Christ Episcopal Church, Albertville

The Beauty of Worship, and Service

2011-08-25T11:30:00.001-05:00

I hope you find the Instructed Eucharist this Sunday to be helpful and enlightening. It really is an awesome thing that our God does in The Holy Eucharist. I can testify to how the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and Blood has been my “Blessed Assurance” that “Jesus is mine” ever since I first stepped into an Episcopal Church with Laura on Easter Sunday in 1984. My heart could have become hardened by personal grief, anger at the world’s injustice, and political calculation. But the Holy Communion of bread and wine, shared with so many brothers and sisters, has soothed my heart all these years.

Nothing is more important to my sense of priestly ministry as the liturgical worship of this church. I would never call Rick Warren a liturgical Christian. But it is his Purpose Driven Church, published before the better-known Purpose Driven Life, from which Christ Church draws its mission statement. “Christ Church exists to respond to God by becoming an outward and visible sign of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry thus fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Worship, Evangelism, Discipleship, Fellowship and Ministry. Those are the five basic purposes of a Christian church, according to Warren. And during John Carlisto’s time as Rector, Christ Church adopted those purposes. The order of those purposes, however, was our choice. Worship comes first. It is the source from which all the other purposes are fulfilled. Without worship that nourishes the heart and soul, we don’t have a chance of making any headway on the other purposes.

But if worship is the beginning and the source of the church’s strength, it is not the final purpose. Worship is the first purpose of the church. “Ministry” is the final purpose. And by “ministry” in the New Testament, is meant “service.” To minister to someone is to serve them. To be a minister is to be a servant.

So as a church, we begin by serving God in our worship, and conclude by serving our fellow human beings. If we focus all our service on God, but fail to extend that service outside the walls of the church, then we are getting spiritually fat. If we undertake service of others without forgetting who really has the power, and who we’re ultimately serving, we will inevitably burn out. Our strength for service will fail if we forget the source of our strength.

I hope and pray that the new church will be a beautiful offering to God, and that our worship will nourish us, and inspire us for service. The beauty of Episcopal worship, in our architecture, our music, our time-tested words, and in the taste of bread and wine, is unique among the communities that call themselves “Christian.” There is also beauty in the diversity of faces whom we serve. Through every face, we see the face of God who made them and loves them.

There is beauty in our worship, where we glimpse the mystery of Almighty God with whom all things are possible, even the changing of bread and wine. There is beauty in the faces of a community (or communion) of smiling faces, different yet one in Jesus Christ. Worship and Service are both the purpose, the reason why we get together and call ourselves a church. Let us embrace them both.

Defeating Death: 16th Week of Ordinary Time

2011-08-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

"On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18)

Exodus means "departure." To make one's exodus is to leave, to begin a journey. The narrator of our story in Exodus calls the descendants of Jacob "Israelites." But here, and throughout the Old Testament, others call them "Hebrews"--"those from beyond"--outsiders, wanderers, nomads, people without a place to call their own. The people of Israel did not call themselves Hebrews. They did not want to think of themselves as homeless wanderers, even though, in one sense, that's what they were. How had their story begun? "Leave your land," God had told Abraham beside the Euphrates River in modern day Iraq. "Leave your family and your father's household for the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1).

And so Abraham and Sarah had made their way west to Canaan, where they had lived out their lives as "Hebrews," wandering outsiders with no land to call their own, save the burial ground that Abraham had insisted on buying from the local Canaanites when Sarah died. And so his son Isaac and grandson Jacob had remained outsiders in the eyes of the Canaanites, and the Egyptians to whom Jacob and his sons had fled during the famine.

So here they are, slaves in Egypt, who will be led out by Moses in their Exodus, or departure, from Egypt toward the promised land of Canaan. No one wants to be a Hebrew, a wandering outsider with no place to call their own. And even when you know that you're on the way to a better place, the old place can look mighty tempting when you're in between, not knowing what the new home will be like, or how much longer it will take to get there. As we follow the Israelites, more than once will we see them complain that never had it so good as when they were slaves in Egypt. But still, it's not easy to be a Hebrew, a wandering outsider, looking back in nostalgia on a place that only exists in your memories, then looking ahead of you to try and make out just one tree in the desert as a sign of water, an oasis. As "liturgical" Christians, we may feel at times like outsiders.

But we are also an oasis. We are a place of refreshment for those outsiders who need to know that they are welcomed by God in this holy place wherever they are in their spiritual wandering. We are an oasis, a place of refreshment where Jesus Christ is as close to us as the taste of bread and wine on our tongues. I give thanks for all those who have wandered in to this oasis, found refreshment and renewal, then continued on their journey. I give thanks for those who have stayed. And I give thanks for those who may yet to find their way here by God's grace.

Jesus and his disciples are wandering too. They haven't been in the Promised Land which the Israelites eventually conquered for awhile. Last week in Matthew's Gospel, they were in Tyre, on the Mediterranean coast. Today they have moved inland, but are still far away from Jerusalem. Jesus is preparing his church for life without him in the flesh. It won't be easy for his church as they wander, set down roots in one place, then be forced to uproot themselves. And the forces that will harass them are as strong as Hades.

"On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it," Jesus promises Peter, and the church that he and the rest of the Twelve have handed down to us. Hades was the Greek god of the dead, and his kingdom in the underworld was named for him. So, death is the great enemy that struggles against the church but will not overpower or stand against it. This promise of Jesus could mean that we as a church will be able to resist the assaults of death. Or it could mean that we as a church are to storm the gates of death and defeat it. Or, perhaps, it means both, depending on where we are. Either way, death is the enemy against which we struggle and prevail. Death will neither overpower us or stand against us.

When we take bread and wine, bless it, break it and share it, while proclaiming Jesus' Resurrection, we defeat the forces of death that would sap our faith in the power of his death and rising. When we teach our children and watch them take the promises of Christ for themselves, we defeat the forces of death that would sap our hope for the future. When we commit ourselves to feeding the needy children of our schools, we defeat the forces of death that would make us complacent about the sufferings of the present. When we distribute beans and rice to those who come with whatever need they have, we defeat the forces of death who would deny the power of grace to soften their hearts, and ours as well.

This is the journey we Hebrews are on; to worship our God in the beauty of holiness and to taste and see that God is good. This is the journey we are on; to provide a place of hospitality where other seekers may ask their questions and find their answers in God's good time. This is the journey we are on; to let the kingdom of heaven be seen here and now in this world, and not be some pie in the sky that we only get when we die. That is not what Jesus means by prevailing against death. That is not the hope that kept the children of Israel from wasting away in a foreign land. Wherever we wander, God in Jesus Christ shares our setbacks, so that we are not alone in them. And wherever we wander, God in Jesus Christ is prevailing with us.

Worship, Effortless and Non-Optional

2011-08-18T09:47:00.001-05:00

I decided to canvass the Parish because I had heard some parishioners lobbying for changing the time. They would appreciate an extra hour to get ready on Sunday morning. Others thought it might be easier to get visitors to come at a later time. Sometimes, the people lobbying for a change end up making more noise than those who are happy with the status quo. So, everybody has had the opportunity have their voice be heard.

As of today, it’s 36 in favor of 9am, 22 in favor of 10am. That’s 63 percent to 37 percent. If this was an election, we’d call that a landslide. But this isn’t an election, with winners and losers. And in a small parish like ours, 22 voices can’t be ignored.

That said, I suspect that a clear majority appreciates being able to come to church early, and have the rest of their Sunday to relax. And if we did switch to a 10am time for starting worship, that would raise the question of Sunday School: before worship or after. If we had Sunday School at 9, would anyone come? If we had it after, would anybody stay?

So, what are the options? Given that the majority of parishioners don’t want to move the time to 10, that would not seem to be an option. Could we split the difference, and start at 9:30? I notice that someone has written “summer” beside 9am, and “winter” beside 10am. I assume that a later start in the cold season would also feel like a warmer start, and an earlier start in the heat would feel a little cooler.

In that case, I could envision going to a 10 am start on the first Sunday of Advent, then switching to 9am on the first Sunday of June. But would people be able to get used to making that shift in their schedules twice a year?

Why does all this matter? Our mission at Christ Church is to be “an outward and visible sign of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit through worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry.” Worship comes first, as it must. None of the other purposes can be achieved without taking the time to make ourselves present to God, together as one church. Sunday is not “optional.”

But I appreciate that the “world” is making it harder to fit church into our already too busy schedule. So, while it’s important for us to make the effort to come together as one body, one communion in Christ, I also want it to be as effortless as possible. So, what do you think? What do you need on Sunday morning to be refreshed, renewed, and strengthened to be that outward and visible sign of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

Breaking the Cycle: 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-08-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

“Don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here.” Joseph told his brothers. “Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” (Genesis 45:5)

To truly rejoice with this beautiful reconciliation between brothers, we need to go to the bottom with them. We need to go to the depth of the sin and dysfunction that went back generations. This is a dysfunctional family in ways that all of us can recognize at least parts of in our own families. To be in a dysfunctional relationship is to be alienated from that person with who we still find ourselves in relationship with. And to be alienated, from God and each other, is sin. We can trace the alienation that was handed down from the grandfather, Isaac, to the father, Jacob, to these brothers who were so alienated from each other that were ready to kill. But today’s conclusion to this family drama offers the hope of reconciliation.

It began with Isaac, to whom Abraham’s servant brought Rebekah to comfort him after the death of his mother, Sarah. But in the end, neither of them really found comfort with each other. Instead, as they distanced themselves from each other, they attached themselves to the hips of their two sons, Isaac to Esau, Rebekah to Jacob. Why? Perhaps it was because Esau was a “man’s man,” hairy, muscular, an outdoors man and hunter. But Jacob was a “quiet man who stayed at home,” presumably closer to his mother. And when Rebekah disguised Jacob in goat hide to con the father’s intended blessing for Esau, The family is split in two as Jacob is forced to go east to escape his brother’s anger.

Jacob makes his way to the ancestral homeland, which his grandfather Abraham had left. He finds his way to his relatives. And missing his mother, what does he do? He falls in love with the first girl he sees, Rachel. But then his uncle Laban tricks him into marrying Rachel’s sister Leah before he is allowed to marry Rachel. And so we are told, “Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.” But Leah wins the battle of who bears the most children, six to Rachel’s two. But those two are Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel died as she gave birth to Benjamin. So as Jacob was overly attached to his mother, Rebekah, and his second wife, Rachel; so he fuses his heart and soul to the two sons that Rachel gave him. And as the two brothers Jacob and Easu, struggled for dominance, so does the favored Joseph struggle with his brothers.

The rest of the story leading up to today’s reading is familiar to most of us. Either you know it from the Bible, or also from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Joseph with his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat boasts about his dreams of his brothers bowing down to him. They throw him in a well, then sell him into slavery in Egypt. But because of his ability to interpret dreams, Joseph is able to warn the Egyptian Pharaoh of the coming famine, and becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt. He marries, and has a son whom he names Manasseh because, he said, “God has helped me forget all of my troubles and everyone in my father’s household.” Now that would be nice, if it were true.

And then, who should appear before him but his brothers in need of food, and bowing before him just as Joseph dreamed. But was that really the point of the vision God had given him all those years earlier? Perhaps there is a chance that the cycle of over-attachment and alienation, handed down through three generations, can be broken. But to do that, Joseph and his brothers must replay the painful events that led them here. The brothers must face up to the wrong they did and change their hearts and lives. And Joseph must replay the pain he suffered, and how he contributed to the bad feelings between himself and his brothers. Then he has to choose to forgive.

So first; Joseph verbally abuses them, and takes one of the brothers as a hostage. He sends the rest back with food, but demands that they return with Benjamin, the youngest son of Rachel, whom Jacob clings to for fear that he will be killed as he was led to believe that Joseph was. And so the brothers say to themselves, “We are clearly guilty for what we did to our brother...So now this is payback for his death.” Basically, Joseph’s brothers seem to think that the world is run by karma: what goes around comes around. Eventually, with the famine continuing and the food running out, Jacob lets the brothers return to Egypt, with Benjamin. Joseph arranges to have a silver cup placed in Benjamin's sack, and then accuses him and is ready to make him a slave. But then, just before today’s reading from Genesis, Judah, whose idea it was to sell Joseph, replays that moment. But this time he offers himself as a slave in place of Benjamin.

Some might think that Joseph has been cruel in the way he manipulated them. And as he sees the change in the hearts and lives of his brothers, Joseph changes his heart as well. “Don’t be angry with yourselves that you sold me here,” Joseph pleads with them. “Actually, God sent me before you to save lives.” Through the years of bitter struggle, shame, and guilt, God has watched, and opened the doors for Joseph and his brothers to walk through, if they were brave enough to replay the pain and evil of the past, trusting that instead of leading to alienation, this time it would lead to reconciliation.

And so the generational cycle of attachment and alienation is broken in this family. And just in time. The people of Jacob, also known as Israel, will need to stick together. Eventually, a new Pharaoh will forget how Joseph saved the Egyptians from starvation. And for 400 years, the Israelites will suffer the toil of slavery, until Moses comes. But that's a story for another time. This day, there is reconciliation, and softened hearts. Where are you in this story? What attachments do you need to loosen? What alienation and bitterness do you need to stop avoiding? What reconciliation do you hope and pray for? I pray that we may hear this story of attachment, alienation, and reconciliation, and make it our own.

The Boat and the Church: 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-08-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

“Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid. Come.” (Matthew 14:27)

When did you first begin to think about God for yourself, as someone other than whatever your parents told you about him? For me, I think it was the age of seven. I was on the beach in my hometown of Vero Beach, Florida, with my parents, looking out at the Atlantic Ocean before me. And for the first time, I really looked at that vast expanse of water. And I saw a ship just coming into view over the horizon. For the first time in my seven-year-old life, I got a glimpse of just how vast was this world I had been placed in, and how small I really was. And I realized that whoever made that ocean, and the ground on which I stood had to be even more vast.

When I was eight, my mother moved me and my older brother to Knoxville for a year while she studied for a Master’s degree in Public Administration, so that she could go from being a schoolteacher to a school administrator. In that year, this Florida boy discovered snow, and the Great Smoky Mountains. Later, my college geology professor would tell me that the region called Appalachia, from Northwestern Georgia all the way to southern Maine, is probably the oldest land mass on Earth. When we left to go back to Florida, I cried much of the way. My mother dismissed my tears, saying that I was just going to miss the pool at our apartment complex. But I remembered the mountains. They touched something in my eight-year-old soul, a desire for permanence?

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in the world, “beach people” and “mountain people.” There is something in the vastness of the ocean, and the constant motion of the waves that speaks to some of their spiritual need to be on the move, to flow with the changes of life and world. Others need a high rock to stand on. They need permanence. They need that which endures and survives.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples know what it is to have to trust God amid the stormy waters. And they know what it is to beg for firm ground underneath them. They don’t want to go out into the water. Jesus “made” them get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side of the lake. It would be accurate to say that Jesus “forced” his disciples to leave without him. They were forced to venture out into the water, symbol of all the chaos and unpredictable disasters that haunt this world. And their only rock, their only protection against the violent wind and crashing waves, was their boat. And that boat was getting “battered” by the waves and the wind. The Greek word translated “battered” literally means, “to torment,” “to torture.” So here is this little church. All the disciples that Jesus has fitting into this boat. And here is this church being tortured by the physical forces of the water and wind. Here is this church of terrified disciples, afraid for their lives, and their hopes for the future.

Look around us, and see the angled roof above us. Imagine all the churches with those angled roofs. Then imagine those buildings turned upside down, and understand that we all are the church in a boat, tormented by unpredictable winds and crashing waves which we fear will swamp us. But then, look outside the boat, and see our Lord and Savior, walking on the very water we fear will drown us, and saying, “Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

And then Peter, in his mix of sincerity and recklessness, says, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.” You know, Peter, that Satan said something pretty similar to Jesus from the top of the Temple: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” Maybe you might want to trust that Jesus will come to you in the boat that is the church. And yet, Jesus responds, not with a rebuke, but a simple word, “Come.” And so Peter takes a risk in faith. He steps out onto that vast expanse of water, heaving to and from as the waves crest and crash. And yet he makes it, for at least a little bit. Then, when his trust fails him and he cries out, “Rescue me!” there is Jesus right beside him. He would have come to the disciples in the boat. But he is also there on the restless and unpredictable sea.

For much of my adult life, my love of the mountains went with my search for the rock, a search for certainty. But as I’ve gotten older, and hopefully wiser, I’ve rediscovered that seven-year-old child who saw the ship coming over the horizon and realized how small he was. But I’m not scared of that smallness. I’m not afraid of the water. I know that there is a God who made the ocean, and who made you and made me. And the God that made us sees us. And God’s Son walks toward us and our small battered boat wherever we are. God’s purpose for each of us, and for this boat, will be achieved regardless of the storms that torment us. And if we hear Jesus calling us to come to him on the water, then we can do so, knowing that even if we fail, he will be there to take our hand.

When I was in seminary, a spiritual director led me in a guided meditation to meet “my Jesus.” In my mind, I went to a special place, which for me turned out to be the beach. Since imagination is one of God’s gifts to us, then God can guide that imagination. I visualized a candle on the horizon that came closer to me on the water, and then took shape as a man, who was very happy to see me. We sat on that beach and talked. And then he got up. I said, don’t go. And he offered his hand and said, come with me. What is it like walking on water? As God gave me the spirit to imagine it, it felt like a very hard sponge. It gave ground beneath my steps, but it remained firm.

Whether in this fellowship hall, or in the new church that is coming, Jesus is making us go out into the water, where we will be battered by the waves. But whatever comes, he is also coming with us. And if we dare to walk with him, he will always be close enough to us to reach out and grab us. So be encouraged! It’s him. Don’t be afraid. Come.

Respecting Borders While Hoping For None

2011-08-04T08:41:00.000-05:00

In case you have not already heard, I should let you know that this past week; the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama joined with the Roman Catholic dioceses of Birmingham and Mobile, and the Methodist North Alabama Conference, in a lawsuit against the new immigration law in Alabama. I have a copy of the legal complaint filed in federal court, and will share it with anyone who wishes to read it.

In the lawsuit, the churches argue that the recently passed law violates the rights of their members under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This Amendment, like the rest of the first ten Amendments, originally applied only to the U.S. Congress. But under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the protections of the Bill of Rights are now understood as applying to the states as well as the federal government.

According to the churches filing the lawsuit: “Biblical teachings to extend hospitality to all people without reservation are obligatory to all members of Alabama’s Episcopal, Methodist and Roman Catholic religions.” And these “Bible-based instructions to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and clothe the naked are in direct conflict with the Law’s restrictions against assisting” those immigrants who don’t have legal status.

Having studied the law, the four bishops filing the lawsuit have concluded that in order to avoid violating the law, members of their churches will have to verify the immigration status of anyone they assist with food, shelter, transportation, education, or other services. They will also be prohibited from helping any illegal immigrants attend worship services.

Among other things, the new law makes it a crime to “conceal, harbor or shield” immigrants without legal status; and to “encourage or induce an alien” without legal status “to come to or reside in this state.” There are many ministries in our diocese which provide food, shelter and education to the needy. If the new law goes into effect, those who serve in those ministries will have to choose between practicing their religion and complying with the law.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I share the frustration of those who believe that a sovereign nation should be able to control its borders and regulate who comes to this country. The Federal government has failed to do that for years now. And it has created a class of people who live in a legal No-Man’s Land. They are unable to become citizens; but the obstacles to a mass-deportation are too many to overcome. But the new law has created a climate of uncertainty for many who fear becoming criminals by simply serving the needy. And in that respect, the Alabama Legislature and Governor Bentley overreached in their understandable desire to enforce the law.

As Americans, we live within national borders that should be respected. As Christians, we live in another kingdom that has no borders. And as Christians we cannot turn away those in need simply because they do not share our nationality.

I understand that at least some of you are disappointed by Bishop Parsley’s action. I understand that you have seen changes in this city that you did not ask for. Clearly, this town that we all love is struggling with many things: the loss of business, cultural changes, the lack of opportunities for young people, and natural disasters. But there are also reasons for hope: a state-of-the-art school and fine arts center, a passion for artistic excellence typified by our marching band, a renewed commitment to attracting new businesses; and last but not least, a new church and fellowship hall that will be more able to bridge Christ and community.

Can we see a kingdom without borders within the borders of our community? I hope so. In the meantime; my door is open to any of you who wish to express your frustration, and your hope.

