A Way Through the Wilderness

Epiphany 5B. 5 February 2012.

2012-02-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany.

It usually happens around this time of the year. The festive decorations have finally been packed away, and the return of normality seems a welcome change from the hectic, though joyful seasons of Advent and Christmas. Yet, the simple daily and weekly routines that give structure to our lives can also grind away some of the luster. Magazines arrive containing recipes for different foods, and formulas for re-energizing your life, escaping the winter blahs.

I was, myself, as I seem to be each year at this time, fighting the battles that seem to be waged moment by moment against the hobgoblins of fear and depression. It never comes as a big moment of crisis, as you think it will. Despite the thoughts of some major emotional showdown between our better self and our other self, the real fight for peace of mind always takes place moment by moment in the most routine of tasks.

I have waged countless battles against the little nipping anxieties while taking out the trash, and I'm sure you have, too. It's always the neutral times. It's always driving somewhere, or washing the dishes. The brain, which has focused itself carefully on matters both trivial and profound downshifts into a lower gear for sorting the recycling, or folding the laundry.

Somewhere amongst the colors and the whites emerges that problem that you could handle from many different angles, each with its own complexity. If you choose one way of doing it, all the others vanish. Is it the right one? Well… Maybe it is; maybe it isn't.

Of course, often it's not a decision to be made—it's a circumstance, or a set of circumstances. Some parts of it you chose, and some parts were chosen for you. You don't come at life as if born yesterday. We are all informed by our past, and from those experiences come phobias and aversions, confidence and uncertainty.

At some point last year, we were sitting around the dinner table. Peter was probably right at five and a half. We weren't talking about anything in particular. In fact, I don't think we were really even having a conversation at all. It was just, you know…dinner. And seemingly out of nowhere, Peter said, "I have my concerns."

Karin and I had trouble not laughing. Precocious little guy. I'm sure he'd heard one of us say that, but it sounded so… serious. Too serious for five year old boy to say. I think we asked him what he meant and he didn't know, but it raised the mirror before our faces. We have our concerns.

And who doesn't? It is common denominator. All the religions in the world address it. For Hindus and Buddhists, concerns are to be dispelled by letting go. In one Chinese religion I heard of, they make a god. Of course, it's not really a god—it's an idol, but they call it a god.

And they worship the god. They offer it incense. They lay food at the base of the idol, or the pedestal, as a sacrificial offering. And if things go well, and their concerns are taken care of, they continue to worship the god. But, if things go south, at a certain point, they decide to destroy the god, and build another one. It's a very pragmatic faith. If the god works, they keep it. If not, they destroy it. A Christian would have huge spiritual problems with that faith, for many reasons, not least of which because we believe that God creates us, not the other way around.

But we have our concerns. Yes. We have our concerns.

No one's life runs so smoothly as to be spared from the occasional visit of the black dog. That's what Winston Churchill called it. The black dog. The worries, the fears, the anxieties. We look up to see a blank overcast sky on which we cast the little movies of our displeasure. I suppose it's something to do while we wait for Spring.

It's like white noise. Do you know about white noise? I think the technical definition is "noise containing equal intensities," but we know it best as the sound of static on the radio. Noise containing equal intensities—nothing to discriminate the good from the bad. Nothing to differentiate the gold from the sand. Just noise. It's supposed to be good for you, they say. It relieves stress.

I remember when the children were babies that we had a white noise machine that was built into a teddy bear, and that's what got them to go to sleep. We do it instinctively with the shushing sounds. They say it's the sound the umbilical cord makes in the womb, and when babies emerge and begin to adjust to the wide open world, the lack of that familiar noise keeps them awake. It takes noise to get them to sleep. The noise that is just everything all at once.

And as we grow up we begin to distinguish the niceties of sound and light, color differences, shape differences. Our minds grow. We become adept at problem solving, though each person has their own area of interest. For some it's scientific discovery, for others it's mostly aesthetic or artistic. There's cross-over, of course, but it seems like adulthood and maturity are about the increasing ability to differentiate between what we embrace and what we disregard. Our experiences shape and color our perception of what is good for us, and what is bad.

