Happy Holy Name!

Uh, isn't it, "Happy New Year"? Well yes, but Happy Holy Name works too. Today is New Year's Eve, a time of resolutions and new hopes and starting over. It is also the Eve of the Feast of the Holy Name, on which we remember that eight days after his birth, in accordance with the Jewish Law, Joseph and Mary had their son circumcised and named him Jesus, which means, "God saves."

Of course, this particular New Year's is the end of a decade. It marks a major turn in our historical time, but not as major as that turn we celebrated ten years ago, the end of one millennium and the beginning of another. Do you remember a joyous sense of optimism as we turned from the 1900s to what seemed like the magical "2000?" Of course, we were leaving a decade that seems destined to go down in history as America's "Holiday from History." We had defeated the Soviet Union without firing a single shot, and had managed to avoid nuclear annihilation in the process. We were getting ready to enjoy a "peace dividend" in which we didn't have to spend so much of our national income on the armed forces. We would actually end the decade with a budget surplus. And no other nation dared to challenge us.

Well, it turns out that the bubble was already starting to deflate. The Internet/Tech Bubble burst in 2000 and 2001, shortly to be replaced by the Real Estate Bubble. Our sense of invulnerability was shattered on September 11. We all know well enough the many challenges to our economic and military power that we face today. The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggests that this decade be called, "The Big Zero."

But this day, this year, this decade, this century, this millennium, and indeed all time, falls under one name: Jesus – "God saves." The loving purposes of God are not dependent on one nation's Gross Domestic Product, or destructive capability. Over the past two millennia, Empires have collapsed. New Empires have arisen, and fallen. But in the wake of destruction, people have always found new ways to live together and love together, under the name of Him through whom God saves. The risen Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. All our time belongs to Him, and Jesus will always be there, showing us new things, opening new doors, inspiring new hope.

Our hope is not based on a balance sheet, or conquered territory. Our only hope is based on the baby named, "God saves!" Happy Holy Name!

Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

1st Sunday of Christmas

Well, Christmas is over. That December season of shopping and presents and radio stations playing holiday music non-stop is over. By my account, it ended at 11 pm on the 25th. That's when the classical musical channel on Direct TV stopped playing Christmas music. But for those of us who are here on this Sunday, "Christmas," or the Feast of the Incarnation, has just begun. Two days have passed, but 10 remain for us to celebrate the Incarnation: God taking on human flesh and blood.

It began three nights ago, with the babe in the manger, surrounded by sheep and shepherds and angels. It is so joyous, and so concrete, to see the soft flesh which could be touched and be reassured that in this uncertain world a fire was lit 2,000 years ago. And that light continues to warm our hearts with hope for a better, more just, more peaceful world. Shining on that soft and fleshy newborn we can bask in that light and warmth. But as much as we hear about the light in today's Good News, or Gospel, I wonder if we feel as warm as we did three nights ago.

Instead of a fat infant full of milk, we have the "Word." Have you noticed how many logos don't have any words in them now? All you need to see is a golden arch and you know it's McDonald's. Increasingly, it is images that compel our attention, not words. Words are abstract symbols. Their only connection to an object or idea or feeling is whatever meaning the speaker gives to them, if he can actually figure out that meaning. We strain to find the right words to express our conflicted feelings. But sometimes the burden of all the conflicted emotions in our hearts is too heavy for mere words. Words can be twisted into whatever meaning a speaker wants to that extent that public leaders can even quibble over what the meaning of "is" is. What's warm and fuzzy about "The Word was with God and the Word was God"?

But as Jesus himself says quite often in John's Gospel; "Very truly I tell you," you cannot get to the baby in the manger, to the Word that was made flesh, without starting at: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." But the Word who is with God and is God is so much more than a word or a string of words put together to persuade, seduce, to con or to condemn. The Greek word logos doesn't mean a single word. It means something more like, "May I have a word with you?" The Word is not a string of letters tied together for some purpose or ulterior motive. The Word is a conversation. This Gospel could begin with, "In the beginning was the Conversation."

No human words will ever explain fully the God who was responsible for that indescribable Big Bang that happened when God said, "Let there be light." But we do know that God and The Word were there together in one Conversation about how to direct this creation. There they were: God the Father and Creator, God the Son and Word, and God the Holy Spirit moving with the wind through all creation. They were always, and always have been, one in conversation and one in action. And this one God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, has always been in conversation with those creatures who knew they were created and understood, therefore, that there is a Creator.

As archeologists have uncovered the burial sites of those long gone human beings we call Neanderthals, they have found petrified meat that was cooked before it was placed in the grave. As simple minded as they were, those prehistoric humans understood that they had been created. And having been created, they knew there was a Creator. In that knowledge, their Creator conversed with them in as much as they could comprehend. And those Neanderthals joined in the conversation as best they could, and expressed their hope that this conversation would be more fully known one day.

As was said before the baby, three nights ago, this day is the day that conversation has become more fully known. The Word has been made flesh and blood. The Conversation has become a human being who "dwelt among us," and has never left. Through the words he left us, he speaks to us today. Among we who become living members; arms and hands of His Body, when we eat the bread and drink the wine, Jesus speaks to us through each other. The light of that holy conversation shines in our darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Feast of the Incarnation

"for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11)

"In those days" a great leader – "great" in the same way that what we Americans call the First World War Europeans still call "The Great War" – this great leader decreed that "all the world should be enrolled." In those days, this great leader wanted to know just how many people he had under his thumb. The great leader then was Caesar Augustus, though he had been born as "Octavian." In those days he had claimed the name of his uncle, Julius Caesar, the man who first brought dictatorship to Rome. Then over the years he had, indeed, brought a kind of peace to the known world; at the price of all his enemies' lives. Now he was known as "Augustus," that is, the Great. His birthday, September 23rd, had been adopted in the Eastern half of his Empire as the beginning of the new year, the beginning of a new time. Eventually, the Great Emperor died. According to one Roman historian, his wife Livia poisoned him to make room for her son to become Emperor. Caesar Augustus was cremated, then entombed in a mausoleum of marble to last for all time. Until the year 410, when German warriors sacked the city of Rome, broke into the mausoleum and scattered the ashes of Caesar the "Great" to the four winds.