The Blessings of Wrestling: 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-31T09:00:00.001-05:00

It’s quite a story that we’ve been following the past few weeks from the Book of Genesis—Jacob and Esau. It began even before they were born. “Rebekah became pregnant. But the boys pushed against each other inside of her, and she said, ‘If this is what it’s like, why did it happen to me?’ So she went to ask the LORD. And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb; two different peoples will emerge from your body. One people will be stronger than the other; the older will serve the younger.’ When she reached the end of her pregnancy, she discovered that she had twins. The first came out red all over, clothed with hair, and she named him Esau (meaning "hairy"). Immediately afterward, his brother came out gripping Esau’s heel, and she named him Jacob” (meaning he who cheats. Genesis 25:21-26, Common English Bible).

Two sons destined to be rivals, a rivalry that would be inherited by the descendants, the nations of Israel, and to Israel’s south, Edom. One, physically stronger, rough and hairy all over. The other, more clever, grasping for the advantage, and not above cheating to get his way. If you were to make a TV series of this story, you could call it, “Hairy and the Heel.” We’ve heard different parts of the story these past few weeks. We heard how Jacob wrestled the birthright of the older son from Esau with a bowl of stew. We missed the episode in which Rebekah helped disguise Jacob in Esau’s clothing and goat hide. So, when the blind father, Isaac, wishes to bless his oldest son, he gives that blessing to Jacob instead. Not surprisingly, the “Heel” then has to high-tail it out of Canaan in order to escape being killed by “Hairy.”

Then, we heard God enter this story for the first time. There is the Heel, on his way to an unfamiliar place, unsure of his fate. But it is to this man, whose name means, “cheater,” that God shows a ladder to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, and then repeats the promises he made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, “Your descendants will become like the dust of the earth; you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. I am with you now, I will protect you everywhere you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done everything that I have promised you” (Gen. 28:14-15).

What a God of unmerited grace this is. And yet, responding to this promise, our hero the Heel keeps putting conditions on his own submission to God: “If God is with me and protects me on this trip I’m taking, and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God” (Gen. 28:20-21). Jacob is still wrestling for the advantages of wealth and security. Well, our hero makes it to his ancestral homeland of Haran, east of Canaan. He falls in love with Rachel. But his Uncle Laban tricks him into marrying the older sister Leah, and then getting Jacob to agree to work for him for seven years in order to marry Rachel as well.

Well, our hero the Heel finally gets out of Haran, with both wives, and a whole lot of livestock that he basically swindled from Uncle Laban. And he makes his back to Canaan, and his brother “Hairy.” Maybe the years apart have softened up Esau, made him ready to let bygones be bygones, not. The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We went out to your brother Esau, and he’s coming to meet you with four hundred men.” (Gen. 32:6). What will our hero do now? He splits his camp in two, and begins sending messengers with gifts of livestock to his brother coming to meet him with four hundred men.

And then he spends the night alone by the river. Except that suddenly, he’s not so alone. “But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke” (Gen. 32:24). Who is this “man”? At first perhaps, Jacob thinks it might be Esau, who wants to kill Jacob himself with his own cold hands. As the night struggle wears on, perhaps Jacob wonders if all the demons in his life have come together on this night: the insecurities that drove him to steal all his older brother’s advantages, to hoodwink his father, and his uncle. Maybe all those pressures have built up in his heart and have burst out, so that Jacob is literally wrestling himself.

But as the night turns to dawn, and Jacob continues to struggle with this “man” who has faithfully struggled with him, he begins to sense that this is more than a man, and that the man he is wrestling with is the one man who might be able to help him. “The man said, ‘Let me go because the dawn is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me.’ And so God asks, “What is your name?” And Jacob speaks his name that is also a confession: “I am the Heel, the cheater.” And this faithful God says, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.” (Gen. 32:28).

God wrestles with us on our terms, for as long as it takes. We’re all victims of someone, or something, that has left its scars on our hearts, and God knows that. So when those scars leave us feeling insecure, God will wrestle with us, for years if necessary. This God of amazing grace will wrestle with us until we are ready to face the demons within ourselves, those insecurities that have led us to grasp for wealth and possessions, power and control, being “right” about the issue of the day, emotional comfort in whatever friends of the moment were willing to feed us. God wrestles with our complaints until those complaints become our confession.

And as God blessed the wrestler, “Israel,” so God blesses us, with what exactly? As Jacob limps toward his brother, he doesn’t know if Esau will accept his offerings of livestock. What blessing has God given Jacob? It’s not certainty about the future. It’s not a pat on the head that everything will be alright; although in the end Esau embraces his brother and the two are reconciled. Perhaps, the blessing is understanding of himself, the good and the bad within him, and the peace that comes from knowing that God has loved him and accepted him, warts and all. Perhaps the blessing is to be free from anxiety; to know that he can change his life; and if he falls, God will wrestle with him again as he picks Jacob up, dusts him off, and sends him on his way.

Through Jesus Christ, we have inherited the promise God made to Jacob: “Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants.” We all are Israel, struggling with God and men, and by God's grace winning. God’s hand is always there, either to wrestle with or to embrace. Take it.

Asking the Right Questions--The Parables: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked (Matthew 13:51).

Perhaps you'll consider it good news that this is the last Sunday for us to consider the parables in Matthew 13. I wonder if you feel like we're on parable overload today: mustard seeds, yeast, buried treasure, the finest pearl, nets and fish. How do you make sense of any one of these, much less all of them? What unites them is how Jesus begins each parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like...” In each parable, Jesus uses the present tense, and he uses recognizable images from this world to describe what the kingdom of heaven is like. So, the kingdom of heaven is not just a future reward. The kingdom of heaven is right here, today. God already reigns as Lord of this world, and we are called to recognize it in the world around us, and to value it above all else.

But recognizing God’s authority in this world isn’t always easy. That is something else that all these parables have in common. The kingdom and the power and the glory, which these parables point to, are hidden. The kingdom is hidden because it is dangerous. C.S. Lewis referred to this world as “enemy-occupied territory.” And according to Lewis, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” We who are called disciples of this Christ the King have the eyes and ears to recognize his kingdom, and to stake our energy, our treasure, our life and our death, on this kingdom.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. The parables are not a “how-to” set of precise rules for getting out of God's dog house. The parables are not a cheat sheet for getting the right answers to the test. The parables are not meant to give us the right answers so much as to help us ask the right questions.

The first two parables, about the mustard seed and the yeast, are spoken to the “crowds,” and not just to Jesus's students the disciples. Jesus is speaking to anybody listening, friends and enemies. And so he speaks in code, through these parables. And in both cases, the kingdom, to which these images of mustard seed and yeast point, is hidden. The mustard seed is hidden by nature of it's being so small. And yet it becomes a tree. Trees were symbols of imperial kingdoms. And so this tree represents an imperial kingdom. But it does not seize power by military conquest or political propaganda and clever slogans. The kingdom of heaven begins in humility and service. Can the crowds recognize this servant-led kingdom?

We then hear Jesus tell of a woman who “mixed in” yeast with three measures of flour. But the word translated as “mixed” actually means, “to hide.” The woman hid the yeast of the kingdom within the three measures of flour of this world. To use Lewis's words, this is the sabotage we're called to do. There is opposition to this kingdom of servanthood over power. We have to recognize that opposition for what it is. It may be fear and resentment within us, or fear and resentment that is acted out around us. But we also need to recall how just a little sabotage from just one of us can make enough bread to feed hundreds with hope, and love.

Then, Jesus speaks only to us his students, his disciples, about how much value we are prepared to place on this kingdom of servanthood. Roman law actually dealt with the question of finding buried treasure on someone else's property. And the law basically said, “Finders, keepers.” Understandably, we still flinch a little bit at the underhand way in which this man lays claim to his hidden treasure. But we know that the “lesson” here is not to attain the kingdom of heaven by any means necessary. Both these parables leave us with the question: How valuable is this kingdom of servanthood to us? What are we willing to give up to attain this everlasting treasure? How much opposition are we willing to endure?

So, “Have you understood all these things,” Jesus asks his disciples; to which they respond in unison, “Yes.” Personally, I think they answered a little too quickly. I won't ask you that. But as we leave the parables behind, for now, I pray that if I haven't given you a neat and tidy set of answers, that at least I have left you with the right questions. How will the seeds being sown right outside this door produce a yield of thirty to one, sixty to one, or even a hundred to one? What weeds do we need to let Jesus pull out of our hearts so that the sun can shine on the wheat? Who are we called to serve in the kingdom of heaven? Where is the opposition? And what will we give up for the only treasure we can take with us?

We who have been trained as disciples in the kingdom of heaven don’t need to come up with all the answers to these questions today. Being a student of Jesus the Christ doesn’t mean we have to get 100 on the test just to pass. We just need to ask those questions, and wait for Jesus to answer them.

More On Reverence: Making Holy Things

2011-07-21T10:07:00.001-05:00

At my old home church, Grace in Alexandria, the smell of incense always lingers in that sanctuary, whenever you’re in there. One parishioner here has told me that they could detect the scent of candles in the original sanctuary. And it was more than the two lit candles on the altar. These recollections remind me of what a friend said about old churches, that by their prayers and presence, human beings can make a place “hallowed,” or a holy place set apart for God’s presence among his people.

There is truth to that observation, so long as one doesn’t make the leap to saying that by our prayers and presence, we have the power ourselves to conjure God to be with us. If we fall into that temptation, then we’re no different than a fortune teller, and our worship would become no different than a séance.

To be reverent before God is to be respectful of God’s will. And while I trust that God responds to our prayers and other acts of reverence, we must accept that it is entirely up to God to respond to us. It is God who ultimately makes us holy, who sets us apart for the service we give to God in our worship.

I’ve asked the question, What is reverence and how should it be expressed in our worship? Some have honestly responded that they just don’t feel very reverent in Founders Hall, compared to the original church. Do you feel the same way? I can understand wanting to get back into a space built for worship, as opposed to fellowship. I hope each Sunday, as you see the progress being made on the new sanctuary, that you are filled with hope, and that hope helps you feel more blessed in the space we currently worship in.

In the meantime, I think it might help to remind ourselves of that Sunday, more than year ago, when we “Set Apart” Founders Hall “for Sacred Use,” using the liturgy from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services.

“You will bring them in and plant them, O Lord, in the sanctuary you have established…Blessed are you, O God, ruler of the universe. Your gifts are many, and in wisdom you have made all things to give you glory. Be with us now and bless us as we dedicate our use of this space to your praise and honor. As often as we worship you here, precede us and abide with us. Be known to us in the Word spoken and heard, in fellowship with one another, and in the breaking of bread. Give us joy in all your works, and grant that this space may be a place where your will is done and your name is glorified, through Jesus Christ our Savior, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

We have prayed thus. We trust that God has heard our prayer, and will respond with truth and grace.

Our Patient Master: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

“Let both, weeds and wheat, grow side by side until the harvest.” (Matthew 13:30).

Yesterday, as Bishop Parsley announced the election of our suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, to be the next diocesan bishop of Alabama, I thought of today's parable. Aside from his gentle and positive spirit, I think that so many of us at the convention voted for him because, having served in this diocese as long as he has, Kee knows where the wheat and the weeds are in this diocese. I also suspect that when Kee is “invested” as our diocesan bishop, and the buck stops with him, he will discover a few more weeds. It's not the weeds we know about that trip us up, but the ones we don't see until, like the landowner in our parable, it seems to be “too late.” But it's never too late for the landowner of this world.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature of common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable.

In fact, this parable might have meant one thing to those who first heard Jesus tell it, and something at least slightly different to Matthew. I'm struck by the differences between the telling of the parable and its interpretation. In Jesus' telling of this parable, what I hear most of all is the patience and mercy of the Landowner. In the interpretation of this parable, the emphasis is on this Master’s judgment and vindication. I believe that Jesus intended for his parables to be “strange” enough, and doubtful enough about its precise application, to inspire each generation to find in these stories the truth they need to hear.

Speaking to “the crowds,” Jesus tells his story of a landowner who plants good seeds of whole grain wheat in his field. But that night, with the ground feshly plowed, an enemy comes and scatters the seeds of darnel. Darnel was a weed. It didn't bear fruitful grain. But you wouldn't know that right away. The darnel weed looked like the wheat when it sprouted and grew. You wouldn't know the difference between the wheat and the weeds until the end, when the grain came forth, and the poor landowner sees all those weeds among his wheat. His servants are clearly irritated at the extra work they have to do. But they’re ready to defend their master and root out those evil weeds. But their Master says, “No, because if you gather the weeds, you’ll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest.”

Now taken literally, the story doesn't entirely make sense. If the wheat has borne its grain, then it shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference between the wheat and weeds, and to pull the weeds while leaving the wheat alone. So why wait? One interpretation might be that it's for God to decide when it is time to pull up the weeds, not us, and that we need to be patient with God when it seems to us that he is taking too long. Another way to see this story might be to remember how hard it is to tell the difference between the darnel and the wheat while they're still growing. As the landowner is patient enough to wait for the weeds and wheat to reveal themselves, we who certainly know less than the landowner should also be patient with the weeds.

When we come to the “interpretation” of this parable, a half of one verse about the burning of the weeds has become three verses in the interpretation. Most biblical scholars who aren’t fundamentalists agree that the Gospels were written some 30 years after the events they reported, when it became clear that Jesus wasn’t returning right away, and it became necessary to preserve Jesus’s message. Perhaps Matthew got a little impatient, and wanted to reassure his fellow Christians suffering persecution that they would be vindicated, that there would be a harvest of the wheat and justice for the weeds.

But we need the parable and its “interpretation.” Sometimes we see only the bad; in ourselves, in our community, in our church. It is then that we need to be reminded of the patient landowner. And perhaps we also need to be reminded that what look like weeds to us may, in God’s good and patient time, turn into wheat by God’s amazing grace. Other times we may be too complacent, or too afraid, to face the weeds within us and around us. It is then that we need to hear the voice of our Master, begging us to face those weeds, to change our hearts and lives.

That is never easy, and we might fear the Master’s judgment. But we must always come back to the Master who is also the patient landowner, who doesn’t care how overgrown the weeds might have gotten in our hearts and our lives. He will always see the wheat. If we let our Master and our Owner work with us. If we let him gently and patiently pull up those weeds, only the wheat will be left, to shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom.

Reverence and Intimacy

2011-07-14T12:38:00.002-05:00

Last week, I introduced the theme of reverence. In the Bible, “reverence” before God is usually equated with “the fear of the Lord.” But to be reverent is really to be in awe of this God who is so far beyond our power and comprehension, and yet was humble enough to become a human being and die for us.

On the one hand, we worship a God whose power and wisdom make us want to be very careful about the ways in which we worship him. That leads to a more formal style of worship, with certain actions that must be done in a certain way. This isn’t “stuffy.” It reflects the awe that people should have when they come to meet the Lord of the universe in worship.

On the other hand, as Christians, we believe that God meets us in our worship. In the bread and wine, we see, smell, touch, and taste Jesus the Christ, who is God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit is as close to us as our very breath (The Greek word for “spirit” is the same as “wind”). All this happens because God loves us so much. And so in the bread, the wine, and our breath, God is so intimate with us that he is within us. The desire to celebrate this relationship leads others to want a worship that is more familiar, less formal.

There is one place in our worship space where God’s awesomeness and God’s intimacy come together more than any other. The next time you’re in Founders Hall, look at the cabinet to the left corner of the room, between the front pew and credence table next to the altar. You’ll see a white linen with a small box, glass vessel, and candle. In the old sanctuary, the box and cruet were enclosed in an aumbry that was attached to the wall on the right side of the altar facing you.

Inside the box, or ciborium (pronounced “siboreum”) are wafers of bread. Inside the cruet is wine. But it is not ordinary bread and wine. It is bread and wine that has been taken, blessed, broken and shared with the people of God. It is, in a way that Episcopalians believe but don’t dare to explain, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

When I see a parishioner who is shut-in, I take a wafer from the ciborium and some wine with me in a home communion kit (which looks like a little lunch box so that sometimes I lovingly call it the Jesus Lunch Box). I remind the parishioner that they are being fed with Jesus Christ from the same bread and wine that was set apart at the Sunday Eucharist. In this way, they are reminded that though physically separated, they are still a part of us because we are all part of Christ’s body.

On the one hand, Jesus Christ is very familiar to us. He is always present in our church on that white linen. On the other, what an awesome thing that the Son of God should make himself so vulnerable to us that we can pick him up whenever we choose. That’s why, whenever I approach the “Reserved Sacrament,” I bow down on one knee. That’s my way of showing reverence before this awesome and humble God.

In our holy worship space, let us be reverent, not in fear but in awe, joy, and thanksgiving.

The Parables of Matthew Part 1: 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-10T09:00:00.002-05:00

“Other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, in one case a yield of one hundred to one...Everyone who has ears should pay attention.” (Matt. 13:8-9)

“Just give it to me straight preacher.” Well after hearing today's Gospel reading, would anyone like to go to Jesus and say, “Jesus, just give it to me straight.” The parables aren't straight. They're not meant to give those hearing Jesus a blueprint, or a well marked map, or the pleasant voice of your GPS navigator telling you step by step the road to the kingdom of heaven. In between his telling of today's parable and his “explanation,” Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah: “You will hear, to be sure, but never understand; and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing.”

So what good are parables? Well let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. This parable of the farmer and the seeds spoke to me in a particularly strong way this week. And as we see the beginnings of our new sanctuary, I think it speaks to all of us in a powerful way. This word of the kingdom that Jesus first scattered 2,000 years ago has been scattered in the minds and hearts of all those who have heard it since, and so it shall be to the end of the ages. And precisely because these parables sound so strange, and don't have an obvious meaning, they will always have a fresh meaning to those who pay attention.

I wonder if hearing this parable is more scary than reassuring. There are four categories of seeds, and three-fourths of them become useless, withered and dead. Are you afraid of being in one of those categories. Is there someone you love, who seems to have never had the chance to receive the word because of circumstances that, like the birds, just swooped down and ate the word up before it had a chance to take root? Are there people you’ve known who were raised in such rocky soil that the word of the kingdom could never get deep enough in their hearts to pull them out of the hole they were in? Are you afraid that you that as sincere as you are in your faith, that there are just too many distractions and worries choking you for you to become the faithful disciple of Jesus Christ that you want to be?

Hear the words of hope that Jesus has for those hearing him in that section of the Gospel between the parable and its explanation: “Happy are your eyes because they see. Happy are your ears because they hear. I assure you that many prophets and righteous people wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” Jesus’s disciples struggled to understand his parables. They asked him to explain them. But Jesus didn’t say to them as he said about the crowds, “You will hear but never understand; see but never recognize.”

You are here this morning, or perhaps you are reading this online, and you see and hear what prophets and righteous people before you wanted to see and hear, but didn’t. The seeds have been planted. And I have been privileged to see shoots coming up from each of you, in spite of predatory birds, rocky soil, and choking thorns. And where the seeds and shoots are, so will come the yield of a hundred to one, sixty to one, thirty to one.
And here’s the best news in today’s parable. It’s not even up to you to produce that much of a fruitful yield. A good yield in the Holy Land of Jesus’s time would have been ten to one. What Jesus promises would have astounded those who first heard him. Such a yield would have been impossible for them to produce. And that’s the point. It’s not they, or we, who will produce such an astounding return on the investment of the word of the kingdom placed in our hearts.

In the past, I confess, I’ve read this parable as a symbol of the preacher, and wondered how much of the seed I’ve scattered would really produce any fruit. Are my words not “straight” enough for my hearers to even understand, much less apply to their lives? Will my words lack sufficient credibility with some? Those are just some of the questions I’ve asked myself about my preaching over the years. But reading through this 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, I read all of the parables that Matthew placed in this chapter, and I came to this verse later in the chapter: “The one who plants the good seed is the Son of Man.” Jesus says this about another parable using seeds as a metaphor. But looking at today’s parable, I finally realized what an idiot I’ve been. I’m not the farmer scattering seed. Jesus is!

Jesus is scattering the seed all around us. I am an imperfect vessel through which that seed can be scattered. But thanks be to God, I’m not the only one. You can already see the preparations for the scattering of the seed right outside our windows. The orange lines have been drawn on the ground to mark where our new sanctuary will be. This week, the ground will be plowed. After that, the bricks of the foundation will be laid. Those bricks are the seeds of the kingdom of heaven, where we will meet our God, and be nourished by our Savior, and be blown back out into the world by the Spirit, so that through us, Jesus will scatter the seeds of compassion and truth.

