be called upon to pay as disciples of Jesus – the disruption and division we may face in all of our own most intimate relationships, as well as our social relationships and connections.

              Today’s Gospel passage begins a new section in Luke, within the greater context of Jesus “having set his face towards Jerusalem,” but last week’s tension is still present.  What we hear about today is Jesus’ third and final healing in a synagogue on the sabbath, and the leader of the synagogue’s angry reaction to that healing is a foretaste of the hostility to come in Jerusalem.  As is characteristic of Jesus’ healings, the one who is healed, woman or man, is restored not only to health, but also to wholeness, to personal dignity, and to acceptance back into their community. 

As one commentator says, “The proof of the woman’s restoration is immediate.  She is able to stand straight, and she praises God – the only proper response to God’s redemptive power.”  (NIB 273)

              In light of this comment, how apt is today’s psalm:  “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy Name!”

              Being crippled, possibly by arthritis or osteoporosis, the woman would have been marginalized in her world, unable to perform the most basic of household tasks and responsibilities; an object of scorn, literally unable to even look anyone in the face.  In her healing in the synagogue on the sabbath, in her being unbound after 18 long years, one author says, in words we may well need to hear today, “Jesus teaches that concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over obligations related to keeping the sabbath.”  (NIB, 273)

                            Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over the phrasing of the commandments delivered from God to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence through Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.  Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over anything school boards might want to place on the walls of their classrooms, because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.

              We already have everything we need.  Hold onto that.

              I don’t know if this description of ministry originated with Fr. Bill or if it predates him, but reading this morning’s passage from Isaiah totally resonates with St. Matthias’ own mission directive, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ, doing the loving thing.”  “If you remove the yolk from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”  Do the loving thing, even when the forces of the world turn against you.  Even when the forces of the world increase the suffering of our fellow human beings.  Do the loving thing.

              This is part of what we need.

              As I mentioned a moment ago, today’s reading from Luke is the start of a new section in his Gospel, a new section in Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem.  The previous section, which includes the beginning of this final journey, has been filled with instruction; filled with Jesus teaching us, and giving us, everything we need. 

              Six weeks ago, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan.  At the conclusion of the story, the injured man’s neighbor is correctly identified as “the one who showed him mercy,” the one who treated him compassionately; and Jesus tells his listeners to “Go and do likewise”; so first among what we need is DO: do have, and do act, with compassion.  Do the loving thing.

              The following week, our reading was about Mary and Martha of Bethany, and this story provides a balance for the instruction to do.  Live a life of active compassion, of doing the loving thing, but balance that doing with sitting, with spending time simply be-ing in the presence of God, open and attentive and listening.  Our first strength is DO; our second strength is SIT.

              After this, Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and Jesus responded with what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.  Our third strength is prayer, and as a fellow clergyperson once pointed out, the disciples made this request, “teach us to pray,” because they wanted what Jesus had – they wanted that same intimacy with God that they saw in Jesus…and so as a way into this intimacy, he taught them this prayer.

              Far more than rote words, Jesus’ prayer is actually a leap of radical trust.  To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to put ourselves voluntarily, to put ourselves of our own choosing, into God’s hands, acknowledging our complete dependence on God alone, not only for our salvation, but also for our daily existence and wellbeing.

              DO act with compassion; SIT attentively in the presence of God; and PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God.  Three things we need.  Three strengths we have.

              The following week our Gospel passage focused on greed, as we heard Jesus tell the parable of the Rich Fool, the farmer whose crop is so huge that he builds new barns to store it and keep it all for himself, only to be told by God that his life will be required of him that very night and all his grain will be stuck in probate for years, and no one will get it.  “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” says Jesus to those who listen.

              Now, admittedly, this is a very counter-cultural message, because the world argued for the defining importance of material wealth in Jesus’ day and the world continues to argue for the defining importance of material wealth now. 

              And yet, the life of faith is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot; the life of faith is a life shaped by God, not by things and impulses and feelings.  As Scottish evangelical Oswald Chambers wrote in the early 1900’s, “There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (in My Utmost for His Highest)

              This being said, our fourth strength is letting go of our fear of letting go.  Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because at that moment of complete vulnerability, the “last aching abyss” of our heart will be satisfied; and we will find our true identity, our new life, our real life; our life with God in Christ.  So don’t be afraid.

              Two weeks ago, that’s exactly how our Gospel passage began:  “Don’t be afraid.”  I once heard someone say that “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” appears in Scripture 365 times, this person’s theory being that God knew we’d need to hear it every day.  So – “Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom….For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  One author writes, “What Jesus enjoins [here]…is an orientation toward the whole of life as abundant gift from a generous God – a gift that can, therefore, be given away with abandon.”  (F, L, H, 337)

              “Stay alert,” says Jesus, “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  Stay alert to our surroundings, we claim as our next strength, open to where the Spirit of a generous God will lead us.

              As I mentioned, last week’s reading from Luke was a warning of the potentially apocalyptic upheaval that his presence can trigger.  As another commentator says, “Although the kingdom of God is characterized by reconciliation and peace, the announcement of that kingdom is always divisive because it requires decision and commitment.”  (NIB, L, 266)

Decision and commitment.  Because Jesus took the initiative in healing the unnamed woman in today’s Gospel, because he called her forward without any request or action on her part, her healing has been called “an act of radical grace.”  (Craddock, 384)

An embrace of God’s radical grace is the final strength we claim today, the final strength we recognize as we make the decision to commit; the decision to commit to God, and to work for the coming of God’s kingdom.  Like Jay the diver in Whalefall, we are bringing what we already have to the serious work of life in Christ:

DO act with compassion.

SIT attentively in God’s presence.

PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God.

DON’T be afraid.

STAY ALERT to our surroundings, open to where the Spirit of a generous God will lead us.

EMBRACE the radical grace of God.

 And come to the surface when you’re down to 500 psi.

Amen.

father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In 1913, there was a tiny town in Alabama called Loachapocka.  Loachapoka became the site for the very first school built in the south by Julius Rosenwald.  If you haven’t heard of him, Julius Rosenwald was part owner and then president of Sears. He was a man who, at the turn of the 20th century, had amassed a great fortune. Historians say that he was a relentless businessman. But he was also a generous philanthropist.  He was constantly on the lookout for ways he could contribute to try to make the world better.

Just before 1913, Julius became aware of the fact that most African Americans had no place to receive an education.  And that really weighed heavily on him. So he reached out to the one person who he thought would be able to give him guidance about this – a man named Booker T. Washington. At the time, Mr. Washington was in the process of setting up The Tuskegee Institute, a world-renowned college committed to offering access to education to those with the least opportunities people who had no access to education. So these two men got together and started to brainstorm about how they could be a force for good in the world where it was most needed.

And Booker T Washington said, “I’ve got a plan for you. It’s really the rural areas that are the most hard hit.”  He invited Julius Rosenwald to come to Alabama, to partner with him and get something positive done. Over the next 20 years Julius began funding the building of schools.  Over 5,000 of them in 15 states. From Maryland to Texas.

Historians say that over 700,000 Black students were educated in those schools from 1913, when the first one was built, until sometime in the 1960’s when schools were desegregated following the historic Brown v Board of Education decision and passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seven hundred thousand students! That’s equivalent to the current population of Denver.

We talked last week about the Great Cloud of Witnesses – those who inspire and challenge us including Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Julius Rosenwald and all the communities that came together with him in partnership to see over 5,000 schools come into being and be centers of education, now stand in that tremendous cloud of witnesses. They were witnesses to the plight of those who were languishing without education, witnesses to what it means to be faithful especially to those who it would have been so easy to ignore. They became part of a great cloud of witnesses who realized that giving of themselves to something bigger than themselves that would outlast themselves really mattered.  

Our lesson from Hebrews today is where that beautifully descriptive term – great cloud of witnesses - originates. The historical context, we believe, is that it was written to a fledging group of Christians who were struggling with what it means to follow God in the face of persecution.  

No one promised that following God would be an easy road.  And that’s what we see in this sort of roll call in the lesson.

It was not easy for the children of Israel who came into bondage in Egypt and had to escape, or those who came into Canaan, or for those that we hear about: of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets – and all whom were persecuted for the love of God, who were persecuted for loving neighbor as themselves.

And yet they left behind a legacy, they left behind something for all of us today.  We are privileged to walk in the path that they have carved out for us. Had it not been for those pillars of the faith, for those willing to sacrifice, who saw the need to care about something bigger than themselves - if not for those who chose God over the world.

Can you imagine 100 years ago, that Julius’ task was not easy, that it caused great division – within communities, friendships, families. It’s a hard thing sometimes loving our neighbors. And it causes division between those who want to stay in places of comfort, who want to avoid conflict, who cannot abide those who are ready and willing to do the loving thing.  Jesus warns us that there will be tension between those who chose love and those who deny:

father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

That great cloud of witnesses includes something else – the joy we have at leaving a legacy for those who come behind us.

Kathryn Bigelow was first woman to win an academy award for directing.  And her comments to reporters were striking.  “This really isn’t about me,” she said.  “It’s about all the people who came before me to make it possible for me to stand here today. And it’s about all the people who will come after me. Because of what happened here today, there are women who now know that something is possible that they never dreamed would happen for them.”

And that is us today. That’s all of us. Jesus asks us to read the signs of our lives, in our world, he asks us to interpret the signs of our present day and to do it through the eyes of God’s love and compassion.  To see the destitute, the lonely.  We share the responsibility together to believe in what is bigger than us,­ to care for all those who come after us and know that we will be the cloud of witnesses to lift them up.

Today we are going to celebrate reading in a very special way and a very special reader.  We are going to present Olivia Becerra with her very first Bible.  Olivia is growing up – maybe too fast for her family’s liking.  At her baptism, promises were made on her behalf by her parents and godparents to keep the lessons of the apostles for themselves and to teach them to Olivia.

And now it’s time for her to take on some of that responsibility for herself – to become a student of God’s word and immerse herself in it. We celebrate this time in her life with her, this coming of age.    

God calls us to ask ourselves how we will be remembered.  Whatever we are able to do to improve the life of another human being, God calls us to do that.  And as we give thanks for those who came before us, for those on whose shoulders we stand in order to have a better view of God’s Kingdom, let us always remember that there are those, like Olivia and all our children, who come after us.  And that we are their light and their path to an ever greater knowledge, and ever closer relationship with God.  Amen.

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I must ask myself a dozen times a day, “what time is it?” Maybe you do as well.  We look at our watches. We know instinctively where the clock function is on our computers or phones. Most of us – to some degree of another – watch the clock so that we can be on time, so that we aren’t late. We do this for lots of reasons. But I think usually it’s because we want to show respect – respect for the other people we’re going to meet, respect for our own and their busy calendars with lots to do that day. We realize that the event can’t start until everyone is present. And we don’t want to be the one holding everyone up or the one who is left behind. We don’t want to miss out. 

And the other question we ask ourselves before a meeting or event is – am I ready? Have I done the necessary prep work to function at a high level?  If I’m an athlete, have I been to practice that week? Did I pay attention to my coach? If I’m a student going into an exam, have I studied, did I do the homework?  Did I pay attention in class and take decent notes? Am I ready? At least, am I as ready as I can be?  And maybe we won’t know the answer to that question until after the meeting, after the exam, after the game?  But we can prepare.

So this week’s gospel gives us a lot we can relate to. Some things in it are not so clear: wedding celebration traditions and the conventional expectations of the relationship between masters and slaves that are assumed in Jesus’ teaching are lost on us. But Jesus’ bottom line transcends time and culture and is always applicable: be watchful, be ready. Live consistently in such a moral way that you are always ready to give account to God of how you live.  Live love. Join with current saints and those through time who have built up God’s kingdom on earth.  And do it fearlessly.

As a church, we commemorate the lives of some of these witnesses. This week one of those who we remember is Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian and witness for civil rights.

Jonathan did not set out to be among the Great Cloud of Witnesses.  But he did set out to follow God’s call to him. After graduating from Virginia Military Academy, he felt called to the priesthood. So he enrolled in the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a deeply spiritual man and there is every reason to think that his life would have been an inspiration to many. Jonathan could look forward to a long life as, perhaps, a parish priest. He would be in his 60’s now, approaching retirement, having probably baptized, married, counseled, and buried a large number of parishioners. He would have had plenty of opportunities to live out his faith.

But while he was in seminary he felt a restlessness. The Holy Spirit had intervened as the Holy Spirit often does. In March 1965, Jonathan Daniels heard a televised appeal by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., asking for workers to come to Selma, Alabama, and help secure the right to vote for all citizens. Jonathan’s initial impulse to answer this call was strengthened during the singing at Evensong of the Magnificat, the beautiful song of Mary, also found in Luke’s Gospel.

“He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.”

Jonathan told his friends that he knew he had to go to Selma. “The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.” Here we see a living example of a faithful witness – Mary, the mother of Jesus - inspiring a modern day faithful witness – Jonathan even though they were separated in time by nearly 2,000 years.

Jonathan went to Selma, where he lived among those he was called to serve as they struggled to claim their right to vote. On August 14th, Jonathan and several others were jailed for participating in a picket line – confined to the sweltering heat of a windowless jail in August in the deep South. They were released six days later and walked to a store to buy cold drinks. Ruby Sales, a black teenager, was the first to reach the door. She was met by a man armed with a shotgun who cursed her as he lifted the barrel of the gun. Jonathan pushed her aside to shield her and took the blast of the shotgun point-blank in the chest. He died on the spot.

In his book, Brightest and Best, Sam Portaro theorizes that the man who threatened Ruby Sales that day in August had been taught all his life to fear and hate anyone who looked different from him. He had been taught that to respect the rights of a black person — even one merely trying to buy a bottle of soda pop from a neighborhood market – would in some way, diminish his own life.

Jonathan Daniels, on the other hand, nourished by Holy Scripture and the sacraments, encouraged by faith in the transformative power of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ, was filled with faith, hope, and love. On that top step of the little store in Selma, Portaro writes, “fear met faith, greed met hope, hatred met love.”

Jonathan’s death shocked the world. It also galvanized the movement that he had joined with the desire to bring about the kingdom of God, to prepare the world for the coming of the Master.

The forces that were at work in Selma in l965 are at work in the world today. Our lives are complicated. We, too, struggle with the presence of fear and greed and hatred, even as we thank God for the gifts of faith, hope, and love.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls on us to hold fast to Jesus, that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, that we may lay fear aside and run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.” 

Faith and action cannot be divorced. Fear must turn to trust, and trust must grow into faithful action, building the kingdom that it is God’s good pleasure to give us.

Jonathan’s call and path were unique to him. We are not all called to the same path or witness. We are not all called to place ourselves in mortal danger. But we are all called to be responsible for what we are and what we do. We must have our lamps lit and be dressed to serve. That preparation and the conviction that we are in our own unique ways living into our call to serve drives out all fear and frees us to do our part in the work of building the kingdom that God promises to give to us.

As Episcopalians we have a beautiful roadmap in our baptismal covenant:  we must be ready to live out our baptismal vow to put our whole trust in grace and love, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. And last but never least, we must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. We must be about the work of the faithful even if we don’t feel like Jesus is going to come knocking anytime soon. 

And if we are caught up in our faithful action when the Master returns we will be blessed. In Jesus’ parable, the slaves who were up ready to serve the late-returning Master were rewarded with the Master cooking them a meal and sitting with him at the table. In this we too shall be blessed. What a glorious day that will be.  Amen.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Mediation by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

The epistle today gives a chance to think about how we use the words “belief” and “faith” – two terms that are often used interchangeably, but there's an important difference.

Belief is an intellectual acceptance of something as true. Each Sunday we reconfirm our beliefs when we say the Nicene Creed – “We believe in God the Father, we believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, and we believe in the Holy Spirit.” These expressions of belief were intellectually discerned long ago by our spiritual ancestors. And as we recall and repeat them now, they come from our mind much more than from our heart.   

Faith is a heart function. Faith builds on belief adding trust and a willingness to act often in the face of uncertainty. You can't have faith in something you don't believe exists or is true. Faith is a deep commitment that involves trust, reliance of the teachings of Jesus and the promises of God.  It involves action, even in the absence of proof. We believe in God. We have faith when they pray, seek guidance, and live their life according to their understanding of God's will.  It is by God’s grace, through faith, that we receive salvation.

There was a popular saying years ago “Keep the Faith” to encourage us through difficult times.  Faith in God - the goodness of God and the love of God for us - is what keeps us going in the face of life’s challenges.

Does that resonate with you?  Does that make sense?

Here’s a little bit of seminary Greek for you. The Greek word for faith is pistis (PEES-tees.)  Paul frequently uses the word pistis in his writings – 25 times in Romans alone. Pistis had a checkered past in the culture of the early church. In Greek mythology, pistis was one of the spirits who escaped Pandora’s Box. 

Do you remember the story of Pandora’s Box? Pandora was the first woman created by the gods. Zeus gave her a sealed container as a gift, warning her never to open it. Pandora, though, just couldn’t help herself. She was so curious, she opened the container releasing all sort of things into the world. The good things, like faith - pistis, fled back to heaven while the evils were turned loose humanity. Though Pandora quickly closed the box, only hope remained trapped inside. The story was meant to encourage obedience and suppress curiosity.  But also to reinforce hope.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wonders “will the Son of Man find faith on earth?” He’s speaking into the Hellenistic culture that believed the spirit of pistis had already departed.

The book of Hebrews was written in part to combat such despair and to encourage new Christians who were having trouble holding onto hope when Jesus did not return soon after his ascension. Along comes the author of Hebrews to give us a valuable definition of faith: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

So many times we receive the things that in faith we ask God to grant us: the baby is born, we get the job, the treatment works.  Sometimes things take longer and like the folks in Hebrews waiting for Christ to return, our people are still waiting for and longing for an answer from God. 

But it’s a complicated sort of “dance”:  In faith we are assured that God has our best interest at heart, knows what we hope for and holds our future. It’s not easy to follow God when we’re not sure about that, when we can’t see where God is leading us, when we do not see in action that hard evidence that we crave. We might begin to wonder whether God is watching over us. We hope that God is watching. We see loved ones grow ill and pray, in faith, that God will hold their future. Then every once in a while, something happens - something special – that strengthens our hearts and reminds us why we believe. We need these moments, given by God’s grace, to renew our faith.

The wonderful theologian, Frederick Beuchner, points out that faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process rather than a possession. It is “on-again-off-again” rather than “once and for all.” Faith is not being sure of where you’re going but going anyway.

I think what gives our faith real strength is the belief that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and like a good friend, a best friend, is looking out for us both as individuals and as a community. 

And isn’t that the blessing of our community of faith – that in the “on again off again” of our lives, we can rest in faith, knowing we have each other to go on the journey, knowing that by grace God watches over us and in love Jesus walks with us no matter what.

Amen.

Proper 13, Year C

The Rev. Jeannie Martz

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Irvine CA

Whatever Episcopal church we’ve been worshiping in, over the past three Sundays, the Gospel readings from Luke that we’ve all been hearing have given us an outline of the Christian life, an outline of life lived faithfully.

Three weeks ago, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan.  At the conclusion of the story, the injured man’s neighbor is correctly identified as “the one who showed him mercy,” who treated him compassionately, and Jesus tells his listeners to “Go and do likewise”; so the first point in the outline is DO:  do have, and do act, with compassion and mercy.

              Two weeks ago, our reading was about Mary and Martha of Bethany, and this story provides a balance for the instruction to do.  Live a life of active compassion, but balance that doing with sitting, with spending time simply be-ing in the presence of God, open and attentive and listening.  Point one, DO; point two, SIT.

              We heard point three last week when Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray like John had taught his disciples, and Jesus responded with what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.  Point three is PRAY, and as a fellow clergyperson once pointed out, the disciples made this request, “teach us to pray,” because they wanted what Jesus had – they wanted that same intimacy with God that they saw in Jesus…and so as a way into this intimacy, he taught them this prayer.

              Far more than rote words we can all recite in our sleep, this prayer is actually a leap of radical trust.  To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to put ourselves voluntarily and of our own choosing into God’s hands, acknowledging our complete dependence on God alone, not only for our salvation, but also for our daily existence and wellbeing.

              DO act with compassion; SIT attentively in the presence of God; and PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God. 

Why this emphasis on a faithful lifestyle?  Because as we also hear Jesus say today, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions“ – or, in the words of The Message translation of Scripture, “Life is not defined by what [we] have, even when [we] have a lot.”

              The world, of course, argues otherwise, and says that we are very much defined by what we have.  It argued otherwise in Jesus’ day too, because at that time material wealth was seen as being a sign of God’s favor, as tangible evidence that the wealthy person was already doing and sitting and praying, was already in a right relationship with God; and Jesus’ listeners would have said that rather than being a fool, this morning’s farmer was both wise and prudent to stockpile his bumper crop, and to plan for his future as he did.

              The world argued for the defining importance of material wealth then, and the world continues to argue for the defining importance of material wealth now.  Here in our day both smart money and our culture tell us that more is better, that more will keep us safe from economic downturns and financial surprises, that more will keep the unpredictable chaos of life at bay; and the world tells us that what we have, and how much of it we have, and certainly whose label is on what we have, that this is what defines us; this is what determines our real value in the world around us.

              The old clichés and bumper stickers have long told us that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping; and that he or she who dies with the most toys wins; and as a culture, we’ve taken these clichés so much to heart and learned this lesson of material accumulation so well that as a result, some years ago author and lifestyle consultant Marie Kondo built a whole consumer industry around helping us to de-clutter our lives and our homes, around helping us get rid of our stuff; and I’m sure that if asked, she would encourage the rich farmer to go through his crops one by one and keep only those that bring him joy.

              (This is one of Kondo’s signature pieces of advice about how to identify what to keep and what to pitch in one’s own home.)

              As one commentator says of today’s Gospel reading, “This inordinate craving to hoard as a guarantee against insecurity is not only an act of disregard for those in need but [it] puts goods in the place of God,” and of course, putting anything in the place of God is, by its very definition, idolatry.  (Craddock, pp. 360-361)

              Paul also identifies hoarding and greed as idolatry, as “seeking” not “where Christ is” – and he’s right.  We are idolatrous; we worship a false god any time our seeking for more and more siphons off the energy, the adoration, and the devotion – or the doing, sitting, and praying – that belong to God alone.

              We worship a false god any time that we think the object of our seeking is also the definer of who we are – and our false god doesn’t even have to be money or things or accomplishments.

              Sadly, idolatry can also focus on painful things, on wounds or emotions or experiences that we choose to cling to and savor and identify with in an unhealthy way, never moving through them, but instead hoarding them and running our fingers through them, keeping them in the storehouses of our hearts and living out of them or lashing out of them again and again and again.

              The ancient Greeks were correct to say that it is as easy to satisfy the hunger of greed as it is to fill a bucket that has a hole in it.  Whatever we try to fill the bucket with, whatever we try to satisfy the hunger with, there’s never going to be enough…and the Christian life is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot.

              All our old behaviors, all our old priorities are now obsolete, says Paul; the things we clutch at and garner and hoard in our barns as we “set our minds…on things that are on earth” -- these are all illusions, they’re not part of the action going on around Christ.  Our new life, our real life is “with Christ in God”, and so these practices that we thought brought joy to the “old self” can be set aside and discarded.  They are illusions, and we need to become dis-illusioned.

              Back in the early 1900’s, Scottish evangelical Oswald Chambers wrote, “Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions.  We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another….It works in this way,” he went on to say.  “[I]f we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of [the one we love] every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get [what we want] we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give.  There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (in My Utmost for His Highest)

              As the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, the one who in today’s reading calls himself “the Teacher;” the Teacher writes – and here I’m reading from the contemporary Message translation again –  “Oh, I did great things:  built houses, planted vineyards, designed gardens and parks and planted a variety of fruit trees in them, made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees….I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms….Oh, how I prospered!  I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them all in the dust.  What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all.  Everything I wanted I took – I never said no to myself.  I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing.  I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task – my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!  Then…[then] I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work.  But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke.  Smoke and spitting into the wind.  There was nothing to any of it.  Nothing.”  (Eccles. 2:4-10, selected)

              The life of faith is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot; the life of faith is a life shaped by God, not by things and impulses and feelings.  The life of faith is a dis-illusioned life, it’s a life that recognizes, as Paul says, that in our renewal in Christ, “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”  (Col. 3:11)

              And as Oswald Chambers reminds us, only Christ can sate our hunger for more, only Christ can “satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart”; only God in Christ can “give us THIS DAY our daily bread” – and yet admitting this, admitting to ourselves the deep need we have that we can’t fill ourselves can be really scary.

              I once heard someone say that “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” appears in Scripture 365 times, this person’s theory being that God knew we’d need to hear it every day.  Well, let’s go for leap year and make it 366 – and this is point four of our faithful life outline:  don’t be afraid.

              Don’t be afraid to let go of storing up and of seeking more; don’t be afraid to let go of toys, to let go of wounds, to let go of the fear of letting go.

              Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because at that moment of our greatest dis-illusionment, no illusions or self-protections or self-deceptions left, at that moment we will find our true identity, our new life, our real life; our life with God in Christ.  Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because that’s where our new life is, and we can’t take advantage of it without being empty handed, without being honest with ourselves about our total dependence on God.

              And why not be afraid?  Because no less than all of creation, we too belong to God:  we are the adopted sons and daughters of the God who loved all things into being; we are the baptized, and as the baptismal rubrics in the Prayer Book make clear, “The bond which God establishes in baptism is indissoluble.”  Indissoluble; permanent.  A bond of relationship initiated by God that cannot be broken, ever – no matter what we do, think, say, wish, or feel; and no matter what anyone else does, thinks, says, wishes, or feels.  By God’s own choice, God sticks with us, and God sticks to us, in a bond more solid than Gorilla Glue.

              Some of us may remember that expression that Rudyard Kipling used to introduce his Just So Stories for children, “O best beloved”; more recently – although still 18 years ago – others among us might remember how in the 2007 book The Shack, the character of God would invariably say, when someone’s name was mentioned, that she, God, was “particularly fond” of that person.  Each of us is God’s best beloved, and God is particularly fond of each and every one of us.  And so we can be brave, not afraid; we can dis-illusion ourselves; we can allow our lives to be shaped by God.

              At one point in the Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” the humble milkman Tevye, the main character, sings about what his life would be like if he suddenly became rich.  He’d get a big house, he says, with a tin roof and wood floors.  He’d get flocks of chickens and ducks and turkeys and geese, his wife would have a double chin and lots of servants, and he’d have the admiration and respect of all the townspeople.  Finally, at the end of the song, he says longingly, “If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray, and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall.  And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men several hours every day.  That would be the sweetest thing of all.”

Do, sit, pray, let go – and don’t be afraid, because you are loved; and because this love will never let you go, this love that God has for you and for me and for everyone else and always will – don’t be afraid, because this is the sweetest thing of all.  

Amen.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

It’s not fair! How many times have we heard those words in our lives, in our work and homes. It’s not fair. He got something I didn’t get. She got something I really wanted. Is there something in our human nature than when we look round and see someone else that has something we thing we might want – and we learn this at a very early age. “I want that. Give me that.” I’m not sure we ever shake this off.

And particularly among siblings. From the earliest siblings recorded in scripture, we see that there are some tension. When Caine realizes that the sacrifice that Abel makes to God is more acceptable than his own sacrifice, he has his own moment of “that’s not fair” and “I want that.”  And is so upset that he decides to take his brother’s life. The very first siblings recorded in scripture.

And this business of inheritance – that’s its own sticky wicket. Because we can stay in the book of Genesis, we don’t have go any further in scripture, to find that difficult story of Jacob and Esau. Remember them?  Jacob was the younger of the twin brothers. 

But birth order matters in the ancient world. And so Jacob need to be the older twin so badly that he thinks “I will lie to my father, I will cheat my own brother, I will do whatever I need to do to get the birthright and the patriarchal blessing.” So the existence of sibling rivalry in our world today can’t be too surprising if those things existed in ancient times.

And somehow the death of a parent, in some families, seems to bring out really poor behavior. There are media reports of these things all too often: recently in a family named Burgess, where there was an allegation that one sister had unduly influenced their mother to change her will, the family spent the entirety of their inheritance arguing in court for years. In the end, there was nothing for anyone. Except maybe the lawyers. Proving the old saying that some people are so poor that all they have is money.  And then they don’t even have that.

And so we have this interesting lesson from Luke’s gospel today. This very interesting lesson about a man who isn’t getting what he thinks he should get from his father’s estate. He believes his brother should be giving him more. He asks Jesus to intercede on his behalf.

What we know about the ancient world and inheritance is that the older son usually got a double portion of the estate. So if you were the younger son you got about a third and your older brother got two thirds roughly.  Depending on what the inheritance looks like, it could leave you living well or in poverty.  So we gather that a younger son who is unhappy with his share comes to Jesus to say “I don’t have enough. Tell my brother to give me more.’ Jesus refuses to get into the middle of this family squabble.

Instead Jesus uses it for a wonderful teaching moment. That’ much more than about inheritance.  We don’t really know what happened in this family.  We don’t know why this young man thinks he should get a bigger share – maybe he was more faithful or more helpful to his dad.  Maybe he’s just greedy. But we know that he’s asking for more, he doesn’t have enough.  And Jesus, in the way he loves to teach, tells a parable.

A rich man – whose bounty is so tremendous after a bumper crop, has so much, his barns can’t hold it all. So he’s thinking to himself, what do I do now? I have all this abundance. I know, I’ll tear down my two small barns and build bigger ones. And if I do that, I won’t have to work for quite a while, for years. And I can just relax. This is so good. Notice he doesn’t ask himself “who might I give some of this grain to? Who didn’t have such a good crop this year? No, there’s none of that.

He runs into a problem. Because who shows up to have a chat with this guy?  God shows up. “You fool,” God says. “This very night your life be will demanded of you. And whose gonna get all this stuff when you’re gone?”  That’s a big question for this man.  Because he is so consumed with how do I hang on to everything I’ve got. It’s mine!”

Theologian Walter Brueggemann during his lifetime preached about the whole idea of living in fear of scarcity. A lot of us understand this. Our parents or grandparents lived through the depression and then through the rationing times of the second world war.

There was a fear that you might wake up one day and desperately need that one thing that you let go of the day before. Now you’re in the world of hurt that you dreaded and tried so hard to prevent. So the idea of scarcity was a real one for them.

But when we allow ourselves to live in fear of scarcity rather than in anticipation of and in thanksgiving for abundance, it causes us to live our lives in ways that are not life-giving. We are so concerned with holding onto things that we can’t envision how God would have us take care of all God’s people.

And when our lives have been demanded of us, when our time is done what’s going to happen to all our stuff? We’ve been so carefully hanging onto it. I’m as guilty as anyone, I’ve got family heirlooms I attach great importance to them. Because they’re all I have left of my family. And I don’t feel good about it. But what is going to happen to all that we have amassed when our time here is done?

Mitch Albom wrote a book called “Have a Little Faith.” It’s about a minister in the inner city who had a rather circuitous route getting into the ministry. But now he’s been called to a church where he has nothing. Is literally in a church that is missing part of the roof and it’s the middle of winter. Snow is coming in.

But rather than living in a mindset of scarcity, he lives in a place of abundance. “I know God has got this. I know God is going to care for us. I know that we’ll be able to take care of the next hungry person what comes to us, that needs a place to sleep – I know we can take care of them. I know this because I trust in the Great Abundance of God.”

That is such a rich and life-giving place to live. Because it acknowledges that what we have really isn’t ours in the first place. We have what we have because we are stewards entrusted to care for these things while we are here. We have it because of God’s goodness, we have it because of God’s graciousness.

When we approach life from that standpoint, when we approach life from that place, suddenly this fear of not having enough is replaced with a sense of “God will provide.” As Jesus says in the verses that follow this passage today, look at the ravens. They don’t have a store house or barn, they don’t have any of that, but they eat every day. They eat every day because of God’s Great Provision. It is as true for us as it was true for those who heard Jesus tell this parable 2,000 years ago.

We have been entrusted with tremendous gifts that make a profound difference in God’s world for God’s people. And when we live with the assurance of the real inheritance – that the real inheritance is not about our stuff, the real inheritance is about the life that we will go on to live eternally with God. When we live our lives with a sense of that reality and that richness and that abundance, we see everything differently.

We see the ministry that we do 5 days a week on our St. Francis patio “Doing the Loving Thing” providing food for the hungry, water for the thirsty on these very hot summer days, and hats, gloves and scarves during the cold winter months – that we provide to over a hundred people every week.     

We do that and we’ll still eat, and stay hydrated in the summer and warm in the  winter. We’ll still be fine. We will still know God’s love and provision.

So I invite all of us this day to give up the notion that there’s a scarcity of anything. Because in God there is no scarcity. I invite us to believe in God’s abundance.  I invite us to believe that God puts us here to care deeply for one another.

When we do that, when we put our focus not on material things, but on the life we will live eternally with God, our outlook about everything we do becomes lighter, more joy filled. Our lives are more reflective of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  We feel God working in and through us. And we live as people abundantly blessed every day of our lives. Amen.

Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I feel confident that many of us gathered here today might count the words of the Lord’s Prayer among our earliest childhood memories. And likely, some of us began saying those well-known and beloved words with our parents during bedtime prayers, or with our aunties and grandparents even before we remember saying them in church on a Sunday.

And as children, we didn’t know what the words meant. We only knew that we’d been taught that this is what we say when we approach God in prayer. As we got older, we began to engage the process of what these words really mean.  What do they say to us? And what are we hoping for as we begin to say them?

The words of the Lord’s Prayer took on new meaning for a friend of mine a few years ago.  On a Friday morning, she went for what was supposed to be routine physical exam.  It was supposed to be all over and done within an hour so she could get on with her day.  She was excited about plans she had for the weekend. But an abnormal image appeared on a scan. And she said that it seemed everyone and everything went into high speed motion around her. There were worried looks and expressions of concern.

And a doctor finally said to her, ”we need to schedule an appointment for you with a specialist this afternoon.”  She had never been so frightened in her life. She had a 4-year-old, and a not quite 2-year-old.  And the notion that she might be leaving them sooner than she ever imagined was terrifying. There were a lot of tears - tears as she was trying to figure out how to tell her spouse. Tears as she was trying to make sense out of what was happening. Tears about how she was even going to get through the next couple hours as she waited for the specialist

But no words. She couldn’t find any words. She describes herself as “a prayer.” But in that moment, she could find no words. Alone in a sterile hospital exam room, it took a crisis to bring her to prayer, to ask for God’s help and acknowledge her need for God’s help. And in the depth of that lonely, despairing moment when she craved comfort it was finally a few bits of the Lord’s Prayer that she could summon, But those were enough to dry her tears and lift her in strength. She repeated over and over: “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” 

Now if we were looking at scripture and looking for an example to rely on when we are in need of renewal and strength and are preparing ourselves for the work God has given us, we really don’t need to look very far.  Because all of our gospels, especially Luke’s gospel, talk about the times that Jesus needed to be with God in prayer in order to continue the journey.

There were some specific times that Jesus knew he needed to stop and pray, that he needed the strength and the peace that could only come from seeking God in prayer: after his baptism; as he was choosing the 12; as the Pharisees were besieging him; as people were seeking him out to be fed and to be healed. He knew that in order to do the work that God required of him he would need lots and lots of prayer.

Yet sometimes I think we forget that. Sometimes we think we can handle all sorts of things on our own without the strength that comes from that intimate relationship with God. The disciples had observed Jesus stepping away to pray. So they ask him to teach them to pray.

Notice what Jesus tells them:

Our Father, holy is your name. We hear a lot these days about Jesus as “personal savior.”  But that would have been a foreign notion to the disciples and the larger Jewish community, and out of character with Jesus’ teachings. It is all about community, not about individuals. “Our” Father, not my father.

Your kingdom come. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we ourselves need to forgive all those who are indebted to us. That’s hard sometimes isn’t it?

So Jesus has set up this marvelous model for the disciples to understand what it means to go to God in prayer. And he adds one more thing: you need to be persistent.  God has no need for us to be persistent, we need that. We need to persist in prayer to realize that intimate connection with God.

I want to spend some time on the whole idea of “thy kingdom come.”  To utter those words in the 1st century Roman Empire world was to actually say something that was fairly subversive. To the culture’s way of thinking, there’s only one kingdom and that’s the kingdom of the empire. And there’s only one king and that’s Caesar. And to suggest that there is a place that is far bigger and better and more important, those are dangerous words to say in Jesus’ time.  And yet this is where he begins his petitions.

Your kingdom come. Not this one. Not this one in which we are surrounded by poverty and disease and violence. No, not this kingdom but your kingdom, God. Your kingdom where the impoverished and the marginalized know your mercy and your love and your justice. Your kingdom, God. Your kingdom come. Jesus teaches the disciples – and us – the pray boldly, courageously and expectantly.

We hear that and it almost sounds a passive event. Like one of these days we’ll be walking along and God’s kingdom will just fall on our heads.

There’s so much more to understanding what Jesus is telling the disciples here. It’s more than a passive waiting. It’s an engagement with God that helps us understand as people of God that God’s kingdom coming, comes through us.  Through the work of our hands and the love of our hearts – that is how God’s kingdom comes.

And only when we are filled up and strengthened to prayer can we understand how God can use us to allow God’s kingdom to come into being.

Mother Teresa once said that she stopped believing that prayer changes things. She stopped believing that when she reached an understanding that prayer changes us.  And that we, in turn, change things. This reminds us that we have a role. We are not passively watching the world go by. We have a very real role to play in helping everyone understand God’s love and mercy. If we are not the ambassadors of this, if we don’t radiate God’s love and mercy in all we do, then where is the hope? 

In a few minutes we are going to baptize our friend Jordan. In baptism he will be adopted into the family of God and welcomed by all of us.  We will offer him the care and support he needs to become the very best version of himself before God that he can be. 

The prayers that will be offered for him reflect those same qualities of God’s kingdom come.  We will pray that his heart be always open to God’s grace and truth, that he be filled with God’s holy and life-giving spirit, that he will love others in the power of the Spirit and, finally, that he will go into the world in witness to God’s love. This is a hopeful day, a special day. 

Jordan, I’m guessing that until today, July 27th wasn’t particularly important to you. That is was just an average day in the middle of summer. But all that changes today.  July 27th will never be the same.  It will always be your baptism day – a day to celebrate just as you celebrate your birthday or wedding anniversary. It will be forever a day of joyous remembrance and renewal. 

This is where hope lives.  We don’t need to wait for a crisis for all of us to understand our need for God and our need for one another.  We only need to persist in praying boldly in strength and commitment to being builders of God’s kingdom.  Amen. 

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

This story of Mary and Martha – especially Martha’s portion - reminds me of the Thanksgiving dinners that Bob and I hosted at our house for our family for decades. Early in our married life the family consisted of about 16 people which filled our little townhouse.  As time went on, at its max, we had almost 40. We lost some family member along the way but there were marriage and births and friends that were like family. And we had a larger home, thanks be the God. Preparation for these dinners was over the top.  

But it all actually started before we got married with the wedding register for gifts. This is the process of picking out china and crystal and silver and serving dishes and linen napkins and table cloths. Pretty things you want and that they tell you you’ll need. And then very kind people purchase these things for you as wedding gifts. And then, well, you have to use them. And they are so pretty and shiny, and your dinner guests ooh and aah at how lovely it all looks.

Days before Thanksgiving, I would shop for hours and then cook for days all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. There were To Do lists, and lists of lists. Finally it was Thanksgiving day, with crazy busy last minute things to do, guests arrived to be served. Timing of keeping cold things cold and hot things hot was the most important thing in the world. Making sure that everyone was full and happy. It was a feast.

And then, hours later, the guests were gone and we were alone with piles of dirty pots and pans, plates and cups; a mountain of dirty table linens. But we had a system, and we were usually done cleaning up by about 1:00 A.M. The next day we were so exhausted, we didn’t move unless it was to get another Tylenol.

But that wasn’t the worst hurt.  The worst hurt was realizing that I was so busy I hadn’t spent time with my people. I didn’t know how my nephew’s new job was going or who my niece’s best friend was in her new school or how my sister-in-law’s trip to China had gone.

So one year we switched it up. We used paper plates and plastic cups. And we made it a potluck. The plastic forks didn’t match. And we’re probably the only family in town eating Beef and Broccoli and strawberry ice cream for Thanksgiving. But we gained so much – time to listen, to laugh, to complain and commiserate – all things families do together.  

So that’s a vivid illustration for me personally of this conflict of good that we hear in the gospel lesson today. Martha wants to honor Jesus by making sure that everything was prepared exactly as it should be, all the details attended to, all the lists checked off, all the food just right, all the drinks just right, And Jesus is like “look, I appreciate it. But I would take bread and water… and you.” 

In trying to honor our guests with our actions, which we hoped we were those Thanksgiving and it’s a good thing to do that, we discovered that we really honored our guests much more with our attention. So at some point, if our impulse and the right desire to honor others by our actions interferes with our attending to them, then we are ripe for hearing Jesus words, “look the only thing that matters is for you to sit with us. That’s the only thing.” That’s the one thing.

So it’s a spiritual principal. It’s a call to discern spiritual balance. We do a lot for our families, for our neighbors, for our parish. So many of you do so much. You have such giving beautiful hearts for serving others. But if and when our commitment to practicing the serving side of our Christianity interferes with our prayer life, our reflective life, then we’re out of balance.

And that’s when we hear Jesus saying, “I would like to share with you a word, I would like to listen to you. I would like to hear about your hopes, your needs, your confessions, your desires. And I want to speak to you. I want you to hear from my word through the inspired scriptures.”

Holy Scripture originated in and is grounded in God through Jesus, for us and for our learning. The lesson this morning from Genesis – how sobering is that? Don’t we need to hear this story and picture Abraham frantically around arranging hospitality only to be brought up short by the news from the messenger that Sarah will have a son?

The Psalm this morning is a powerful one setting out the criteria of righteousness to which we might aspire for ourselves and look for in the leadership of others.

We get to hear the rich theology in the Colossians of Jesus as the earthly image of the invisible God, the fullness of God, the first fruits of the new creation. All these really warrant our attention.

But prayer is especially important. That we do not sacrifice our prayer life is important especially as Episcopalians. One of our core principals is the concept that our faith is shaped through our praying. Anglicans have long embraced the idea “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,” which simply means, “praying shapes believing.”  You will become in belief whatever you give your prayerful heart to. 

Our hunger for a deeper, richer, ongoing life in communion with God demands that we be able to hold in tension things that often seem to be contradictory.  Any attempt to be with God, whether in the course of our prayer, in worship or the course of our daily lives has to be lived in the light of some sense of paradox:

God is within us and God is around us.

Jesus is with us and Jesus has ascended into heaven.

God’s kingdom has come and the kingdom is still to come.

These are the paradoxes of our life with God. The paradox of prayer is this: we perform these acts of worship that are not actually for us. We do these things for God but we are the ones who are changed. We offer songs of praise, prayers of thanksgiving, we chant the ancient psalms and it is we who are moved to joy.

Holy actions and holy attentions -- both are important. It’s a paradox, this Mary-Martha story, that we can live with and not let ourselves be bothered or dismayed by it. We are at times both contemplative Mary and servant Martha. And -- we have to attend to the first things first. This week as I prepared for this sermon I heard not “Martha, Martha” but “Carole Carole.” Jesus also calls your name. And adds a beautiful invitation for you, “choose the better part. Stop and be with me in prayer.”   Amen.

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii,[b] gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

On a morning in April of 2010 a 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant by the name of Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was walking on a street in Queens. The streets were familiar to him. New York had become his adopted home. He found day work as he could. Many nights he slept on those streets. But he knew his way around. 

That morning as the city was starting wake up, and people were going about their day, he happened to witness a woman being attacked by a man.  And clearly wanting to stop the attack, Tale-Yax interceded and jumped in to try to spare her any further harm.

In so doing, he himself was attacked by her attacker. She took the opportunity to get away and took off running. Her attacker then stabbed Tale-Yax and took off in the other direction. And Tale-Yax stumbled a few steps before falling on the sidewalk of that NY street.

For one hour and twenty minutes, New Yorkers walked by Hugo Tale-Yax on that sidewalk. Well, most of them walked by. One actually stopped and kind of turned him over to see what was going on. And then kept going. Another guy took out his cell phone and took a picture of him. And then he too kept walking. By the time someone actually decided to call the police and the police arrived it was too late. And Tale-Yax had died.

This story fascinated our nation. There were headlines everywhere, people wondering how could something like this happen?  The only reason we even know that it happened was because there happened to be a surveillance camera mounted on a building in front of this scene and the entire hour and 20 minutes was recorded on that surveillance camera. 

And there - kind of like Adam and Eve laid bare before God - humanity was laid bare in its inability to come to the aid of a man who had risked his life to come to the aid of someone else, a stranger.

Now everyone had lots of questions from reporters, to theologians, to psychologists, to people who worked with immigrants. Everyone had lots of questions about how this could happen.  And there were groups wanted to throw in their two cents about why it happened the way it did.

People who work with immigrants said, well people who are immigrants themselves might have seen him but might have been so afraid of the police that they didn’t want to get involved.

Psychologists thought well maybe New Yorkers have become so numb to seeing drunk, homeless people lying on the street that that it just didn’t phase them. And they probably thought he was really okay and that he just needed to sleep it off.

And then there were people who called it a symptom of city living. So many people saw him as they all rushed by on their way to school and work and the gym and all the places they were going, they thought surely somebody would call police, somebody else would be the one to call police and get help. Because surely somebody else sees besides me this.

But however it unfolded, there he lay on the sidewalk: a modern day Good Samaritan himself with no one to come to his aid.

And then we as people of God begin to ask ourselves questions: like how does that happen? What would we do?  Does scripture help us, does it inform us to help to process, to form an understanding about what happened on that street that morning.  Yes – it does.  Scripture informs us in lots of ways.  We can acknowledge that.

Even before the people called Israel struggling to get to the Promised Land they’d already gotten commandments from God about loving God and caring for one another. Six of those first Ten Commandments were about living in right relationship with one another: honoring parents, living faithfully with our spouses, not lying, not coveting or stealing what which does not belong to us, not killing each other.  All those things tell us about right relationship.

No fewer than a dozen times in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are the people called Israel told how it is that they are to provide for the least among them. If you see the widow, and the alien, and the orphan you are to care for them.

Why are you to care for them?  Because God took care of you when you were enslaved and suffering. Today we might say “thou shalt pay it forward.” You were cared for and now you are to care for everyone else. That is our legacy.

Scripture is filled with the commandment to us to love and serve our God and one another. What went wrong that day in New York?

We turn to our gospel lesson today from Luke. We see a lawyer asking Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus might be thinking you’re a lawyer, don’t you know this?  Surely you know this. And the lawyer responds yes, we’re to love God, we’re love our neighbor as ourselves. So Jesus says you know, so go do it. And all will be well. Just do the loving thing!

And then the lawyer, as we’re told in the text is seeking to justify himself, presses further by asking so “who is my neighbor?”  And we’re wondering as he asks this question if he asks, is it that he already knows that he is struggling so deeply within himself to love someone that he can’t love, that he’s hoping that Jesus is going to give him a cover and an out.  That Jesus is going to excuse him; that Jesus is going to say that person that you’re struggling with so much, that’s not really your neighbor. Don’t worry about it.

But instead Jesus comes back with an unlikely story: a man who has been beaten by robbers and left to die along a busy road. Two holy men walk by and cross and pass by on the other side. That’s not how that should happen, holy men are not supposed to walk away.

And then there is a Samaritan. Context is critical here. Remember that Jesus is telling this story in the Galilee, probably to an overwhelmingly Jewish group of listeners.

And we know from even a cursory read of scripture that there was great animosity of the Jews towards the Samaritans. What we don’t always hear – is that the feeling was mutual. Samaritans despised the Jews. In about 115 BC, Jews had destroyed the Samaritan’s temple, their holy space on Mount Gerizim.

The Jews were so overjoyed at what they did, the anniversary of that destruction became a holiday that was celebrated annually. Samaritans continued to worship on Mt. Gerizim. They worshipped in the ruins. They had a near constant reminder of the death and destruction wreaked on them and the terrible treatment that they receive at the hands of the Jews before and since that destruction.