So when February brings the grey sky, and the white noise with its frequencies of equal intensities, it messes with our ability to sort out the good from the bad. It dulls the senses. It freezes over the sensors that gauge light and darkness.

Imagine, therefore, the heartache of God, who sees his sons and daughters trudging through these wastelands, wanting to wake us up—and help us to see and believe.

Can you hear God's voice whispering to you across the barren February sky, "Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth…who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to [nothing], and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble."

Can you hear it? The big shot now is like dust in the wind. The princes of the earth are like wheat planted for a season. By the time their roots dig into the earth, it's time to pull them up.

God says, "To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. Why do you say… 'My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God'? Have you not known? Have you not heard?"

Do you really think that you can run and hide from the presence of the one who created you, and loves you, and redeems you. Who do you think you are?!

In the narrative of Isaiah, this is the call of the prophet to a wayward people. It can sound a little rough, maybe even a little petulant in places; but its ground and source is God. And whether you are straying away intentionally or not, the call of God still comes to you.

"The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless."

So often we come to church and are confronted with what I have heard as "the tyranny of oughts." –the feeling we have that we have caused our troubles, and that if we had a better mastery over our lives we would not be suffering with X, Y, or Z. It's not true. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes life just happens.

Sometimes there days and weeks were it seems God is absent, and we fall prey to the tyranny of oughts. We ought to pray more. (That's the problem!) We ought to change this or that. (Of course!) But I'm not sure that self examination is always the answer.

Perhaps there can be some times when we allow our trust in God to deepen to a place of profound stillness. A place beneath prayer, where we can simply be.

"Even youths will faint and be weary," writes Isaiah, "and the young will fall exhausted." I can attest to that. You don't have to be advanced in years to nod your head.

"But," Isaiah writes, "those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

What an incredibly wonderful, pastoral sentiment that is. How glorious…to be given the permission in holy scripture to wait for the Lord.

I offer that to you, today. It's a simple thought, I grant you, but there is room for simple things. So often the pulpit is a place of challenge. Let's give it a day off.

The old Hebrew concept of Sabbath is based on this. To take a day to remember that we are creations, not the creator. We spend so much time trying to manage things. Take some time to let go.

Take off your glasses and let your eyes un-focus. Practice the endangered art of being at peace with yourself in quiet relationship with Christ.

You are not God. I am not God. We are creations of God's love, redeemed by his Messiah, sustained by his Spirit, fed by his Sacraments.

Have you not heard? Have you not known?

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Epiphany 3B. 22 January 2012.

2012-01-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select 3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany.

I remember when I was in the third grade that my devotional life took a sudden and irreversible turn. Until then, my prayers had been uncomplicated. They mostly took the form of wanting something to play with or for a particular type of food.

About once every two weeks, Bridgewater Elementary School would make these tall, yeast bread buns—cut in half—and they came with a generous pat of salted butter and a thick slice of cheddar cheese. And the first thing we would do when we sat down with our trays was to put that cheese and butter inside the bun and eat it. It was heaven. An almost sinfully addictive blending of carbs, protein, and fat that, frankly, even to this day still makes my mouth water.

There were a lot of prayers offered for those little bread buns. There were prayers for desserts, and toys, and prayers for help with little things. But somewhere along the way in the third grade…I began to notice a little girl by the name of Marissa Garber. She had blonde hair in ringlets that bounced when she walked. She was pretty.

And my prayers were very simple, but very different. I just wanted her to like me. I wanted her to think I was funny, smart, nice. I wanted her to like me. And the reason I had to pray for that is because I had no idea how or why she would.

Obviously, I had wanted to make people feel and behave in ways of my own choosing before then, but there is something about the first yearnings of wanting a girl to like you—especially when it really is just as innocent as wanting her to smile at you, or laugh at a joke, or sit down beside you.

And thus we awaken to one of the great unspoken areas of satisfaction and discontentment: the continuum of our ability and disability to influence people.

Some people make a living out of it. Lobbyists, politicians, pundits, celebrities. It would be easy to throw stones at them, but they're really just doing on a larger scale what we all do consciously and unconsciously—try to move people in a certain direction.