In the weeks ahead, we will hear the other parables that Matthew collected and placed in this 13th chapter of his Gospel. We will hear strange stories about the kingdom of heaven. We will have the gift and the opportunity to put ourselves in these stories, and to imagine what new thing Jesus Christ might be doing through us, in this community, at this time of anxiety. Let us imagine what a yield of a hundred to one might look like in this community, in this time. And let us trust that what we imagine, Jesus is revealing to us.

"Reverence", Silence and Joy

2011-07-07T11:19:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, I read the results of an extensive survey of Episcopal parishes that looked for connections between their various characteristics and their growth (or lack of). I was struck that the researcher actually found a negative correlation between parishes that described their worship as “reverent” and membership growth. The researcher, Kirk Hadaway, noted that worship described as “reverent” seemed to be perceived as the opposite of such descriptions as “joyful” and “exciting.”

“Reverence” appears to be another “church” word that needs to be saved, or at least translated so as the remove its unpleasant connotations. To me, reverent worship is joyful and exciting, if we understand just what an awesome thing we’re doing on Sunday morning. That said, I can understand how “reverence” can end up alienating us from God.

A search for the word, “reverence” in the King James Version, and the Greek words translated into the English “reverence,” makes that clear enough. In scripture, reverence is associated with fear, even shame, before God. I’ve heard plenty of stories in this area from disaffected people who were basically taught to be terrified of God. In other cases, some people may have come to associate “reverent” worship with what they considered somber or boring worship.

On the one hand, as Rich Mullins sang, “Our God is an awesome God.” How awesome? As Mullins also sang: And when the sky was starless in the void of the night (Our God is an awesome God), He spoke into the darkness and created the light (Our God is an awesome God).” Should we not be at least a little thoughtful of that when we enter the sanctuary on Sunday morning? The God we worship is truly transcendent. God is beyond all categories of human thought and comprehension. God’s power is infinite, God’s understanding is infinite, but God’s love is also infinite.

Before all this, we should, at the very least, be most respectful of the reality of this awesome God. And even more, we owe God our respect, or reverence, precisely because this transcendent, awesome God, humbled himself to become like us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The very fact of the Incarnation, that God took shape in a human body, brings this awesome God into close contact with us. And I believe that there are tangible ways in which this incarnate God continues to touch us in our worship. Understood in this way, reverence before God should fill us with excitement and joy.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll talk about some of the ways that we come into contact with God in our holy place. But for now, I suggest that the first point of contact is very simple, and very anxious: silence. We are so busy, with our work, our hobbies, our vacations that leave us needing a vacation; that we end up defining ourselves by our activity. It’s not easy to be silent and still when we’re so used to doing things. It leaves a hole that we’re anxious to fill. But God can’t fill us if we keep trying to fill ourselves.

There’s now a sign on the doors to Founders Hall. Before the service, talk to God: During the service, listen to God: After the service, talk to each other. Outside those doors, be in fellowship with each other. At those doors, and inside the hall, let’s practice that discipline of stillness and silence as we stand, bow and kneel before our Awesome God.

The Light Yoke: 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-03T12:10:00.001-05:00

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, Common English Bible)

What beautiful words Jesus speaks to us today. But how exactly is taking on one more burden on top of all our other burdens going to make those loads feel lighter? And what yoke could Jesus be talking about other than the yoke he would later carry to Calvary? What could possibly be easy to bear about the cross of Jesus?

And O the heavy loads, the pains physical, mental and spiritual we carry every day. There are the emotional scars of having been hurt by those we loved and to whom we were the most vulnerable. There are the griefs we carry in our hearts, that however lightened by the passage of years, will not go away. There is the aching we feel for those we love and are powerless to help. There is the aching in our own bodies, which we know will only grow worse the older we get, however much we protest against it. There is the heavy load of anxiety over the future wealth and security of this country that we all love. And there is the heavy load of anger at the ways in which our homes have been changed, in ways that we never agreed to.

And also there is the pain of those who are personally acquainted with every one of these heavy loads; who have been called to listen, and to speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God. They pray for all those heavy loads surrounding them. And yet, they know that at some time, they will disappoint every single person who entrusts their heavy loads to those who have been called to listen and speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God.

So again, how will taking the yoke of Jesus make any of our heavy loads any lighter? Are we supposed to see our burdens as a cross, which we must bear as Jesus bore his cross. Are we supposed to die as Jesus did? Well, sometimes we have burdens which are inescapable. And at those points, we need to know that Jesus has made our yoke his yoke: that he has come along beside us and will accompany us to wherever we are heading. Sometimes, there are burdens which we have no choice but to bear in the hope of Resurrection.

But of the many things I learned at the Cooperative College for Congregational Development, this one statement stood out for me: Jesus already died for you. Too often, we think of the Christian life as just one more good work, one more sacrifice, one more load to carry. But Jesus has carried the only loads that matter; those loads of guilt and anger and alienation from other people. Those loads were buried with him, never to be carried again. Be careful of those loads which other human beings would place on your back and tell you it’s for your own good. Once again, Jesus promises that his yoke is easy and light and gives you rest.

But how do we recognize that light, easy and restful yoke? I recognized it on a Thursday evening when a man named Oscar knocked on the door of our church at 6 in the evening. He is from Cuba. A “labor services” company recruited him to work in one of the industrial plants here in Albertville. They got him his green card. And so he worked here, until he got tendinitis and filed for workers’ compensation. Whereupon the people running the plant fired him. The “labor services” company that had put him up in an apartment served him with an eviction notice and had his power cut off.

So there he was at our church’s doorstep, on a Thursday evening when I was trying to talk to Mark about his sermon, and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But there was Oscar, barely able to speak English, not having showered in days, with no money. And he was the light yoke. It suddenly didn’t matter to me that it had been a long day, and that I wanted dinner. Nothing mattered more to Mark and me at that moment than making sure that Oscar at least had a place to sleep for that night, could take a bath and eat. We did what we could. I put him up at the King’s Inn for the night. I drove him by the Downtown Rescue Mission, so that he could check with them the next day about getting a ride to their shelter in Huntsville.

That was as much as I could do for him that night. I couldn’t take his heavy load away from him. But for that one night, I could give him a hand and then hand him along with a prayer that Jesus would come alongside him and share his yoke. For a short time, I took that light yoke and found rest from my heavy loads.

So the light yoke is that moment when you have the opportunity to ease someone else’s burden. You don’t have to take it all from them. You don’t have to transfer their burden to you. You just have to do what you can, and feel the ease and the rest within yourself. And as we try to help carry each others’ loads, there will be times when we drop them, when we fail to ease their burdens of hurt, and grief, and aching, and anxiety and anger. But Jesus will be there, to pick up the pieces. Where we are wrong, Jesus will make it right. What we cannot complete, Jesus will fulfill.

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”

Respecting the Law, Loving the Stranger

2011-06-23T08:13:00.000-05:00

There are strongly held beliefs about the new state law targeting illegal immigration, on both sides, within the Parish. I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself. I suspect that both sides will find something in this post with which to disagree. But my position is based on my love of country, and my love of God. That is a base I hope we can all stand on.

The United States of America is the first nation not to have been based on a common ethnic heritage. The first immigrants may have been from England. But the foundation of our country is not English blood but this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That’s not all Englishmen, but all men.

Countless people of all ethnic backgrounds, skin color and languages have come to this country because they believed that they too could be Americans. We have been enriched by their gifts. But earlier immigrants had to cross an ocean to get here. In the last 30-something years, millions of people have crossed the porous land border between Mexico and the U.S. They have come for the same reasons that other immigrants have come to this country: to improve themselves, and the lives of their descendants. It is the ideals that make us a nation, not race.

Anyone wishing to affirm those ideals can become an American citizen. But “We the People of the United States” are right to expect those who would be one of us to accept, not only the rights, but the responsibilities, of American citizenship. Illegal immigrants have put themselves in an unsustainable position. Their economic services are in demand, but they cannot be assimilated as American citizens. They are neither resident aliens, with the understanding that their residence here is temporary. Nor are they able to make a permanent home in this country.

It is reasonable for Americans to want to see their laws enforced, and their borders made secure. Measures to enforce the immigration laws are also reasonable. My personal opinion is that such enforcement should be coupled with a path to legalization for those immigrants who come forward, pay a penalty, and can prove that they are not a threat to society. The new law in Alabama is all stick, and no carrot.

I’ve been speaking as an American citizen. But we are also citizens of another kingdom. “In Jesus Christ our Lord you have received us as sons and daughters [and] made us citizens of your kingdom.” (Book of Common Prayer, p.381). What are our responsibilities as citizens of God’s kingdom? At least one is to accept the guidance of the Word of God spoken through Holy Scripture. This is what God spoke to the people of Israel through Moses: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the LORD am your God. (Leviticus 19:34).

There is one difference between the U.S. and Israel. To be a citizen of Israel was to be descended from the 12 sons of Jacob. Immigrants from other lands could never become Israelites. Israelites were to treat their immigrants as citizens because they could never be citizens. But the Israelites themselves were descended from immigrants, Abraham and Sarah, who were strangers in the land of Canaan. And the Israelites were commanded to love and respect the immigrants among them in the former land of Canaan, which God had allowed them to conquer.

As Americans, we are citizens in a land which we were allowed to take from its natives. As Christians, we are citizens of a kingdom which knows no boundaries between nations. To be a citizen of the kingdom of God is to be part of a kingdom in which all races and languages are being restored to unity with God and each other. (BCP, p.855). As Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles [or Anglos and Hispanics] into one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us…So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household.” (Ephesians 2:14-19).

As Americans, it is proper to enforce our immigration laws in an effective way. As Christians, we are called to love the “stranger” before us, however they got here. We are not exempt from the requirements of Leviticus 19:34, or Ephesians. As Americans, let us enforce our laws, while making it possible for those who wish to become responsible residents or citizens to do so. As Christians, let us love the stranger in need.

Trinity Sunday

2011-06-19T09:00:00.001-05:00

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us’… [And so] God created humanity in God’s own image.”

Before cars and trains and planes, most human beings never traveled more than five miles from where they were born. Today, most of us travel at least five miles every single day of our lives. More than anything, what separates us from all the people who have come before us is movement. People used to stay in the same place all their lives. And so did their children, and their children, and their children, and so on and so on, generation after generation after generation.

That kind of life is certainly stable. It can also be static, frozen and unable to change. I heard this week that the difference between a European and an American is that if a European tells you this great idea they've just thought of, and if you ask what they're going to do about it, the European will answer, "Do?" We Americans may move more and do more but as Alexis DeTocqueville warned, all our movement away from people and communities threatens to “make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.”

What does all this have to do with the Trinity? We hear today that God created us in his image. Incredible as it sounds, we actually resemble God. So it's right for us to look at our lives and see a reflection of the life of the one God who is also three distinct persons. Previous generations of Christians saw a trinity that was stable, seated on a throne somewhere high in the sky which they took to be the heavens. From this throne they looked out over a world that seemed as stable as the heavenly throne. But today, we who are always on the move find that the one God is always moving with us. And the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit move with each other, like dancers who move so well together, with such perfect choreography, that their individual movements just flow into each other, so that in their one dance they are one perfect dancer.

The Old Testament is pretty much about the confrontation between this one small nation clinging to its faith in one God and the rest of the world which assumed that the diversity of creation meant that there had to be a diversity of gods. So no one quite knows what to make of God saying, "Let us make humanity in our image." Certainly the faithful Israelites who were inspired to write Genesis didn't intend to give us a justification for the Trinity. But perhaps there was a truth hidden in this verse, which could only be revealed over a long period of time, like a flower that becomes more beautiful hour by hour, day by day, as its blooming petals slowly but surtely unfold. It took centuries for people to come to by know God, not just as the Father of all creation, but as the Son who became a part of creation and died for it.

It took the revelation of Jesus the Christ for people to understand that the same God who created human beings in the divine image loved us so much that in the person of the Son, he was willing to die for human beings. In the revelation of a God who made us, and also died for us, was the clue that when God said, "Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us," it meant that the God who is love is one, but is never alone. This one God is also three loving persons who are completely open to each other; nothing hidden or held back from each other, acting in such complete agreement that they act as one being.

Christians have struggled over the centuries to express this truth. That particular terminology -- three persons, one substance, or being -- has been accepted by the church since the mid-400s. When he was evangelizing the Irish, St. Patrick used the three leaf clover to represent how the three leaves flowed from one source. The problem with that metaphor is that the one God is not the source from which the three persons proceed. The one trinitarian God is no less a person than the three persons that make up the Trinity.

And like the stable, static age from which these metaphors came, this Trinitarian God is removed from our experience. What difference does it make in this world that our God is three in one? In an age of movement, where human beings are constantly on the move, it has become clearer that the God who made us to resemble him moves with us. Theologians have begun to see this Trinitarian God as one dancer, who consists of three dancers who move so well together, whose moves are so flawlessly coordinated that free of missteps they are one dancer.

And as Father, Son and Spirit dance with each other, so they dance with us. Of course we flawed and sinful human beings misstep all the time. Sometimes we don’t want to dance with God, or with each other. Sometimes in our lives, life seems to be as Paul McCartney described it: “It’s a Tug of War. Though I know I musn’t grumble, it’s a Tug of War. But I can’t let go. If I do you’ll take a tumble, and the whole thing is going to crumble. It’s a Tug of War.” We’ve all known those times. I have tugged with God. And this three-personed God, who is love, has tugged with me.

Even when we're trying to dance together, we step on God's toes and each others' all the time. And sometimes, we decide that we would rather just go off and dance on our own. Sometimes, we dance for awhile in the same place, with God and with each other, and our practice makes us better, if not perfect. But comes a time when the God we dance with calls us to go and learn a new dance. It doesn't mean that the old dance, at which we've become so proficient, is to be discarded as old-fashioned. It just means that the one God wants us to learn a new way of dancing with them, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Wherever we move, the Trinity dances around us, and invites us into their dance. When someone moves away from their familiar dancing partners, those old partners must let them go to whatever new dance God is calling them to join. Sometimes, a partner insists on staying in the old dance and teaching some new steps. That learning of new steps will lead to some toes getting stepped on. But patiently dancing with us, wherever we move, is that one three-personed God who never missteps, and will always keep pace with us as we learn to dance as they dance.

Commemoration: First Book of Common Prayer

2011-06-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

It was on Pentecost Sunday, June 9th, 1549, that the first Book of Common Prayer was used for worship in the churches of England. English men and women were able to pray in their own language. The first BCP was largely prepared by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He drew from the Latin services that had been used for centuries in the Catholic Church. But he also added from the worship liturgies of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the German services prepared by Martin Luther.

So the first Book of Common Prayer maintained continuity with the ways in which Christians had always prayed, while adapting those timeless prayers to the current spiritual needs of the people. As the British Empire spread throughout the world, so have other churches formed in many lands, all sharing the Anglican legacy. Each national church has adapted the Book of Common Prayer to its own needs. In the latest version of the American prayer book (1979), you can still hear the first 1549 Book of Common Prayer in our Rite I Eucharist during Advent before Christmas, and during Lent before Easter. Elsewhere, of course, the language is more contemporary.

The words, and our understanding of those words may change. But it is the same Spirit that has inspired those common prayers, from 1549 to 2011. Some might argue that saying set prayers from a book is contrary to what Jesus said: “true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). In other words, the Spirit of God is not present when we say prepared prayers, rather than praying “from the heart.” That is wrong. In truth, it is the Holy Spirit that has guided all those who have prepared all the Books of Common Prayer. Our set prayers are far too rich in truth and meaning for the Spirit to have been absent when they were written.

It is the Holy Spirit that breathes through us as we hear and say these prayers, which teach us how to pray to God. Every time we pray these familiar prayers, the words of those prayers seep deeper and deeper into our minds, hearts and souls. Then, with those words deeply rooted in us, we go out into the world. And wherever we go, rooted in those set prayers, our lives will be walking prayers for everything we touch. And as people of common prayer, our lives will be a blessing to all we meet. So with the Book of Common Prayer in our pews and in our hearts, let us always “pray in the Spirit and with the understanding.”

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Pentecost: June 12, 2011

2011-06-12T11:34:00.005-05:00

At the Albertville Ministers Fellowship meeting this week, we began an honest, unsettling conversation. For all the many churches in this small town, participation in the Fellowship isn’t what it used to be. Some at the meeting bemoaned the Fellowship’s loss of influence. There was concern that not enough people attended the Holy Week luncheons with Bible Study at Mt. Calvary. At the first Palm Sunday community service in which I participated, back in 2009, the preacher spent most of his time complaining about all the people who weren’t coming to church in Sundays. Clearly, the pastors are worried.

And if you look at the news, they probably have reason. For years, there has been much news about the membership decline in the “mainline” denominations: Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian. But now even the Southern Baptists are having that problem. Just this week, it was announced that for the 8th time in 10 years, the number of people baptized declined in 2010.

The Albertville Ministers’ Fellowship is worried about the future. And it’s impossible to stay informed about goings-on in our own Episcopal Church -- declining attendance, declining budgets, program cuts, continuing conflict over church property in the courts – and not be concerned about our future. Do we even have a future? Will our church survive? Will our children have faith? Will our faith have children? And inside the walls of our churches are all those challenges I just mentioned. There’s not enough money. There seem to be so many divisions about right doctrine. So many arguments in which anxious people lash out in blame and scapegoating and pining for an easy answer. So many people on the outside, and here we few are on the inside. Won’t someone come and help us?

But there’s a story just like that in the Bible: a few men and women who believed that a man who had been executed only a few weeks earlier was in fact the Messiah and the Son of God. But how much more successful could they hope to be than he was? Sure he had been raised from the dead. Of that they were witnesses. But there were so few of them. And there were still thousands on the outside who had arranged and supported his execution. And when they had asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Jesus’ non-answer, just before he was taken away from them was “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Only a few were left. They were inside a room where the doors were locked, for fear of the Jews, while everybody else was on the outside. And then it happened: rushing wind, flames all around them, roaring, and then, silence. Now it was their turn. No one came to take away their problems. Instead the Spirit came and gave them a new problem. They couldn’t stay inside. Something drove them outside. All that wind, fire and roaring was inside them, and it would have burst inside them if they didn’t rush outside and start preaching, serving, caring, teaching, witnessing, praying, inviting, and loving. They had to tell their story, or it would burst inside them.

We have strength, courage, compassion. And most of all, we have a story to tell. Our problem isn’t money, divisions or arguments. Our problem is that each of us has a story to tell and we can’t help but tell it. I’ve tried to tell my story in bits and pieces over the past two years. It’s a life story in which I learned that the love of God is far bigger than my, or anyone else’s piece of the truth. It’s a life story in which the loving Spirit of God has broken through every wall I’ve ever erected to protect myself. In my youth, it was a wall of grief and anger which God’s love broke through. In my early adulthood, it was a wall of ideological and religious certitude that God’s love broke through: my ideology had nothing on the love of God.

What walls of sin and alienation have you hidden behind, only to see them broken through by the love of God in Christ Jesus crucified? What is your story which you have to tell or else it will burst? I trust that all our stories are simply parts of one great story. It started with God and one man and woman, Abraham and Sarah. That story grew to include one nation. And now it includes all people, those inside this church, and those outside. We have a story to tell, and a story to listen to. We need to hear the stories of those on the outside. Listening to those unfamiliar stories, we may hear learn something new about our own story, as hopefully they learn something new about their stories. And then we will understand that there aren’t stories, but one great story of God’s love for all.

Jesus Christ told this story, and his failure was nailed to the cross. But that failure was not the last word. On this day of Pentecost, as on that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit invites us to tell our story of what God is doing inside these walls. The Holy Spirit is inviting us to go outside and do our best to tell that story. Might we fail? If we follow the crucified Christ, at least some of the time we will. Read enough of the New Testament, and you will see their failures in black and white: persecution, lack of money, divisions, arguments. But the successes that followed those failures are there to see as well.

So, let us dream of what we might do here on Sand Mountain. Let us plan as best we can. Let us tell the story of God’s love. Let us learn from our successes and failures. And when we fail, let us rejoice that the Holy Spirit has blown us that much closer to success. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

This sermon was largely inspired by this video

Saint Barnabas (transferred)

2011-06-08T11:35:00.002-05:00

The Feast of St. Barnabas is on June 11th. For Christ Church in Albertville, I'm transferring it to today for our midweek Eucharist.

“Barnabas” is the name given by the first Christian apostles to Joseph, a Israelite priest who accepted Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. “Barnabas” means, “son of encouragement." And the Book of Acts contains much evidence of his encouragement. When Saul, the former persecutor of Christians, couldn’t meet the Church in Jerusalem because no one trusted him, it was Barnabas who put his life on the line, trusted Saul and brought him to his fellow Christians. When Jewish Christians in Antioch began bringing Gentiles to faith in Christ; it was Barnabas who brought Saul (now known as Paul) to Antioch where the two of them could encourage these new Christians together. Then Barnabas and Paul travelled together on the first mission trip of Paul.