In Jesus’ story, one of their own comes upon a terribly injured Jew. A Samaritan who might think - well so what if a Jew suffers and dies?

So of all the people for Jesus to hold up to the crowd as someone who does something to be imitated, a Samaritan is not the one. This isn’t the way this story is supposed to play out for these listeners. But it does. It is the Samaritan, the one who doesn’t look like the injured man, the one whose dialect is probably different from the injured man, the one who probably has the most to fear because the injured man might reject him.

It’s the Samaritan who stops. The Good Samaritan is moved with pity and takes the injured man, gets him off this dangerous road so that nothing else can happen to him. It’s a Samaritan whose actions Jesus tells the lawyer to imitate. Go and do likewise. Go and be like this Samaritan.

We are called today to go and do likewise.  We are called to go and show mercy.  We are called to go into place where we are least expect to show up, among people who least expect to see us. And no, we may not look like them, we may not sound like them, or dress like them.  But we are called to show mercy. 

We are called to take risks, open our hearts and our lives to those who need us.  To bandage the wounds of the injured, shelter the homeless, demand justice for the persecuted. To walk along with those who are grieving and hurt, to shine the light of Christ to the lost. We are called to go and do likewise. 

The harvest is plentiful. The opportunities are numerous, even overwhelming. Where will we go this day?  Who among God’s people will we serve? Amen.   

"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

This weekend is a special one, but especially last Friday. We celebrate our country, our “one nation under God.” And we are given in the gospel today this story about the disciples going out into the world on a mission of preaching, healing, and teaching. They have from Jesus the authority to cure the sick, exorcise demons, bestow peace and announce that the kingdom of God is near – and all that means. Mercy is near. Compassion is near. Forgiveness is near. Love is near. Healing is near. Peace is near. 

Here is a story about how being a citizen of One Nation Under God and the beautiful, exquisite nearness of the Kingdom of God played out for a young man named Harry.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Harry was a 16 year old boy living in a small town. He joined the army. He was too young. But you could get away with things in 1917 that you can’t in the data driven world of today. He was sent to France with the famous Rainbow Division.

Harry had a skill that at that time was considered high tech. He knew how to drive. He worked after school delivering groceries. And a year earlier, the grocer had traded in a horse and cart and bought a delivery truck. And Harry had learned to drive it. The army assigned him to be an ambulance driver. 

Now ambulance drivers worked at night. He went to the front, to the battlefield and collected the wounded, loaded them in his ambulance and drove them to a field hospital. He had to do all this by the light of the moon and the stars driving over narrow dirt roads with rocks and potholes. His ambulance had headlights about the equivalent of a couple candles.  But even that was a risk of giving away his position. So he made his way mostly in the dark.

The war was being waged in the French countryside. And the local farmers were upset that the nations of the world were making war on their lands, ruining their crops, destroying their homes. One night, as Harry was driving his ambulance, an elderly French farmer came running out onto the road, shouting in anger at him and waving a rake. By the time Harry saw him it was too late. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t down shift and brake quickly enough. He hit the farmer and he died.

The story gets crazy and complicated here – a swirl of local laws, irate family, American MP’s. Harry found himself being court martialed. He’s now 17 years old. A man is dead. And he’s looking at decades, maybe his whole life, in chains in a military prison. At the end of the presentation of evidence, Harry sat alone in a cell scared or dejected.

A colonel came in with 2 MP’s. This is it, Harry thinks. I’m going to prison. But the colonel says to him, “You’re all done here. This thing is over. Son, the good Lord above did not put you on this earth to spend your life in a cell.  You’re going to another unit. Here’s your paperwork. Go with these guys.” Harry was hustled out of the building to a new life. Harry had never seen this colonel before and never saw him again.

At the end of the war, Harry went back home and married Stella, the prettiest girl in town. He managed to buy an old truck and he started a business moving furniture. Stella answered the phone and kept the books while Harry drove, loaded and unloaded the truck. 

By the time he died in 1969, his company had 10 offices in 6 states and Canada.  He employed about 300 people who were able to make a good living supporting their families. Harry and Stella had a daughter who married and had 2 children. None of that would have been possible if it wasn’t for this unknown colonel.

 When I think of the best of America, when I think of One Nation Under God, I think of him – a man who was so reflective of the qualities we know of God.  Seeking nothing for himself he embodied God’s mercy, compassion, peace, reconciliation. He was ready and willing to use his authority to bring all those things to bear on behalf of one pitiful little corporal in a world of trouble, to recognize that a great injustice was about to occur and have the courage to step in and use his authority to turn darkness to light, to rescue and redeem, to heal and to teach.

Harry lived up to those same qualities. He was known as a guy who would give you a second chance, who would stand up for the little guy or gal having a problem. He hired folks no one else in town would hire. He gave away almost as much as he made. When a customer couldn’t pay their moving bill he gave them more time or accepted in trade what they had to give. That’s how his granddaughter ended up with a Shetland pony. 

He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. But he never forgot the values shown him and never forgot to show them to others. It’s those things that we as Americans are called to remember and celebrate this weekend.

In our lives as Christians and citizens we don’t always remember to embody the best of us, the things that make us great as a people. We fall short of showing mercy and compassion. We don’t always look out for the good of the other person. We don’t always do the loving thing as God would have us do. But the Good News is that every day we have a chance to start again. We have a chance to be like the 70 followers of Jesus, to go out into the world peaceably, with the message that the kingdom of God is near.

In a world seemingly filled with vitriolic behavior and language, we who believe that there is a better way to be in the world are called to go out in what often feels like being a lamb among the wolves. Lambs into the midst of wolves: it is a vicious metaphor that conjures up violent acts of being torn limb from limb by a hungry pack. 

And I think this is why Jesus asks us to go lightly. The disciples were told to take no purse, no way in which to accumulate wealth. They are not to go among the people seeking or accepting anything from them other than hospitality. They were and we are to be totally reliant on what they know about God. 

Jesus said take no purse, bag, or sandals. In order to get the job done, they could not be weighed down the distractions of material possessions. Instead he instructed them to carry only a message of peace. As Jesus described it, peace is more than a good feeling: it is a community created gift of God that requires a reciprocal response.  It not only reflects a calmness of spirit but points to reconciliation and healing.

Blogger Shelagh Braley has made it her mission to travel light.  She’s seen the same thing at airports among her fellow travelers that we all have – people lugging huge bags that are bulging with possessions, so heavy it’s a wonder the plane can take off.  And then on arrival seeing people at baggage claim jockeying for position to get their bags as soon as they fall down the shoot of the carousel, straining to lift them and dragging them to the curb. What heavy burdens they are! 

Braley decided this was not for her. She decided to lighten up, to become a travel minimalist. And she has a questionnaire for us to determine if we might be one also:

Do you assign more value to experiences than possessions?

Do you feel more comfortable when your environment is uncluttered?

Do you assess what brings value to your life and make adjustments in your possessions, relationships, time and money, to make room for peace, growth and new practices?

If you answered “Yes” or are thinking “I’d like to answer Yes”, you’re on your way to being a travel minimalist.

Some of what matters most in life is universal: Relationships matter, whether that be family, friends, or a significant other. Taking care of ourselves matters—body, mind, and spirit—and this includes having something that we are passionate about that gets us out of bed in the morning. Cultivating relationship with the God matters, along with caring for others as Jesus did.

So I wonder if Jesus didn’t intend to send out the 70 apostles in the gospel - and us as well – as both material and spiritual minimalists. Belief and minimalism go hand-in-hand. Jesus lived a simple, minimalist lifestyle. He didn’t own many possessions. He spent his time with family and friends. He traveled continually to help others by teaching and healing.  And he spent a lot of time in prayer.

If we go at our task following a modern expression of the work of the 70, we set ourselves up for success just as Jesus did for them.  We are certain to experience those qualities that are the best of us that reflect God into the world that we celebrate this weekend.

We go lightly – knowing we are forgiven of all our sins and have to power to forgive others.

We go lightly - knowing that just as God’s mercy has been shown to us we can be agents of that same mercy.

We go lightly -- among lambs, wolves and everything in between to assure those we meet that through the love and peace of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has come near.

So as you reflect on the celebrations this weekend of our national life, take just a minute to remember the 70 and their mission of taking the Kingdom of God into the world – starting with a greeting of “peace” offered in the name of the Prince of Peace for all.  Remember the colonel who said “no” to injustice. Remember all those lives of courage and commitment to living as one nation “under God.” And resolve that in this coming year we too will all be agents of peace.  Amen

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21

The Lord said to Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place."

So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." Then Elijah said to him, "Go back again; for what have I done to you?" He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

Luke 9:51-62

When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

One of the saints of St. Matthias was the Rev. Shirley Rose. She was also a mentor and friend. Shirley served in many capacities, first as a DRE - Director of Religious Education, later as a priest and even later as St. Matthias’ Interim Rector.  St. Matthias and the Rev. Chet Howe supported her in her call to ordained ministry.  In the 1980’s this was a courageous thing, a loving thing.

I met her after she retired and moved to Orange County where she helped out at St. George’s.  She was no longer driving at that time but still have many friends in Whittier that she wanted to visit. I volunteered to drive her – thrilled to pieces to have that time in the care with her. She told me stories about St. Matthias which she loved with all her heart – the joys, the challenges, the connection with the Whittier community:

After the rector retired, and Shirley became the long term interim all was not well. There were hurt feelings, the camps in the congregation and deadly parking lot conversations. Shirley told me she knew they could not more forward unless and until there was healing AND a willingness to engage in a process of reconciliation.  Looking back, she was so thankful that they did, that they showed courage once again – that together they focused on healing.

Looking in the rearview mirror can be useful. Learning from the experience of our spiritual ancestors shows us a precious, thread that connects us to God, to them and to each other.  This morning we’re encountering 3 texts from our scripture that speak to this notion of how we can be informed by what has gone before, how we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us give us a closer, better view of the Kingdom of God. 

Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia is clear and concise about what they are to do. We look at this letter we see something very interesting about how he positions this letter. But we have to understand something about Paul. Before his conversion, before he became a follower of Jesus, he was a devout and faithful Pharisee. So had spent much of his life becoming an expert in Jewish law and customs. He knows the law inside and out. And that knowledge shapes and forms him and shapes and forms his teaching.  

One of the things we see in this passage is that the whole law can be summed up in one sentence, “love your neighbor as yourself.” I wonder that he left out the part In Deuteronomy which is “love God.”  He’s quoting from Leviticus when he tells them to love your neighbor as yourself. Not to be critical of Paul, but it is the love of God for us on which we can model our love of others. 

And he goes into a litany of all the transgressions that come about when we fail to both love God and love neighbor.  Because we act out of self- interest.  We don’t act in a way that respects the world around us. We act in a way that serves only our own interests.  We act with greed, envy and covetousness.  We act in ways that marginalize our neighbors. And we both literally and figuratively sell out our neighbors and feel okay about it.

And what Paul says to the followers in the church in Galacia is that this is not the way we want to be.  We want our actions to be guided by love. When our actions are prompted solely by love, something happens. Something divine takes over and carries us forward.  All those divisions around us fall away. In letting go of our own interests we act with patience and generosity and kindness. Those are the things we want to lift up.  But we do have to decide to make an affirmative effort to be constantly renewed and informed by love our neighbor.

Our Old Testament reading is short but powerful. We don’t get any backstory in the relationship between Elijah and Elisha – just this seemingly climactic moment.  But it’s enough to provide us with conflicting context with our gospel.  Here is Elijah’s call to Elisha to take on the mantel or authority of the prophet is willing to leave his life behind and follow Elijah. But first he asks to go home, to kiss his father and mother good-bye. Elijah grants that wish. He seems to vacillate, knowing God’s command to him but feeling the weight of the burden he’s put in Elisha. Go back, he tells him “for what have I done to you?"

Jesus responds quite differently to a similar request as we’ll review in a minute. We are on notice, I think, that the demands of sharing the work of building the kingdom with Jesus are greater than demands put on anyone at any earlier time in history, even the ancient, legitimate prophets who suffered greatly.

Luke’s gospel sounds sober and a little harsh.  We don’t expect Jesus to respond to people quite as harshly as he does and yet there is a reason that he responds in the way he does. So here is Jesus with his face set towards Jerusalem. Because he knows what is ahead. Jesus knows what he is going to be called to do.  And nothing can turn him away from going where God needs him to go and from what he needs to do.

In our own lives we face significant times of transition.  Early in our faith development, we ae often focused on learning more about Scripture, the church and what it means to be a child of God. We revel in the knowledge that we are loved fully and completely by a wonderful, caring Savior. We share together in the marvelous fellowship that is the body of Christ.  We feel renewed, nurtured and fulfilled.

As our faith grows and matures, our life in Christ merges with our life in the world.  We come to realize that living by the Way of Jesus Christ is more than just a private endeavor, no matter how meaningful.  In order to have true meaning and integrity, it must be part of our being.  No matter what our gifts or imperfections, the mature Christian must willingly walk alongside Jesus, even if that journey compels us to make difficult choices that living solely in a more secular existence might otherwise avoid. 

So when a man says “I need to go bury my father” and Jesus responds back to him “let the dead bury their own dead” it’s not because Jesus doesn’t understand the rituals and traditions of his people or is dismissive of them. He knows them quite well and he respects them. And he also understands that when you are responding to God’s call, you cannot lose sight of what God means for us to be doing. Never lose sight of it.

We cannot set aside God’s mission for us to engage in lengthy goodbyes and lengthy rituals with people. We can’t lose sight of God’s mission for us so we can stay in our own heads. Jesus is telling us to keep God’s desires top of mind ahead of everything else. 

And we need to be mindful of those rear view mirror view and experiences and lessons that have shaped us and brought us to that place. The lessons in faithfulness that we have learned from those around us who have helped us grow. The lessons in love that we carry with us because as people of God we know the unconditional love that God gives us that we are then to go out and give to the world - when it’s easy to offer than love and especially when it isn’t. That’s a lot to carry.

We encounter these three texts at a particularly interesting point in our world. When self-interest seems to absorb so many. When so many seem to have lost that rearview image of God …  loving us, calling us, pleading with us: Hear my voice. Know that I am present, I am there.  And in the midst of all the things that vie for our attention, that want to tear at us, that make us want to turn our face away from the way God wants us to go, we are indeed called to remember.

We are called to remember the commandments, we are called to remember to love God and neighbor to act as people who are informed by the love that we experience every day from our God. We are called to remember Paul’s teaching to the Galatians.  That informs and shapes and tells us how we are to live in community with one another.  And when that drives us, suddenly those walls begin to fall away.

We experience so much angry rhetoric, divisive action, rancor and fearfulness that we might lose sight of those moments when we come together. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can be free. We can choose reconciliation. There are places where we can agree, where we can come together. When we allow those moments to drive us forward, when we lead with our hearts, there is no end to the good we can do. There is no chasm we cannot cross when we are motivated and empowered by love. Amen.

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There was a human interest documentary series for several years on CNN created by journalist Lisa Ling. The series was called This Is Life. And she brought to the world stories about people doing interesting and incredible things in circumstances far beyond what most of us experience. She is a courageous and skilled interviewer who inserts herself respectfully into unfamiliar places and then questions those she meets with compassionate curiosity. And they tell her their stories. It occurs to me that Lisa would make an excellent Stephen Minister.

The story that most resonated with me, possibly because it’s right in our own backyard, was called “Locked Angeles,” a play on the city name, in which we go with Lisa inside the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles. We learn that each night it houses about 18,000 inmates. And of those, 30-40% suffer with some sort of mental illness. They don’t belong in jail, a deputy tells Lisa, but in the absence of a true treatment facility, they end up there. 

We see inmates in blue prison jumpsuits chained to tables in common areas just far enough apart that they cannot touch the man next them.  We hear inmates in solitary cells shouting, raging, kicking the walls.  And into this setting comes Deputy Sarah Medina. Calmly she goes to a raging inmate’s door and asks him, “what’s the matter?  Why are you so upset?”  We can’t exactly make out his reply but it involves some language we don’t use in church. “Are you hungry?” she asks.  “If I get you some food will you settle down?”  In a few minutes she returns and slides two brown bags through the slot into his cell.  “I got you 2 boxes of cereal and 2 milks.”  He screams at her that he doesn’t want breakfast. She replies “that’s all they’ve got right now. I’ll bring lunch when it’s ready.”  More verbal abuse in which he threatens to hit her in the face. “Okay,” she says calmly to him, “I’ll come back.” I’ll come back. She’s not giving up on this guy.

In a moment of comic relief, she walks past an inmate who tells her, “you’re too old for me.”  “Yeah,” she says, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lisa asks her if she feels afraid. “Every once in a while,” Deputy Medina replies. “But I love what I do. I enjoy trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives who are hurting inside. Most of the mentally ill here are homeless. They’re bipolar, manic depressive or schizophrenic. You’re gonna have a lot of angry people yelling all day, kicking doors all day. We’re trained to de-escalate a situation, using our words and finding out why. When you get down to it,” she says, “it’s just in how we speak to them.” 

It’s as though Deputy Medina spends her days continually encountering the Gerasene man inhabited by Legion who we hear about in the gospel lesson today – so much raging, so many chains and shackles, and pain. So much emphasis on attempts to control but never to heal.  And in the midst of it, Deputy Medina is listening, reasoning, the personification of calm. Doing her best to do good. In the midst of chaos and pain, she is the calm and healing presence.

When Jesus steps out of the boat, he steps into a life and death scenario. The Gerasene man runs to meet him.  He is in every way unclean starting with the fact that he is a gentile. This man is scarcely human any more – at least that’s what the people seemed to think. So much so that he lives among the dead.

In the gospel, just as in the LA jail, everyone is anxious, everyone is acting out.  The only one who is calm and focused on goodness, healing and love is Jesus. 

Jesus does a lot of healing in the gospels. There are a number of stories of healing those who are ill with demons.  But we learn early on in this story that the need of this man for healing is like no other.  We hear Jesus ask the demon its name to gain control over it: Legion is says.  Legion would put the listeners of this gospel story in mind of a Roman legion: 5 - 6,000 armed and trained killers. This isn’t an ordinary demon, this isn’t an ordinary healing.  It’s an out and out battle.

Jesus dispatches the demon and restores this tortured man to life.  And what is the response?  Don’t we expect the next line in this scripture to be something about the people being in awe, of rejoicing, a banquet, a great celebration of some kind?  But it’s the opposite. The community can’t take it. This disruption of the status quo by this strange rabbi and healer, Jesus, and the loss of a herd of pigs – even though one of their own is restored to them - is too much.  So they tell Jesus to get out.  And he does.  Now who is saturated by death and misery and neglect? Now who’s in the tombs? 

I wonder, what in our world today are our tombs? And what keeps us in them?  What has us bound up in fear or anger and keeps us from community with one another?  Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, anxiety about the future, hanging on to the past – everything that flows out of fear.  The list is Legion. 

When we have become comfortable with the way things are, when we have accepted as normal the destructive, death-dealing experiences of our lives and in the world, it is precisely then that Jesus’ presence is more important and most powerful.

Luke’s gospel points to Jesus’ healing as the absolute power of God over the chaos of natural and human disasters. It is a power stronger than a Legion of evil. It is a power that will prevail. This power of Jesus will work in each of us this very moment and every day, finishing and polishing, transforming us if we’ll let it.

We sometimes say lightheartedly “God isn’t finished with me yet.”  I think there is more truth in that than we sometimes realize. We are always being made new. St. Paul says that if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. So anything is possible, no matter where we are in our lives. We are constantly being created and recreated and transformed and loved. We are not left stagnant or forgotten, all possibilities are open to us. 

This is not our personal prerogative alone.  Just as Jesus went to the Gerasene, we as his followers today are called to step out of the boat and to take the healing and liberating love of God to broken and desolate people and places, to those whose lives are bound by forces beyond their control. Indeed the missional language of healing has been a part of baptismal and confirmation vows since antiquity. Those being baptized, among other things, renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against the love of God.  To be baptized is to commit to getting out of the boat with Jesus.

It is the life and example of Jesus that offers us a path to healing, to hope, and wholeness. Fear may still holds us back. Healing can be scary because it means a different way of life, a new reality.

But the Good News today is that God never intended for us to exist in those tombs. God imbued each of us with dignity and worth and purpose.  God calls us to discover God who, in the face of death, whispers new life for ourselves and all our neighbors.  Where ever we are in our lives, there is always hope and always possibility, always the fullness of the love, the peace, the energy and joy of being one in Christ. 

Go, he says, to us, the living. Armed with the broad embrace of God’s love for all people, owning our role in God’s powerful work in the world, we must resolve to love our way into a different tomorrow, to reject with everything we say and do anything that diminishes anyone’s dignity and humanity. And then go home and declare what God has done for us. Amen. 

This is the day that we celebrate God with us and for us in three distinct but equally incredible, collaborative ways. We call it Trinity Sunday. What do you think of when you hear that word Trinity?  I talked to a few people this week and virtually every reaction is something about how difficult it is to understand, how distant and inaccessible God feels when we try to sort out this business of a Trinity. I even got a few expressions of sympathy that I have to preach today on the Trinity. But I’m happy to do so! What I hope to offer you today is the Trinity as an all-encompassing love experience. The Trinity is the most basic human experience of the divine. It is as common and comfortable as receiving a hug. 

For the longest time, I had an arm’s length relationship with the Trinity. A lifetime, actually. I accepted this piece of doctrine as part and parcel of a church I loved, happy enough to live with one piece of mystery while embracing wholeheartedly the things that I did understand – like love for our neighbor, like a faith community with no outcasts ever, like beautiful ancient liturgical tradition connecting believers across time and space. But I just couldn’t personally wrap my head around God as Three AND God as One. 

And then several years ago, before I was ready to acknowledge a call to ordained ministry, I got the most amazing gift. I attended a retreat day with a priest who had the most impressive credentials – she was a graduate of Yale Law School. After a stellar career as an attorney she was appointed to the bench and served as a federal court judge.  She then felt a call to priesthood and went back to Yale – this time to the divinity school.  So this is a highly educated, intelligent and thoughtful person and priest.  And during the retreat she said “oh, no one understands the Trinity.”  Wow – what a relief! If she didn’t understand it, I was okay. It’s like she gave me permission to relax, and sit with it and some assurance that eventually it would make sense.

And when it finally did I understood the trinity not as an intellectual exercise but as an experience. Let’s talk a little about the roles of the three entities that make up the Trinity. 

God’s role is creator. The very first words in Holy Scripture are of God creating heavens and earth, divine magnificent imagining and creating everything from eyelashes on a gnat to solar systems we haven’t even found yet. God is the ultimate entrepreneur with vision. God sustains all parts of what God creates and then renews and perfects them. God pours out God’s self in love. 

Creation is so expansive it can be overwhelming, so God does what theologian John Macquarrie calls “focusing” so that we, with our finite vision and attention, might have experiences of the nature of God and how God moves in the world.  And Jesus is God’s focusing.  

Let’s look at the role of Jesus. Jesus, as a focusing of God, is a concrete manifestation of God’s activity. Through Jesus, we are able to focus on God’s presence and on-going activities that might go unnoticed without a focusing event. Jesus is the outpoured life of God.  He is the agent through which we are reconciled or brought into closer relationship with God. Through the words and actions of Jesus’ life, not just his death, God is seen and light and warmth are present.  Everything Jesus does is a victory for God.  Because everything he does lessens the space that separates us from God and makes God’s gift of creation feel more accessible to us.

And let’s look at the third entity of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit as the source of comfort, advise, advocacy, and God’s grace. Some have said that the Holy Spirit has been called the wild child of the Trinity who stirs things up everywhere she goes. And she goes everywhere with energy! She is loose in the world in surprising and disruptive ways but always with love. It’s the Holy Spirit that shows us what’s possible in our world with the gifts of creation and reconciliation through the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ. 

Let’s try something together. I’m going to ask you to take a deep breath and close your eyes. I’m going to ask you first to think of three people. The people might be friends or siblings, or co-workers or a parent. It could be a teacher, or family members or neighbor. It could be someone living or dead. Just someone who you know based on what I’ll describe.

First, think of the most creative person you know or have very known. You go to their house and every bit of it is thoughtfully and beautifully put together. Or they tell you about their work and you realize they have extraordinary ideas, they are a real entrepreneur with a sharp imagination about what to do and how to do it. You wonder “how did he think of that?”  Do you have someone in mind?

Now think of someone else, someone who you know to be a true friend. You can call on this person any time for anything. You look forward to spending time with them. They tell great jokes and amazing stories. You can count on them to tell you the truth even when it’s a hard truth. But you also know they care about you and it’s for your own good. They’d do anything for you. And you’ll get a hug from them in the end.  Okay, keep that person in mind.

Now think of a third person. Think of the most out-going, friendly and energetic person you know.  Someone with an infectious smile who encourages you and cheers you on when things go well and especially when they do not.  You are at your best when you’re with them. They spark your imagination. You’re amazed at the things this person thinks of doing and you want to join in with them, to go along and see how it all turns out.  Do you have that third person in mind?

Keeping your three persons in mind, now think of the most wonderful place you’ve ever seen, or wanted to see or imagined.  Maybe it’s palace or cathedral, or your own backyard or a forest or a deserted beach at sunrise. Where ever or whatever it is, place your three people there. Imagine now that the qualities they have, the qualities that led you to choose them, are exponentially greater than any person can have, they are on a divine scale.

When you approach them, they are so happy to see you. They love you and they welcome you. You sit down in the midst of them and it feels like being wrapped in a soft blanket.  You can feel their intense concern for every part of your life. They are simultaneously creating for you, accompanying you and giving you energy and insight. This is the work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  You’ve just had an experience of the Trinity – not obscure, not farfetched but mystery revealed as one force of boundless love, mercy and care. 

On this Trinity Sunday when we celebrate our earthly fathers, let us pray:

Heavenly Father,

 Today we ask You to bless our earthly fathers for the many times they reflected the love, strength, generosity, wisdom and mercy that You exemplify in Your relationship with us, Your children.

 We honor our fathers for putting our needs above their own convenience and comfort;

for teaching us to show courage and determination in the face of adversity;

for challenging us to move beyond self-limiting boundaries;

for modeling the qualities that would turn us into responsible, principled, caring adults.

 Not all our fathers lived up to these ideals.

Give them the grace to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes.

Give us the grace to extend to them the same forgiveness that you offer us all.

Help us to resist the urge to stay stuck in past bitterness, instead, moving forward with humility and peace of heart.

We ask your blessing on those men who served as father figures in our lives when our biological fathers weren't able to do so. May the love and selflessness they showed us be returned to them in all their relationships, and help them to know that their influence has changed us for the better.

Give new and future fathers the guidance they need to raise happy and holy children,grounded in a love for God and other people - and remind these fathers that treating their wives with dignity, compassion and respect is one of the greatest gifts they can give their children.

We pray that our fathers who have passed into the next life have been welcomed into Your loving embrace, and that our family will one be day be reunited in your heavenly kingdom.

In union with Joseph, the earthly father to whom you entrusted with Your Son, we ask your generous blessings today and every day. Amen.

This thanksgiving is a litany, so I invite you to turn to page 838 and join me in prayer:

Almighty God, giver of all good things:  We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land.  They restore us, though we often destroy them.

Heal us.

We thank you for the great resources of this nation.  They make us rich, though we often exploit them.

Forgive us.

We thank you for the men and women who have made this country strong.  They are models for us, though we often fall short of them.

Inspire us.

We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit in this land.  It has drawn people from every nation, though we have often hidden from its light.

Enlighten us.

We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich variety.  It sustains our life, though we have been faithless again and again.

Renew us.

Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.  Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice, and to abolish poverty and crime.  And hasten the day when all our people, with many voices in one united chorus, will glorify your holy Name.  Amen.

Here on this Trinity Sunday, Father’s Day, and Flag Day weekend – only two weeks out from the recent Memorial Day weekend when we honored and remembered those who have died in the service of our country even as we grieve for those taken from us in other ways; on this day we hear Paul say to the members of the Christian community in Rome, “[W]e boast in the hope of sharing in the glory of God.  And not only that, we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us….”

Or, in the phrasing of the Rev. Eugene Peterson’s “Message” translation, which I admit can sound kind of cringy sometimes, “We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.  In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.”

Sufferings to endurance to perseverance to hope; troubles to patience to virtue to expectancy; different phrasings to be sure, but both of these progressions are too pat, I think; they’re just a little too easy.  Paul sounds glib here, and his glibness bothers me, particularly in the face of so much suffering, both around the world and in our own hearts, that is still so raw.

          Now, in all fairness to Paul, in this passage he’s focusing on the new relationship with God which is ours through faith in Jesus; he’s not developing a formal treatment or a formal theology of suffering.  What he’s listing is a summary; it’s the outline of a process in our newly-redeemed life, with suffering, endurance, character, and hope as the points in the outline.

          The problem here is that Paul’s outline is about God’s “already” kingdom, but we’re still living in the “not yet” world.  He’s talking about the spiritual reality of the new age while we’re still living under the physical conditions of the old; and in this old, not-yet-new age, where floods and bombs still kill and destroy, and families and lives are still torn apart, we don’t live in outlines or in the points of outlines.  Our lives, and our sufferings, happen between the points.

          So what can we do to flesh out this process?  How do we get from suffering to endurance, much less to perseverance and hope?  When we’re hemmed in on every side with troubles and there’s no relief in sight, where does passionate patience come from, and why should patience come to us instead of despair?

          In June of 1983, a young man named Eric Wolterstorff, who was the 25 year old son of philosophy professor Nicholas Wolterstorff, died in a mountain climbing accident in Austria.  Four years later, Nicholas published a small but very powerful book in honor of Eric called Lament for a Son.  In this book he shares the depth of his grief at Eric’s loss, and his struggle to reconcile this loss with his faith.

          The dictionary says that to suffer is “to undergo or experience pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant,” but I don’t think that definition says enough.  Suffering also has a spiritual component, because suffering is dehumanizing.  Far more than pain that alerts us to an injury, as severe and unpleasant as that may be, suffering grinds us down on a daily basis; it assaults our soul, and it threatens to rob us of who we are.

          Suffering is also imposed upon us, usually without our consent.  “What is suffering?” asks Wolterstorff.  “When something prized or loved is ripped away or never granted – work, someone loved, recognition of one’s dignity, life without physical pain – that is suffering.  Or rather,” he says, “that’s when suffering happens.  What it is, I do not know….Suffering is a mystery as deep as any in our existence….Suffering keeps its face hid from each while making itself known to all.”  (89)

          Another facet of suffering’s mystery and pain, of course, is suffering’s uneven distribution among us.  Whether we have consented to it or not, sooner or later we all do experience at least some suffering…but we don’t experience it equally; and this inequality only serves to increase our sense of isolation, our sense of “otherness;” of being unfairly singled out by fate, or by life – or by God – when the suffering is ours.

          “I’ve become an alien in the world,” Wolterstorff writes, “shyly touching it as if it’s not mine.  I don’t belong any more.  When someone loved leaves home, home becomes mere house.”  (51)

          In Scripture, the situation of Job and the Passion of Jesus are, first, both experiences of extreme physical suffering, as Job’s entire body is covered with sores and Jesus is tortured and crucified.  They are also experiences of extreme emotional suffering:  Job loses all of his children, all of his wealth, and the respect of his friends.  Jesus is abandoned by his disciples, denied by Peter, and mocked and spit upon by the crowds.  These are experiences of extreme spiritual suffering as each of these men feels that he has been unfairly abandoned by God.

          “I don’t deserve this,” Job cries out to God.  “I accuse you of not being just!  Show yourself, and come answer me!”

          “My God, my God,” cries Jesus on the cross, “why have you forsaken me?”

          Towards the end of the Book of Job, God does in fact come to state God’s case, and God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, claiming in essence God’s freedom to be God.  “Where were you,” God asks, “when I created the earth?”

          Job gets no answers, no explanation for his suffering from God, and what’s important for us to understand here is that in the midst of his suffering, Job has exercised his freedom just as much as God has, because Job has been free to end their relationship; he’s been free to “curse God and die,” as his wife thought he should…but he hasn’t done so.  It may have been more his anger against God than anything else that kept him there, but even so, Job has voluntarily stayed in relationship with God.  He doesn’t stay because he’s never known trouble, he doesn’t stay because he’s never thought about leaving; Job has stayed in relationship with God because he has chosen to be faithful.  He has chosen to be faithful to God, in spite of his suffering.

          As the fully human carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus has also been free; free to let the cup of the Passion pass him by.  When God didn’t take away the cup in response to Jesus’ prayer in the garden after the Last Supper, Jesus could have chosen to forego it himself.  He could have chosen to gather the disciples and get out of Dodge; he could have chosen to confess to Pilate, to try to deal for prison time instead of the cross.  But the human Jesus exercises his freedom and chooses to stay, chooses to be faithful and obedient to God in spite of the suffering to come.

          And at the same time, in Jesus the Son, the Incarnate Word, God is exercising freedom too.  This time the freedom is God’s freedom to have become incarnate in Jesus in the first place; the freedom of God voluntarily choosing to send God’s Spirit upon Mary, who herself has exercised her freedom in saying “yes” to God and agreeing to receive God’s Spirit.

          Jesus could have said “no” to the cross; Mary could have said “no” to God; and God could have said “no” to all of us; but God didn’t, because of love; and in God’s love for each of us, God honors our freedom.  God wants us to say “yes,” God wants us to love God back voluntarily, independent of the amount of suffering, or the lack of suffering, in our lives – but this kind of love needs an even playing field; and the only way for God to level the field was through the Incarnation.

          In “Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World,” Dorothy Sayers writes, “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – [God] had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine.  Whatever game [God] is playing with His creation, [God] has kept His own rules and played fair.  [God] can exact nothing from man that [God] has not exacted from Himself.  [God] has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death….[God] was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”  (in “Where is God…”, Yancy, 181)

          God has played fair with us in the Incarnation.  In Jesus, God has suffered with us and suffered for us, and this makes all the difference in our own growth from troubles to patience, from suffering to endurance, because what God has done means we’re not alone in our suffering; we’re not alone because God has chosen, and continues to choose, to be compassionate; to suffer with us.

          “The definition of compassion itself,” writes one theologian, “suggests the need to begin with the experience of suffering.  While the two Latin components of the word ‘com’ and ‘passio’ are taken to mean to suffer with, the Latin ‘patior’ is accurately translated ‘to experience,’ so that compassion means to allow ourselves to experience with someone else what he or she is experiencing by putting ourselves in the place of another.  Compassion is not simply an emotional response to the joy or pain of the other; compassion requires the ability to move beyond feeling and thinking to action.”  (LP, Suffering, 39)

          And as God is compassionate with us, even in our suffering God calls us also to be compassionate:  Love one another as I have loved you, Jesus says; love one another with the love that shares each other’s suffering.  Love your neighbor as yourself.

          “Accepted suffering leads one out of oneself toward the other,” this author continues.  “It invokes love and compassion; it implies growth in self. It ultimately brings about real communion….God does not instigate our suffering, nor did God decree the sufferings of Jesus.  Rather, God participates in them.”  (Ibid.)

          Through experiencing and exercising compassion in the community of faith and in the world, we do move through our process, through the points of Paul’s outline and as we do so, we learn that we’re not “passing through” this process as much as we are incorporating it into ourselves; each tear, each cry, each glimpse of the tears of God, each act of compassion received and given, becomes part of who we are, part of who we shall be, part of what we offer for the healing of the world – especially for the healing of today’s world.

          Back at Trinity, one of my former parishioners is a gifted seamstress and craftsperson, and she has one of those computerized sewing machines that can do all sorts of embroidery from patterns.  At one point she made for the church what she hoped would be a pulpit hanging.  The hanging in question was a large embroidered picture of the Risen Jesus in a stained glass window format; but in this picture, produced by the pattern, the Risen Lord was wearing surprisingly contemporary sandals that covered his feet and his hands were unscathed…and I said, “We can’t use that, not like it is.”*

Why couldn’t we use it?  Because Jesus was raised with his wounds intact; he was resurrected with holes in his hands and his feet and a gash in his side, and according to John’s Gospel, it was because of his wounds, by means of his wounds, that the disciples recognized him in the first place.  Jesus’ wounds became an essential part of who he was and who he is, and he cannot be our Savior without them.

          The wounds of Jesus – the wounds of God – these are the basis of our hope in God’s future that Paul talks about, the basis of our confident expectation as to our place in that future.  Because of the suffering of God, our “already” future with God is assured; and in this present “not yet” time, although our suffering may pierce our hearts and drive us down, because of the suffering and the compassion of God, because of the companionship of God in our suffering; because of all this, at the end of the day, our suffering will not overcome us.   Amen.

*After some cosmetic adjustments, the hanging made its debut on Trinity’s pulpit.

Being from England and a Puritan in the 17th century, he realized that in order to practice his faith as he believed he had received it, England was not the best place to be. He was coming of age during the reign of Charles I. And so, wanting to have the freedom to practice and minister he decided to come to the colonies, this new world. He assumed that he would be ministering to like-minded people, to other Puritans.

But when he got here, something unexpected happened. He felt called to minister not to English-speaking Puritans that were here, but rather to the Algonquin peoples, an indigenous people that he met. There was a problem – and not a small one: a fairly significant language barrier. He realized that he needed to learn their language. So he committed himself to doing just that. He began spending more and more time with the Algonquin, until he became fluent.  He learned it so well, in fact, that he was able to translate the entire Bible into Algonquin. 

So you might rightfully assume that the first Bible to be printed on American soil in the United Sates was in English, or maybe French or Spanish. But it was in Algonquin.  The first Bible printed in the US was in Algonquin.

John Eliot went on to became a tireless advocate for the Algonquin people that he knew nothing about before he came to this country – he advocated for property rights for them. He advocated for schools for both children and adults.  And he is said to have spent many of his days on foot or on horseback going to the Algonquin native communities trying to make certain that they heard the word of God and the stories of Jesus Christ.

John Eliot might or might not have realized that he was following in the footsteps of an important figure in the Anglican tradition, important to us today the Episcopal church, and that’s Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the prayer book that is the forerunner to our own Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer, who lived in the 16th century, determined something very important – that liturgy needed to be in the language of the people.  If the average person, not just the elite, not the upper classes that had access to formal education, but the average person, the liturgy needed to be in English for them to understand the Word of God and incorporated its meaning into their lives, it needed to be in their own language. The 16th century determination of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.  

Because there’s something to be said about being in community and understanding together and having the word of God available to us in a way that makes sense to us; and that we can absorb into our existence into our lives. That sense that we need to belong to something. That we need to understand and be community; that is what we see in our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. Here are all these Jews who during the diaspora have been scattered to so many places. And they have come back to Jerusalem with all of the languages and all of the traditions from all of the places where they have lived. 

And then there is this miraculous day. There is this miraculous day when the Holy Spirit breathes down onto the Apostles and allows them to speak in all the languages of the people. So that they can understand and so they can be community.

And this gift of the Holy Spirit is not just given to the apostles but also the gift that is given to the hearers. Because those who hear are now part of something bigger than themselves. They are part of a whole community of worshipers who know and share the love of God. All together.

The naysayers said “they must be drunk, how else would you explain this crazy weird behavior of theirs …” But those who experienced the Holy Spirit has come in and made it possible for them to experience God in a whole new way, in an expansive and astounding way. And to be part of entire community of God lovers. 

And this feeds some innate within us, something within us – to one extent or another - . something bigger than ourselves, something that has begun before us and will outlast us, will sweep us up within loving embrace and will exist long after we’re gone. We crave this.  Even as infants.

Some of you may have seen a wonderful video of a baby who was born unable to hear. She had just been fitted with hearing aids. And she hears her mother’s voice for the first time.  It’s only been lips moving until this moment. But with the hearing aids on first there’s a smile, a big broad smile and she looks intently into her mother’s face. But then the tears – of comfort of peace, of being overwhelmed with the feeling through this voice that she belongs, that she is loved; that everything about her matters to the person holding her.

That’s what it means for us to be able to hear that Word of God.  That’s what it means for us to be able to know that we are God’s people; that we are loved and included, a part of a community of so many others that love and are beloved of God.

So what are we to do with this today – this day that we celebrate the Holy Spirit coming down and breathing life into those first believers; and helping them shape faith community for the first time.

We are reminded that the Holy Spirit still moves and breathes with us – that the Holy Spirit is still there igniting us and empowering us to create community, to speak the languages of those who are around us. And the languages may be literal languages – it may be learning Spanish or one of the Asian languages or Arabic languages – it may literal languages of the people that are here that are around us. But it may the language of music, of a spiritual language that we speak that reaches out to the homeless the destitute, to those who have lost all hope to remind them that God is still active, alive and caring. 

A Native American woman mystic named Mary Standing Otter reminds us with a few simple statements about the work of the Holy Spirit moving and alive in the world: it’s called Right Now.

·       Right now there are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.

·       Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.

·       Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.

·       Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to align the hearts of all of God's children.

·       A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, "nourish them."

·       Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.

·       The next great song is being rehearsed by musicians and singers.

·       Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth.

·       Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.

·       Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. From where they are, they just can't see it.

·       Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, will get precisely what they want — and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in its reach and sweetness, it will literally alter their memory of anxious longing and render it all "So worth the wait."

·       Someone is praying in earnest for wars to stop.

·       Someone is curing the incurable.

·       Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.

·       Someone is regaining their sanity.

·       Someone is coming back from the dead.

·       Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable.

o   You. Me. Some. One. Now.

This is Pentecost. This why we ask the Holy Spirit to come to us and build us up and to give us the power of languages that we cannot even begin to comprehend so that all of God’s people can know what it means to be belong to Love, and to be witnesses together of God’s grace and mercy. That we all may know community – that the lost and scattered who want nothing more than to be included in a place like St. Matthias where God is known and experienced. Amen.

A police drama in an unnamed major city (that I think was supposed to be Chicago), episodes of “Hill Street Blues” would open with a briefing from the sergeant for the incoming shift.  At the end of the briefing, actor Michael Conrad’s Sgt. Esterhaus would lean over the podium and say to all the officers, “Hey – let’s be careful out there!” 

Well, I’ve always felt pretty much the same way any time my children, and now my grandchildren, have been heading away from me off into the sunset; and so, starting back before the days of airport security, when we could still see people off at the gate, I developed the habit of “praying my children on their way,” so to speak.  I’d start praying as soon as my boys headed down the jetway and then, if the particular airport was small enough that I could keep track of their plane, I’d stay and pray that plane into the air.

          I mentioned this habit of mine in a sermon one time in my Florida parish, and I added that I was convinced that it’s the prayers of mothers that get planes up to cruising altitude and home again.  I had several pilots in that congregation and after that sermon one of them came up to me and said, “Jeannie.  It’s lift.  It’s not prayers, it’s lift.” 

Well, if that’s what the airlines think, no wonder they’re having problems! 

          Whatever the dynamics of flight – and I do admit that “lift” plays its part – I got then, and still continue to get, tremendous comfort from praying for my children and grandchildren when we’re apart.  The prayer I say most often is on page 831 in the Prayer Book and it’s the prayer “For Those We Love.”  This prayer reads: Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to your neverfailing care and love for this life and the life to come, knowing that you are doing better things for them than we can desire or pray for, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

          This prayer reassures me that even as adults, my kids aren’t out in the midst of life totally on their own.  It reminds me that God loves my children and my grandchildren even more than I do, and this prayer confirms that no matter what life brings to them or to me, God will see us through it; and that with God, at the end of the day, all things shall be well.

          In today’s Gospel passage, we have Jesus praying for those he loves, and from whom he’s about to be separated big time.  What we hear today is the end of chapter 17, and, as I mentioned last week, it’s also the end of a section of John’s Gospel that’s referred to as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse.  In chapter 13, John describes the Last Supper, with Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, and then Judas heading out into the night.  Chapters 14 through 17 are the Farewell Discourse, Jesus’ last words to his disciples, his own version of “Hey – let’s be careful out there!”

          Focusing in, this morning’s Chapter 17 itself is a specific unit within the Farewell Discourse because even though Jesus continues to summarize everything he wants the disciples to remember, in 17 he shifts gears and he begins to pray his own hopes and fears – and the lead phrase we hear today is “Jesus prayed for his disciples….”

          As I said a moment ago, Jesus is about to be physically separated from the disciples just as many of us are physically separated from our children or our parents or other family members or friends.  He’s facing separation from people he loves, and so he prays for them.  He prays to God - in the disciples’ hearing, because he’s speaking out loud here; he prays to God that his disciples will be all right, that they’ll have the strength to get through the days and weeks to come.  He prays that they’ll be open to receiving the comfort and the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, and he prays to God that together they’ll all be one – him one with God, the disciples one with him and therefore also one with God through him, and all of them one together in the power of the Spirit; one in a unity not of doctrine, but “of heart and mission,…[a] unity of love and commitment.”  (Focus on John curriculum, p. 133)

          Through his prayer, Jesus shows his love for his disciples then, and he also shows his love for us today, because right off the bat he says, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.”  Those who will believe through the words of the disciples, those who do believe through these very same words, these “those” who are us.  You and me and all those in every generation who have heard the Good News and who have turned to follow Jesus the Christ, Jesus prays for us all.  Jesus prays for Tim; and he prays for Feppy; he prays for Larry, and for Kathy, and for Claudia; he prays for Peter, and for Barbara, and for Lydia, and for Patricia, and for Danny, and for Mary Jean, and for Kevin, and for Joan, and for you, and for me.  He prays for the acolytes, Steve and Carrie Sue, by name, and for everyone in the choir by name.  He prays for those who come here for meetings, and for those who come here for help.  He prays for those who haven’t come through these doors yet, and he prays for each of us and he prays for all of us because as amazing and as incredible as it might seem, Jesus loves each one of us every bit as much as he did love and as he continues to love Simon Peter, and James, and John.

          Being prayed for is a powerful thing; and to pray for is no less powerful.  Billy Graham once called prayer “fellowship with God.”  (LP, Prayer, 29)  Others more recently have called it “the world’s greatest wireless connection.”  What sorts of things happen when we pray for each other, when we exercise this fellowship and wireless connection and raise each other up into the presence of God through our prayers?  For one thing, we participate in God’s own power, and through the power of the Spirit we become the flesh through which God touches other people.  Take today’s reading from Acts, for example:  through the prayers and the witness of Paul and Silas, God touches the other prisoners, and the jailer, and then the jailer’s whole family.

Powerful things happen through the prayers of faithful people, and I’d be willing to bet that any number of us here can tell about things in our own lives or in the lives of people we know that support this statement:  powerful things happen.  Powerful things, and amazing things happen when we pray.

The Rev. Ann Hallstein tells this story from her time as a chaplain at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City:  “I was called to the Emergency Room, where a resident told me an eight-year-old boy had been brought in by his mother in a taxicab, shot in the head by her boyfriend or former boyfriend. The boy had no chance of surviving, but the team was working on him, while his mother and aunt sat nearby in a tiny closet of a room.  When I opened the door to join them, fear pounding in my heart, I saw two tiny girls – not women, girls – teenagers of indeterminate age, clinging to each other, as vulnerable and alone as I had ever seen anyone look.  They were in shock, obviously.  I introduced myself, sat down, and had no idea of what to do next:  any words I could think of seemed not only insufficient, but profane.  What could anyone possibly say to comfort a child whose own child was lying in the next partition, dying of a gunshot wound to the head?

“While I fumbled and tried to react in some appropriate way, the door was thrown open and a large woman, about 6’2” tall, stepped in, filling the room with her presence.  She grabbed the two sisters up by crooking her massive arms around their necks and pulling them to her, calling them her babies.  (She was, I should add here, their neighbor, simply their neighbor.)  And then, in a commanding voice full of authority, she ordered Jesus to come into the room ‘right this minute, come in here, Jesus, my babies need you, and they need you now, I don’t mean later, I don’t mean in ten minutes, I mean NOW!  Get down here!  Come into this room and comfort these babies!  Jesus, Jesus, get in here now, there’s nothing anyone can do but you.’

