In the Bleak Midwinter and Warm Summer

I confess that when I heard, from the warmth of Santo Domingo, about Albertville getting 3-4 inches of snow, I was a little sad that I had missed a White Christmas. But I also understood the decision to cancel the worship service last Sunday. Folks in this area aren’t used to dealing with this much snow. And it wasn’t safe to drive last Sunday.

It was quite different where I was with Laura and John on Christmas evening, walking along the strand across from our hotel, meringue music all around, families flying kites, and the sun setting over the Caribbean. There was loud passion joy, and warmth all around. It was truly a celebration of God entering into the joys of flesh and bone. And of course, the celebration of Isabella Henderson's Baptism made our time in the bonito Dominican Republic even more special.

Still, like to think of our Lord and Savior being born “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.” Of course, it wasn’t snowing on that first Christmas in ancient Judea. But neither was it 70-80 degrees either, like it was in the Dominican Republic.

Carols like “In the Bleak Midwinter,” may seem slow and even sad to some. To me, there is peace in those solemn notes and words. Those notes and words invite us to be quiet and reflect on what it means for God to be with us in all our work and all our thoughts and all our feelings.

The peace of God that exceeds all understanding brings harmony to all the motions of our lives; joy and sorrow become one beautiful note with God’s spirit singing through us. The peace of God that exceeds all understanding brings tranquility when we realize that all things, in time, work together for good for those who love God.

Wherever we are, in snowy Albertville and sunny Santo Domingo, in the summers and winters of our lives, God is with us in heart and flesh. May you find the peace of God in your hearts, wherever you are.

The Feast of the Incarnation

“But Mary held on to all of these words, and reflected upon them deeply, with all her heart and mind.” (Luke 2:19)

And so we come to the end of this “Advent Conspiracy.” That was the name of the adult education program we worked through in November, in the hope that we could make our Advent truly a preparation for Christmas, and not get sucked into that “Christmas” season that begins on “Black Friday,” in which it almost becomes one’s patriotic duty to spend more than we have on presents and parties. Here at Christ Church, we kept Advent as that season in which we prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. We fed some 40 families with beans and rice and other fixings for their Christmas dinner. Today we delivered over 150 meals to shut-ins. I personally delivered two space heaters to a mother of five, with a newborn, living in a trailer.

As wonderful works as those were, as peaceful as our Advent suppers and devotions were, I can’t help but wonder if, in asking all this of you, the Church also added to your endless to-do list. The Church tries to create times and spaces for us to reconnect with the Spirit that leads you here. But do those opportunities risk becoming just one more thing you have to do? How do we actually find the time to reflect on what the Spirit might be saying to us on this Holy Night?

Was anyone more exhausted that first Christmas night than she endured the long trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem: who endured the stress of not knowing where she would undergo childbirth? And yet, Jesus’ mother “held on to all of these words, and reflected upon them deeply, with all her heart and mind.” Let Jesus’ mother be your consolation, and guide into that deeper Christmas which is only beginning tonight.

As Mary holds on to all the words she hears about her son, she begins a lifetime of reflection and learning. It will take her that long to fully understand all of these words. Along the way, there will be other words: harder words than those she has already heard --

--Her 12-year old son reacting to her astonishment that he would wander off from them in Jerusalem for three days with the shoulder-shrugging reply, “Didn’t you know that I would be in my father’s house?”

--Jesus’ mother and brothers trying to reach her son through the crowds. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But her son replied, “My mother and brothers are those who listen to God’s word and do it.”

Did Mary ever get it? Did her years of reflection give her any purpose and peace? Yes they did, for in Luke’s sequel, at the beginning of Acts, we read that Mary was there with the 120 others who were the first witnesses of her risen son.

And so Mary holds on to all the words she has heard so far about this baby, and begins this night her lifetime of reflection upon words that raise as many questions as answers. God promised King David that his descendants, one after the other, would rule over God’s kingdom forever. How can my son reign over Israel forever? How can I have a son without having sexual relations with my husband? What does it mean to call him the Son of God? How will any of this be possible if I am stoned to death on an accusation of adultery? Why should my newborn son the future king be laid in the trough where the animals feed? Why are the first courtiers to this future king one of the most dishonest groups of people in society, shepherds? Why did God’s angels appear to them first?

And so have the questions, and answers, and more questions, continued for 2,000 years. It would take nearly three centuries before Christians fully agreed that Jesus Christ is “of one Being with God.” And today we ask questions. How does Jesus reign as a king in this world of economic uncertainty, poverty, war and the threat of terror? How does God forgive us through his son Jesus Christ when we remain stuck in those sins that cling to our mind and flesh? How do we find the time to connect with the Spirit of this living God when I can’t find the time to connect with my own family?

But because Jesus Christ is fully God, and fully human, God knows the same uncertainties of life in this uncertain world. Because Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, God knows what it is to be tired, in desperate need of rest. Because Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, God knows what it is to fail at one’s mission, to be rejected, and to die. Because Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, God’s patience with us in our questioning is infinite, and his joy at the answers we find is boundless.

In the name of the Church, therefore, I invite you to a Christmastide of reflection. Twelve days free of Christmas advertising, parties and present wrapping. You don’t need to do anymore to celebrate this holy season. Let Jesus’ mother be your guide. Hold on to the words you hear this night. Reflect on them. Ask the questions that they raise. See what answers you hear in our worship this Sunday, and the next. Soon enough, the season of Epiphany will be upon us, that time when we see Jesus begin his proclamation of Good News. Then will come the season of Lent, that time of preparation, and self-emptying, so that the risen Christ may enter our hearts. Soon enough, we the Church will need to think about the answers we have to give to the people of Sand Mountain.

But for this night, and the next 12, just hold all of these words in your heart and mind. And the Son of God will be born again in your hearts, just as he was born of Mary. Let the newborn Christ child hold you as close to him as you hold him to yourselves.

Questioning Thomas

The image to the right is a crucifix on the mount of Saint Thomas, whose feast day is today, December 21st. The crucifix is located near where Thomas was martyred, in the town of Madras, on the coast of the Indian Ocean, in India.

There was a Christian community in that part of India long before the Europeans came to India. And they testify that it was Thomas himself who first brought the Good News to them, and was martyred there. Well, someone brought them the Gospel. And as early as the 2nd century, there was a Western tradition that Thomas had traveled as far as India. So, I believe this.

That’s one reason that “Doubting Thomas” should really be called “Questioning Thomas.” A 1st century Jews living in Palestine could not have exactly been paralyzed by doubt and wandered as far away from home as the Indian Ocean coastline. Thomas certainly was a questioner:

Jesus said, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don't know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:3-6).

Thomas asked the hard questions. Jesus responds, but not by directly answering his question (Note that Jesus doesn’t say where He is going). He invites Thomas to join Him on the way. And that way is a way of questions and answers, which lead to more questions and more answers. Thomas continued on that Way, to a place where he surely entertained questions from a Hindu culture that he could never have anticipated. But truly, the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to the apostles gave him the answers he needed.

Pray for us, Thomas, that we may ask, and entertain the questions that lead us to the right answers, not all at once, but on the True Way.

Signs: 4th Sunday of Advent

“God only knows, God makes his plan / The information’s unavailable to the mortal man / We work at our jobs, collect our pay / Believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip sliding away.” The simple truth is that none of us knows what is going to happen to us one second from this moment: one minute from this moment, one hour, one day, one year. We don’t even know if we’ll be here one year from now. And yet, here we are, because we believe that, in truth, God has a plan, for each of us and for our church. What we want, more than anything, is a sign that we are following God’s plan. Our life is a search for signs.