Though a priest of the House of Israel, Barnabas valued all people as children of God and worked tirelessly to show them the eternal value they had in God’s eyes. His valuing of all people led him to support a compromise in which male Gentile Christians were not required to be circumcised, as male Jews were, but were asked not to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols out of respect for their fellow Christians of Jewish descent. Paul, however, valued truth above all, in this case the truth that God had brought all people together in Jesus Christ. Thus, there should be no barriers that would make it harder for Gentiles to embrace Christianity.

Paul challenged Barnabas over the issue of food laws in Antioch. They argued so violently over this that on their next mission trip, they had to separate. And so it always seems to be in the Church, which is called to both encourage and challenge. When should one encourage people by meeting them where they are? When is it time to issue a challenge based on Jesus Christ, the way, the truth and the life? The debates continue, sometimes in a more civil manner than others.

We also know this. Late in his life, long after their violent argument, Paul and Barnabas apparently reconciled. Barnabas’s cousin, Mark, whom Paul had refused to take with him on the second mission trip, was with Paul when he wrote to the Colossians. “If he comes to you, welcome him,” Paul wrote of Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. Eventually, the Encourager who valued people, and the Challenger who valued truth, were reconciled and were friends once again.

Let the encouragers work for unity. Let the challengers work for truth. Do not fear the disagreements, and don’t let that fear silence you. Be assured and at peace; because in the end, God will win the argument, and all will be in agreement in God’s good time.

Christ Under Our Skin: The Ascension of our Lord

2011-06-02T09:27:00.003-05:00

“After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?” (Acts 1:9-11a)

Today is the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some communities are still able to observe this holy day with the attention and reverence it deserves. We are told in Acts of the Apostles that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples at various times for 40 days, and then he was taken from this earth, which begs the question: where did he go?

In the Gospel of Mark, we are told that Jesus was “lifted up into heaven and sat down on the right side of God.” Luke describes the Ascension twice, in his Gospel and at the beginning of Acts. And in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to hold on to him in her joy, because he must still ascend to his Father and our Father. Interestingly, Matthew doesn’t mention the Ascension at all.

Luke and Mark both pain the picture of Jesus being lifted up into the sky. And I don’t doubt that the Ascension appeared that way to the disciples, at least until “a cloud took him out of their sight.” Without telescopes and the knowledge they give us today of the space above us, people reasonably assumed that Jesus ascended to a place somewhere in the sky, or perhaps among the many lights in the night sky.

Today, however, we can reasonably assume that “Heaven” is not located in a particular place between the planets of Mars and Jupiter. Indeed, we really don’t want it that way. If Heaven is only in a particular place, and if God the Father and the Son are located in that particular place, then they are not in any other place. They look upon us from some distant place. They can see us, but we can’t see them. And if they’re in that distant place, then how can they touch us, or help us?

At some point, Jesus passed from the world of place and time, where he could be seen by our eyes, to a “place” that really isn’t a “place” in the way that we understand “place.” God, the creator of all things, is beyond all things, and cannot be contained within our limited powers of observation. But that does not mean that Jesus is now so far beyond us that he is at an infinite distance from us.

In fact, he is as close to us as the trillions of cells in our body. Look at Salvador Dali’s painting of the Ascension. What is that yellow thing with the bumps that Jesus seems to be ascending into? It’s Dali’s conception of an atom, one of the smallest things in all creation. Jesus Christ the incarnate God ascends away from this created world so that the same Jesus Christ may come back and be with us in all things.

In the words of the collect for the Ascension, “our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things.” There is no place where Jesus “is” today, because he is everywhere. He is not far away from us. He is with us in every cell of our bodies, and he is with us in the depths of our soul. And his Spirit is coming. Don’t keep staring up into the sky. Get ready.

A Worthy Sacrifice: Memorial Day

2011-05-30T08:58:00.001-05:00

"O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy. Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines. This we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Today is Memorial Day, which is much more than the official beginning of summer and an excuse to grill. It is the day in which we remember those who, in Lincoln’s words, gave the “last full measure of devotion” in the defense of our country and the ideals for which our country stands.

Service of country seems to wax and wane as our wars go. Many young people volunteered for the military after September 11th, 2001. But just a few years later, I overheard two twenty-somethings disparage the idea of volunteering for the military, and being sent off to “dumb” wars just because it would help them pay for college.

Then again, the sight of those college students outside the White House the night that Osama Bin Laden was killed reminded me of my own son when he was 11. Like his parents, he was shocked at the violence that had been inflicted on our nation so close to where he lived. I think that what we saw after Bin Laden’s death was a collective sigh of relief by those who came of age in the “Global War on Terror.”

We honor those who have sacrificed their lives to defend our nation and its freedoms. With the improvements in our medical care, we should also remember those who might have died from their wounds in earlier wars, but who remain scarred. Nor should we forget those who bear scars that no one can see, in their minds, their hearts and their souls.

And then perhaps we should ask ourselves, what have I sacrificed for my fellow Americans and our cherished way of life? It seems to me that very little has been asked of us since that terrible day in 2001. No was drafted for military service. Nor were we were asked to pay for the wars undertaken for our defense. But it’s never too late to make the sacrifices necessary to make good on what has been sacrificed for us.

Earlier I quoted Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Let me finish with another Lincoln quote. At his second inauguration, with the Civil War almost won in 1865, Lincoln asked this of the country: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

That is worth the sacrifice of every American. Let us be worthy of those who have given the last full measure of devotion.

Come, Companion, Come: 6th Sunday of Easter

2011-05-29T12:50:00.002-05:00

“I will ask the Father, and he will give another Defender, Counselor, Companion, to be with you all forever.” (John 14:16)

What’s an advocate? You see them all the time on TV news shows. They’re paid to appear on those shows and promote their point of view. Or they may just be promoting the point of view of the organization they’re paid to represent. That usually includes casting the opposing view in the worst negative light. There they sit in front of you on your TV screen. Both advocates determined to repeat their “talking points,” no matter what the question, and determined to discredit the other, or just talk over the other. Is this what Jesus means by “advocate?”

Of course there are other kinds of advocates that you see all the time in the commercials. Those are the lawyers who promise to get you what’s yours by right, to restore what has been damaged by those more powerful than you. And you won’t have to pay unless they win, assuming of course that they decide you have a chance to “win.” Is that what Jesus meant by “Advocate”

There is no one English word that can capture all the wonderful ways in which this 3rd person of the Trinity loves us, encourages us, advises us, and defends us. But all of those things, the Paraclete does for each of us, individually and together as a church. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another paraclete to be with you all forever,” Jesus promises his disciples. The Greek word means, literally, “one called alongside.” And it was used to describe someone who acted as a legal advocate. But a Greek philosopher wrote of how God did not need a “paraclete” to help him make this word and govern it.

So there are almost as many translations of paraclete as there are English translations. In the King James version, it is the “comforter,” which back in 1611, meant someone who strengthens you, who encourages you. Perhaps today, we might say that the Paraclete is your coach, who picks you up, who reminds you of what is good about you, and encourages you to learn from your successes and your failures. The Paraclete is the ultimate motivational speaker.

In the New International Version, it is the “Counselor.” Sometimes we need someone who will sit down with us, patiently listen to us, and without judging us, gently keep asking questions until we face the truth of who we truly are, as God knows us and loves us.

Today you heard that it is the “Advocate” who will be with you forever. Not the kind of advocate who only cares about winning the argument by whatever means necessary; or the advocate who will only take your case if he thinks he can win. No, this Advocate will defend you, no matter the odds or the numbers aligned against you. When you’re not sure what to say, if you will listen to the Defender that is in your mind, your heart and your soul, the Defender will give you the words you need at that moment.

Last week, I said that this 14th chapter of John’s Gospel is Jesus’ “Farewell” to his disciples. He has just told them that where he is going, they cannot come. And yet, later in this final lesson, he tells his disciples, “I assure you that it is better for you that I go away. If I don’t go away, the Companion won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” That’s a new translation called the Common English Bible. We believe that God became a human being. He walked with people. He talked to them, he embraced them. He loved them. But what Jesus wants us to understand is that he still walks with us, talks with us, embraces us, loves us.

We have a Companion, who is the Holy Spirit who comes from the Father and the Son, and who encourages us, who coaches us, counsels us and defends us. Our Companion has come to us, and will come to us again on Pentecost Sunday. Get ready for your Companion to come to you.

Real Hope: 5th Sunday of Easter

2011-05-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

“When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me, so that where I am you will be too.” (John 14:3)

Well, it appears that we're all still here. Yes, I chuckled slightly at the ads for pet care, post-rapture, and the invitations to post-rapture lootings. But throughout the week, my sense of humor was tempered by the stories I heard of people desperate for a sign of God's presence in our broken world.

“Knowing the date of the end of the world changes all your future plans,” said a 27-year-old wife and mother. She thought she'd go to medical school, until she began tuning in to Family Radio and heard the Rev. Earl Camping. She and her husband lived and worked in New York City. But a year ago, they decided they decided to spend all their remaining time on Earth with their infant daughter. “My mentality was, why are we going to work for more money? It just seemed kind of greedy to me. And unnecessary,” she says.

Now they are in Orlando, Florida, in a rented house, passing out tracts and reading the Bible. Their daughter is 2 years old, and their second child is due in June. But acoording to the husband, they were spending all of their savings, so that, on May 21, they would have nothing left. Nothing, except for the fervent hope that all of them would be raptured. In the same news story, a single man said this: “I no longer think about 401(k)s and retirement. I'm not stressed about losing my job, which a lot of other people are in this economy. I'm just a lot less stressed, and in a way I'm more carefree.”

I appreciate the faith and the love that you could hear in the comments of these three Christian souls. But it was based on a false hope peddled by a false prophet. Jesus warned us about them. What we need is real hope that we can hold on to when we would be tempted to look for a rapture, a quick end to all our worrys and pains. And that is exactly what Jesus Christ offers us today when he says to us, as he said then, “When I go to prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me, so that where I am you will be too.”

Jesus has to give them something. He has just told Peter, tonight, you will deny me three times. He has just told the disciples, where I am going you cannot come. He is about to be arrested, tried and executed. His disciples know this, and we can easily imagine their hopelessness. But then Jesus says: Don't be troubled. Trust God and trust me. There is room to spare in my Father's house, and I'm going to prepare a place for you. Then I'm going to return and take you to me so that wherever I am, you will be too.

It might seem that the rooms to which Jesus is referring are the individual places that he is going to prepare for each of us, which we go to after our physical death. But “room” and “place” are different words, both in the original Greek, and in our English translation. So, the rooms in the Father's house are not the places that Jesus is preparing for us. The “rooms” that Jesus mentions here were the inns of his day where foot-weary travellers would stop and eat and rest up for the rest of the journey. Where is the Father's house. It is right here, this world into which God sent his only begotten Son, not to condemn this world, but to save it! On the last day of the Resurrection, this world is not going to be blasted away into nothingness. It will be transformed.

In the meantime, the Resurrected Jesus has already returned and taken us to himself that wherever we are, he is there too. He is with us today. In whatever room in which you are staying today, Jesus Christ is with you. In whatever room to which we travel tomorrow, the day after and the day after that, he is with us. How? If I explained it fully this morning, I would end up preaching next Sunday's sermon as well as this Sunday's. Next Sunday, Jesus will tell us of the coming Holy Spirit, who will fulfill Jesus' promise today: I will return and take you to be with me, that wherever I am, you will be there too.

We still hope to reach that place which Jesus has prepared for us. And Jesus will take each of us to that place. But our ultimate hope is not a false hope of escape from this world. Our lasting hope is the Father's house to which Jesus Christ came, and comes, to save. That is the real hope to which I witness, with the witness that has been handed down to me by the first witnesses of the Resurrected Jesus. He has prepared a wonderful place for each of us. In the Holy Spirit, he has already returned. And come what may, we can live with him as Resurrected people, fearing nothing. For where he is today, there we already are!

Sacred Worship and Sacred Service

2011-05-19T10:20:00.001-05:00

“So don’t let anyone judge you about eating or drinking or about a festival, a new moon observance, or sabbaths. These religious practices are only a shadow of what was coming—the body that cast the shadow is Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17, Common English Bible)

The C.S. Lewis Bible I bought recently has this from Lewis, which the editors thought related to the passage from Colossians. In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Lewis writes of the danger that “religion” becoming “one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the social, the intellectual, the recreational, and all the rest.” And yet, religion as a department seems to “thrive,” according to Lewis. “It thrives because there exists in many people a ‘love of religious observances,’” which Lewis calls a “merely natural taste.”

In other words, our ways of worshiping are just natural things of this world, which we call “sacred,” and can become ends in themselves, “an idol that hides both God and my neighbours.” Do Lewis’s words smack in your heart as an indictment, or a harsh and unfair criticism? Do Lewis’s words, as well those of Paul in Colossians, cut to close to home for us liturgical Christians with our love of ritual and ceremony?

For me personally, the answer is absolutely not. I witness to the transformation that God has worked in my life over the years through the liturgies of daily prayer and the Holy Eucharist. There was a time in my life when “truth” was something I zealously sought and considered my sole responsibility to defend. But in truth, my seeking of “truth” was a solitary quest. It was something I had to find, and then defend as though my life depended on it. But as I continued to take Holy Communion at Grace Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, I became more and more a “living member” – a living hand and foot of the Body of Christ.

That Body is made up of many people, all with their own unique perspectives. And the more I became a part of that body, the more I realized that I needed other people to find the “truth.” In short, it was through the rituals and ceremonies of the Holy Eucharist that I was saved from my lonely search for truth, and born again into that wonderful and sacred mystery called the Church. To me, our worship is a beautiful “shadow” of what is coming—the Body of Christ.

And yet, while God used the “natural taste” of Episcopal worship to change my life, I agree with Lewis, and Colossians, that such natural tastes cannot box God in. God can use our natural tastes to reach us. And God can abandon them if the shadows become more important to us that the light that makes them. I also learned from Grace Church’s passion for Outreach that the shadows of Christ, which we see inside our churches, must be extended outside the walls of our church. We extend the shadow of Christ through our individual acts of service, and through our common actions as a parish church.

We need our sacred spaces to be nourished together with Christ himself. And so strengthened, we feed others with the same Christ.

Unity: 4th Sunday of Easter

2011-05-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

On Easter Sunday, we gathered together, in unity with Bishop Kee Sloan and through him with all the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama which he helps to govern. In unity, we broke ground on the new sacred space where we worship God together. And in unity we renewed our Baptismal vows. “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers,” Bishop Kee asked each of us, to which we responded, “I will, with God’s help.”

I hope you remembered all that when you heard this passage from Acts: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Our Book of Common Prayer is filled with such echoes of Holy Scripture. In this brief description of the early church are what biblical scholars have seen as the four marks of the Christian church; then, now and always.

This past week, I attended the National Workshop on Christian Unity as the Ecumenical representative from this Diocese. There, I met with my fellow Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, Moravians, Orthodox and Roman Catholics among others. And this passage from Acts supplied the theme for this year’s workshop: Together with Glad and Generous Hearts.

There has been much progress in our quest to be truly united in worship and community. We now have full communion agreements with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Moravian Church. While respecting each other’s right to govern themselves, we have agreed that in our communion of bread and wine, it is the same Jesus Christ whom we receive. With these agreements, it is even possible for an Episcopal priest to serve in a local Lutheran or Moravian church, and vice versa. We are now in the beginning of a dialogue with the Methodist Church that, it is hoped, will lead to a similar agreement.

Each denomination will continue to preserve those practices and teachings that are most particular to themselves. But we are united in the four marks of the Christian Church. We seek a fuller understanding of the apostles’ teaching, together in fellowship. Together, we break the bread as Jesus told us to always do in remembrance of him so that he may be as present with us as he was with his first disciples. And together, we pray, sometimes as the Spirit moves us, but usually as our books of prayer teach us to pray.

At the same time, there have also been road bumps. Every year, there is a conference of the Episcopal, Lutheran and Roman Catholic bishops in Alabama. This year, our preliminary theme is “Winter of Ecumenism.” For decades, Anglicans and Roman Catholics have been in dialogue to find common ground. Through that dialogue, we have come to much more common understanding of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. But more recently, the boundaries between us seem to be hardening. The current Pope has encouraged dissatisfied Anglicans to being their prayer book, and even their married priests, into the Roman Catholic Church as converts. Our respect for the freedom of Episcopal dioceses to do things their own way, even if we disagree with them, has certainly made it harder to find common ground with the Roman Catholic Church.

In fact, how easy is it to find unity in our own national church, in our diocese, in our parish? When you hear of the four marks of the Church, do they sound like a wonderful place in which we already live? Are they a vision to which we can hopefully aspire? Or as we hear of how so many churches struggling with declining budgets, declining membership and conflicting priorities, do these four marks of the early Church sound like an indictment of our failures?

That was the question which Dr. Mark Allen Powell raised at the Workshop. He led a Bible study of today’s passage from Acts. And he pointed us back to the beginning of Acts. Remember that Acts is Luke’s sequel to his Gospel. He begins the sequel by recalling that in his first book, he wrote about “all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up.” If Jesus only “began” to teach and do his ministry in the Gospel, then the book of Acts is about how Jesus continued to teach his church and work through his church.

Through the Holy Spirit, who in the words of our creed, “proceeds from the Father and the Son,” Jesus Christ continues to teach and do the works of God through his Church, broken as it is. So thankfully, all we need to do to be a united Church sharing the four marks of the early Church is to look for what God is already doing and get behind it.

I saw a church united last Friday, as Pauline’s family stood around her at Shepherd’s Cove. I led the litany for the dying, and then anointed Pauline for the healing of her soul. With our beautifully written prayers and sacramental actions, I did what we Episcopalians do best. And then Pastor Don Cotton prayed from his heart. And that opened the door for the Spirit to move through the hearts of Pauline’s family, as they all prayed with whatever words the Spirit gave them. Baptists and Episcopalians, we were united in the marks of fellowship and prayer.

I saw a church united on the Saturday before Easter. In the morning, with glad and generous hearts, we shared bread, actually in this case, beans and rice. But with the early church we took what you all have given and we distributed to those in need. Later in the day, we gathered as one fellowship, one community, young and old. With glad and generous hearts, we shared the joys of childhood. And together, we prepared this fellowship hall to be a beautiful offering to our Lord on the holiest day of the Christian year. We were united in fellowship, worship, and service.

Dr. Powell concluded his Bible study by saying, “God’s mission is going to get done, with or without you. But if you act fast, you can get in on it.” Let us be united in seeking out that mission, and getting in on it, wherever it is. If we act fast, then the marks of Christ’s Church will shine from us for all to see.

Glimpses of Resurrection: 3rd Sunday of Easter

2011-05-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I walked along the lake in Guntersville for the first time since the storm. Everywhere I walked, I saw solid, tall trees that had once towered over me, blown down by nothing more than air. But as I walked, I also came upon a mother goose and her very young goslings, straddling the path on which I was walking. I know from experience that it doesn't take much to get a mother goose hissing at you. So I stopped, hoping they would move. But they just stood there looking at me. Eventually, I went around on the grass.

Just a few minutes later, I met a woman on the path who recognized me, even without the collar, as the Episcopal priest on Main Street. Her name is Jenny Kingbridge (?). We agreed that the weather was glorious. We also agreed how awful and awesome was the sight of all those massive trees blown away. I then mentioned the geese I had just seen. What a sign of resurrection, I said, that these small creatures had survived the storm that had killed such large members of the Plant kingdom. Jenny then told me about a nest near her house, where she believed, the mother had been killed just after her eggs had hatched. But according to Jenny, the father had fed the babies for days until they were able to fly from the nest. In our two stories meeting at the right place and the right time, Jenny and I recognized resurrection.

Recognizing Resurrection: That is the dilemma for all of us in Northern Alabama. It is also the dilemma for Cleopas and his companion, probably his wife. As far as I can recognize, resurrection is in the small things, which by God's grace will become great things.

This is not the first time in Luke's Gospel that those who perhaps should have known better didn't recognize who Jesus really was. Cleopas and his companion were walking away from Jerusalem after Passover thinking that Jesus was dead and buried. His mother Mary and Joseph were going back home to Nazareth after celebrating Passover in Jerusalem. After a day's travel, they realized that 12-year-old Jesus was not with them. As Cleopas and his companion waited three days in Jerusalem through Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and burial before leaving, Mary and Joseph searched three days for the boy Jesus in Jerusalem.