Hallstein goes on, “As I looked on with wonder and great admiration, I felt the energy in the room change; calm came over all of us, and the mother stopped crying and moaning.  Their neighbor continued to hold them in her viselike elbows, rocking them both back and forth.  I stood up, put my arms around them all, and joined in the rocking.  We swayed there in one mass for 10 or 20 minutes, I suppose – I had no sense of time, nor of place:  all I felt was the love of this woman, and the love of God that she had so forcefully, and so effectively, called into the room.  She soon left, but the palpable sense of love and comfort remained long after the few minutes of her presence.

“Prayer?  You bet – the most immediate, most effective and most powerful I’ve seen.  I could tell that what fueled her, what ‘made it happen’ was that she was fully present, totally open and full of both love and faith.  She was there, she summoned God there, and it was her presence that invoked the healing needed at that moment.  Everything was not ‘all right’ – there was not a happy ending – the boy died that night.  But God had been called and had been with the suffering mother and aunt, and they felt it, and were able to function, and to survive that horrifying scene.”  (LP, Prayer, 38-39)

Both Pastor Hallstein and the neighbor were very aware that the power needed in this situation, the power invoked by the neighbor, was not their power, but the very power of God, present and available in the unity Jesus prays for, a “unity in love” shared between Jesus and God, between Jesus and us, and therefore between God and us.  Love in common, shared through prayer in common, common prayer:  prayer that is offered together. 

In Mark’s Gospel, we hear of a time when that togetherness, that unity in love, is very important:

Mark writes, “When [Jesus] returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.  Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’”  (Mk. 2:1-5)

Sooner or later, most of us have a time in our lives when, for whatever reason, we find we can’t pray.  Whether we’re bound by anger or grief or fear or doubt, bound by illness or despair or whatever, there can be times when we have no words and no heart for God.  No less than the man in Mark, we are paralyzed, locked inside ourselves spiritually, unable to move.  This is when the prayers of others, the prayers of our community, the “together” prayers, carry us to God. 

Just as the friends of the paralytic carry him not only to the house where Jesus is, but up to the roof of that house, so our friends and our community lift us up; and just as the paralytic’s friends dig open the roof and lower him to Jesus’ very feet, so our friends and our community carry us in prayer wherever we need to go.  When we ourselves can’t take a step towards God, our friends in their prayers lay us at the feet of our Lord for healing.  And when our friends can’t take a step towards God, we in our prayers lay them at the feet of, and in the hands of, the Lord.

Powerful things happen when we pray for each other.  Hearts and doors are opened, hope is in the very air we breathe, and we become both spiritually and emotionally invested in each other.  We care about each other; we place our lives in each other’s hands.  Is there someone you don’t like, someone who’s really a problem for you?  Pray for them sincerely – every day.  Pray that God’s will may be done in their lives.  And if you can’t pray for them sincerely, pray for them anyway – and ask God to help your prayer become sincere. 

Powerful things happen when Jesus prays for us, and for those who will believe, and for those who have come to believe.  Through him we are included in the relationship and the love that he shares with the Father.  Through him we are invited to eat at God’s table as co-equals with him, children in God’s family.  Through him, we are graced to see ourselves and each other with God’s love, through God’s eyes.

Jesus prayed for his disciples. Jesus prays, present tense, for each of us.  And on this, my last Sunday with you as you, the people of St. Matthias, embark on your next exciting chapter as a parish, I pray for us all together as well.   

Until we meet again, let’s be careful out there.

Amen.  

Historically, Rogation Sunday, which is always 6 Easter, as well as the Rogation Days of the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday that lead up to Ascension Day, which is the Thursday after 6 Easter; these Rogation Days have historically been days of prayer and intercession, originally asking for God’s blessing on “the community, the land, and the harvest” for the coming year.  (Wikipedia, “Rogation Sunday”)

              During the reign of Elizabeth I in England, Rogation Sunday additionally became a time to bless and celebrate all town and communal boundaries, “with extra emphasis on the stability gained from lawful boundary lines,” and the Sunday was usually marked by the whole congregation, including clergy and choir, processing around the parish boundaries – “beating the bounds,” as it was called.  (Ibid.)

              Blessing, stability, lawfulness, and the willing observance of civic boundaries – to me, these are all indications of a time of peace, and a lack of outward danger and strife; and yet, in our 6 Easter Gospel reading this Rogation Sunday morning, a lack of danger from the outside world is not what we hear; a lack of danger from the outside world is not what Jesus is about to face.

              As with last Sunday’s Gospel, today’s reading is part of what’s known as Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” his extended teaching/prayer that comes at the end of the Last Supper.  Prior to this particular passage from John, Jesus has already told the disciples that he’s returning to the Father, that he won’t be with them any longer; and today we hear him say that God’s Spirit, the Advocate, will come to be with them in his absence as teacher and as empowerment.  The one who will betray him has left the company, and he knows that what awaits him outside this room is violent death.

In spite of this, he says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  (Jn. 14:27)

              To the Christian community in Philippi, the community that will come into being around the newly-converted Lydia, Paul later writes these words of comfort from a prison cell:  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice…Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  (Phil. 4:4, 6-7)

              In her novel In This House of Brede, a book about a community of Anglican nuns in England, author Rumer Godden begins her story by describing a carving over the front door of the convent.  She writes,  “The motto was ‘Pax,’ but the word was set in a circle of thorns….Pax:  peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort, seldom with a seen result; subject to constant interruptions, unexpected demands, short sleep at nights, little comfort, sometimes scant food; beset with disappointments and usually misunderstood; yet peace all the same, undeviating, filled with joy and gratitude and love.  ‘It is My own peace I give unto you.’  Not, notice,” says Godden, “the world’s peace.”

              The peace that Jesus leaves with us; God’s peace that surpasses our understanding; the peace that is not the world’s peace – what exactly is this peace?

              In English, we think of peace as an absence of conflict, struggle, or hostilities between individuals, groups, or nations.  Peace can also indicate a freedom from distraction or annoyance, either in a personal setting or in our own minds.  In Hebrew, however, the concept of peace, the understanding of the Hebrew word “shalom,” this concept is far more nuanced and multi-layered than its English counterpart.  The peace of Jesus, the peace of God that Paul writes about, and the peace that is not of this world, these are all shalom – and biblical shalom addresses the heart.

              Shalom is a state of being, a gift given by God to all of creation; and while shalom, like the English word peace, can mean a lack of hostility between two entities, shalom itself also includes harmony, wholeness (often expressed as “salvation”), completeness, well-being, tranquility, and complete reconciliation.  Shalom is a blessing, and when extended to others, the wish for shalom includes a desire for their health and wholeness as well.

As one Christian author writes, “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom.  We call it peace but it means far more than peace of mind or a ceasefire between enemies.  In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.  Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”  (Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be)

              In our own Eucharistic Prayer D, we say that even though we turned away from God, breaking the shalom between us through our own disobedience, we say that “through the prophets [God] taught us to hope for salvation” – which is another way of saying that “through the prophets God taught us to hope for shalom,” to hope for the restoration and the completeness of our relationship with God. 

              Even the letters that spell the word “shalom” have significance, especially the first one – the Hebrew letter “shin.”  Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has its own life given to it by God, its own divine formation.  “Shin” consists of three upward strokes united by a common horizontal base, and within the context of blessing, the upward strokes represent El Shaddai, God Almighty; God’s Shekhinah, which is God’s Glory; and Shalom, God’s Peace.  More popularly, “shin” has also been said to represent the common bond God shares both with God’s creation and with humankind – that “common horizontal base” that I mentioned. 

In worship, “shin” is formed by each of the hands of the one pronouncing the Priestly Blessing upon the people, the blessing given by God to the people of Israel, and it’s formed like this. 

              In the Book of Numbers, God says to Moses, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel.  You shall say to them:  The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up his countenance on you and give you [shalom].”  (Num. 6:23-26)

              Those of you who are familiar with Star Trek will no doubt recognize the similarity that “shin” has with Mr. Spock’s Vulcan salute.  Leonard Nimoy, who was Jewish, wrote in his autobiography that “when he was a child, his grandfather took him to an Orthodox synagogue, where he saw the blessing performed and was impressed by it” – so impressed that he later based Spock’s signature greeting, “Live long and prosper,” on the “shin” of God’s shalom.

              So where is the disconnect with true shalom, the peace of God that is so all-encompassing that we can’t even wrap our heads around it?  Where is the disconnect between true shalom and the counterfeit peace of the world?

              I think the disconnect has to do with the way we tend to approach the reality of pain and suffering in our own lives and in the lives of those we love; how we tend to approach the realities of stress, loneliness, self-esteem, anxiety, and despair.  There’s not a family in this congregation, and probably not even in this nation, that at some time and to some degree; possibly recently, possibly horrendously; not a single family, maybe not even a single individual, that hasn’t had to deal at some level with self-destructive behavior in themselves or in others – whether it be substance abuse, excessive gambling, compulsive shopping, inappropriate sexual or physical behavior, or whatever – and I want to be very, very clear here that I am NOT including diagnosed or diagnosable addictive or mental health issues, or experience-related issues such as PTSD in these comments.  Those issues, along with their challenges and their sorrows, are entirely separate.  I’m not talking about them or referencing them here. 

This being said, in a sermon he himself preached, a recovering drug addict turned seminarian said that with every hit of the many drugs he had taken in his years of using, he was looking for “a little bit of peace for a short time.”  (LP, Peace, 38)

This same search for peace, this same search for relief from pain is our own search as well. 

This search is for the world’s peace – the world’s willingness to offer us short term solutions to make our pain stop, to give us “a little bit of peace for a short time.”  This is the peace that’s right at hand; and yet, says another author, “a little bit of peace for a short time” “points out all that is wrong with the peace the world gives, and it also points to what is most important about the peace of God.”  (Ibid.)

The peace of God, the shalom of God, exists alongside our suffering, is a companion in our suffering, and at the same time is far more than our suffering.  Often shalom comes into our consciousness through the people of faith around us; and while we might sometimes lose our awareness of shalom, shalom itself, God’s shalom, is still with us. 

Losing both her sister and her mother to cancer in a matter of months, one author writes, “God chooses the very strangest times and circumstances to teach us about peace.  On reflection, I couldn’t have learned about this non-worldly peace without being up against the toughest challenge I had ever faced.  Now, when I think I cannot possibly bear a pain or resolve a problem, I remember that Jesus’ peace [Jesus’ shalom] is not of this world.  It does not require tranquility of circumstance in order to flood our lives.”  (Connie Clark, LP, Peace, 23)

Later in John, Jesus says, “I have said this to you so that in me you may find peace, [in me you may find shalom].  In the world you find suffering, but have courage:  I have conquered the world.”  (John 16:33)

Even so, even though “tranquility of circumstance” isn’t required for us to experience the shalom of God, of Jesus, and of Paul, tranquility of circumstance can be helpful – and here’s where the tranquility of “sabbath time,” of intentionally setting aside time for God, can help to lead us into God’s peace.

Honoring the Sabbath, of course, is one of the Ten Commandments, a Commandment that all too often gets short shrift when our kids are playing organized sports, or when the weekend is the only time to catch up on errands and chores.  Nevertheless, the Hebrew word for sabbath, “Shabbat”, is related to two other Hebrew words – one that means “to stop” and one that means “to sit.”  In Orthodox Jewish families, no work is done on Shabbat, and the understanding of what constitutes “work” extends to cooking, driving a car, and even turning on a light switch.  One worships on Shabbat; one spends time with family; and one rests, honoring God.

In days gone by, especially before retail stores were open on Sundays, many Christian families also spent Sabbath Sundays that were family-oriented and toned down.  Today, in an attempt to regain spiritual and physical balance, it’s not unusual to hear of people dedicating a set day or set period of time during the week as their “sabbath time,” a time for their own slowing down and turning towards God.

Linking “Shabbat” and “Shalom,” one author writes, “What if one day a week, we focused on not just a day of rest but a day of getting our wholeness restored?  What if weekly we could completely refill our life tank in our bodies, hearts, and minds?  That is what true shalom does, if we allow it.

“When our peace is full and overflowing, we are able to trust [God] to restore what may have been lost last week.  We can confidently move forward in hope that we will have all that we need in the week ahead.  This is what Shabbat is for.  Shabbat is for Shalom.  Shabbat Shalom.”

When used as a greeting, this author says, “’Shabbat Shalom’ is saying, despite all the craziness throughout the week, ‘may you end the week with a rest that brings that inner peace that recenters us on the One who gives it’ – and also, ‘May your next week begin with that sense of inner rest and completeness, where nothing is lacking.’”  (From “Shalom” in The Christian’s Biblical Guide to Understanding Israel by Doug Hershey)

As we go forth on this Rogation Sunday, may we all honor the creation and the Sabbath, finding that inner rest and completeness; spending intentional time stopping, and sitting in wholeness with God – and as Christians, may we never settle for only a little bit of peace.

Shabbat Shalom.

Amen.

              “Mystagogia” is a Greek word that means “to lead through the mysteries” – and an important distinction here is that in the realm of faith and theology, unlike in detective stories, a “mystery” is not a puzzle to be solved, but rather a truth to be embraced.

              From the Church’s very beginning, these fifty days of the Mystagogia have been the period of time when, with the support of the community around them, those baptized at the Easter Vigil have learned how to live into the concrete ramifications of their new faith and into the full meaning of Christian discipleship and of their baptismal promises.

              Because the Church that follows Jesus the Christ is, in its teachings, its sacraments, and its values profoundly counter-cultural – something we need to remember in today’s world – because the Church is counter-cultural, the Mystagogia can be a difficult time, not just for the newly baptized, but for all of us; a time when our everyday assumptions and beliefs about “how life is” and “how the world works,” when these assumptions are challenged by the words, the life, and the questions of Jesus – the questions he asks us.  (“Do you believe this?”) 

Our assumptions are also challenged by the study of Scripture itself; and we see one of these early challenges in our readings this morning, a challenge that in its essence is at the forefront of our news today.

              In words that echo the prophet Isaiah before him, John the Seer in Revelation raises up a vision of God’s future that is to be:  “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.’”

              This is a vision about reconfigured boundaries and erased lines – the boundaries between God and humankind, the boundaries between life and death, and the boundaries between groups of people themselves.  Even the boundaries of Creation have been reconfigured, as the sea, the primeval dwelling place of chaos and disorder, is no more.  From now on, God will dwell in the very midst of God’s people, and everyone who is thirsty will receive the water of life.

              This is both a magnificent vision and a great mystery; but as Peter had discovered 65 or 70 years before this vision of John’s, for both individuals and for communities, dealing with the concrete reality of newly reconfigured boundaries is never easy.  Both the event and the action that Peter is defending here in our passage from the Acts of the Apostles were a challenge for the early Church community to understand and to accept.

At the urging of God and witnessed to by the action of the Holy Spirit, Peter had baptized, and then, more astonishingly, more shockingly, had shared table fellowship, had eaten a meal outside the restrictions of the Law; had eaten together in one place with the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household.  

              Until the moment of Cornelius’ baptism, there had been no such thing as a baptized Christian who wasn’t also a Jew – and this is of tremendous significance for us, because this is the event that first opens the way for our own journey of faith today.  This first Gentile conversion – and remember, “Gentile” is simply a term that refers to a non-Jew; anyone who’s not a Jew is a Gentile, no matter what their beliefs or their ethnicity – this conversion of Cornelius is the beginning of the early Church’s mission to all Gentiles through the centuries up to and including us.

              Ultimately, this event redefines the identity of the people of God.  It reconfigures the previously sacrosanct boundaries between groups of people as Peter is told by God’s Spirit “not to make a distinction” between Peter’s group and Cornelius’; and because this is so incredibly radical, it’s no surprise that this “new thing” stirs up controversy back in Jerusalem and draws harsh criticism upon Peter.

              That Peter and his companions ate Cornelius’ food, in Cornelius’ house, with Cornelius’ family, and with the blessing of God no less; all this is so scandalous, is such a skandalon, a stumbling block, for the folks back in Jerusalem that Luke tells this story three times in his writing of Acts.  The first telling, a telling that also begins with Peter’s vision while praying, is in the previous chapter in Acts and the focus there is on the food restrictions, the designation of some foods as being “unclean” and therefore forbidden for Jews.

              In chapter 11 of the book of Leviticus, we read, “The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them:  Speak to the people of Israel, saying:  From among all land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat.  Any animal that has divided hooves and is cleft-footed and chews the cud – such you may eat.  But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following:  the camel, for even though it chews the cud it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.  The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.  Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you.”  (Lev. 11:1-8)

              All the provisions in the Law given by God to the people of Israel through Moses were the basis of the Covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The Law was, and continues to be, the source of their Jewish identity.  The Law, and faithfulness to the Law, defined who the Jews were and are, as a people culturally; and who they were and are spiritually, as the people of Israel’s God.

              This identity didn’t change as Jesus’ disciples continued to follow him after his Resurrection.  All of Jesus’ followers were still Jews – Jews who had recognized him as the messiah, as the one whose coming the prophets had foretold.  They saw following Jesus as a deepening of their faith and their heritage, not a negation of them – and so consequently, in Acts 10 and again here in the retelling in chapter 11, for both Peter and the church in Jerusalem, the whole unexpected event with Cornelius is a profound systemic challenge both to their understanding of God, and to their understanding of their own relationship with God.

              Why is all this such a challenge?  Because in telling Peter to go to Cornelius and not to make any distinction between them as Jew and Gentile, God is contradicting God’s own Scripture.  God is rewriting God’s own Law, changing God’s own rules, reconfiguring God’s own boundaries – and God is telling Peter to make all these changes too.

              Adapting to change is never easy, especially when the change is as spiritually and fundamentally radical as this:  the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God who delivered the children of Israel out of bondage in the land of Egypt – the God of the Covenant is now suddenly expanding God’s divine concern beyond the people of Israel alone.  Here, in the conversion of Cornelius and his household, the early Jewish Christians are confronted with the spiritual and cultural reality that God has reconfigured God’s own boundaries; that following Jesus means sharing their God with people who have always been defined by God as living outside of God’s Law; sharing their God with people whom God has always designated as “the Other.”

              Anselm of Canterbury was a 12th century theologian who is recognized as the framer of what’s known as the “ontological argument” for the nature of God; “ontological” meaning “having to do with the being of God.”  Of God, Anselm said, “God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.”

              In other words, if we can think of anything greater than our idea of God, then our idea of God – isn’t God.  God is greater than anything we can think about God, greater than anything we even have the capacity to think about God.

              On the surface, and until he lays out his defense, it appears that Peter has been the one to change God’s rules; that it has been Peter’s idea to challenge Scripture by reconfiguring the boundaries that define fellowship and acceptance, and then by affirming that acceptance with a shared meal.  Certainly that interpretation, that this was all Peter’s idea, would have been far more comfortable for all of us…but that’s not what Peter says happened.  It was all God’s idea, Peter says.  “If then God gave [Cornelius and his household] the same gift [of the Spirit] that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,” he says, “who was I that I could hinder God?”  Who was Peter to stand in the way of the Spirit, and in the way of the freedom of God?

              As a result, this challenge for the early Church is a continuing challenge for all believers through the centuries on their way to the New Jerusalem, up to and including today:  the challenge for us to acknowledge Anselm’s proposition of the supreme greatness and the supreme freedom of God; and to acknowledge therefore God’s right to reconfigure the boundaries between people; God’s right to change our paradigm as well as Peter’s; God’s right to move our cheese, to color outside the lines that we think are cast in stone; to acknowledge God’s right to change our understanding of who we are and our understanding of who the people around us are; no matter what human governmental authority or our own fears might try to say.

              Living with reconfigured boundaries isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- again, no matter what human authority or human fear might say.  But even so, as I said previously, reconfiguration is never easy.  Just as Cornelius and all the Gentiles who came after him did back in Jerusalem, newcomers will always change a group’s dynamic, change a Church’s dynamic, even a nation’s dynamic, by bringing in people with different lived experiences, different perspectives, and different strengths; experiences, perspectives, and strengths that need to be heard and honored, if the newcomers’ acceptance is to be genuine.  And if indeed we wrestle with fear, it might be helpful to remember that math being math, just because one new factor is added into a mix, it doesn’t automatically mean that another factor, already there, is negated or removed.  It simply means that the mix becomes richer, more varied, more gifted, more challenging, and more real.    

              At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Jesus promises to be with the disciples always, telling them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….”  (Mt. 28:19a).

Speaking to the Church for all time, Jesus says in John, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

              As we encounter the challenges of boundaries in these days, arbitrary and otherwise; as we encounter people who are different from us, who dress differently, eat differently, speak differently, where do we find the common ground to honor and hear their voices and their stories?  What can we use as our foundation for building a relationship with them?

              One commentator has said, “If love is understood as acting toward one another as God has acted toward the world and as Christ has acted toward his disciples, then love is not simply a feeling.”  (Craddock, 253)

              Here in the Mystagogia, the Love of God, the Love God has for each one of us in God’s Creation – this is the greatest mystery of all, the greatest truth for us to embrace.  Living in this Love, living out of this Love that is not simply a feeling; this is how each of us does our part in bringing God’s vision of a new heaven and a new earth to fulfillment.  “The home of God is among mortals,” says the voice from the throne. 

When we truly, actively love others as we ourselves are loved; when we turn towards each other, reach out to each other, without anger and without fear, when we speak on behalf of those outside the boundaries and reject those boundaries that are man-made, then, truly, truly, God is in the midst of God’s people. 

I was taught in seminary to always start and finish a sermon with my own words.  Even so, I would like to finish this sermon by offering the Prayer Book’s Collect for the Whole Human Family (BCP 815):

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son:  Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

May God bless us, every one!

Forty. That magic Scriptural number – forty days and forty nights for Noah and the Ark, forty days of temptation for Jesus in the wilderness, forty years of wandering for the children of Israel; I suddenly realized that if I’d been the children of Israel in my first semester of seminary, passing through the Red Sea and heading out towards the unknown, then here on 4 Easter in 2025, I would just about have reached the Promised Land (which does put a whole new spin on retirement)!

“Forty” is, of course, Scripture’s shorthand for indicating “a very long time” – and any of us who have forty years or more to look back on will, I think, agree with me that “forty years” is a very long time…but in retrospect, it’s a very long time that seems to go by in no more than a moment.

So – almost 40 years ago, when I was in my first semester in seminary, the very first paper I wrote in my Old Testament class was on the story of the Tower of Babel.  After all this time, I don’t remember the point of the paper, but I do remember that I had a lot of fun writing it.

          The story of the Tower is found at the beginning of the 11th chapter of Genesis, and it marks the end of the portion of the Bible that’s known as the “prehistory.”  The prehistory describes the creation of the world and of humankind, as well as God’s first attempts to restore the relationship with us that has been broken in the Garden of Eden.  Chapter 10 is a listing of the descendants of Noah and his sons, so this is after the Flood; and then comes chapter 11:

          “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.  And as [humans] migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.  And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’  And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.  Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’  The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.  And the LORD said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’  So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.  Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”

          This story of the Tower is an etiological story, etiology being the study of the causes of things.  Etiological stories answer the question “Why?” – the question in this case being “Why do we all speak different languages?” 

          In addition to “why?” this story shows us that the human pride, presumption, and disobedience that were born in the Garden of Eden have survived the flood and live on, much to God’s distress, because what these settlers in the land of Shinar really want to do is to attack heaven, to defeat God and forcibly “make a name” for themselves; “otherwise,” they say, “we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  And there’s a sense of poignancy here, because that’s exactly what happens.

          Because of their arrogance, the settlers arrive in Shinar nameless and they leave nameless, as if they had never been. 

Names: being named, having a name, gives us reality.  Before Babel, back in the Garden, in the older of the two creation stories, naming is actually the final step in the creative process – a step that features the man being a co-creator with God.  Starting at Genesis 2:18, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’  So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.  The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.  So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman [ishshah], for out of Man [ish] this one was taken.’”

Names give reality; and, in Hebrew thought, they also reflect the essence of the one being named – and that’s why God has the man name all the new creatures:  God is waiting for the man to identify his new partner by giving it a name that reflects a bond between them, a bond in their essence; but that bond isn’t there until the man himself, ish, becomes his partner’s essence, ishshah.

When I was a kid, I remember a favorite honorary aunt, Auntie Bess, a friend of my grandmother, talking about how after her mother’s death she had read her mother’s diaries; and how shocked she was to read a particular entry about herself.  “After two months,” her mother had written, “our darling daughter still doesn’t have a name.” 

Auntie Bess was horrified; she felt like she was almost a non-person after her birth – and I think I remember her making a comment to the effect that “after two months, you’d think they could come up with something a little fancier than Bessie Mabel!”

Our names tell people who we are and where we come from; about our clan, our tribe, our kindred, our homeland, and our first language – now that we’re not all speaking the same one anymore. Names affirm our reality and open the door into our identity.

In a contemporary award-winning musical, what are the first words we hear out of the mouth of the main character?  “Alexander Hamilton; my name is Alexander Hamilton and there’s a million thing[s] I haven’t done – but just you wait, just you wait.”  Our names proclaim our reality and our identity.

Now, Luke does something very unusual with names in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that we just heard.  Throughout the history of the Old Testament and continuing into Jesus’ time, there were three categories of people who had no social standing and no protectors in the culture of that day.  Those three categories were widows, orphans, and homeless foreigners, traditionally referred to as “sojourners in the land.”  Today we might refer to them as immigrants, or migrants. 

Because they had no resources to fall back on, widows, orphans, and sojourners in the land were particularly vulnerable – but according to the prophets, they were also special in God’s sight; and so throughout Scripture, prophetic calls to righteousness and to righteous living always – always – mandate compassion for these three groups:  widows, orphans, and sojourners in the land, as pointed out so powerfully by Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde of Washington, DC not too long ago.

Here in Acts we have Peter raising a widow who has died.  That Luke identifies her by name instead of simply calling her “a widow of Lydda” is unusual enough; that he names her twice, in two different languages, Aramaic and Greek, is virtually unheard of – and is a witness to how well loved and valuable she was not only among the believers, who called her Tabitha; but also among the greater Gentile community where she was known as Dorcas.

Ironically, by naming this widow Luke indicates her importance – but at the same time, as he names her he gives us power over her, so to speak; because when we know someone’s name, we have the power to use their name and to command their attention.  Hence Peter, empowered by the Spirit and by prayer, is able to say, “Tabitha, get up.”

In the third chapter of Exodus, God calls to Moses out of the burning bush and commissions him to go to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of slavery.  “But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

If any of us ever saw the 1977 movie “Oh, God!” with George Burns, you may remember that when George Burns as God commissions the grocery worker Jerry, played by John Denver, to go out into the world and tell people that God exists and God wants everyone to take care of each other, Jerry asks pretty much the same question that Moses does --  “Who shall I say sent me??” – and then he adds, “They’re going to think I’m crazy!”

In response, God says, “Here – show them this,” and he hands Jerry a plain white business card with “GOD” printed on it in big black letters.  “Show them this.”

In response to Moses, God – not played by George Burns – says, “I AM WHO I AM.”  Eyeh esher eyeh.  “[God] said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’  God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:  This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.’”  (Ex. 3:13-15)

This is one of the few times in Scripture when God shares God’s personal name –and it’s worth acknowledging the power that is inherent in the name of God, power that is in addition to the power I already mentioned, the power that Moses now has to command God’s attention.  Before too much longer, Moses will receive a set of commandments from God for the covenant community, and the section that refers to the people’s relationship with God finishes with this commandment:  “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”  (Ex. 20:7)

The people are not to make oaths using God’s name because God’s name would be profaned if the oaths were broken.  They are not to curse others with God’s name, and they are not to try to control God by using God’s name in magic.

As we have later with Jesus’ name, God’s name is only to be used in worship, in prayer, and in the furthering of God’s own purposes.

I came to a personal understanding of this commandment about not misusing God’s name in the middle portion of my ministry when I was the Associate Rector of a parish in Florida.  St. Mark’s, Palm Beach Gardens, has a K through 8 school, and that particular summer the middle school was planning to offer a free introductory computer class to senior citizens in the parish and the neighborhood who were interested, but because the number of computers in the school’s media center was limited, advance registration was required.

A parish couple that was mature, but definitely not senior, came to me and asked if they could attend the class.  I told them that they had to speak to the school, that I had nothing to do with the registration or with the program – and I thought no more about it until a couple of days later when the teacher leading the class headed towards me with fire in her eyes.  Whether this couple had misunderstood me or not, I don’t know.  I think I’d been pretty clear; but apparently they’d gone to the school and told the teacher that “I had said” they could take the class.

I did not like my name being used – or misused – in that way, and I can only imagine how God feels about God’s name being common currency, editorial comment, and a word used for emphasis in our conversations today!

So why all this focus on names this morning, and on their importance in our lives?  Why were the faithful around the world so anxious to learn what name Cardinal Prevost would take for his papacy? 

Well, today, the fourth Sunday in Easter, is traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  On this day, in all three years of our lectionary, we hear Gospel readings from John where Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd, as the one who lays down his life for the sheep.  Jesus identifies himself as the one whom the sheep know and follow, the one whose voice they recognize, and, according to today’s collect, the one who “calls us each by name.”

As Anglican priest Herbert O’Driscoll has written, this collect “tells us that when we hear the voice of the good shepherd, what we hear is the most powerful of all sounds in our ears – our own name.  All our lives we hear our name as we hear nothing else.  We hear it called in every conceivable tone and setting, and for reasons and purposes too numerous to mention.  Our name has been spoken by voices we will never forget and by voices we wish we could forget and cannot.  Our name has been called lovingly, sternly, harshly, gently, angrily, seductively.  We have heard it whispered passionately and shouted in exasperation.  To know that our name is on the lips of our Lord is to possess the richest intimacy with him.  To know that he speaks our name gives us our ultimate sense of who we truly are.”  (Breaking, pp. 81-2)

In tears at the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene encounters angels, as well as a man she assumes is the gardener.  They each ask her why she’s weeping and in despair she says two separate times that Jesus’ body has been carried away and she doesn’t know where it is.  Her sorrow and her grief are overwhelming; but then, Jesus the good shepherd calls her by name and she recognizes him right away.

“To know that our name is on the lips of our Lord is to possess the richest intimacy with him.  To know that he speaks our name gives us our ultimate sense of who we truly are.”

Unlike the people of Babel who wanted to make their own name, Jesus himself gives us our reality.  As I said last week, our reality is that we are Easter people, we are people of the Risen Lord.  We are known to the Father and to the Son by name, and we are loved – all of us.

We are Easter people.  The Good Shepherd has each of our names on his lips, speaks each of our names into our hearts, calling each of us his own; and because we are Easter people, we possess the richest intimacy with Jesus – and no one can ever snatch us out of his hand.     Amen.

              I would love to say that I always responded with a simple, honest, “I sure am!”  Unfortunately, however, more often than not, my answer came from within all the liturgical busy-ness of late Lent, and I was more likely to say, “I’m not even thinking about vacation yet.  First, I need to get through Holy Week, and then there’s the Vigil, and then I need to get past Easter.  I’ll get excited about vacation after that.”

              Uh oh -- what was that I said?  Then I need to “get past” Easter??

              This is not a great thing for a priest to say, even though, as many of us do, I was specifically referring to the logistics of, and the preparations for, the actual Easter Sunday services themselves, as well as the surrounding parish festivities.  In the busy-ness of our contemporary lives, Easter often becomes a stand-alone, discreet Sunday.  It becomes an event; a time to gather with family or friends perhaps; but a day that, even though we enjoy it, a day we get past, clean up after, and then put back on the shelf for another year; not even giving it the twelve days we give Christmas, much less the fifty days that are marked on the calendar of the Church and by the burning of the Paschal Candle at all our services.

              And yet, as Christians, we call ourselves “Easter people;” and we claim that the reality of Easter, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, we claim that this is the foundation of our faith, whether Easter lilies still bloom in our homes or in front of the altar or not.  As Christians, we are supposed to take seriously the fact that we are living in Easter not one day, and not even fifty days, but all 365 days of the year.  Whether we use the calendar of the Church or the calendar of the world, we live in Easter; we find our life and our hope in Easter, every day.

              Now, true, this isn’t always an easy reality for us to grasp, much less to figure out what it means for us on a practical level every day of the year; and we’re not alone in this:  figuring out what living in Easter means wasn’t easy for the disciples either.

              As we just heard, here in this 21st chapter of John, the disciples are back in Galilee.  Jesus has risen, and he’s appeared once to Mary Magdalene in the garden, and twice to the disciples in the house – once when Thomas wasn’t with them, and then once again when he was. 

In spite of these appearances however, and in spite of Jesus’ already having breathed on the disciples, giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit and commissioning them for ministry in his name (which is John’s version of Pentecost), in spite of all this that’s happened, the disciples…have gone home. 

They’re emotionally exhausted, they’re spiritually overwhelmed, and they’ve gone back to the familiar hills and Sea of Galilee; back to the solid, everyday comfort of their boats, their professions, and their families – and now, as he’s said so many times before, Simon Peter says, “I’m going fishing.”

              About this decision, one author has said, “The return to fishing implies that the disciples were unable to sustain Easter beyond [the] resurrection appearances” – and while this may sound unkind, it simply means that things haven’t come together yet for the disciples.  They still don’t understand the impact the resurrection will have on their futures, and on how they live out the rest of their lives.

              They have yet to realize -- as we also may have yet to realize --  that being Easter people, living within the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, means taking on Jesus’ work, taking on God’s work in this world as our own.

              Through the language that John uses here in chapter 21, he makes it clear that just as God took the initiative in the original calling of the disciples, and then took the initiative in Jesus’ resurrection, God is also taking the initiative in weaving these disciples into the resurrection, weaving them into the ongoing work of resurrection life, even if they haven’t realized it yet.

              Two times in this portion of John 21 that we just heard, reference is made in English to the action of “hauling:” first, the disciples weren’t able to haul the net in because it was so full of fish; and then later Simon Peter hauled the net ashore all by himself.  The Greek word that’s translated “haul” is elko, and John uses elko not only here, but in two other places as well. 

In chapter 6, he uses it to describe those who come to follow Jesus (“No one can come to me [says Jesus] unless drawn” – elko – “drawn by the Father who sent me”); and John uses the same word again in the 12th chapter in reference to the saving effects of Jesus’ death:  “And I,” Jesus says, “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw” – again, elko – “will draw all people to myself.”

              God draws believers to Jesus; Jesus draws all people to himself through the cross; and the disciples, earlier called to be fishers of people, the disciples draw and they haul the abundant catch to shore, not yet realizing that God is already making God’s work of abundance their own. 

Just as Jesus provided an abundance of wine at Cana, and then provided an abundance of bread and dried fish at the feeding of the 5,000, so here the resurrected Jesus continues to provide the faith community with abundance; not only in the form of an abundance of fish – but also the abundance of grace that comes with life lived in, and nurtured by, the resurrection.

              In resurrection life, in Easter life, God uses the disciples, uses the faithful, uses us as the Church, to cast God’s net of Good News; to cast God’s net of hope, and to haul in the new followers who come to believe through the presence of the Spirit and the power of the Word. 

The disciples back in Galilee haven’t caught on yet; in Acts, Paul – still called by his Jewish name Saul -- on his way to Damascus definitely hasn’t caught on yet; and while the disciples have their eyes opened to resurrection life in that breakfast on the beach, Paul is a tougher nut to crack…particularly since at this point he’s still busy “breathing threats and murder” against the Church.

              As God had for the other disciples, however, God has a mission for Saul; God has a ministry and a calling for Saul; God has work for Saul to do; and so God knocks Saul to the ground in a flash of light, and God reveals Godself to Saul in the person of the risen Jesus.  Blind and oblivious for three days, once Saul’s eyes are opened, he is converted and baptized; he is now Paul, and his life is transformed forever…but not just for the sake of transformation itself. 

As one author puts it, “…[C]onversion is the means to a missionary end…. Personal transformation,” he says, “never collapses into sanctified self-absorption.  Rather, conversion prepares the believer for [the] performance of concrete tasks in the service of God.”

              Conversion prepares the believer for the performance of concrete tasks in the service of God.

              And so here we are, Easter people, already converted, already transformed through our baptisms; what concrete tasks are we being called to in God’s service?  What does a resurrection life of faith look like in 2025 in the face of all those other “haulings” that draw us in so many different directions every time we turn on the news? 

              Well, a life of resurrection faith starts out looking a lot like this.  It looks a lot like people gathered together for worship, people gathered together to share resources and strength, gathered together to build relationships with each other and with God.  And the resources and strengths we share aren’t just the ones we ourselves bring into the mix.  Years ago, former Archbishop of Canterbury Daniel Coggan wrote:

              “New resources are available to a person who is open to the resurrection power of Jesus, and to a community of disciples open to that same power.  That is not to say that all at once a person becomes perfect or a community shows all the marks of saintliness.  Far from it.  Nor,” he says, “are people ‘united to Christ’ exempt from ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’  But their attitude to these situations is changed.  There is an openness to divine resources which they had hitherto not known.  An inward renewal helps them to get their perspectives right – to see what is transient, to appreciate what is eternal.  And there is within them a hope which leads Paul to say: ‘No wonder we do not lose heart’ (2 Cor. 4:16).”

              No wonder we, as Easter people, do not lose heart.  We are people of unquenchable hope because we know that Christ is alive, and that through him we have life – and there’s nothing that can change that, no blow or sorrow or government cut that can take that away, or take away the love that gives us this life in the first place.

              In one of my favorite quotes, former Methodist bishop and chaplain of Duke University William Willimon once wrote, “Christians are those who speak a word of hope, and then break bread in the midst of the storm.”  A life of faith in 2025 takes place in community, a community that affirms hope and celebrates God’s abundance and grace even in the midst of the storm; celebrates the wine and the bread and the fish, and the love; a community that continues to perform concrete tasks in the ongoing service of God.

              And our concrete tasks, spelled out in our Baptismal Covenant, are these:  tasks that do require our intentional discernment in these unpredictable times as God calls us to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; as God calls us to persevere in resisting evil, and not “if”, but “whenever” we fall into sin, to repent, to turn around, and return to the Lord; as God calls us to proclaim by word and everyday concrete example the Good News of God in Christ; as God calls us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors, whoever they may be, as ourselves; as God calls us to strive for justice in today’s world, to strive for peace among all people; and to respect the dignity of every human being, whether we agree with them or not, whether we like them or not – and even when we fear them.

              Again and again throughout Scripture, God calls us to let go of our fear, that fear that is almost the currency of daily life – fear not, little flock, Jesus tells us; and fearing not, God calls us to claim Easter, and to claim hope. 

              And, claiming hope, there’s one more thing God calls us to do:  God calls us to cast wide God’s own net as we live out these Baptismal promises.  God calls us to share our hope with everyone whose lives we touch.

              What St. Francis of Assisi said about preaching the Gospel applies equally to us sharing our hope: “Preach the Gospel at all times,” he said; “If necessary, use words.”  We are to share hope at all times.  If necessary, but only if necessary, we can use words.

              If we show forth our hope and our Baptismal promises in our lives, however; if we truly live what we believe about Jesus, then, as Easter people, we won’t need to use words.  Amen.

              Jesus’ tomb is empty, a reality confirmed by Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the disciple whom Jesus loved; and even though Mary returned from the empty tomb that morning saying that she has “seen the Lord”, no one else has seen him -- and his body is still missing.  The whole company of disciples is still in shock from the brutality of the crucifixion and from the grief of loss, and now their fear has the upper hand – fear of the Romans, because they might come after the disciples next, as well as fear of the Temple establishment, the priests and the Sadducees that John refers to as “the Jews”, for pretty much the same reason – the disciples might be next.

              In their fear, they’ve locked the doors of the house where they’ve gathered, and now they’re trying to figure out what on earth to do; trying to figure out what on earth comes next.

              One disciple, however, isn’t with them:  Thomas the Twin, who not too long before had proclaimed that he wanted to die by Jesus’ side.  Thomas has taken his grief, and perhaps his shame; his fear and his disillusionment, and he’s gone off to be by himself for a while.

              It’s said that one of the rules that King George the Fifth of England lived by was, “If I have to suffer, let me be like a well-bred animal and let me go and suffer alone.”

              I’m not sure that Thomas would phrase it quite like that, but like many people before and since – like some of us, perhaps – for better or for worse, Thomas has, for now at least, made the choice to go and suffer alone.  The irony is that he’s chosen to go off, chosen to separate himself from the other disciples, just when he needs to be with them the most – and the reason he needs to be with them is that while he’s gone, “what comes next” starts to happen behind those locked doors.

              Suddenly, locked doors notwithstanding, Jesus comes and stands in the midst of the disciples.  He wishes them peace and shows them his wounds, and then in one fell swoop, in one momentous breath, he transforms these ordinary, flawed, frightened people into God’s Church.

              Breathing on the disciples just as God had first breathed life into Adam, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  He commissions them for a life in God’s service and makes them partners in what today’s collect calls “the new covenant of reconciliation.”  In the name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Good News of God’s grace and salvation is now theirs to spread.

              But Thomas isn’t with them; so when he does come back and he hears that while he was gone, not only have the others all seen Jesus risen and alive, but they’ve also received the gift of the Holy Spirit, he responds in a very understandable way:  “Jesus was here?  Are you crazy?  Jesus is DEAD.  You’re all nuts!  I will believe it only when I see it.  Only when I can see Jesus and touch him myself will I believe that you’re not all suffering from some trick or hoax or mass delusion.  Only when I can match the wounds in his hands with the wounds in my heart, then and only then will I let myself believe that he’s alive.”

              Time and the Christian tradition haven’t been kind to Thomas.  His heartfelt honesty has earned him the label “Doubting Thomas”, and the words that Jesus says to him later in this story have come down through the various English translations sounding like a reproach…but at the end of the day, Thomas really isn’t asking all that much.

          What Thomas wants isn’t much more than what the other disciples have already gotten:  they have seen Jesus; they have seen his wounds.  In the intensity of his need for visible proof, in his reluctance to risk being hurt again, and, perhaps, in his anger at Jesus that he’d been left out the first time, Thomas gets branded a skeptic in popular thought, and he becomes known as the disciple with too little faith.

              But Scripture sees him differently; and Thomas turns out to be a gift to us and a model for us, because in John’s eyes, Thomas is the disciple who finds the answers to his questions within the community of faith.  He becomes the link, the one who reaches both ways; the one who reaches between “those who were there” – them – and “those who come after” – us.

              Mahatma Ghandi once said, “When faith becomes blind, it dies.”  Well, blind faith is not Thomas’ problem.  Much as he might want to believe what the other disciples are telling him, much as he might want to accept their words in faith, he can’t.  He just can’t.  He can’t make his head and his heart get in sync.  He’s like the father of the epileptic child who cried to Jesus through his tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” and it is to Thomas’ everlasting credit that as he goes through his struggle and his doubting, he remains with the other disciples.  Once he’s back, he stays; and in his staying in the community in the midst of his doubt, he gives us a model of faith.

              The key here is that the risen Jesus has appeared to the disciples as a group.  It’s the group that he has commissioned for service, and it’s within the group, within this community of faith, that Thomas voices his feelings.  This is important for us to remember because so often in today’s Church, we’re tempted to hide our doubts or our questions, tempted to hide our pain; and we hide because we’re afraid we’re the only one here who doesn’t have our act all together.

          Thinking we’re alone, we might even try to persuade ourselves that in our too little faith or in our pain we should leave the community; that it’s in everyone’s best interests for us to get ourselves and our doubts and our situation out of the way so that we don’t rock the communal boat…but that’s so not true.

              As Christians, we’re inseparably bound together by our baptismal covenant, which is far, far thicker than mere blood.  All of us here have promised again and again to support each other in our life in Christ; and, for ourselves, we have promised to continue, to persevere, to return, to proclaim, to seek, to serve, and to strive.  We haven’t promised not to question; we haven’t promised not to doubt; and we haven’t promised to like everyone we’re called to love; but we have promised to stay.

              Thomas’ words probably scandalize some of the disciples and may well sadden others; but insofar as we can tell from John, no one tells him that he shouldn’t feel this way, no one tells him to leave, to get out; and no one tells him that he isn’t a real disciple anymore.  They probably do tell him again and again what they experienced, and they probably pray for him, asking God that Thomas might also see what they have seen; but no one seems to demand that he take back his words.

              Well.  Eight days later, Thomas’ prayer – and possibly ours – is answered.  The disciples have gathered in the house again, this time with Thomas present – and it’s worth noting that having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the community’s fear of the outside world has been laid to rest, and the doors are no longer locked.

              The Lord appears among them, greets them all, and then turns specifically to Thomas; and just as the Church hasn’t reproached Thomas, neither does Jesus.  Instead, he responds to Thomas’ need and, in the presence of that community whose ministry is reconciliation, Jesus ministers to Thomas.

              “Touch me,” he says, “touch me as you say you need to, and know that this is true.”  And while our English translation today is kind of dry, reading “Do not doubt but believe,” John’s original Greek is much fuller, much more like, “Do not be empty of faith; do not have this void within you, but rather have faith.  Be filled; believe.”

              As Jesus offers Thomas all of himself, Thomas receives the revelation that the Church is now charged to share:  he sees the glory of God present in Jesus, and in the midst of the community of faith Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God.”  This same faith community that had accepted his pain and his uncertainty now witnesses Thomas’ coming to belief.

              For John, the Church’s presence is crucial.  As time passes and fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry still live, the Church becomes the keeper and the teller of the sacred story.  Thomas becomes the link, the hinge in the years, because even though he’s a disciple who “was really there,” he still needs visible proof of the resurrection from Jesus himself before he can believe, and that proof comes to him in the midst of the Church.

              We today are heirs of the community that supported Thomas in the midst of his doubts.  Knit together by our baptismal vows and by our common life in Christ, we are all continually challenged to remember that we now live no longer for ourselves but for each other, companions not only in the communion of saints, but companions also in the company of sinners being redeemed.

              The late monk Thomas Merton understood the interweaving of our lives when he wrote, “My successes are not my own.  The way to them was prepared by others.  The fruit of my labors is not my own:  for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another.  Nor are my failures my own.  They may spring from the failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another’s achievement.  Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my own achievements.  It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time.  [The meaning of my life] is seen, above all, in my integration into the mystery of Christ.”

              Thomas the Twin became integrated into the mystery of Christ through the appearance and the love of the risen Jesus.  Our own integration into mystagogia, into the mystery of Christ, comes through baptism.  We aren’t freed from struggles of faith as we journey along the way – integration doesn’t promise us this – but we are promised the support and the presence of God’s Spirit, and of the Christian community in the Church and in Scripture to be with us, to help us and to walk with us through our struggles – and we’re given the gift of Thomas, this first hand witness and disciple who voices and hallows and validates not only his own doubts, but our doubts, and our questions, and our fears as well.

              The tomb is empty; the Lord is risen indeed, and we are all now the Lord’s Church, commissioned and empowered to bring God’s reconciliation, God’s love, and God’s Good News to the rest of the world.    Amen.

          For her and for the other disciples, the future isn’t at all what it used to be, because the future used to be filled with Jesus.  Until his arrest on Thursday and his trial and crucifixion on Friday, Mary’s future and the future of all of Jesus’ disciples was filled with his preaching and his teaching, his compassion and his healing – filled with his very presence and, through him, filled with the presence of God...but now he’s gone; and on this sad morning during a sad Passover celebration, Mary has come to weep for whatever is left of the future.

          Much to her surprise and her shock, however, Mary finds the tomb wide open and empty, with the huge stone blocking the entrance rolled away and Jesus’ body nowhere to be seen.

She runs to tell Simon Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who is assumed to be John, that Jesus’ body has been removed from its resting place, and the two of them run to the tomb to see for themselves.  Finding it just as Mary has said, no stone, no body, and as John tells us in this account, with them not yet understanding the scripture, the two men basically scratch their heads in puzzlement and go back to their homes.    

Mary has followed the men back to the tomb where her heart lies and she remains, convinced that Jesus’ body is still around there somewhere, if she can just find someone who will tell her where it’s been moved to.  She asks two angels who she doesn’t realize are angels; she asks a gardener who she doesn’t realize isn’t a gardener; and then she hears her name spoken by a familiar voice – “Mary!” -- and suddenly it’s deja vu all over again, and the future ain’t what it used to be once more!