Sometimes, we want a sign that will tell us what decision to make. More often, what we really want is a sign to confirm the decision we’ve already made. What Holy Scripture tells us today is that sometimes the surest sign that a sign is from God is that it contradicts our decisions. But we’ll all settle for any sign that we are not alone. God's signs will not always promise us success on our terms. But a true sign of God assures that indeed we are not alone; and that whatever befalls us, God's salvation is a part of our plan, in ways we can't imagine but are no less assured through Him who was born, who died and is risen.

King Ahaz was the descendent of King David, whose kingdom God had promised him would last forever. Ahaz was afraid that the kingdoms surrounding Judah would depose him and put someone more to their liking. But Ahaz didn’t trust the God who had made that promise. He said he didn’t want a sign from God. But that was because he knew the sign would contradict his decision to make alliances with other kingdoms who worshiped many gods whose wrath had to be appeased by human sacrifices. Ahaz would sacrifice his own son by fire to appease the foreign gods of those kingdoms. So through Isaiah’s words, God delivers a crystal clear sign: another son – Immanuel, “God-is-with-us” – to replace the one Ahaz sacrifices. That is a sign of contradiction.

Ahaz’s descendant, Joseph the heir to King David, receives a sign. It too seems to be a sign of contradiction: a child not of his blood, nor of David’s blood. But with the dream comes a deeper understanding of God’s plan for him. God did not promise your ancestor David that his kingdom would last forever just for the benefit of his descendents. When you name him before the priest, he will be your legal son. He will be a son of David in the eyes of the law of Moses. And when you name him “Jesus” – “God saves” – you will be fulfilling my plan to save all people from the sin that separates them from God and from each other.

When you and he and his mother Mary suffer the ostracism that comes from the “suspicious” circumstances of his birth, he will know what it is to be outcast, to be isolated. And this child will know in his heart that his Father’s plan for him is reconciliation. This is the sign that God gives Joseph: a scandalous pregnancy that will stretch Joseph’s understanding of who the chosen people of God really are.

I wonder what kind of sign from God we are looking for. A sign of confirmation: a sign of assurance? What if the sign that God is giving some of us is a sign of contradiction, trying to tell us as lovingly as possible, “You’re going the wrong way”? What if the sign is one of promise, but not in the way that we expect? What kind of sign do we want God to give us? More importantly, why do we want that sign? Do we need a sign to make us feel secure, or comfortable? If the Bible tells us anything today, it is that God’s signs are more likely to make us feel insecure and uncomfortable.

But if we let them, God’s signs will also assure us. They will assure us, of God’s loving presence with us in our darkest times, and that whatever befalls us today, we are not slip sliding away, but are being saved from whatever would isolate us in fear and hopelessness. For the virgin is with child. And that helpless child, whose life is dependent on Almighty God, is Almighty God with us. And through His dependence, and through His trust, He will save us.

Advent IV: The (very) Rough Draft

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

3rd Sunday of Advent

Remember the job seeking manual by Richard Bolles, What Color is Your Parachute? If you do remember, Bolles doesn’t give you tips on the perfect resume, or the best answers to interview questions. Bolles advises job seekers to figure what kind of work makes them the happiest. And when you look for that which drives you out of bed in the morning, and pursue it, then the right job will eventually come your way.

In fact, Bolles, an Episcopalian, has recently added a little religious advice lately, quoting from Frederick Buechner who wrote: “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done....The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness [passion] and the world's deep hunger [need] meet.”

Others have simplified that statement to the effect that one's vocation in life is to find that place where your individual passion meets a genuine need in the world. In that sense, there is no difference between a greeter at Walmart, a ditchdigger, or a prophet. As Christians, and as human beings, that is what we all want for the work we do, whether in the church or in the world outside the Church.

John the Baptist, who we heard from last week, certainly was not lacking in passion: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come…Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; and every tree that does not bear good fruit is thrown into the fire…But one who is more powerful than I is coming…He will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:7-12)

What was John's passion? From where would his gladness come? It would come when the people of Israel were once and for all righteous under the Law of Moses. John's gladness would be realized when the people of Israel were vindicated against their Roman oppressors and the puppet kings like Herod who only ruled over the Jews because Rome put them there.

And for standing against King Herod, John was in prison. He baptized Jesus. He pointed to Him as the one more powerful than he. But today, we read in chapter 11 that “John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing.” What had he heard about the Man who would throw the fruitless trees and chaff into the fire? He partied with the chaff, the tax collectors and sinners. He had even healed the servant of a Roman centurion, and said that this agent of the Roman Empire had shown more faith than anyone in Israel. This didn’t sound like the Messiah John was talking about last Sunday.

And so, John sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John has longed for righteousness. He has longed for vindication. But Jesus now asks him to go deeper. Jesus asks John to look for a deeper gladness in his heart, and a deeper hunger than vindication and punishment: “Go and tell John what you hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

To take offense; or in Greek, skandalizo, to be scandalized. From his deep dark cell, John certainly desired vindication. But Jesus is about reconciliation; and his judgment brings repentance and forgiveness, not wrath and punishment. And John was in danger of being scandalized because the Messiah was not satisfying what he thought was his deepest hunger. What neither John, nor any of Jesus’ disciples understood at this point was how much Jesus longed for reconciliation. And His longing, His deep hunger, would lead Him to the same place that John was in: a dark prison, awaiting the inevitable execution.

What do we most long for? Do we long for preservation, the way it was, the way we were? Do we long for something new and different, new people, new experiences? Do we long for vindication and justice? What do we do when those longings seem to go on and on unfulfilled? Perhaps then we can finally say to God, "Let Your longing for me be fulfilled."

We can either try to fill our own hunger and fail; or we can let the world's deep hunger into our hearts so that it becomes our deep hunger as well. After all our failures, all our disappointments, and all the ways in which we die to this world, there remains Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed of God. He remains for He has died and has risen. And in this season of Advent, or coming; He is always coming to us, longing for us to not be scandalized by Him. He is always ready to be born again in hearts that are open to the world's deep hunger; and in feeding that hunger find their own to be fed as well.

Hidden Gospel

"Hidden Gospel" is a good way of summarizing what this season of Advent is all about. We know that Christ is "coming" (in Latin, adventus). But for Episcopalians and other liturgical Christians, Jesus does not actually come until December 25th. The Good News (or Gospel) is that Jesus Christ will be reborn in each of our hearts. But in this season of coming, that Gospel is hidden and waiting to burst forth.

But in another way, I suspect that the world we live in today, and the other 364 days of the year, is full of this hidden Gospel –

-- Hidden beneath the constant demands of work and family that make it a struggle, even for professed Christians, just to show up on Sunday, and to support our common ministry and mission the rest of the week:

-- Hidden beneath the fears, anxieties and griefs that would suck all our hopes into the abyss:

-- Hidden by the increasing suspicion of any claims to know the truth, and any authority demanding obedience of that truth.

So, to find this hidden Good News in our increasingly secular culture may include looking in places other than the Bible or Church. One hidden place for me is the singer/songwriter John Mayer, best known for the song Waiting on the World to Change. The song I’m thinking of today is simply entitled Say. Just three letters, but how hard it can be to actually do what the word means:



Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so-called problems,
Better put 'em in quotations
Say what you need to say

Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you'd be better off instead,
If you could only
Say what you need to say

Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You'd better know that in the end
It’s better to say too much
Than never say what you need to say again

Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Say what you need to say

Where is the Gospel here? “My dear Corinthian friends, our mouth and our heart are wide open to you. Our feelings for you are unrestrained; any restraint is on your part. In return (May I speak to you as my children?), open wide your hearts.” (2nd Cor. 6:11-13). What Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, Mayer is, probably without knowing it, interpreting in his own time.