And when they finally find Jesus, both couples do not recognize him, and both are called up short for their lack of recognition. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” this complete stranger tells Cleopas and his companion. “Why were you looking for me?” the boy Jesus dares to challenge his parents. And then, Jesus tells both couples essentially the same thing. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” the 12-year-old Jesus tells His parents. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Jesus says on the way to Emmaus.

In Greek, they’re the same basic word, “must” and “necessary.” Even at the age of 12, Jesus had begun to sense that he had a destiny; that there was a plan which was so much bigger than what his mother would imagine. And even when Cleopas and his companion thought that disaster had frustrated Jesus’ plan, they suddenly recognized that destiny had been fulfilled in the strangest way. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” They recognized him in something so small and ordinary as bread and wine.

There are so many in this state whose destinies have been permanently altered. So many plans have crashed like “sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground” as James Taylor sings. We at Christ Church know something of that. But if the truth be told what we have suffered is nothing compared to the hundreds of people in Marshall County alone who are living in tents, many of whom are in such shock that they’re walking around with a look in their eyes like zombies, as one member of the Long Term Recovery Committee put it. This parish, through its Outreach fund, has given $1,700 to the Diocese to help with the relief and recovery. But the recovery and relief that people need most can’t be bought. They need to know that whatever they have lost, they still have a destiny. They need to know that there is still a plan for them. They need to be able to recognize resurrection.

I think I caught a glimpse of resurrection yesterday. Like Cleopas and his companion, we catch a glimpse of resurrection this morning in the offering, the blessing, the breaking and the sharing of bread and wine. Let us all look for a glimpse of the resurrected Jesus, who walks with us in our joy and hope, our grief and anguish, on our road to Emmaus.

Things Passing Away, and Things Raised

2011-05-04T13:56:00.003-05:00

Here we are in the season of Easter, when we celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection as just the first crop of the harvest (1st Corinthians 15:23, Common English Bible). That harvest will be the Resurrection of the whole world. But if God the Father loved this world enough that God the Son came to die for it (John 3:16), then why does 1st John advise Christians, “Don’t love the world or the things in the world?” (1st John 12:15). If the world was destined to be obliterated by the hand of God, it might make sense not to get too attached to it. But “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). Shouldn’t we love this world that God made and has saved from eternal death through Jesus Christ?

The clue to unraveling this seeming contradiction comes in the next two verses, though you might not know it from some translations. “For all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever” (New Revised Standard Version). The truth is that “desire” is not always a bad thing. But to “crave” something, as the Common English Bible puts it, is always a bad thing. To crave something means that a thing has more power than we do. To crave something is to be so fearful of its loss that we desperately cling to it because we can’t imagine life without it.

The things of this world are “passing away.” But they are not passing away into nothing. They are to be transformed in the Resurrection of all things, of which Jesus is the first crop. As the resurrected Jesus has become “trans-physical”—still physical yet transformed—so shall we and all the things of this world become trans-physical. But we must not crave, or cling to these things now. In their passing away, the things of this world will be like the air through our fingers. But the Holy Spirit, which blows through this world like the wind, will hold you in its arms, and give you safe landing. In that landing there will be new things, gifts from God, to love. And at the end of all things, those things will be raised. Hallelujah!

Justice has been Done: Now for Reconciliation

2011-05-02T20:17:00.003-05:00

As President Obama said last night, Justice has been done. And for that, we may rightly give thanks. My son, John, was in one of the distant suburbs of Washington, D.C. last night when I called him. So, he wasn’t able to join all those college students from nearby George Washington University outside the White House . They were all about his age. He was 11 on September 11th, 2001. Laura and I picked him up from school that afternoon and went home. From the top of the slope where we entered our home, we could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon, about two miles away.

I think that much of what we saw outside the White House last night was relief, an exhaling of breath after nearly ten years of holding it in, bracing ourselves for the next strike. For months afterward, I instinctively looked up to the sky whenever I heard the engine of a jet plane headed for Reagan National Airport. Many of us stoically joked about living near Bin Laden’s favorite targets. At a costume party a few months later, one member of our church came as a “safe house.” She taped cellophane to the top of a cardboard box which she wore on her head, while taped to her body were the recommended items for a safe house. We all laughed. It helped us live with the fear.

All of which is to say that I understand the reaction of so many Americans to the news that justice has been served on the man who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people that day. But after the relief must come reflection. Then must come the turning of our hearts toward reconciliation. Any justice that consists solely of execution and punishment is incomplete. I didn’t say it was wrong, just incomplete. Jesus satisfied the justice of God on the cross; not to punish sinners, but to reconcile them to God. As we exhale after nearly 10 years of living in fear, let us pray and work for reconciliation, which is the ultimate justice.

“O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Collect For The Human Family, Book of Common Prayer).

Does God Want Flattery?

2011-05-01T16:00:00.003-05:00

Did God send the tornadoes? Or did God just permit them to operate according to the normal rules of nature? But if God only permitted the tornadoes to land on whomever they landed on, doesn’t that still make God responsible? But if God really loves human beings, then surely he can’t be responsible for storms that destroy human lives, can he? But if that’s the case, then what are e doing here worshiping this supposedly almighty God?

Are these questions you have asked yourself since Wednesday afternoon? Do any of these questions make you uncomfortable, as though they might offend God, or make you sound less than faithful? I hope not. If there is one message we need to hear from the Word of God this Sunday after the devastating tornadoes that struck Alabama last Wednesday, it comes from the book of Job. God prefers our honest questions and complaints to what C.S. Lewis called a flattery that is resentment based on fearful submission. Submission to God out of fear is not as faithful to God as submitting to him our questions, even the angry ones.

The book of Job consists of a long dialogue between Job and his friends about why he has suddenly been afflicted with every possible disaster, short of death. It becomes a fierce debate as Job questions and complains against the silent God he holds responsible for his suffering, and his friends defend God just as fiercely. But as Lewis noted, their defense of God is all false flattery. Job’s friends aren’t really trying comfort Job so much as they’re trying to comfort themselves. “You see my flattery,” Job tells them, “and you are afraid” (6:21). They see all the terrible things that have happened to Job: the killing of all his children, the complete destruction of his wealth, the profusion of painful, oozing itchy sores all over his body. They assume that God has done all that to Job. And they are afraid God might do it to them. So they flatter God by blaming Job, in the hope that God’s wrath won’t be directed at them.

And so it goes, chapter after chapter, until finally the LORD God does answer Job. One of Job’s friends, Elihu, hears the rumbling thunder of God’s voice when he says to Job, “Do you know how God lays his command on the lightning…Do you know the balancing of the clouds?” (37:15-16). And then God himself speaks to Job out of the whirlwind (38:1), thundering, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Afterward, a humbled Job can only say, “know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted…I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:2-3).

And so Job kneels before God and says, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6). Or perhaps the Hebrew might be translated, “I am comforted in dust and ashes.” In the end, God doesn’t answer any of Job’s questions about human suffering. Instead, God asks Job to trust in God’s purpose for him, a purpose that will be fulfilled whether Job lives or dies. And in that trust, Job is comforted, and repents. God then turns his anger toward Job’s friends, those flatterers of his, and says, “I am angry with you, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has” (42:7-8). It seems that God prefers Job’s hard questions, however wrong they might be, to the fearful flattery of his friends.

What is God’s loving purpose for us in this state after last Wednesday? None of us can answer that question for anyone but themselves. For in truth, there are as many answers to that question as there are human souls in Alabama. I believe that God will give those answers to those who do not settle for fearful flattery. In God’s good time, God will give his answers to those who, like Job, stand up to him with their questions, and wait for the thunder. In the meantime, as we begin our efforts to help with relief and recovery, let us all wait with each other. Let us all wait with each others’ questions. And let us all wait with each other for the thunder.

Risk and Knowledge: Good Friday

2011-04-22T11:29:00.005-05:00

Holy Week is a journey. We walk with Jesus this week, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, to his Last Supper on Thursday, to his cross on Good Friday, to the empty tomb in the darkness of Saturday night, and finally to the glorious light of Sunday morning. To walk with Jesus on the way to Sunday, and beyond, is to share in the risks he took for us.

But what does Jesus risk on this Friday? To risk is to trust. To risk is to take something precious to you and offer it for some greater purpose, knowing that in the risk you may lose it. But you trust that you won’t lose what is precious to you. To risk, therefore, is to embrace uncertainty. To risk something is to not know whether you will keep what you have or whether you will lose what is precious and valuable to you.

So, what does Jesus risk on this day? To read John’s version of Jesus’s trial and death, you might not think he is risking anything. There seems to be no uncertainty in Jesus throughout this story. Today he is utterly calm before his accusers. In John’s telling of the story, there is no anguished plea from Jesus that he might be spared the bitter cup, as we hear in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Nailed to the cross, there is no cry of apparent despair, “My God, my God, why have you left me.” Last night, we heard John say, “Jesus knew that he had come from God and was returning to God.”

And yet, could any of the Gospel writers have known the depth of Jesus’ knowledge. Could any human being walking with Jesus, even those inspired by the Spirit to write down the Good News, have known all that was in the mind and heart of this man who is also God? This man, Jesus Christ, is like a large diamond. You walk around it. And at every different angle, the light shines on it, and you see a different aspect of its beauty. You will never be able to see the full beauty of that diamond. You will only see aspects of its beauty. But the more you walk around it, the more you see.

That is more true of the Passion than any other event in Jesus’ life. Here is the collision of divinity and humanity. He who is God dies today. He who is God fully embraces the human condition of uncertainty, fear, and death. He who is God embraces the risk that comes with being human.

But what exactly was he risking? He had come from God and knew that he was returning to God. He knew that on the other side of that dark veil was eternal life. And that’s more than we can claim to “know.” But our definition of “knowledge” is different from how the children of Israel understood knowledge. The King James Bible is not easy to understand. But in this year, the 400th anniversary of its publication, there are still insights in that translation that no modern version can equal.

For instance, only the King James gets it right that when we have sexual intercourse, we “know” each other. That’s how the Israelites understood what happened in that most intimate act of human beings. We moderns have increased our powers of observation so much that we equate knowledge with an object which we can observe and study and make intellectual statements about. Our ancestors in the faith understood that true knowledge also means a shared experience that we come to know, not just in our brains, but in depth of our hearts right down the bowels that tremble inside us. To “know” something is to share in the experience of that something.

For Jesus to have been truly human, he had to have known the human experience of having to walk in trust that the reward would be worth the risk. So when he came to this day, this hour, did he “know” that there would be something on the other side? Since none of us has shared that experience, none of us can say that we “know” the answer. But as Jesus knew what it is to be human, I believe that knowledge included our experience of death. I believe that Jesus risked his life in trust that there would be a light on the other side of the dark tunnel.

But then, how could Jesus have known that he was God? To quote one of my favorite biblical scholars, N.T. Wright, “His ‘knowledge’ was of a more risky, but perhaps more significant sort: like knowing one is loved. One cannot ‘prove’ it except by living it.” Throughout his public ministry, Jesus did things, which his fellow Jews understood, only God could do. Commanding the sea to be still; feeding thousands with just a few loaves of bread and some fish; pronouncing forgiveness of sins.

And today in John’s Gospel, as the Jewish people prepare to celebrate the Passover, Jesus makes himself the lamb. On Passover, a lamb was slaughtered as a reminder of those first lambs who were slaughtered on that first Passover in Egypt. On that night, the Spirit of the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites who painted their doors with the blood of their lambs. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is crucified and dies as the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple. He is the one Passover lamb whose blood saves us from eternal death.

But Jesus doesn’t pass over death. He chooses to pass through death, trusting as he passes through death, he is blazing the trail by which we will pass through death. Jesus “knew” what he was doing, and that only God could do it. Only God could die and yet live. But that knowledge was much more than a cold fact lodging in his brain. The knowledge of resurrection and eternal life could only be experienced. It could only be known in the doing.

What human being, save the insane, would dare to claim such “knowledge.” And what human being would actually dare to live out such “knowledge.” Only a human being who “knew” that he had come from God and “knew” that he would return to God. No human being has ever risked so much as did Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. And there is nothing that we human beings risk, day after day, that will not be rewarded a hundred times over. We just need to give whatever it is we risk to Jesus Christ in prayer. And he will take it with him to the other side. There is no death that we die, day after day, through which we will not pass to the other side.

In our risks, and in our deaths, Jesus Christ is with us in the midst of them. And he is also waiting for us on the other side.

The image is of a painting by Barnett Newman: 13th Station of the Cross: Jesus Dies

Risk of Intimacy: Maundy Thursday

2011-04-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

What Kind of Tree Are You? Wednesday, Holy Week

2011-04-20T11:45:00.001-05:00

"Cursed is he who trusts in man…And turns his thoughts from the LORD. He shall be like a bush in the desert…It is set in the scorched places of the wilderness, In a barren land without inhabitant. Blessed is he who trusts in the LORD…He shall be like a tree planted by waters… It has no care in a year of drought, It does not cease to yield fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

In Jeremiah’s prophecy the withered bush in the desert, and the tree planted by water, have one thing in common. They are both planted, by someone else. In this case, Jeremiah seems to be saying that those who are like withered shrubs have given themselves over to human beings. They have let human beings plant them. The trees, on the other hand, have trusted in the LORD God, and have let God plant them.

But did not the bush and the tree have some freedom to decide where they would be planted. Those who were like bushes in the desert turned from God, and that is a movement, which plants can’t do. So, whether you’re a bush or a tree would seem to depend on your choice of who to trust, sinful humans or God.

In his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes that God plants in each of us a garden, which is our human nature. Without God’s grace, coming down like rain and sunshine, we all wither. But God also gives us the ability and the will to “dress” our garden, Lewis concludes, through the work of prayer and the pruning of self-examination.

As we “dress” the garden that has been planted within us, and around us, let us never forget that Jesus did the same. At the beginning of John’s Gospel, we hear that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The Greek word translated “dwelt” literally means to “pitch your tent.” In the Eugene Peterson paraphrase, The Message, we hear that the Word “moved into the neighborhood.”

Jesus laid down his roots among us. He placed his trust in the rain and sunshine of his Father’s grace. And when it came time for him to be pruned, he trusted. When it came time for his seed to die, he trusted that it would bear much fruit. Whatever pruning God asks of us is not as bad as the pruning Jesus endured. Whatever is in us that needs to die is not as terrible as the death that Jesus endured.

So, in the words of that obnoxious get-to-know-you question, what kind of tree are you?

Palm Sunday: The Passion of our Lord

2011-04-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Jesus is on trial for his life. He faces the literally “excruciating” sentence of death by having nails hammered into his wrists and his feet, then being left to suffer the pain and humiliation of being hung on a cross for hours before exhaustion leaves him unable to use his legs to lift the air out of his lungs, and he finally suffocates.

And yet, on trial for his life, as he is questioned, first by the High Priest then by Pilate the Roman Governor, Jesus has only three words to say in his defense: “You say so.” That is all he says in his defense. And those three words are not even really of defense of himself, because Jesus will not concede the authority of either the religious or political leaders to judge him. They presume to question him. But with just three words, Jesus turns the question back on them. The Questioned ends up questioning the Questioners.

“I put you under oath before the living God,” the High Priest demands of Jesus, “tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” And all Jesus says with a shrug of his shoulders is, “You say so.” And so he turns the question back on the High Priest. What do you think the Messiah, the Anointed of Israel, is supposed to look like? Is he supposed to look like you, High Priest, a religious leader who will lead the worship of Israel in exactly the right way?

And what should the Son of God look like? Should he come down from heaven in a blinding light that drives every human being to their knees before the power of God? Do you want a Messiah who can command human beings to do the will of God, while their hearts remain closed to God's love? And so the Questioned questions the questioner.

“Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate the Roman Governor questions Jesus. And all Jesus says with a shrug of his shoulders is, “You say so.” And so he turns the question back on Pilate. What do you think a King should look like? Should he look like your Emperor, Tiberius, in Rome? Should he look like a man who can use people for his own pleasure and benefit simply because he has the power of life or death over them? Should he be a military conqueror who creates an empire of resentful slaves? Should he be a soldier victorious in war, at least until the next one?

And so the Questioned questions the questioner. The High Priest and Pilate both condemn Jesus – don’t be fooled by Pilate’s empty gesture of hand-washing. But Jesus does not condemn. He simply leaves them with his questions for them to consider for all time.

I daresay that none of the questions you might have for Jesus are as accusatory as those asked by the High Priest or Pilate. But questions we do have for Jesus. Why do tornados destroy churches and lives? Why do some people become slaves to addiction? Why do people cause so much pain to themselves and others? Why are communities changed by economic and social forces beyond their control? How do we pick up the pieces? Why should I have to accept a “new normal” that doesn’t seem to be as good as the old normal?

Underneath their accusations, there was genuine pain and uncertainty for the High Priest and Pilate. What kind of Messiah can you be, Jesus, if you can’t deliver us from Roman oppression, the High Priest really wants to know. How can you be the kind of king that crazy Tiberius in Rome would actually listen to, Pilate really wants to know.

We all have questions of Jesus. I invite you this Holy Week to bring those questions in prayer to the One who stands before you bound, and ready to hear your questions as he stood ready to hear the High Priest’s and Pilate’s. And if you fear to ask those questions because they might sound like accusations, do not fear. Jesus has heard them before. He did not condemn the High Priest or Pilate and he certainly won’t condemn you.

But after you ask your question, listen in your hearts for Jesus’ answer, or perhaps I should say, listen for Jesus to turn the question around. Listen for Jesus’ question. Let him ask you what you’re really afraid of. And unlike the High Priest and Pilate, let his question change your hearts and your lives.

That’s what repentance means: to change your hearts and your lives. But in truth, in repentance, it is Jesus who changes your heart, if you will take your questions to him, and listen to his questions for you.

Take Away The Stone: 5th Sunday of Lent

2011-04-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

Why does Jesus wait two days after hearing from Martha and Mary that Lazarus is dying before he starts out toward Bethany? Is poor Lazarus just a ball that Jesus plays with, as a friend of mine once put it? Perhaps not. It probably took Jesus at least two days to walk from wherever he was on the east side of the Jordan River to Bethany. But by the time He arrived, Lazarus had already been dead for at least four days. Lazarus was likely dead when Jesus received Martha and Mary's message. And if Jesus knew two days after getting the message that Lazarus was "asleep," He surely knew that He would not be able to save his friend from physical death.

Jesus did know what no one else could possibly have known. "This sickness isn't fatal. It's for the glory of God, so that God's Son can be glorified through it." There was no doubt that Lazarus was dead when Jesus arrived with Lazarus already four days buried. Lazarus becomes the greatest of the seven "signs," which is how John refers to Jesus' miracles. In raising Lazarus, Jesus reverses the decay of physical death, and points to the future resurrection we all will share.

But that still leaves the sisters Martha and Mary. It may not matter to Lazarus any more, but when Jesus does arrive, they knew that He waited two days before coming to them. I find it even more incredible, then, that Martha can show such faith even at this time: "Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died. Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you...I believe that you are the Christ, God's Son." No one has called Jesus the Son of God up until now in John's Gospel. Even now, Martha is steady and solid in her trust of Jesus.

Mary is more passionate and more questioning. All she can do is throw herself at Jesus' feet and only repeat Martha's words, "Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died." But she is not afraid to let out her questions, her doubts, perhaps even her anger, before Jesus. And neither should we. But both sisters still lack one thing in their faith.

Martha trusts that her brother will rise in the resurrection "on the last day." But when they come to the tomb, and Jesus says, "Take away the stone," Martha protests: "the smell will be awful." Martha does not understand that Resurrection is not just the glorious future that is promised each of us. It is a life that Jesus calls us to live now, today, this morning, and all the mornings of our lives. But to do that, we must take away the stone.

We all must take away the stone that shuts us in with our worries for the future, our anxiety over the crises of today, our resentment over past and present hurts. We protest, as did Martha, Lord, the smell will be awful. And don't suppose that it wasn't awful at first when the stone was taken away four days after the burial. What will we find when you take away the stone? We will find whatever in us smells awful. We will find whatever in us must die. That death may come in the form of rejection. It may come as the loss of something dear to you. Or it may come as something you choose to sacrifice in the hope that something better will.

At the beginning of this service, I read “An Exhortation” from the Book of Common Prayer. Let me repeat this: “If, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the strengthening of your faith.” There is a form for reconciliation, or “confession” in our Prayer Book. It is not required. But it is there if you ever decide that you need a friend to be with you when you take away the stone. But as with the other sacraments of the church, like Baptism and the Eucharist, it is not the priest to whom you confess, and it is not the priest who forgives you. The priest is merely the channel through which the grace of God in Jesus Christ flows to you.