On our best days, we try to do it even-handedly, carefully—trying to steer someone gently in the right direction, not too invested in the outcome to be a real threat to someone's autonomy. And on our worst days, we can be manipulative, single-minded, calculating, and even willing to skirt the truth. Thankfully, usually, we fall somewhere in the middle.

Don't look now…but I'm trying to influence you, right now! A good sermon tries to bridge the divide between the Bible and life—the holy and the common. Every good preacher is usually trying to persuade their listeners that God wants to be in relationship with us.

Some of my happiest moments are when a prayer or sermon or conversation that I have with someone else can help to make the aching distance between us and God seem to vanish. Or when the Faith can be explained in a way that reveals the beauty and grandeur of our tradition.

So, yes…I want to influence you—like the prophets of old who believed that they had seen God's holy angel descend from heaven, or who had caught sight of the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her bridegroom. I don't know any effective pastor or priest who hasn't wanted to convey the divine eternal Majesty such that anyone within earshot would want to fall in love with God.

To me, the church is never just a large building with nice people: it is the gate of heaven; it is the threshold of eternity. Wherever the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments are faithfully celebrated, the Spirit of Jesus is present—sparkling in the flicker of candles, wafting like wind among the flowers, pushing deeper into the hearts of the confused and sorrowful.

Many's the time that I have wandered through the church in the long shadows of the afternoon, seeing the sunlight filtered through the stained-glass play on the pews, and known in my soul that terrifyingly wonderful sensation that God was in the air around me.

My children and I have made a pilgrimage to St. Andrew's in the late afternoon to refill the oil in the sanctuary lamp. And as we entered this (that) holy space where the only light came from that single flame that represents the presence of Christ in the Sacrament, my children and I have knelt in the physical darkness and been surrounded by a spiritual light.

I watched them in absolute astonishment as they moved with ease and comfort throughout this (that) holy space. There was almost no light, and yet they were never scared, as I once was, of a darkened church. Because they know that when you are in church, you are never… truly… alone. And because we are never alone in here, we are never alone out there. And I can't tell you how much I wish more people knew that.

I don't mean that to sound sanctimonious, or overly pious. But I'm talking about wanting to influence, wanting to compel, wanting to implant the desire for more people to fall in love with God. Like wanting Marissa Garber to smile at me for who I am, I want more people to love God for who he is.

"Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." And as he passed along the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him." (Mark 1:14, etc.)

How did he do that? That's the question. How did he influence them, compel them, move them in his direction?

I was surprised to remember, as I was working on this text, that this is the first lesson I ever preached on. The sermon was about Simon and Andrew saying yes, even though they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The sermon was okay, but it seems to me that the real mystery in this text is how Jesus got them to follow him.

Wouldn't you love to know? Well, let me put it this way… If you also want this beautiful faith to continue beyond just you and me and the lamppost, don't you really want to know? (Pause.)

I read over these stories of call—the story of Jonah from today's Old Testament lesson. God tells Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. Tell them that if they don't repent, something bad is going to happen. And Jonah proceeds to run the opposite direction. He gets on a boat for Tarshish, and by his actions he says, "Forget it, God. I'm not doing it. I'm not going. You can't make me."

And the waves kick at the boat, until the sailors believe that Jonah is causing the storm. So they throw Jonah overboard. Jonah is swallowed by a large fish that spewed him out on the beach. And again God says, "Go to Nineveh." Jonah says, "God, I'm not going to Nineveh..they are not going to listen to me." God says, "Go to Nineveh."

Jonah goes to Nineveh. "God, they're not going to listen, but, whatever…" And Jonah says to the people, "Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown." (Pause.)

That's all he says. Not a word about God. Not a word about repentance. "Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown."

And bing, bang, boom. The people proclaimed a fast. Everyone great and small put on sackcloth, as a sign of repentance. When the news reached the King of Nineveh, the King! Are you listening? The King took off his robes and put on sackcloth and proclaimed a fast. Jonah stood there dumbfounded. How did it work?

It's a different story, of course. We're talking about two very different persuasions: repentance and the call of disciples. But they both require a move of the heart, don't they? They both require a change.

I would love to know the difference between the man or woman who hears the deep call of God's love and moves toward it, and the man or woman who thinks it's just a pile of nonsense. Because it would be so great to figure out how to talk with people who have simply never experienced Christianity in all it's glory. I think about this all the time.