In his correspondence with the Corinthians, Paul was affectionate, annoyed, and downright angry at various points in the two New Testament letters we have received. But through all his emotions, he was open-hearted and open-mouthed. That was the only way he could carry out the “message of reconciliation” that God had given him and the Corinthians in Christ. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, with God urging you through us: Be reconciled to God!” (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

And that message has been entrusted to us: “What is the mission of the Church? The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” (Book of Common Prayer, p.855). Is it easy? Hardly. Are there risks? Paul and John Mayer can certainly testify to that. But in the “Gospel according to John Mayer,” “It’s better to say too much than never to say what you need to say again.” So, “Even as the eyes are closing, Do it with a heart wide open.”

May the coming Christ begin to fill our hearts so much that we can’t help but burst forth our truth, trusting that all our truths will be reconciled. Happy Advent.

Monday, 1st Week of Advent

Uh oh, Jerusalem is in trouble. “Listen to the LORD, you leaders of ‘Sodom.’ Listen to the law of our God, people of ‘Gomorrah.’” (Isaiah 1:10) The people of Judah, still ruled by the descendants of King David, are being compared to the most wicked cities of the Old Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah, whose destruction is described in Genesis 19.

What links Jerusalem to Sodom? The demand of the Sodomites that they be permitted to rape complete strangers? Yes, but Isaiah widens God’s indictment beyond that one offense. “Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” (Is 1:17). The great son of the Sodomites was their lack of hospitality to strangers. Sodom was destroyed because of its injustice. Jerusalem risks the same fate because of injustice, Isaiah makes clear.

But alongside divine judgment, comes divine promise. “Come, let us reach an understanding, -- says the LORD. Be your sins like crimson, They can turn snow-white.” (Is 1:18). Increasingly, many liturgical churches are using blue as the color for Advent, instead of purple, which is also used in Lent. Given the association of purple with sin and repentance, many prefer to use a different color to communicate hope.

But Jesus came to a world that was profoundly broken. Is there anyone who doesn’t see the brokenness of our world today? If we want to receive a new birth of Jesus in our hearts and communities, don’t we first have to confront those dark parts of our lives where the light of Christ is needed? Do not fear to shine that light on those dark places. It may hurt a little, but it will also refine and warm your soul, and turn your brokenness snow-white. This is Advent, the “coming” of Christ. Seek the truth of your brokenness, and look for that warming light in the distance.

Christ the King: Last Sunday of the Church Year

It's easy to sympathize with the criminal hanging beside Jesus, and affectionately call him, "The Good Thief." We only see him at the end of his earthly journey. Of course we really don't know if he was the Good Thief. How about we call him the Good Murderer? Because we only see him at the end of his journey, we can only try to imagine him as a soft, fleshy, and helpless baby lying content at his mother's breast. It's much easier to imagine what what vicious crime he might have committed against his helpless victims. We can imagine. But we cannot know.

But let's try to imagine the twists, turns and dark detours that brought the criminal, whom Christian tradition has called Dismas, to the point where we see him today. Perhaps his father died when he was just a child, and unable to support his mother. And then, perhaps, his mother died of an illness. Leaving him an orphan in the world. Perhaps as stronger adults took advantage of him, Dismas learned that there were only two kinds of people in the world: predators and their prey. So, he resolved to be a predator. It would appear that he found a partner. Perhaps they took up robbery. Perhaps Dismas, in his anger, tried to smother any pity as he preyed upon his victims. Perhaps Dismas and his partner waited for their victims on that mountainous road between Jerusalem and Jericho. You know that road. It’s the one where Jesus set his parable of the Good Samaritan.

And today here he is, no doubt despairing over the pain and hurt that was inflicted upon him, and which he inflicted upon others. And today, hanging beside him is one whom the sign above his cross says, "King of the Jews." He suffers the same excruciating pain, the same humiliation. But wait, this man called Jesus is actually enduring more shame and humiliation. First the religious leaders mocked his claim to be the Messiah, the vehicle of God's salvation of the Jews. Then the Roman soldiers dare this so-called king to save himself. Finally his partner in crime is shameless enough to mockingly ask Jesus to save him, as though he deserved to be saved.

But this “criminal” named Dismas has let Jesus' words sink into his broken heart; words uttered from the same place of pain, shame, humiliation and despair: "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." Nobody else can see the kingly power in those words, except for this crucified criminal. In a world where power is defined by the ability to have your way over people, to overwhem them, Jesus is showing to the world the power of endurance, to endure in faith, hope, and love.

Up until today, Dismas' life has been nothing but a hopeless and futile effort to do it to them before they did it to him. And where has that kind of power led him? But today, at the end, he glimpses a power that might just endure even death. Does that mean that the rest of his life has been a waste, only to be redeemed by this moment today? No. Every unexpected turn in his life, every good decision and every bad decision has by God's grace led him to this day, where he sees the true King of the world beside him.

If this man could bow before this king, he would. But in deference, he doesn’t ask for much. He doesn’t ask to be spared of his fate in this world. All he asks of the King is that when he comes into the fullness of His kingdom, be it tomorrow, next year, or 2,000 years from now, that He not forget about him. What the King promises him is so much more: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” Today the Good Thief, or murderer, will know the presence of Jesus beyond physical death.

But what about the Kingdom? When will Jesus come into His kingdom? Are we still having to wait and pray that Jesus remembers us? In one sense, yes, we and Dismas are all waiting for an end to violence and hatred. We and he are waiting for that Kingdom of love and peace to be completed. But in another sense, Christ already reigns supreme, and He reigns as King of the world today. Most of his life, the Good Criminal tried to run as far away from God and God’s goodness as he could. But no matter what he did, God used his choices to lead him to this moment, this opportunity for redemption.

Even when he was rebelling against all that was good, God ruled over his life in spite of himself. Every day of his life was one in which God was directing him to this day. So, every day of his life, this “criminal” was living under the reign of God’s kingdom. And so are we. Every day, when we get up and pray for God’s guidance, and then make the best decisions we can, that day is “today” in the Kingdom of God. Whatever twists and turns our lives take, we are all headed in the same direction that Dismas was heading, and we share in the same destination as the Good Criminal. Someday, Jesus promises us, we will be with Him in Paradise. But today, Sunday, November 21st, Jesus Christ the King of kings rules in our lives.

The Daily Office: Thursday, 28th Week of Ordinary Time

I'm reposting an earlier meditation on this reading.

James 4:13-5:6
Morning Prayer

Do the words about the rich in today’s reading shock? They really shouldn’t. One out of every ten verses in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) deals with the poor and issues of social justice. Jesus talks more about wealth and poverty than heaven and hell or sexual morality. Of course, James devotes even more attention to this subject, with five out of every ten verses devoted to the rich and poor.

The problem is not having much wealth, but a mindset in which having and being are the same. When we become our possessions, they dehumanize both the rich and poor. By withholding the workers’ wages, James argues, you have deprived that person of what the need to survive, and you have, in effect, murdered them, deprived them of life simply because they didn’t have enough to survive. On the other hand, those who have much wealth deceive themselves into thinking they also have much time to “go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” Time belongs to God. And to be so blinded by your pile of possessions that you can’t see your lack of control over your life is, in truth a living death of which nothing will be left when you die and all that remains of you are your “possessions.”

Does the church need pledges to pay for its ministry and expenses? Sure, but the main reason for giving something of the wealth given to you is to free yourself from the tyranny of possessions, which only fill your life with anxiety. Instead of seeking more and more “things,” look at the gifts that God has given you; yes your possessions, but also your talents and passion, that which excites you, that makes you want to get up every morning. Instead of asking how to make more money, ask yourself and God how you may make this world a better place. Then trust that whatever you need for that, God will provide.

Do Not Worry: 28th Week of Ordinary Time

The hope in chapter 65 of Isaiah that the wolf would lie with the lamb, and that no one would ever be hurt again, was expressed much earlier in chapter 11. And given the context of these chapters, they were probably written decades apart. Chapter 11 was written when the descendants of King David still ruled in Jerusalem, and the prophet hoped that those kings would be the means by which God would end all violence on the earth. Chapter 65 came after Jerusalem had been conquered, the king and his sons destroyed, and the Jewish people exiled to Babylon.

