Sermon, 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

We live in different worlds with different ways of marking different times.  We are all affected by the time of school, which begins at the end of August and ends at the end of May. That's one kind of year in which we live.  There is the time we inherited from the Romans.  That is the year which begins with the trees leafless, the animals in hibernation, and the daylight beginning to lengthen, minute by minute, day by day.  That year ends with the daylight as short as it's going to get.

Finally, of course, there is Church time.  When you hear visions of apocalypse and second comings, then you can be sure that the Church year is coming to an end.  Next Sunday will be the last Sunday of the liturgical year.  On November 29th, we will begin a new cycle of Advent as preparation for God coming to us in the flesh at Christmas, a season that begins on December 25th, not ends.  Later we enter the season of Lent as preparation for the Passion of the Christ, his death and Resurrection.  Then we will mark our Sundays as "ordinary time."

In one sense of course, our time as a Church, with Jesus Christ living in us is anything but "ordinary."  But we call the time after Pentecost "ordinary" so that people will come to appreciate how extraordinary it is that we the risen Jesus should offer to live with us in his Word given and received, and in the sharing of Himself through the bread and the wine.  Still, we do seem to live our lives in an "ordinary" way.  We wake, we work, we argue, we put off, we eat, and we sleep, as though the minutes must unfold into days and the days must unfold into years.

But what if you knew you had only one month left in your physical life?  Would you finish up important matters at work?  Would you travel to a place you always wanted to go?  Would you pray more, go to church more, do that generous act you always wanted to do for others?  Would you find ways to leave a mark on the world?  Would you reconcile and repair a broken relationship?  By answering yes to one or more of these possibilities, we indicate that in our last days we would be better stewards of all the things God has given us in this life—better than we are now.  The question is: Why do we need to be under threat of death to be better stewards?

Here's another "what if." What if we discovered that our Parish only had one more month to exist?  As members of a congregation at the end of its life, we would have a great opportunity to decide what we wanted to do with our assets. Provided God or the bishop left that up to us, we would have a few million dollars worth of real estate, cash and furnishings to disperse back into the local community and the Christian community.  How would we decide what to do with the money? We wouldn't have time to fight about it. We'd have to focus fast and get our priorities straight. What would we support and what would we want our final legacy to be? We could help start a new ministry where none currently exists. Or we could support an existing one, endow scholarships, build a youth center in town or a better shelter for the homeless.  We could do so much—if we had only a month left!  We could be really great stewards of our resources— if we only had a month to live.

In truth, it is impractical to live like that.  It can even be irresponsible.  This weekend, the movie 2012 is opening.  If you haven't heard, its premise is the cycle of years in the ancient Mayan calendar, which ends every 5000 years and starts over again.  That cycle is ending on December 21, 2012.  From that premise comes a film about the end of the world.  Sadly, Christians have not been immune from the desire to force God's hand by informing him that they have figured out God's schedule for the "end time."  In a world of wars and rumors of wars, it is understandable that to hear Jesus say, "Not yet," is unsatisfactory.  But such efforts to calculate God's schedule are as futile as trying to control God's gifts of time, talent and treasure.

Yet, even as Jesus says in this 13th chapter of Mark's Gospel that not even He knows the time of his second coming; still he keeps telling us in this chapter: Keep watch, take heed, stay awake.  Jesus Christ comes to us every day, in our prayers, our worship, our fellowship, and the opportunity to care for our suffering friend and the suffering stranger.  Keep watch, take heed, stay awake.  Your time, your talent and your treasure are not yours.  And none of us know when those gifts will have to be returned to their Giver.  Keep watch, take heed, stay awake.  Take the extraordinary gift of God's time and make it an ordinary part of your lives.  Keep watch, take heed, stay awake.

A Very Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net, here's a very rough draft of tomorrow's sermon

Veterans' Day

On November 11, 1918, all became quiet on the Western Front, as the armistice was signed that effectively ended the First World War, or as it is still known in Europe, The Great War; great in terms of the unimaginable destruction and death it caused.  Today, November 11 is the day we remember and give thanks for all those, living and dead, who have served and are serving today in the defense of our country.

A Prayer for Veterans
Lord our God, look favorably on all those who have served, and are serving, this nation in our armed forces.  We thank you for your presence with them in their service.  Help them and us to remember their fallen comrades, that the sacrifices we honor this day may never be forgotten.  Let the light of liberty, and the love of justice and mercy burn brightly in the heart of this nation, through Jesus Christ our Savior.  Amen.