Sometimes it seems it's not Christianity that's the problem, it's the Church. There are so many expressions of Christianity throughout the world, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In every denomination you have people who are unbelievably good representatives of the mission and ministry of Christ, and in every one of them you have some clunky clergy and laity. Weeds and wheat. Why? I don't know. But Jesus said it would be that way.

But I can't stop thinking about how nice it would be if every church in this town ran out of bulletins every Sunday. Imagine that. And if every Church had so many people coming that the baptismal fonts never had time to dry.

Imagine if the churches fed more people bread and wine than McDonald's served breakfast. Or if every church in every town had to think about how they were going to build a large enough facility to handle the Sunday attendance. I don't know why it isn't that way.

Do you realize that even our own little church here could never really handle that kind of widespread devotion? If just one new person came here every week, and stayed, there would be 52 new people a year. That's enough to need another service to handle them—in just one year!

Yet the Church has always been relatively small compared with the general population. Why? I don't know. But I keep thinking something is going to change that. That some wind of the Holy Spirit will come from heaven and the pews will start to fill up.

Jesus walks beside the Sea of Galilee and he sees these fishermen, and he says, "Follow me." They say yes. Jesus walked through the Town of Bridgewater, when I was a boy, and he said, "Follow me." And I said yes.

Jesus walked though your life and said, "Follow me." And you said yes.

Why? I don't know. But we did. And now it's our turn to fish for people.

Can I just ask you to think about wetting a line at some point? Sometime when you are around people who seem like they might benefit from an invitation to something more... And then from the riches of your heart, you can begin to share that beautiful wonderful truth that is your relationship with God.

It's how the Church has always grown—one person passing the holy flame to the next, spreading the light and warmth and hope that is Jesus Christ.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Baptism of Our Lord.

2012-01-09T10:11:00.001-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select Epiphany/Baptism of Our Lord.

Epiphany 1B. 8 January 2012.

The Rev. Alexander D. MacPhail

This Sunday is the first of six Sundays in Epiphany. You might say it is our road to Lent, which then becomes our road to Easter. I'm going to flirt with understatement in saying that Epiphany is not well understood, even by devout Christians. We can get our minds around Advent and Lent.

Christmas is very short—only 12 days, and we know how to do Christmas. The season after Pentecost, or after Trinity Sunday, as it was in the old Prayer Book, is the easiest of all—it is Ordinary Time. Ordinary from the word "ordinal," meaning numbered, not ordinary meaning common. There is no color or odor to Ordinary Time—it's just time suffused God's love in which the church happily welcomes the Summer and Fall.

But Epiphany. Well, Epiphany. January, February, sometimes March. It's a grey time of the year. It will be time for doing taxes, and audits. January itself is filled with many meetings. We'll have vestry and annual meetings of both Emmanuel and St. Andrew's. We'll have the Annual Council of the Diocese, and the pre-Council meeting before that. And all the while, we're in Epiphany, which asks us to do what? To feel…what? Do any of you have an answer?

If you look over the readings, they all have one thing in common—they are all about the manifestation of Jesus as the Son of the Living God. Again and again, the Gospel reading will confront us with aspects of who he is: that he's a healer, a teacher, a Son, an exorcist…

Epiphany seems to me to be a season of confrontation. Not in a bad way, but confrontation, nonetheless. Something is being asserted about life, about Jesus, about life with Jesus at every turn—and it seems like the intention, then, of the season, is to convert us with the cumulative effect of these many epiphanies.

For the first Sunday of Epiphany we always read the story of the Baptism of the Lord. Each year, it's right there in the readings. You can set your watch by it. If you get a little deeper into the Christian year, long about Easter, and you think maybe your watch is running too slow or too fast, along will come the story of Thomas on the second Sunday of Easter, and you can re-set your watch to that.

Almost every year, I see the Baptism of the Lord coming from across a crowded room at the Christmas party, and I wonder what he will say to me this year. He always seems to say the same thing. So I try to engage the Wise Men in conversation—maybe the Baptism will get some more eggnog and leave me alone. But the Wise Men move on after January 6^th, and there's the Baptism standing right there, smiling at me.