And yet the same hope of peace and justice endured for some 500 years to the time of Jesus. Indeed his Jewish disciples hoped that through the magnificent Temple, God would act to give Israel freedom and peace with all the nations. But only 30 years later, Roman soldiers would reduce the Temple to a heap of stones, just as Jesus predicted, and carry the chosen people off to another exile. The Romans thought they had created an eternal peace, a Pax Romana; until 400 years later when those German tribes they called Barbarians brought their empire to an end.

And so it goes. There aren't too many Americans left alive who can recall what President Woodrow Wilson hopefully called the War to End All Wars. More Americans can recall for us the war to save the world from the horrors of fascist tyranny. Because we are no longer required to serve our country in a time of war, I wonder if enough Americans understand what today's veterans have given of their bodies and souls in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

So the wars go, on and on. And like His first disciples, we ask Jesus: what are the signs of the end? Will this be the last war? To which our Lord and Savior answers, not yet. Before all this happens, Jesus says, you will be harassed. You will be brought before those in power; religious, political, economic. And then, Jesus says, you'll have them right where you want them. This will be your opportunity to testify.

And then, Jesus says, don't worry about what you're going to say because then you can be sure that the Spirit of God will be speaking through you. Don't worry about getting killed because in the Resurrection of Christ, not a hair on your head will perish. Don't worry because, in a sense, the last war has already been fought and won by Jesus Christ, who has conquered death, and through whom we too conquer death and despair.

Do not worry, veterans, about whether your sacrifice was worthwhile. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross didn't seem worthwhile to those who scoffed at Him and mocked Him. But He trusted that Sunday was coming, and so it was. Do not worry, Christians, about the future of the Church. For as the Roman Catholic bishop Romano Guardini wrote, the Church may too often be the cross on which Christ was crucified. But who could ever separate Christ from His cross. In the power of the Resurrection, not a hair on the Church's head will perish. Do not worry, people of the world who yearn for justice and peace. For beyond the injustices and wars of today, the last word belongs the Word made flesh. And that word is Resurrection. Do not worry.

The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net, the "rough draft"

Resurrection and Dreams: 27th Week of Ordinary Time

Luke 20:27-38

The Sadducees were the political party of the priests. The only place where the Jewish people could worship God directly was in the Temple of Jerusalem. So the Temple was constantly streaming with pilgrims coming to make sacrifices and offerings for blessing, or forgiveness. It took a lot of priests to do the work of slaughtering all the animals to be sacrificed, and of interceding for all those pilgrims. But the Sadducees took their calling very seriously. And they followed the instructions for their priestly duties as laid out in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. For after all those three books, along with Genesis and Numbers, had been given to the people of Israel by Moses.

In fact, the Sadducees believed that only those first five books of the Old Testament were binding on the people of Israel. The prophets, the historical books, the books of wisdom, the Psalms – none of those had been given by Moses, and only Moses was authoritative for the Sadducees. And to the point of today’s Gospel reading, there isn’t anything in the first five books of the Old Testament that speaks directly of an afterlife. It is in the later books of the Old Testament, written much closer to the time of Jesus, that you begin to see an explicit affirmation that there is life after physical death. The Pharisees, on the other hand, did take all those other books to be authoritative. And as critical of them as Jesus could be, on this issue they were in agreement.

So, understand, the Sadducees sincerely believed that they had the scriptures on their side when they asserted that this life on earth was God’s one-time gift to you, and you had better use it right. All this is to explain why they were trying to trip Jesus up with their riddle of this one wife and the seven brothers she had to marry, one at a time, so whose wife will she be at the Resurrection, hmmm. But we can thank the Sadducees, for it gives Jesus an opportunity to peel back the veil and tell us something of the Resurrected life.

“Those worthy of being raised from the dead will not marry,” Jesus says, “because they are like angels, children of God and children of the Resurrection.” Particularly if you shared the Sadducees’ belief that there was no afterlife, the one hope of this world that you did have was your children. And they were not just your children. They were also the hope of your father, and his father, and his father before him , and so on back through the generations. “That which we have heard and known, and what our forefathers have told us, we will not hide from their children.” So, the author of Psalm 78 makes it clear that our children are not just ours, but also belong to the fathers and mothers who came before us.

But in the Resurrection, we will no longer have to place the burden of so many generations’ hopes on our children. Our bodies will no longer break down like old cars whose parts eventually wear out from too much use. Just as Jesus’ resurrected body was transformed, so shall ours. Old age shall no longer afflict us. But instead, we will have the fullness of mature youth restored to us. And we shall always be forever young, and will no longer need to pass on our genes to the next generation in the struggle to survive. Jesus has gone before us, through the veil of physical death, but now has a transphysical body, no less physical than our bodies but transformed. And as Jesus has passed through that veil, so shall we all.

There are many whom we love who have passed through that veil. But even for them the afterlife they now have is a time of waiting, just as we wait for that final Resurrection. Their souls have had to leave their bodies, for a time. But that is also true for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And as Jesus says, the Lord God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And contrary to that famous Time magazine cover from the 1960s, God isn’t dead. And if this living God continues to be alive to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then they are alive to God. And so are all those faithful souls who stand before the throne of God, and praise God and pray to God for those whom they still love here in this world.

There are several faithful souls in this extended parish family who have gone to that throne since I came here nearly two years ago. I invite you to name them in our prayers later in this service, as well as all those whom we have lost in years past. To find healing from the pain of grief, we must take the time to give expression to our love of those who have died, and our sadness over their passing. Grief unexpressed merely finds expression in other ways. But at the same time, we must not let our grief so overwhelm us that we find ourselves in the same small box as the Sadducees’. Their box was the surface of this visible world. That was all they could see. They couldn’t see the spirit that gives this visible world life, and sometimes breaks through the surface with such beauty as to give us tears of joy and tenderness. Their box was lined with the literal words of the Books of Moses. And they couldn’t see the deeper meaning in God’s word to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

The Sadducees could only look back to the time of Moses, and they couldn’t dream of a better future. But imagine all the saints of God, up to the present day, standing before that throne in prayers and praises. Taste the bread and wine by which the Resurrected Jesus enters into our souls and bodies, and imagine that great reunion feast we will all share with the saints who have gone before us. And in that imagination, dream of how God might answer the prayers of the saints, and use us to bring out the true beauty of this world. And may the Resurrected Jesus give power to those dreams.

Remembering Richard Hooker

The day after the election, it is, I believe, "God-incidental" that Richard Hooker is remembered in the Episcopal calendar of saints. He is, without question, the greatest theologian in the Anglican tradition. And the collect for his feast day contains a message that needs to be heard today.

O God of truth and peace, who raised up your servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lost with Jesus: 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

In a sense, this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus the tax collector is the end of Luke’s Gospel. This is the last of Jesus’ many encounters before He enters Jerusalem, and that is a story which all four Gospels have in common. But we have four Gospels, each of which highlights a particular facet of the Good News that Jesus brings. And in this last encounter before He enters Jerusalem, we hear the key to understanding Luke’s Gospel: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10).

How, in Luke’s Gospel, does Jesus begin his public ministry? In his hometown synagogue, he read from the prophet Isaiah, “to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners…to liberate the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” and in his reading of those words, Jesus declared them to have been fulfilled. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins by proclaiming the good news to those lost in poverty, prison and oppression.