But for now, these are the days of his power. And when Caesar Augustus says that the whole world must be "enrolled," so that he will know how much potential revenue he has to draw on, the whole world jumps to attention. Those who have not the power to tell Caesar, "No," must go to be counted. It matters not to Caesar that a young woman is on the verge of childbirth. Why should he be occupied with such small things? He is the son of a God. The priests have said that his uncle Julius has ascended to the mountain of the gods. This enrollment is the sign of Caesar's power, a power that will not die, but will go to the same immortal mountain that his uncle has gone to. By his wars he has brought peace to a world that calls him "Savior." He is the Lord of all.

But God has different plans for this enrollment, this great power grab. For a different king is coming. Indeed he has already come. And the royal announcement is made by the angels, not to those who already have more wealth and power than they need, but to those who were seen as dishonest. In the old American West, those who settled the land resented the cowboys whose cattle ate whatever grass was in front of them. The cowboys had no respect for others' property. So it was in ancient Judea. Landowners resented the shepherds who let their sheep wander to wherever the grass was green and plentiful. But it is to them that the greatest royal birth announcement of all time is made on "this day."

Those days of the powerful lording it over the powerless are coming to an end. Those days of owners and workers fighting over who gets the biggest piece of the pie are coming to an end. Those days of political partisans screaming at each other and trying to knife the other in the back are coming to an end. Those days of husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, stewing in personal hurts that explode at the worst time are coming to an end. For this day is born to us a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this day Jesus of Nazareth, lying in a feeding trough, begins to bring peace into our world; not by destroying his enemies but by challenging them in love. This day Jesus Christ walks with the oppressor and the oppressed, challenging them to reconciliation. This day Jesus walks with those who are broken hearted, and challenges the rest of us to join them on that journey.

Jesus Christ the Lord did not come in "those days" for a brief time, and then leave us alone again. Two thousand years of our time may have come and gone. But ever since "this day" of that great birth announcement, it has always been "this day" of Jesus our Emmanuel, "God with us." There has never been a time when there was no God. Of course, you might say. But think that idea through. If God has always been , and always will be, then there is no "yesterday" with God, and no "tomorrow." There is no past with God, nor any tomorrow, but one eternal present, one eternal day, "this day." And if God was with us once, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, then God is always "Emmanuel." Jesus is always with us. He is with us in the Word of Good News that is spoken and heard. He is with us in the bread and wine, in which we get a taste of eternal life. Jesus was with us today as we brought food to the poor and shut-in and let them know that they are not alone.

Jesus is with each one of us here, at this late hour. And we are here because in our own way we have caught a glimpse of that never ending day. I pray that something of "this day" will take hold in your heart and your mind and your soul. I pray that what you see and hear and smell and touch and taste "this day" will renew your sense of the divine in your life. And I pray that as you open your senses to the risen Jesus that "this day" will never end for you. For "to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

Sermon, 4th Sunday of Advent

"Blessed are you among women…and happy is she who trusted the word of the Lord." (Luke 1:42,45)

Anybody who has exchanged emails with me should know, by now, my closing salutation: "Blessings." Preparing for this sermon, I started to wonder if, to be totally honest, I should change my closing salutation; so that any letter, any email you get from me would have me saluting you with, "Mixed Blessings." The truth, I'm coming to see, is that there may be no other kind of blessing. How many times have you heard of someone who won millions of dollars in the lottery, only to lose it all? Relatives who pestered the winner for handouts, or investments that went bad: lawsuits by "exes." What a gracious favor they had, that turned into such a mixed blessing.

Or if you like, look no further than Mary. "Rejoice, O Lady of divine favor! Indeed, God is with you," the angel Gabriel told Mary. Of course, Mary's first reaction was not joy or relief. "But she was confused and troubled at this saying, and tried to figure out what sort of greeting this was." Mary understood that be favored by God's grace was not a blank check, an excuse to relax. She knew that God's blessings were always mixed blessings, full of grace yet also full of new challenges. And this blessing was no different: a new life to grow inside of her, a life full of promise. But not one that came in the socially accepted way: a pregnancy that, if the Law of that society was strictly enforced, would not survive Mary's death by stoning.

Mary, full of God's grace, accepts the Lord's blessing: "Here I am, the slave of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." But like anyone else who receives a mixed blessing, she needs the reassurance offered by Gabriel. And so she travels about 80 miles to see her older cousin Elizabeth. And already the connection between these two preborn children is so strong that through their mothers, they can somehow know of each other's presence. All that is needed is for the voice of Jesus's mother to flow into John's mother, and John hears already the call of Jesus. And so we hear Elizabeth, in today's Gospel, exclaim, "Blessed are you among women!"

Elizabeth is not naïve. She knows that it is a mixed blessing for Mary: that the blessing itself is not a completely easy or happy occasion for Mary. And so Elizabeth also says, "Happy is she who trusted the word of the Lord." By saying in both cases that Mary is "blessed," the translation we heard obscures the fact that two different words are used. In the first instance, Mary is, indeed, "blessed" by God. But in the second instance, the word that Elizabeth uses means something closer to "fortunate," or "happy." Very truly, Mary was "happy." She knew what obstacles the evil one would place in her path. But she trusted that God's word would guide her through those obstacles toward the completion of God's loving purposes for her, her people, and her world.

Our only happiness comes when we trust in God's mixed blessings. Our only happiness comes when we trust that though God's blessings may ask a great deal of us, though the road down which God's blessing takes us may occasionally be dark; eventually we shall come out into a place of light, warmth, peace, and love. This Parish family has been blessed. We have been blessed with a beautiful worship space, traditional yet intimate. We have been blessed with a lack of debt. We have been blessed with a love for each other that has seen us through death and division. We have been blessed with a passion and energy to love others as we have been loved by Jesus.

So, what do God's mixed blessings have in store for us? I don't know for sure. But I do know this from today's "Good News." Happy are we who trust in the word of the Lord.