And I say, "I know, I know."

He says, "I know, you know! We almost got together during Advent when you were busy talking about John the Baptist! What happened?"

So, we'll sit down together and the Baptism will tell me his story. His breath smells like the Sea of Galilee. He's got fishing nets around him, and he's all wet, and I'll listen to the first little bit of the story, but my mind will inevitably begin to wander.

This year, my mind started wandering back to the lesson from Genesis. Such an odd thing to see Genesis 1:1 on the front page. I'm used to seeing her at the Great Vigil of Easter, being read so beautifully by Richard Pence. I think Richard has read the Genesis story for the past three or four times we've had the Great Vigil—and now, whenever I think of it, I hear Richard reading it.

"In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the wind from God swept over the face of the waters."

You all know these lines so well. You probably hear them better in your mind—as I do—from the King James Version. But you might hear them like I hear the Baptism story—like an old friend who can't remember that he's already told us this one.

So let me ask you let the words create a vision in your mind's eye of the earth as a "formless void"—it might be hard to imagine, but try. The earth was just a formless, structure-less empty space, "and darkness covered the face of the deep."

I'm so glad the NRSV kept that word "face," because then we come on to "a wind from God" sweeping over [that] face of the waters. Face.

If the line just read "the surface"—well, surface has the word face in it, but surface is completely without personality, you see? There is something about the waters of the deep having a face—and God's spirit passing over it.

Years ago, I wish I could remember where, I saw a thing on television where they tried to depict the creation story—and the camera must have been mounted to a plane, as it flew low and fast over the face of dark waters. It was amazing.

And I think of that when I think of the Spirit of God, hovering and gliding across the formless void, and the face of the waters. It is a description of potential—do you feel that? It's almost as if the writer of Genesis uses those first few lines to draw back a the rubber band of suspense. What will happen next?

And then, boom!, God said, "Let there be light." And light became. The entire story of God is told from that first moment. When the rubber band snapped, and then the formless void and the face of the Spirit moving over the face of the waters… Suddenly they saw each other!

Have you ever noticed that? Let me say it another way. The face of the Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep—two faces, but separated by darkness. When God said, "Light!" the two faces could look at each other!

God looking at the waters; the waters looking back at God, and God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness, and the story continues from there. (Pause.)

I looked back at Mark's version of the Baptism of Jesus. He was just sort of talking, and I had to stop him.

He said, "What, what?"

I said, "Back up."

He said, "Which part?"

I said, "Start again with verse 9."

He said, "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan."

"Go on," I said.

And he continued, "And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice…"

And that's where I stopped him. Because I never noticed the water and the Spirit together in quite that way. Or if I did, it didn't mean anything to me. But I when I saw the water and the Spirit together again, it seemed to me like I could feel that rubber band being pulled back again. As if the story is told this way, because it's like the story of God's creation of the world.

The face of the waters and the Spirit of God coming down to be there. And up from the water comes the man who would come to be called "the Light of the world." The true light. Do you remember how we say it in the Nicene Creed? "God from God, Light from Light"?

The Spirit descending like a dove on him, and a voice came from heaven, "This.. is.. my.. Son!" "Let.. there.. be.. light!"

And so creation was new—and there was a new creation. The eternal Son, enfleshed in the man named Jesus, was baptized, and came out from the womb of the waters and the Spirit, and there was Light. "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world"—as John would say. (1:9)

This then, of course, as all things pertaining to Jesus do, extends to you and me. When we emerge from the waters, the Spirit descends, and we are new. A new creation looking back at a new creation. Because there is Light to see it! (Pause.)

Today I want to do something that may be a little new to some of you. We don't re-baptize people in the Episcopal Church, because we believe that it's a sacrament that does not need repetition. But it can be a very meaningful experience to come back to the font—as it were. Many of us were baptized at such a tender age that we have no memory of it. But even when there is a memory, there is still something about coming back to the Jordan.

If we had a baptism today, I would encourage you to dip your hand into the font as you come up for Communion—but since we don't, the Church still permits "The Setting Apart of Lustral Water." Lustral water is what is commonly called Holy Water—it is intended to be kept at the back of the church in a small dish. We have one at Emmanuel that we fill with Lustral Water (actually Peter and Maggie like to fill it every Sunday!) so parishioners may dip their fingers into the water and remember their Baptism.