On our homecoming Sunday, we heard Jesus warn His would-be followers that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Strange to say, but there is Good News in that. Jesus comes to seek and to save the lost, and when He finds them, he walks with them. He shares the plight of the lost. When Jesus tells us the story of the Good Samaritan, He tells us a of a man who was lost, beaten to an inch of his life and given up for dead by his fellow Jews, until his worst enemy becomes the one man who finds him by caring for him. In that compassion, all the boundaries created by human beings fell away into one question: will you reach out to the lost?

Then, we heard Jesus warn His followers that if we follow Him, we risk alienation from the familiar supports of family, tribe, wealth and power, that only now have we realized were never enough to support whatever we building for a secure future. And in that we hear Jesus asking us, will you join me in walking with the lost? Later, we heard Jesus compare God to a shepherd who will risk all to find the one lost sheep. What might Jesus be calling me, calling you, calling us, to risk so that those who are lost might be found?

We have seen the lost in woman ‘sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears, but whose sin was not important enough to mention. We have seen the sinner in the tax collector whose sin Jesus preferred to the self-righteousness of the Pharisee.

And today, of course, we see the lost in Zacchaeus, not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector, hopelessly corrupted by his regular contact with the Romans for whom he collects taxes: a man who has been corrupted by power and corrupted absolutely. Zacchaeus is completely isolated from the community of the sons of Abraham. But even to him, Jesus Christ reaches out with grace and hospitality, not with judgment and condemnation. To which his fellow Jews react with grumbling and a sense of betrayal.

But then Zacchaeus says something very strange. “See, Lord, that half of all my possessions I give to the poor.” That’s what Zacchaeus already does. He knows what a compromised position he lives in, and he already does his best to soften the injustice inherent in the tax system he helps administer. So, when Jesus says that “salvation has come to this house,” He is recognizing that Zacchaeus was already being saved before Jesus saw him on that sycamore tree.

Of course, that salvation is not complete. “If I cheat anyone, I repay them four times as much.” If Zacchaeus has been saved, why would he need to make provision for if and when he cheats anyone? Alas, the Roman system of taxation was simple. Tax collectors were assigned to collect a certain amount of money from their district. Zacchaeus and other tax collectors had to deliver that total amount or else it was their pound of flesh which the Romans would extract. So, the tax collectors had to get their assigned taxes, from whomever they could get money from by whatever means necessary. Under those circumstances, it was likely that they would probably end up squeezing some taxpayers for more than they really owed.

In other words, Zacchaeus is still a sinner. He is still complicit in an unjust system, and occasionally his complicity will become more like collaboration in that injustice. He admits that to Jesus, and yet Jesus still says, “Salvation has come to this house.” Jesus knows that we imperfect human beings cannot simply turn a switch and go from sinful to sinless. And He doesn’t demand that of us. He only asks that we accept his grace, and begin the process of salvation.

And so we come to the end of this Gospel of the lost. In what way are you lost? Fear and uncertainty over the future? Two years ago, I was uncertain over whether God was calling me to stay in Virginia, or move to Alabama. Now I know that God has planted me here on Sand Mountain, to walk with the good people of Christ Church, and to walk with the lost of Sand Mountain, the poor and the seekers. Where are we going together? The Good News is that we don’t have to know where we are going. As long as we are following Jesus, then Jesus is always with the lost, wherever they are. And if Jesus is with us, then we are always being saved. The end.

In Memoriam: Joe Wooten

“For this is the will of my Father, that every one who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Joyful, funny, friendly, soft-spoken, a man you couldn’t help but like…who else could we be speaking of on this day than Joe Wooten? I have been privileged to hear from Joe’s family the many stories of his humor and joyful countenance. I have heard from many others of his friendliness, his generosity and his helpfulness; whether at his work in the First Bank of Boaz, his participation in the “Thursday Night Choir, and in his founding and support of his parish church.

All of these impressions have coalesced in my heart, in the two years I have known Joe, and especially in the past week. And as I’ve listened to all these stories and tried to take them all in, the word that rises up in my heart when I think of Joe Wooten shall always be hope. True joy depends on hope, because this broken world can too easily suck away our reasons for joy. That could easily have happened to Joe. He and his loving sister, Nan, had to suffer a broken home. So, Joe had a reality-check early in life.

Reality checks can harden peoples’ hearts and leave them bitter about life, but not Joe Wooten. Instead of focusing on what he had lost, by God’s grace, Joe was able to find joy and love where God gave it to him. He found joy in loving grandparents and uncles who helped raise him, as well as Nan. Joe found joy in boyhood friends with whom he spent many nights camping out in their special place. So, how could Glenda help but fall in love with this bright-faced young man whom she met while he was at Jacksonville State and she was at nursing school? And how could any of us help but feel more hopeful whenever we met him?

Of course, Joe knew that that hope, amid the reality-checks of his youth, was not an accomplishment for him to take pride in. It was a gift to Joe from the gracious God who always loved him. And where else could such gratitude lead but to more hope? So it was in Christian hope that Joe and Glenda, along with Bob and Maryetta Terrell, and other hopeful souls, blazed a trail from the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Guntersville to the founding of Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville. It takes a lot of hope to leave a financially secure parish, and start a new church that has to meet in a room over the local hardware store.

But God blessed the hopes of all those founding families. An unused Episcopal church was found in Piedmont. And so Joe and the other families found a way to move that church sixty miles, up the mountain, and replant it on East Main Street. It was in hope that Joe and the rest of the parish restored the old church and gave it new life. And this summer, as I enjoyed lunches out with Joe and Glenda, his hope for his parish family remained strong.

The Bible readings for today were selected by Joe. And it is of hope that they speak. “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things…And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples…He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces.” So, the prophet Isaiah wrote thousands of years ago of his hope for Israel, and his reason to hope in the LORD.

Of course, to hope in God is to frequently have our hopes adjusted. Isaiah’s hope was for an Israel that would triumph over her enemies. When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, that hope had to be adjusted. Two years ago, Joe and his family were forced to adjust their hopes. Joe and Glenda were looking forward to retirement, as were their children, Jody and Michelle: a more relaxed way of living, the leisure to travel and visit, to deepen relationships. All of that had to be adjusted.

It would have been easy for Joe to lose hope in his God, to rail at the unfairness of it all. And in truth, the God who wrestled with Jacob, would not have abandoned Joe if he had decided to have his own wrestling match with God. But that’s not what Joe did. He fought the cancer in his body. He continued to work at the First Bank of Boaz until his retirement. Joe and Glenda looked for any experimental treatments that might give Joe more time. And Joe did not complain. He did not lose his good humor. He never had a harsh word whenever I met him. He never said, “Why me.”

It was his strong hope that gave Joe the time that he had, far more than the odds would seem to have dictated. Where did such hope come from? It came from his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who says to us today, “For this is the will of my Father, that every one who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus speaks of this resurrection to come in the middle of the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, that great meditation on the nature of the Lord’s Supper. And so, just before these words, Jesus tells his fellow Jews, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And just in case they missed his point the first time, Jesus puts the exclamation point to it when He says later in this chapter, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

How is such a thing possible? Sadly, how Jesus is present to us in the Lord’s Supper is a question that has divided Christians more than united them. We Episcopalians try not to speculate too much about such mysteries that are in God’s pay grade, not ours. But we do believe that the bread and wine are outward and visible signs of God’s grace. And we believe that the particular grace which God gives in Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith.

Joe had that faith. He knew that the Son of God was as close to him as the bread and wine on his lips. Joe trusted that Jesus Christ was as present with him as He was present with His first disciples nearly 2,000 years ago. As Joe faced physical death, he knew that the Son of God had already gone before him, was walking with him in the way of his cross, and would be waiting for him in the land of Resurrection.

And so Joe walks with Jesus today, in that wonderful mystery, the Communion of saints. Saint Joe now stands before the throne of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I wonder which of his many jokes Joe decided to try out on God first. Whichever one it was, I’m sure that God delights in his son Joe. And just as our friends here on earth pray for us, so our friend Joe now prays for us before that throne. And he will always pray for us, until we rejoin him before that that throne. Until we see him again before that throne; and until “the last day,” when we all shall be raised up, let us be comforted by, and share, in the hope of Saint Joe Wooten.