Advent 4: The Word Cloud

A little later than usual, but here 'tis, courtesy pf wordle.net

Let them know it's Christmas

As we begin to prepare for the coming of Christ into our hearts and broken world, I thought this might be a good reminder of what we're about at this time of waiting and preparation

Sermon, 3rd Sunday of Advent

"Be known to everyone for your gentleness, your consideration for others." (Philippians 4:5)

The three-year cycle of Sunday readings has come around, and here I am, preaching on the same reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians that I preached on three years ago. Then, I was serving as an "intern" of sorts at a parish in the Diocese of Virginia as part of my seminary education. I was scheduled to preach on December 17. That day, this church, along with 11 or 12 others in the Virginia diocese, was voting on whether to leave the Episcopal Church, and try to take the property with them. By that Sunday, it was clear that the vote would be in favor of leaving. And I was clear that the Episcopal Church was – and is – my family in Christ, and that I would not leave it over the controversy of that day. It was a strange experience that day to preach on Paul's words, "Rejoice in the Lord always…Do not worry about anything."

But I can tell you now what I told them three years ago. As strange as it may sound to tell ourselves to be joyful and non-anxious in this troubled time; that is nothing compared to Paul's circumstances when he wrote to the Philippians of joy and counseled them to be known only for their gentleness, or their consideration of others.

Paul is writing to this church, which he loves so much, from a prison, in chains. He spends much of the first chapter debating whether it would be better for him to die now and be totally with Christ, or to remain here for the sake of his brothers and sisters in Philippi. So, he was in prison apparently on a capital charge, facing the possibility of execution. And giving new meaning to the phrase, "With friends like these who needs enemies;" he writes that there are Christians in the city where he is imprisoned. But they are not his friends. In fact, he says they "proclaim Christ…not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering" (1:17). Who were these insincere Christians? My best guess is that they were Jewish Christians, who we know from other letters of Paul, often came behind him in his missionary travels, and said he was preaching a false gospel by not applying the whole Jewish law to Gentile Christians.

But Paul does not stew in his misery. He does not tell the Philippians to feel sorry for him. "What does it matter?" Paul asks about those insincere Christians. "Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice" (1:18). Fourteen times in this little letter, Paul writes of joy; his joy, the Philippians' joy, the command to rejoice always. And aside from that command, the one thing that the Philippians must do in their mission, according to Paul, is this: Be known to everyone for your gentleness, or in another translation, your consideration for others. He doesn't tell the Philippian church to snarl at the pagan community surrounding them, and tell everyone that they're going to Hell if they don't repent. Nor does he tell the Philippians to crouch in self-defense. Nor does he tell them to hide for fear of being found out to be different. He tells the Philippians to do, by their gentleness and consideration, what we here at Christ Church say on our website, our first means of communication to the Sand Mountain community. He tells them, in effect, to bridge Christ and community.

So, what will we be known for on Sand Mountain? There's at least one thing we're already known for, according to one parishioner, who told me that one of her friends from another church said to her, "You're the church that will take anybody." I believe that's a good thing to be known for. That kind of openness is what results from "gentleness," or "consideration for others." Unfortunately, our news media doesn't find gentleness and consideration for others very newsworthy. Instead, they focus on conflict. They look for "hot-button" issues, in which people are so invested emotionally that they often react before they think. You see the "News Media" in our Cable "news" shows, false email rumors and Internet bloggers of all stripes and the most extreme opinions. They do not offer reason for joy, or peace that passes understanding. Instead, they seem to think that people should be known, not for their consideration of others, but for their enemies.

But we have a say in what we will be known for. This week, we begin forming a foyer group of people dedicated to helping the suffering of this parish. Once this group, known as "Community of Hope" is formed, anyone checking out our website will know us for our consideration for each other. This week, hopefully, readers of the local newspaper will know our consideration for all those for whom this joyful season is also a reminder of what and who they have lost. And our Blue Christmas prayer service will be the sign to the whole region of that consideration. Once a new Outreach foyer group has formulated an Outreach strategy with the Vestry's approval, we will be known to the region for our consideration of the poor.

If Paul could be so gentle, and considerate of others, and in such joy and peace, in prison chains, how can we possibly fail in our mission to Sand Mountain? A mission that must begin with our gentleness, our consideration for others.

Sermon Preveiw, Advent 3

Courtesy of wordle.net

Kill-Joy or Advent Joy

Up in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC, the "soft-rock" station got into the habit of playing nothing but Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving through December 25. But sometime in October, of 2001, they started in with the all-Xmas-all-the-time playlist. It was 2001, and people were breaking the post-9/11 tension in the area by coming to Halloween parties as "safe houses." I'm a good Episcopalian, and I made a point of not listening to that station until after December 25th. And we continued our tradition of not putting up the tree until the weekend before the 25th.

But if this article is any indication, I wonder if we Episcopalians are doing too good a job of separating Advent from Christmas. Do you appreciate putting off the Christmas celebrations until the 25th, then reveling in Christmas joy for the "Twelve Days of Christmas" until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th? Do you like the secret pleasure of still enjoying Christmas while the rest of the world throws out the tree in exhaustion between the 25th and New Year's Day? Or do you think I'm just being a kill-joy begging you to "have yourself a dismal little Advent…"?

In all honesty, my love of Advent has as much to do with my personality quirks as theology. I was a rather happy-go-lucky kid, probably too naïve for my own good for too long. Adolescence hit me like a freight train. The emotions of joy and sadness were too much for me. I also noticed that when we visited relatives in Elmore and Coosa counties, my parents almost always had to deal with some unpleasant situation – a lawsuit involving one set of grandparents – another grandmother suffering from alcoholism. In short, I perceived the same disconnect that many people perceive, between the advertising images of happy families and my reality. And to this day I remain prone to the "Christmas Blues."