          As Ps. 30 says a little less colloquially, “Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

          Joy does indeed come in the morning, joy and excitement, especially on this Easter morning when we come together to celebrate our new future, and our new life; when we come together to celebrate joy with each other.  One of the prayers in both the Good Friday and the Easter Vigil liturgies asks God to “...let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new...” and certainly Easter answers this prayer:  things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and the future ain’t what it used to be.

          Now, the road to the cross, and our participation in the violent reality of the cross, had put our future in jeopardy, as we turned from being a group of disciples into an angry, bloodthirsty mob.  Well, the blood we wanted was the blood we got – and as the violence against Jesus cast us all down, so does the blood of Christ raise us all up; so does the blood of the risen Christ transform the mob into a community of faith – and a community of faith is probably the best place in the world to pair up in three’s.

          One of St. Matthias’ regular supply priests, the Rev. Rob Bethancourt, is a good friend and a former Dean of Deanery 9.  As Dean, Fr. Rob was the preacher at my service of institution as Rector of Trinity, Orange back in 2008 – but his being the preacher hadn’t been the original plan.  I was under the impression that Bp. Sergio Carranza, the instituting bishop, was going to preach.  With 20 minutes to go until the beginning of the service, standing in conversation with Bp. Sergio and Rob+, I learned that the bishop was under the impression that anybody BUT him was going to preach; and he wasn’t comfortable suddenly winging it on the fly in English.  After a very long Holy Spirit moment of silence during which I think I stopped breathing, Rob+, bless his heart, said, “I’ll preach.”

And it really was a Holy Spirit moment, because there couldn’t possibly have been a better and more appropriate sermon celebrating new leadership and my presence at Trinity!  In his sermon, Rob+ gave me advice that he borrowed from our common love of scuba diving, and one of his pointers, in addition to “don’t hold your breath” and “have fun,” the first of his pointers, in fact, had to do with community:  always have a buddy, he said.

          Well, always having a buddy, sharing in the support and presence of a faith community, is good advice for all of us; and in fact, it’s more than just good advice:  being in community, supporting each other, bearing one another’s burdens and sharing one another’s joys, is part of the essence of Christianity.  Our faith is a communal faith:  our sacrament of initiation, baptism, is our entrance and welcome into the community.  Our central act of worship, the Holy Eucharist, transforms us into the Body of Christ as together we “re-member” the Lord.  Our central commandment within the faith community, the new commandment given to us by Jesus himself, is a communal commandment:  Love one another as I have loved you.  We can’t be Christians by ourselves, not by definition, and certainly not in fact.  Our faith is, and always has been, counter-cultural.  We need the mutual strength of the Body gathered to enable us to witness, and to stand firm against the ways and the powers of the world.

          And so we pair up in three’s:  you, me, and the Risen Lord, present with us in the strength of the community; present among us in the power of the Spirit; and present within us through the water of baptism and the breaking of bread.  As (for real) theologian Marcus Borg has written, “The truth of Easter is grounded in the continuing experience of Jesus....Easter is God’s ‘yes’ to Jesus,” says Borg, “the affirmation that he is the decisive disclosure of what God is like, and of the life which is full of God.”  (LP, “Easter”, p. 17)

          That life full of God is sustained here, in community; and our continuing experience of Jesus is nurtured here, in community.

          To go back to that Vigil prayer in its entirety:  “O God of unchangeable power and eternal light:  Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”  (BCP 280)

          All things have been made new; the Lord is risen indeed, and the future, our future, ain’t what it used to be – alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! 

Amen.

              “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Oh!  Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.  Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” 

              “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?  Were you there when they pierced him in the side?  Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?  Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble…Were you there?” 

              In his 1942 best-selling novel The Robe, and then later in its 1953 film adaptation, author Lloyd Douglas touches on this same theme, focusing on the robe of Jesus, that seamless, one-piece garment, and on the Roman tribune Marcellus who, loosely based on Scripture, wins the robe in a game of dice played in the shadow of the cross while he oversees Jesus’ crucifixion.  Focusing on that robe and on the effect that owning it has on Marcellus in the wake of his actions, Douglas’ story traces Marcellus’ emotional and spiritual deterioration as he is increasingly haunted by the memory of what he’s done. 

              “Were you there?”  “Were you out there?” becomes the question that Marcellus asks again and again in his misery, the question he asks everyone he meets about the experience he cannot escape or forget.  “Were you out there?”

              With a nod to Marcellus, and speaking theologically, the Greek word anamnesis is a term that refers to the spiritual action of bringing a past event into the present, our present, so that we here become participants in the event just as much as the original participants were.

              For example – and a very timely example it is, as Passover 2025, on the Jewish calendar Passover 5785, began yesterday evening at sundown – and for Jesus in his time and for all Jews through the centuries, the Seder dinner, the ceremonial dinner eaten on the first night of Passover, last night, the Seder dinner is all about anamnesis.  As the lamb shank is eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the youngest person present asks, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”, as all the pieces of the ritual and of the story fall into place, the very first Passover with its flight from Egypt is re-membered, put back together, brought forward from Biblical times into the present; and as God’s deliverance comes forward in time, God brings all the children of Israel in every generation out of bondage in Egypt once again.

              In our own Christian worship, anamnesis is at work in our Eucharistic prayers as we tell the story of Jesus’ final Seder, which we call the Last Supper.  “On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread,” we say, bringing the meal in that upper room forward into our time so that we too are disciples sitting around that table, we too are eating that bread and drinking that wine in the presence of the Lord.

              So, although we were not “out there” at the cross in the literal sense that Marcellus means, through the anamnesis of this Sunday of the Passion, through the anamnesis of the services of Holy Week, we are in fact “out there.”  Today especially, we are out there to wave palms and to shout “Hosanna;” and we are out there as well to shout, “Crucify!”

              As I’m sure many of us remember, amidst much advance publicity, back in 2004 actor and producer Mel Gibson released his take on Jesus’ crucifixion in his very graphic movie “The Passion of the Christ.”  Personally, I had mixed feelings about “The Passion” at the time, and through the years my opinion hasn’t really changed.  I think the film tells us a lot more about Mel Gibson himself and about the very rigid form of pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism he embraces than it does about the actual Passion of Jesus, and about God’s love and self-emptying on the cross…but that might just be me.

              This being said, however, “The Passion of the Christ” does serve as a very powerful reminder that we who do shout “Crucify!” – and we all do shout “Crucify!” even if we think we wouldn’t have at the time – Gibson’s film is a reminder that we do all have blood on our hands.

              A Wake Forest University professor named Eric Wilson reflects on his own response to a gory Passion play he attended some years back at a megachurch in South Carolina.  In a book called Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away, Wilson writes that he had gone to see the play because he was curious about why, like the Gibson film before it, why modern-day, live Passion dramas have a reputation for being excessively violent.

              “Is exaggerated violence in Passion plays merely a product of our baser natures?” he wonders, “Or does the savagery actually have a proper place in the crucifixion’s meaning?”  (Christian Century, 2/22/12, p. 10)

          What Wilson discovered about himself at that play surprised him.  Disgusted by the brutality of Jesus’ arrest and torture, and pleased with himself for being so, Wilson suddenly hit the wall.  “Just as I was settling into smugness,” he writes, “the crucifixion occurred.  The visceral torture, only ten feet from where I was sitting, tore me from my aloofness.  Exploitation or not, the episode moved me.  I had never seen pain performed so intensely, and the agony gripped me, jerked me toward empathy:  I imagined as palpably as I could what it would feel like to be starved and dehydrated, bruised all over and cut to shreds; to have thorns lacerating my head and nails hammered into my hands and feet; to have my limbs strained to the point of rending.”

              The Passion play Wilson attended finished with the appearance of a resurrected Christ all in white, with cheering, and with a fireworks display; and Wilson admits, “The violence had moved me.  On the most basic level, I was, I had to admit, titillated by the torture.  It gave me a physiological rush – increased pulse, tingly skin.  But the violence also whipped my emotions to high turbulence.  Fear was there, and pity, too, and an array of other feelings – remorse, anxiety, nostalgia, affection.  The intensity was enlivening; the aftermath, serene….”

              He continues, “All depictions of violence are dangerous, I realized, especially in performances of the crucifixion:  they threaten to stir up sick thrills alone and drown out any higher moral message.  But precisely in the risk,” he writes, “I also understood is the power:  brutal representations of the Passion can inspire intense acts of empathy.”

              In his book, Wilson finishes by asking whether or not the risk is worth it and then he says, “When the savagery works to reveal difficult truths or moral challenges, when the luridness isn’t an end to itself, the answer, for me, is yes.  The artist creating the violence must hope that the better natures of the audience will prevail, that empathy will transcend exploitation.”  (Ibid., p. 11)

              Unlike the Passion play that Eric Wilson attended at that megachurch in South Carolina, the Passion narrative we just heard this morning ends with death, not with resurrection; and certainly not with fireworks.  It ends with that pronouncement that turns everything upside down, the pronouncement that starts to devour Marcellus and, for a while, his sanity.  In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, today’s story ends with the centurion’s recognition that “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

              Here in Luke, things are slightly different.  The centurion does witness to the dead Jesus’ innocence, but Luke leaves it to others to recognize Jesus’ divinity on Easter Day.  At this point in Luke, Jesus is dead and Marcellus has won himself a robe.

              Even so, this is still Passion Sunday, and we still have blood on our hands.  If ever we have cause to tremble; if ever we are called to empathy, it’s here and it’s now.

              We are out there today, as we will be again on Good Friday.  We are all out there, and we stand at the foot of a cross slick with blood; blood that we in our blood-lust, blood that we in our “physiological rush” and our mob mentality have clamored for; and as the curtain of the temple is torn in two, as heaven and earth collide and groan, only now do we hear the centurion say that truly, truly – or as Scottish commentator William Barclay would say, “look you” – only now do we hear that look you, this man was innocent; this man was the Messiah; this man is God’s Son.

              And, so, what?

              This is today’s question, the question each of us needs to think on, to pray on, and to meditate on throughout this Holy Week:  so what?  What difference does all of this make?  What difference does any of this make?

              At the end of the day, what difference does Jesus make?  What difference does his life and ministry make in my life?  What difference does his crucifixion make?  Who am I with his crucifixion, and who am I without it? 

And it’s not just all about me:  What difference does the crucifixion of Jesus make in your life, and in the life of your family?

              Were we out there when they crucified our Lord?  And if we were…so what?

Amen.

              “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation,” Paul writes.  “Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  The coming of Christ has made all the difference, he says.  All things, “including time, history, and all that goes to make up life and the world as we know it, are created over again….A new age has dawned….For those who are “in Christ,” says one commentator, “a new [world] order has begun.”  (Craddock, 157) 

Through Christ, we have been made new, we have been reconciled to God and our very relationship with God has been made new as well.  Not restored, not put back the way it was before, but in Christ, made entirely new, starting from a whole new footing.

              And because of this new relationship with God, which is ours as followers of Jesus and as participants in his resurrection, we ourselves are called to go forth and bring the same reconciliation and healing into the world – reconciliation with God and with each other, reconciliation even at the level of our most intimate relationships; and as today’s readings from Scripture attest, the key to bringing reconciliation is to first engage in forgiveness:  to engage in the process of forgiving, and also in the process of being forgiven.

              Here on this fourth Sunday in Lent, it’s no accident that all of our readings – not just 1 Corinthians, but Joshua, the psalm, and Luke as well, deal with issues of forgiveness; and three years ago, at Trinity in Orange, we used as our Lenten study book the late Archbishop Desmond and his daughter the Rev. Mpho Tutu’s joint book, The Book of Forgiving.  I don’t think you’ve ever used this book here at St. Matthias, but I’ll put in my vote for its power and its ongoing relevance, especially in these days.

              Not surprisingly, Archbp. Tutu and his daughter are by no means the first clergy to write a contemporary book about the dynamics of forgiveness, as well as about the importance of forgiveness for our own spiritual, emotional, and physical health.  Back in 1992, in my former Diocese of Southeast Florida, a priest named Bob Libby wrote, “…when we are unable to let go of the past and so to forgive, our identity is defined by who we hate and who has hurt us.”  (The Forgiveness Book, 36)

              Fr. Libby went on to say, “As much as I often want to tell someone that what they need to do is forgive, I know that isn’t the way to go about it…The best we can do is to be witnesses to the experiences we ourselves have had of forgiveness.”  (125)  And, as Fr. Libby himself was many years in recovery, he knew what he was talking about in terms of experiencing forgiveness in his own life.

              Witnessing to their own experiences of forgiveness as well as the experiences of others, especially in light of the work of the Reconciliation Committee in South Africa, is exactly the approach the Tutus take in their book.  They also break down the steps involved in what can be the very difficult and very emotional processes of forgiving and of being forgiven; and they emphasize above all that whichever side of the dynamic we find ourselves on, whether we’re the one forgiving or we’re the one asking for forgiveness, going forward into reconciliation is a choice we make and a journey we undertake for ourselves.  We make this choice for our own freedom, and for our own future.

              Yes, the Archbishop and his daughter do agree along with Paul that by walking the path of forgiveness in solidarity and in companionship with others, we ourselves do become ministers of God’s reconciliation in the world.  First and foremost, however, we walk the path of forgiveness for our own sake.

              And what does walking this path entail?  I’m going to talk about the details in a moment, but before I go on, I first want to state very clearly that no 15 minute sermon, and certainly not this one, can do justice to the emotional and psychological seriousness of forgiving and of being forgiven.  Forgiveness is a complex, time consuming, and intimate undertaking; and depending on the offense or offenses in question, a lot of bad memories and a lot of pain can be stirred up in us.  I want to emphasize that none of us should take either these memories or these experiences lightly, because forgiveness may be the work of a lifetime. 

Additionally, if these words today lead any of us to want to know more about walking the fourfold path in our own lives and we have any hesitation, I encourage us to speak to a trusted friend, clergyperson, or other qualified helper about any concerns going in.

              All this being said, one of the gifts of The Book of Forgiving is a visual diagram of what the Tutus call the Revenge Cycle and the Forgiveness Cycle.  Any time we’re injured or insulted or diminished in any way, they say, we stand at a fork in the road with a decision that is in our power to make:  we can choose to retaliate and seek revenge on the one who has hurt us; or we can choose to move forward towards healing and forgiveness – realizing that moving forward towards forgiveness does NOT mean forgetting, denying justice, or letting the offender off the hook.

              If we choose the path of the Revenge Cycle, the Tutus say, we are choosing to remain in a closed loop that will perpetuate the cycle of pain, continuing to deny the humanity we share with the one who has hurt us.  If we choose revenge, we are choosing to remain a prisoner of the past as we cycle around, again and again, “rejecting our pain and denying our grief.” (Tutu, 50).  And, as Fr. Libby pointed out, if this is the choice we make, the Revenge Cycle will become the source of our basic identity.

              However, the Archbishop says, it doesn’t have to be this way.  “Instead of rejecting our pain and grief,” he writes, “in the Forgiveness Cycle we accept our pain and grief.  If it is a small slight to our dignity or a small harm we have experienced from a spouse, this might be the end of it, and we might be able to forgive that person quite quickly and easily.  However, if we have been hurt deeply or have lost someone or something that is precious to us, this part of the Forgiveness Cycle may be intense and long.”  (51)

              He goes on to say, “When we face into and accept our pain, we start to recognize that we don’t have to stay stuck in our story.”  (52, emphasis mine)

              We don’t have to stay stuck in our story.

              If we choose to move into the Forgiveness Cycle, there are four steps in the overall path – and this is where here in the pulpit on Sunday morning, I can only offer these steps as food for further thought. They are totally not the whole enchilada. 

The first step is “Telling our Story,” telling what’s happened to us as many times as we need to, to whoever we feel safe telling it to, as through the telling, we work to make sense of the situation for ourselves. 

The second step is “Naming the Hurt,” being able to identify our feelings in response to what’s happened to us; naming the feelings in our story, and accepting them. 

The third step – and there can be a long, long time between steps two and three.  This is where things can’t be minimized – the third step is recognizing the common humanity we share with the one who has hurt us, and “Granting Forgiveness” – and again, very important, to grant someone forgiveness is not to condone or forget what they’ve done, not to deny ourselves justice for the injury we’ve experienced.  “Forgive and forget,” either as a behavioral directive or as a quote, in NOT in the Bible.  NOT.

              Going back to “Granting Forgiveness,” as Mpho Tutu writes, referring to an ongoing struggle with granting forgiveness in her own life, “It isn’t as if the feelings go away once they are named.  This is so important to realize.  The Fourfold Path isn’t a path where you step off one piece and step completely into another.”  (134).  As with the stages of grief, which are also involved here, the steps go back and forth, two steps forward and three steps back, and so on.

              Finally though, when we’re ready, the fourth step is “Renewing or Releasing the Relationship” – and to clarify, as in 1 Corinthians, “renewing” a relationship is not to restore it, not to make it like it used to be.  To renew a relationship, whether with God or with another human being, is to make it a new creation, starting from a new place…and sometimes a relationship does need to be released instead.

              Now:  the steps involved in asking for forgiveness (as opposed to granting forgiveness) are similar to those just discussed.  The differences are that “Confession,” or admitting what we’ve done, replaces “Telling our Story”; and “Taking Responsibility” for the harm we’ve caused and making restitution, however and whenever possible, replaces “Naming the Hurt.”  

              Interestingly enough, the steps of asking for forgiveness can be seen in this morning’s psalm, Psalm 32. 

Taking a look at the text in our worship booklet, in verses 1 and 2 the psalmist celebrates the completion of the cycle and celebrates the joy of having been forgiven:  “Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away!”  In verses 3 and 4, he reflects on the destructive nature of not telling his story, of keeping his wrongdoing a secret and not confessing. In verses 5 and 6 the psalmist chooses not to conceal his guilt any longer and he names the harm, acknowledging his responsibility for the spiritual damage he has caused.  In verses 7 and 8 he celebrates his renewed relationship with God, claiming God’s assurance of protection and deliverance; and in verses 9 through 12, the psalmist goes on to instruct others, becoming a minister of reconciliation as he witnesses to his own experience of forgiveness.  This is the fourfold path at work, long before it got its contemporary name.

              We get a somewhat different spin on forgiveness in the parable Jesus tells in Luke, because at the end of the day we’re left with a true-to-life cliffhanger.  Traditionally known as the parable of the Prodigal Son, some scholars say that a better designation is actually the parable of the Loving Father, because it’s on the father that Jesus himself places the emphasis:  “There was a man who had two sons.” 

Through the course of the story, both of the man’s sons will need their father’s forgiveness, which he gladly gives; and the implication here is that as the earthly father forgives, so much more will the heavenly father forgive. 

As I said, both of the sons will need forgiveness, but will they both be willing to receive it?

              In the parable, the younger son starts out as a wealthy young Jew who over the course of time and through his own self-indulgence, ends up destitute and starving in a non-Jewish, or Gentile, country, reduced to feeding unclean pigs and coveting their unclean slops.  Coming to his senses and seeing how low he has sunk, he chooses confession as the first step in regaining his personal dignity.  He travels home to his father and according to plan, asks for forgiveness, making it clear that he’s not asking to have their relationship restored to its former state:  “I am not worthy to be called your son.”

              This is actually the last thing the younger son gets to say in the parable, because in his own compassion and joy, the father has run out to meet his son in the road and welcome him home.  He grabs his son in an embrace, cuts off his confession mid-sentence, and gives orders for a huge celebration.  The young man is clothed in finery as the feast’s honored guest, and the festivities get underway. 

(This is how we know they’re actually Episcopalian!  ;-D )

              At this point, enter the older brother who, when learning about his brother’s return and hearing the music and dancing, becomes angry and refuses to go inside.

              Pointing out that this parable was triggered in Luke by grumbling and discontent because Jesus himself was eating with collaborators and social pariahs, a Presbyterian pastor writes, “…anger doesn’t manifest itself in a singular way, because [anger] is tied to other emotions like grief, loneliness, sadness, insecurity, and more.  [Anger] isn’t just tantrums or outbursts or rage….[B]ehavior communicates.  How a person behaves…can give us a glimpse of their inner world, if we pay attention.”  (Christian Century, 3/9/22, p. 19). 

Are those who grumble about Jesus morally offended, or is there more going on inside them?  And what about those who might grumble against us?  What’s really going on?

              Back with the parable, is the older brother angry because he’s jealous, or because he’s tired of trying to keep things going; tired of trying to make up to their father for the loss of his brother?  Does he stay outside because he’s still processing the fact that his brother’s not dead after all, or does he have no desire to forgive his brother for leaving in the first place?  Does he have no interest at all in renewing their relationship?

              Both the parable and this chapter in Luke end with the father’s words of forgiveness to his older son and his assurance that the older son won’t be displaced; but even with these words, both the parable and the chapter end with the older brother still standing outside.

              Which path will he walk?  Will he choose to hold on to his anger and stay locked in his resentment?  Will he cycle round and round, caught in bitter thoughts, forgiving neither his brother nor his father?

              He made a start to telling the father his story, a telling that expressed his pain and his sense of injustice.  (“You never even gave me a young goat to celebrate with my friends!”)  Will he continue?  Will he try again?  We don’t know.

              All we can do here is to reflect on how we respond to God’s forgiveness of the righteous and the sinners alike.  All we can do is to choose which path we will take in our own lives.

              “God is forgiveness,” we sing in a popular Taize chant.  “Dare to forgive and God will be with you.  God is forgiveness.  Love, and do not fear.”

              We have been entrusted with God’s ministry of reconciliation in the world, and in our own hearts.  We are called to be witnesses to the world of the forgiveness we have experienced, and continue to experience, in our own lives, that all may find new life – and may we all have the courage to do so.  May we all dare to forgive.  May we all dare to be made new.   Ame

              We are all dust; we are all finite; we are all mortal.  Our time on this earth is limited – it has had a beginning and it will have an end.  We know this, we all know this…but knowing it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to live with.  The moment we’re born, the meter starts running; and our very first breath brings us that much closer to our last.

              Even so, it’s still a shock when we hear our mortality articulated.  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” is bad enough.  “You have a week; you have a month; you have a year to live”; this is something else altogether – and it’s something some among us already know.

              Some here have had these or similar words said to us, others have heard them said to people we love.  These words turn our world and our stomachs upside down, and they suddenly cast us into a surrealistic landscape where nothing is familiar, and nothing is safe.  Life itself mocks us here; our friends and loved ones become strangers; and for a time at least, even God seems to turn God’s face away.

              “You have a year to live; you have only a year to live…but you do have a year to live.”

              We do, all of us, we pray, have (at least) a year to live…even though the limited nature of that year becomes apparent in today’s Gospel reading.  The first warning that time is short was sounded to us back in Advent when we heard John the Baptist crying out, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

              “Get your act together,” John said then, “for [e]ven 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.”  The root that ax is lying against is ours, and according to John, we have a limited amount of time left before it strikes.

              Immediately after the Feast of the Epiphany, Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth and he proclaimed that the centuries of waiting on God’s promises are over, that the year of the Lord’s favor, a year of liberation and pardon and healing, that this year is here, and that the kingdom of God has even now come among us.

              And yet, at the same time, today on this third Sunday in Lent we have the still-barren fig tree and the householder’s exasperated order, “Cut this thing down!  Why should it be taking up space that a fruitful tree can use?”

              We also have the gardener’s plea, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”  If there’s still no fruit next year; if there’s still no fruit after one more year, he says, you can cut it down. 

              Today, Jesus says, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

              This, here and now, for you and for me, this is the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of the Lord’s digging and fertilizing; this, here, now, for all of us is God’s gracious gift of one more year.  We have a year to live; what will we do with it?  What does God want us to do with this year?

              As clergy in this pulpit have probably mentioned before, back in the first century, in those earliest years of the Church, Jesus’ followers expected his return, expected what we call the Second Coming, at any moment; and when it didn’t happen, when Jesus didn’t come again in that time, there were a lot of questions and doubts, and there was a lot of distress among the believers.

              Peter himself had to deal with this crisis of disillusionment in his own community, and what he said about Jesus’ delay in returning then, is still worth hanging on to today.  To the naysayers and to the faint of heart, Peter said, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”  (2 Peter 3:9)

              The Lord doesn’t want anyone to perish, the Lord wants everyone to come to repentance.  According to Peter, the Risen Jesus is intentionally delaying his return for our sake, to give all of us time to catch up; and so the real question is, what does each of us need to do in this year?  What aeration and fertilization do we need to become aware of so that we can all come to the repentance that Jesus wants for us?

              “To repent” means to turn around, and to come back to God.  It’s an action, not a feeling.  In one sense, it means to lay before God all the things we’ve done and left undone while we were turned away; all of the things we’ve said or should have said; all of the things that deny the image of God in which we’re made.  When we repent, we turn around.  We come back and we lay these things before God so that we can be free of them, so that we can be released from the power of regret and of shame that they have over us.

              One author writes, “Without being forgiven, [without being] released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever.”

              And yet this is the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of restoration through repentance and forgiveness, the year of a whole new beginning for the future and a whole new meaning for the past…if we take the gift of this one more year seriously, embracing the grace of God that is part of the dynamic of our coming back.  “Repentance,” one pastor writes, “acknowledges that God can redeem, God can set right, God can make whole…. Repentance is not a trade we make with God.  It is a leap of faith that our deepest hopes will not leave our lips unheeded.”  (Christian Century, 2/27/19, Reflections, p. 19, Eric D. Barreto).  Repentance is a leap of faith that our deepest hopes will not leave our lips unheeded.

              Jesus knows our deepest hopes.  Jesus has come as the fulfillment of our deepest hopes, that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly, in this year and for all time; and now is the time to accept his offer and his invitation.  Jesus has invited us to abide in him just as he wants to abide in, rest in, be intimate with, us…so why are we still making him reschedule his return?

              Author, poet, and Roman Catholic nun Macrina Wiederkehr has suggested, “Perhaps we don’t spend enough time dwelling in God to fall in love with God.”  Perhaps we don’t spend enough time dwelling in God, don’t spend enough time being with God, to fall in love with God.

              From out of a bush that burned but wasn’t consumed, a little bit of God-planned bait in the wilderness that enticed Moses to turn aside and come closer, from out of this living heat and light, God spoke:  “I have observed the misery of my people; I have heard their cry; I know their sufferings; and I have come down to deliver them.”  I am intimately involved with my people, says God; I know their deepest hopes; and I have entered history to bring them to wholeness and new life.

              In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and lived among us…God fell in love with us, came to dwell with us a long, long time ago…and I wonder how much time we need to spend with God before we fall in love with God in return.

              Our time is limited; how much will be left when we finally take that leap of faith and start to trust God with who we are?  How long will it take us to understand that in this year of grace our focus needs to be on God, and on the quality of our relationship with God?

              “[C]ome, I will send you,” I AM said to Moses; “Come, follow me,” Jesus says to each one of us.  Follow me; spend time with me; come, get to know me better.

              Thinking of his childhood in Greece, author Nikos Kazantzakis wrote, “I remember frequently sitting on the doorstep of our home when the sun was blazing, the air on fire, grapes being trodden in a large house in the neighborhood, the world fragrant with must.  Shutting my eyes contentedly, I used to hold out my palms and wait.  God always came – as long as I remained a child, He never deceived me – He always came, a child just like myself, and deposited his toys in my hands:  sun, moon, wind.  ‘They’re gifts,’ He said, ‘they’re gifts.  Play with them.  I have lots more.’  I would open my eyes.  God would vanish, but His toys would remain in my hands.”

              The toys of God, the gifts of God, the blessings of God, the presence of God, are all around us.  They’re here with me in the pulpit and with you in the congregation.  They’re shining, glooming, blowing through the windows, and coming in from Sunday School.  They’re messages on the phone, emails in the inbox, obligations at the office, and opportunities for mission and for ministry every day.  The gifts of God are for the people of God…every single day of our lives.

              We have a year to live, a year to fall in love with God; a year to turn back and prepare for life in the midst of death.

              Back in 1985, at the age of 35, a woman named Amy Harwell was diagnosed with cervical cancer and given a 0% chance of surviving five years.  After extensive surgery, radiation, and chemo, her primary tumor disappeared, but then reappeared in one of her lungs in 1987.

              More treatments and surgery, serious involvement in a leg, and then in 1995, ten years after her original diagnosis, Amy wrote, “With cancer in my recent past and likely to reappear in the near future, I had planned accordingly.  I had been so ready to die.  It was as if I had picked a destination, packed my bags, hurried down the terminal corridor, looked up at the departure monitor, and saw flashing ‘Trip Delayed.’  Now what do I do?  Stay put and wait?  Go home and come back again?  Rebook another route?... But I couldn’t stay in the terminal forever.  Nor could I idle away.  I needed to renew my commitment to life.”  (online, and in her book Ready to Live, Prepared to Die)

              In the midst of death, Amy needed to renew her commitment to life.  We have a year to live…and we also need to renew our commitment to life, to life in God’s kingdom.  We need to dwell with God, to spend time with God, to abide in God, so that we can fall in love with God as God has fallen in love with us.

              Repent, come back; for the kingdom of God is at hand and even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.  If in this year of life we turn again and bear fruit in mission and ministry, in baptism and grace; if we turn again and fall in love with God, confident that our deepest hopes are not leaving our lips unheeded; if we take that leap of faith that is repentance, then this last year will be the first year of the best years of our lives.    Amen.

Most of you have heard me preach at least a few times, so you know that my usual schtick is to really try to open up the Gospel reading, usually by doing a bunch of close-reading, paying attention to the other lessons for the day, and almost always by backing up to look at some historical or scriptural context.

I want to do something a little bit different today, because today is the second Sunday in Lent. Besides Christmas & Easter, Lent is probably the most well-known part of the Church year. Many people who have never set foot in a church probably have some vague, gloomy idea about what Lent is and probably at least know that lots of religious people fast for a while around this time each year.

When we get to these big seasons and moments in the Church’s calendar, I think it’s really important to spend at least a little bit of time reflecting on what exactly we’re doing and why we’re doing it, because it’s easy to forget, to lose sight of what this season is supposed to be for, and just to go through the motions year after year and miss all of the goodness on offer for us when we participate in the Church year.

So that’s today’s question: what is Lent all about? I think our reading from Genesis this morning actually really helps to answer that question. In the reading, Abram has just returned from a great battle in which he and his men defeated the armies of several kings in order to rescue his nephew, Lot. He has refused to keep the spoils of war, so that it would be clear to all of the surrounding peoples Abram’s success comes from ‘the Lord, God Most High’ alone, that no other king has made Abram’s household prosper.

After this, God appears to Abram and promises him an heir of his own flesh and blood and a great multitude of descendants, despite the fact that Abram is old, his wife is barren, and he has no hope of having a child of his own. This is not the first time God has made a promise like this to Abram, there’s something new here. This time, in the face of a promise that seems impossible to fulfill, Abram believes God, trusting that God will make a way where there seems to be no way — “and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

What follows is a strange and mysterious passage, but the gist of what many scholars think is happening here is that God appears and enacts an ancient near eastern ritual to make a covenant with Abram. The odd thing is that this covenant is one-sided; God fulfills both parts of the ritual, seeming to indicate that Abram will not need to do anything for God to fulfill the oath. God binds Godself to Abram, to fulfill this promise — all because Abram made the choice to trust God, even though he did not understand how God could make good on his promise. And, of course, we know how the story goes: after some ups and downs, God makes good on the covenant. Abram’s barren wife Sarai gives birth to a son, and a whole nation springs up from this promise that lives on to this day, and also here we are, millenia later, the spiritual children of the fulllment of this promise to Abram.

So, what does any of this have to do with Lent? This is a season where the Church traditionally fasts, where we give up some of the things that usually sustain us. This is also a season of penitence, where we start off our liturgy confessing our sins and asking for God’s restoration and mercy. But what is all the fasting and penitence for? Are we just putting ash on our heads and beating ourselves up to try to gain brownie points with God for being extra humble and contrite? No! Lent is a season of preparation.

Historically, the season of Lent developed as an extension of the practice of baptizing new Christians at Easter. In the days leading up to their baptisms, the candidates for baptism and their sponsors would enter into a special period of preparation where they would dedicate themselves to study and service and prayer, often accompanied by some kind of fasting. Eventually, this practice grew to include a period of preparation for the reconciliation of those who had been excommunicated, and later expanded to the whole Christian community.

At its root, however, Lent is not about penitence and fasting for their own sake or even primarily about repentance and forgiveness. Lent is about preparation for a great celebration; it is a season dedicated to preparing for a feast, for resurrection and new life — for a promise fulfilled. This is why Lent came to be a period of 40 days associated with Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and the Israelites’ 40 years in the Sinai desert. For Jesus also, these 40 days of fasting and prayer were not an end in themselves, but a preparation for the Spirit to overflow with healing and life in his ministry. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert not because God enjoyed watching them suffer in the heat and dust but to prepare them to receive the promised land. In the wilderness, Jesus and the Israelites fasted. They were stripped of many of the things that we rely on to sustain us — our favorite foods and comforts, our wealth and security. That stripping away created a space where they encountered the sustaining power of God, where they learned that they could trust God to provide, to be with them, to fulfill God’s promises. This preparation made them the sort of people who could walk into the promised land and trust that God would hand it over to them, despite the powerful nations they found living there — made Jesus the sort of person who could just flip the bird at Herod in today’s Gospel, because he knew that God had given him a job to do and would provide for him, no matter what Herod might try to do to kill him.

In Lent, we are invited to become like them. We are invited to join with the earliest Christians and with Abram in learning to trust God. We fast and pray and set aside this Lenten space to sharpen our ability to believe that God will make good on God’s promises, to believe that the God who made a nation spring from barren old Sarah and Abraham is the same God who raised Jesus from death to life and who has promised to make new life spring from death in each every one of our lives. This is not an easy thing. Imagine how long Abraham and Sarah had grieved their inability to have children, how deep that hurt must have run within each of them and within their relationship. It is hard to trust God, especially when we are in the dark and in the wilderness. I know that it is much easier for me to muddle through, work hard, and distract myself in periods of pain and difficulty rather than to give up some of those distractions in order to create the space necessary to bring my grief to God. I know that it feels much safer to trust my own efforts and abilities (which I have some control over) than to make myself vulnerable by opening myself up to trust that God really might bring healing and new life to those places of deep pain, that Christ really might be offering me new life, and that I really might have to do nothing but wait and receive the gift.

This opening up, this trust, is the work of Lent; that is what all this fasting and preparation is for. Christ is risen, Christ will come again — and in Lent we prepare to celebrate our share in Christ’s risen life and the promise of restoration to come. I’ll close with the last verse of today’s Psalm: O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; * wait patiently for the Lord. Lord, we believe; help our unbelief. Amen.

Listen to Him!  That’s our theme for this morning.

I read a startling statistic recently that said that the average listening attention span of an adult in the United States – that is, the amount of time one gives one’s full attention to listening – is 18 seconds. 

I don’t know if that is true or not, but we all know that listening is becoming a lost art.  And if we are becoming less and less able to listen to one another – how on earth are we able to listen to God?      Particularly at this time when we really need God!

Today is the Last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, the season of discovery, revelation,

the revealing of who Jesus, as God, is. 

Luke’s Gospel has led us through those reveals

in the presence of many witnesses. 

And today’s Gospel gives us the biggest reveal of all:  The Transfiguration. 

It is such an important reveal that it appears twice in the lectionary for us to take in – once on August 6th, Transfiguration Sunday, and today, the last Sunday before our journey into Lent and the Passion of Christ.

It is an extraordinary scene,

fit for space odysseys and aliens.  

It appears in all three Synoptic Gospels,

each attempting to put into words what happened there --  

the cosmic bending of time and space,

the glimpse into a world beyond this one,

the voice of God, directly, to a trio of cowering disciples.

Ignatius of Loyola, in the 16th century

understood that our intellect

can only take us so far in our understanding

of the power and mystery of God.

He understood that although knowledge and study

are important, we can get stuck there. 

Knowing stuff is not the same as sensing,

understanding, and believing from within.

Knowing stuff doesn’t help us Listen.

Ignatian practice, still going strong today,

Asks us to enter into the stories of scripture

And the stories of our everyday lives

With God’s greatest gift to us – our imagination.

So, let’s do that, let’s enter in, imagine,

and experience the Transfiguration for ourselves.

In Luke’s telling of the story,   

Jesus is leading the way up the mountain to pray.

What a hike that must have been

with Peter, James and John following behind

the long, sure strides of Jesus, all the way to the top. 

I imagine everyone, except Jesus, is out of breath –  

bent over, hands on knees breathing heavily.

It is a mountain after all and not a hill.   

Once at the top,  Jesus begins to pray. 

We’re told the disciples were

“weighed down with sleep, but managed to stay awake” --

and so they must have been able to see

not only Jesus’ body but his face.

I imagine Jesus standing to pray,

arms slightly out by his sides,

face tilted upward to the heavens.

And then it happened.  The air changed,

the light changed, the sounds changed,

the clouds moved, and Jesus’ face became almost translucent

and his clothes dazzling white,

nearly blinding the disciples,

whose hearts were pounding out of their chests

and their mouths agape.

This man they loved was turning into something else.

Suddenly there were two other men there,

standing with Jesus,

and somehow the disciples knew instantly

that it was Moses and Elijah – also dazzling.

Moses whose face shined so brightly when he brought down the law

from God to the Hebrew people, that he had to wear a veil. 

And Elijah, the most revered of all the prophets,

who ascended alive into heaven.

There they were -- the Law and the Prophets speaking with Jesus about “his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

I can’t imagine that those words, affirming the upcoming passion,

registered with them at all,

as they watched, frozen in place.

The second part of this story is even scarier than the first. 

Peter, having regained some of his wits,

wants to build dwellings for the three holy men before him.

And then something else happened.

The air changed again and the cloud cover

began to move and shape itself and descend,

overshadowing the frightened disciples.

I imagine it almost like a spaceship of cloud

that lowers over them as a voice like none other

speaks 9 words: two phrases and a command.

“This is my Son, my chosen, listen to him!”   

The vibration rattles their bones.

Listen to him!  Listen to Him!

And isn’t that the whole point?

How much listening do we really do?

How much time to we take to be quiet enough

to let God in and to actually listen and remember?

The disciples forget almost as soon as they get down from the mountain.

Back down in the world they lose the thread,

succumb to doubt, argue with each other

and forget what they have experienced,

what they have seen with their own eyes.

Thousands of years later, we do the same. 

We tend to forget our personal experiences with God,

we lose the thread, minimize the experience

or begin to doubt whether it happened at all. 

God is drowned out, we grow distant,

and we believe less and less that God

will concern Himself with this wicked,

broken world.

I think The Transfiguration story asks us to tell our stories

about how God has worked in our everyday lives—

how we’ve actually Listened sometimes

– and tell what we’ve seen, heard, experienced.

If we tell our stories to one another,

even if we’ve told them before,

we remind ourselves that we are in this together,

that God is always present,

that we are not alone

that God is alive in the small and gargantuan.

Telling our stories.  Listening together in the quiet of prayer,

using our imaginations to remember –

That is how we love

That is how we trust

That is how we strengthen our belief that God is bigger

and more powerful than we are or this world is.

That is how we face the truth

That is how we generate hope.

We must tell our stories.

Ok, I’ll go first.

In 1985, in Iowa City, I sat on the floor

of the front porch of the old house I had rented, weeping…     not knowing what to do. 

My 11 year old daughters were spending the afternoon at a friend’s house. 

I had just completed my MFA in Directing,

having taken a year off from my job teaching

at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale,

where I had recently been divorced. 

I did not want to go back there for so many reasons. 

The smart thing to do, however, is to go back to my job and then get a job from a job. 

I had applied for the only three jobs in the country

that were available in my field and at my rank.        

I flew to be interviewed for all three

and came in second in all three. 

I was exhausted.

I sat there for a long time, my tears had gone,

and I stared out at nothing. 

Quietly, I heard a voice.

I thought it was more of my rambling, disconnected brain,

but it repeated the two words I had heard. 

I sat up.  It was kind of scary.

And I began to listen, really listen.

The quiet voice said “Go Home.” 

It was gentle but it was not my voice. 

I asked, what do you mean? Do you mean just go?? 

And I heard again, “Go Home.” 

As I sat there, with my heart pounding,

I could feel a shift in my whole body.

I felt oddly light.

I cried again but these tears were different.

Long story short:

I sold 2/3 of my library and most of what we owned,

and I moved back to California with twin daughters in tow,

to stay with my mother until we found a place of our own.

None of it was easy, but it was a decision that changed our lives,

pointed us toward new life.   I listened.

It was a decision I never would have made on my own.

That’s one of my stories, one of my encounters with the Divine.

Most others have been less dramatic, but they have been real nonetheless. 

OK, Now it is your turn—

to share your stories, when you listened,

when you felt the spirit moving in your everyday life.

Let this Lent be a time of growing our attention spans larger than 18 seconds. 

Let this Lent be a time of sharing and remembering when you heard and listened to God.

Let the telling give you a renewed commitment to follow Christ to the cross and on through to the Glory of Resurrection.

Let the sharing give you courage and hope with each other.

And remember…..always Listen to Him!

AMEN

Reflecting on my journey to ordination, I remember the first day of seminary – write a paper regarding:  what is your favorite gospel and why?

I knew right away – John – because I love his images of light, and sheep, and bread, and water, and wind, and the vine, and the branches.

Later in that same class I learned that John is known as the mystic of the evangelists because of the use of these symbols in his writings.

For instance, in today’s gospel, which is the one appointed for the celebration of St. Matthias whom we honor today – Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”

That is an example of John the mystic teaching a passage about the mystical life and how to experience oneness with God.

Later Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love.”  Another version of the Bible says, “Remain in my love”.

The words of a mystic.

I have always had a special interest in the mystics.  And so on my first sabbatical as a priest, I called my three-month time of study:  “Walking in the Footsteps of the Mystics.”

I studied:
         Teresa of Avila
         Catherine of Siena
         Hildegard of Bingen
         Mechtilde of Magdeburg
         Bernard of Clairvaux
         Benedict of Nursia
         Therese of Lisieux
         John of the Cross
         Meister Eckhart
         Ignatius of Loyola
         Simone Weil

I spent almost three months in Europe traveling alone on local trains and occasional buses, staying in convents and monasteries.

I went to the places the mystics were born, grew up, did ministry, and where they are buried – all of the time, reading their works.

I came to understand that mystics have a certain set of characteristics:

a.    They believe that God is within them.
b.    They peer into deeper realities that lie hidden beneath ordinary experiences.
c.    They surrender themselves to God in order to be close to God.
d.    They ask the questions “Why are we here?” and “Why am I here?”
e.    They believe that there is a plan behind everything, and they trust God even if they don’t know what the next moment will bring.
f.     They do not try to force their future; they allow it to unfold.
g.    They feel a connection to every living thing.
h.    They trust in their own intuition.
i.      They believe that religious ritual is not done to appease a powerful God but to connect to God and to trigger insights and transformation.
j.      They believe that love powers everything.
k.    They believe that love does not originate with us but flows through us.
l.      They believe that they don’t know everything but there is always more mystery to discover.

Did you resonate with these characteristics?  Did you recognize them?

Well you should!  I’ve been with you long enough that I can tell you – and I have absolutely no doubt about this – this church is a community full of mystics.

No wonder so many people who end up here say they can feel the love the minute they walk in the door.

Or they feel something different about the place, they just aren’t sure what it is, but they want more.

You are all mystics!  Look around you.  Look at the person next to you.  That’s what a mystic looks like.

It shouldn’t surprise you that the One we emulate, Jesus, was a mystic.

He taught in a mystical way, he said things like “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

He taught things in such a way that he pushed his followers to the edge of what they understood about the spiritual life.  Things like “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

As a mystic, what he wants for his disciples, his heart’s desire is that they would become mystics so that they could enjoy life in the Spirit as he did.

There was a method to his madness.  He pushed his disciples to the point that they would see the impossibility of the task he was teaching about, hoping that in exasperation they would say – “It would take the grace of God to do that” or “God help me, how do you expect me to do that or to understand that?”

Jesus knew if the person really wanted to achieve what he had set before them and knew it was humanly impossible, just maybe they would open their heart and allow God to do it through them.

That step, that surrender, that giving up, is what opens the door to God working in and through us – well, almost.

In today’s gospel Jesus talks about abiding and bearing fruit.

And what is the fruit of one who is abiding?  It’s love!  Love of God, and love of neighbor.

And where do those fruits, that love come from?  From God who is within you.

That is if a person gives up trying to do it on their own and instead asks for help.

See – to bear fruit – you have to take dancing lessons.

And here are the steps of the dance of love:

a.    Know what love looks like
b.    Want to do it
c.    Know it is impossible
d.    Ask for help from God
e.    Let the love flow through you

That’s the dance of love – that’s how to bear fruit in the Kingdom of God.

That’s pretty much the way a mystic abides in God.  That’s how a mystic does ministry.

May we continue to practice the dance steps of love, to abide in God the way God abides in us.

May we continue to be a community that abides in God and bears much fruit.

Continue to be the mystics you are – doing the loving thing.

To the front, to the side, and to the back, back and forth, again and again. 

She goes on, “The dancer stands in the center of the cross, and the limbs move to explore the space where the well-worn path of the cross leads them.

              “Luke’s opening to the Sermon on the Plain,” Ziettlow writes, “invites us into the tension of living a cross-shaped life.”  (Christian Century, 1/26/22, p. 23)

              The opening she’s referring to, of course, is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, which we also hear in a more expanded form in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.  (Lk. 6:17-26)

Here in Luke, although Jesus is teaching and healing in a level place, hence the designation as the Sermon on the Plain, just before this Jesus has in fact been on a mountain.  As is his custom in Luke, before making a major decision or choosing a significant course of action, Jesus has spent the previous night in solitary prayer on a mountainside – traditionally, a place to literally be closer to God. 

When morning comes, he calls his disciples to him on the mountainside and he chooses twelve of them to be apostles as well as disciples; to be those who will be both followers and leaders; those who will be sent forth to carry Jesus’ teaching and ministry into the world.

              They all come down the slope together and now in this level place they’re joined by even more disciples, joined by those who are also here to learn and to follow; joined as well by “a great multitude,” Luke says, from as far away as the cities of Tyre and Sidon, both located to the west on the Mediterranean coast.  They’ve come to hear Jesus’ words, yes – but many of them have also come to be healed, healed of physical disease and/or spiritual unrest…and this being said, I think we need to consider verse 19 again, because it tends to get lost in the shuffle.  When we read this verse, I think our eyes jump over it and our mind moves ahead to deal with the Beatitudes themselves.

              Verse 19 reads, “And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”  (Emphasis mine.) 

Power came out from him and healed all of them.  All of them.  The power of healing, the power of reconciliation, the power of restoration to community, the power of forgiveness and compassion and love came out from him and washed over them all – and only then did he begin to speak:  four blessings, and four woes; four invitations and four challenges.

              Now, I’m emphasizing verse 19 because I believe it shows us that this Sermon on the Plain is a setting of major healing, not a setting of major recrimination.  I think many of us, if not most of us, tend to hear the Beatitudes both here and in Matthew as recrimination; as reproach; as a major reminder of our failings, our fears, and our shortcomings. 

In spite of how we think or fear these words may sound, however, we are not in fact being blessed as sheep or condemned as goats by Jesus here.  Instead, his words recognize that our human reality is such that at one time or another, we all find ourselves in each of these places. 

As Pastor Ziettlow writes, “Living in the equal tension of Luke’s Beatitudes is to stand en croix, tracing the shape of the cross into the sacred ground beneath our feet in both confession and forgiveness.  We stand in the center between receiving God’s grace and comfort in times of poverty, physical hunger, tears, and revilement and confessing the ways that we [ourselves] contribute to the hardship of others, place false trust in our abilities and assets, and fail to bring comfort to our neighbors.”

              This is to say that the circumstances of both the blessings and the woes can distort our sense of self as well as our understanding of our relationship with God and with each other – and it helps to remember that “blessed” here as Jesus is using it doesn’t simply mean “happy.”  Instead, “blessed” means having “the knowledge that one is being included in the realm of God.”  (LP, Water, 29)

              Having the knowledge that one is being included in the realm of God.