The Promise of Spirit, Power and Resurrection: 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

When I first read the Old Testament reading from the prophet Joel, I was reminded of Peter’s first sermon on the first Pentecost. Strong in the Holy Spirit, Peter was inspired to recall these words from today’s reading: “In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants -- men and women alike -- and they will prophesy.”

As this week has worn on, I’ve found myself turning myself to another section of this small book in the Old Testament, but no less important in the life of our church. Every Ash Wednesday, we hear these words from Joel: “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Return to the LORD your God, for he is merciful and compassionate…Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse.”

As a parish, we are already mourning our brother, Joe Wooten, as his joyous spirit still struggles to move on to the next stage of his life’s journey. Based on his instructions, expect songs of joy and celebration at his burial. But of course, we will miss our friend until we see him again in heaven, and we rightly mourn. Laura and I are mourning the loss, by fire, of the seminary chapel that has been one of our spiritual homes.

The prophet Joel understood loss, and mourning. He also understood that while weeping may spend the night, joy comes in the morning. But it seems that in this broken world, we can have both, but not one or the other.

Indeed, one week before Halloween, Joel’s prophecy makes for good reading. He begins by describing an attack on the crops of the land by locusts: “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” But suddenly, the swarming locusts seem to have mutated into a foreign army; “powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.”

“Weep,” Joel writes to all the people of Judah, “weep like a bride dressed in black mourning the death of her husband.” The land of Judah has suffered natural disaster, foreign invasion, and death. Her economy and security have been devastated. It is in that context that the people of God are called to a time of mourning, and fasting. In the present, the people and the land suffer.

But then, Joel has the audacity to say: “Then the LORD became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The LORD answered and said to his people, ‘Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.’” In the present time, the people suffer. But in Joel’s prophesying, the past and the future seem to come together in that string of promises you just heard: “Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication…I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter.”

Clearly, in this time of present suffering, Joel is speaking of God’s promises for the future. But so sure are the promises of Almighty God that the prophet, and we, can speak of those promises in the past tense, as though the promises themselves have already been fulfilled because we know that what God promises, God does.

God promises us a return to prosperity and security. But through the prophet Joel, God promises something even greater those material blessings: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…Even on the male and female slaves in those days I will pour out my Spirit…And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

Now Joel, as far as he could see in the Spirit, looked forward to the vindication of Judah against her enemies. We know that the promises of God go far beyond vindication, wealth and security. All those things are fleeting. But resurrection is the end of all things. Resurrection is our purpose. And in Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead nearly 2,000 years ago, Resurrection is our future.

So, amid our mourning, amid our anxieties over money and national security, let us strive to live as people of Resurrection. Open your hearts to the Spirit, who can do powerful things through you and this parish that Joe Wooten helped to found. As God promised the people of Judah, so God promises us that this Spirit will give us visions of what we can do, and the power to accomplish them. And if, at this moment, you’re not sure if you can do that, it’s alright. God is still there, holding death and life, past, present and future together.

A priest friend of mine wrote this about the destruction of the seminary chapel yesterday on Facebook. Prophetically, she also wrote this about us: “The longer I'm alive and the longer I'm a priest the more I can't comprehend how God can hold all the pain and beauty at the same time. Thanks be to God that God can hold the destruction and not self-destruct. Thanks be to God that the one God, our creator, redeemer, and sustainer, knows how to deal with ashes and dust better than we ever could on our own.”

Justice: Ours' and God's: Luke 18:1-8

It's true that Jesus' parable of the widow and unjust judge is introduced as being about the "need to pray always and not lose heart." But there's another theme in this parable that is at least as prominent. A widow kept pestering a judge saying, "Give me justice against my adversary." Eventually the judge says, "I will give this widow justice because she keeps bothering me." Jesus then says, "Won't God provide justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? I tell you," Jesus promises, "He will give them justice quickly."

How many of you feel that when you have suffered injustice that you received justice quickly? How many of you have suffered a harm that feels too deep for justice to even be possible? How many of you have gritted your teeth and stayed quiet because it seemed that raising your voice against something you were convinced was wrong wouldn't correct the wrong?

So, how do we reconcile the apparent disconnect between the quick justice that God promises, and the appearence of justice delayed or even denied? Perhaps it depends on whose justice we're talking about: our justice or God's justice.

Our sense of justice seems to be based on the concepts of vindication and satisfaction. We want to be proven right, and that our adversary is wrong. We want to win the debate. We look for someone who has the authority to declare us to be right. Or we canvass for enough votes to declare us to be right. That works fine; provided that our adversary doesn't find some other authority figure to trump our chosen figure; or doesn’t run a better campaign than we do. Perhaps we might even win the last appeal, or the election. Then we can congratulate ourselves on our vindication, while our adversary is left to sulk in resentment over their perceived injustice left denied. Or we might be the ones left to grit our teeth and mourn our loss.

Sometimes our sense of justice demands satisfaction. We have suffered a loss, and that loss must be compensated. So, we seek “satisfaction” for what we have lost. That works in those cases where the loss can be quantified, usually in dollars. When the loss is emotional, satisfaction is a little harder to come by. How much does a broken heart cost: or a body that can never be fully healed?

God’s justice, on the other hand, is perfect, for God is perfection, right? And we’re not, nor will we ever be. So, what good is perfection? Well, in another time, the word, “perfect,” didn’t mean, “without error,” so much as, “complete,” and “fully developed.” So, in truth, God’s justice is complete. None of us can see our adversary as God sees them. We cannot see how the past has hardened them. We cannot see into their conflicted hearts. How often have we tried to articulate the discontents of our own hearts, only to have the right words slipping the fingers in our minds? If we can’t even see clearly the truth in ourselves, how can we expect to see it in others?

But God sees. God’s sight is complete. God sees every painful memory, every secret scar of the heart. God sees every person’s wounded past. God understands that sometimes we do need to be vindicated, that we do need to be satisfied. There is nothing wrong with crying to God day and night for vindication and satisfaction. But if that’s where justice ends, then the world will forever be a place of triumphant winners and sulking losers. But that is not what God wants for any of the children he made and loves. In his perfect justice, God seeks to heal every hurt, every loss, so that all find vindication, satisfaction, and reconciliation.

It was two years ago that I was discerning with the Search Committee whether God was calling me to Christ Church, Albertville, I’m sure that they noticed my personal ministry statement: “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 believe with all my heart that what God in his justice wants for all human beings is reconciliation with God and each other.

How does that happen? Ultimately, the work of reconciliation is what Jesus does through us. So, how we get there is not in any blueprint we have access to. But we know where it has to start. Today’s parable is not one that Jesus tells the curious public still trying to make up its mind about Him. He is speaking to his followers, his students, his disciples. He is speaking to us. We who call ourselves Christians may sometimes wonder if God’s justice is quick enough. We who call ourselves Christians may not know how we will get to a reconciled church, much less a reconciled world. But with the risen Jesus as close to us as the bread and wine, be sure that God’s justice and reconciliation starts with us. And we don't have to be perfect. We only have to trust that in God's good time, our reconciliation will be complete.

The image is of the Statue of Reconciliation, by Josefina de Vasconcellos. It sits amid the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed by German air forces during the Second World War. A replica of this statue was donated by the people of Coventry to the peace garden of Hiroshima.

Blessed Assurance On the Way

“Be raised up and go on your way, for your faith has saved you.” (Luke 17:19)

The Greek word, which you heard in the Gospel reading as, “Get up,” could also be translated as, “Be resurrected.” And the Greek you heard as, “made well” literally means, “To be saved.” Isn't that what we want more than anything in the world, the blessed assurance of being saved?