Today, I would like to publicly set apart some Lustral Water, and invite you to reflect on your Baptisms. The prayer that I will pray—just like the prayer during Holy Baptism—recalls the place of water in the Genesis story, the story of the Exodus, and the Baptism of Jesus.

When you come forward today to receive the Holy Communion—it's up to you what to do. You don't have to do anything. You can just look into it. You can dip your fingers or hand into it. You can touch it to your forehead where this water came pouring over you when you were baptized. It really is up to you.

But when you do, think of it! Think of this primal experience that—in a very real way—takes us back to the dawn of time. Water, Spirit, and Light.

You may not notice it when you wake up in the morning. You may not smile at yourself when you're brushing your teeth or shaving or combing your hair—but let God flip the switch. You are a new creation looking into a new creation, because Jesus has given you the Light to see it.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 January 2012.

2012-01-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select The Holy Name.

Today is a combination of two holidays: one secular, and one ecclesiastical. It's the first day of the calendar year; and it is also—what used to be called in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer—the Circumcision of Christ. The Book of Common Prayer 1979 changed the title to the more commonly held, "Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ."

I have a friend from seminary who used to say that he wanted to be ordained on January 1 so that the ordination invitations could read, "Feast of the Circumcision and Ordination of Raymond Dale Custer." You have to understand, seminarians find these sorts of thoughts more amusing.

Jesus's name was given by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation to Mary, but, he did not receive this name until he was circumcised eight days later. The Roman Missal, which is used in some parts of the Episcopal Church, and in several parts of the Anglican Communion, actually breaks this feast into two separate observances: January 1^st The Circumcision, and January 2^nd, The Holy Name.

In the Episcopal Church we have Principal Feasts, like Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, All Saints'. And then we have major feasts of our Lord, which, if they should fall on a Sunday, supersede the standard calendar. Today would ordinarily be the First Sunday after Christmas Day.

I will admit to you that I've been scratching my head about what to tell you today. The Holy Name, as an observance, seems, on the face of it, kind of like the delicate china in the cabinet. You know it's there, and you use it from time to time, but it seems outdated. The style is of another time, and it's meaningfulness is tied to those who came before us.

Circumcision is no longer a liturgical event—at least, for Christians it isn't. This was a major issue for the early Church, because it was felt, by many Christians who were of Jewish birth, that you couldn't become a Christian without becoming a Jew first. If the Messiah came to redeem Israel, to fulfill the Torah and the prophets, then you have to join the company to get the benefits. And to join the company, if you were male—you had to be circumcised. No use accepting a Messiah, if you were never looking for one.

So at first Christianity might have become just another sect of Judaism, but then the Church decided to understand circumcision metaphorically—that it symbolized a permanent mark of cleanliness—which is how we came to understand Holy Baptism.

We do not have anywhere recorded that Jesus talked about needing to be circumcised, but he did talk about Baptism, so Baptism has supplanted it. Why then do we celebrate the Circumcision of Jesus?

Well, we don't, really. We now celebrate it as the Holy Name—and we do that because the Gospels and Letters of Paul indicate a very high reverence for the Name of Jesus. Jesus himself said, "If you ask anything in my name, it will be given to you."

It has been a constant formulary since the beginning of the Church—to end a Christian prayer "in the Name of Jesus." Regardless of denomination, country, or culture, Christians have some way of praying "in the Name of Jesus." –in a way that almost leads one to believe that there is something inherently powerful in the name.

In fact, I well remember a very good clergy friend of mine interviewing at a church, and they asked her about her relationship with Christ. The word choice was quite deliberate. "Christ." And my friend did not pick up on how intentionally they were using the title Christ, instead of Jesus. So she started talking about Jesus, and there were sudden looks of shock and horror on the faces of the committee. People were shaking their heads. When she had finished her answer, the committee chair informed her that "We do not use his first name in this church."

That's actually a very old custom—especially among Roman Catholics—to not use the Name of Jesus, unless it is said in prayer. I called up one of my mentors, who was a Benedictine monk, to ask him about that tradition: if it was an official rule, or simply a custom, and his response was that it likely came from the Celtic tradition, not to use the name, unless in prayer.