In times of deprivation and sorrow, times of being on the receiving end of the scorn and dislike of others, we may feel unworthy, despairing, or forgotten; and we turn away from the God that we may well feel has turned away from us.  Here Jesus calls us back into relationship, assuring us that we continue to be recipients of God’s grace and love, that we continue to have a place in God’s kingdom, and that in spite of how it may feel, we are never out of God’s sight.

              Likewise, in times of plenty and success, times when we find ourselves held in high esteem by others, we are equally prone to turning away from God; but in these instances we turn away through self-centeredness and neglect.  We turn away through trusting in our own righteousness, our own abilities, our own gifts – and perhaps we turn away through listening a little too much to the voices of others.

Here, says Pastor Ziettlow, “Jesus calls out, ‘Whoa!’ and in [the holy pause that follows] we can repent, [turn back, step back], and make room for God’s presence in our lives.” 

              In 1 Corinthians, Paul is also calling out, “Whoa!” to a congregation that has taken the bit in its teeth.  He too has been inviting the faithful to live a cross-shaped life -- but a cross-shaped life has resurrection at its heart, a cross-shaped life has the power of God and the ultimate defeat of death at its heart; and resurrection, the power of God and the ultimate defeat of death, is being questioned and even being denied by some in the Corinthian church.    

              Now, I want to be clear:  it’s not Jesus’ resurrection that they’re questioning.  What they’re questioning is what Paul is referring to here as “the resurrection of the dead.”  They’re questioning their own resurrections; they’re questioning everyone else’s resurrection, both the living and the dead; the resurrection that Paul teaches will take place when Christ returns in glory.  This is the issue that’s behind their very contentious discussions – and yet, Paul argues, the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of everyone else are not separate events.  Although they may be separated in our own perception and experience as we live here in chronos, in chronological time, in God’s time, in God’s “eternal now” of kairos, these resurrections are in fact one and the same. 

Christ has been raised, Paul insists, as the “first fruits” of the harvest, the offering that sanctifies the entire crop of the faithful.

              Now, in terms of background, it’s helpful to remember that the congregations in all of Paul’s churches were made up of both Jews and Gentiles – and that neither of these groups spoke with one voice about belief in an afterlife.

              Among the Jews, the Sadducees flatly denied the existence of life after death; while belief in resurrection was embraced by those who, like Paul, came from a Pharisaic background. 

For the Gentile Greeks, the issue was even more complex as various classic schools of philosophy had differing stances on the question of an afterlife – especially a physical afterlife.  As I think I’ve mentioned before, matter, the physical world, and especially the physical body, were seen by many in the Greco-Roman world as being inferior to the spiritual realm.  The divine spark within oneself was said to be imprisoned in one’s physical body, freed and reuniting with its divine creator only after death – so why would anyone want the prison of their body resurrected?

              Still others, perhaps those in the Corinthian congregation who felt they were superior to their brothers and sisters in Christ, others insisted they were already living the resurrection life.

              All of these conflicting beliefs are anathema to Paul because, “For Paul, Christ’s resurrection and that of everyone else stand or fall together.”  (Craddock, 101).  We are linked to Christ, says Paul, and our destiny is linked to Christ’s destiny.  Our very identity as Easter people is grounded in the resurrection of Christ, and we can’t deny our own resurrection without denying the foundation of our faith.

              In fact, says Paul, denying our resurrection, and therefore denying the resurrection of Christ, completely destroys our faith:  our faith is “in vain,” our faith is “futile.”  Why?  Because for Paul, “faith” isn’t intellectual consent to any particular dogmatic position.  “Faith” is relationship; “faith” is “the dynamic, proper relation of people to God.”  “Faith” is dynamic, dynamos, in the sense of being power-filled.  Faith is, as one commentator says, “the powerfully established, powerfully effective, and productive right relationship to God” – and denying resurrection distorts this relationship with God and renders our faith mataia, as Paul says: renders it “empty, useless, and power-less.”  (The New Interpreter’s Bible, 1 Corinthians, 983-984)

              “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,” he writes, “we are of all people most to be pitied.”  (1 Cor. 15:19)

Our oneness with God in Christ, our oneness with the resurrection of Christ, this is the living water of our complete dependence on God; the water of life that sustains us in the desert, that sustains us in our times of woe and calls us to the turning back of repentance in times of plenty.

For the prophet Jeremiah, the times of woe for himself and for Judea were ever-present.  Called by God to prophesy defeat and exile to the people of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians because of the people’s unfaithfulness to God, Jeremiah tries to prepare the people for the reality of what will, in fact, be their new normal:  the new normal of traumatic change, of dislocation, of physical and emotional exile from everything they’ve known.  As he does, he tries to save them from spiritual exile as well, calling them to choose the sustaining water of faith and trust in God.  If you depend on yourselves in these times, he says, if you put your trust in mere mortals, you will find yourself in a very parched place.

We too may feel that we have been exiled into a new normal, exiled by COVID and by bird flu and by contemporary politics into times of woe and uncertainty, exiled into an unfamiliar future – and yet sadly, these are not the only threats we face.  Each of us at one time or another is at personal risk for being exiled from good health, exiled from employment, exiled from relationships that we thought would last forever, exiled from the familiarity of the life we knew. 

None of us is exempt from the threat of exile – and so, listening to Jeremiah, we also turn to the promise of water in a barren time:  the water of our baptism, the water through which we die, and yes, through which we also rise with Christ; the water into which we sink our roots for stability, for sustenance, and for life itself.

I want to read again what Pastor Ziettlow said about the warm-up exercises at the barre:  “Each exercise is completed with the foot tracing the shape of a cross on the floor, once to the front in fourth position, to the side in second position, and to the back, again in fourth position.  The dancer stands in the center of the cross, and the limbs move to explore the space where the well-worn path of the cross leads them.”

The limbs move to explore the space where the well-worn path of the cross leads them.

What muscle groups do we need to exercise on the well-worn path of the cross?  We need to exercise the muscle groups of Blessing.  Weakness.  Repentance.  Forgiveness.  Dependence.  Compassion.  Trust.  Faith.  Relationship.  Love.  Always love. 

And at the heart of the cross, we need to exercise and celebrate the power of resurrection.   Amen.    

               “They left everything and followed him” is a statement we hear more than once in the Bible in relation to Jesus – and in fact, we hear it enough times that it begins to sound formulaic and kind of slides through our consciousness without sticking, like our brain is coated with Teflon.

              But – as we’ve all been doing for the last month, when we think about what our fellow Episcopalians and their friends and neighbors and family members in Pacific Palisades and Altadena experienced in January as they too “left everything” to escape the Eaton and Palisades fires; when we think about that horrible reality and its aftermath, we can begin to reclaim some of the intense emotional shock and trauma of really “leaving everything behind” – even when the one leaving everything behind is leaving for the sake of something they believe is a greater good.

          Following Jesus, we affirm through our faith, is such a greater good.  As the late Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjold once wrote, “I don’t know Who – or what – put the question.  I don’t know when it was put.  I don’t even remember answering.  But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”  (Synthesis, 2/7/19)

              At some moment, I did answer Yes. 

One of my favorite hymns comes out of the Iona religious community in Scotland and is called “The Summons.”  With a simple melody that’s been running through my head ever since I wrote this sermon, the hymn’s lyrics are both haunting and profound.

              “Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?  Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?  Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known, will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?”

              These are questions that Simon comes face to face with in today’s Gospel reading as Jesus sits in Simon’s boat and presents him with a “Dag Hammarskjold moment,” challenging Simon to reassess his own understanding of who he really is, and what his life is for.

              But this “Dag Hammarskjold moment” doesn’t happen in a vacuum here in Luke.  Ever since the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles at the Feast of the Epiphany in early January, we’ve been hearing about the beginnings of his public ministry:  his baptism in the Jordan with God’s confirmation of him as God’s Son; his days in the wilderness and then his return to Galilee filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and his -- for the most part -- successful preaching. 

              Last Sunday was Feb. 2 – yes, Groundhog Day, I was listening to Fr. Rob Bethancourt’s sermon online, and also the Feast of the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple.  As such, the readings for the Presentation took precedence over the regular readings for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, which we would have heard if Feb. 2 had fallen on any other day of the week than Sunday.  You may remember that two weeks ago, the last time I was here, the Gospel reading from Luke talked about Jesus preaching in the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth.  I said in my sermon then that he shocked everyone in the synagogue when, after reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          Had we heard the Epiphany 4 Gospel last week rather than the Presentation Gospel, we would have still been in that synagogue in Nazareth; and at the end of that same sermon of Jesus and the discussion that followed it, we would have heard Luke’s account of this event finish with these words:  “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.  They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.  But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”  (Lk. 4:28-30)

              Today, after this rage-filled response to his claim to be God’s anointed, we learn that Jesus has come down to Capernaum, the city on the Sea of Galilee that from now on will serve as his home base.  With the Nazareth experience behind him, he has taught in the synagogue here on the sabbath and has had a much more positive response from the worshipers, also successfully healing a man of an unclean spirit in the process.

              Now, in between then and now come a couple of verses in Luke that our lectionary doesn’t include, which is too bad because they do provide an interesting background for today’s Luke passage.  The verses read, “After leaving the synagogue [in Capernaum] [Jesus] entered Simon’s house.  Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her.  Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her.  Immediately she got up and began to serve them.”  (Lk. 4:38-39)

              This little snippet is the first mention of Simon in Luke’s Gospel, and it’s actually located four verses before today’s reading – so now we know that even before Jesus gets into Simon’s boat, Simon has heard Jesus preach, Simon has seen Jesus heal, and Simon has in fact entertained Jesus in his own home.  Simon already knows that Jesus is someone special.

              The fact that the two men already have a relationship is probably why Jesus chooses to get into Simon’s boat and also why Simon, busy washing nets, is willing to get back in and put the boat out a little ways so that the crowd can hear Jesus better – and the fact that Simon has seen Jesus’ power at work in the synagogue as well as in his own home probably explains his compliance when Jesus tells him to go out deeper and let down the nets in spite of a long night with no fish.

              This directive to go out deeper is, in essence, Jesus calling Simon’s name, because once those nets go down into the water, nothing is ever going to be the same again for Simon – nor for James, nor John, nor for their father Zebedee and all the other family members and friends who will be among the “everything” that the men will leave behind.

              Whether it’s the moment the first fish get caught in the nets, the moment the nets begin to break, or the moment the men finally haul all the fish into their boats, Simon, like Isaiah centuries before him and Paul a few years after him, Simon suddenly recognizes that he is in the presence of the radical Holiness, the radical Otherness of God – a presence and a Holiness that mortals with unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, cannot survive.

          “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” he cries.  Everything in Simon’s life has suddenly changed:  his filter, his lens, his self-understanding.  Nothing in his life will ever be the same because at this moment he knows he is in the presence of God, and he is afraid.

              Like I said, Isaiah could relate to this.  Today’s passage from Isaiah refers to the prophet’s own consecration – that is, the action of his being made holy through the use of the burning coal on his lips.  In relation to this cleansing, one commentator says, “…to consecrate someone or something is not simply to transfer that person or object into the safe world of what is holy.  On the contrary, there are lasting consequences to consecration.  ‘To consecrate means…to derail from normalcy.’”  (F, I, P, 314, 316)

              As another author puts it, “Call has consequences.  Following has a price.”  (F, L, T, 336)

              In our own days of uncertainty, chaos, and the fear of being derailed from normalcy and possibly having to leave everything behind, we are all learning this all too well.  Call has consequences.  Following has a price.

              Shifting major gears here (MAJOR gears), in a far more mundane and far less sacred way, I felt that I was on the brink of being derailed from normalcy the day before my younger son was born.  My then-husband Tim, our just-under-two year old son Ian, and I were living in the suburbs north of Chicago in a rented Victorian house with a wrap-around porch and life was good:  we were two wanna-be Yuppies with a charming portable child, and a second child, who we were sure would be equally charming, about to arrive.

              Even so, as I sat on the stairs watching Ian play, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of loss, a sense of our normalcy being derailed, and I began to cry.  Tim worked from home, so he was close by when the tears came and he hurried out of his office to ask me what was wrong.  I gestured around at everyone and everything I loved and said, “It’s never going to be the same.”

              Now, in the 22 years we were married, there were a few times when Tim got a gold star, and this was one of them.  All he said was, “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be better.”

          That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be better.

              With these simple words, Tim offered me a new reality, a new perception, a new lens through which to see not the loss, but the abundance that lay ahead in our new family configuration.

              Jesus does the same thing here in the boat, as the huge number of fish and the recognition of his holiness threaten to derail Simon and the others.  “Don’t be afraid,” he says; “this doesn’t mean things aren’t going to be better.  From now on you will be catching people.”

              Jesus offers the fishermen around him, and offers us, his new reality – a reality where our request for him to leave us in our sinfulness, leave us in our unchanged sameness, is met with acceptance, with love, and with reassurance; and also met with the promise of abundance, as he charges us to reach out to others, whoever they are, in his name.

              The abundance of discipleship that Jesus invites all of us into, scary as it may be, is better – and it’s better because the Greek word in Luke that is translated “catch, as in “catching people,” actually means “to take alive in the sense of rescuing from death.”  (Craddock, L, 98).

              Jesus is inviting us to join him in “taking [people] alive in the sense of rescuing [them] from death;” Jesus is inviting us to become spiritual First Responders; in a fishing sense, he is inviting us to catch and release into his hands.

              To catch people, to rescue people, is to share with them the good news of the Gospel and the abundance of life that is found in Jesus – and better yet, to share these things through being who we already are and through doing what we already know how to do.

              The story is told in the Jewish midrash, or commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures, of Rabbi Zusya.  “Reflecting on his own life, particularly in relationship to the Jewish patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, [Rabbi Zusya] reportedly said, ‘In the coming world, they will not ask me:  Why were you not Moses?  They will ask me:  Why were you not Zusya?’”  (Walk in Love, pp. 259-260)

              God comes to us where we are, while we’re busy doing what we’re already good at.  We’re not called to become somebody, or something, we’re not.  Through our baptism and through the power of the Spirit dwelling within us, we’re called to allow ourselves to be transformed into the people God has already created us to be, using the gifts God has already given us, for the good of all of God’s people.

              One Lutheran pastor writes, “Cast your nets, write your papers, teach your students, balance financial accounts, design the buildings, pour the concrete, make the lattes, lead the meetings, administer the IVs, answer the phones, sing the arias.  Do what you know how to do, and Jesus will use it to draw others into the kingdom of God.”

              Jesus will use all of who we are to help catch people.

              To go to the last verse of my hymn from Iona, “Lord, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.  Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.  In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.  Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.”

              “Never being the same” doesn’t mean “not being better.”

              Amen.

              While I’m not necessarily assigning her the status of a prophet, we all saw a bit of this dynamic last Monday as the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop of the Diocese of Washington, DC since 2011, made a bold plea for compassion in the face of power.  Whether or not Bp. Budde had a reputation before Monday, she definitely has one now -- God bless her.

              Jesus too has been gaining a reputation and in today’s Gospel reading, his reputation has preceded him to Nazareth.  Looking back, God’s Spirit had come upon Jesus at his baptism; and then this same Spirit had driven him into, and sustained him through, a time of testing and temptation in the wilderness.  Now, filled with the Spirit’s power, Jesus has returned to Galilee.  He’s beginning to teach in the synagogues and so far, unlike Bp. Budde, he’s been praised by everyone.

              He hasn’t done any healings yet, he hasn’t yet performed any miracles as Luke tells the story – there’s no changing of water into wine here I’m afraid – although there will be parties – but the 12 year old who amazed the scribes and the elders with his knowledge of Scripture at the Temple in Jerusalem has grown up; and he’s beginning to teach.  Filled with the power of God’s Spirit, Jesus is beginning to open up the Scriptures is a whole new way.

              Now he’s back in Nazareth, his home town, the place where not only does everyone know his name, they know his parents too (or at least they think they do). They know his siblings and they know his own habits and quirks, because they’ve watched him grow up.  They’ve known him his whole life – which is why, when he says in the synagogue, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” they all look at him in shock.

              Jesus catches his neighbors completely off guard; and the reason he catches them off guard is that by making this seemingly simple statement, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus is claiming everything he’s just read from Isaiah for himself.  Most importantly, most shockingly, and most dangerously, in this statement he is specifically saying that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him; that the Lord has anointed him; and because “anointed one” is the literal translation of the word “messiah,” in this statement Jesus is, for all intents and purposes, claiming to be God’s messiah.

              Just as shocking as this statement to his listeners in the synagogue, is that by choosing this specific passage from Isaiah to read – and Luke tells us that Jesus took the time to look it up – by choosing this specific passage Jesus is defining the messiah’s mission as a very un-military mission of servanthood and of healing.  A very un-military mission of compassion.

              Now, this was a red flag to everyone who was listening to Jesus because in first century Judea, the memory of Judas Maccabeus’ successful rebellion against Greek occupation two centuries earlier, a rebellion that had led to a very brief 100 years of independence for Judea, this particular memory of deliverance was still very fresh in the minds of all the people in Jesus’ day.

              Everyone knew that God’s Messiah would be another warrior who would lead Judea and all of Israel to independence once again, this time independence from the Romans; and therefore, Jesus’ messianic claim of servanthood makes no sense at all.  As both the spiritual and the political implications of what Jesus has said sink in, the hometown crowd begins to reconsider its welcome….

              As one commentator has so truly observed, it’s a lot easier to deal with a messiah who WILL come than it is to deal with a messiah who HAS come.  It’s a lot easier to debate abstract possibilities than it is to have push actually come to shove…and yet our Christian faith is faith in push having come to shove; it’s faith in a messiah who HAS come; and this messiah has entrusted the ongoing work of servanthood, the work of God’s ministry of reconciliation and compassion to us, and to all the faithful through the centuries who have followed him.

              Jesus has entrusted the work of God’s reconciliation to the Church in all times and in all places, and because of this, it only makes sense that the first place this ministry of reconciliation begins is within the Church itself.  This was the implication for the church in Corinth and it remains the implication for the wider Church today:  become reconciled within your own house first so that then you can truly be a light to the world.  But who wants to look at their own stuff first?  Talk about a yukky implication!

              The best way to avoid dealing with yukky implications, of course, is to argue about what they really mean – and this is what the Church has always done.  There’s never been a golden age of the Church in terms of no bickering.  We’ve always argued about what it really means to follow Jesus and about what it really means to love our neighbors as ourselves, what it really means to love our enemies, because the more time we can spend bickering and splitting hairs and pointing fingers, the more we can put the real work of faith on the back burner.

              The church in Corinth that Paul had founded argued about a lot of things:  they argued about in-house morality, about a church member who was sleeping with his mother-in-law; they argued about the proper attire for, and proper behavior during, worship; and they argued about some of the well-to-do members coming early to communal meals and eating all the food so that the poorer members who showed up on time got nothing.  They argued about which among them was more advanced in their theological expertise and further along on their spiritual journey, and they argued at great length about spiritual gifts – about what they were, about who had them, and about which gift of the Spirit was the best.

              (I’m sure their Annual Meetings were a lot of fun!)

              All this and more is what Paul is dealing with in today’s 12th chapter of his First Letter to the church in Corinth.  As we heard in last Sunday’s New Testament reading, Paul has just finished telling the Corinthians that “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  (1 Cor. 12:4-7)

              Today, Paul continues the theme of the common good by talking about what commentator William Barclay has called “the supreme glory of the Christian” – which is to be “part of the body of Christ upon earth.”  (Barclay, Corinthians, 114)

              Although his 1950’s phrasing sounds outdated, Barclay continues, “[Christ] has no hands but our hands/To do his work today;/[Christ] has no feet but our feet/To lead men in his way; [Christ] has no voice but our voice/To tell men how he died;/[Christ] has no help but our help/To lead them to his side.”  (114)

              And as another more recent author has said, “[Paul] considers that believers as believers are already the body of Christ, and he exhorts [the Corinthians] to relate to one another in a manner appropriate to what they already are.”  (IDB, 1 Cor, 948)

              Paul’s tremendous vision of the interdependence of Christian believers, the interdependence of you and me and all of us through the centuries who call ourselves Christians is both exhilarating and daunting, because as Paul points out, the Body needs its members to be different; and especially in these days, we don’t tend to be all that comfortable with differences.

              What we are comfortable with in this time of heightened polarization is like-mindedness; and we would be even more comfortable if “unity” meant “uniformity” or if “oneness” meant “sameness”, but they don’t…and this is important to emphasize:  “unity” does not mean “uniformity.”  “Oneness” does not mean “sameness.”

              “Unity does not exclude diversity,” one author has said, but that means we’re stuck with implications again, the implications of a messiah who HAS come,  a messiah who loves diversity; and so, like the Christians in Corinth, our preference is to cling to our fear and our discomfort and to say to those who differ from us both in the Church and in the world, “I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU.”

              What a terrible thing to say.  What a terrible thing to hear!  I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU – and yet we say it often, one religious group to another; one political party to another; one friend or family member to another:  I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU.

              Back in 2010, 15 years ago, at Trinity in Orange we had a Lenten series that focused on forgiveness.  Our presenter was a mediation consultant named Jim Calhoun, and I’m going to read something that Jim wrote at the time about his program because it has direct relevance to any of us “having no need” of one another – and remember Jim’s words are 15 years old.

              Jim wrote, “Forgiveness is an essential part of the process of reconciliation.  In my practice as a mediator and conflict resolution specialist, I find that the most common obstacle to forgiveness is not the desire for revenge, but the practice of contempt.  Wide spread contempt, a particular feature in a culture growing increasingly narcissistic, allows us to believe that we are better than, more worthy than and more special than others.  In turn, we allow ourselves the ‘pleasure’ of treating others with disgust, disdain, and spite.  Healthy relationships,” he says, “healthy relationships cannot survive contempt.”  Healthy relationships cannot survive contempt.

              I HAVE NO NEED OF YOU is an expression of contempt, and it’s an expression the Church through the centuries has learned well; but we need to get over it because we are the Body of Christ and as such, we have work to do.  We have work to do, not only to bring good news to the poor, but also to bring food, and primary education, and prenatal health care to the poor; and freedom to those oppressed by famine, war, and corruption.

              We have work to do, to bring civility and mutual respect back into our common discourse, and to recognize each other’s differences as gifts necessary for our mutual health.  We have work to do, because in that baptismal covenant we renewed two weeks ago in honor of the baptism of Jesus, we promised to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.”

              “Strive for the greater gifts,” Paul says to the Corinthians in chapter 12, and by this he means spiritual gifts.  “Love,” he goes on to say a few verses later in chapter 13, “love never ends.  But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end….And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

              One theologian says, “Paul writes 1 Corinthians 12 to remind the Corinthians of our interdependence in the Church.  He writes 1 Corinthians 13 to remind them that what makes interdependence possible is love.  Because love holds us together it is the greatest gift of all.”  (LP, Church, 37)

              And so The Captain and Tenille had it right:  Love will keep us together.  It is love, and must be love, that keeps and holds all of us together.  We are not just “a body of Christians”; as Christians, we are the Body of Christ, a spiritual and ontological reality that is born of the Spirit and the Cross; born of the water, the bread, and the wine.  To be a member of the Body of Christ is privilege; and challenge; and gift.

              And so, in the name of Christ, let us indeed bring, and honor, our many gifts that differ – because without exception, we all have need of each other.

              Amen.             

              Keillor tells of a time when Pastor Dave, the town’s Lutheran pastor, wanted to get closer to his flock, and so one evening he went down to the local watering hole, the Side Track Tap.  Once there, Pastor Dave sat at the bar and ordered a Wendy’s Beer…and then he began to think about Jesus.  What would Jesus do, here at the Side Track Tap?  Would Jesus order a Wendy’s, like he did?  Or would Jesus maybe order a Perrier, and then turn it into a Wendy’s?

              Alas, we’ll never know!

              We do tend to be intrigued, or amused, or disturbed, of perhaps even offended by this story about jars filled with water becoming jars filled with wine, but we need to be careful that we don’t over focus, that we don’t get stuck in the physical action of the beverage change; “curiosity wallowing in the unusual,” as one commentator has put it – because if we get stuck here in the unusual, we may find ourselves assuming that the simple – or not so simple – change of one liquid into another and the resulting social rescue of a bride and bridegroom, that these are the sum total to this piece of Scripture, even if the change does come through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We might assume, in the words of the old song, that this is all there is to the miracle.  However, the problem is that if we do make this assumption, then we stay forever on the surface of the event and we completely miss John’s point in including it in his Gospel – and of the four Gospels, John’s is the only one that DOES include it.

              We also miss John’s point if we try to explain the process of the change, if we try to tame the miracle, try to domesticate it so that we don’t have to deal with improbables; so that we don’t have to adjust or retool any of our convictions about the world or set aside anything that we already KNOW to be fact.  But again, there’s a problem here:  if we opt out of wrestling with the miracle, opt out of wresting with the impossible, we do end up the poorer for it.

              This is an extraordinary happening in Cana, and because it’s extraordinary, it does create difficulties for us, intellectual and spiritual difficulties; because generally speaking, on a day to day basis, water just doesn’t sit there and turn into wine.  Wine into vinegar maybe, but not water into wine.  It just doesn’t do that; but here, through the action of Jesus, it does.

              Now, Jesus says that whoever has seen him has seen God.  Therefore, whoever has seen Jesus’ miracle has seen God at work.  This being the case, then I think we need to ask ourselves what this particular work of God tells us about God.  We need to ask ourselves what, in this season after the Epiphany, this season of revealings, what does this miracle reveal about the nature of God?

              For one thing, and somewhat obviously, I think the wedding at Cana in Galilee reveals that God is in favor of marriage as a form of relationship and of personal intimacy as a degree of relationship.  In our traditional Prayer Book marriage liturgy we say that “our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.”  We go on to say that the marriage of two committed individuals “signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church.”  As two lovers become spiritually and physically intimate through marriage, so Christ and the Church are married and are intimately joined, the one to the other…for better or for worse – which is Good News for the Church, at least!

              I think this miracle at Cana also reveals God’s positive embrace of creation and of the fruits of all the vines of the physical world.  This isn’t a radical statement today because of our culture’s longstanding embrace of environmental awareness – but things were different in John’s time.  John’s first century world was familiar with classic Greek and other early belief systems that exalted the spiritual aspects of life while completely degrading the physical or material.  Spiritual was good, physical was bad and corrupt.  In this miracle at Cana, however, God counters this viewpoint and clearly says, “My creation is good.  My physical world is good.”

              And not only is physical life in the physical world good in God’s eyes, celebrating this physical life with food and drink and fellowship is good too.  Jesus himself insists on more than one occasion that the kingdom of heaven is like this morning’s wedding banquet; and first century wedding banquets lasted for days and days, and whole towns were invited to join in the festivities – so when Isaiah says that God will rejoice over Jerusalem as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, he’s talking about God planning to host a very big party; a very big party that all of God’s people, including all of us, are invited to so that we can all celebrate and share our joy with God and with each other. 

              You say the Prodigal’s back?  Let’s have a party!  You have the lost sheep?  You found the lost coin?  Let’s have a party!  College football championship tomorrow?  Let’s have a party!  (What can I say?  Ohio State Buckeyes fan.)

              Now, all this celebration, all this joy, all this physicality, is revealed and affirmed by this miracle at Cana, but even so we’re still skating around on the miracle’s surface.  Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has said that “The God of the Bible is too lively, too engaged, too rich and full of dramatic power ever to be channeled into neat systematic formulations.”  Instead, Brueggemann says, God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic.”  God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic”… so let’s look at Cana again.

              Now, I can’t remember whether I’m thinking of a movie plot or maybe the reversal of the old pencil-and-paper game Mad Libs, but I do remember something that involved a message that was hidden word by word throughout a completed page of writing.  The message was revealed when another piece of paper was placed on top of the first, a piece of paper that had holes cut in it, holes that were spaced according to the message.  Now, take another look at the Gospel reading in our service bulletin:  if I had a piece of paper with holes in it, this is where the holes would be.  These are the phrases that would show through the holes, the phrases that reveal John’s essential message for the faithful who have the eyes to see:  “on the third day;” “the first of his signs;” “revealed his glory;” “his disciples believed in him.”

              “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee;” “the Son of Man will be killed and on the third day be raised;” “on the third day he rose again.”  For us as Christians, the third day is a day of new life, a day of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom.  It’s a day of promise and of assurance, a day that’s a down payment on the fulfillment of our salvation.

              Until now, first at the visit of the wise men and then again at Jesus’ baptism, God has been the one to reveal Jesus’ glory as the Beloved Son.  With this first miracle after his baptism however, Jesus is now the one who reveals.  By telling us that the wedding is on the third day and that on this third day Jesus reveals his glory, John very clearly links this initial miracle and glorification with the ultimate miracle and glorification of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

              Always the one in control of the action in John, Jesus’ statement here to his mother, “My hour has not yet come,” is balanced by his pronouncement from the cross that “It is finished.”  In between Cana and the cross lie Jesus’ earthly ministry and his signs, and this way of the cross is the path his followers will tread.  This revelation, the way of the cross, is “the first of his signs.”

              Following from this, the Greek word that John uses for “first” here is arche.  Arche does mean “the first in a series,” number 1 of however many, but it also means “the beginning.”  This miracle is the beginning of that which will end, and begin again, at Calvary.  And what is this beginning?  Nothing less than the miraculous provision of such a quantity of wine freely given that it would probably take a parish this size a minimum of two years of social events to consume it all.  I mean, we’re talking about 180 gallons here.

              Abundant, abundant, and even more abundant wine flowing on the hilltops is a powerful Old Testament image of fulfillment, of God’s deliverance and the salvation of the righteous; and here God makes that image of Old Testament fulfillment new, as it becomes Jesus’ first action in ministry, the first revealing of his power and his radiance; and as he provides wine in abundance at the wedding, Jesus soon provides bread in abundance in the feeding of the 5,000, showing forth as he does “the power of an energy” that has been called “the heart, core, and cohesive force of the universe.”

              “And his disciples believed in him.”  Philosopher and mystic Simone Weil once said that of course God does the impossible.  It’s the only thing left to God, she continued, because God has already given the things that are possible to do, to us.  The disciples saw the impossibility and the glory of God in Jesus, and here, at the beginning, with the first of his signs, they believed in him.  The rest of John, the purpose of everything that follows in John’s Gospel is, in John’s words, “so that [we] [like the disciples] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.”

              This life, this believing; this is the point of the miracle at Cana, the point we can’t afford to miss:  this is the jumping off point of our salvation, and it’s salvation that comes through the God of a love that crackles and sparks; the God of abundance who gives and gives and gives for the sheer joy of giving; the God of graciousness who calls and reaches out and feeds, asking only that we too believe in Jesus and follow.

              Remember Brueggemann’s words:  God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic.”  God is “endlessly disturbing and problematic” simply because, and especially because, God insists on being in relationship with us.  God asks us to open ourselves, asks us to trust God with everything, and to hide nothing in ourselves from God.  God asks us to risk being transformed for good.

              How we respond to God’s invitation, how much we’re willing to trust and to give is up to each one of us – but think about it for a moment.  Do we really want to reach the end of our days, to look back at our path and our life and our choices and find ourselves saying, “Oh man – I could have had the wine!”

              Is this a frivolous miracle?  I think not.  All these things, including the miracle at Cana, are written and attested to so that we may have life in the name of Jesus, and may have it abundantly.

              Amen.  

Today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany. We sometimes think of an epiphany as a new idea, an opening, as something becoming known to us.  Epiphany can also be translated as manifestation - making known. So the Epiphany is sometimes described as the Manifestation of Christ to the World. The manifestation of God, the God described in Isaiah -  the servant of the light, manifested to all.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Epiphany is a bigger celebration than Christmas. That manifestation of Christ, Christ becoming known, is considered more important than the date of his birth. Most of us, when we think of Epiphany we think of the Magi, the wise ones who saw the star in the East and came and worshiped the Lord. But that is just one of three aspects of the Epiphany. The second manifestation was through Christ’s baptism. And the third manifestation of Christ was at the wedding in Cana, at his first miracle when he changed water into wine.

Today's Gospel reading is Luke's version of the story of Jesus' baptism. Next week the lectionary calls for the reading about the wedding at Cana, thereby honoring the ancient tradition of the three-fold nature of the epiphany.

This past Tuesday I had begun thinking about what I might preach about this morning. As I watched the funeral for President Carter and listened to the eulogies, I was struck by how he had lived out his baptismal promises. No matter what we may think of his polices or politics, we have to respect that he did his best to live a Christian life, to serve the people of this country and the world. He was an inspiration for all of us.

Then in the afternoon I heard, like you, of the wildfires out of control in the Palisades. I knew the sermon would have to change. The water of baptism would have to include the destructive power of fire.

But first let's talk about Jesus' baptism. Luke doesn't describe John baptizing Jesus, rather he has the Baptist say that he is not the Messiah and that someone greater is coming. Then Luke writes, "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven saying, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'" Jesus being baptized is described in an offhand sort of way, he was just part of a group of people who were in the river.

In Luke's telling, it is the Holy Spirit coming upon him that is important. Jesus was just one of a whole lot of people, but the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, acknowledged him. And the voice from heaven (it isn't clear who was able to hear that voice, just Jesus, Jesus and John, or all the people who were present) saying, "You are my Son."

Those words from the Holy Spirit are for all of us at our baptisms, "you are my child." We are all beloved children of God - part of God's family.

But what about that chaff that John said he would burn in unquenchable fire?

 Right now, in our diocese, a fire of apocalyptic proportions is raging still largely out of control. We have all been touched by it. Perhaps you have friends or family who live in that area, who have lost homes or had to evacuate. Perhaps you remember the shops there, the beautiful views. A church in our diocese has been completely destroyed, another is dealing with losing the residences of two of its clergy. Several have had more than half of their parishioners lose their homes. It is overwhelming, unthinkable. And everyone is asking "Why?"

I don't know why? I do know that it has nothing to do with the burning of chaff.

Let's take a look at John's comment. What he says is, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Like the prophets before him, John tended to exaggerate, using language that would get people's attention. And he used a lot of similes. Jesus lived in a mostly rural society. The people of his time would have understood and seen regularly what John was talking about. As grain grows, a husk develops around the seed in order to protect it, kind of like a shell around a nut. When the grain is harvested, the stalks are cut down and gathered together. The only part that people are able to eat are the seeds. The stalks and the husk are inedible to humans. So, the farmer must find a way to separate the seeds (wheat) from all the other stuff (chaff). In traditional cultures like John's the different parts were all thrown up in the air by a winnowing fork and the seeds would fall straight down, while a breeze would blow the chaff aside. It was hard work separating the wheat from the chaff. It is not that the chaff is bad, but rather that it had served its purpose of protecting the wheat. It was no longer necessary, and in fact it was getting in the way, and therefore was burned.

As we grow through childhood, we develop habits or beliefs that help to keep us safe. We may have fears or self-perceptions that were helpful at one point in our lives, but that we no longer need. In fact they get in the way. If we open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit, it will help us let go of our mistakes, our misunderstandings, and the places we are stuck so they can be burned away. Sometimes it is painful to let go, it hurts to give up old habits or addictions, there is a burning that we undergo as we develop healthier self-images and abandon our self-limitations. Spiritual growth is not easy. It takes letting go.

Sometimes it is the difficult points in our lives, our reaching bottom, that helps to loosen the chaff. When we look back at our lives, we may find that the painful moments often helped us to become more loving. It is not that God wants these things to happen to us, it is rather that God can help us to use what we learn from these experiences to grow in love and compassion. The chaff which burns does not represent people or a category of people. It represents our own chaff, those aspects of ourselves that no longer serve us.

As we deal with the horrible fires nearby. As we worry. We worry about all kinds of things. Like how much the fires will spread, what will our air quality will be, could it happen to us, is it happening to ones we love,  and how are we to move forward after this?

Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers neighborhood, said, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping'" He went on to say that that is where you will find hope.

Already you can see the helpers on the news. The firefighters, the ones bringing food and clothing. The people opening their homes to those who have had to evacuate. The red cross, FEMA and so many others. Our denomination is already actively helping. Episcopal Relief and Development, the outreach arm of the Episcopal Church, that helps people all over the world, is already sending resources to our diocese to use to help the people impacted by the fires. Our diocese, The Diocese of Los Angeles is on the ground helping churches, parishioners and neighbors deal with this overwhelming situation.

If you are wondering if there is anything you can do to help, the bishop has sent out the following message: Cash donations are most effective at this time – offering recipients flexibility in using funds for emergency priorities – and may be made through the diocesan One Body, One Spirit annual fund which is now focusing all its resources on recovery from the fires.

You can go to the diocesan web page or contact the church office to make a donation.

Our greatest comfort comes from knowing that we are beloved children of God and that Christ is with us no matter what.

 As today's reading from Isaiah puts it:

God says,

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; 

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 

Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, 

And let us remember Jimmy Carter and his great faith and commitment to helping those in need all over the world. How he would personally help to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. We can, and will, each in our own way, help to rebuild the homes and lives that are being so tragically impacted.

Remembering that we, and everyone this tragedy has and will touch, is a beloved child of God. 

These days you can get on a plane anywhere in the world and quickly go to Jerusalem. We don’t think of distances the same way they did back in the time of Christ.  These Magi, these wise ones, traveled across deserts, through various lands, at a time when it was dangerous to travel. There were robbers on the roads, and they carried very expensive gifts.  It was not an easy trip.  But there was something about that star, that new light in the sky, that told them they had to follow it; they had to seek out whatever it was that it pointed to. 

Finally, they came to Jerusalem and met Herod, the current ruler, and asked for directions.  They got the information they needed, went to Bethlehem and found Mary and the child in a house. Matthew does not indicate that it was a stable nor that they had been traveling - this was their home.  Jesus was not an infant in a manger.  He may have been up to a couple of years old by this time. I know this can be confusing, but the birth stories of Matthew and Luke are quite different, we've just merged them together in our minds, in our carols and on our Christmas cards.

When they found Jesus, they saw something in this child that let them know that this was what they had been seeking.  This child was what they had been searching the skies for.  This child was what their hearts yearned for. So they paid him homage, their worship, and they left their gifts, great gifts.

The first gift was the gift of gold. Gold represents kingdom and royalty.  Gold is valuable.  Gold, even in our culture, it represents riches and money. They offered Christ the things of the world, material comfort and security.

The second thing they offered was frankincense.  Frankincense comes from a tree in Arabia. If you cut it the sap oozes out, dries and becomes fragrant crystals. When you burn it, it creates a beautiful smell.  Frankincense was also extraordinarily valuable. During that time period it was used as a major trading item. It was quite literally worth its weight in gold.

Frankincense is usually seen as representing worship, because frankincense was burnt in the temple. There’s a place in the Psalms that says, “May our prayers be like incense and lifted up to you.”  So the incense represented worship, prayer – it represented the spiritual life.

Finally, there was myrrh. Myrrh was used for embalming; it preserved the body, so it is traditional to see the myrrh as looking ahead to Jesus’ crucifixion, to his suffering.  But myrrh was also used in healing ointments.  It was put with other oils on wounds or to treat pain.  In fact, there was myrrh in the wine that was offered Jesus on the cross because it was a painkiller.  So it also had medicinal qualities.  

The Magi laid before the Christ child their pain and their suffering, their death, and their life. Then they got up and headed home, but they weren’t the same as they were when they came.  They couldn’t possibly go back by the same road that they had come.  They had to go back a different way.  Life had changed.  Everything changed with that encounter.

Tomorrow, December 6, is Epiphany, when the church remembers the visit of the Magi. The word Epiphany means a moment of sudden understanding, or sudden consciousness of, something that is very important.

These Magi, these wise ones, represent all seekers, all people who are searching for God.  Part of the idea of Epiphany is that Christ was made known to all people; not just to Christians, not just to Jews, to all people. The wise ones represent everyone who is seeking, everybody who has that sense that there has got to be something more.  Some people may actively be looking for God, but there are a lot of people in this world today who say they are just seeking, that there has to be something more.  

Sometimes we start seeking and searching when things are really tough, when the world is falling apart, when we’ve got an illness, when we’re in grief, when we’re recovering from addiction, when we’re at our bottom and we realize there’s got to be more to life. 

Some people start seeking when they reach the epitome, when they’ve accomplished all their goals, when they’ve gotten the job that they were working for, when they now have the house and the car and the family and the kids and everything that society told them that if they got those then they’d be happy.  Then they realize that there’s still something missing, and they begin seeking, looking, wondering.  All of us here have undoubtedly known a time in our lives when we were seekers, when we were looking for something more. Perhaps you feel that way right now. 

The Magi looked and they saw a light.

Think back for yourselves when you might have been seeking.  What was the light that you saw?  Did you read a book?  Did you talk to a friend?  Did you go to a meeting?  Did you have an “epiphany” in nature?  What was the light?  What was the star?  What was that little something, or big dramatic something, when you said to yourself, “I’ve got to follow that.  I’ve got to find out where that’s going to lead me”?  

Now it can be a very long and complicated journey that goes in many directions. The journey is not always a straight line; it can go across deserts, and through dark places. We can’t make that journey alone.  We have to ask for help.  It might be from parents, or friends, or teachers. It might have come from strangers through a book, or the Bible, or a poem.  We have to be willing to go to even Herod and ask for directions and get guidance, support and help.

Then eventually, if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, following that light is that is calling us, eventually we will find the Christ child.  

You may encounter Christ in a song, on the beach, at church, who knows?  Who knows when Christ will make Christ’s self's known? But you will encounter Christ. And it’s at that moment, at that moment when you have the most important decision of your life to make, because you can either bow down and worship, like the wise ones, or you can react in fear, like Herod.

When we encounter Christ, when we encounter the true king, when we experience the fullness of God's love, our egos can be terrified, because if we really worship and give ourselves to Christ, we’re not in charge anymore.  It’s not about me anymore, and that can be pretty frightening. But if we can get past our fear, we can worship. 

What we’re asked to do is to offer to the Christ child our gold, the material world, the focus on things, the focus on security. To give all that to Christ.  

And we’re asked to give Christ frankincense; our worship, our prayers, our spiritual selves, our devotion.  

And we’re asked to give Christ our myrrh; our pain, our sorrows, our heartbreak, our suffering and our very lives.  

Christ, who already loves us more than we can imagine, will accept these gifts. 

 Once we’ve handed over our gold, then it’s up to Christ to take care of our needs.  When we’ve handed over our worship then we can feel the joy of that relationship.  When we hand over our lives and our suffering, our pain and our sorrow, the myrrh becomes a healing balm in Christ’s loving arms.

Of course, once we’ve made that choice and offered our lives to Christ, we can’t go back by the same road we came.  We’re not the same person.  The rest of our lives go in a totally different direction.  Nobody outside might notice, but inside we know; we make different choices, we take different paths.  Our life is transformed when we finally find that which we seek, when we find that which our deepest soul yearns for.

Or, more accurately, once that which we seek has found us.  

The birth story found in Luke's gospel is not a diary of historical events as they happened. It is not biography, nor is it the prose of history remembered; but is rather the poetry of faith. Sadly, in our generation, we have confused factuality with truth. The fact in this story is that a baby boy was born named Yeshuia. That is it. All the rest is myth. Not fairy tale or fantasy but myth. Well, what is a myth? A myth is a profound truth that can only be communicated in a story. Genesis - the Creation story - is not history - though some would have it so - it's a myth. Luke 2 is a myth - A beautifully crafted gift to the Christ child.

And so, we break open the narrative to hear the truths Luke's community in Antioch, hearing this story about the year 80 C.E. would understand.

Gauis Octavius was Julius Caesar's nephew and adopted son and heir. He became the first emperor of Rome having defeated Marc Antony and others who claimed the throne. He sought to consolidate an empire that stretched from northern Britain to Asia to North Africa. Building new cities, paving roads and planting milestone markers, having the military police the highways and thus establishing a Pax Romana, a Roman peace- based in wealth and raw power. It was said of him that he found Rome brick and left it marble.

The Senate gave him the title Caesar Augustus- Caesar sacred. He was called "Son of God." Roman coins proclaimed him savior of the world. And yet, the deified Emperor, as powerful as he was, it was Caesar Augustus whom God used as an instrument to get the Holy Family from Nazareth to Bethlehem. To the City of King David - by Caesar decree. Jesus will proclaim a kingdom that is mightier than Caesar's, one that is unbound by the sands of time or the arbitrary boundary lines of tribes. One that is eternal and which proclaims a peace not based in power but in love.

The Jesus story is about a world saved not by a man who, by self acclamation, became a God but by God, in emptying himself became a man.

Arriving exhausted in the little town of Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary are summarily turned away at the door of the caravansary. There is simply no room in the inn. “If you had only come earlier ", “If I but knew you were coming.”

In truth, the innkeeper is you and me. How often is the metaphorical Inn of our hearts, our lives, simply too full? We are distracted and overwhelmed with too much to do and too much to worry about - when the Holy draws near to us we miss it. Not out of spite or indifference but simply because in the busyness of life, we miss God who comes to us incognito - in a hurting friend, a discouraged coworker, an anxious mother with a difficult child - or a travel weary family on the doorstep, late at night, fearful and alone.

Or was there no room because this couple was obviously poor and were strangers- tattered and patched, unwashed and with a Galilean accent. How easily we dismiss God who comes to us in the guise of the poor. For the tribute, the taxes needed to build palaces and armies, Caesar declared that all shall be registered. A populus on the move including the sick, the infirmed, even a pregnant peasant girl. But there's no room at the Inn and so God comes into our world beyond the reach of the God Emperor. Address-less, unregistered , undocumented - incognito God comes hidden in an unused stable- by Eastern tradition, a Cave. Animal dung is hurriedly swept aside and animal saliva is wiped from the feeding trough to be used as a makeshift cradle- a boy child comes.

The birth announcement is made by an angel chorus. In Hebrew cosmology, the earth is a flat disc with Shoal- the underworld of shadows- underneath. Above the flat earth was the firmament - firm indeed was the great earth covering metal dome. The stars being holes in the dome through which celestial light shines through. Each hole was guarded by an angel lest humankind, as with their tower of Babel, again attempt to storm heaven or mischievous angels attempt to visit the earth without God's leave. It was they who sang the Messiah' s birth. The Jewish people hearing this would be mindful of the question God asks Job,

" Who laid the earth's cornerstone when all the stars of the morning were singing with joy?" The stars witness the 1st creation and now sing with joy at the re- creation in the birth of God's anointed one.

An angel appears to sheep herders. We romanticize these men. Kids scramble to be wise men first with shepherds a close second in the Christmas pageant. But shepherds were a despised group, a lower class than tax collectors and prostitutes. Widely viewed as thieves and drunkards- because they were- and given to an unspeakable lust with the animals they guarded, which they hated themselves for; shepherds were men who had lost land and herds to the rich and powerful; wise men had given up on God who had given up on them. They were filled with hatred and envy; prone to violence and despair.

And yet-and-yet- it was the shepherds in a field that an angel appeared in a vision saying quote I bring you- you! -good news of God's Shalom, meaning peace, well- being, contentment to you and all humankind because God is well pleased with you. The singing stars were heard in the crowded inn and in the homes in Bethlehem. The citizens there cursed at the noisy drunk in the night probably those damn shepherds again. The stars were heard in Jerusalem, in King Herod’s Palace and among the self-satisfied aristocrats, who turned over and snuggled more deeply under their luxurious covers for the winter night was cold.

But the shepherds were naive enough to listen to the angel’s promise and went in haste because they so desperately needed a God who cares. The lesson of the shepherds - men who hadn't bathed in months, who were not uncomfortable with the smell of an animal's stall, who some of them, may have been born in a stable themselves; men who had no address and no names in Luke's story; living in the fields, in the emperor's world yet outside it, unregistered and unrecorded. The lesson of the shepherds to us is that it is the frightened, unloved and despised part in us that can lead us to the presence of the Holy. What is the profound truth of the incarnation revealed in Luke’s myth?