“Where have you laid him?” Jesus asked Martha and Mary. Today, Jesus asks us, where have you laid your worries, your anxieties, your resentments and your shame? Take away the stone, and you will find Him who reversed the decay of death, who gave himself up to the same death as ours, and is always beside us, right now in this life, in death, and in the next life.

Breaking Ground and Setting Sail

2011-04-07T12:00:00.001-05:00

Christ Episcopal Church is truly “rising from the rubble.” The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama has given its approval to the construction of a new worship building for Christ Church. On the one-year anniversary of the tornado, Easter Sunday, April 24, Bishop Kee Sloan will join the people of Christ Church in celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of Christ Church, by breaking ground for the new sanctuary.

We were required to get the approval of the Diocese before construction could begin. That process included the submission of floor plans for the new sanctuary, and information on how the construction would be financed. If Christ Church planned to borrow any money, that would have needed to be approved by the Diocesan Council.

But thanks to a generous settlement with Church Insurance Co., over $50,000 in contributions, and the Christ Church trust fund, it will not be necessary to borrow any funds to build the new church. Construction will begin as soon as the architect completes her more detailed construction drawings in about six weeks.

Long known as the “Little Gray Church on Main Street,” the new sanctuary will maintain the simple, yet elegant character of the original sanctuary. But looking to the future, the Vestry approved a design that will be able to realistically seat over 120 worshipers, compared to the 90 that could be fitted into the old church.

There will also be a small chapel for midweek worship and individual prayer at any time. The Chancel with the Altar will be much more spacious than in the original sanctuary, as will the Sacristy which houses those things needed for the Altar. And the Flower Guild will have their own room to make their contribution to the beauty of our worship that reflects, however dimly, the joyous beauty of God.

If you think about it, the church looks a lot like an upside-down boat. It is the place where we seek spiritual safety from the storms of life. It is also our faithful companion through the changes of life. The new sanctuary for Christ Episcopal Church looks back to the beloved little church that its founders moved from Piedmont in 1978. And it also looks forward to a future of spiritual growth.

When we break ground on Easter Sunday, we will also set sail on the next part of Christ Church’s journey, with Christ and with Sand Mountain. As we navigate the changing waters of time and circumstances, may the community that is Christ Episcopal Church make their new boat a place of spiritual refuge, nourishment and encouragement.

4th Sunday of Lent: Holy Questions

2011-04-03T12:15:00.002-05:00

John only relates seven of Jesus' miracles. We'll hear the greatest of them next Sunday. We've heard the sixth this morning. And John doesn't actually call them miracles. He calls them signs. We give thanks for the mighty work that Jesus does when he brings the healing of broken bodies. But why does God bring healing: for the sake of the healed and those who love them? Yes, but such healings are temporary. We will not take our bodies with us. Jesus’ miracles of healing will help us the most if we can see them as signs, pointing to those things of the spirit that we will take with us.

All those things that hurt our souls; our fear and our anger, our distrust; those things we will take with us unless we understand the signs of God's trustworthiness that Jesus gives us. And if the Good News of Jesus Christ is about more than getting well, it is also more than a list of do’s and don’ts. The confrontation between Jesus, the man born blind, and the Pharisees was about one of the biggest don’ts as the Pharisees understood God’s law.

Jesus' healing of the man born blind was a certainly a sign to the Pharisees. He didn't need to make mud by mixing his spit with dirt and rubbing it on the man's eyes to heal him. Certainly the voice of his command would have been enough to give sight to this man born blind. His use of these "props" -- the dirt, the spit, the mud -- were a sign to the Pharisees then and the Pharisees now about the danger of passing off man-made rules as divine commands for all time. They were a sign to the Pharisees then and now of the danger of reducing salvation to a checklist of do's and don'ts. Jesus freed the man born blind. And Jesus frees us to ask new questions of Him, and through our Spirit-led conversation to receive new answers. Above all, Jesus Christ frees us to trust that when we do our best to follow him, His grace will lead us home.

Specifically, it was Jesus rubbing the dirt and spit together that was a violation of the Sabbath commandment to rest. The Law of Moses had been right to ban the making of clay because that act recalled when the Israelites were forced to make clay bricks for the the Pharaohs' pyramids. The Sabbath was a day for the Israelites to celebrate their freedom from human enslavement. But more than a thousand years later, in this situation, the Sabbath command against making clay would have left a man enslaved by his blindness.

The Pharisees belived in the Law of Moses, all 613 individual rules of that law. If one man could go one day and keep the Law of Moses totally, all 613 rules, the Pharisees belived that God himself would come down and make his kingdom among men. But they forgot that God had given the law to a particular people at a particular time and a particular place. And by Jesus' time they had made those 613 rules something that had not been God's intention. By Jesus' time those rules had become a constitution that could never be amended. They had become a checklist of do's and don'ts with no understanding of the Spirit which had inspired them.

It's understandable that we should look for bright lines, like the green arrow moving out from the Fidelity office. As long as you stay on the line, your road to wealth and financial security is a sure thing. We are tempted to do the same thing with religion. Make the line clear as day, stay on it, not deviating one step away from that line, and the road to heaven will be as easy as the line to financial wealth. The truth is that neither line is as clear as we want it to be. What do we do when the line of righteousness and "doing the right thing" points in one direction, but the line of mercy points in another? And so begin the "Questions on the Way."

That's the book we've been reading and discussing in our Adult Sunday School. It's an excellent summary of how the Episcopal Church understands its particular expression of Christianity. There are answers to the questions asked in "Questions on the Way," which often lead to more questions. But that is how the life of faith must be. And I would rather live out my faith not fearing the questions, than picking one set of answers and barring the asking of any more questions, just to save myself the fear of my comfort being disturbed.

I will be wrong at times. But I will not make my answers into an unbreakable Sabbath law, because Jesus might be ahead of me, asking more questions. I will trust His grace to correct me in good time, and to lead me home.

3rd Week of Lent: What We Really Want

2011-03-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

"Jeremiah, say to the people, 'This is what the LORD says: "'When people fall down, don't they get up again? When they discover they're on the wrong road, don't they turn back? 5 Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path? Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back? They cling tightly to their lies and will not turn around.’” (Jeremiah 8:4-6, New Living Translation)

In our Morning Prayer, we’ve been focusing on the prophet Jeremiah this Lent. He was God’s prophet, delivering bad news to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Their kingdom, their Temple, were about to be destroyed by their enemies. And worst of all, they had it coming, for their worship of other gods, and their leaders who put their personal happiness above the needs of the poor.

In the C.S. Lewis Bible I recently bought is this insight of Lewis’s, applied by the editors to the 8th chapter of Jeremiah: “Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted.” Doesn’t that sound like what our parents told us when we were children? Do we instinctively flinch from this now that we’re all grown up?

And how many preachers, politicians, motivational speakers, self-help gurus, try to tell us what we really want, when all they’re doing is imposing their personal experience on ours. But personal experience, by its nature, is unrepeatable. The rock group, R.E.M., may have summarized our resistance to being told what we really want when they sang, “Life is bigger than you, and you are not me.”

Yes, life is bigger than those who would tell you how to live yours. But the flip side to that truth, perhaps harder to acknowledge (and why R.E.M. didn’t mention it) is this: life is bigger than you, but life is also bigger than me. One of the purposes of Lent is to help us not to resist that truth as it sinks into our soul, that life is bigger than me.

So, when we fail to get what we want, we can learn what we really want. When we fail to get what we want, or we get it and find it doesn’t really satisfy, we have the opportunity to learn what we really wanted all along. Thus, we can find relief from the constant tension in our heads and hearts between what we think we want and what we really want.

When we accept that what we really wanted, the tension leaves and is replaced by peace, the peace of knowing that we are no governed by a despot, but a lover. May we all find the lover in what we really want this Lent.

3rd Sunday of Lent: Water Jars and Gushers

2011-03-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

“The woman left her water jar and went back to the city saying, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Christ?’” (John 4:28-29)

It's very interesting to note the details which the eyewitness to this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan women thinks are worth mentioning. That she left her water jar at the well to run back to the town was a detail worth handing on to future readers. How she came to have five husbands, and why she wasn't married to number six, was apparently not worth mentioning.

Samaritans considered themsleves the children of Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. And they considered themselves bound by the first five books of the Old Testament. And under the Law of Israel, if the oldest son in a family died with no children, the widow was married off to the next eldest son. For all we know, this poor woman might have been married off to the next four brothers, all of whom died. Maybe brother number six didn't want to marry her, and she was left to fend for herself.

That she wasn't married to the man she was living with explains why she carried her water jar to the well at noon -- the hottest part of the day -- rather than early in the morning and endure the stares, the whispers, and occasional barbs of the other women of Sychar.

And so she came to the well at high noon, needing the water at the well to quench her physical thirst. But as Jesus could see, she had a thirst, which that water at the well could never quench. And neither would rubbing her nose in her mistakes quench that thirst. Salvation is so much more than being told, “don’t do it again,” and obeying that command.

The only way that Jesus can quench her thirst, and ours, is to engage us in a conversation of equals, which He begins by asking her for a drink. It is only in that conversation that we can complain about our thirst. It is only in conversation that we can figure out what we’re really thirsty for. It is only in conversation that we can finally understand the thirst in our hearts that only the gushing water, which Jesus offers us, will quench. We all need a gushing fountain that will make us leave our water jars at the well.

No doubt, the Samaritan Woman was tired of having to drag her water jar to the well in the heat of midday, day after day after day. But she was also dying of the thirst of loneliness. She yearned to be accepted by her fellow Samaritans. Isn’t it rather ironic that she is so defensive about her Samaritan heritage to a Jew when it is her fellow Samaritans that she has to avoid by coming to the well at noon?

She thirsts for the approval of her fellow Samaritans in Sychar. But Jesus offers her a gushing fountain, a community of Jews and Samaritans worshiping together the God they have in common in spirit and truth. Instead of fighting over which place God is to be found, Mount Gerzim in Samaria or Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Jesus offers her the presence of God everywhere. Instead of fighting over who has control of God’s sacred spaces, Jesus offers her freedom to meet God in any building so long as she seeks the truth in an open spirit. She thirsts for tolerance. Jesus offers her a gushing fountain of love.

What are you thirsty for? What am I thirsty for? What are we thirsty for? What gushing water does Jesus offer to you, to me, to us? Those answers can only be found in conversation. Those answers can only be found in a spirit of openness to each other. Those answers can only be found in a spirit which recognizes that our first answer to the question, what am I thirsty for, is the water jar that we need to leave at the well.

Where is the gushing water that Jesus promises. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The gushing water, the Sprit of eternal life is already in each of us. If we open up our hearts to ourselves, we will find that Jesus has been there the whole time waiting for us. If we face our thirst, we will find Jesus, who does not judge us, but meets us where we are. If we have that conversation with Jesus, then we can have that conversation with each other, because that conversation will be filled with the Spirit of truth and love.

Jesus is waiting for us at the well. Let us leave our water jars behind.

The Annunciation, March 25th

2011-03-24T19:00:00.000-05:00

With our only midweek worship opportunity coming on Wednesday, I transferred our celebration of the Annunciation (March 25th) to our Wednesday Noon Eucharist. The day we celebrated the angel Gabriel’s announcement that Mary would bear the Son of God also turned out to be the day that Elizabeth Taylor died.

There are other ironic pairs of women in recent history: Mother Teresa died the day before Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. For all of her charitable work, and the good use she made of her royal prerogatives, one observer called Princess Diana, “Mother Teresa in Gucci.” In fact, Princess Diana was buried with a rosary given her by Mother Teresa.

So now we have another unlikely pair: the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the 8-times-married Elizabeth Taylor (twice to Richard Burton). How much more different could they be? Mary was rooted in her Jewish tradition, aware that she was marrying into the ancient royal dynasty, the House of Israel’s greatest king, David. She was rooted in the Israelite dream of a Messiah who would save he people and rule the world with peace and justice.

Elizabeth Taylor went from tradition to tradition: raised a Christian Scientist, converted to Judaism, married once by New Age guru Marianne Williamson. “I’m not like anyone. I’m me,” she once said.

And yet, Mary’s spiritual journey was also untraditional in its own way: the scandal of unwed pregnancy, ameliorated but not forgotten by Joseph’s acceptance of her son. And the kingdom promised by Gabriel to her son didn’t look like any normal kingdom built through overwhelming shock and awe. There were the occasional rebukes from Jesus: “Who is my mother…those who do the will of my Father are my mothers.” And finally, there was the seeming destruction of her dream at the foot of the cross.

The Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th was “New Year’s Day” in medieval Europe. It was the start of a story, a journey that didn’t develop as its characters thought it would. But Mary treasured the promise of how the story would end: a never-ending kingdom of mercy and justice for those who need it most. And in the Resurrection of Jesus, that promise began to be fulfilled.

Through her work for others, and her passionate effort to find love, Elizabeth Taylor embraced that story in her own way. And because of her celebrity, her mistakes were displayed for the whole world to see. But I trust that her end will be as blessed as Mary’s. Let us all embrace Mary’s story as our own, in our own ways, and trust that our end will be as blessed as hers.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

2nd Sunday of Lent

2011-03-20T09:00:00.001-05:00

Well, I spent my Friday without Facebook, Twitter and email, reading. A few weeks ago, I mentioned Rob Bell, who was being accused of no longer being a Christian because he was about to publish a book. No one had read it, but many assumed Bell denied the existence of hell, based on some of his comments about the book. I now have the book, and spent my Friday online fast reading it. No, Bell does not deny the existence of hell. But he does say something that I have long believed, but not fully understood until I read his book: hell is not in a place; hell is in the heart.

And most assuredly, God does not want for there to be a hell in anyone’s heart. Summarizing all the Old Testament prophets who inspired by God to preach about eternal life, Bell points out that consistently, “they spoke about ‘all the nations.’ That’s everybody. That’s all those different skin colors, languages, dialects, and accents; all those customs, habits, patterns, clothing, traditions and ways of celebrating—multiethnic, multisensory, multieverything.” Does that ring a bell, “all the nations”? We just heard the LORD promise Abram, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Last Sunday, I preached on the Genesis story of how human beings came to be the sinful creatures that we are. It is a truly “pre-historic” story, because it speaks of events which were not documented. But whoever wrote down this story was inspired by God to communicate the truth of how we fail to trust our Maker, then and now. Between that story and today’s reading from Genesis, is the story of how human depravity became so bad that a heart-broken God decided to make a fresh start by wiping out all humanity, save for one family. But then God discovers that even Noah and his family are not without sin and evil lurking in their hearts.

So, God resolved that never again would God destroy all the people of the world. Instead God resolved to do everything possible to bless and save all the people of the world. And God started with this one man, Abram, and this one woman, Sarai, who would later be known as Abraham and Sarah. Through them came the nation of Israel, the people of the Old Covenant. And through them came the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died so that our sins would be forgotten by God, and we would be free to enjoy eternal life, or not to do so.

That’s the problem. We say that Jesus has won the war against Satan our accuser, and yet the battle goes on. Men and women still refuse to believe that they are worthy to be loved by God or anybody else, and so fall into self-destructive behavior. Men and women still believe that there is a fixed supply of love which will run out if spent too much, and so hoard the blessings of life for themselves or for themselves and their tribe. Men and women are so anxious to succeed that they judge themselves by their failures. Men and women still refuse to accept that love even exists, and so grab for power at the cost of anyone who happens to be in their way: all of which brings us back to Rob Bell.

Does Bell believe that hell doesn’t exist? He writes very clearly that hell does exist, and that he has seen it. He has seen it here on this earth in the broken bodies and souls from the ongoing battles I just mentioned. As I read him, the question for Bell is not whether hell exists, but where hell is. And to summarize Bell’s belief; hell is not in a place, hell is in the heart. It is in the heart of every person unwilling to accept the love that God offers. And so it shall be, in this life, and the next, for as long as that person resists the love of God. But Bell also believes that God will wait for that person for as long as it takes for that person to accept that love that God offers.

In fact, Bell finds in the banquet to welcome back the prodigal son an image of heaven. And in the older brother refusing to join the party, he finds an image of hell. So, heaven and hell may be in the same exact place. The difference is in the hearts of those who come together in God’s eternal party, and in the hearts of those who can do nothing to stop the party, but who sit in the same room and refuse to join.

Lent is the time when we empty ourselves, of chocolate, of Facebook. But hopefully, those small empty places are a way for us to empty ourselves, to reflect on our fears, our wounds, our resentments. In other words, Lent is an opportunity to empty ourselves of the hell that would swallow us up in our pain and our sin. May this Lent be a time of emptiness, followed by love, followed by a party in which we join all the families of the earth in being blessed.

Litany for Japan

2011-03-16T08:35:00.000-05:00

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, Have mercy upon us.

O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy upon us.

O God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the faithful, Have mercy upon us.

O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God, Have mercy upon us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us and for the people of Japan.

Hear our prayers, O Christ our God. Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who have died in the earthquake and tsunami striking Japan that they may be given entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of all your saints, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who grieve the death of family, friends, and fellow citizens that they may not be overwhelmed by their loss, but have confidence in your goodness, and strength to meet the days to come, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all who suffer in body, mind, or spirit that they may be comforted, healed, and given courage and hope, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For all aid workers, that they may be filled with strength, generosity, and compassion, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For the wisdom, resources, and technological skill that a nuclear disaster might be averted, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

For eyes to see that you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth and linked our lives one to another that we may never forget our common life depends on each other’s toil and that we will always work for the common good, Arise, O Christ, and help us.

Gracious God, the comfort of all who sorrow, the strength of all who suffer: Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in all their afflictions; and give us, we pray, the strength to serve them for the sake of him who suffered for us, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1st Sunday of Lent

2011-03-13T09:00:00.001-05:00

To focus on whether the creation of human beings and their fall into sin “happened” just as the story is told in Genesis is an adventure in missing the point. The truth of this story is written in the heart of every man and woman, as it was written on the hearts of the first man and woman who were made in the image of God. The truth is that the fall from innocence to sin happens every day to every one of us. Whenever we refuse to accept the gracious limits that our Maker and Commander has placed on us, we fall into sin as surely as the first man and first woman. But in accepting the same insecurities, and the same earthly limits, Jesus Christ proved for all time that we can trust our loving and most gracious Commander.

Even as the LORD God gives to the first human being the earth to till and work, a limit is placed on human power. For the Hebrew word used here literally means "to serve." Human beings are commanded to serve the earth that God has given them. And amid the abundance that God gives us, God gives just one command. Accept the limit of your knowledge, and do not try to gain the same knowledge as God by eating from the tree of knowledge. There’s another limit, more implied in this warning. If you eat of this tree, God warns the human being, you will certainly die. But note that God doesn’t say that if they don’t eat of the tree of knowledge, they will live forever. In fact there is a tree of life in the Garden of Eden. And after their fall into sin, God chases Adam and Eve out of Eden because he is afraid that if they eat of that tree, they will become immortal and be sentenced to an eternity of toil and pain.

And of course, the man and the woman are naked, to each other, to the world around them, and to God. Their knowledge is limited. Their life is limited, and their bodies are very limited. They are helpless before God. And yet what a responsibility is laid on them. Care for the earth, and trust God. Helpless, yet responsible, the man and the woman live in a state of holy insecurity. And into this drama comes a very clever snake. You will not certainly die, the snake says to the woman; it’s not certain that you will die: a vague enough promise to divert the woman’s attention away from God’s warning. And then the snake promises that you will be like God. But “like” isn’t good enough when it comes to God. Knowledge they will have, but not the wisdom to use it.

For this man and this woman, as for every man and woman since, it is a question of limitation and trust. Can we accept the limits of our knowledge and power? Can we trust that in life and in death, we are always held in God’s hand? This man and this woman gave the wrong answer, and so have we. Our recent history is full of human beings refusing to accept their limits. Many who grew up in the 1960s and early 70s remember the personal happiness that was promised if we threw off all social restraints. What were they smoking to think that everybody could pursue their own personal happiness without anybody getting hurt in the process? More recently, how many people have been devastated by the promises of unlimited wealth through unlimited debt, so long as the music kept playing and the debt kept getting passed along with no one left holding it?