And to tell the truth, I don't think we were in any less danger of another terrorist attack in the DC area by starting the Christmas music early. One of my personal favorites in the Christmas repertoire is "Lo, how a rose e’er blooming." It's one of those slow Renaissance carols in the minor key that we moderns associate with sadness

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung!…

To show God's love aright,
She bore to us a Savior
When half spent was the night

But back when this carol was first composed, it was the minor key that people associated with joy. Life was shorter, and harder. And I think that people understood that joy did not come easy, but had to be found in the midst of life, with its passing occasions for happiness and sadness. People back then were more open to the message of the Incarnation: that God comes closest to humanity at its lowest point, not its highest.

This is not the season for covering over our problems, but for facing them squarely, and seeing a tiny light, a just budding flower that will in God's good time grow to eternity. Am I being a kill-joy? I do know from the pattern of life I have grown into as a "liturgical" Christian that I will still be singing the songs of Christmas joy on "Twelfth Night," January 5th.

I wish you all a blessed Advent.

Sermon, 1st Sunday of Advent

"When all these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift high your heads, for your liberation is coming near." (Luke 21:28)

For the last several weeks the most popular film in America has been 2012. Its premise is the end of the 5,000 year Mayan cycle of time, and the unimaginable catastrophe that ensues for the whole earth. Will a remnant of the human race make it off this doomed planet? Will we learn that what makes us one human race is far more important than what divides us as tribes and countries and languages? I don't know. I haven't seen it yet.

Why do we flock to the theater to see actors and actresses in hopeless situations? Paradoxically, I think that we go see these stories of hopelessness to renew our hope. Real life will never lack for reasons to hope compared to the stories we see on the screen. On the other hand, reason to hope in the real world is in short supply right now. We may hope that after eight years, we might yet be able to claim "victory" in Afghanistan and Iraq, whatever that may look like. We may hope that we might be able to keep borrowing our wealth from China and the rest of the world before the debt we're running up becomes unsustainable. We may hope that our community might stop changing and we can have our town the way it used to be. I suspect that we might be more drawn to disaster movies than usual this year because we really need reasons to hope in the real world. And if hope can be found amid the catastrophe in the theater, then perhaps we can find hope amid the News of our TVs.

Jesus's followers were looking for reasons to hope. But they were even worse off. Jesus had just ripped away their most solid reason for hope. Just before today's Good News, or Gospel, reading: Jesus has just told them that the Temple in Jerusalem, their greatest assurance of God's presence and favor, will be destroyed. And for those disciples who first heard this Good News, this was not a movie. By the time this Gospel was written, the Romans had besieged Jerusalem, conquered the holy city, and reduced its temple to rubble. If Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed savior of Israel, then what reason is there for his followers to hope for the "redemption" He says is coming near?

And yet, that is exactly what Jesus calls his followers to hope for, to trust that their "redemption is drawing near." You might have noticed that I use the words, "Gospel" and "Good News" interchangeably, because they're saying the same thing. "Redemption" is another one of those church words that begs for translation into everyday English. It means release, rescue, liberation. Jesus promises that though stars may fall, nations be confused, and people faint from terror, his disciples' liberation is coming near. But their hope cannot be based on military destruction, the acquisition of money and worldly comforts, or the enactment of a political platform.

Their hope is based on Jesus, the Son of Man, who will come in a cloud. But Jesus has already come in a cloud. When he was transfigured, and the fullness of his blinding glory was glimpsed, a cloud overshadowed him. And of course, those hearing this Good News knew of his resurrection, his triumph over death. So, what is Luke referring to here when he writes of the Son of Man "coming in a cloud with power and great glory"? Is this a reference to how he has already come, in his transfigured glory and resurrection, or how he will come again in the fullness of his power and glory?

It means both, his first and second coming. We know that the risen Jesus has changed the standard of "success" in this world. And by his resurrection, we have every reason to hope for our liberation from the futile struggle for personal success. Wealth, power, independence, a satisfied appetite: None of those last. Strange as it may seem, the most reasonable hope that we have is the one that is not based on any standard of success that we can measure. Our standard and our hope is Jesus; who came to us, who died and rose for us, and who is coming again, into our hearts. And on that, we have reason to hope.

With Jesus Christ as our standard, we also have reason to hope that the whole world will be liberated from envy, hatred, violence, destruction and death. And we are called to live out that hope on Sand Mountain, in Alabama, and in America in 2010. In the weeks ahead, we will be forming new foyer groups, dedicated to the ministry and mission of this Parish. One will focus on our ministry to each other, our pastoral care for each other. The other will focus on our outreach, our ministry and service to the world around us. In both cases, we will work to give those being served reason to hope, that in spite of sickness and poverty, everlasting life is within their reach, thanks to Him who was crucified for us and is risen for us. It must be through us that Jesus Christ gives reason to hope to the hopeless.

I have my own idea for a disaster flick. Call it AAA 2010, as in Albertville, Alabama, America, next year. Imagine the leaders of the nations in total confusion. Imagine the people fainting in fear. And when "all these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift high your heads, for your liberation is coming near."

1st Sunday of Advent: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

The Anniversary of a Journey

Today is mostly a personal “anniversary” for me, but one which is fitting to share with the Parish. One year ago this evening, Senior Warden Mark Hyatt called to say that the Vestry had voted to offer me the position of Rector, and I accepted.

I and Laura had lived in the Washington DC area for over 20 years. We had raised our son, John, in Alexandria, Virginia. We had not even moved to go to seminary, with Virginia Theological Seminary already in Alexandria. But I knew that to answer the call of God meant that eventually, I would need to leave my home, and go wherever God called me. And so, when that call came to leave what I had called home, I was ready to say yes.

And to tell the truth, I was ready to leave the Diocese of Virginia. A number of parishes voted to leave the Episcopal Church in 2006. One of those was the church where I was serving part-time as part of my seminary education. Of course, when they chose divorce, I could not be with them and be an Episcopalian. But that did not make the leaving any less painful. Unlike here, in Virginia, those local churches have held on to the property, an action now before the Virginia Supreme Court. After seminary, I was the Priest-in-Charge of a “continuing” congregation of loyal Episcopalians forced to worship in a school cafeteria because of the schism. I was stuck in a “niche” of broken hearts and broken churches.