But what does that assurance look like? For nine of the lepers in today's Gospel, salvation was simple: relief from physical suffering and an assurance of “cleanness” under the Jewish law. But the tenth leper understood that to be saved is to be grateful for the blessings we have already received, and to go out in search of new blessings, trusting that Resurrection is the end of the journey.

“Ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance…” They know the law. Because of their skin disease, the local priest has classified them as “unclean,” and they must live apart from the community. And whenever they see somebody coming they must announce their uncleanness so that the stranger does not risk becoming “unclean” by merely getting too close to them. So the lepers approach Jesus, keeping their distance. But instead of warning Him, they beg Him…

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They beg to be cured, to be rendered “clean” in the eyes of the law and restored to the Jewish community. So “He said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’” Jesus doesn’t say to them, you are healed. He tells them to fulfill the law, to begin walking toward the priests, having faith that they will be healed somewhere along the way, and certified “clean” by the priests.

To the credit of all ten, they had enough faith to at least start the journey. “And as they went, they were made clean.” They were, indeed, cleansed. Their skin disease was cured. They were eligible for membership in the community of Israel again. But had they been made well? Had they been saved?

“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice…And he was a Samaritan.” The outsider, who might not have been accepted by the Jewish priest, turns back in gratitude. But, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” Jesus wonders. They are too focused on keeping the letter of the law to recognize the true Giver of blessing and healing.

“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” or, “Be raised up and go on your way, for your faith has saved you.” Jesus doesn't promise the Samaritan that there will be no more pain, no more challenges, no more conflicts. As a Samaritan, he may still face exclusion from the community. But Jesus of all people knows that the road of Resurrection is hardly free of obstacles.

But I think Jesus understands that this outsider will rise and go on his way, ever thankful for Jesus's blessings; and assured that he will see signs of Resurrection along his way and the risen Jesus Himself at his journey's end. The Samaritan outsider is sure of his salvation; which is more than a certification of legal cleanliness, or the cure of today's malady, or an emotion that is here today gone tomorrow. It is based on a faith that looks back in gratitude for God's blessings, and looks forward trusting in God's promises.

Wherever his journey takes him, the Samaritan outsider is assured of salvation. May we get up, go, and embrace the same assurance.

For St. Francis, Jango the Praying Dog

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

So here we are; another first Sunday in October, another blessing of the animals, another occasion to take joy in God's creation; and another opportunity to rediscover the death-defying passion of the saint behind all this.

Preaching to birds: literally stripping himself naked of all his possessions: walking right up to a wolf that had terrorized a village but promptly lay down at Francis's feet and became the village pet. Anyone who did these things today we would call crazy. But Francis we honor as a saint, perhaps the greatest of all the saints since the New Testament.

None of us are going to follow in every single one of Francis's footsteps. But in our own way each of us can follow his trust in the God who created all that is good in this world, even unto "Sister Death," as Francis called it. And in that trust, we can also share his calling to restore the House of God.

Restoring God's house is really what lay at the heart of God's call to Francis. After his disillusionment with his wealthy lifestyle and attraction to "Lady Poverty;" Francis began to frequent a Church in the country side that was broken down and in disrepair. But Mass was still celebrated daily by an old priest, and Francis would serve at the Mass. There also he would spend hours each day, meditating before the Church’s crucifix.

One morning, as he knelt there in prayer, Francis heard God speak to him—“Restore My house.” He initially took it at a quite literal level -- he went out immediately, found some of his Father’s most expensive fabric and sold it at market (this might be called theft) and took the money to the Church to rebuild it. This forced the public confrontation between Francis and his father in which Francis literally stripped himself of his father's wealth and walked away naked.

And so Francis started to follow God's call to restore the Church. How? By possessing nothing but the clothes on his and his fellow friars' backs. In this, they shared the experience of God-who-was with-us in Jesus Christ. And when people saw the Franciscans living in total trust that God the Father would give them whatever they needed, then the people would see Jesus Christ himself. In this total trust in God the Father, they mirrored God's Son as no human beings have since. They walked in Jesus's footprints as no one has since. And in this trust, they found the joy in all of God's creation, a joy open to all willing to trust God.

Even in death, Francis found joy. As he lay dying, his friends approached in tears, and yet he cut them off, as he began singing a new verse to his "Canticle of the Sun," which we know from our hymnal as "All Creatures of Our God and King" -- “Praised be you, My Lord, through our Sister, Bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape....” Death, for Francis, as life, was a time for trust in God, and praise in God, and joy in God, and a complete self-emptying. For what can you do before death but empty yourself.

Again, I don’t expect that any of us will imitate Francis’s radical trust in God. But Francis’s example continues to serve as a beacon of restoration for all of God’s Church 800 years later. We have a much smaller piece of the church and the world to restore. What miracles might God work through us if we but trust in God just a little? And what unimaginable joy might we find if we but trust in God just a little?

Inreach, Outreach, One Love

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another…My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” Ok, we get the point Jesus.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s commandment is clear. Those who believe in Him as the Son of God are to love each other. But are we not also to love the outsider? Does not Jesus also command us to go find the lost sheep, as we heard a few Sundays ago? Are we not to love the world that God made? In his Gospel, John chose to leave those questions unanswered. What Jesus insists on in John’s Gospel, is that the we the Church love each other.

Of course, we are to love the outsider. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,” Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, “because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…freedom for the prisoners… to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). When we distribute beans and rice to the needy, Jesus proclaims Good News to them through us. But we must not forget to love each other.

One expression of that love is the Rector’s Discretionary Fund, which is used only for the relief of necessity. It has been used to help the outsider needing help. But recently, it has been used more to help those in our Parish Family needing help. Jesus commands us to love one another “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). When I can help a parishioner, my joy is complete.

You can share this joy next Sunday, the first one of the month, in which all cash offerings and checks not marked for pledges go into the Discretionary Fund. When we reach in, and reach out, we find balance between the renewal of old love and the growth of new love.

Hell and Open Hearts: Sermon, 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

There are gated communities all over. The fact that I was a teenage boy once kept me and my parents from being admitted into one by the homeowners’ association. A personal interview with me couldn’t sway them. I was not David Kendrick to the senior citizens of this retirement community. I was a 16-year-old boy who was likely to throw a rowdy party when the parents were away, or drive the car into the gate on a Saturday night. The members of that community couldn’t see me. In their fear of the community’s peace being disturbed, they saw their worst nightmares of teenage boys. But their blindness to me was nothing compared to the gated blindness of the rich man in today’s Gospel.

There was a rich man who feasted sumptuously every day." Imagine if you had enough money to eat at Sebastian’s every single day of your life. Would you? This man could. But who is this rich man? We are not told his name. He may be the richest, most powerful man in town. Maybe the other villagers follow this man around, hoping he might occasionally throw a little bit of money their way. Or maybe they avoid this man, fearing what he could do them with his wealth and power. But either way, Jesus doesn’t even think that he’s important enough to have a name.

On the other hand, "there was a beggar named Lazarus…" He may be the man that all the neighbors shy away from and ignore because they’re disgusted by the smell of his unwashed skin covered with oozing sores. Jesus, however, considers him important enough to have a name, unlike the rich man, who sacrificed his true identity as a child of God by refusing to acknowledge another child of God.

And at this rich man’s gate lay the poor man named Lazarus." Or more accurately, Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate. And there he stayed, day after day, too sick and too weak to move. At this rich man’s gate the villagers laid him. There was no welfare, no section 8 housing, no Medicaid, no food stamps. But there was this rich man, who at the very least could throw Lazarus the crumbs from his sumptuous feasts.