Of course, living with the knowledge of our limitations is frightening. To know the limits of our knowledge and power is to know that we live up in the air. If we think our homes, our wealth and our lives stand on a firm foundation of our making, then we have no idea we are falling until we hit the ground. So, what’s the alternative to a life of illusion, a landscape we paint for ourselves and call reality? Look around you. Look up and see the empty sky above you, Look around you and see that you have nothing to hold onto but clouds. Look down and see the ground. And then remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Stan to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple: “Don’t test the Lord your God.” When you are afraid of not having enough to live on, remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread: “People won’t live only by bread, but by every word spoken by God.” When you feel the need to control others, remember what the Son of God himself said when tempted by Satan to gain worldly power by worshiping him: “You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

And finally, when you are afraid of the ultimate limitation, remember what the Son of God said on the cross: “Father, into your hands I entrust my life.” Every human limitation, every human insecurity, Jesus knows first-hand, so that we might know his Resurrection first-hand.

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-10T13:16:00.003-06:00

After September 11th, 2001, a widow one of those who lost his life in the World Trade Center asked her daughter, on Ash Wednesday, what she would give up for Lent. I’ve given up a father, she answered. Isn’t that enough for God? Some of us have lost loved ones. We all have lost the little gray church that we loved so much. Might we be excused from giving up something for Lent? Why spend 40 days focusing on Jesus’ death? Haven’t we had enough?

Is that a question you ask of the air, or of God, as though God sends us misfortunes? Do you see the misfortunes of your life as coming from God as a punishment for your sins? Was it Jesus’ job to take the bullet from God that was intended for us? Is that what it means when we hear from Paul that, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin”? Was Jesus the substitute for us, so that the anger of God was poured out on him instead of us?

God wants so much more for us than to be let out of jail, to be given a reprieve from execution. “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God,” Paul begs the Corinthians. To be reconciled to God is so much more simply being paroled by God. God wants us to be able to call him our Father, just as Jesus called him Father. Of course, standing between us and this God who would be our Father is our sin, our unrighteousness, our injustice to others. God, who is supremely just, cannot allow sin to have the last word.

In our limited justice, wrongdoing must be answered by punishment. To be blunt, it must be answered by a bullet of some kind. But Jesus did not take the bullet from God for us. Are there bullets that seem to come at us from all directions? Of course, but they do not come from God. The bullet that Jesus did take did not come from God. It came from the religious leaders of his day who conspired against him and the soldiers who crucified him.

We are all created in the image of God, but have mutilated that image by our fear, our distrust and our sin. So yes, it hurts the heart of our heavenly Father to see his beautiful creatures so marred. And in our guilt and fear, we dare not approach God on our own to beg forgiveness. But Jesus of Nazareth offered himself as our representative. Instead of paralyzing fear, Jesus stepped forward to meet the soldiers who came to arrest him in the garden. Instead of distrust, Jesus trusted that if he submitted to death, His father would be waiting for him on the other side. And by doing all this on our behalf, Jesus of Nazareth, who was fully human, overcame our sin. That sin has no power over him and it has no power over us.

Of course, the bullets still come, whether deserved or underserved. And just as Jesus took the bullet then, so he takes the bullet with each and every one of us. As they fly, know in your heart and soul that you are not alone. And just as the Resurrection came for Him, so it shall come for each of us in God’s good time. The purpose of Lent is not to remind ourselves of how we have crucified Christ in our own way. The word, Lent, means “spring.” The purpose of Lent is to prepare us for Resurrection.

Yes, train your soul this Lent by emptying your body of one small thing that it may know the fullness of God’s love in Jesus Christ. Or train your soul by meditating on the emptiness that has been created by one of those bullets. But remember that you are training your soul, so that on Easter Sunday, the love of the risen Jesus will fill your heart. Meanwhile, as you prepare to accept the reconciliation that Jesus makes between you and God, make that reconciliation in your family, your church, your community, your world. And in the words of my favorite Lenten hymn:

Then shall your light
Break forth as doth the morning;
Your health shall spring,
The friends you make shall bring
God’s glory bright,
Your way through life adorning;
And love shall be the prize.
Arise, arise,
Arise! and make a paradise!

Last Sunday of Epiphany

2011-03-06T09:00:00.000-06:00

What has recently consumed the online community of evangelical Christians? Whether Rob Bell has left Christianity because he questions whether Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian prophet on nonviolence, is in Hell because, while he honored Jesus, he never became a “Christian.” His new book, Love Wins, hasn't even been published. But his promotional video questioning how many or how few will get into heaven or hell led to many evangelicals concluding that he has left the Christian faith. What a choice we seem to be left with here: truth or love. How easily we tear apart teaching and love in the church. Both are to be maintained.

We hear today of a great truth: that the glory of God was shining in Jesus Christ on the mountain where He was transfigured. That truth was handed on by Peter, an eyewitness, to those who listened to him and accepted his testimony. That handing on is what we call tradition. We need tradition to confirm the truth of God in Jesus Christ. But there is no greater truth than that God is love. And what God wants more than anything, is that each of us might be so intimate with God that we might “participate” in the very nature of God. Even more than our frightened obedience, God wants our hearts.

2nd Peter is a last testament from a man who probably didn’t have the opportunity to write a last testament before he was crucified upside-down. And “last testaments” like this one were understood in the Jewish community not to have been written by the person himself, but by a student of his who was faithfully handing on what he had heard from his master.

And so, it is likely that a Christian who had learned from Peter handed on Peter’s eyewitness testimony of what he and James and John had seen. And in this “handing on,” or tradition, we now have that eyewitness testimony that Jesus Christ came from God, and will come again.

But what was the divine purpose behind the Transfiguration? Was it for God to terrify us with his power? What is Jesus’ purpose in coming back? To settle the score with every sinner? Earlier in his letter, the author of 2nd Peter explained why Jesus came into this world. It wasn't to vindicate himself. He came for us. The Word of God, who was with God at the beginning, and is God, came for us.

He became a human being so that we might escape the corruption of this material world and share in the very nature of God (v.4). The author of 2nd Peter was responding to nay-sayers arguing that with the first generation of Christians now gone, it was clear that all those stories of Jesus were just "cleverly devised myths." But there were eyewitnesses to these events: Jesus' transfiguration, his crucifixion and his bodily resurrection.

From that testimony handed down to us, we know that our destiny is to share in the divine life and nature of God. And we can sense this sharing of God’s nature right now. What 2nd Peter calls the rising star of Christ in our hearts is there every day when we choose relationship over isolation; when we choose service over self seeking, when we choose faith and hope over fear and despair.

The tradition we hand on is not ultimately judgment but love. Any defense of truth that seeks first to “out” its enemies is not truth, for there is no love in that. We are about to begin the Lenten journey that culminates in the greatest act of unselfish love ever. The eyewitness to that love has been handed on to us. That is our Tradition: the power of love to pass through and conquer death and loneliness. Hand it on.

The Daily Office: 2nd Corinthians 10-12

2011-02-28T11:27:00.001-06:00

2nd Corinthians 10:1-18

“Although we live in the world, we don’t fight our battles with human methods. Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God for the destruction of fortresses. They destroy arguments, and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2nd Cor. 10, 3-5, Common English Bible)

“Although we live in the world, we don’t fight our battles with human methods. Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God for the destruction of fortresses. They destroy arguments, and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

In the Daily Office this week, we pick up Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians at chapter 10. In chapters 10, 11 and 12, we see Saint Paul at his most “prickly.” Some Christians who don’t approve of Paul’s ministry have come behind Paul into the church that he founded, and undermined his authority. At least that’s how Paul sees it. These three chapters are Paul’s half of an argument that clearly got heated.

In the midst of this argument, Paul reminds us that God is with us, even in the messy arguments that go with life together in Christian community. When we bring our life experiences and the wisdom we’ve gained to the table, we are powered by God to make the best decisions for the building up of God’s kingdom.

Of course, there are two sides to an argument. We can only infer the Corinthians’ side from Paul’s response. But isn’t it interesting that the Corinthians preserved their correspondence with Paul, even the disagreeable parts. This shows that eventually, Paul and the Corinthians were reconciled. It also shows that the Corinthians saw the Word of God in these letters, and that these letters should be preserved for all time.

If we look for God’s presence with us, even in disagreement, then that conversation will be blessed, and so will the reconciliation which comes afterward.

Worth the Worry: 8th Sunday after Epiphany

2011-02-27T09:00:00.002-06:00

Matthew 6:24-34

A few weeks ago, I said I was looking forward to the “teaching” season of Epiphany. How much are you all looking forward to Jesus’ teaching after weeks of hearing:

How blessed you are when people persecute you for Jesus’ sake:

How it is better for you to enter the kingdom of heaven with an eye torn out rather than going to Hell with both eyes:

How if someone slaps you on the right cheek, you should offer them your left?

And this Sunday, you might wonder if Jesus is parroting Bobby McFerin: Don’t worry / Be happy. Is that the Gospel? Is it Good News to be told that all your worries are a sign of your insufficient faith? Well, don’t suppose for a second that Jesus never worried. “Father, if it be your will, take this cup from me...And the sweat poured from his brow like drops of blood.”

So Jesus worried. But He knew what was worth worrying about. Two Sundays ago, I said that Jesus understood that sometimes a mental therapist needs to shock her patient with his worst fear in order to dispel it.

Today, Jesus is doing something similar. He says something that makes no sense. It makes no sense not to worry about the necessities of life. That is, unless your eyesight of life’s necessities is too near sighted, unless you spend so much time worrying about the daily concerns of life that you lose focus of those necessities of life that, if you’re not careful, you won’t see until it’s too late. Jesus isn’t saying never to worry. He’s trying to refocus our worry.

Why do we worry? We worry when something we thought had under our control turns out not to be under our control at all. In our constant worry, that which we thought we controlled turns out to have control over us.

“You cannot serve God and Money,” Jesus warns us. That’s Money with an uppercase “M.” Money is not a thing. It is a force in our lives with such power that it might as well be a person with a name. How much of our attention, our effort and our worry do we give to Money? How much energy do we sacrifice to Money to the point of exhaustion, only to not be able to sleep because Money won’t let us?

Or maybe it’s Fame with an uppercase “F” that you think will make you feel like you’re on top of the world. Or maybe it’s Knowledge with an uppercase “K” that you suppose will give you control over those around you if you think you know more about them than they know about you, or can beat them in an argument. Whatever we end up serving rather than God begins as an assertion of control. But in the end, we become slaves of that which we would control.

So what should we worry about? God’s dominion and God’s justice. If we say we believe in one God “the maker of heaven and earth,” then can we follow that through to accepting that God is in control, of us and this world? Can we trust that whatever trouble befalls us today, God will hold our hand as we pass through that trouble?

What we need, more than food, clothing and protection, is to know that our lives have a purpose and meaning which outlives them. Each day has enough trouble for us to take to our heavenly Father in prayer. And the Father of us would rather we come to him with our insecurities than pretending we’re not really afraid.

Go to him in prayer, and start looking at the world through his eyes. You might find your problems are not so large compared to the sufferings of those around you. Of course, you’ll never see as far as God can see. But God has a purpose for each one of us. Our lives have a meaning that may take years for us to understand. But seek his purpose for your life, and along the way you will find that your life has a meaning which makes the worries of today so, so small.

Worst Possible Fear: 6th Sunday after Epiphany

2011-02-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

If you’re not shocked by Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, then the Good News of Jesus Christ has been tamed and domesticated by too much hearing of the same words, Sunday after Sunday. “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire…If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” Hyperbole? Of course. But don’t call it hyperbole too soon before feeling the fear that you would naturally feel if, at least initially, you took Jesus’ words literally.

Sometimes, the only way for us to be healed of our fear is to take the most catastrophic fears of our hearts, and at least say them to ourselves. Psychologists actually have a name for the problem of obsessing over our worst possible fears: Catastraphizing. To treat this syndrome, counselors advise their patients to write out the worst possible outcome associated with their worry, think about that outcome, and then rate the probability of this event actually happening. Usually, the patient realizes that their worst fear is really not that likely to happen. Sometimes, someone being counseled for this problem is advised to predict the consequences of this worst possible outcome. Quite often, the consequences may not be as bad as one first thought. Or you might find that there are ways with which you could cope with those consequences. The point is that when we face our worst fears, we find that they will not be the death of us.

Two thousand years ago, before there were mental health counselors and psychologists, Jesus Christ the Son of God understood the healing power of facing one’s worst fear. In the facing of those worst fears, we are healed from their power over us. Then we can take the next step of healing, and face the more real fears of our lives, the really deep fears that we dare not speak, even to those closest to us. Psychologists might be able to help us with the fantasies that sometimes paralyze us. But only the forgiving love of Jesus can heal us from the fears of our inadequacy, our failure, and our sin.

“I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” Who has never been angry? No one of course, so Jesus appears to be saying that “everyone” is liable to judgment and the hell of fire. “Come to terms quickly with your accuser,” Jesus warns us, “lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” What hope can there be possibly be for us when emotions, over which we have little control, will get us thrown into prison and fire?

But has anyone ever been thrown into prison for an emotion? Of course not. That is the worst possible outcome, which we can put before us on the table; look at it; consider it, and then dismiss it. With the fear of divine judgment and hellfire now dismissed, we can then face those real emotions: resentment, anger, frustration, regret. And then we can begin to come to terms with whatever has caused us to feel resentful, angry, frustrated, sad or remorseful. And in that coming to terms, we might begin to take the first step of that forgiveness which is the only real cure for our broken hearts.

But what if we really look into the darkness of our hearts? And what if we find that all those painful feelings and memories are so deep that it might seem easier to tear out one’s eye or cut off one’s hand rather than face those deepest fears, resentments, and regrets? Put that on that table in front of you, Jesus says. Look at it, think about it. And then let it sink in that neither the Law of Moses, nor the Good News of Jesus Christ, requires amputation. Sweep that worst possible fear off the table. What is left? Your heart, with all its scars, its anger, its regret and its remorse. What else is left? Jesus Christ, who knows your most secret fears better than you do. He has always known them. And He has been waiting in the darkest part of your heart.

He is waiting there right now, not to condemn you to hellfire, or to cut off that which is most dear to you. He is there in your heart, ready to forgive you, and ready to help you forgive. Mental health counselors can help us dismiss those worst possible fantasies that frighten us. So can Jesus Christ. But only Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, can cure us of those pains of the heart that we fear to reveal, even to ourselves. Only in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, can we find the forgiveness we need, and the power to forgive. Only in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, can we find the peace that casts the fear out of our hearts. Be not afraid. God himself, in Jesus Christ, is this close to you. Of what, then, should we be afraid?

How Do You Taste? -- 5th Sunday after Epiphany

2011-02-06T09:00:00.000-06:00

In 1630, John Winthrop told the settlers of Massachusetts: “Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.” Ronald Reagan, whose 100th birthday is today, also spoke of America as a shining city; “a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

For Winthrop, the city on a hill is a warning. For Reagan it is a vision of peace and prosperity. By the time I’m finished, I hope you’ll see that for the owner of this phrase, Jesus Christ, it is both, a warning and a blessing. The phrase, “salt of the earth,” has also inspired people in ways that went a little beyond what Jesus originally meant. When I spoke at my father’s funeral, I referred to him as the salt of the earth – humble, unpretentious, and just good. I also confessed that his language was certainly, uh, salty. But again, what does the source of these images mean by them?

First, today’s portion of Matthew’s Gospel comes right after the words we heard in last week’s Gospel reading: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In any Bible we have today, Jesus’ “salt of the earth” analogy begins a new paragraph. But there are no paragraphs in the original Greek text of Matthew. So hear Jesus tell you today: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”

To be salt, to be a light, is to be slandered, reviled, persecuted. But that’s not the end of the story. That virulent opposition has a purpose. Slander and persecution are not the end of the Christian life. Our enduring purpose as Christians is to be salt. How are we salt? Well, salt has over 14,000 known uses. It was so valuable in Jesus’s time that Roman soldiers took part of their wages in salt, not coins. In the week ahead, I invite you to think of all the things that salt can do, and then think about what you can be for the people around you.

Of course, Jesus refers to one use of salt when he warns us, “if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” How can salt lose its taste? By itself, it can’t. Salt doesn’t spoil. And we who have been marked as Christ’s own forever in baptism can’t be spoiled. But if I pour a teaspoon of salt into a gallon of sand, the salt will be lost. No one will then be able to taste us who have been marked as Christ’s own forever. To be the salt of the earth is to stand out, sometimes in opposition to what we season. But to be the salt of the earth is also to make good and joyful that which is bland, lifeless. Who needs to taste you? Who needs to taste your joy, or your opposition. And who needs to taste us, the Body of Christ?

By its nature, light stands out. It is exposed for all to see. And if we are the light of the world, we must shine for all to see. Is it our purpose to shine the light of truth on a sinful world? Is it to give warmth to the suffering? Is it both? Whether we see ourselves as salt or as light, there seems to be a tension between conflict and support. We must stand out from what we season, even be in opposition to what we season. But we must be tasty to those who need to feed from us. We must let our light shine on the wrongs of the world. But our light can also give warmth.

So, how do we be the salt that people need to season their lives? How do we be the light that gives truth and warmth to those around us? Listen again to our Savior: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” When you’re out there beyond the walls of the church, remember that when people see you who call yourself, “Christian,” they will be seeing whatever God you worship. What sort of God is that you give glory to? That is the God whom those around you will see.

For some, God may be the angry judge who is more concerned with who’s in or out of heaven. For others, God may be the indulgent Daddy who forgives everything. Each of us needs to understand the God our parents taught us to worship, and the God we learned to worship on our own. So what kind of God will you who are the salt of the earth feed to the people around you? What kind of God will you who are the light of the world reveal to the people around you. Ask yourself every day: How can I stand out as salt, how can I stand out as light, in such a way that it’s not about me, but that they may give glory to our Father who is in heaven?

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Let us season each other. Let us warm each other. Then let the world taste the goodness of God in us. Then let the world be warmed and purified by the light that shines from each of us.

Feast of the Presentation

2011-02-02T08:06:00.001-06:00

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it’s not a coincidence that Groundhog Day and the Feast of the Presentation (or Candlemas) fall on the same day. On February 2, we are halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The ancient Celtic peoples of Europe celebrated this day with festivals of candles. Anticipating the planting of crops, it was important to know if spring would be early or late. If the sun was shining bright enough on the morning of the 2nd, so that a badger could see it, that was a sign of spring. When European settlers arrived here, they looked for native animal to make the forecast. (By the way, Punxsutawney Phil says that spring will come early.)

As the Church came on the scene, they took this celebration of light and applied it to the Presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem. As Luke tells the story, the old prophet Simeon recognized the Messiah in this infant, and sang of the child as a “light to lighten the Gentiles.” The old prophetess Anna also recognized the Messiah and proclaimed it to all who were there.

Here is a story to warm the heart with the light of hope. Of course, Joseph and Mary were there to fulfill the Law, that every firstborn child was to be sacrificed to the LORD; for the LORD had required the lives of Egypt’s firstborn when the Israelites were enslaved there. The LORD had freed them, so now the children of Israel were required to make the same sacrifice. Except that under the Law of Moses, a lamb or dove were to be offered in the child’s place. It is that sacrifice that Simeon alludes to when he warns Mary, “This boy is assigned to be the cause of the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that generates opposition so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your innermost being too. ”

Light gives warmth. It can also burn. Light gives guidance on our dark journey. It also purifies, like a kiln purifies clay. Sometimes, we need the light to console us, and to guide us. Sometimes we need that light to purify us. But we need never fear that light. One of my favorite lines from the Episcopal Hymnal reassures us on this feast of Light and Presentation: “When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply; The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

Whatever need you have of the Light this day, trust it.

Blessing and Vulnerability: 4th Sunday After Epiphany

2011-01-30T09:00:00.000-06:00

If you didn’t already know, we have lot of Epiphany left. Ash Wednesday isn’t until the ninth of March this year. And Easter Sunday falls this year on April 24th. Easter can’t fall any later than the 25th of April. So this is about as late as Easter can come. That is a blessing for us this year. Easter will fall on the one-year anniversary of the tornado. And Bishop Kee Sloan will be with us that Sunday. By then, our new sanctuary will be under construction, so we will see the new Christ Church being raised from the old.

In the meantime, we have this long season after the Feast of the Epiphany, which might also be called the Teaching season, or the Discipleship season. On the Feast of the Epiphany, the Christ Child was revealed to the Three Wise Men, and by extension, to all the nations of the world beyond the people of Israel. In this long season after Epiphany, this revelation continues as the child becomes a man, and begins his teaching ministry. And as Jesus begins his teaching ministry, so we are called to begin a season of discipleship. The word disciple means “student.” And so we all are, students walking with Jesus, hearing his words, and puzzling together over their meaning.