From my first contact with Mark and the rest of the Vestry, I sensed a healthy parish that had come through its own conflict, and had come out more strongly committed to each other, and to its mission. In our early conversations, I saw that there was room to disagree, in love, without that disagreement leading to divorce. In my interview with the Search Committee, I saw a parish prepared to cooperate with its leaders. By “cooperation,” I don’t mean giving in to the leader, but listening and giving fair consideration to my perspective. In my first meeting with the Vestry, in December, I saw a willingness to embrace the future in their acceptance of a children’s sermon. Changes in worship are usually the most sensitive and most likely to meet resistance, we paid ministers are told. But this change has been accepted with enthusiasm.

My “personal ministry statement,” which the Search Committee saw, is this: Through preaching, formation, pastoral care and worship, I seek to equip the saints to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world. I think that blends well with the mission of this parish to be an outward and visible sign of Christ. As the years go by, I hope to build each of you saints up to be that sign, in whatever ministry God calls you to.

The Search Committee presumably had some idea of what they were getting. But none of us, not me or all of you, knew for sure what the other was getting when I moved here last January. We’ve had nearly a year to get to know each other. And this January, we will share the anniversary of my coming to you all, and take stock of how things have changed for all of us. But this day, I thank you all for your friendship and support, for me and my family.

Sermon, Last Sunday of Ordinary Time: Christ the King

Christ is the King of all things. And He rules by restoring all things to a new beginning.  And he executes his reign in our hearts as we accept the truth that all things end, and begin, in Him.

“Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

Young and old, we all yearn for restoration, to be renewed in mind and spirit and flesh, to begin anew.  On this last Sunday of the Church year, we affirm that it is our Creator's will to restore all things.  And what God wills, God promises, and has already begun in Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation and the first fruit of the Resurrection.  But that restoration does not mean just returning to how all was before.  Restoration is not about getting back to “the good old days.”  It is not an exercise in nostalgia.  Restoration means renewal.  It means taking what was broken, what had failed, and making a new beginning, a fresh start.

That is why on this day when celebrate Christ as our King, as the restorer of all things, that we come back to the day of his death, to the encounter between the "King of the world" and the King of the universe.  In taking us here, the Church recognizes that for us, there is no resurrection without death, no restoration without destruction, no beginning without an end.  And this is as true for the Son of God as it is for us.

But Jesus trusts that His Father, and our Father, does not intend for any of us to die forever.  Resting on that faith, Jesus can speak to Pilate -- a man who claims to hold Jesus's life in his hand -- as an equal.  Are you a king, Pilate asks, ready to condemn Jesus if he answers yes.  But Jesus turns the question back on Pilate.  Who told you I was a king?  What do you think defines a king?  What sort of king are you, trying not to get into trouble with both these Jewish leaders and Caesar?  What kind of power do you think you have over me?

Of course I'm a king, but not in the way you define it Pilate.  Aha!  So you are a king, Pilate says.  Yes, Jesus replies, but not the kind that kills my enemies, then bides his time for the next battle.  I am the King in truth.  I am the King of your heart Pilate.  Look into your heart, and accept the truth that your striving for security through overpowering your enemies is futile.  My life may be ending today.  But that ending is merely a prelude to a greater beginning.  Can you accept the truth of your futile struggle to hold off that end and trust that with me you will have a new beginning?  To which, sadly, all Pilate can do is ask, What is truth?

We however, have heard the testimony.  We have the witnesses who saw Jesus risen, and who accepted their own deaths because they knew that time does not move from beginning to end, but from end to beginning.  When we let Jesus rule our hearts, then begins the restoration of all things.  After every end, every small death in our lives, comes a new beginning, the foundation of restoration.  Open the eyes and ears of your heart to that new beginning, for our world, for our Church, for our own land, and for ourselves.

Feast of Christ the King: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

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.

All Saints: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net, here's the rough draft of Sunday's sermon

Sermon, 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“And throwing away his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus” (Mark 10:50)

“What do you want me to do for you?”  Twice now we have heard Jesus ask that question.  Last week, he asked James and John, “What do you want me to do for you,” and they answered, basically: when you inherit the kingdom we know that’s coming to you, we want to be the closest to your awesome power and abundant privileges.  We want the biggest share of your awesome power and abundant privileges.  And of course, just a little earlier, Jesus had to tell them to receive him like a child when they all got to arguing over which one of them was the greatest. 

Today, Jesus asks that question again, “What do you want me to do for you?”  This time, he asks the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who verbally answers, “let me recover my sight.”  But truthfully, he answered Jesus when he threw off his cloak, his only means of shelter and support, and entrusted his entire life to Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David.  And so Jesus asks each one of us today, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Will our answer be worthy of the question?

Our story begins as Jesus is leaving Jericho.  He is only 15 miles away from his ultimate destination, Jerusalem, where he has told his disciples three times that he will be killed and that he will rise.  And yet, he is still surrounded by many disciples and a great crowd.  Notice that Mark separates the two.  There are those who have followed Jesus from up north in Galilee for three years, waiting for him to come to God’s holy city and inaugurate the kingdom that will throw off the chains of Roman oppression, a kingdom in which his disciples expect to share in the power and privilege that comes with worldly empire.  Then there is the crowd; curious, hopeful, skeptical, just looking for a great show; I’m sure that all those emotions were running through this great crowd.

Then Jesus passes by this blind beggar without a word.  The disciples and the great crowd follow behind.  And amid all their murmuring, Bartimaeus can make out the words, “Jesus,” and “Nazarene.”  And he knows who Jesus is.  He has heard people speaking of this Galilean prophet as they passed by him on the way to Jerusalem for the past three years.  He knows what Jesus could do for him.  Then he realizes that the first pair of footsteps he heard, before the clomping of the crowd, was Jesus himself!  And so he shouts at the top of his voice, "Jesus Son of David, have mercy!"  Bartimaeus knows the kind of power that Jesus has, for he calls him by the Messianic title of King David's son.
 