Where once God was thought of as distant and indifferent or revealed in terror and awe. As seen dimly in the low-lying clouds of Sinai mountain or in the dreadful silence behind the curtain of the holy of holies in the temple, accessible only to the high priest and even then, on only one day in the year - on the day of atonement when lesser priests would tie a stout rope around the high priest's waste lest God behind the curtain would strike him dead for the sins of the people and they could pull on the rope to recover his smoldering corpse. The Incarnation is the story of God drawing near to human life as a vulnerable baby, born of a people unregarded and ridiculed. The subversive promise of Christians is just this: that God comes to privilege the unprivileged and to show us a way. God comes intimately to enflesh God's dream for us - A world-filled with Justice mercy and compassion. A friendly people under a friendly sky in harmony with a friendly God - and that hope, that great dream of God - is reborn again, each Christmas, on this Christmas, in each one of us.

This poem is by Ann Weems:
Each year the child is born again
Each year some new heart
finally hears, finally sees, finally knows!
And in heaven There is great rejoicing!
There is a festival of stars!
There is a celebration among the angels!
For in the finding of one lost sheep,
the heart of the shepherd is glad,
and Christmas has happened once more.
The child is born anew.
And one more knee is bowed!

From Kneeling in Bethlehem

In a certain East African tribe when a woman decides it is time for her to have a child, she goes out away from her home a bit and sits under a tree and listens.

She listens until she hears the song of the child who wants to come.

And she begins to sing it to herself.

Then she returns to the man who is her partner and she teaches the song to him.

And while they are making love, they sing it together to call the child to them.

The mother and father continue to sing it to the child in the womb.

And as the time draws near they teach it to the midwives, and during the birth, the midwives sing the song to the child.

As the child grows, the villagers who have learned the song, sing it to him or her.  If the child falls, or gets hurt, they scoop him up and sing his song to him.

When she does something wonderful, they sing it to her.

During the tribal rites of puberty, the villagers sing the song.

During their wedding, the songs of the bride and groom are sung.

When they are old and dying, the villagers gather round the bed and sing it for the last time.

In today’s gospel, Mary sings her child’s song about him and who he will become.

It is the song of the child who wants to come, who wants to do the will of God.

It is a song about the God who is sending this child in order to keep the promises God made to Abraham and all those who followed him.

The church sings the song of the child often, especially during Evening Prayer.

We call it the Magnificat – Mary’s Song.

But it’s really Mary’s song for the child.

And it announces how God, through the child will make everything right.

How the poor and the lowly will have a champion in this child.

The child will stand in solidarity with the weak and the friendless and the powerless.

Each of us has a song, a song deep inside, a song about our purpose, our future.  Do you know what your song is?

If we are not aware of it, perhaps we, like the African woman, need to sit under a tree and listen until we hear the words of our song.

Perhaps our song is a song of hope like Mary’s.

A song for the lowly, the hungry, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the forgotten, the marginalized, the neglected, the prisoners, the refugees.

Perhaps it’s a song that celebrates a God who uses power for mercy.

Who liberates oppressed people.

Who puts down the cruel and powerful people and lifts up the lowly.

A God who cannot endure those who are proud, who take credit for everything God has done.

A God who fills the hungry, those who are literally hungry, but also those hungry for love, acceptance, respect.

A God who fills them all with the good things they long for.

And this God sends the selfish rich away with nothing, which is probably the best thing that could happen to them.

Because it’s only when we have nothing and are needy that we reach out for God.

Perhaps our song is a song about God’s hope and purpose for us.

It is a song our heart will sing at all the important moments of our lives – the good times and the bad.

May we sing our song with our lives.

And when our final hour arrives may we hear God singing our song to us and recognize it as our own.

My soul magnifies my Lord.

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the Mighty One has done great things for me and Holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm.

He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones.

And he has lifted up the lowly.

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

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy.

According to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

This is the agenda of our God and the song of Mary’s child.

This is what love in action looks like.

This is the creed of all who follow the God of Love.

May we carry this song in our hearts;  and may it be our rallying cry.

            But the one when I was 17?  Not my finest hour.  I still cringe when I think about it.  Let me tell you what happened….

            It was a dark and snowy night in February of 1968, and I was driving home from youth group at the First Congregational Church of Wilmette, Illinois – my home church in my hometown.  I was also giving someone else a ride home.  I no longer remember who was getting that ride, but I do remember that because of this act of kindness, there was even a witness to what followed!

            Well, after I’d gone a few blocks from the church, I looked in the rearview mirror and, to my great surprise and even greater confusion, I saw the flashing red and blue lights of a police car.

            “That’s strange,” I said to whoever my companion was.  “I wonder why that’s there.  It can’t be for me; I didn’t do anything wrong.”

            And so I continued to drive, obviously not remembering the part in Driver’s Ed about pulling over for an emergency vehicle.  I continued to drive…and drive…and drive, with this police car right behind me, lights whirling like the Fourth of July.  We even went through one of the busiest (and most well-lit) intersections in town, so that lots of people got to see the police car in hot pursuit of a Ford Falcon going 35 miles an hour.

            I kept saying, “Why are they following me?  Why don’t they pass me and get where they’re going?”

            It was only when they turned on the siren that I finally realized that they were where they were going, thank you very much, and that it was in fact me they were after…and so yes, I finally pulled over.

            The officer was very kind.  He said he figured I hadn’t seen him because my convertible’s plastic back window was fogged up.  He officially ticketed me for having made an improper left turn back at the church – which is a total crock, by the way – but I think both of us knew that I was really being ticketed for stupidity!

            So now you know why I cringe.  I was so sure I hadn’t done anything wrong; I was so sure, in fact, that I ended up being hindered by my sureness.  To draw on today’s collect, I was sorely hindered; sorely hindered by my own claim to innocence.  It never even occurred to me to pull over; it never even occurred to me that maybe the police officers wanted to tell me about a broken taillight or something like that.  All I could see was my own belief that I had done nothing wrong.  I was sorely hindered by my pride, and by those self-righteous blinders that only let me see the perspective I chose to see.  I was sorely hindered by my sins.

            “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us….”

            This Third Sunday in Advent is a Sunday with several nicknames and, in the readings, a bit of a lighter spirit – except for that “unquenchable fire” part we just heard!  Today is variously known as Gaudate Sunday because “gaudate” is the Latin translation of the imperative “rejoice” which is part of today’s traditional readings; it’s also called Rose Sunday because we light the pink candle in the Advent wreath today, reflecting that same sense of rejoicing – and, very Anglican, today is also known as Stirrup Sunday because of the opening words of the collect:  “Stir up your power, O Lord….”  Following that, I also have it on good authority that this is also the day that one “stirs up” the Christmas pudding, theoretically adding more whiskey to the mix as it ages.

            All things considered, and with my first traffic ticket to boot, today sounds like a perfect day to talk about…Original Sin.

            Now, the whole concept of Original Sin is distressing and even offensive to many people today, including many Episcopalians.  From the Enlightenment onwards, western Christianity has had an increasingly ambiguous attitude towards sin, and this ambiguity has been made even more complex by the things we now know about human psychology, about the underlying motivations for behaviors, about theories of personality, and so forth.  The idea of Original Sin as something inherited and passed on from one generation to the next without their consent is seen as archaic, and even as unfair in our culture that emphasizes individual action and individual responsibility:  “What’s this ‘we sinned’?” we say.  “I wasn’t there.  I didn’t sin.”

            We don’t generally feel that “one bad apple” taints all of us here in the bushel like the children of Israel did when God through Moses was leading them through the wilderness.  In that day, if one person sinned, it was guilt by association for everyone else:  the whole clan paid the price for that one person’s sin.  Even so, if we say that we don’t believe in the concept or the reality of Original Sin, then I think we need to make sure we know what we’re talking about.  We need to know exactly what it is that we say we don’t believe.

            Even though sin was a late arrival, Genesis tells us that sin got its start in the Garden of Eden.  All of creation, including us, had already come into being and been declared good when sin came along, so the serpent, who was sin’s original vehicle, had his pick of creatures to approach.  More subtle than all the other inhabitants in the Garden, the serpent singled out the woman, and he asked her what God had said about the fruit of the trees in the Garden.  The woman said that according to God, everything was OK to eat except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God had told the man that if they ate of the fruit of that tree, they would die.

            “You’re not going to die,” said the serpent, quietly baiting his hook.  “It’s just the opposite.  One bite of that fruit and your eyes will be opened.  One bite of that fruit, and YOU WILL BE LIKE GOD.”

            Well, how cool is that?  Bait just doesn’t get any better!  There might be lots of reasons we’d love to be like God, but the most compelling reason of all is that God is all-powerful – and the siren call of power is just as seductive today as it ever was.

            So the woman believed the serpent, took the bait, took the fruit, and she and the man were hooked – hooked by pride and disobedience; and as they ate, they experienced the first irony of the human condition.  In their attempt to be like God, the man and the woman actually went so far wide of the mark that they ended up about as unlike God as they could possibly be.  Their pride and their disobedience introduced SEPARATION into their, and our, relationship with God; separation, and self-centeredness; and so, doing what we will has become a lot more appealing to us than doing what God wills.

            That’s Original Sin, and my guess is that the overall dynamic sounds pretty familiar to us…but we do still have a problem with that “passed on from generation to generation” part.  When we look at babies, for example, we don’t want to see them as anything but the gifts from God that they are, and so we reject any suggestion that they also participate in Original Sin; and even St. Augustine of Hippo, who did a lot of the definitive work in this area for the western Church, even St. Augustine insisted that each soul is newly made by God…but Original Sin doesn’t contradict that; the theology of Original Sin doesn’t say that babies are evil or bad or not newly made by God.

            What it does say is that simply by being human, simply by being born into this world, babies are separated from God – just like their parents.  It says that babies are self-centered (which they are; that’s how we know what they need), and that babies are concerned with the fulfillment of their own desires – just like their parents.

            The Bible tells us that we were created good and that we ourselves compromised this goodness by deciding that we were the ultimate good.  From this decision, this choice, have come selfishness, hatred, arrogance, infidelity, abuse, and all the other negative behaviors, on the corporate and national levels as well as the personal, all of the behaviors that continue to exalt the one at the expense, or to the detriment, of the other; or of the many; all of the behaviors that we continue to model for those babies who come after us so that they can pass them on to their children too.

            All that is Original Sin, capital O, capital S.  We don’t have a choice about whether or not we inherit Original Sin any more that we have a choice as to who our parents are…but we do have a choice as to how we respond to Original Sin; and in choosing our own response, it helps to see how God responded to it.  Because of Original Sin, we had to say goodbye to Eden.  In spite of Original Sin, God never said goodbye to us.

            It’s easy to track God’s response to our disobedience because God’s response is the whole story of salvation that we find throughout the Bible.  This is a love story, the story of God continually calling us back to God in spite of what we’ve done, in spite of Original Sin.  It’s the story of a righteous God working to guide our behavior so that we too can be righteous; the story of God weeping over us, getting tough with us, but always standing by us with chesed, standing by us with steadfast love.  Ultimately, this is the story of God coming to be with us in the muck and the mire; of God being the one who goes first because we can’t; of God being the one who blazes the trail home to show us the way.  God’s response to our sin is the story of God continuing to invite us into relationship – again, and again, and again.  As St. Augustine has said, “Without God, we cannot.  Without us, God will not.”

            How we respond to the spiritual reality of Original Sin is up to us; and we here as Anglican Christians, as Episcopalians, have chosen to respond positively to God’s love, to God’s invitation into relationship, by receiving baptism for ourselves and for our children, believing God’s promise that in baptism we are united with Jesus in his death and resurrection, and that in fact we are marked as Christ’s own forever.  We believe that through the power of the Holy Spirit, baptism heals our separation from God and from each other; that our relationship with all of creation is restored and made new…and so we here choose restoration and new life; but let’s not forget my traffic ticket and my conviction of my own innocence.

            Even baptized, we have freedom of choice every day of our lives, including the freedom to say that we have no sin, the freedom to backslide into arrogance and self-deceit, to backslide into all the “compromises of daily life.”  One author talks about John the Baptizer’s call to repentance today as a call for “a moment of truth, a call to abandon all [the] devices [we use] to maintain [the] illusion of [our] innocence” so that we can “come clean” and “come empty” to receive the gift of God in Christ.

            Abandon all the devices we use to maintain the illusion of our innocence; abandon them so that we can come clean, and come empty to the manger of God’s love; this is the call of Stirrup Sunday.

            “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us….”  Amen.

I.    Intro - Two clergy with sign "Turn back before it's too late. The end is near." Guy in redsportscar "Mind your own business, you religious nuts!" Loud splash. Maybe the sign should say "Bridge out"

II.   Body

A.  Background

1.   A lot of ridicule around the theme of repentance

2.   Rightly so. Often presented as: Feel bad about all bad things you've done or you'llgo to hell.

3.   Let's take another look

B.  Gospel - Luke 3:1-6

1.   First, an introduction of John the baptist preaching on repentance

2.   Then Isaiah: this is the voice of one saying "Prepare the way of the Lord"

3.   So evidently preparing the way of the Lord is first and foremost through our ownrepentance

4.   Important to know what repentance is

C.  Repentance

1.   Hebrew: Shuv - turn/choose a new direction (not: Feel bad about yourself)

2.   Greek: Metanoiete - change your mind

3.   New insight this week: Change your focus (unites both Hebrew and Greekunderstanding)

D.  Application

1.   In areas that bring suffering to ourselves, others, and our world, we need tochange our focus

2.   Story of how they train race car drivers to focus on the track ... not the wall

3.   Alignment with God is alignment with love, joy, and peace.

III.  Conclusion

A good question to ask this third week in Advent is:

Where is my current focus hurting my relationship with God?

What is one simple shift in focus that might help this week?

Maybe I am focused on "Ain't it awful." Perhaps a shift could be "What am I genuinely grateful for?"

Maybe I am focused on all the bad things happening in our world. Perhaps a shift could be

"What is one simple act of kindness I could do for another this week?"

Well friends, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and I’m very sad to not be there in person with all of you to see the church colors change and to light that first Advent candle. As most of you know by now, God always seems to have a dry sense of humor about which gospel passages I get assigned to preach, and today is a double whammy: (1.) today’s gospel is a rough one, and (2.) I’m too sick to actually be there to preach about it! Please say a big thank you to whoever was kind enough to stand up this morning and read this meditation on my behalf.

Starting today, we enter into the season of Advent. The word ‘advent’ means ‘coming’, and it refers to the incarnation — the coming of Christ into the world as a little baby in a manger in 1st Century Palestine. Advent is a season of preparation, where we try to enter into those long, dark centuries before the birth of Jesus when the people of God lived in exile and then under foreign occupation. In these years the people of God were alienated from their home, their temple, and so many of the things that connected them to God and one another; these were years of uncertainty and pain, when it must have seemed that all was lost and when prophecies of restoration and hope must have felt like dimly burning candles in a dark, cold night.

And so it’s no wonder that when Jesus comes onto the scene, he is born into an Israel where the people are desperate for a Savior — where the long years of suffering have taken their toll and the people of God are hoping for a Messiah to come along not just to set things to rights, but to violently overthrow the Roman oppressors and finally make the other nations suffer just like Israel has been suffering. They are hoping for a day when Israel will be lifted up above all the other nations, and when they all will bow down and come to the Temple in Jerusalem as subjects to pay tribute to Israel and Israel's God, as some of the prophets write about.

But this is not the way that Jesus comes into the world to restore it. In fact, our gospel today is the last section of a longer passage where Jesus is predicting that the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed and where he tells them what things will be like in the years leading up to that destruction. Of course, Jesus is right, and the temple is actually destroyed about 40 years later in 70AD, but for the disciples and other Jews who hear this, this is impossible news. The temple is the main way that Jews at the time interacted with God; it is where they believed they drew near to God, where God met them. It was THE sign and proof of God’s presence with them. The Messiah was supposed to come into the world to liberate the temple and lift it up to glory, not prophesy about its destruction.

Yet somehow, Jesus says, this time of destruction will be a time when ‘the Son of Man’ is revealed, when God’s glory is made known, and when the disciples are going to “stand up and raise [their] heads, because [their] redemption is drawing near.”

Now, this is a tough passage, and I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand exactly what Jesus is saying here. What I do understand is that when Jesus was born, God’s people were so fixated on their particular understanding of God’s promises, so fixated on the temple and their particular rituals and all of the different things that they looked to for security and strength that when God showed up in the person of Jesus, they misunderstood him entirely. When he threatened the security and stability that they held dear, they entreated the Romans to put him to death.

What I do understand is that sometimes when we are wounded and afraid, we put our trust and security in all sorts of things that we believe will save and protect us — let’s call these things ‘temples’ — and we do all sorts of terrible things to one another instead of facing our fears and handing them over to God. But here’s the thing: God is the only one in whom we can truly rest, in whom there is true healing and security and peace. And sometimes the only way we can be set free and finally give ourselves over to God is when those ‘temples’ that we cling to are taken away and come crashing down around us — when we are forced to see that they were never able to save or protect us all along.

This first Sunday of Advent is traditionally meant to focus on ‘Hope’, so based on everything I’ve written so far, this gospel passage might seem like a bad fit. It’s certainly not warm and fuzzy, and it’s not obviously comforting and hopeful at first glance. But here’s the thing — I think that it says something about what true hope looks like.

As many of you know, my Mom had a heart attack last weekend, she’s in the hospital right now recovering from open heart surgery. My wife, Rachel, has a severe chronic illness, my Dad has cancer, and to top it all off, I have a nasty cold. I’m not having a good week over here. And, often, when someone is going through times like this, it’s tempting to tell them not to worry because ‘everything is going to be alright’ and ‘God’s going to take care of it’ and ‘God has a plan,’ and just to ‘have faith’ — because we don’t like to see people suffering. And in some sense, all of those statements are true, but as I’m sure you know, words like that are cold comfort to someone who is really in darkness, because the truth is that God doesn’t promise that we won’t suffer, that we won’t hurt and grieve and lose many of the things and people that we love.

The ‘hope’ that Christ offers, and that our Gospel this morning offers, is that somehow, even when everything we hold dear seems to be crashing down around us and all things seem dark — somehow, Christ will come. It may be in the kindness of a friend or stranger, in a sudden word from God in prayer or in something we read, or it may be something else entirely, but somehow, even in the depths of our pain, Christ will reveal himself to us and we will discover that all is not lost. The hope of today’s gospel and the hope of Advent is that somehow, someday, despite everything we might lose, darkness and death will not get the last word — all things will, at last, be made well.

This is what we try to remember in this Advent season: that God has come among us — that Christ has been, is now, and will be always with us — and that he often comes to us unexpectedly, when all things seem dark.

This Advent, may we learn to wait in hope for Christ’s coming, and may the Holy Spirit make us the hands and feet of Jesus to those who feel trapped in the dark.

Amen.

  A few years ago, a community church that I passed every day on my way to my former parish of Trinity, Orange had a banner-type sign out front that read, “Expect a miracle.”  I always had a positive response to that sign, and I took it as a personal reminder to keep my mind and my eyes open to the reality of God constantly at work in the world – and then I encountered another quote, from where I don’t remember; another quote suggesting that a miracle is God’s work in the world intentionally slowed down so that we humans can see it more easily.  I happily embraced both of these thoughts – until I came upon another quote, this time from my own files of “Good Stuff,” quotes and snippets collected from anywhere and everywhere through the years. 

In this particular snippet, its author said, “People aren’t looking for miracles, they’re looking for hope – and they only get that from people who have struggled, and make the choice to keep going.”  (CtK B 18)

            People aren’t looking for miracles, they’re looking for hope.  Now this is interesting, because based on what I just said, it’s usually miracles that get all the attention; it’s miracles that get the big press.  Understood as special interventions by God into our physical world or into the lives of individuals or peoples through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, I think we certainly pray for miracles; we pray for the power of God to be manifested in a unique and decisive way in a particular life or a particular situation that’s important to us; but then, as I mentally thumbed through the miracles that are recorded in Scripture, from the parting of the Red Sea and the deliverance of the children of Israel to the provision of manna in the wilderness to the miracles of Jesus’ own ministry:  water into wine at Cana, the multiplication of loaves and fishes to feed the 5,000; all of Jesus’ healing miracles, and even the raising of both Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus from the dead – as I thought about all these, I realized that miracles do have their limitations.

            Now, true – miracles change immediate circumstances and can certainly alter the course of an individual life, as every person healed by Jesus and restored to their family and their community would attest; but miracles don’t change either the ultimate reality, or the ultimate bottom line, of human life.  With only one exception, every single person who was the recipient or the beneficiary of miraculous intervention from God in all of Scripture, sooner or later, they all still died – and Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter each had to die twice.

            Miracles may change the conditions of our humanity, but they don’t change the fact of our humanity.

            The only enduring, ongoing miracle in all of Scripture is the miracle of Jesus himself:  his Incarnation by the Holy Spirit, his Passion and death on the Cross, and his Resurrection to new life -- the miracle that defeated all those other deaths once for all.  The miracle of Jesus as Emmanuel, God-with-us, is the concrete and eternal expression of God’s love for us and for all creation; and it’s the miracle of Jesus that is the foundation for, and the basis of, all Christian hope.

            As I’ve said before, and I think from this pulpit as well, Christian hope IS NOT wishful thinking pulled out of our hearts and our minds, as we imagine the future we’d like to have.         Christian hope in the present is the confident expectation of our future relationship with God, because it’s an expectation that is based on, and rooted in, the actual events of our past relationship with God.

            One author writes, “Hope, with strength for the future, consists in returning.  [Hope] is retrospective.  The returning is to the fact and foundation of redemption, the established achievement of Christ’s atonement, the ‘one full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction and oblation for the sins of the whole world’ (Cranmer’s phrasing).  Everything else in life that is positive or promised is based on that achievement.”  (LP, Hope, 10)

            This being said, however, confident expectation isn’t always easy for us to maintain.  As I mentioned earlier, people get hope from other people; “people who have struggled, and make the choice to keep going.”

            One of the boldest affirmations of ultimate hope in all of Scripture comes from the voice of someone whose trials, losses, and pain are legendary to this day.  The voice is that of Job, which is surprising, given that when he makes this affirmation, his own situation couldn’t have been worse.

            Through no fault of his own, Job has lost his children, his wealth, his physical health, and his friends; and although he has repeatedly demanded an explanation from God as to the reason for his radical misfortune, he has yet to receive a response.

            Even so, from these depths Job makes a statement that is so powerful, so filled with confident expectation, that it’s included as one of the opening sentences in our Order for Burial in the Book of Common Prayer:  “As for me,” Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.  After my awaking, he will raise me up; and in my body I shall see God.  I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger.”  (BCP p. 491)

            Even in the midst of all his earthly pain, all his earthly struggles, Job has chosen to keep going, and he has chosen to keep going in relationship with God.

            On this Feast of Christ the King, when we celebrate the culmination of the liturgical year and we look ahead to the time when all things in heaven and earth will be restored and brought together in Christ, on this day all of our readings are about hope, and about fulfillment.  All of our readings support the confident expectation that God’s purposes do continue to be worked out through the events of human history, even when these purposes are opposed by the world’s powers, even when justice seems perverted and the faithful are suffering.  The Book of Daniel, from which today’s first reading is taken, is particularly relevant because Daniel was written to people in pain; people whose lives had been turned upside down by conquest and domination – people who, like us, struggled with violence in their midst; people who struggled with housing insecurity, food insecurity, health issues, and fears for the day to day safety of those they loved.

            A little background:  after the death of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C., his very sizeable empire was divided between three of his generals.  One of them, Seleucus, and the Seleucid Dynasty he founded, took control of that part of the Middle East that included Judea; and the Book of Daniel was written two hundred years later, in the second century B.C., at a time when the Jews, especially those in Jerusalem, were being actively persecuted by the ruling Greek Seleucids; persecuted for practicing their faith.  

            Daniel was written to give the people hope in God’s deliverance, but because it was too dangerous to write openly about the author’s understanding of God’s plans for the Seleucids, the book’s storyline was placed in Babylon three centuries earlier, during the time that the

Jewish people were in exile there.  It was presented partly as an extended narrative about Daniel, a Jew who remains faithful to God while a member of the court in Babylon, and partly as an account of Daniel’s visions of God’s coming action.  These visions, as we heard today, are described in the symbolic language of apocalyptic, which is a specific literary style that places the immediate situation of the visionary and of the people themselves who are under threat into the greater framework of world history, and of the world’s imminent transformation. 

(Craddock, 478)            

And while apocalyptic writing doesn’t bring any physical or material relief to its recipients, it does something else:  it places the immediate suffering of its recipients into the greater context of God’s Big Picture; and in doing so, the apocalyptic writer gives the people’s suffering a cosmic dimension as well as cosmic meaning; and it graphically demonstrates to the faithful that in the world things are not always as they seem.  (F, R, Th, 328)

As another author says concerning the apocalyptic promises in the Revelation to John, “…with the Lord God, there is always more:  more transformation to come than the earth has yet seen, more power and authority than claimed by earthly rulers, more dignity for God’s people than earthly rulers recognize.”  There is always more.  (F, R, Th, 326)

A Benedictine abbot once wrote, “Our faith is the answer not so much to the question ‘What must I believe?’ but rather [it is the answer to the question] ‘What dare I hope?’”  (LP, Hope, 14)

“What dare I hope?”  “What is my confident expectation?”  This is a question we not only ask ourselves, but also a question we can ask in faith about Jesus’ mindset, as he stands being interrogated by Pilate in John.

  John’s Gospel, of course, is qualitatively different from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The last Biblical Gospel to be written, and dating from around the beginning of the second century A.D., the Gospel of John is a mature theological treatise, an extended reflection on the part of his community on the meaning of Jesus as the Christ.

Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus is in complete control as the Risen Lord.  All events take place according to whether or not “his hour” has come, and nothing happens, including both his crucifixion and his death, without his complete consent.  Jesus has come from God, and when the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, he will return to God.

This being said, within the context of John, what does Jesus dare hope? – and again, this isn’t wishful thinking.  Based on his past with the God from whom he has come, what does Jesus confidently expect for the future?

Hold on to that for a moment.

The traditional representation of Christ the King is Jesus on the cross, head up, arms out straight, body erect, vested in a priest’s chasuble and wearing a crown.  

In 1951, the artist Salvadore Dali, in response to what he called a “cosmic dream”, produced a painting that he called “Christ of Saint John of the Cross” because he based its design “on a drawing by the 16th century Spanish friar [and mystic] John of the Cross.”  And I give you one-time sermon permission:  if you have access to your cell phone, go ahead and take it out, keeping it on silent, and go to your browser or search engine.  Type in “Christ of Saint John of the Cross,” because I would love for you to see the actual painting as I continue.

As I hope you can see, the painting dramatically depicts Jesus on the cross as seen from above “in a darkened sky floating over a body of water complete with a boat and fishermen”.  Jesus’ upper body is arched forward in an extreme angle as would be consistent with gravity pulling on a torso held back only by nails, but this same angle allows Jesus to look down upon the fishermen as well as upon the cloud-filled, but not necessarily dark, abyss that lies between the fishermen and the cross.

And although Dali paints Jesus on the cross, he omits the nails, he omits blood, he omits the crown of thorns; and because of the angle of Jesus’ head, he also omits any facial expression for Jesus – again, he says, because he was so directed in his dream.  (Wikipedia). 

The power of this painting is unmistakable, because somehow Dali manages to portray not only the mystery of the cross, both “life-giving” and of the abyss, but also the mystery of Christ enthroned upon this cross; the mystery of the crucified Christ as “the one in whom all things [in heaven and in earth] hold together”.  (Christian Century, 10/24/18, Brad Roth, 23)

And this glorified but radically different Christ the King, this Christ without nails, is held on the throne of the cross only by his own love, his own obedience to God, his own will.  The painting’s message and its effect are regal, compassionate, and profound.

To go back to my question about the hope of Jesus, about what Jesus confidently expects for his future, one scholar has said that “The hope of Jesus was based on his

understanding of the character of God.”  (LP, Hope, Robin Scroggs, 13)

As the one who had come from God and was returning to God, Jesus knew God, knew the character of God, intimately.  He knew that he had come from Love and Compassion, that he was returning to Love and Compassion, and that in the Love and Compassion of God as revealed in and through him, all things – us, our lives, our world, all the little pictures that make up the Big Picture – all things will be held together.

People aren’t looking for miracles, they’re looking for hope – and our hope, our Christian hope, is based on our understanding of God as God was, and is, and ever shall be revealed in Jesus Christ, the king voluntarily enthroned upon the cross of love, for us. We don’t need to expect the miracle.  We already have the miracle.     Amen.   

So much so, that I have felt drained,

 And I have sometimes felt inadequate to the task of preaching the Good News of the Gospel, to point us toward the New Church New Year that begins in 2 weeks’ time, with the lighting of the first Advent candle, the candle that celebrates Hope.

It’s not that I am without Hope – not at all – but a heaviness pervades

And my muscles ache as they work to climb up To where the light is each day.

Perhaps you feel something similar –  not because of who you did or didn’t vote for— But because of the fear, aggressive language  and either/or attitudes that surround us. We are a Both/And people  living in an either/or world.

But, in the midst of it all, as is always the case— Life goes on with the joys and challenges  of our everyday lives: Friends, family, game night, phone calls, (or text messages), hurt feelings, food, laughter, pets, and love.

And also in the mix are larger events that matter. This month contains many celebrations of Indigenous peoples 

There are preparations for Thanksgiving, baptisms, weddings, concerts, and on and on in the vitality of our lives.

A week ago, was the annual Diocesan Convention in Riverside, Where clergy and lay delegates met to do the business of the church AND to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church!!!

It was a beacon of light and Hope so needed by us all.

On Friday night we watched the documentary about The Philadelphia 11, the first women who were officially ordained as Priests And the brave Bishops who ordained them.

I was 27 then, living in Philadelphia, where I watched it unfold on TV as my 18-month old babies played on the floor.

Watching the film, I had forgotten the dark, angry, hate-filled abuse they endured 

As these seminary-trained deaconesses pursued Their God-centered call to the priesthood.

You can only imagine what they were called  publicly and privately – That they were of Satan, 

They were destroying the nearly 2000 years  of the church,

Jesus was male and only men could be priests 

Women weren’t suited;  didn’t have the right equipment,

Any sacrament these women try to do post-ordination Will be invalid – baptisms, weddings,  And most of all – The Eucharist.

They are an abomination.

All this and much worse – out of the mouths of church people. 

 I had also forgotten that the 3 Bishops required to ordain them Had each sacrificed their careers and their reputations to do so And yet they continued to speak out, actively working for years

For the eventual passing vote in the House of Bishops

For the Ordination of women on July 29, 1974.

As we watched the film, the clothes and hair were very 1970’s

But the anger and division were very familiar.

At Convention, all the women clergy – priests and deacons – wore red— Representing the Holy Spirit.

Clergy shirts and collars, red jacket or sweater, and red stoles.

We all processed in together during the opening hymn of the Eucharist.

It was thrilling, ear to ear smiles as we sang – A moment of joy— but also of great humility 

In the deep awareness of those who had come before,

Of the struggles and sacrifices they endured to clear the way for the rest of us.

Heading the procession, presiding at the Eucharist, and giving the keynote address was Dr. Rev. Carter Hayward, one of the 11, now in her 80’s.

So, here for us was exactly the jolt of Hope we all needed.

Hope drove our flood of feelings for what is good and right and of God---no matter the struggle.

I pray you too have had moments of Hope this week,

The flood of feelings of love, goodness, rightness

In your days and weeks, in your lives

That remind you that there is more – That God’s love is more  than what appears on our news feeds.

The Gospel for today resonates  in some unexpected ways with where we find ourselves in this time and place.

Jesus who cuts through the surface  to re-orient the disciples

To the stark realties in which they live.

Having left the Temple court  where Jesus had been teaching amid tense and dangerous confrontations, Jesus and his disciples walk outside,  along the Temple walls, where an unnamed disciple exclaims –  as a tourist might –

“Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings.”

In other circumstances, 

we might accuse Jesus of being a buzz kill,

But here Jesus deliberately reigns in any happy distractions about the size of the Temple.

He needs the disciples to stay in the truth, in reality of the precariousness of the world.  He will need them to be fueled by Hope In the middle of devastation, not outside of it, Or in some manufactured positivity. The real Hope is in God –only and always in God— most especially at the hardest, toughest times. “Teacher, what large stone and what large buildings.”  And Jesus says: 

 “not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

We know this to be true

Nothing is Permanent

Not the Temple

Or the Twin towers

Or bombed out villages

Or flood ravished towns.      Only God.

The disciples grow silent, somber, as they ask Jesus what lies ahead.   There is a collective Gloom.

But it is not gloom for Jesus – it is reality which must be faced, where Truth must shine, where courage must reign.

In 12-step programs there is this phrase:

Do the footwork and stay out of the results.

That is what Jesus is saying.

Do the footwork, that is where Hope resides and grows.

In answering the disciples, Jesus says: 

“Do not be led astray” 

There will be many people, places and things to distract you, And those trying to persuade or fool you.

Keep it simple:

Hold what you know to be true in your heart, mind and actions.

Then Jesus says, “Do not be alarmed” 

– which is different from do not be afraid –

Do not be alarmed by the dangers and destruction you see around you – 

War, violence, fire, flood, famine, hatred writ large – That is part of reality, part of the reality in this world. Stay in it.  Stay true.

We are so inundated with images  of suffering and discord

That it is hard to stay in it, hard to stay true.

And I confess to needing news breaks;

I switch to watching “The Great British Baking Show”  on Netflix instead.

And that’s good self-care, and a fun thing to do.

But I mustn’t see the world on one channel only.

Hope is doing the footwork together, holding each other up

Finding courage in doing what is good and right – with and for others.

I realized as I walked in that procession with my red stole How much I missed the courage and joy 

That a regular community of believers gave me.

You have that here.  Treasure it.

I leave you today with these words inspired by Jesus:

Do not be led astray

Do not be alarmed

Do the footwork together Find the Hope and Love  in as many moments as you can And you will light the way.

AMEN.

I spent a lot of years as a lay person in the pews – (late vocation).

One thing I was always a bit confused about was the difference between All Saints Day, which we are celebrating today, and All Souls Day.

I finally found a way to remember the difference

All Saints Day – traditionally remembered on November 1st is the celebration of all recognized Saints – the ones the church recognizes as especially holy people.  So think of this day as the day we remember Capital “S” Saints.

All Souls Day – traditionally remembered on November 2nd is the celebration of all the faithful departed, all of those we remember and love who have died but are not necessarily formally recognized by the church.  Think of this as the day we remember small “s” saints.

By the way – you may be wondering why we are celebrating All Saints – traditionally celebrated on November 1st, today, on November 3rd.

All Saints is what we call one of the “moveable” feasts of the church.  We can move it to the closest Sunday, so that more people will get to take part in the celebration.

Because let’s face it – how many people do you think would have showed up on Friday, November 1st at 10am?  Now you understand why we are celebrating on November 3rd!

I want to tell you a sweet story about saints that illustrates what big “S” Saints and little “s” saints have in common.

A Sunday School class took kids into church and showed them the stained-glass windows.  “Those are pictures of the saints.  They are very holy people.”

Later, at the end of the lesson in their classroom, the teacher asked, “Who can tell me what a saint is?”

Danny raised his hand and said, “I know!”  The teacher asked Danny to share with us.  And he replied, “Saints are the people the light shines through.”

You see, all saints, whether they are capital “S” Saints or small “s” saints are people the light shines through.

We know them because we can see the light of Christ in and through them.

And the more we look for that light in people – the more we see it.

So, I’m going to tell you a few brief stories about some saints – some capital “S” Saints and some small “s” saints.

After my ordination I applied for and received approval for a sabbatical in Europe, studying the Saints where they lived:  “Doorways to the Divine – Holy People and Holy Places”

St. Therese of Lisieux

Known as the Little Flower, she is a Capital “S” Saint.  She lived in Northern France from 1873-1897.  Though she died at the age of 25 – she was canonized and made a Saint by the church.

Urged by her Mother Superior, she wrote a book called, The Story of a Soul – an autobiography.

Her spirituality is known as “The Little Way.”

She says that all the small seemingly insignificant actions of love of which we are capable, take on great value because of the motive behind them which is the ceaseless flow of love between us and God.

If we only fear God, she says, we think God needs to be placated by our deeds, which then becomes our motive.

But God is not to be feared, says Therese.  God is merciful love and confidence in that love, means even when we sin, provided we stumble to our feet again and continue our advance toward God, we will be forgiven and God will instantly welcome us home.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Another capital “S” Saint known as a Man of the Heart.  He lived from 1491-1556 in Bonn Loyola, Spain.

As a young man, he wanted a career as a courtier in the King’s court and as a soldier.

He gambled, he brawled, he fought duels, and he was a womanizer – which is why he fought many duels.

He joined the war between Loyola and Pamplona.  His leg was shattered by a cannonball.

He spent months and months recovering at home and bored to tears, looked for books in the family library on chivalry.  There were only two. 

But there were lots on the lives of the Saints and there was a copy of The Imitation of Christ, a spiritual classic by Thomas à Kempis.

Out of boredom he began to read them and was converted.  He decided he wanted to be a Knight for God.

He travelled to Montserrat outside of Barcelona to give his life to God.

Then he went to a cave retreating to be with God.

He heard God say to him, “Don’t withdraw from the world, take my love out into the world.”

There in Manresa, he wrote Spiritual Exercises, a book of instructions for living a spiritual life.  Even today you can take a 3, 4, 8, or even a 30-day Ignatian retreat based on the book.

Or you can do as I did and buy the book and do the retreat one day at a time at home.

You may remember from last week one practice taken from the Spiritual Exercises: when I mentioned during the gospel that Ignatius encourages us to enter into a gospel story by becoming one of the characters.

To sum up Ignatius’ teaching, it would be: Heart Open to God Heart Open to Others.

Now on to some small “s” saints.

Chris Hooley showed his 11-year-old daughter Kaylee a touching video on YouTube called “Making the Homeless Smile.”  Their motto is: It’s the little things we do that make a big difference in the world.

His daughter was mesmerized by it.  By the way, I highly recommend watching it, it’s wonderful.

With his daughter’s urging, dad and daughter worked together to create a nonprofit charitable organization.  They host street events where they hand out food, water, clothing, and toiletries to the homeless in Phoenix and then they post videos on them on YouTube.

Jackie Waters and her sister Tracy are small “s” saints.  Tracy lived a 21-year battle with a rare form of brain cancer.  But Tracy was an amazing young woman.  She adopted a Superhero presence during her battle which kept her spirits high and showed others how powerful positive thinking can be.

After Tracy died, Jackie, inspired by her sister’s strength, jumped full force into creating “Help Your Hero,” a website that helps children dealing with difficult medical diagnoses to find their inner Superhero and connects parents with important resources to help them as a family.

So let’s be saints that the light shines through, each in our own way.  And let’s take that light out in the world for everyone to see.

And here’s a song to inspire us.  I’m sure a lot of you grew up with this as I did.  It’s #293 in the Hymnal or you can use the handouts I brought.

Miracles are part of the reason people knew that Jesus was the Messiah.

In Ignatian spirituality we are invited to put ourselves into a gospel story to become one of the characters.

That might be a bit of a challenge for many of us, if we try to become Bartimeus.  It might be hard for us to imagine what being blind would be like.

But there may be a way to connect with Bartimeus.  There may be something in this gospel for those of us who are not physically blind.

We may not be physically blind, but all of us have some spiritual blindness.

And all of us have a choice whether to remain by the roadside crippled by that blindness or whether to cry out to God that we want to see more clearly.

What I’ve learned is that this life journey we are on is way more interesting if we ask to see!

Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes when God helps us to see something we couldn’t see before, the healing is gradual, sort of like peeling layers of an onion.

Sometimes God takes us back to the same issue over and over again, peeling the onion a layer at a time.

And each time God has us revisit an issue in our lives, we go deeper and deeper into that issue and begin to see more and more clearly.

So if we want to understand where God is trying to heal our spiritual blindness, we need to look for the same issue coming up repeatedly in our lives.

God reveals what God wants to heal.

Look for the same old thing coming up again and again.  Don’t resist it.

Here’s an example from my own life.  Coincidentally it has to do with beggars.

I had a rather jaded view of beggars.  My thought was “Don’t give them money, they might buy drugs or alcohol with it.”  So I didn’t help beggars.

The first layer of the onion began to be peeled off when God began to soften my heart.  Maybe it wasn’t up to me to judge.  Had I checked in with God to see if I was supposed to help this person?

Maybe my job was just to love, not judge and seek God’s guidance.  So occasionally, when I began to get what I call holy nudges from God, I would give beggars a bit of my change.

The second layer was peeled away when children became a part of the picture.

One day a woman came up to me outside TJ Maxx.  She was almost in tears.  She needed school clothes for her kids.  Nudged again, I gave her folding money.

Several weeks after, in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s, a man, his wife and two kids were begging, really begging for help.  Following God’s nudge, I gave them money.

The third layer of the onion came off one day when I was seated in a booth next to the window eating a meal at a local Italian restaurant.

I became aware of a homeless man standing outside the window staring at my meal.  I instantly knew he was hungry.

I grabbed a $20 bill and ran outside to give it to him.

Afterwards I got in my car and the thought came to me “You didn’t even ask his name.”

Next time I will, I vowed – the third layer.

Some days later while packing for a week long trip, I looked at all my clothes.  And I thought of all the people around us who shop at Goodwill and can’t afford TJ Maxx.  I vowed to think of their needs before I bought anything else.

And I spent another week of my vacation hauling bags and bags of stuff I wasn’t using to the Goodwill so that someone else could have the joy of owning it.

Layer #4

And then one Sunday after a group of us had gathered at Pollo Loco for lunch, I bumped into a lady in the parking lot, empty coffee cup extended begging for money.

Again, getting a holy nudge, I asked her her name and if she was hungry.  “C’mon let’s get you something to eat,” I said.  I invited her to choose her meal and a beverage, and I paid.  I gave her the buzzer that would let her know her meal was ready, gave her a hug and left.

After I was in the car and down the street the thought came to me “Why didn’t you stay and keep her company while she ate?”

Layer #5

And then God took me to the core of it all.

All of a sudden “I saw.”  I saw what God was leading me to see, what all the layers were about.

And here is what I “saw.”  The more you befriend the person on the roadside, the beggar, the more you will learn to befriend the unlovely parts of yourself.

The more you stop resisting the lives of the beggars in your world, the more you will come to peace with the parts of you that live on the roadside begging.

Ah!  Now I saw what all these encounters with the homeless were about.

I saw the issue with a spiritual depth I hadn’t seen before.

I thought it was about helping the poor and the marginalized.

I thought it was about giving them dignity by knowing their name.

I thought it was about giving the gift of a meal and my company.

I thought it was all about being willing to be a companion to the poor.

And it was all those things!  But it was also about more.

It was about acknowledging the unlovely parts of us.

About not only being aware of that part of ourselves, but extending care to ourselves.

By knowing ourselves (our name) by knowing everything about ourselves.

It’s about spending time with the unlovely parts of ourselves, making friends with that part.

It’s about being able to say, “Yes, this shadow is a part of me.”

I am both shadow and light – accepting rather than resisting that.

The Good News is that by befriending, eating with, giving honor to all of who we are, that part of us will be gradually healed by God.

Just the way Jesus healed the blind beggar.

And so the gospel invites us to take the part of the beggar:

·        To long for something more

·        To beg Jesus to see more

That’s how the onion gets peeled.

And the gospel also invites us to take the part of Jesus:

·        To accept the beggar in ourselves and in the world

·        To never resist the beggar

·        To get to know the beggar

And then we, like the blind beggar, will be healed.

Near the end of that year, the Catholic enrollment for St. Paul’s had picked up, and so the non-Catholics….the protestants… were not renewed, which was okay.  I went back to the public school for 4th grade.  What do I remember?  That day at Disneyland. 

Much has changed, at Disneyland, and everywhere else, especially where crowds are a way of life ---- waiting in endless lines, finding a place to park, getting to the discount first, and figuring out how to navigate through too many, too much, too often.  Uncertainty lurks in those crowds – will they run out, will I have to pay extra.  Will the doors close, will I waste the whole day, will my children have a melt down before we get there, will I be at the wrong window, will someone cut in front of me or push me or take the last seat or block the aisle with their suitcase.  And, so it goes.  These are the annoyances of our world, the irritants that actually shape our lives.; And yet we know these are first world problems, not survival problems, not the pushing and shoving that comes when food or water arrives in Gaza, of families fighting to get on the bus or boat away from a war zone.   

We all understand the basic human instinct for survival, for food, shelter, and the protection of our children.   We see the images of desperate people trying to make it through one more day, anyway they can. 

But somehow, in our culture, we have co-opted that basic instinct for survival by cultivating it and using it to appease our inconveniences, our annoyances, to navigate and maneuver through the masses, to find for ourselves, and pay for, the fast pass, the special door, the privileged card, the favored list, the gold card, the sticker for the designated parking lot, the ease and comfort of unique, of special, of privilege. Peddling privilege is a huge money-maker, and most of us fall for it in one way or another.

I have just returned from an 8 day trip to New England, and believe me, if I had been able to utilize special lines for security, or a fast pass for the car (which took hours), or bigger seats, better access to the bathroom, I would have done it in a heartbeat, and I looked longingly at those who sped ahead----so I understand why we enter in to the game of how to get ahead, to leap frog the system, to make better arrangements for ourselves!!   

What I think Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel is not a critique of the desire to secure a place or the desire to get ourselves to the head of the line.  It is not the desire or even the asking that is misplaced.

It is facing what creeps into our hearts that matters. It is the entitlement, the pride, the self -satisfaction with one’s own efforts – in short, it is the lack of awareness of privilege we have managed to obtain, and the lack of gratitude for the ease it brings. 

It is not a condemnation of privilege; it is a condemnation of our insensitivity, our lack of gratitude for what we have and how we, unlike many others, are able to function in the world. Our culture and our human nature rewards us for manipulating the system, in part by making us feel clever, smart, even responsible as we participate in our advantages.  

In this world, there will always be advantages.

As Christians, It is a matter of attitude and perspective and generosity of heart. 

How different would it be if we gave thanks to God every single time we recognize our privilege, even in the smallest ways,  and prayed for those without, for thhose still standing in line.   

We miss the many, many ways we are blessed and we misunderstand the larger purpose. 

And so I feel for James and John, the sons of Zebedee, called the Sons of Thunder.  Their instinct to secure a place for themselves is not very far removed from what we might do too.  But their attitude and their timing stinks – Jesus has for the third time, just told them,

He “will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes.  They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.  They will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him.  On the third day he will rise again.” (Mark 10:33-34).      Well, That’s vivid!! 

 Without any response to that, the Zebedee boys begin their plan to get special seats. Much the way a child says, ‘Promise me you won’t be mad at me’, before they tell what happened, James and John say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  Clearly, they have been planning this. They have taken Jesus aside. 

Jesus might have said, “Did you hear what I just said?  About what is going to happen?

But he doesn’t. He meets them where they are and asks, “What is it you want me to do for you?” 

It is telling that this sequence in Mark, from chapter 8 through chapter 10, is where Jesus tells his disciples  -- 3 times – what awaits him in Jerusalem,  and the sequence begins and ends with Jesus healing a blind man. Next week you will meet Barnabas.  Jesus asks him the same question he asks James and John: What do you want me to do for you?  Barnabas answers immediately; he desperately wants to see, to understand, to follow.   

 If only the disciples wanted to see, as both blind men do, to see and understand more deeply – but they don’t, and --- as a group, they have devolved into a competitive quarrel over privilege -----and their tempers flare.  

Jesus stops everything and calls his team together and says, ok, circle up.   

He sits them down and says, again, what he has said so often.  The recognized as leaders of this world, privileged and powerful, often wield their power cruelly and lord it over their subjects.  You will not.   “Whoever wants to become great among you, shall be your servant.  Whoever wants to become first among you must be slave of all.”

 Servant leadership is the model of leadership Jesus teaches again and again.  