Sermon, 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

"But she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all of her living." (Mark 12:44)

That's a cheery way to begin Stewardship season! Normally, if I say there's more to the story than meets the eye, I wonder how many of you think, "Here comes a history lesson."  I hope that today, it's a consolation to hear that there is far more to this story than an appeal to give till it really hurts.  Jesus may be commending this poor widow.  But he is not commending the system that has brought her to the Temple.  Much more important than beautiful temples are justice and relationships.  And that, not paying the bills or keeping up the building, is the ultimate purpose of stewardship.

The first Temple in Jerusalem was built by King Solomon, the son of David.  Over the years it became seen as the one and only place where God would come down to earth.  There and only there could the children of Israel make an offering for sin, for blessing.  There and only there could the priest take those offerings and bring them into the Holy of holies, where God would hear their prayers and answer them.

The problem with that system is that it's far too easy to slide into the assumption that we've got God under control, that God is contained in this sacred place.  As the centuries passed, and as threats to the holy city came and went, the Jewish people became more convinced that all they had to do was to repeat the phrase, "The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord!" and any enemies would slink away in defeat.  The prophet Jeremiah knew better.  With the Babylonians pressing toward Jerusalem, Jeremiah ridiculed the Jewish leaders.  "Do you really think that you can excuse your idolatry with other gods and your injustice to the poor by simply shouting, 'The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord!"?  Eventually the Babylonians besieged the holy city, conquered it, burned it and the Temple of the Lord to the ground, and carried its people off into exile.

Seventy years later, Babylonia was conquered by Persia, and King Cyrus told the exiled Jews to go home to the land their God had promised them.  They returned and rebuilt the Temple, although it was a shadow of its former self.  But during the childhood of Jesus, Herod was the local king by the grace of the Roman Emperor.  This is the same Herod who tried to have the baby Jesus killed by slaughtering all the baby boys in Bethlehem.  Perhaps it was a guilty conscience for this and other atrocities that Herod began rebuilding the Temple.  By the time that Jesus is in Jerusalem, that Temple has become so much larger, so much more magnificent than Solomon's temple.

Of course it takes a lot of money to build something so huge, which is why every Jew was obligated to pay a tax for the support of that Temple.  It is this tax that the rich and poor alike are dropping into the treasury box today.  Here come the wealthy giving out of their abundance.  But how many of them had Jesus condemned earlier?  You were obligated to support your elderly parents, unless you declared that you would pay to support the Temple rather than your parents.  Then it was ok to stiff them.  And yet here is this poor widow, whose husband is not there to support her, and either had no sons or has lost them to death or has been stiffed by them.  But that does not relieve her of the obligation to support the Temple.  And so here she is giving all she has, a penny, to support a system of injustice and sin.  She gives her very life to support this sacred place.  Jesus may commend her self-giving.  But don't suppose for a moment that he commends the system that obligated her to this sacrifice.

If that isn't already clear, Jesus hammers the point home right after this scene.  He and his disciples are leaving the Temple.  They are in awe of this magnificent structure.  But Jesus says: So.  In your lifetime, you will see this whole building torn to the ground, with not one stone on top of another!  Indeed, 35 years later, the Romans responded to the Jewish rebellion by conquering Jerusalem, again, and destroying the Temple, again, leaving only that Western wall which today is also called the Wailing Wall.

This place is a sacred space.  It is made sacred by God's presence in the sacrament that is always here.  But it is also sacred thanks to the People of God who worship together, on Sunday, and Monday through Thursday morning, and on Tuesday evening.  Jesus commends the self giving that makes this space holy and sacred.  But that is not enough.  I assure you that in a thousand, maybe two thousand years, this building will not be here.  It is here now.  But it is not just here for the sake of its beauty, or for us who are here today.  If Stewardship in this parish ever becomes a system that seeks only its self-preservation, it will become as unjust as the Temple in Jerusalem.

The only way to preserve ourselves is to give ourselves, to each other and to those who come to us when we open our door, at a yard sale, a festival.  It is only in the giving of our time, talent and treasure -- to each other and the outsider -- that we are truly living.

Sermon for Proper 27: The 1st Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

Open Door

Now that October is a few days past us, I’m going to assume that you all have had a chance to catch up on some sleep.  It was a busy October, and a profitable one as well.  Between the Yard Sale and Fall Festival, we made about $2,500.  But that was not, I believe, the most fruitful part of this past month.

We opened our door to the community and said, “Come in,” on a day other than Sunday.  Of course, our doors are open in Sunday.  But in our Sunday morning worship, we are doing far more than inviting people into our home.  Coming to a church on Sunday is fraught with other expectations and challenges: learning to navigate our particular way to worshiping, being welcomed by friendly people who are also hopeful that the visitor will stay.  And as we begin our annual consideration of stewardship, it should be clear that we are saying a lot more on Sunday than just, “Sit a spell, take your shoes off.”