But does Bartimaeus understand Jesus's power any better than his disciples?  For those three years and who knows how many years before that, he has sat on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, day after day, with his cloak spread out before him, so that passers-by with some pity could drop coins, which he would then bundle together in that cloak of his and stumble his way to the market for food.  He has probably learned how many steps he has to take before he turns right or left to get to the market.  He probably knows how many steps it is to his favorite hole in the ground where he can wrap his cloak around him for warmth and get some rest.  And he probably knows how many steps and how many turns to get back to his spot on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, where he spreads out his cloak for another day of begging and alms.  It’s a living.  There’s security in knowing that as long as he stays there, he has as much assurance of food and shelter as anyone else has in this world.  So does Bartimaeus have the faith to let go of his security?  Does he really trust Jesus enough to let go of his cloak of alms?  Does he have the faith to leave behind the home he knows, step by step?  I think that's why Jesus passed him by.  Does Bartimaeus really want the kind of healing that Jesus brings?  Does he, or for that matter do we, really want to see our Lord going to die?

The answer is most emphatically: Yes!  He doesn’t throw off his cloak.  He throws it away, with his coins from a day’s begging flying in the air.  And he stumbles toward Jesus.  That throwing away of his cloak is really the answer that Jesus is looking for.  Yes, Bartimaeus wants his sight back.  But Bartimaeus knows Jesus can do much more.  Bartimaeus knows that God made him for more than begging.  He may not know what exactly it is that God made him for, but he trusts that with opened eyes, he will see the destiny that God has in store for him.  That is the faith, the trust, that Jesus sees in Bartimaeus when he throws away his security blanket, which leads him to proclaim, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”  And leaving behind his cloak, his alms, his security, Bartimaeus does what no one else whom Jesus has healed has done; he follows Jesus into Jerusalem.

And so today, the Gospel asks us two questions.  What is our cloak?  And what do we want Jesus to do for us?  Maybe you’ve excelled at a certain role in life: strong provider, successful entrepreneur.  Maybe you’ve excelled at those roles so much that you’re confusing the role that you perform with who you are, the person that God made and loves regardless of what you do.  Maybe you’ve accepted a relationship that is unhealthy, and yet you persist in it because it is at least familiar.  Any habit, strength, role, or prejudice that keeps your head down, and your eyes focused on the day to day struggle to preserve that security blanket, that is your cloak.  What do you want Jesus to do for you?  Do you just want Jesus to preserve that cloak?  Or are you ready for Jesus to tip your head up, so that your eyes can begin glimpse a new possibility, a future you cannot imagine but that God already sees?
 
If you want to follow Jesus, don't look down for him in your old cloak.  He is ahead of you, and waiting for you as well.  And so is Bartimaeus. 

Sermon Preview, Proper 25

A little late, but here 'tis, courtesy of wordle.net

The Cursillo Code

If you haven’t already heard, I’m headed for Camp McDowell this afternoon, along with Russ and Lili Henderson, for Cursillo 170 in the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.  On Thursday, Odes and Kathy Wilemon will arrive as two of 40 people who will get a “short course” (in Spanish, cursillo) on the life of a committed Christian.  The movement is called Cursillo because it started with Roman Catholic Christians in Spain in the 1950s.  Those men spent a lot of time in small groups helping each other learn how to spread the Good News within their particular cultural environment. 

Eventually, they conceived the idea of weekends to teach laypeople how to be apostles, that is, those who are “sent” by Christ into the world to help others on their spiritual journeys.  Eventually the movement made its way to the U.S.  Episcopalians who participated in some of the early Cursillo weekends with Roman Catholics then took the movement into our denomination.

The weekends can certainly be a great time of spiritual renewal.  Mine in the Diocese of Virginia was.  Back in 2001, I was not ordained.  But I heard then, as my fellow cursillistas also did, the call to be an apostle, to always be open to hear where people were in their spiritual journeys, to be their friend first, and then bring them to Christ.  It is this sense of apostleship that is at the heart of the Cursillo movement.  As profoundly joyful as the weekends can be, Cursillo is not for a weekend, and it is not principally about one’s personal renewal.  It is about a life of commitment to be one of Christ’s apostles wherever you are sent.

So, please pray for me.  I along with two other clergy will be a spiritual advisor this weekend.  Please pray for Russ and Lili who will be serving the pilgrims, among them Odes and Kathy, who should also be in your prayers.  If any of this sounds intriguing, ask me or “Ultreyamaster” David Wise.  Ultreya, by the way, is simply Spanish for “Onward!”

Sermon, 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time…and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30)

Security comes from two Latin words which, when you put them together, mean “free from care.”  We all want to be free from care.  We don’t want to have to care about where our next meal is coming from, or where we will sleep with our family tomorrow night.  Because we are a church, we frequently get people coming off the street asking for money, to get their lights and heat turned back on, to avoid eviction from their home, to feed their children this week.  I have noticed that often they don’t look as “well-kept,” as we do.  But of course, if you have to spend your days thinking and caring about the basics of life – food, shelter – you probably won’t have as much time or energy to care about your appearance.

The two main characters facing Jesus today are both full of care and feel insecure.  Representing the disciples, Peter knows what they all have given up.  He has given up a moderately successful fishing business.  He has given up his wife’s company, all to follow a man who said that foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, much less his followers.  His insecurity is obvious.
 
But the rich young man?  He was quite secure in his home, surrounded by his possessions, lacking none of the comforts of his life.  Except that runs up to Jesus, kneels before him and begs, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  What a shock that must have seemed to the people around him and Jesus, who had always assumed a direct connection between God’s love and prosperity.  But this man, far richer than most if not all of Jesus’s disciples, is learning what they can’t: that all the riches of the world don’t answer the most important question, what will my earthly life have meant when I am dead?  Jesus knows this too, which is why he “loved” this man enough to tell him the truth, however much it actually adds to his insecurity.

Many scholars have noted that Jesus's testing of the rich man involves the 2nd half of the Decalogue, that which guides our relationships with our fellow human beings.  Murder, adultery, stealing, perjury, all are covered in The Ten Commandments.  Fraud is the act which results from coveting that which belongs to your neighbor.  Honoring your parents is also an action.  Many scholars have wondered about Jesus's silence on the first commandments, the ones of the heart, the ones about our relationship with God.