At our baptism, we were all called to be priests, to serve the needs of the world.  The root of the word ‘priest’ is “bridge”. ;  As priests we are to serve as a bridge between this world and the next, as a light to shine the way into a holy land –maybe something like that first Disneyland was to me --  that operates differently from this one, where one leads with humility and a heart of gratitude, where leadership itself is the privilege, a privilege to put on an apron and get to work. 

There are no shortcuts in our path to follow Jesus.  Jesus knows the road is rocky and hard, and he is clear about that.  There are no special privileges offered – no A tickets, no sure way.  No earned degrees or symbolic vestments, like these, get rewarded with better seats.   

The challenge for us is not to drop out of the TSA Precheck line or stop seeking some comfort or a memorable experience.   The challenge for us is to recognize and give thanks for the gift of that shorter line, that better treatment, to never take for granted even the smallest blessings in our lives and most importantly to pass those blessings on.  James and John took for granted their relationship with Jesus as a ticket to a secure and privileged position.  They didn’t understand that in the Kingdom of God there is no advantage to being in the front row. 

Thank you, Jesus, for your word today to help us understand that true leadership is true service, and that honest awareness of our own privilege can awaken in our hearts an even greater desire to serve God’s people. 

AMEN

            “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?  I can’t figure it out.”  Obey the commandments, Jesus says; you know them as well as I do.  I have, the man says; I’ve done it all, all my life…but it’s not enough; and so Jesus elaborates, calling the man to discipleship in the process.

            The particular language that Mark uses tells us that this question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” is important to the man.  Mark says that Jesus looks at the man and loves him.  Jesus knows that his question is sincere and that the man really, really wants Jesus to give him the answer.

            Instead, Jesus gives him an answer, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor; then come, follow me”, but this answer “shocks” the man; and the word Mark uses here is the Greek equivalent of the word we would use to describe the shock of a sudden death.  The man is speechless because as it turns out, he has many possessions and he’s completely overwhelmed.  He goes away grieving and numb, unable to do as Jesus has directed.

            Now, usually when we look at this passage we talk about the potentially destructive power that our material wealth, our possessions, and the prestige we get from them, can have, especially if we hoard them or misuse them.  We talk about the dangers of seeing ourselves and others – that is, the danger of valuing ourselves, and others – only in terms of what we or they have.  This is the usual avenue of approach here…but it’s not the only one.

            There’s another way to look at this reading, another perspective we can take.  With this reading as the background, we can take a look at what it means to live life out of a question, versus what it means to live out of an answer.

            With all of his possessions, the man who approaches Jesus lives out of a question.  Both the word “question” and the word “quest” have as their root a Latin word that means “search”.  The rich man’s whole life has been a search, a search for meaning; a search for that knowledge, that experience, that possession, that accomplishment that will make him feel complete; but Mark lets us know that his search has been doomed from the start because it’s been strictly an earthly search.

            “Good teacher,” the man says to Jesus; “didaskale agathe”; and maybe he means to show respect, to honor Jesus as a righteous man; but agathe, “good”, this is a word that is generally used only to describe God and God’s inherent goodness; and it’s this use – or misuse – of agathe that Jesus hears, and this is why he corrects the man.  “Why do you call me good?” he asks.  “No one is agathe but God alone,” and it’s worth noting that even though this is supposedly a conversation about eternal life, this is the only overt reference to God that either of them makes.

            Continuing in this same earthly vein, as Jesus goes on to list the commandments, he only mentions the ones that regulate human relationships.  There are four others he doesn’t mention, and these are the ones that concern our relationship with God.  “Teacher,” the man responds, and he avoids the modifier this time – he’s not about to make the same mistake twice – “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”  I’ve followed these commandments all my life, but it’s not enough and I don’t know why….

            Now, it’s important for us to realize that in the eyes of first century Judean society, this man really is a “good” man.  He obeys the Law, and he’s wealthy; and since the very beginning Jews, as well as other ancient peoples -- not to mention today’s Christian adherents of what’s still called the “Prosperity Gospel” -- all of these folks had regarded, and do regard, material wealth as being a visible, tangible sign of God’s favor and blessing.  This is why the disciples are so surprised, and so dismayed, when Jesus says that the wealthy are going to have a tough time getting into the kingdom.  Rich people are already God’s favorites – so if they can’t get in, what hope is there for the rest of us? 

As long-standing as this belief in prosperity is, however, as others have said before, “The Bible is more complicated than that.”

            “I’ve followed all these since my youth…”.  Like Peggy Lee, who I realize some of you have never heard of before, but like Peggy Lee singing “Is that all there is [to the circus, to love, to life]?” the rich man is still hungry, still hollow, still living with a nagging emptiness that both Augustine of Hippo and Blaise Pascal, among others, will wrestle with in later years and later centuries.  To God, the 4th century AD Augustine said, “Thou has created us for thyself, and our hearts are rest-less till we rest in Thee.”

            1300 years later, the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and theologian Pascal would write, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?  This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”  (Pensees, VII, 425)

            Having no overt engagement with the God-oriented commandments, not really understanding what he’s looking for, the rich man is rest-less.  Jesus is aware of his unrest and his helplessness and tells him that he “lacks one thing.”  Just as another time he tells Martha of Bethany that “only one thing is needed” and her sister Mary has chosen that “one thing” in sitting and listening to him teach; just as then, Jesus tells this man now what the “one thing” is that he is lacking:  “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

            What you lack, he says to the man, what you’re missing is God; and not just God, but a relationship with God; and not just a relationship, but a particular type of relationship:  a relationship of dependence and discipleship, like Mary of Bethany; a relationship of love and of trust, of fulfillment and completion, like Augustine of Hippo and Blaise Pascal.

            Another twist of language here, and a legal one at that, is that the man asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life.  This is phrased oddly, because according to the Law, the Torah, which the man obviously knows, one’s only heirs are one’s offspring.  Only children can inherit…and what did Jesus say to the disciples in last week’s reading, only two verses before the rich man showed up today?  He said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like God’s child, as God’s child, will never inherit it.

            You lack one thing, Jesus says to the man:  you must allow yourself to become God’s child, to become God’s heir, trusting in God and depending on God alone.

            Sell all you have; let go of your material security; let go of all those things that you thought would bring you fulfillment, and follow me – because in following me, you follow the One who sent me.  This is the answer to the question you have asked.

            When the man heard Jesus’ words, he was shocked with the shock of a sudden death, the death of who he thought he was; and he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

            This man had based his whole life on the question and on the quest, on the doing and on the having; and he very much wanted Jesus to give him a different answer.  If we also live out of a question, whether it’s the rich man’s question or Peggy Lee’s question or a different question altogether; if we also base our lives on a question, we’ll end up as restless and as unfulfilled as the man in today’s Gospel was…so what if we change our perspective, and we live out of an answer instead?

            What if we base our lives, and the choices and the decisions we make, on the knowledge and on the assurance that as followers of Jesus striving to be faithful, we already have inherited eternal life?

            We haven’t inherited it because we’ve earned it, we haven’t inherited it because our faith or our striving are perfect, we haven’t inherited it because of anything we’re doing.  We have inherited eternal life simply because of grace; simply because God, in God’s mercy and of God’s own choosing, has already given each of us eternal life through our baptism – baptism being the sacrament of our adoption as God’s child, and therefore also our adoption as God’s heir. 

And why does Paul in his writings emphasize so strongly our adoptive relationship with God?   Because according to Roman law, natural born children could be disinherited at the will and the whim of their father.  ADOPTED CHILDREN, HOWEVER, BY LAW COULD NEVER BE DISINHERITED.

            We are in a covenantal, familial, adoptive relationship with God.  We are God’s adopted heirs, and because of that, we are marked as Christ’s own forever.  We are quite literally signed, sealed, and delivered – by God, for God, and to God.  By God’s own choice, we are bound to God in baptism and God is bound to us – and so, with this salvation as our formative reality, we don’t need to worry about not inheriting it; we don’t need to chase it or clutch at it – and we don’t need to try to keep someone else from having it too.  This gift is already ours, and nothing can change this…except our own refusal to acknowledge it and to embrace it.

            An Episcopal priest named Heidi Haverkamp writes, “A few years ago, in crisis, I went to a local Christian spiritual center and was assigned a spiritual director who was an elderly Catholic sister.  She listened to my story, and she told me two simple things.  First, that God is love.  Second, pointing her finger at me with firmness and affection, she said:  ‘Remember, you are poor.’  She explained:  you do not have the resources to save yourself, fix your problems, or change the world – only God does.  Perhaps she saw my temptation to believe in my own ability and responsibility for my life, in no small part because of my many possessions:  great education, successful work life, health insurance, retirement savings, and a house full of stuff.  I am tempted to believe that, based on my own efforts and knowledge, I can achieve – am supposed to achieve – a spiritual life, a godly life, eternal life.”

            Haverkamp goes on, “The rich today include many more of us than in Jesus’ time, used to trusting in our own wits, work, and will to get things done and bend our world to our control.  It is hard for us to find the kingdom of heaven, to enter into it… – as hard as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle….We cannot save ourselves, but God can.  As Jesus makes clear to the young man looking for his extra credit assignment, the way to eternal life is not achievement but want and surrender.  It is to claim the words I am poor.”  (Christian Century, 9/26/18, p. 20)

            If those many, many months of pandemic powerlessness back in 2020 or the more recent devastating hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeast, where I used to live and where I still have relatives and friends, have taught us anything, they taught us that WE ARE POOR; that in spite of our material resources or accomplishments in the eyes of the world, none of us has the ability to fix our problems or change the world on our own.  Only God can do this; but God does invite us to share in this work.

            As John writes in his Gospel, “From his fullness,” from the fullness of God in Christ, “have we already received, grace upon grace.”  We are all poor; and because we are poor, we have already received the grace and the promise of the kingdom – and so, as we’ve taught our own children to do, we say “thank you” to the One who has saved us, and we recognize that a life based on the answer is a life that flows out of gratitude, and joy, and love; a life based on the answer is a life that embraces and celebrates the awareness of, and the acceptance of, our own spiritual poverty – which is to say, our complete dependence on God and on God’s grace; our dependence on the God for whom all things are possible.

            Reflecting on Jesus’ final words to the rich man, “Then come, follow me”, Haverkamp writes, “What gets in the way of my following Christ?  This is the rigor I was longing for – not a spiritual drill sergeant, but a person able to see me and tell me the truth:  that whatever possessions I grip most tightly are the junk that is most in my way.  That I am poor; that my only wealth and security is Christ.  That Jesus, in whom all things are possible, is always saying, ‘Now, come, follow me.’”  (Ibid.)

            The rich man and Peggy Lee asked the question, “Are these things I’m clinging to all there is?”  Along with Augustine and Blaise Pascal and Heidi Haverkamp and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we can stand firm in the answer and say with confidence, “No, they’re not all there is.”  The question is not all there is. 

            Our relationship with God is the answer.  Our relationship with each other is the answer.  Faithful and strong, completely dependent upon God, we are poor – but in our dependence lies our wealth and our strength, and with them and with God, our ability to make the difference in the world that we can’t make on our own. 

This dependence and this faith, our reliance on our relationship with God, this is the answer in which lies eternal life.  Amen.

It was a temptation to skip over the first part of the gospel and preach about children.

Oh, I could preach a wonderful sermon about children!

But I won’t.

We don’t grow spiritually by avoiding the difficult things in life.

So we’re going to meet this gospel head on – we’re going to delve right into it.

And we’re going to do it with honesty and integrity.

Set the scene:

a.   Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem and his death

b.   He already has enemies

c.   The Pharisees in particular

d.   They are constantly trying to test him – to catch him in a mistake

e.   This time they come to Jesus asking him to settle a disagreement they are having

·        Pharisees from the school of rabbi Hillel, a Jewish lawyer who founded a rabbinical school in Babylon; his school was liberal, humane, and tolerant

Vs

·        Pharisees from the school of rabbi Shammai, an aristocrat, quite elitist and very nationalistic;  his school was conservative and strict

f.     These two schools had an ongoing disagreement about divorce

g.   Not about whether divorce was allowable, because it was

h.   But on what grounds is it allowable

i.     Deuteronomy 24 said that a man could divorce his wife on the grounds of indecency (note that a woman could not divorce her husband)

j.     But how do we interpret indecency?

·        Shammai said that it meant in the case of adultery

·        Hillel said if a wife displeased her husband, spoke ill of his family, didn’t respect his authority, burnt his toast – he could divorce her

k.   So they challenge Jesus to settle it between them;  the danger was – if he agrees with one side, everyone from the other school would be angry with him

Jesus answers the way a rabbi often answered a question which was posed to him, he answered a question with a question:  What did Moses command you?  And so quoting Moses as their authority, they recite back what scripture says about the law for divorce.

But then Jesus shifts the focus of the conversation.  He makes it primarily about marriage and not divorce.  He shifts the conversation from splitting hairs about loopholes for divorce to God’s dream for humankind.

First, he acknowledges that yes, it is lawful to divorce, but that is only because humans are suffering from hardness of heart.  In Greek, the words mean:  a heart dried up or a parched heart.  According to Jesus, it is because we have parched hearts that there is a need for divorce laws.

Then he moves on to God’s ideal for us – God’s dream for humankind

a.   He begins to quote from Genesis

b.   How God made man and woman as complimentary beings

c.   And that they became one, both physically and spiritually

d.   In essence, together, they become a new being

e.   And nothing can separate them from each other

f.     That is the nature of their oneness

Jesus speaks an absolute truth in this gospel.

a.   When God created man and woman, he intended for them to have a union that was permanent

b.   And though it doesn’t say so in this gospel, we have come to understand that the intention of God is the same for same sex unions

c.   Marriage is meant to last forever

d.   All divorce is a failure to fulfill God’s dream for us

e.   In divorce, we fail one another and we fail God

But the purpose of this gospel is not to arouse guilt.  And it is not to propose a hopelessly high standard, but to give us a vision for what God’s dream of marriage is.

We might say – but I do feel guilty.  I’ve let God down.  I’ve let the community of faith down. I’ve let my partner down because of my divorce.

I wasn’t able to be what I hoped I could be.

I wasn’t able to be what God dreamed for me.

I wasn’t able to create what I promised I would create.

Here is the truth:

a.   All divorce is tragic

b.   But sometimes staying married is more tragic than divorce

c.   Some marriages should end

d.   Sometimes divorce is the lesser of two evils

e.   Is an intact and hopelessly broken marriage any less sinful than a divorce?

f.     There are times when we must acknowledge that we have made a major mistake in the journey of life

g.   We need to face it, own it, admit to our parched hearts, confess it, ask for forgiveness, and move on

h.   That is living in truth

That doesn’t mean we don’t take marriage vows seriously

a.   No, we hold fast to God’s dream for us

b.   And we are even more determined to fulfill that dream

c.   We refuse to buy into the idea of disposable relationships that are so popular in today’s culture

d.   But we also refuse to be legalistic about marriage

e.   God’s dream for us is far more than a rule about never ever getting a divorce

f.     God’s dream for us is unity and oneness and mutuality

g.   And God’s dream above all is about grace

·        A grace that will not turn away from us even if we fail

·        A grace that welcomes us with open arms as though we are powerless children, at times unable to help ourselves

·        A grace that says “Let the little children with broken and dried up hearts come to me.”  Don’t stop them – they need me and I want to bless them

·        The kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these

I have experienced this grace

a.   Marriage falling apart

b.   Tell Bishop

c.   Tell priest who was my boss

d.   You must tell the vestry

e.   Would they ask me to leave?  Decide they couldn’t have a divorced priest?

f.     Broke down

g.   Chair in middle – laid hands

h.   Washed in grace

In that moment I truly understood grace – not at the intellectual level, but at the heart level.

And I knew then that nothing could ever separate me from God’s love.

May we continue on our journeys confident in God’s love, confident in God’s forgiveness, confident in God’s amazing grace.

The trickiest bit about my job was to help the students themselves discover that they really were able to understand and grapple with this stu        if they did the work, trusted one another, and didn’t give up. And this makes sense, right? I’m sure you can tell that many of the books we would read together are the kind of thing that most of us write o as being out of reach or irrelevant for the average person — stu for ‘those smart people.’ Most of my students didn’t think of themselves as being capable of understanding this stu   when they started our classes. We would get into our rst discussions and they would freeze up after I asked a question, not because they couldn’t do it, but because they had been trained to believe that the teacher was ‘the smart one’ who had all the answers, that their job was just to follow along and receive the special knowledge that I possessed. Especially with rst year students, it would take almost the whole year for the group to really break out of this; as the tutor, I would have to try all sorts of strategies to try to get them to realize that they were capable of doing this work together. One of my favorite strategies was to just go silent and dramatically turn my chair around and put myself in the corner for part of a discussion. The goal here is simple: if the students are unhelpfully relying upon you, looking to the teacher to answer the question instead of using the text, their own minds, and one another, then you remove yourself. You refuse to cooperate, and you stay out until they eventually give up waiting for you to answer the question for them and start to answer it themselves (because it’s either that or they sit in awkward silence for an hour and half) — and (if it works) something magical happens.

They try it. They start to say ‘yes’ to my invitation and begin to do the work together. They vulnerably throw out an idea, they try to puzzle through a confusing passage together, they stumble upon a key idea and start to make sense of it, and they realize that they can do this work, that their minds are made of the same stu   as mine, and that they are just as capable and worthy as I am to discover the goodness, truth, and beauty hidden in those weird old books we would read together.

Now, why did I spend so long talking about this? I’m tempted to just go sit in the corner and make you guys preach the rest of the sermon for me, but that’s not why I bring it up. In the Old Testament reading, we nd Moses feeling overwhelmed and angry, feeling as though God has saddled him alone with the impossible responsibility of taking care of the whole people of Israel. He complains to God about this, and God says, ‘Sure, no problem’ — and ordains 70 ‘elders’ to help Moses lead the people. Two of those ‘elders’ don’t come to the meeting when they are supposed to, and so the spirit of God comes upon wherever they happen to be. Suddenly they are overcome and God’s spirit begins to speak through them out in the middle of the Israelite camp. When Moses’s right-hand man, Joshua, hears about this, he is ‘jealous’ for Moses, he wants to protect Moses’s reputation as ‘The One’ who holds God’s authority, and tells Moses to shut them up. But Moses doesn’t want to, because he is overcome with relief and gratitude because he has remembered that God is the one who leads and provides for his people, and God has given him a whole lot of help when he nally asked for it. Joshua misses the point — Moses doesn’t care about protecting his status and authority, he cares about the presence and power of God being present among his people, and he even looks forward to a day when God would ‘put his spirit on all of God’s people.’

Similarly, when we get to the Gospel, we see the disciples up in arms about the fact that some rogue exorcist is out doing miracles in the name of Jesus, when this person doesn’t follow them. The disciples, like Joshua, are missing the point: they are more concerned with controlling who counts as a ‘legitimate’ disciple of Jesus, with protecting their status and worthiness, than with the fact that the healing work of God is being carried out through this stranger. Remember how Jesus caught them ghting over which one of them was ‘the greatest’ in last week’s gospel? So Jesus reminds them of what he said in last week’s gospel, that the way they are treating this stranger or that little child is the way that they are treating Jesus.

There is a ip side to our Gospel reading this morning. Jesus rebukes the disciples harshly, telling them that it would be better to be drowned or to cut o a limb than to let their pride and desire for status and ‘greatness’ cause them to mistreat or ‘become a stumbling block’ to another person in whom Christ is present, because to do so is to reject Christ himself — because in some mysterious way, Christ is present in each of them.

In other words, the hope of Moses has come true in Christ. God has put his Spirit upon all of his people. And so when we get to our reading from the epistle of James, we are given a picture of a spirit- lled community. A place where all members participate in the life of Christ. Notice that there is no Moses- gure, no special teacher or priest in James’s passage. James assumes that the Spirit lives in every member of the Church community, so he exhorts all of them to praise and pray with one another, to confess to each other, to receive healing through one another’s prayers. He believes that any one of the people he writes to could pray with as much power as Elijah, whose prayers stopped the rains in Israel for 3.5 years! He believes this, because he knows that God has placed his Spirit within each of us and so the whole life of Christ himself is on o er to us — if we can receive it.

The gospel this morning is not just a word to the disciples, it is a word to the ‘little ones’ — to all of us. It reminds us that the life of faith, prayerful connection with God, and the joy and fullness of Christ’s own life are not just for the special, ‘holy people’ over there — for the Moses, the ‘disciples,’ the priests up at the altar, the special saints who are ‘quali ed’ to experience God. We each have di erent gifts and di erent roles to play, sure, but we all are one of those little ones whom Christ stands with. We are all capable of extending Christ’s love and power and healing to each other — just like in the reading from James. And this is good news, especially for St. Matthias, because we don’t have a Moses right now, we don’t have a priest. All we have is one another and the Spirit of God here with us — and that is a gift, because it gives us an opportunity to discover that this is enough. St. Matthias can’t wait around for Church to happen until we nd a priest. We don’t know how long this search process will take, and we don’t need to wait. God has placed his Spirit within you. You are invited to step further into the life and love of Christ here and now, and invited into sharing that life with one another — whether or not there is a priest up there to help you do it. This is what we mean by the ‘priesthood of all believers.’

Each day, Christ holds out his hand to each and every one of us in ways great and small and invites us deeper into his abundant life. But each day, there are things that stand between us and accepting that invitation. Our fears, our shame and feelings of unworthiness, complacency and comfort, the wealth of distractions we are ooded with, even just the layout of our liturgy can mislead us into thinking that the real ‘Christian stu ’ happens up there, with the special ‘holy people’ in special robes rather than down here in each of us. In the somewhat grisly language of today’s gospel, there are parts of our story or our life that might need to be ‘cut o ’ or ‘plucked out’ to allow us to see and grasp the love of God. Just like my old students, we sometimes have a hard time believing that God wants to bring us into the story, that we are capable or worthy of being an instrument of God’s love or a bearer of his peace — and just like my old students, I believe that we have been made capable and worthy and there is much to discover together if we show up and trust. I believe that if we trust James and Jesus today, if we trust that Christ has put his Spirit in us and we do the faithful work of asking for God’s help and listening for his answers, of learning from one another and the Scriptures, of loving those around us and trying to say yes to all the little invitations God sends our way — if we say ‘yes’ then we will discover that we are capable of receiving joy and life that we could not have imagined.

May St. Matthias become a place where we begin to discover this together. Amen.

Jesus and his disciples had just gotten back to their home base in Capernaum. While they were walking, Jesus had been teaching them. He was trying to get them to understand that he was going be betrayed and die. And then after dying he would rise again, but the disciples were pretty of dense and didn't seem to quite get what was going on. Maybe they just weren't listening because they didn't want to hear.

When they got to the house where they were going to, Jesus looked at them and asked, "What were you arguing about?" They didn't like that Jesus had noticed and brought that up because they had been arguing about which one of them was the greatest. It seems a bit like the patriarch of a family bringing together everyone for Thanksgiving. All his sons and  daughters to come together. Then the father says "I have you here today because I met with my doctor last week and I'm going to be going on hospice care tomorrow." Then  the kids start arguing about  which one is the best. Which one does the father like the most. They were worried  about which one did the father think was the best even when the father was dying. Even though the father loved them all, more than they could possibly imagine

Jesus is frustrated by their lack of understanding and that they are still worried about who is the greatest, so he says to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant to all." The ones to want to be on top are going to need to be ready to be on the bottom.

Then Jesus looks around sees a child and brings this random little child into the center of the disciples. And he says, "See this child, whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."

This insignificant child, we don't even know its name, we don't know whether they are male or female, but if you are kind to this child you are being kind to Jesus - and to the father in heaven. That means that within this child, this insignificant child, Jesus is present. How can you wonder about who is the greatest.

This gospel reading has gotten me thinking about why are we so concerned with being the best, with being the greatest, with winning? There is something in our culture that is obsessed with who is the best, who is the greatest. Think of the popular shows on TV like America's Got Talent, The Voice, or Dancing with the stars where people compete to learn who is the "Best." We like to watch those to try and figure out who will win. And we imagine ourselves there  - being chosen as the best. We just had the Emmy awards that tell us who are the 'best' actors and actresses. And of course we spent a lot of time this summer, at least I did, watching the Olympics. Caring about who was found to  be the best at some sport I did not even know existed before I turned on the TV. People spend their whole lives preparing for this moment to prove that they are the best in the world.

Why do we always have to feel like we need to be winning? Why do we want to be the best?

This summer I was with my grandchildren who range in age  from nine to eleven. I was supposed to entertain them while their parents were busy, and their mother suggested we play board games. The had all the usual games that I had when I was a kid. Candyland, Monopoly, Uno, you know. the basic games. As we started to play I noticed that when one of my grandchildren was winning he started feeling overly  good about himself, saying he knew this game and he had it. Then his luck changed on him and suddenly he was losing. And he didn't like it. He didn't like losing. He wanted to change it . He wanted to cheat. You could see him slowly getting more and more upset until he finally had a meltdown because he was not the best.

The next day when I went to spend some time with them, I did not want to go through that meltdown again. We started to play another game, but he soon started to get upset so I said, "I don't want to do this. Let's do that wonderful 500-piece puzzle you got for your birthday." We found the puzzle and spread out the pieces. We all sat around the table, each trying to fit the pieces together. When someone on one side would say 'look, I got these two together'  everyone would cheer. And then someone else would "say I've got this edge here. Does anyone have red edge piece that might fit." And the others would look to see if they might have that piece. Together, bit by bit, over a couple of days because it was 500 pieces, by bringing the pieces together that chaos began to turn into a beautiful picture. When each one shared their unique pieces, their perspective, and their sense of how to solve the puzzle we where we able to complete it. We worked together to solve the problem. It was fun. And nobody was the greatest, and nobody had a meltdown.

Our society is so focused on up and down, better and less, who's the brightest, who is the fastest, that we are constantly in conflict. We are not able to just enjoy being together. We have a political system now that is all about winning and losing and not about putting the pieces together, bringing all the different perspectives together to find healthy solutions.

Jesus says that the greatest must be the least and be the servants of all.

As long as we are trying to be the best there is a lack of real satisfaction. You may become the best in your class, but then you want to be best in your school. Or you've made it to the top of your group a work, and you got a raise, but you still want to move up. We're always evaluating ourselves, judging ourselves. Are we good enough? Am I the best?

Why do we do that? I'm not sure but I think it has to do with trying to prove that we are worthy. Trying to prove to ourselves, to our parents, to our friends, to our coworkers that we are worthy, that we are of value, by being the best. Or we're afraid. Afraid that if we are not the best, we won't have anything. That there is a pecking order, and we have to be on the top of it or we lose. But Jesus teaches another way. He teaches a way of love. He teaches us that we already are more than enough.

We already are loved. Like that child in the center of the room, we are valued by God. We are so close to God and God's love for us that what someone does for us they do for Christ. That we are that worthy and that much one with Christ that it doesn't matter if we are only a little child. It doesn't matter if we are at the bottom of the pecking order. It doesn't matter if we are rich or we are poor. God loves us. Christ loves of more than we can imagine. We have nothing to prove. Nothing to be afraid of.

Christ says that if you want to be the best, be servant of all. That's what really feels good and gives true satisfaction. This afternoon I'll be going over to my home church, St. Paul's in Tustin. We have something called Sunday Supper where anyone who wants to can come and be given supper. They sit down, we take the food to them, we get drinks for them, we clean up after them. We treat them with love and respect.

There is nothing that is more satisfying than to feed someone who is hungry, to care for someone who is sick, to help someone in need. To welcome the stranger.

And I imagine that's how the people at St Mattias feel when they are doing the Loving Thing. When they are giving food to the hungry. When they are welcoming them and caring for them and smiling at them.

Jesus tells us to stop arguing. Stop competing with each other. Stop trying to be the best, and instead be the least and love and serve. For that is where we will find peace and joy and we will know Christ's presence as we serve him.

The questions that Jesus asks in this Gospel reading are the most important questions any person wrestles with. The first question is, “Who do people say that I am?”

Any thoughts? Who do people say that Jesus is?

“The savior.” “The son of God.”

“A really good man.” “Our Lord.” “A perfect example.” “The good shepherd.” “The messiah.” “A healer.” “A great teacher.” “Son of man.”

We’ve got lots of words for him. Later in the service we will be saying the Nicene Creed which is the ancient statement of faith that says such things about Jesus as “God from God.” "Light from Light"

Some of those words we’re pretty familiar with. You can probably tell me what a teacher is, because we know teachers. Or a good man, we know about good men.

But what about Messiah? Now that’s the “correct” answer that Peter gave. But the Messiah? What does the word messiah mean? The word we translate as Messiah in Greek is Christos, the anointed one. For the Jewish people of Jesus’ time the Christos, the Messiah was going to be a warrior king like David. He was going to come and lead the Jewish people to once again have control of their land. That would fight Rome so that they would be a free and  great nation. That’s not what Jesus turned out to be. He was a very different kind of messiah. A different kind of savior.

When we listen to all the ways Jesus has been described, we find that most of the time it is kind of complex. It is not easy language. During our lives we’ve heard a lot about who Jesus is. If you went to Sunday School as a child, you heard one thing. In the secular world you might hear something else. Here in church we hear other things. So we have lots and lots of answers to, “Who do people say that I am?”

All of those comments, all the theology, all the books written about who Jesus is, all the creeds can be helpful, but it is the second question that really matters. That’s when Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Who do you say that I am?”

How do you know who Jesus is? What do you say? Not quoting someone else, not based on what someone else says that Jesus is, but who is Jesus to you? Right now, today, this morning.

I find that when we are on a spiritual journey our understanding of who Jesus is changes over time. Sometimes from day to day. It changes as we study scripture. It changes as we are in discussions with others. It changes as we read meaningful books. But most of all it changes as we have life experiences. As we go through difficult times. As we wrestle with the meaning of life. When we deeply love or deeply hurt. As we discover that through it all, Jesus is somehow there, walking with us.

The most important question of your life is “Who do you say that Jesus is?” Your answer makes all the difference in the world. And only you can answer that question. Some might start with the answer that to you Jesus is a great teacher. That is accepted pretty much around the world. There is almost no one who doesn’t say that he had some wonderful teachings and that he showed a great deal of wisdom. That is one way to approach Jesus, but is not quite consistent with what he said. C. S. Lewis wrote that if you say that Jesus was just a great teacher then you have to assume that he was either a liar or insane because he said that he was much more than that. It is hard to take the wisdom and teachings that we find in the Gospels and separate it from what he said about himself. But often the first way we get to know Jesus is as a great teacher. And that is important.

What about when we say that Jesus is my savior. What does savior mean? How has he saved you? Think about your own personal life. What have you been saved from? What have you been saved for?

How have you experienced, personally experienced Christ's presence in your life?

I've often wrestled with how to describe my relationship with Jesus, and this is what I've come up with. It is personal; it is where I am today. Where I am this morning. It may change, but it is what’s true for me right now.

I would say that who Jesus is to me is that he is my friend. He is my friend who loves me no matter what. He is my friend who values me and holds me precious because he helped to create me. I am of incredible worth to this friend; and he accepts me for who I am. Loves me for who I am. And loves me enough to not let me stay who I am, but encourages me to become more than I think I can be. He is my friend who is always there, whenever I need him. He always cares.

And he is my friend that gave his life for me. And no love is as great as offering your life for another. We don’t have a lot of experiences of what it means for someone to give their life for us. People who have been soldiers, police and the firefighters, like the brave men and women who today are fighting the fires around us, know what it is like to have companions that go into dangerous and difficult situations together. And they know that these companions will offer their lives to protect each other. It is said that when soldiers go into battle once the battle gets intense, they are not concerned with their country, they are not concerned with any grand statements of principle, they fight because of their comrades, the ones they are fighting with. And they want to protect them, and they will risk their lives in order to protect their friends, and they would be willing to die for one another.

Christ died for us. He is my friend that was willing to die for me, and in this passage, he asks for me to be willing to do the same. To pick up my cross and follow him. To be his friend the way he is a friend to me. That might mean giving my life, although being in the United States it is unlikely. But it does mean transforming my life. It challenges me to give up my self-centeredness. It asks me to let go of my sense of ego control. It means changing my priorities, and it affects every decision that I make every day of my life.

And so I'll ask you again,

Who do you say that Jesus is?

So what is today’s gospel really about?  It’s about legalism VS grace.

Trying to earn God’s approval by performing the requirements of laws VS approval or kindness given to us by God whether or not we deserve it.

So let me ask you this:  Which do you prefer?

-      A neighbor with good habits or a good heart?

-      A friend with good habits or a good heart?

-      A spouse with good habits or a good heart? - A child with good habits or a good heart?

It’s wonderful to have a neighbor who cares for his property, keeps the noise down, brings his trash cans in.

It’s wonderful to have a friend who is considerate, keeps appointments, always sends birthday cards on time.

It’s wonderful to have a spouse who is courteous, gives gracious comments, gets chores done, puts the toilet seat down.

It’s wonderful to have a child who uses good manners, does her homework, keeps his room tidy.

But nothing compares to a neighbor, a friend, a spouse, or a child, with a good heart.

When we are looking only for a person with good behavior, we are really looking at a person’s self-control;  a serial killer can in some settings have amazing self-control.

When we are looking for a person with a good heart – now we are looking at the true quality of a person.

Jesus was always looking beyond a person’s habits to see what was in the heart of a person.  The Pharisees, on the other hand, were concerned with legalism, what was on the outside, what looked proper.  At one point Jesus called them whitewashed tombs.

And here they were attacking the disciples because they weren’t following the correct rituals

-      And by the way this handwashing thing wasn’t about germs

-      The germ theory hadn’t even been thought of

Here’s what it was about:  Exodus 30 and 40.  There you find a law that priests must do a ritual cleansing of their hands before they came to the altar.  Gradually, the Pharisees expanded what the scripture said.  Now everyone was to ritually wash their hands before eating as a way of showing devotion to God.  And it also became a way of distinguishing a devout Jew from his pagan neighbors.  Soon it had very little to do with devotion to God and a whole lot to do with who is in and who is out, who is one of us, and who isn’t.

Humans have a tendency to do that and people in some churches are still doing it:  Baptism in some places isn’t so much about commitment and love of God as it is about who is saved and who isn’t, who is in and who is out.

We in the church have a tendency to be blind to the fact that we often focus on good behavior and all the while exclude, humiliate, and harm others.

Albert Schweitzer said this:

“For centuries Christianity treasured the great commandment of love and mercy as traditional truth without recognizing it as a reason for opposing slavery, witch burning, torture, and all other ancient and medieval forms of inhumanity.”

Even when slavery was finally ended, the church made it very clear who was in and who was out:        

-      All Saints Pasadena

-      St. Barnabas Pasadena for their black servants

Jesus quoted Isaiah and said “This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.”

As God’s people we need to be alert – and to catch ourselves when we begin to fall into legalism and use our faith to judge who is in and who is out.

Otherwise, as Frederick Beuchner said:

“We become like a child learning to play the piano.  She holds her hands just as she has been told and memorized the piece perfectly.  She hits all the proper notes, but her heart is not in it, just her fingers are.”

The church and its members need to constantly be asking, “Are our hearts in it?”

-      We need to keep from being whitewashed tombs – beautiful on the outside, dead on the inside.

-      To learn that compassion is far more important than getting things right.

I want to tell you a story about a church that I know and love and how they chose compassion and grace over legalism and doing things right.

Tina’s Story

-      When they arrived, she was lying on the patio in front of the church door – dirty, confused, homeless

-      Didn’t try to get her to leave.  Didn’t call police.

-      Greeted her – invited her in

-      She crawled into the sanctuary and laid on the floor

-      No one tried to get her to move

-      Everyone who walked by her greeted her

-      At the peace – people bent down to greet her

-      They discovered her name – for weeks afterward it was almost the same scenario

-      I don’t know how many weeks before she walked in and sat in a pew

-      With the help of some parishioners, she got mental health care, medical care, and an apartment of her own

-      By the end of the year, she was shopping for clothes at Good Will. 

She chose professional looking suits and spike heels.

-      She was definitely one of the best dressed women in the sanctuary

-      And she had become a beloved member of the community

Why do we carve out this time every week to be here?

-      To learn that compassion is far more important than getting things right

-      To learn that being close to the heart of God is infinitely more important than any tradition we may want to cling to

-      To learn to show the world that being a Christian isn’t about getting it right

It’s about the heart – loving our God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and loving our neighbor – yes, every neighbor – as ourselves.

If we do that, then the church can revolutionize the world!  Because that is what the world is dying to know.  There are far too many Christians out there convincing the world that it’s all about getting it right.

We need to get out there and tell the world something radical – it’s about love, that God is not a tyrant but a lover.

So when we leave here today, let’s live like Augustine of Hippo recommended – “Love God and do what you please!”

Because if we love God, truly are nuts about God, what we choose to do will please God.

         The second level, closer to the surface, is that of discerning how the gospel writers shaped stories about Jesus for their times and places.  It is helpful to think of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John not as writers – though obviously they were – but more like editors, who took both written and oral fragments about Jesus and shaped them into narratives.  But they were not reporters.  These are not true biographies or history remembered but rather they are propaganda; proclamation of news that is good.  The word is this:  gospel.  They were writing for particular audiences and those audiences shaped how the stories were written.  Mark’s gospel was written to the Christian community in Rome sometime in the 70’s.  Like St. Paul earlier – the letters preceded the gospels – Mark was writing to Hellenistic Jews.  These were Jews who spoke and read Greek, not Hebrew, and who were open to a new sect of Judaism which was a cultural alternative to Palestinian Orthodoxy.

         Matthew wrote around the year 80 to Jews in Damascus and is the most Jewish of the four gospels.  Luke wrote around the year 90 to Gentile converts in Antioch.

         These three gospels are called “synoptic” gospels. “Syn” think of the word “synonym” meaning same.  And “optic” – to see, vision.  Although there are differences between the three – for example, the birth stories in Luke and Matthew are quite different, though we harmonize them well to pull off children’s Christmas pageants – they are of a different order than John.

         Writing around the year 100 or so, to the cosmopolitan trading center of Ephesus, John was writing to a church that had experienced a break with Judaism.  It is a church which is experiencing a competition with the cult to John the Baptist, with the religious philosophy of Gnosticism and with various “mystery religions.”  In this cultural context, John is writing to theologians and philosophers, arguing, for example, that the beginning of the Jesus story is not in an animals’ feeding trough in a stable/cave near backwater Bethlehem, but was, in fact, before space and time.  Jesus was “logos” – the plan, the agenda – of God, through whom all things came to be.

         Could writing for – at least in part – a gnostic audience, explain why there is no talk of bread/flesh and wine/blood at the Last Supper in John’s gospel but rather we find the humility of foot washing?  In part, the justification for the persecution of Gentile Christians was the suspicion that they sacrificed infants and practiced cannibalism in their hidden rites, as Jesus directed them to do in saying “eat my body” and “drink my blood.”  Could awareness of this audience explain displacing the bread and wine / body and blood talk from the Last Supper and placing it much earlier, at a synagogue in Galilee?  And this teaching is so controversial that it signals an ending of the Galilean ministry and the loss of most of his disciples.

         Today’s gospel reading:  It is the season of Passover.  The reading would have been the Exodus story and about desert manna – the bread-like substance which fell daily from the heavens and sustained the fleeing Hebrew slaves.  Jesus’ sermon – a midrash or an imaginative interpretation of scripture – claimed that he is like bread from heaven – but unlike manna of old, those who partake of him will live.

         What’s going on here?  In Jewish folk tradition, it was believed that when the Messiah came, manna would come again – for the Messiah is a second Moses.  A liberator who would deliver God’s people from their oppression under the Romans.  How powerful was this hope for a people living lives of desperation and chronic hunger.  Droughts and famine, plague and disease would be no more.  Implements of war would be refashioned into tools for an eternal harvest.

         Was Jesus really claiming that he is the fulfillment of these hopes?

         Many of the disciples left Jesus now.  This was not the idle and curious crowd from the feeding of the multitude earlier in chapter six.  These are disciples – men and women who had left hearth and home, farms and fisheries, to learn Jesus’ teaching – but this was all too much.  They left because this talk was just too bizarre.  Torah clearly forbade the consumption of blood.  Genesis 9:4 “You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”  Had Jesus finally lost his damn mind?

         As many of his Galilean disciples melt away, Jesus turns to the 12 and asks, “Are you going to leave me too?”  I imagine these words asked in a whisper, as if Jesus is afraid of the answer he will receive.  All that Jesus had struggled to build threatens to come crashing down around his shoulders as he awaits their response.  A vulnerable moment that could leave him broken and alone.  (pause)

         Would the 12 break his heart?   (pause)

         Peter – impetuous, passionate and bold – speaks for the 12:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  When John quotes Jesus’ talk of eternal life, he is not talking about life after death but about new life before death.

         The Greek is literally translated:  “the life of the Age to come.”

         John 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”  Present tense – has, not will have.

         John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Present tense – this is, not will be.

         It is in dying to our old life that we live.  As Jesus told Nicodemus way back in chapter 3, you must be born from above.

         The invitation is to a life transformed.  As Irenaeus (130-202 CE) said:  “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”   (pause)

         As manna sustained the Hebrew tribes in their journey from slavery to freedom, so Jesus, really present, in the bread and wine of Eucharist, sustains us in our journey from exile and captivity to freedom and new life.  Mary Oliver captures this in her poem, “The Eucharist.”  I’ll conclude with her poem this morning.

“The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church:  The Eucharist”

“Something has happened

to the bread

and the wine. 

They have been blessed. 

What now? 

The body leans forward

to receive the gift

from the priest’s hand,

then the chalice. 

They are something else now

from what they were

before this began. 

I want

to see Jesus,

maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,

just walking,

beautiful man

and clearly

someone else

besides. 

On the hard days

I ask myself

if I ever will.

Also there are times

my body whispers to me

that I have.”                                            

-  Mary Oliver        

Last Sunday, my dear friend and mentor, Rev. Hartshorn Murphy,

led us through his reflection on our salvation history,

from the Exodus Story of manna in the wilderness,

to the Passover sacrifice,

to Jesus and what is sometimes called the Lord’s Supper,

or the Mass, or Communion, or the Eucharist.  

He explained how differently the Sacrament of bread and wine

is understood and worshipped. 

For our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers,

there is the certainty of transubstantiation;

it is a Sacrament where the bread and the wine are not only made sacred

but become the living body and blood of Jesus. 

For many of our more conservative Protestant sisters and brothers,

the bread and the wine are  onlysymbols of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. 

For us, as Episcopalians, we hold open a big tent, offering a third way, a middle way.

We believe that during the sacramental prayers over the bread and wine,

something happens, something sacred happens,

where God sanctifies the bread and the wine to be the “holy presence” of Jesus,

given to us as the body and blood of Christ.

God is present in the Mystery of that Sacrament.

I remember my confirmation class at age 11, so very long ago,

learning about the Mystery of God in the Sacraments.

We memorized that it was an outward and visible sign

of an inward and invisible grace.

We struggled to understand this “presence” of Jesus that enters the bread and wine,

and we tried to imagine how it is that we abide in him and he in us.

We asked the same questions the disciples asked:

how can this be and what does it mean?  

And as we took communion for the first time,

some were sure they felt the “presence”

and some weren’t sure they felt anything.

But because it meant something to those we admired and loved,

and because we so wanted it to mean something to us, we kept at it. 

We were practicing our faith before we understood that we were.

What is this “presence” and how does this happen? 

The honest answer is:  we don’t know. 

It is the Mystery of God beyond our knowing, that is forever,

for all time, for everyone, all, ‘believers’ or not.

Glimmers of this ‘presence,’ however, is not beyond our experiencing.

Sometimes when we enter into the mystery of the bread and wine,

it overtakes us; we feel it deeply.

Hartshorn shared with us who he brings to the table with him,

that he thinks about his parents, his loved ones,

and his favorite saints on the other side, with Jesus,

and he shares with them the bread and wine.

Who and What will you bring to the table?

What is in your heart today that needs to be fed by the presence of Jesus?

How might this mystery strengthen you as you continue

The good work of ‘Doing the Loving Thing.?”

Two themes emerge in our readings this morning that make vivid our

encounter with the Mystery of Faith:

The Generous offerings of Wisdom and the Surrendering to Trust.

In Proverbs 9:1-6 we meet Lady Wisdom

who invites us with enthusiasm and joy to her banquet.

She has built her house, set her table, prepared her food

and sends out her servants to invite everyone to

“come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.”

God awaits you. God awaits everyone…. God’s gift is abundance! 

And how does Lady Wisdom summon us? 

“You that are simple, turn in here!

                  “To those without sense, come eat of my bread and wine”

                  “lay aside immaturity and live and walk in the way of insight.”

There are no requirements, no IQ tests, there are no exceptions; all are invited.

How often does God offer us a banquet? 

Even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death…..

God preparest a table before us…..

In contemporary language, Wisdom might say,

 Those of you who are skeptical, cynical or judgmental or fearful,

come and see. 

Come to the party. 

Those of you who have been hurt or are ashamed or need to be sure,

come and see.

Come to the party.  All are welcome.

I have been one of those too skeptical, too reluctant, too much in my head

and too afraid of my heart to come to the party.

I have hidden behind sophistication, education, and peer pressure.

I was a cradle Episcopalian.  I went to college in 1964,

in the midst of all that was the sixties,

and I hid my belief in God from my colleagues and friends

who were out to change the world through activism and hard-hitting art. 

I didn’t have the courage or the wisdom to speak up. 

I was a closet believer.

Years later, as I tiptoed back to church, I bought myself, at a street fair,

the smallest gold cross there was, and I wore it around my neck.

It was so tiny you probably had to squint to see it,

but that was my first step out and back.

So I understand the skeptical and the reluctant,

and I understand a world where caution is not always a bad thing,

but it can become a habit, a wall of resistance,

or you become a dabbler, showing up every once in a while for a few minutes,

missing the best parts of the party—

the food, the laughter, the stories, the truth, the pain, and the love.

I think Jesus is trying to say, again and again, I am the party,

I am the food, the laughter, the stories, the truth, the pain, and the love. 

I don’t want you to miss it. I want you to live in abundance,

sharing in the love and joy of now.

Today in Ephesians we hear,
Be careful then how you live …..

making the most of the time ……

Make the most of the time, to come to the table,

To eat your fill. Receive nourishment and strength

Well, how are we to do that?

When the world is full of so much pain and despair?

How are we to surrender ourselves to the Mystery of Faith,

Trusting in the power of God

to transform ourselves and the world?

Trust is the key.  Trust bridges the gap over what we do not know.

Henri Nouwen, prolific and powerful writer

of our relationship to Christ,

Our struggle and suffering with Christ,

And our longing for unity in Christ

Wrote often of two very powerful images of God that sustained him all his life:

The first was the image of the gentle, loving father

in Rembrandt’s painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son,

so unlike his own father.

The second came from his  fascination with the Trapeze artists

he witnessed again and again at a circus in Germany: 

The Flying Rodleighs.

He was transfixed by the free flying and the catching—the sheer beauty of it and the connection between them.   

In conversation with them, the flyer said,

“it may seem to the public that I am the star of the trapeze,

but the real star is Joe, my catcher.

The secret is that the flyer does nothing, and the catcher does everything.

When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands

and wait for him to catch me. 

The worst thing a flyer can do is try to catch the catcher;

it could break both our wrists. 

The flyer must trust with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.

Nouwen was profoundly moved by that image, of God as the catcher,

always in place, always ready, as we fly into the unknown. 

I like that image too, of God as the catcher,

but then I wonder about the times I wasn’t caught or didn’t think I was. 

Times of trauma, crisis, terrible grief and loss. 

Those times when I felt more of God’s absence than God’s presence,

or to complete the image, when God’s hands must have slipped because I fell hard;

I wasn’t caught.  I struggled and I suffered. 

Only later, as is so true for so many of us,

could I see and understand that there was always a net,

that indeed I was caught and held and strengthened and led slowly to new life. 

I experienced again and again the vastness of God, the utter mystery of God’s love.

And so I have returned to the image of God the catcher, whose net holds us all.

We come to the table today with our memories,

our broken lives, our joyous celebrations,

and we humbly offer them to God as God feeds us with God’s presence

to give us strength and courage for the days ahead

to live our lives to the fullest, in abundance. 