Today we begin that teaching with what is called The Sermon on the Mount. I warn you that our Teacher will indeed puzzle us. And probably no part of this Sermon on the Mount is more puzzling than the beginning that we hear today, the Beatitudes or Blessings.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who know their need of God. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek and humble. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice. Blessed are the merciful, who don’t do it to others before others do it to them. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted and killed for the sake of righteousness and justice. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on His account. What sense does any of this make? What can we possibly learn that’s going to do any of us any good in the real world. What sort of self-help is this?

In this brief time left, let me offer two thoughts which I can only pray will make the Beatitudes more than an unobtainable ideal in your eyes. First; Jesus demands nothing of you in these Beatitudes. Never does he say that if you do this, then you will be blessed. Time and time again, He says that you are blessed, right here, right now. And second, those blessings are as close to you as the brother or sister on your right and your left.

Jesus says that you are already blessed, simply because you are poor in spirit. Well who among us has never come to the end of our rope and known that all we could do is throw ourselves at God’s feet? We are blessed because God picks us up. Who among us has never mourned? We all mourn with each other, and in our shared grief we are blessed. Who among us does not ache at the injustice of the world? Working together against that injustice, we are blessed. Who among us has not felt the fear of standing alone as the target of someone else’s wrath? God himself felt that wrath, and together with Him we are blessed.

So we are all blessed in the midst of our pain. Yet there is a risk in the blessing. For those blessings are found in the people through whom God comforts us, gives us mercy, and stands with us in our trials. And we only receive those blessings when we let those people see our poverty of spirit, our grief, our anger and our fear. These blessings are ours when we are vulnerable, to God, and to each other. It is in the vulnerability that we find the blessing.

It’s only when I take the risk of reaching out, when I make a connection to another human person that I realize how blessed I have been, from the Florida of my childhood, to the Carolina of my college years, to the Virginia of my early adulthood, and now to my newest brothers and sisters in Alabama. Through my joys and my losses, through those I have loved and lost, I have been blessed. I sensed all that yesterday looking out over the lake in Guntersville on a beautiful day that reminded me of the John Denver song, in which God sings to all of us:

Welcome to my morning. Welcome to my day. I’m the one responsible. I made it just this way…Welcome to my happiness. I know it makes me smile. And it pleases me to have you here for just a little while, while we open up some spaces and try to break some chains.

What a beautiful day it was! And what a beautiful day everyday is when the people of God try to break the chains of fear and shame and anger that keep us isolated from each other. Blessed are you when you at the end of your rope. Blessed are you who mourn. Blessed are you who are afraid. Blessed are you who are angry. For that blessing is just an outreached hand away.

Time to Follow: 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

2011-01-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

It was said of Robert E. Lee that he kept his heart safe from the picklocks of biographers. That hasn't stopped them from trying. But when we come to the “biographies” of Jesus, we have an even bigger issue. Jesus' biographers weren't much interested in showing us His heart. They weren't even all that interested in giving their readers a comprehensive chronology of Jesus' life. Getting inside a great person’s mind: knowing exactly where they were at every point in their life: those are what we modern people demand of biographies. But the authors of the four Gospels had no desire to paint a psychological portrait of Jesus, or to create a coherent timeline of his life.

That leaves us with accounts of Jesus' life that look incomplete, and even contradictory. In last week's Gospel reading from John, we heard one account of how Andrew and Peter were called by Jesus to be His disciples. There we were told that Andrew left John the Baptist to “come and see” where Jesus was staying. And after a time of conversation and reflection, Andrew then brought Jesus to Simon Peter. But today Matthew shows no coming and seeing, no conversation and reflection. You could easily get the impression from Matthew’s Gospel that Simon and Andrew had never laid eyes on Jesus until that moment by the sea. In Matthew’s version of Jesus calling the two brothers, there is only the irresistable call of Jesus to “Follow me.”

Are these two accounts actually contradictory? I don't believe so. But the authors of these Gospels were not interested in giving us a consistent timeline of Jesus' life. They were much more concerned with what they considered the significance of Jesus' words and actions. John and Matthew show us two sides of Christian discipleship: reflection and action. There is a time, as Jesus said last Sunday, to “come and see.” And there is a time, as Jesus says this Sunday, to “follow me.”

So at first there was Andrew, who had already left his brother Simon with their fishing boat to follow and be taught by John the Baptist. There had to be a purpose to his life that went beyond a fishing business. He longed for the liberation of his people Israel from the oppression and sin and slavery. He had thought that John the Baptist was the herald, the announcer of that liberation. And so he learned all he could from John about God's loving purpose for himself and his people.

But then he saw and heard his mentor point to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Andrew may not have been sure what that meant. But he and another of John's disciples had the courage to leave the home they had made with their teacher John and ask this new teacher, “Where are you staying?” And when this new teacher invited them to “come and see,” they came, and saw, and heard. And they felt a warmth in their hearts they had never felt before in their lives. In his excitement, Andrew even got his brother Simon to take a break from his fishing and come south from Capernaum to meet this Jesus. Imagine Simon's surprise when this teacher gives him a new name, Peter the “Rock.”

And then suddenly, Jesus leaves them and wanders off into the desert east of the Jordan River. We know from Matthew’s Gospel that after his baptism by John in the Jordan, Jesus was led into the desert, and tempted by God’s enemy, Satan. Jesus wasn’t quite ready to begin his public ministry in earnest. He still needed to get some clarity about God’s purpose for Him. Of course that left Andrew and Peter hanging. Andrew couldn’t just go back to John. But at that point, he couldn’t go forward with Jesus either. What else could those two brothers do but go back to what they knew – fishing.

Jesus then emerges from the desert, and hears of John’s arrest. The Jordan is very close to Jerusalem, to the powers that be. They have already arrested John, and they would likely arrest any prophet that dared to take his place. So what is Jesus to do? He goes north to Capernaum, where for now he can escape the notice of the powerful. And in Capernaum are Andrew and Peter, and John, the other disciple who joined Andrew in leaving John to follow Jesus, and his brother James. Those pairs of brothers, and Jesus himself, have all had time to reflect on God’s purposes for them. The time for decision has come.

“Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will show you how to fish for people.” Leave your boats, your livelihoods, your families, whatever you hold dearest. And Jesus will give it back to you in ways that you can’t understand now. Are you good at catching fish? Jesus will teach you how to catch people from falling into loneliness and despair. Are you a tailor who is good at helping people look their best on the outside? Jesus will teach you to help them feel their best on the inside. Do you help people process information, in computerized and other forms? Jesus will teach you the most important information of all: how to live in love with all your fellow human beings. Are you a soldier? Jesus will teach you His great cause of restoring all people to unity with God and each other.

There is a time, as Jesus says, to “come and see.” And there is a time, as Jesus says, to “follow me.” There is a time to reflect on who we need to catch. And there is a time to just do it. I wonder how big our catch will be.

The Confession of Saint Peter: To Loosen

2011-01-18T12:09:00.002-06:00

“I’ll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Anything you fasten on earth will be fastened in heaven. Anything you loosen on earth will be loosened in heaven. ” (Matthew 16:19, Common English Bible)

Today, January 18th, is the Feast of St. Peter’s Confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus’ reply to Peter includes the words quoted above. Unfortunately, those words have been taken by the Church as more a grant of power over peoples’ lives than an opportunity to empower people. In other words, I suspect that too many leaders of the Church have focused more on their power to “fasten” obligations to peoples’ backs than to loosen unnecessary burdens.

Of course, some might believe that Church and society have of late been too lax, too ready to let people off the hook. And perhaps unsurprisingly, much of that debate has centered around sex. A recent study indicates that increasingly, the legal institution of marriage is one that only the wealthy can sustain. In what the study’s authors call “Middle America,” divorce and cohabitation are now more common than among the richest and best educated Americans.

Why? Is it for what the authors call “cultural” reasons, a breakdown of traditional values that leave too many people with no moral reason to sustain a committed relationship? Or is it because marriages are easier to sustain when money is not a central source of conflict? And what does the Church have to say to men and women navigating through the rocks of unstable relationships, children born out of wedlock, and “blended” families with step-parents. How much should the Church fasten to the shoulders of middle American men and women?

In the Episcopal Church’s Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage, the Priest begins by declaring: “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation.” If “marriage” was established by God in the very creation of human beings, then there has always been “marriage,” in which men and women commit their bodies and their talents and gifts to each other. In other words, there was “marriage” before Christianity existed. And wherever men and women make a home together, they have, in the order of “creation,” married each other.

In medieval Europe, the Church considered any marriage valid as long as two witnesses verified that the man and woman mutually consented to the marriage. It would be valid in the eyes of the Church even if no clergy were present. And in the Book of Common Prayer, the wedding ceremony is entitled, “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage.” The people celebrate the marriage. The Priest blesses the marriage. But it is the man and woman who actually make the marriage, not the Priest.

So what’s the difference between a marriage of “creation” and Christian marriage? The difference is laid out in the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians. “As for husbands, love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her… No one ever hates his own body, but feeds it and takes care of it just like Christ does for the church because we are parts of his body… Marriage is a significant mystery, and I’m applying it to Christ and the church.” (5:25,29-30,32).

When men and women “fall out of love,” what will keep their marriages together, except Him who chose to love us sinners for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health? That is the kind of marriage which the Church needs to help “middle Americans” enter into and sustain. But the Church can’t do that if it fastens that as an obligation on men and women who aren’t able to sustain it. The Church should not fasten a culture war over marriage to the shoulders of its casualties.

Let the Church instead loosen the burden of thinking you have to be already perfect in order to enter the church and be sustained by its sacraments. Let us meet halfway those who are married in the order of creation, patiently affirm them in their relationships, and gently help them move toward the Cross, in which marriage is perfected. Let the Church be known for its power to loosen, rather than fasten.

2nd Sunday after Epiphany

2011-01-16T09:00:00.000-06:00

And so we are told that John was standing with two of his disciples as Jesus walked by them. We learn later that one of those disciples was Andrew, the brother of Peter. But we are not told who the other disciple was. Personally I think it was the disciple who never claimed anything for himself, except that he was the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” To be a student, or disciple, of Jesus Christ is not a chore to be accomplished. It is a relationship of love that grows in knowledge and deepens in love over time. And there is nothing more important for student-disciples to learn from this teacher than how to love.

At this point in our story Andrew and this other student are not disciples of Jesus, but students of John the Baptist. Even after His Resurrection and Ascension, there remained disciples of John who considered him to be more important than Jesus. They couldn't make the same transition from John to Jesus. They loved the home they had made for themselves out of John's words, John's truth. And even after John's death, they were never able to leave that home.

What had they, and Andrew and this other student, learned from John? They had learned that John was like the Old Testament prophet Isaiah who cried in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. They had learned that the people of Israel needed to repent, to change their hearts and their lives. They had learned that someone mightier and more worthy than John was coming. And while John poured water for repentance of sin, he would pour out fire and spirit in a blazing judgment of sin.

And so Andrew, the other disciple and presumably all the other students hanging on John's words, hear him say, "Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?" So why do only two of John's students follow Jesus? Perhaps it's because John the teacher's answers have only raised more questions. The Greek word translated, "take away," does have that meaning. But it can also mean, "To take up." In some Jewish apocalyptic writings, the Lamb of God is a triumphant figure who crushes the enemies of Israel who have oppressed her under his hooves. But in the Old Testament, the Passover lamb was the animal sacrificed to God, and whose blood was spread on the doors of the oppressed Israelites in Egypt. That was how the spirit of death knew to pass by the Israelites as it claimed the firstborn of Egypt.

So which is it? Is this Jesus the one to take away the sin of the world, to take it on himself, or both? Is he the avenger, the sacrifice, or both? John doesn't answer those questions. The only one who can answer is walking away, maybe to never return. So what are John's students to do? Should they stay with John, from whom they have learned much, and with whom they have found rest and comfort in their familiar relationship? Or do they take their teacher's last lesson to heart, follow after Jesus and start to relearn what it means to be a child of Israel and a child of God?

Is it really all that surprising that only two of John's disciple-students had the courage to follow Jesus and ask Him what He meant? Discipleship isn't easy. Being a student isn't easy. It means having to ask a lot of questions about a lot of unfamiliar knowledge, assuming you can even formulate the questions in your mind. If your teacher is particularly irritating, it means suddenly having to answer his or her questions. "What are you looking for?" Jesus turns and asks Andrew and this other former student of John's. They respond as truthfully as they can. They have left the familiar teachings of their previous teacher. So from their insecurity they ask Jesus, "Teacher, where are you staying tonight, for it is nearly 4 o'clock and we don't know where to go." To which their new teacher smiles and answers, "Come and you will see."

Christian disciplship is more than getting a few answers right on a test. Being a student of Jesus Christ is so much more than collecting proof texts from the Bible. It is a lifelong journey and process of asking questions, receiving answers and asking the questions that flow from those answers. There is joy and wonder in the answers we receive. There is joy and wonder in the questions those answers inspire us to ask. But the greatest joy and wonder of Christian learning is that it is not something we do alone. Come and see, Jesus promises us, and you will see where I am staying. And along the way I will be as close to you as the taste of bread and wine on your tongue, the breath you breathe, and those friends through whom the uncomfortable questions are asked and the comforting answers come.

What will happen to my job? Have I made the right decisions about my life in the past? How will I live with my loved one no longer here in body? How much longer do I have in this world? What will our church look like, and not just the building but the people as well? And where is Jesus staying in all of this? We all, lifelong disciples and students of Jesus Christ, follow and ask Him. And He answers: Come and together, you will see.

The Baptism of Jesus: 1st Sunday of Epiphany

2011-01-09T09:00:00.000-06:00

There at the back of the church, or the beginning depending on your perspective, is the same baptismal fount into which Episcopalians have dipped their fingers and crossed themselves for over 100 years. Perhaps for us Episcopalians, many of whom were baptized as infants, it is especially important to remind ourselves of something we can’t remember.

The baptismal fount in the back also is a reminder of when baptisms were essentially private, family affairs. With the “new” prayer book, the expectation is clear that baptisms are a public celebration that involves the whole community renewing their own vows and commitment to the mission of the Church. Although Isabella Henderson was baptized in Santo Domingo two weeks ago, today we at Christ Church welcome her “into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” (Book of Common Prayer, p.308).

The old baptismal liturgy emphasized that the individual was “regenerate,” reborn from the condition of original sin. In the “new” liturgy, it is stated that we are “reborn by the Holy Spirit.” For many Christians this rebirth is an event which they can pinpoint to a day and even time. For us Episcopals, the rebirth into eternal life is a process of personal growth in faith, hope and love that takes a lifetime. Sometimes those rebirth pangs may be intense. But everytime we dip our fingers and cross ourselves, we remind ourselves of that wonderful rebirth that began so close to our first birth.

At the same time, Baptism for Episcopalians in the 21st century is a call to share in Christ's mission. And the mission of Jesus Christ is to die. And even as we bring the little children to the fountain of rebirth, we hear the Priest say that in the baptismal water we are "buried with Christ in his death." Many new Episcopal churches have founts and pools where adults can be immersed into Christ's mission of sacrificial love.

And so, we find ourselves straddling different sets of poles: the fount and the pool: rebirth and burial: personal growth and common mission. Those two poles are also evident in the baptism that John preached, and the baptism of Jesus. “I baptize you with water, for your repentance.” (Matt. 3:11). So we heard John say during Advent. Many came to John because they knew they had to change their hearts and lives. As they kneeled in the Jordan River, and John poured water on them, they were washed clean of the sin and shame that would keep them from welcoming the one whom John said was coming, and was greater than he. In the Baptism of John, they began the process of growth which in time would strip the shame and fear from their hearts, leaving only joy and gratitude before their Creator.

But is that why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, comes to John to be baptized? John himself couldn’t imagine any other reason to be baptized. So he begs the one whose sandals he is unworthy to carry, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” To which Jesus replies, “It is seemly that I be baptized now, in order to fulfill my Father’s plan.” Jesus does not need to reborn from a condition of sin. But He needs to be seen being baptized. We Christians know the rest of the story that John couldn’t imagine. We know that Jesus will not cling to special privileges of his divinity. We know that He who was innocent of all wrongdoing will willingly pay the penalty of blasphemy and rebellion. Undergoing the same baptism of repentance, Jesus completely identifies Himself with the sinful human race.

So, if Jesus identifies with us in our sin, will we identify with Him in His mission? We who have passed through the water of Baptism have had the shame stripped from our souls. We need not fear God’s judgment. For when we do our best, the grace of God in Jesus Christ supplies the rest. We need not fear the opposition to the Good News, for we have been buried with Christ his death, and we most certainly will share in his resurrection.

Like those who came to John in the Jordan, we are brought to the waters of Baptism for the rebirth of our deformed souls. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of how the water of Baptism refreshes our souls, and also renew our hope. Every Sunday, the fount is there to refresh your soul. But as the household of God, we all are called to share in the mission of Jesus Christ, to reveal the depth of God’s love for all his children. Today, I will ask you to renew your commitment to that mission by renewing your baptismal vows. I pray that each of you may find refreshment for your tired souls. I pray that as we are buried with Jesus, so may others find resurrection through us.

Twelfth Night

2011-01-05T09:48:00.001-06:00

“All these people didn’t receive what was promised, though they were given approval for their faith. God provided something better for us so they wouldn’t be made perfect without us.” (Hebrews 11:39-40)

I appreciated very much the member of Christ Church who, summarizing my preaching style, called me the “storyteller.” As I said in my summer series on interpreting the Bible a couple of years ago, the Bible is a story of God’s conversation with us, our reply, and God’s continuing response. The rest of chapter 11 before the verses above is a story of the faith of Israel, as expressed by faithful men and women, who kept moving forward, trusting in God’s promise even though they themselves did not see it.

The first readers of the Letter to the Hebrews, and we today, have received the promise: a newborn boy who will become the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. But through us who have seen the promise, those who handed on the baton of faith also see the promise now, and are being perfected as we are.

The story of our perfection is still continuing, as the baby is revealed to wise men, becomes a man with a message to proclaim, and who will die to reveal the depth of God’s love for us. On this “Twelfth Night” of Christmas, 2011, we are still running the race with Him, perfecting our faith in His. Our ancestors in faith have handed the baton on to us. And yet they still run with us toward the promise, whose light we now see. Don’t stop telling each other the story. It is the only story with a truly happy ending.

The Tenth Day of Christmas

2011-01-03T16:08:00.001-06:00

The Shepherd’s Farewell to the Holy Family
Hector Berlioz / from L’Enfance Du Christ

Thou must leave Thy lowly dwelling,
The humble crib, the stable bare,
Babe, all mortal babes excelling,
Content our early lot to share,
Loving father, loving mother,
Shelter Thee with tender care!
Loving father, loving mother,
Shelter Thee with tender care,
shelter Thee with tender care!

Blessed Jesus, we implore Thee
With humble love and holy fear,
In the land that lies before Thee,
Forget not us who linger here!
May the shepherd’s lowly calling
Ever to Thy heart be dear!
May the shepherd’s lowly calling
Ever to Thy heart be dear,
ever to Thy heart be dear!

Blest are ye beyond all measure,
Thou happy father, mother mild!
Guard ye well your Heav’nly Treasure,
The Prince of Peace, the Holy Child!
God go with you, God protect you,
Guide you safely through the wild!
God go with you, God protect you,
Guide you safely through the wild,
guide you safely through the wild!

In the Bleak Midwinter and Warm Summer

2010-12-30T12:14:00.003-06:00

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

2010-12-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

“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

2010-12-21T10:40:00.001-06:00

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

2010-12-19T09:00:00.001-06:00

“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

2010-12-17T14:08:00.002-06:00

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

3rd Sunday of Advent

2010-12-12T12:36:00.004-06:00

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

2010-12-03T15:12:00.001-06:00

"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

2010-11-29T08:58:00.000-06:00

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

2010-11-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

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

2010-11-18T08:30:00.001-06:00

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

2010-11-14T09:00:00.001-06:00

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

2010-11-13T18:56:00.002-06:00

Courtesy of wordle.net, the "rough draft"

Resurrection and Dreams: 27th Week of Ordinary Time

2010-11-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

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

2010-11-03T06:55:00.002-05:00

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

2010-10-31T09:00:00.002-05:00

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

2010-10-28T14:00:00.001-05:00

“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

2010-10-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

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

2010-10-17T09:00:00.003-05:00

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

2010-10-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

“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

2010-10-04T08:23:00.000-05:00

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

2010-10-03T09:00:00.001-05:00

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

2010-09-28T16:54:00.001-05:00

“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

2010-09-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

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

2010-09-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

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

2010-09-17T14:44:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of wordle.net