But Jesus's follow-up with the rich man can only be fully understood in the light of the first two commandments.  Sell everything you have, and give the money to the poor, Jesus says to him.  What he is telling him is this:  Let go of your idols, those “things” on which you have bet your security, those “things” you have used to reassure yourself that God is beside you.  All your money and all your possessions can't make you feel secure or reassure you of God’s presence.  If they could, would you be here now asking how to inherit eternal life?

The 2nd commandment:  You shall not make an image of God and worship it as though it was God.  Any of the concrete things of this world on which we bet our security other than the God we can't see is an idol.  Jesus isn't adding to this man's to-do list.  He isn't giving him an outreach program to execute.  He's trying to get him to see where he has fallen short of the 2nd commandment.  Then come, Jesus concludes, and follow me.  Yes, only God is good.  But as God made visible, I am your way to him, and I am the fulfillment of the 1st commandment to worship only the one God.

To be fair, all we know is that the rich man went away grieving.  Perhaps he was resolved to do what Jesus said.  Giving up that much of our earthly security would be a grievous process for any of us.  More to the point is the reaction of his disciples, who prove that they're no better off than the rich man.  They haven't placed their bets on prosperity.  As Peter rightly says, they have left their occupations and their families -- as much business partners as companions -- to follow Jesus.  So what's in it for them?

As we have seen and will see next week, they have bet their security on power, more specifically Jesus’s power and their access to that power.  And power has become their idol.  So at the end of today's Gospel, Jesus spells it out for them.  Are you concerned that you have lost the extra hands to help feed you and clothe you and shelter you?  You're going to have thousands of extra hands: mothers and children, brothers and sisters.  But no fathers, because you have the only Father you'll ever need, in your living and your dying.  And that Father guarantees your security, not to be free from earthly cares, but to never drown in those cares if you let go of your idols and walk in the way of Jesus.  Your security is now and always will be in your relationships, those that are given you and those you build.

What must I do to inherit eternal life, was the question with which we began, even though the rich man treated salvation as something to be earned and then stored securely away more than given as an inheritance.  Yours and my security is not something that any of us can earn and insure against loss.  What must you and I do to inherit eternal life, and to be secure in that life?  Open our doors to those mothers, those sons and daughters, those brothers and sisters whom we could never imagine: and open our hearts to the Father of us all.

Sermon Preview, Proper 23

Hot off the presses and courtesy of wordle.net, here's the "rough draft" of my sermon

Praying the Psalms

I'm linking to this very helpful article on praying the Psalms, which are an essential part of prayer in the Anglican tradition, and often the most challenging part as well.  The Psalms reflect the reality of human relationship with God, not the idealized, which makes them uncomfortable sometime for us.  But God meets us in the reality of where we are in our lives, not where we wish to be.  That is the message of the Psalms.

Homily, Blessing of the Pets in Honor of St. Francis

Which Francis do we remember today?  With all these beautiful animals around us, and the statues of Francis holding the birds in his hands: we certainly can recall the man who took unlimited joy in God's creation.  We recall the monk who achieved such harmony with creation that he preached to the birds of God's care for them, and they responded by chirping joyfully and flapping their wings.

But do we remember today the rich clothier's son who married "Lady Poverty"?  Do we remember the man who heard the call of God, "Rebuild my church," and took it literally by selling his father's silk to pay for the renovation of the church where he had heard that call?  Finally, do we remember the man who literally stripped himself naked of everything his father had given him rather than abandon that call?  How many statues of that Francis have you seen?

On the one hand, no man or woman before or after Francis was able to find such joy and harmony in the good earth that God created.  On the other hand, no man or woman before or after Francis was as able to renounce the gifts of creation so completely.  Ah the gifts of creation.  Perhaps what Francis understood was that the only giver of anything good is God, so he didn’t confuse the creation with the creator.  And perhaps Francis understood that the whole creation was God’s gift.

For all of us in varying degrees, this earth is something we fight in order to scratch out a living.  Or this good earth is something that we bring under our control, and squeeze out all of the wealth we can until this patch dries out, and we move on to the next green part, while all around us the desert grows.
Can we let go of the fear that pushes us to seize what God has already given us?  Can we learn to separate what we need from what we want?  Can we let go of the illusion of security with which we surround ourselves?  By God's grace, Francis was able to do all that.

Karl Marx once said that if there had been 12 Francises at the same time, then there would have been no need for a revolution.  Now I am not demanding that you all become like Francis.  But as you bring forward these creatures -- these creations of God -- whom you love: let that offering be your first baby step toward trusting God to give you whatever you need.  Let this offering be the first step toward your total trust in the God who gave us all life, and through Jesus Christ gives us the only life that matters.

In the spirit of St. Francis, let us renounce whatever we want, so that God can fill the empty space within us with whatever we need.  And so filled, let us renew this good earth by God's extravagant grace.

Liturgical October

Happy October!  Now get to work.

Yep, it’s going to be a busy October.  This Saturday is our parish clean-up day.  Ernie Moore has already cleaned the breezeway from Founder’s Hall to the Church.  On Sunday, we gather outside in the courtyard for the pet blessing as we remember perhaps the greatest saint since the New Testament, St. Francis of Assisi.  We’ll be even busier from Oct. 14-18. That Wednesday, The Hendersons and I will be at Camp McDowell preparing for a Cursillo weekend of Christian instruction and Christian joy.  On Thursday, the Episcopal Church Men will be at the church all night cooking Boston Butts and sharing in the spirits – I mean spirit.  On Saturday, the 17th, we will have a yard sale.  On Sunday, Arnold Bush will be the guest priest, while I will be finishing up at Camp McDowell.

And them, we will end October with a blast – our afternoon Halloween Festival, which will conclude with an All Hallows Eve service geared toward families and children to get their trick-or-treating started with liturgy.  Ah, there’s that word, liturgy.  You see it every Sunday on the front of your bulletin.  We are a liturgical people.  But what does that mean?  “Liturgy” comes from two Greek words put together to say, “work of the people.” 