But the rich man’s gate befitted his station. It was palatial. It was a wall that surrounded him. It protected him from the riff-raff. It isolated him from the rest of the human race. It blinded him to Lazarus. He couldn’t even see when Lazarus had died and at least bury him. Note that Lazarus died and then was carried away by the angels. Jewish law required that any Jew who passed a dead man on the road was obligated to bury the person. That’s how blinded and isolated by his wall the rich man was. And so we come to the other half of our story, with Lazarus in the heavenly arms of father Abraham, the rich man in the torment of Hell.

The road to Hell is very clearly laid out before us today by Jesus himself. It is blindness to the suffering of others. It is the gates we erect, on our land, or in our hearts, that starts us on that road. On the other hand, turning around and getting on the right road is so easy. It doesn’t matter how much money we have or how much we give, since none of us could ever pay enough to ransom ourselves from the consequences of our sin. It doesn’t matter how virtuous or upright we behave, since no act of virtue on our parts will ever undo the consequences of our sin. All we have to do is open the gates of our hearts.

What are the obstacles to open hearts? Helplessness at not being able to put an end to the physical suffering you see? God doesn’t ask us to end the suffering. The beans and rice we gave yesterday won’t feed its recipients forever. But it will feed them for a few days. God doesn’t demand that we do more than we can do. Whatever you do today is enough for today. Do you feel helpless at the sight of someone’s emotional suffering? It may be that all they need tonight is that you listen and hold their hand. In one of the novels by a favorite author of mine, the lead character summarizes his purpose in life very simply: “listen to people, see how they stick themselves into the world, hand them along a ways in their dark journey and be handed along.”

None of us has enough power by ourselves to save another human being. Only God can, and will do that. But God is recruiting us to be his partners in that salvation. And our partnership begins when we break down the gates that we think are protecting us, but are only blinding us. Our open hearts are enough.

Who's Dishonest Now? Sermon, 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Luke 16:1-13

So, what do we make of this strange parable? Even the most learned scholars have struggled to interpret Jesus's meaning, and some have just thrown up their hands. Take Jesus's statement, "And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly." Even John Calvin could say of this passage only that, " it is obvious that if we were to find a meaning in every minute circumstance, we would act absurdly." So, are we to just dismiss one of Jesus's sayings and move on?

As strange as this parable of the unrighteous, or dishonest manager sounds to us today; hopefully you will see that Jesus' Good News is not some pie in the sky far above our everyday struggle to do the right thing amid those who look out for themselves and no other. Jesus knows that we live in a broken world, surrounded by those who would cheat us in the blink of an eye if they thought they could get away with it. He understands the compromises we make every day when it come to the managing and sharing of our scarce resources. Jesus does not condemn us for doing the best we can. He only asks that we not choose our friends solely on the basis of what they can do for us.

The story he tells today is one with which His disciples could easily identify. And so can we. "There was a rich man who had an overseer." An overseer was charged with managing the property for a possibly absent landlord. He would rent parcels of the land to sharecroppers, then take a percentage of the value of their crops as a commission. With the rich man absent, the overseer had a great deal of power. But he didn't have security, because the land wasn't his. Managers in this position were caught between rich landlords who wanted more profits for themselves, and laborers who wanted more wages for themselves.

"And charges were brought to him that this overseer was squandering his property." Hmm, who brought the charges: laborers who thought he was claiming too much of his commission? Tenets who thought the overseer was overcharging their rent? And does Jesus say that the charges are true? Maybe the overseer had gotten greedy with his commissions. Or maybe the workers got greedy for more of their fair share. So said the rich man, "What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your work, for you cannot be my overseer any longer." Whatever the truth or falsity of the charges, the rich man chooses to accept them.

And now our hero has a big problem. "I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg." He's not a laborer, he's a numbers guy. "But I know what to do so that, when I am dismissed as overseer, people may welcome me into their homes." Living in a world ruled by the law of, I scratch your back-you scratch mine, the overseer knows how to obligate others to himself.

"Then he [the manager] asked another, 'How much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.'" And the rich man, who left the managerial details to his manager, may sense that the bills are off, but he can't prove it. And besides, does he want to shake down the laborers whose favor he curried by firing the overseer? What else could he do but "commend the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly"?

"For the children of this age are more shrewd in their generation than are the children of light," Jesus said. We children of light must live among the dishonest that hide their true intentions. We bask in the early morning light today. Tomorrow we will get up and go back to meet those who try to be more shrewd than we are. How shrewd will we have to be to protect ourselves? The overseer may not have been dishonest at the beginning. But in order for he and his family to survive, he had to become "dishonest." But how virtuous was the rich man for just accepting the charges against the manager at face value? And how honest were the sharecroppers who defamed the overseer?

Jesus doesn't take sides in the story he tells. He doesn't try to tell us who is honest or dishonest. Maybe that's because He wants all of us to acknowledge our own dishonesty. Most important, Jesus doesn't want his disciples to get hung up on who is to blame. "Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth," Jesus teaches his disciples, "so that when you fail they may welcome you into an eternal home." Who are those friends? Surely it's not the dishonest who welcome us into the eternal homes. Is it those whose backs we scratched? Or will it be those to whom we give without any expectation of a Return On Investment? Who are your "friends" to whom you are called to give without the expectation of receiving anything in return?

At the end of this physical life, cliché though it is, it bears repeating here that you can't take it with you. We will all die poor. So, who will welcome you when you are poor?

Sunday's Sermon: The Rough Draft

Courtesy of wordle.net

Losing, Finding, Risking

Today in our Adult Sunday School, we begin to examine the teachings of Jesus through Phyllis Tickle's compilation of His sayings in The Words of Jesus. In the teaching of Jesus that we just heard from Luke's Gospel, we didn't hear Tickle's introduction to this teaching of Jesus. To introduce His two metaphors of being lost and found, Tickle inserts verse 9 from chapter 19 of Luke's Gospel, which is the boiled-down essence of Luke's Good News about Jesus Christ: "The Son of Man has come to seek out and to save the lost."

Tickle also gives this headline to today's teaching moment: "The "Importance to Heaven of every repentant convert." So as we hear Jesus speak to is of lost sheep and lost coins, I would suggest that we should ponder what it means to be lost, and found; what we might need to risk and with what might we need to get reacquainted.

Two metaphors. One involves leaving, the other involves staying. In the first, a shepherd takes a risk, leaves his familiar field, his regular pasture, and ventures into unfamiliar territory to find that which is lost. Perhaps the shepherd might get lost himself. Or he might run into the same predator that has already eaten the lost sheep. So, perhaps the shepherd is risking as much as the sheep by his leaving the ninety nine sheep to search for that one sheep who wandered away. Indeed, it seems that in order to find the lost sheep, the shepherd must assume the same risks as the wandering sheep.

In the second metaphor, we are on familiar ground. We are in our own home, secure in our treasure of silver, or at least enough to get us through about 10 days. But do we really know as much about our home as we think we do? There are always unexplored corners, into which small coins fall. Which we take for granted until we can't find them. And so we turn our settled home upside down in order to find what is most important. And in finding our silver coin, who knows what else we might find, that we had forgotten we had, and can appreciate anew?

So one question that Jesus's first parable raises is about risk. What might Jesus be calling me, calling you, calling us, to risk so that those who are lost might be found? His second parable raises the question of reacquaintance. What nook, what corner of this house, the church, do we need to rediscover? What silver coin should we be looking for.

Jesus, it seems to me, calls us out into an unfamiliar territory, to find the wandering sheep. Maybe they've wandered away from here. Maybe they've wandered away from some other church field and need to find a new home -- maybe ours? Jesus also calls us examine our own house. Is there a silver coin that we've lost? What is that coin? Is it a part of our tradition that we haven't used for so long that we've actually forgotten it?

And if we are serious about our tradition, what riches might we find in our found silver coin? And if we are serious about our mission, what riches might we find in our found sheep?