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.