You could say that “liturgy” is a public work, except that then it sounds like a taxpayer-funded government project.  In ancient times, most “public works” were gatherings of the people for religious observances.  Services at the Temple in Jerusalem were referred to as a “liturgy.”  In Greco-Roman culture, most public gatherings at the coliseum or arena included prayers, whatever the particular occasion.  So, any public gathering was, by definition, a religious observance.  In this way, public gatherings of the Christian faithful became known as “liturgy.”

In this way is the common made holy, and the holy made common.  When ECM gathers together this month, they will be doing a lot of work, while hopefully will make a lot of money.  But they will also be enjoying each others’ fellowship in Christ.  So that public gathering will be a liturgy.  When we come together on Saturday to make our church look even more beautiful than it already is, while enjoying each other’s company, that will be a liturgy.  In this way are the common activities of cleaning and cooking made holy, with the spirit of Christ moving through each of us.  When we give thanks for God’s creation and bless those his creatures whom we have adopted, we are honoring all that is common in the world as touched by the hand of God, and thus holy.  And if God’s hand is on everything that we see, then we can also see that God’s holiness is not confined to just one special place called a church.

And when we treat even “Sister Death” (as St. Francis called it) in a playful and liturgical manner on All Hallows Eve, we affirm that nothing in life or death is untouched by the hand of God.  We Episcopalians are a liturgical people.  We believe that there is no part of this life that cannot be made holy when faithful Christians come together and offer that occasion to God.  So, I wish you all a blessed and liturgical October.

Sermon, 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

"Everyone will be salted with fire…Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." (Mark 9:49,50)

Last Sunday, we heard Jesus tell us that in the economy of God, every human being has an everlasting value.  And God's value is worth far more than any "value" which the economy of man might assign.  Today, Jesus drops the other shoe.  But of course if you cut off a foot, then you don't need that other shoe, do you?  Now other than the occasional lunatic, no preacher in any pulpit preaching from this Gospel is going to take Jesus's warnings about amputation literally, otherwise we would all blind and lame.  But this Sunday, Jesus turns over the coin that last week said, "value," and this week says, "price."  The Good News is that whatever price must be paid in our lives can be paid, because Jesus has paid the greatest price already.

To catch us up: remember that last week, Jesus had predicted for the second time that he was going to be crucified and raised.  His disciples, for the second time, missed the part about resurrection.  And out of their anxiety for the future, began arguing about who would be the greatest when Jesus finally kicked the Romans' butts out of their Promised Land.  They were arguing over who was most valuable to Jesus.  So Jesus sighed and put a little child before them.  And taking that little child in his arms, Jesus told his followers to welcome that child as they welcomed him.  He presented the least valuable person in society and told his disciples to treat this person of no “value” as they would treat him.  The Seminary-speak for this is transvaluation.  Our values need to be transformed.  Our calculation of what, and who, is worth our time and investment needs to be transformed.  But what also needs to be transvalued is the price we are prepared to pay for that which we consider most valuable.

Something or someone can be valuable to us because we derive a material benefit from that person or thing, which we can quantify.  If the price is high, that means its value to us is high and we won’t sell it unless we get something of at least equal value.  It is worth our while.  To be blunt, it is worth the price we must pay.  Now Jesus has been imploring his disciples not to set a value on each other, because they are all of equal and everlasting value.  But as I already said, there’s another word for the value of something – price.  That which is most valuable is also that for which we must be prepared to pay the highest price.  And today is when we begin to get a glimpse of how high that price might be.

Of course, the price for eternal life is infinitely higher than we could ever pay.  Of course Jesus has already paid that price by his blood.  That is our blessed assurance, that by God's infinite grace a room in the house of heaven has already been prepared.  And yet, one cannot read today's Gospel, or Good News, and avoid the realization that we likely will have to pay with something of ourselves before we can fully benefit from that grace.

Are we too proud of our ability to see and know things that others cannot?  Does that ability give us the right to impose our better idea on those whom we suppose can't see as well as we can?  Is that what we must cut out of ourselves?  Can we manipulate the world around us and bring the piece of the world within our reach under our control?  Does this ability give us the right to manipulate and control people the same way we handle things?  What in our lives are we the most proud of?  Or to look at it another way; what are we most afraid of losing: our intelligence, our physical strength and talent, our independence?  Or what part of our lives do we work the hardest to hide, from others, even from ourselves?  Can we conceive cutting these off in order to enter the everlasting kingdom of God?

It has already been established that we are of everlasting value.  If Jesus's disciples didn't get that when presented with that little child, Jesus reemphasizes that truth with a different metaphor -- salt.  This week, the Hope diamond, all 45 carats of it, was brought out for public display this week by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.  But shiny and valuable as that rock might be, it's got nothing on salt.  There are about 14,000 known uses for salt today, in our factories, our hospitals, our homes.  Not all of those were known in Jesus's time of course.  But Roman soldiers understood the value of salt, perhaps better than we do, because part of their wages were paid to them as salt.  When Jesus says, "Have salt in yourselves," he is testifying to the everlasting value that each one of us has in the eyes of God.  At the same time, what most gives us that value is the price we are ready to pay, the fire that does not consume us but only refines.

Each of us needs refining.  Those parts of our lives of which we are the most proud, those are the parts of ourselves that we risk confusing with ourselves.  But we are not valuable to God because of anything we can do for God?  If you need to cut off your special talent, the thing you are most proud of, in order to discover that your true value comes from God’s grace, then cut it off.  If you need to cut off that part of yourself of which you are least proud, in order to fully know your need of God’s grace, then cut it off. 

Whether it is that of which we are the most proud, or that of which we are the least proud, those are the areas that will be salted with fire.  But let us not fear the fire.  Every Sunday we pray to the God "from whom no secrets are hid."  And yet that same God welcomes us to the banquet of his Son.  So let us not fear the fire, in whatever form it comes for us, and hide from it alone.  Let us have salt within ourselves, and be at peace, with God, with ourselves and with each other.