To open our door on another day is a less pressurized way for visitors to get a feel for who we really are, not just who we’re trying to be on Sunday.  They are able to come inside our home on equal terms.  No rules to learn, just hospitality is what we offer.  Hopefully, they will be changed by their experience of us.  And hopefully, we will be changed.  This month, I met a young mother who let me know that she is fighting cancer.  For a few minutes we talked.  I heard a bit of her life story.  I offered myself for any prayer and support.  And now she lives on in my enlarged heart.

The image here is of William Holman Hunt’s 19th-century painting.  Look closely, and you’ll notice something that other observers noticed at the unveiling of this work.  There is no handle on the outside of the door.  Precisely, Hunt said.  Jesus is always knocking.  But only we can open the door.  As a parish, we need to find ways of opening the door, to the Jesus who wanders in.

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

I have a friend with whom I graduated from seminary.  He and I process information very differently.  He can find layers of meaning in images.  But by his own admission, reading comes for him with great difficulty.  Of course, as you all have probably figured out, I love to read.  So the difference in our vocabularies is also great.  But this week, for the first time that I can remember, I too had to look up a word that I read in our Book of Common Prayer.  That word is "ineffable."  When something is ineffable, it is "beyond description."  So when we prayed that we might share the "ineffable joys" of the saints, we prayed for something that we cannot describe, something that we cannot imagine, something that we cannot see.

To pray for something "ineffable" is to pray for something that remains unknown to us until we actually see it and experience it.  And in the context of our prayer, to share the ineffable joys of the saints in heaven is to share something that we will be able to describe, to see and to know, when we also share in their physical death.  So if "ineffable joys" go hand in hand with that greatest of all unknowns in this world, how many of us are ready for those joys?

Martha and Mary were not ready for their brother Lazarus to share those joys, which to them were unknown.  And at the beginning of this story, the author of this wonderful Gospel, this Good News, wrote that Jesus "loved Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus."  Jesus loved all the men and women whom God had made and whom Jesus was sent to save from their sin and alienation from God and each other.  But like any human being, Jesus had some relationships that were deeper than others, friends with whom he was able to open his heart more than with others because a higher level of trust had been established.  These three siblings clearly held a special place in Jesus’s heart, which in its divinity was wide enough for all humanity.  Jesus knew what Mary and Martha wanted. They wanted their brother back.  He felt their grief.  He felt their anger.  His heart ached for them, and so, "Jesus wept."

But was that really why Jesus cried?  After all, as some scholars have argued, didn't Jesus know that he was about to take away their grief?  Why weep when you already know the joy that is about to come?  I believe that even if you know that someone you love is about to know joy, your heart cannot help but break to see their present sorrow.  But the deepest reason for Jesus's aching heart: the deepest source of his sadness, I believe, is revealed to us a little later.  After Lazarus has been brought back to the life of this world, his sisters throw a great party for Jesus, which naturally attracts many people from the surrounding area, including Jerusalem.  Jesus's enemies see this great crowd coming to believe in Jesus on account of Lazarus, and according the Gospel, "they made plans to put Lazarus to death as well" as Jesus.

There is no reason to suppose that Jesus's enemies were any less efficient in disposing of Lazarus than they were with Jesus. And Jesus knew this.  Standing before that tomb, he could see his own death, and Lazarus's second death.  Jesus knew that in his Father's house there are many rooms with ineffable joys, and that Lazarus was already in his room, and that to bring him back would sentence him to a second physical death.  I suspect that having had this ineffable vision of God's purposes, Lazarus understood it as well.

We all struggle to hold on to what we know, even when the room we know has been stripped of almost all joy.  The room we know is preferable to the room we don't know.  But we can know this: John testifies in this Gospel that, “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”  We have a witness that Jesus Christ has power over life and death, and that we need not fear the unknown; for God himself -- in Jesus Christ -- has already passed through that that unknown and is waiting for us.  And not only is the risen Jesus waiting for us, He who was dead but is now alive forever, is right beside us.  He is with us in this Sacrament of bread and wine, in which he said, “This is my body…This is my blood.”  He is with us in the Holy Spirit, who blows through our lives like the wind and is as close to us as our breath.

Today is the feast of All Saints, those holy people chosen by God, living and dead.  The saints who have gone before us trusted in those ineffable joys.  They trusted that there was a room ready for them, and they have now gone to those joys beyond description.  So, to all the Saints in Christ Church, Albertville, Jesus says to you: I am the Resurrection and the life.  Live the gift of this life and be not afraid.  Be not afraid of the little deaths, those disappointments and failures that would suck your faith, your hope, your love.  Trust that new life, new possibilities, and resurrection happen every day as they did for Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus; for I am with you always.  There are ineffable joys that await you every day of this life, and in the life to come. Be not afraid to share them.