We revel in this Mystery of faith in a God bigger than religion. 

We share in the bread and wine grateful for the life blood it gives us. 

And we step out in little leaps of faith all the time,

trusting that God the catcher will catch us,

in whatever way God knows we most need.

Let us accept Wisdom’s invitation to the party. 

Let us trust that God’s net is firmly in place!

AMEN

          We begin with the foundational story of the Hebrew people:  the Exodus.  Moses, the Liberator is raised up by God to deliver his people out of slavery in Egypt to a land promised;  a land metaphorically envisioned to be flowing with milk and honey.

          But the journey is arduous and long, lasting more than a generation, allowing those with indentured mind sets to die along the way.  But the people grumbled in their hunger, so God sent manna from heaven – a dew like substance which could be made into bread, but sufficient only for a day.  The petition in the Lord’s Prayer is an echo:  “Give us each day our daily bread.”  Manna was strength for the journey through an alien and hostile land.  So that’s the first image:  God providing sustenance to people on the road to freedom.

          Second is sacrifice.  The Latin word is sacrificum, which means:  “to make something holy by offering it to God.”  In ancient Jewish ritual, two goats were offered.  One was the scapegoat (that’s our expression, not theirs).  This goat was laden with the sins of the community and driven into the wilderness to carry away their transgressions.  The second was the blood sacrifice in which the goat was offered as a gift to God, roasted in a holocaust (the word 'holocaust' comes from ancient Greek and means 'burnt offering');  a portion was given back to the worshipper to be consumed.  In this way, the goat came back to you as a meal with God.

          The annual Passover Supper celebrated the Exodus event by the consumption of symbolic foods.  Unleavened bread – Matzo – recalls how the people left hurriedly, with no time for the bread to rise.  Four cups of wine were consumed to commemorate God’s four acts of liberation in Exodus 6:  I will take you out, I will rescue you, I will redeem you, and I will bring you to a new land.

          At the Passover Supper with his disciples on the night before he died, Jesus did something unexpected.  In passing the bread to his friends, he added to the ancient words, “This is my body.”  And then similarly, he took the 3rd cup of wine – the cup which symbolized God’s act of redemption – and said “This is my blood.  Whenever you share it, do it for the ‘anamnesis’ of me.”  Anamnesis is the opposite of amnesia.  In amnesia, you forget who you are, who your people are, and how you understand the world.  Anamnesis means to recall, to reclaim – to come to one’s self again.  It means to find your way back again to wholeness.  To be, in short, set free.

          We today use the word “remember.”  Do this to remember me.  For some of our Protestant brothers and sisters, the Lord’s Supper is but a memorial.  It is to literally remember ceremonially the Last Supper.  But I would urge us to hyphenate.  Re-member.  To be made a member again.

          A gruesome image this:  If you were in a terrible accident and your arm were to be severed from your body and through the miracle of modern medicine, they were able to reattach it;  you could say that your arm was re-membered – made a member of your body again.  In communion, we are re-membered to the body of Christ.

          The stress and strain of daily life with all its microaggressions, distracts us and cumulatively acts to sever our connection to our own selves and to others and the holy communion reconnects us, for which we offer Eucharistia:  Thanksgiving.  In this sense, communion – the same root word as community, right? – is not a noun but a verb.  That community is a mystical one in which you today share this meal, through space and time, with those who have gone before, who have partaken of this sacred meal in their generations:  your mother and father, your grandparents, Francis and Clare, Patrick and Bridget, Mary of Magdala and Mary of Nazareth, saints all, and with Jesus the Christ.  Sit with that for a moment…

          And so all these metaphors obtain.  Communion is strength for this journey through a barren and desert land.  We are but resident aliens in a world not our own.  Pilgrims and strangers do we wander;  fed by the bread of heaven we are sacrificed, that is, made sacred.

          The bread and wine brought to the altar represents our lives and labors for the Kingdom in this broken world.  Each week we build our offering – our occasional fidelity and our pervasive faithlessness – it is blessed and returned to us made whole, renewing us to go forth again into this broken world, and as Samuel Beckett said, to be “ever tried, ever failed.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better!”

          Now all this is a mystery, but as is our human nature, the church has tried to nail down the ineffable.  The Roman doctrine of transubstantiation – that the bread and wine become in physical reality the flesh and blood of Jesus.  Or, as mentioned earlier, the extreme Protestant doctrine of memorial, that the Lord’s Supper is only a symbolic re-creation of Jesus’ last dinner.

          And the third option, what we reformed Catholics proclaim, the belief in a “real presence.”  That Christ is present in these substances – not as metaphor or symbol – but in a true and substantial way.  How?  Let mystery suffice.

          Matter matters.  We humans need things we can see and touch and taste and smell to mediate those things which are invisible.  The bread and wine are earthen vessels by which the holy is present to us.

          I’ve said a lot but there’s just a bit more.  At the breaking of the bread, our prayer book has me say “Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us.”  That phrase lifts up one aspect of the Exodus event.  Exhausted with Pharoah’s reluctance to free the people after repeated warnings in the form of plagues, God dispatches the destroying angel to strike dead all the first born, both human and animal, of the Egyptians, all the households not marked with the blood of a Lamb.  These houses were “passed over.”

          The doctrine of sacrificial atonement – that Christ died for our sins to appease a vengeful God who required a blood sacrifice – is thus connected up with the Eucharist.  But scholarship suggests that for the first thousand years of Christian history, holy communion was not understood primarily as a sin forgiveness thing.  That doctrine did not emerge as the sole understanding of Jesus until the time of St. Anselm (1033-1109) and the development of the Just War theory for the Crusades.

          No.  For the first thousand years, as reflected in the frescoes in ancient churches, the holy communion was all about practicing the vision of the Kingdom of God on earth.  A radical vision of social transformation based on love and justice.  A reflection of the primitive church’s baptismal vow to live in Christ  - in which there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female – and today we would add:  no gay or straight, no liberal or conservative, no immigrant or native born – all are one in Christ Jesus, no exceptions.  It is an acting out and a living into God’s dream for human, animal and plant kind;  of Eden’s return at last.  In other words, it’s not just about you;  it’s about us – all of us.

          To symbolize this today, in addition to saying or singing “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” I will add “Though we are many, we are one body” and I invite you to respond: “Because we all share in the one bread.”  [Let’s try it;  (repeat)]

          “Though we are many, we are one body”

          “Because we all share in the one bread”

          Let’s close with John’s vision on the Isle of Patmos.  The Book of Revelation is not about an afterlife or about heaven – or God help us, any Rapture.  It’s a vision in veiled and symbolic and often bizarre images about coming through the persecutions of that time, into the glorious new world struggling to be born, awaiting Christ’s return.  From Revelation 7:

 “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language – standing before the throne and before the Lamb…  and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.  The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat… and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

          So let it be!  Amen!

Social scientists say that our relationship to crowds is cultural, determined in large part by the “personal space” in which we grew up.   The technical term for this study is Proxemics.   It examines how population density aPects  behavior, communication and social interaction.  

 When I was growing up in a sleepy West Los Angeles neighborhood – when the population of Los Angeles was less than half of what it is now, there were these kids from New York – back East we called it then – that would come right up to your face to talk, and I was always stepping back.   Later I learned that they meant no harm, it was simply that their personal space was developed from constant crowds  and big families in cramped spaces.

Crowds have been a big part of our cultural life lately.  Political rallies of one sort or another fill stadiums and our screens.  

Crowds stuck at airports when huge storms and a global outage hit at the same time.  

I was in one of those crowds.

And then of course there are sports crowds – most especially The Olympics, where the whole world seems to be gathered together in the pouring rain or the sweltering heat or vicariously from the non-crowd comfort of our living rooms.  

There are the day-to-day crowds of freeways and parking lots and checkout lines and service desks – and then there are the crowds where we went to escape crowds, like the beach, national parks, scenic trails, and on and on.  

 What is your experience with crowds?    

How do you feel in the midst of them?  What crowds from history  do you wish you had been in?

Any crowd where Jesus preached, I would have liked to have been there!

 Crowds can be thrilling in the energy they produce when everyone has their phone light on in raised hands swaying together, singing at a Billy Joel or a Taylor Swift concert. The surge of positive energy can be remembered for a lifetime.  

 Crowds can also be frightening, unstable, unpredictable, filled somehow with a dangerous clashing energy that feels as if life itself is at risk.

 Somewhere in between, crowds can be impersonal and lonely, as you walk among hundreds of individuals and small groups that all have separate lives, all know where they are going, and you are alone surrounded by lots of energies you are not part of.

Today, John’s Gospel is the second of 5  in a series called The Bread of Life Discourse. Last week was the feeding of the 5000, 

a crowd of people, some solo, many in family groups or neighborhood groups, all seeking Jesus because word of his healings had spread.  

 So, why did they come?  

Some desperate for help, healing, change.  

Some to see what’s the big deal about this guy?   

 They were fed.   Free food.   But …How?  

In this crowd, some could see better than others.  Were there arguments about what just happened?

The disciples witnessed it all; 

For all their ‘help’ in trying to manage this crowd, 

they were stopped in their tracks and rendered speechless as the power of God took over, a power beyond their imagining, 

beyond any reason or understanding.

 What the crowd didn’t see was the second part of the Gospel, 

where the disciples head out in the boat without Jesus, get caught in rough waters, and Jesus joins them by walking on the water, and then somehow whisks the boat to Capernaum.  

 If the disciples were speechless before;  they must be dumbstruck now.  

 Our Gospel today again features the Crowd.   John writes ‘the crowd’ as a kind of lump sum and gives it lines to say, as if it were one unified thing.

But of course, they weren’t. 

 This ‘crowd’ tried hard to find Jesus. They saw that the disciples had gone, decided to get “into the boats" and go all the way to Capernaum to find him.  

That’s a lot of boats!  

My guess is that the women, children and elders went home, and groups of men set out to find Jesus.  And it was not a short ride.  

 This crowd is persistent, energetic, driven.  

But when they get there, the question that gets blurted out is beside the point, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”   

‘When’ is not a meaningful question.  

It reflects, instead, the awkward, clumsy, thing we say when we are out of breath or don’t know what to say.  

 Jesus doesn’t answer their question, but answers instead the questions they are afraid to ask:   

Who are you? and how did you feed all those people? 

 Jesus answers that question by saying, in essence, do not pretend that you have come for high purposes.  Yes, you have worked hard to get here, but you’ve come because of all that free food!   

 And, I imagine Jesus smiles, kindly, as he says: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  

For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” 

 Without skipping a beat, another blurt: 

What must we do to perform the works of God?  

Again, a poor question-- 

--asked before really listening or hearing.  

It’s not about performing a task or doing a thing.   It is about slowing down, observing, receiving something deeper; it is about seeing and understanding that Jesus was sent by God, that Jesus is the Son of God, that God’s food through Jesus brings eternal life.

 I have some sympathy with the crowd, even though their spokesperson asks stupid questions, 

and most seem to misunderstand again and again who Jesus is and what he is saying.  

 The scene feels to me a little like the press surrounding Jesus and shouting questions at him, looking for quick answers that he refuses to give.  They have forgotten yesterday’s miracles, 

feeding 5000 --old news,  and now they are hungry for a new angle to the story.

 But I also understand that a crowd, even this one, is made up of people, individual people, with real questions, real concerns, real doubts, real longing, with different needs, different styles, and different abilities to perceive and understand what they see and hear. 

Just like you and me. 

 And so Jesus ends this particular segment with something the press can quote, something that seems like an answer:  

“I am the bread of life.  

Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,  whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,”  The press is satisfied for a moment.  

They have the video and they have the quote.

 It seems like an answer, 

but you and I know it is not that simple. 

It asks rather than answers

It asks: what is the bread you most need? 

What will satisfy your hunger and thirst?

 “Give us today our daily bread” we pray.

What is that bread for you today?

Jesus often speaks to and teaches to crowds, but he enters one heart at a time. 

Yours and mine. 

He heals one soul at a time. 

Yours and mine. 

You and I know that we will reflect on this bread  and pray about it for most of our lives. 

If I am honest, I know that 

I will struggle with what feels like a demand: believe or else, 

even when I know that “demand”  is not how Jesus does it.   We will sing and feel the beauty  of “I am the bread of life”; 

we will cling to that image and the feeding stories,  and we will feel fed, even when we don’t completely understand how that could be.

 These five Sundays of The Bread of Life discourse are opportunities to reenter the Gospel we have heard time and time again, and to look around with new eyes, hear with new ears, and to step away from the crowd, to slow our crowded lives, 

to allow into our hearts the Bread of Life we need, the very life and breath of God.

 AMEN

Our epistle reading today reminds me of this little cross on my bookshelf. In it, Paul describes how the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ between Jews & Gentiles is ‘broken down’ in Christ’s body on the cross — how Christ’s self-giving love on the cross not only removes this wall but gets rid of the significance of ‘Jew’ & ‘Gentile’ distinctions before God all together. Jesus, Paul says, makes them into a ‘new humanity’, joining them all together as one in his Body, his Church. This is a radical thing for Paul to say. At the time of Jesus & the apostles, religious Jews would not even enter a Gentile’s house or share food with them, because they believed it made them ritually unclean. Many of them seem to have believed that Gentiles had no share in God’s promises, and that the only hope for a Gentile was to become Jewish — to undergo circumcision, abandon all Gentile ties, take on Jewish law, and formally become a member of the people of Israel. In their eyes, Gentiles were idolaters, worshippers of false gods, and — perhaps most importantly, as Israel had been under the dominion of Gentile rulers and empires for centuries — Gentiles were ‘the enemy’. The idea that Gentiles could have the same access to God as Jews, let alone the idea of becoming reconciled and united as ‘one Body’ with them, would have seemed insane; impossible; blasphemy. But this reconciliation, this love that breaks down divisions and turns enemies into neighbors is exactly what God in Christ came to give us.

In the gospel reading today, when Jesus gets off the boat and sees the crowd gathered, Mark tells us that ‘he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.’ These people were, in other words, lost without a trustworthy voice to guide them. They felt so in need of the compassion and authority they found in Christ that they rushed all the way around the sea of Galilee on foot, just to beat him to the shore. Thousands flocked from across the whole region just to hear a word of his teaching or to graze the fringe of his garment and be healed. These people, in the words of Jeremiah, had been ‘scattered’ between bad shepherds for a long while. At this time, the people of Israel were divided by religious and political leaders who strove with eachother for influence and power. The Pharisees and Sadducees, the Zealots and Essenes, the Herodians and the Roman occupiers — all of these leaders competed for influence over God’s people, all seeking, in one way or another, to wield the name of God to amass power for their own ideals and ends. All the while, very few of these ‘shepherds’ cared for the well being of their sheep.

Does this feel familiar? We live in a world right now that, to me at least, feels more viscerally ‘scattered’ and divided than it ever has in my lifetime. Genocide and wars rage across the world, inflation and economic changes threaten our sense of security, the ideological gaps between groups and generations seem to be widening. And all the while businesses, political leaders, and even many pastors play on our fears and uncertainties, exploiting all this instability to get us to buy, vote, follow, give ourselves to their cause. I know it is taboo in some spaces to talk even generally about politics at church, but the church is not immune to any of this. All too often do our nation’s leaders wield the name of God in an attempt to get us to believe it is our ‘Christian duty’ to give our money and support to their cause, portraying their political or ideological opponents as enemies of God and God’s people. All too often do political leaders and pastors collapse their faith with their political platform and wield their pulpits to convert their congregations to their political party rather than to Jesus. Our people, our churches are torn apart and scattered between these false ‘shepherds,’ and we are taught, subtly or explicitly, to think of those who disagree with us as our enemies.

We are often exhausted and desperate in the midst of all this turmoil, and just like in the gospel, Jesus comes and looks on us with compassion, offering a different way, the way Paul speaks of in today’s epistle: the way of reconciliation and humble love. Make no mistake, it is the duty of all Christians to do justice and love mercy, to oppose injustice and oppression wherever we encounter it — at work, in our families, on social media, and in the voting booth. But our ideologies and our politics must be ruled by our commitment to the way of Christ — not the other way around. There is only one true shepherd, and if we are to be his sheep, we must be willing to oppose injustice and violence when it affects our enemies as well — to offer compassion even to those whom we cannot stand. Being a part of Christ’s body means being joined to everyone in Christ’s body, even and especially those who we disagree with and think of as our enemies. Jew and Gentile, remember? We all are like sheep without a shepherd, and our wounds and fears and desperation drive us all to seek security somewhere or another. Those who we consider our enemies are just as desperately in need of Christ’s compassion and healing as we are. If we are to be Christians, then we must learn to love as Christ loves. After all, Christ gave himself over to death to draw all people to God, even those who persecuted him and killed him.

In times like these, the Church must not give itself to a false shepherd by pledging its allegiance to a leader or political platform, nor can it remain silent, afraid to engage with the divisive and painful challenges of our times. The way of Christ requires that we seek to honestly address the evils and wounds we inflict on one another, that we call one another to repentance and the renewing of our minds. And it also requires that we follow our one, true shepherd in the way of love, hearing and extending compassion to those with whom we disagree, extending that humility and healing love that Christ gives us — that love which has always been the only thing that can tear down these dividing walls between us. Among all the other figures, that little cross on my bookshelf shows the centurions who cruelly gave Jesus vinegar to drink and stabbed him in the side right there alongside Mary and some of the apostles and saints — all of them, together under the arms of Christ.

May we be the sheep of this good shepherd and cling to his voice in these tumultuous times. May we remember that, in God’s Kingdom, division and despair do not have the last word. And may the Holy Spirit shape each of us into instruments of Christ’s peace, that we might give this world the gift of love that it so desperately needs. Amen.

          Perhaps it was after Joseph had died, leaving Jesus bereft of a strong male figure to protect him from the gossip surrounding his birth, that Jesus went south and became a disciple of John the Immerser.  In Luke’s gospel, we see Jesus at age 12 talking with the elders in the Temple but none of the gospels reveal where he was during what’s been called “The Missing Years” – and no, it’s fantasy to speculate that Jesus went East and studied with the Buddha.  At least some of that time was spent learning John’s Mishnah.

          Following John’s martyrdom, Jesus along with a couple of John’s other disciples, go north to the relative safety of the Galilee.  Jesus picks up the mantle of John’s mission – proclaiming the nearness of the Kingdom of God and calling people to repent – to change their hearts and minds and wills – and live into this good news.  Jesus gathers about himself disciples and centered in the seaside town of Capernaum, most likely at Simon Peter’s home, Jesus travels widely;  preaching and healing and exorcizing.  Although, to be honest, the distinction between curing illness and exorcising unclean spirits – in Greek, “demons” – is fuzzy at best.

          Finally, Jesus decides to go home.  It’s clear that this is not a family visit because he takes his disciples with him.  This is an evangelism mission.

          Yeshua, a fairly common Jewish name, had gathered some fame as one of John’s disciples and for the mighty works he was said to have performed, and thus was a welcome guest preacher.

          The initial response was quite positive.  The people marveled at his wisdom.  Until someone in the back of the congregation recognized him.  “Hey, wait a minute.  Isn’t that Mary’s boy?  He and his dad repaired our shed years ago.  Y’all know his brothers and sisters…”

          Son of Mary.  Jewish boys are sons of their fathers – Simon bar Jonah, James & John the sons of Zebedee.  In effect “This is Mary’s boy, who knows for sure who his daddy is.”  All the old ugliness came back.  Mark sums it up simply:  “They took offense at him.”

          This is the story of familiarity breeding contempt.  The villagers were thinking “We’re as good as he is but we can’t teach like he does, so his teaching is not wise and he didn’t do those things they say he did.”  Jesus is amazed at their closed minds and closed hearts.  Jesus observes that other messengers of God – the Prophets – had similar experiences.

          Now Luke takes this story from Mark and embellishes it.  In Luke, the people don’t just “take offense at him,” but seek to kill him.  Jesus barely gets away with his life.  Mark is not quite so dramatic, but this story signals the ending of the Galilean ministry.  Jesus begins to set his face toward Jerusalem.

          The second story is of Jesus sending the 12 out on a missionary journey.  Their time of preparation is ending.  They are sent – the word “apostle” means “sent” – sent to proclaim the Kingdom and while doing so, to heal the sick and free the demon plagued.  They are to carry no provisions but to depend on the hospitality Jewish custom requires of fellow Jews.  If someone refuses to receive them, they are to shake the dust from their sandals as a witness against those homes.  What did that mean?

          Pious Jews, when returning to the Holy Land of Palestine from Gentile territory, would shake the dust from their shoes at the border so as not to contaminate the Holy Land and God’s holy people with the soil of profane places.  Such a public witness by the disciples would serve to publicly proclaim that those who were inhospitable were heathens and worthy of God’s judgment when the Kingdom comes.  Heavy stuff.  Perhaps it caused some folks to rethink their reluctance to welcome Jesus’ friends – or maybe it just made the disciples feel better.

          Some years ago, I had a conversation with a Mormon elder about their 2 x 2 missionary work, about how successful or unsuccessful the work was.  He confided in me that the point was not to make converts.  That is indeed very rare.  But the rejection, house by house, has the effect of strengthening a Mormon boy’s faith.

          The message of Mormon missionaries is, in a sense, a scolding for not believing what they believe and an invitation to change our minds  before it is too late.

          Was that the message of the 12?  In going out 2 x 2 and healing the sick, exorcizing unclean spirits and bringing a greater spiritual wholeness, the 12 proclaimed hope to the poor showing compassion and love.  Blessed are you poor.  Blessed are you mourning the loss of loved ones to Roman violence.  Blessed are you who are hungry or when you are excluded or reviled by the powerful;  for God loves you and his reign is near.  Live the good news.

          Do y’all remember the TV show “Blackish”?  It ran for some 8 years.  In an episode called “Charity,” Dre, the husband and father, feels uncomfortable about getting directly involved with those in need.  His wife, Bow – short for Rainbow – is a physician who travels the world to treat those in desperate need.  Shamed by her into cleaning out his clothes closet, Dre is driving to a goodwill drop site with his Armani and Calvin Klein collection and resenting it.  He sees a sleeping homeless man on a bus bench who is about his size.  He quietly puts the bag of designer clothes on the bench and congratulates himself on his generosity – and on saving gasoline.  Soon rumors circulate around town that Dre is a drunken bum because people have seen the well dressed sleeping homeless guy and assume it’s Dre because they do in fact resemble each other from a distance.  Dre decides to buy the guy some nice new sweat clothes and get his designer stuff back.  But as Dre is reaching for the bundle he’d left, the guy wakes up and cries out “I’m moving, I’m moving.”  Dre says, “Hey man, let me buy you a cup of coffee.”  And the homeless guy responds, “You’re not gonna talk to me about God are you?”

          Now, sit with that for a bit.

          They go into a coffee shop and talk and Dre discovers that they have a lot in common.  Later, Dre confesses to his wife how tenuous his own growing up was, and how with one or two catastrophes, it could have been him on that bench.  Scene –

          Now sitcoms are by nature simplistic and sentimental, but where today’s gospel reading and this TV show touch each other is in the vulnerability of the character Dre and the vulnerability of the disciples on their mission and even the vulnerability of Jesus going home for the first and last time.  These folks all went forth with open hands and open hearts seeking to bring a little hope to the broken, despised and dejected.

          When love puts on her big girl pants and walks around outside, she becomes charity.  Seeing others not as clients or problems to be solved but as brothers and sisters, all of us made in the image and likeness of God;  equally loved by God.  The task of seeking and serving Christ who comes to us incognito in the face of strangers in need – it is to them our reverence is due.

          Two quotes to sum up our reflection today.  The first is by Diana Butler Bass, who wrote:

“While contemporary Christians tend to equate morality with sexual ethics, our ancestors defined morality as welcoming the stranger.  Unlike almost every other contested idea in Early Christianity, including the nature of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, the unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue.”

And finally, from Verna Dozier:

“Where Jesus came, life was different.  He proclaimed the gospel by being the gospel… (so) don’t tell me what you believe, tell me what difference it makes that you believe.”

          Synagogue leaders were not clergy.  They were simply well-respected elders, empowered to facilitate the business of the town or village.  We erroneously may think that all those in authority – the scribes, the doctors of the Law, the Pharisees – opposed Jesus but that was not true. 

          Some, like Jairus, recognized Jesus as someone with spiritual power.  It’s not remarkable that Jairus comes, in his extreme distress, and kneels at Jesus’ feet.  “My daughter is dying.  Please come, and lay your hands on her and make her well.”  Jairus knows that his little girl is beyond the help of earthly powers.  Only supernatural power from God can help.  Jairus is right to be terrified.  His situation was all too commonplace.   Sixty percent of all live births in the Province of Palestine died by their mid-teens.Touched by Jairus’ very public display of trust, Jesus agrees to go. 

          While making their way, followed and surrounded by the townspeople, a woman screws up her courage.  She has suffered with what we’d diagnose today as irregular menstruation.  This condition made her ritually unclean because in order to take the ritual bath, the mikveh, her flow of blood had to be ended for 8 days.  For 12 years, prohibited from entering the Temple, she has sought the help of physicians.  She obviously was a woman of means because physicians were expensive, such that she is now destitute.  She thinks, “If only I could touch but the hem of his garment, he could make me whole.”

          It’s a bold move.  This woman is unclean, and impurity was contagious.  She dared not approach the prophet directly, but surreptitiously.  She, in her desperation, stretches out her hand and touches the hem of his garment.  Mark tells us that Jesus felt power drained out of him and asks, “Who touched me?”  The disciples laughed.  “Man, look at all these folks crowding us.  It’s more like who didn’t touch you dude.”  But Jesus persists.

          This is a tense moment.  The woman, who could have melted away in the crowd, came forward.  She fell before the prophet in great fear.  Would he condemn her in front of the whole village, who already shun her for her affliction?  Would the cure she has sensed in her body, be reversed?  Made worse?

          Jesus, with tenderness, tells her that “her faith” – that is to say, your conviction that I could make you well and restore you to this community – “your faith has made you whole.”

          While this happened, Jairus’ friends come and tell him that his daughter has died.  “Why bother the rabbi anymore.”  Jesus overhears all this and he tells Jairus to not be afraid.  Fear – not doubt – is the opposite of faith.  Dismissing the crowd, only Jesus and his top lieutenants, Peter, James and John, accompany Jairus to his house.

          The professional women mourners were keening but Jesus stops them, proclaiming “The child is but sleeping.”  They laugh as him.  Jesus takes Jairus and his wife and the 3 chosen disciples into the house, dismissing all the others.  Jesus takes the little girl by the hand and tells her to get up.  Mark, perhaps sensing that there’s some power in the Aramaic, retains the command.  The little girl is raised – in Greek, it’s the same word used for the resurrection – and Jesus says “give her some food.”  In the family meal, the little girl is restored to community, not unlike the woman with the flow of blood, now whole, is restored to family and clan.

          The Lazarus story only appears in John’s gospel.  This is Mark’s Lazarus tale – complete with the interval, the delay, that keeps Jesus from getting there before the girl has died.  It’s a mystery why Jesus said, “She is only sleeping.”  Did he somehow know that she was in a coma?  The Jews believed that the soul lingered above the body for 3 days, hoping to be reunited with the body.  It’s interesting that the word “cemetery” in the original Greek meant “sleeping place” as our ancestors in the faith believed that the dead sleep until the last day, when they will be raised up.

          The point of these two stories – held together by the number 12 – is about overcoming impurity.  Being touched by a bleeding woman made Jesus unclean.  Touching a corpse as well, made one unclean.  Jesus restores people to health;  beings touched by and touching the unclean, notwithstanding the scandal to the pious and the resentment of those in authority.

          The ministry of making well continued after Jesus’ death, in the work of the Apostles.  It is and must be a part of the work of ministry – but too often the spectacle of it all has been used to manipulate and deceive.

          As a child, I was utterly captivated by the faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman, who hosted a show called “I believe in miracles” in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Such a magnetic presence, I believed that she, like Miss Nancy on Romper Room, was talking directly to me.  All I had to do to heal my angst – and my teenaged acne – was to reach out and touch the 16” screen on our black & white TV.

          Many decades later, I have come to a deeper insight.  “Curing” is aimed at disease and cures are elusive and rare when dealing with life threatening illness. 

          Healing, on the other hand, is aimed at restoring wholeness and meaning and connection.  We pray for a cure but must remain vigilant to not use the language Jesus used, “Your faith has made you – or failed to make you – well.”  Those who are quite ill are not helped by suggestion, wittingly or unwittingly, that their lack of good health is a result of scant faith.  But through faith, healing – in the sense of finding shalom – always comes to those seeking it, always.

          I will close today with a letter collected by David Kessler for this 1997 book:  The Rights of the Dying:  a companion for life’s final moments.

Dear friends,

Six or seven months ago I lay in a hospital bed convinced that I was going to die.  AIDS, cancer and pneumonia all seemed to be fighting to claim my life.  At that time, I felt very terrified that I might die and go to hell, or just not go on at all.  But my time had not come.  The time since then has been a precious gift, in which great healing had occurred.  After months of medical treatment, followed by months of holistic treatment and months of spiritual work on myself, I am free.

My partner’s remarkable support, a spiritual guide, a meditation partner, several meditation retreats, support from wonderful friends, and a lot of work within my own heart has left me in peace.

For many months, my idea of healing was that of curing my body.  I gave it my best try and I am proud of that fact.  I was even given several months of relative health and energy.  At that time, I often expressed my certainly that I could heal my body with my own healing powers.  I still believe these healing powers exist, but as my physical health reached a point where optimism about my health would have had to become self-denial, I realized the need to accept my own impending death and physical mortality.  I also realized that self-compassion meant feeling in my heart that even death was not a sign of weakness or failure.  This seems to be the ultimate act of self-acceptance.  I thank God for it.

All this did not come easily.  I have wept many times;  I have gotten angry and confused.  But I have learned that the only way out of the pain is through the pain.  A hard lesson to learn…

In the past six months, I have started my own production company, which produced a calendar of my own photography.  I have grown closer than ever to my family, my partner and my friends.  I am very proud and thankful for these things.  Most important, I have come to accept myself exactly as I am.  This is the greatest gift of all.

And so, my healing has occurred.  Soon my body will be dropping away from me, like a cocoon, and my spirit will fly like a butterfly – beautiful and perfect.  I don’t claim to know where exactly it is that I am going, but my heart tells me it is filled with light and love.

An open heart is an infinitely greater blessing than death is a tragedy.  Let us all take comfort in this knowledge.

Love, Bill

Fr:  The Rights of the Dying:  a companion for life’s final moments, by David Kessler, 1997

 And one of the symbols we use a lot is the symbol of the boat.  Not only does the boat represent the physical thing that carries us across the water, it also is a symbol for the church.

 I’ll never forget the Sunday, early in my ministry, when I just finished leading the Sunday liturgy.

 As we sang the final strains of the last hymn, it hit me.  I had just taken the boat that is the church out for a sail and had just brought it safely in to shore!

 So cool!

 Another meaning of the boat symbol is that it represents the earthen vessel – the individual.

 We have on board, of this earthen vessel, the One who created the universe, formed the seas, and as today’s gospel reminds us, has power over the waves.

 Through the gift of the Holy Spirit that powerful One is present in us.

 Doesn’t that just blow you away?

 Maybe not.  We often take it so matter of factly.  Ho Hum, yes, the Holy Spirit dwells in me.

 We forget or fail to draw the obvious conclusion.

 If the powerful One dwells in me then . . .

 But we forget that, and along come the storms in our lives or in the lives of those we love, and we feel powerless over them.

 Stormy relationships, illness, emotional problems, trouble at work, addictions.

 We sometimes become overwhelmed by the events in our lives.

 Along comes a storm and we forget to wake up the power that is in us.  We are too focused on the storm.

 Or worse yet, we say wonderful things to ourselves, like:

-         This will never get any better.

-         This is just the way my life is.  I might as well get used to it.

-         I deserve this in my life because of all the mistakes I have made.

-         God brought this into my life to teach me a lesson.

-         I’m supposed to learn to endure suffering, so I’ll be a better Christian

 I defy you to show me anywhere in the gospels where someone comes to Jesus for healing or to be rid of the demons that haunt them and Jesus says

-         No, I’m sorry I won’t heal you.  You’re getting what you deserve.

-         No, I’m not going to get rid of your demons today.  I think that if you live with them a little longer there’ll be a valuable lesson in it for you.

 Jesus does not want us to suffer one moment longer with the chaos in our lives.

 He and all the power of the Universe, the powerful energy of the One who holds all of Creation in his hand is available to us – available to do miraculous things in our lives.  Things that will make our jaws drop.

 Our inheritance as followers of Jesus the Christ is power.  That’s the gift we celebrated on Pentecost and that he promises each and every one of us.  Power to do miraculous things.

 Think of some of the things Jesus said to his disciples and says to us.

 Matthew 17:20    If you had faith no bigger than a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it would move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.

 John 14:12    Whoever has faith in me will do what I am doing, indeed he will do greater things.

 Acts 1:8    You will receive power when the Holy Spirit falls upon you.

 Jesus was in the business of empowering people – He expected them to be powerful people doing powerful and miraculous things.

 Jesus has given us all we need to be powerful people.  People who can channel the spiritual energy of the Creator of the Universe to do incredible things:

-         to bring peace in chaos

-         to rid us of the demons and addictions that haunt us

-         to bring health in illness

 We are called to be powerful people, to wake the sleeping giant in each and every one of these earthen vessels.

 How do we do it?

-         First – choose to look away from the storm and remember the power of the Universe is in us and available to us.

-         Wake the sleeping giant within through prayer. 

Prayers like:        Let me experience the power of Your Presence

                              Let me be a channel of your healing

-         Be immersed in that energy and power that is in you.

-         Focus on what you would like to see happen – the healing, the peace in a relationship, the calming of an inner turmoil, the perfect job.

-         Allow awareness of the energy and power within you to fuel your prayers for the situation and to give you a vision, a picture in your mind of the prayer being answered and just sit with it.

-         Thank God for the healing that has already begun even before you see the effects of it.

-         Repeat as needed.

 There is a learning curve to this.  It takes some practice.  It needs to be a part of your life.

 The story is told of a Kansas farmer who found a baby eagle in one of his fields.  The poor young eagle was not in good condition and the farmer took it back to his home to nurse it back to health.  Over the next few weeks, the eagle did well, and the farmer put it in with the young chicks in his chicken pen.

 Although the eagle did well during the first weeks, it began to grow listless and seemed to be losing its strength.  The farmer feared the young eagle was going to die after all, until – one day the farmer had an inspiration.  He packed the eagle in his pickup truck and headed west for the Colorado mountains.  When he arrived at the eastern edge of the Rockies, the farmer took the young bird deep into the foothills.  Finally, he held the eagle in his arms and pointed its head to the mountain tops where the wind was blowing, and an occasional eagle cried out as it traced the currents of the mountain winds.

 A strong shudder coursed through the eagle’s body, and it spread its wings as a new strength seemed to surge through the bird.  It stood and leaped into the air, caught a strong breeze and soared into the sky.

 The farmer watched the eagle with a tear in his eye as the bird cried out what seemed to be a farewell.  A verse from the Bible came to the lonely figure of a Kansas farmer as he watched the eagle soar:

             “… those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. 

                                    They will soar on wings like eagles …”

 We are like that baby eagle.  We have spent too much time in the chicken coop and have forgotten the power within us.  It is time for us to wake up the sleeping giant in us and soar on wings like eagles.

            Back here in our own galaxy, some of us in the corporate world may at one time or another have taken part in a team building exercise called a “trust walk,” where one person is blindfolded and led by someone else through a building or along a trail, with the blindfolded person being completely dependent upon the person leading them for safe passage through whatever obstacles may be in the way.

            More energetic than the trust walk but also popular in both team building and general recreation are ropes courses, various arrangements of rigging and climbing and whatnot that present challenges for both individuals and groups, encouraging participants to trust each other and to work towards a common goal.

            If we toss these three situations into the pot:  Luke Skywalker trusting the Force, one blindfolded person trusting another person, and members of a group learning to trust each other; if we toss these three situations of trust into the pot and stir them around, we start to get an idea of what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians when he refers to “walk[ing] by faith, not by sight.”

            Remembering that Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” to “walk by faith, not by sight” is to walk every day, no matter what’s happening with the world and in the world, to walk every day trusting in Jesus’ assurance that God’s promises will come to pass and that God’s kingdom will come in its fullness.  To walk by faith rather than by sight is to trust Jesus’ words through the visions of Julian of Norwich that “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well;” and trusting that in this world of ours, contrary to things seen, sooner or later, in the fullness of God’s time, God’s Ultimate Will, will be done.

            For us as disciples of Jesus, walking by faith is important; and this importance, along with the trust that makes such walking possible, this importance and trust are both affirmed by the parables of the kingdom that we hear Jesus tell this morning in Mark’s Gospel.  Both the parable of the seed that grows secretly, and the parable of the mustard seed, these both involve growth that is steady and sure, but in each case the growth begins underground and cannot initially be seen.  The sower sows the seeds, and then trusts that in God’s time and by God’s grace, they will germinate and begin to grow.

            But there’s a question mark here when we look more closely at these parables and we try to relate them to Christian life on a daily basis:  as important as walking by faith is, as important as trusting in the growth that God brings is, if we look at these parables to guide us in our everyday lives, it’s a little hard to see exactly what kind of guidance they’re giving us because there aren’t any people at all in one of them – and there’s only the “someone” I’ve already mentioned who scatters the seed in the other.

            The parable of the seed tells us that the sower sleeps and rises, night and day, but has no control over the sprouting of the seed, much less any knowledge of the “how” of its growth.  The earth produces “of itself” without the sower’s help, and the seeds’ growth is progressive and orderly:  “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.”  Only when the grain is fully mature does the sower get involved again, and then the task is simply to harvest that which has come to fruition all by itself.

            So where is the guidance here for us as disciples? 

Just before today’s 2 Corinthians passage, Paul says, “…we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal…,” but I’m afraid this isn’t much help – because if this visible world and its visible troubles are actually temporary and passing away, and if, as it seems in the parables, God’s kingdom is going to steadily erupt from the soil on its own, does what we do in our own lives even make a difference anymore?

            A few verses later, though, as we just heard, Paul also says that “…whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please [the Lord].  For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.”  (2 Cor. 5:10)

            So even though this world of the body is temporary, says Paul, our actions in this world are still important; keeping our eyes on Jesus and choosing actions consistent with what we believe Jesus would do, and would have us do, in a given situation or relationship, these actions do still make a difference.

            So now the question is, what in fact should we do?  Which actions will please Jesus as we wait and walk in the confident expectation of his return, and the inbreaking of God’s kingdom?  Should we perhaps try to be helpful to hurry things along?  Should we be proactive, put the seed in a hothouse under some lights, and give God a hand by speeding up the kingdom’s growth?

            We may remember that Sarah tried that back in Genesis when she despaired of ever conceiving the child God had promised, and she took matters into her own hands.  She sent her maid Hagar to lie with Abraham, with the result that Ishmael was conceived; and the tragic and the horrific continue to this day as the descendants of Ishmael, the first born, and the descendants of Isaac, the child of God’s promise, do battle even as I preach, over who gets the land, and to whom the land really belongs.

            Speaking of the Land, the Holy Land, the Promised Land, as Jewish author Chaim Potok incorporates into his classic novel The Chosen, it’s both poignant and telling in light of our Gospel reading that back in 1948, strict Orthodox Jews opposed the formation of the State of Israel because they said that this new Jewish homeland would be an act of blasphemy; that its formation was an attempt to force God’s hand and God’s timing, because it would give the land back to the Jews before God was ready for that to happen; before God had sent them God’s messiah.

            Even today – and there was a lot of buzz around this back at Y2K, buzz that still continues – even today, various fringe groups of both Evangelical Christians and Jews, sometimes working together and sometimes working separately, these groups look at the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and they dream about building the Third Temple in our day by force, and, depending on one’s religious perspective, thereby triggering either the Messiah’s first coming (for Jews) or second coming (for Christians).  However, given that the Muslim Dome of the Rock currently occupies, and has occupied, the Temple Mount for over 1,300 years (1,333 to be exact), such a move does not appear at the moment to be a constructive step towards world peace.

            So:  if on the one hand, doing nothing while we wait upon God and the kingdom; and on the other, doing too much instead of waiting upon God; if neither of these is what Jesus would have us do, perhaps we should take a page or two from Luke Skywalker and from the realities of gardening.  Perhaps we should work together in concert with the kingdom’s growth, through our actions as identified by today’s collect – through proclaiming God’s truth with boldness and ministering God’s justice with compassion, providing through our lives as favorable an environment for God’s will being done on earth as we can.  As we pray so often in the Prayers of the People, “Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake, that our works may find favor in your sight.”

            In 2 Corinthians in the verses that come right after the end of today’s reading, Paul says, “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us….”  (2 Cor. 5:18, 19a, 20a)

            We are ambassadors for Christ, and ambassadors speak in the name of the one who has sent them.  We are representatives of Christ and as we walk by faith, this is how we are to work in concert with God:  we are to be reconcilers in this broken world.  We are to continue Jesus’ healing work of bringing people back into relationship with each other, back into relationship with creation, and back into relationship with God – because that’s what reconciliation is.  Reconciliation is restoring, being in, and staying in, relationships that are marked with truth, with justice, and with compassion.

            The Rt. Rev. Stephen Charleston, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a former Bishop of Alaska, says this about Jesus and relationships:  “Jesus invites us into a living relationship with God.  That relationship is love, but the love is sustained through forgiveness.  Forgiveness is what keeps us from being lost to God.  It is what keeps us from being lost to one another.  Forgiveness is our life line in the storm.  It is our path to peace.  In the gospel, Jesus makes this connection by drawing a spiritual circle of forgiveness around us.  He tells us that we cannot stop forgiving because if we do we will stop being in relationship.  For his healing to work in our lives, for peace to be possible, we must keep the living link that only compassion can offer.  It is the deep acknowledgement that none of us stand outside the Jesus circle in our need for forgiveness.  None of us has a corner on the market of forgiving others because they have sinned greater than ourselves.  ‘Who will cast the first stone?’ he asked those who wanted to judge another’s sin.  Within the love of Jesus, there are no corners in which to hide, only the circle of forgiveness that is his healing compassion.”  (Good News: A Scriptural Path to Reconciliation, p. 21)

            Bp. Charleston goes on to say that “It is difficult to not retreat from one another because [staying] will challenge us to live into an obedience to God that is not based on law, but love.  As much as we would like to resolve our conflicts with hard and fast rules about how to judge one another’s behavior, we will have to accept the fact that we will rarely agree on what is ‘right.’  Instead, like the living branches of a vine, we will have to grow together.  We will have to be guided by love, by the example of Jesus as he taught us to be open, merciful, forgiving, and faithful.  Consequently, we will have to be open to change, to compromise, to humility.  Our faithfulness will not be measured by how ‘right’ we are, but by how loving we are.”  (Ibid., p. 27)

            Bp. Charleston finishes by saying, “Compassion is the power of God to bring forgiveness into even the most violent conflict.  Forgiveness is the mercy of God to bring people back into community even after the most hurtful separation.  Community is the grace of God to bring peace into human lives even in a world of fear.”  (Ibid., p. 22)

            We are ambassadors of Christ in community, called to be reconcilers; called to be a new creation in this world of fear by walking together in faith, in compassion, in forgiveness, in love – and in trust, trusting that “God walks beside us through all the peaks and valleys of our lives,” “as near to us as our very breath.”  (F, 2 Cor, H, 139)

            As God’s new creation, it’s time for each of us to let go of our own fear and allow ourselves to be guided, sustained, and empowered by a Spirit and a Force far, far greater than ourselves – for the sake of the world, and the reconciliation of all humankind.  Amen.  

To Jesus, the reign of God was not some abstract theological ideal, but was a fellowship of men and women seeking to live lives of sanctity, compassion, and justice. In St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, Paul writes: “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy” – the word means sacred, set apart for God’s use, being whole – “those who are made holy, are the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them” – indeed to call us – “brothers and sisters.”

Amen

Amen.

Sailors have their own version of Murphy’s Law – in fact, there are two laws: they are called Deal’s Laws of Sailing:

 -         Deal’s first law of sailing is this: “The amount of wind will vary inversely with the number and experience of the people you have on board the sailboat.” In other words – the more people on the boat the less wind there will be.

-         Deal’s second law of sailing says, “No maSer how strong the wind is when you leave the dock, once you have reached the farthest point from the port from which you started, the wind will die.”

 Anyone who is a sailor can attest to the validity of these laws. And I think all sailors will agree that once the wind stops blowing, there is nothing you can do to get it going again.

When you are sailing, you are completely at the mercy of the wind. The wind can disappear suddenly, leaving you stranded at sea if you have no motor.

Sailing makes you aware of your dependency.

It is very much like receiving God’s grace – you by your own efforts cannot cause God’s grace to come upon you any more than you can cause the wind to blow.

That is Jesus’ message to Nicodemus in today’s gospel. You can’t cause God’s grace to come upon you.

God’s Spirit moves where it wills and the receiving of the Spirit is God’s work in us – not something we do for ourselves. As Thomas Manson, an American religious leader, once said, “We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

And that, I think, is what Jesus is trying to teach Nicodemus in today’s gospel.

And to understand why, we have to understand Nicodemus. He was:

-         a Pharisee – the strictest sect of the Jews regarding the law

-         a ruler of Jews

-         probably a member of the Sanhedrin, a group of 71 men who made up the equivalent of the Supreme Court and the legisla]ve body in Judea.

-         very religious

-         knew the Torah (what we call the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures) by heart

-         drawn to Jesus – probably heard about water to wine at Cana and healings

-         careful, sneaking out at night to meet with Jesus

He wants to know the secret of Jesus’ spiritual power. He says, “No one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him.” How has Jesus harnessed God’s power? Jesus knows what Nicodemus wants to know and so he begins to tell him the secret. You might say that what he does is to try to teach Nicodemus how to sail. (Jesus was, after all, a sailor.)

What Jesus realizes is that right now Nicodemus has a rowboat spiritually. That’s what author David Takle calls it. In rowboat spirituality we:

-         persist even when it’s hard

-         go to conferences

-         we study

-         we memorize scripture

-         we do all the right things

-         we try to help as many people as we can

-         we row harder

-         we do more

-         we beat ourselves up because we are not dedicated enough

-         we try to be perfect

-         we use willpower

We are trying to please God by trying!

But Jesus is invi]ng Nicodemus to switch it up; to embrace sailboat spirituality instead.

In sailboat spirituality:

-         the wind does most of the work

-         our only work is to align the sail with the wind

-         we allow the wind to take us where it will – maybe where we’d never go on our own

-         instead of trying to do what we think is the right thing to do, we allow God to work on our hearts to change us

-         instead of trying to use willpower to overcome contrary feelings and inclina]ons, we allow God to transform us from the inside out

In sailboat spirituality, if the wind dies down as Deal’s Law says it will, we rest and wait un]l the Spirit makes her next move.

I learned the joy of this with my friend Dennis on his Hobie Cat; sure enough, just like Deal’s Law promised we were stranded; and I discovered there was nothing more wonderful than the peace of bobbing about on the waves, soaking up the sun, while we waited for the wind to gust again. Rest is good – even in the spiritual life.

The wind blows where it chooses, Jesus tells Nicodemus, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

The spiritual life is best lived not rowing but sailing. Not with hard work and willpower, but with learning the skill of sefng our sail to catch the wind. That’s what the spiritual disciplines are for:

-         centering prayer

-         the labyrinth

-         the rosary

-         fasting

-         prayer

-         reading spiritual books

-         studying scripture

-         coming to Eucharist

-         Chris]an Education

-         small groups

These are all the ways we learn to set our sails so that we can catch the movement of the Spirit in them.

And that is Jesus’ invitation to Nicodemus and to us today: Give up your oars – put up your sail and let the wind of the Spirit do the work.

In the words of Christopher Cross’ song, “Sailing”:

“Well, it’s not far down to paradise At least it’s not for me
And if the wind is right
You can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me”
“Sailing – takes me away to where I’m going…”