Still to this day many Roman Catholic clergy, and even Episcopal clergy will not use the name in a sermon, but will say, instead, "Our Lord," or "Our Blessed Lord," or "Our Savior."

I don't have a problem using the name Jesus, but I will tell you that there are very few things that make me as angry as hearing the Name of Jesus said without respect. When it is said casually, or as an expression of surprise, or frustration… When it is used as a swear word—that really bothers me.

The Name of Jesus is holy. First, because it is the name the Father gave the Son; and second, because the man who bears that name is the only one who deserves the full weight of its meaning. The name is a common form of the name Joshua, which means "God delivers." The Word made flesh, Jesus, is the only one who fully embodies the deliverance of God.

So when a prayer is offered, in faith to almighty God, it is ended in the Name of Jesus. And we usually add some theological emphasis by recalling that we believe he is alive and reigns with God in the unity of the Holy Spirit—One God—for ever and ever.

This formula for ending a prayer is not some kind of magical incantation—it is a recitation of the Faith—that Jesus is the one anointed by God to be our Savior and Lord, and that his saving death and resurrection are central to who believe him to be. Does that make sense?

We do not merely honor the Name in saying it—we honor the man who bears the Name, and who will always bear the Name.

When we are baptized, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit…and marked as Christ's own forever. That marking—like the circumcision literally once was—confers the power of Jesus' name on our souls. Not that God renders our own names meaningless, but that Jesus' Name is enacted, or re-presented, in us.

It sounds so much more complicated to say, but when we gather together around the baptismal font we feel it on a visceral, heart level. It isn't just water and towels, candles and vestments, it's the sacred story of our hope. The water in the font is part of the endless Jordan river, which washes over the person, and gathers them into eternity.

I like how Bishop Gulick once put it—"that the same arms of the Holy Spirit that found Jesus dead in the tomb find us, and pull us out of the water of Baptism." I'll say that again. (Repeat.) Beautiful.

I have no idea what happens to the soul in death. No one really does. But I'd like to think that when a baptized Christian dies that the Holy Name of Jesus reverberates—spiritually—into the world.

I can't tell you how many times someone dear to me has died and I have felt as if they were more present with me than ever. And something in those experiences has always conveyed to me, more deeply, the presence of Christ. –that the Church is smaller, but the Body of Christ, Resurrected, is bigger, because one more soul has come to fullness of heaven. And that something in that has expanded the Name of Jesus.

Trying to explain this is like trying to explain prayer. It's not spiritualism—it's not that I think I'm in contact with those who have died—but that, through the mystery of Jesus, I am somehow closer to them and to our Lord. Theologically, that's as far as I can go without straying into heresy!

So today, as we gather in the Holy Name of Jesus, and receive the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, let me suggest that we re-consecrate his Name in our minds and in our hearts. Let's not allow ourselves to become calloused to hearing it or saying it. Or to become permissive of it being used without reverence.

St. Paul wrote that the name of Jesus is above every other name, and that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

And that there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Christmas Eve and Day. 24, 25 December 2011.

2011-12-28T11:18:00.001-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select Christmas Eve.

To the Glory of God and in memory of The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, Minister of the Memorial Church, Harvard University

Born May 22, 1942 – Died February 28, 2011

Before I begin my sermon, I want wish you all a very happy Christmas, and to say, especially to those of you who are visiting, or returning to this holy place as a spiritual home, how grateful we are that you are here to celebrate.

Christmas has a long and interesting history as an observance. We believe that the Church celebrated some sort of anniversary of the Nativity of Our Lord on or about May 20^th. After all, there is nothing in the Bible to confirm that it happened "in the bleak mid-winter" as Christina Rossetti's poem reads. But somewhere in the latter part of the fourth century, the Nativity of Jesus began to be observed on December 25^th. It was likely moved there to oppose a festival known as Natalis Solis Invicti, the birth of the Unconquered Sun, or perhaps Saturnalia, another winter Roman festival celebrated with joy and merry-making.

But whatever the reason, I think we can be grateful that this is the time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus. There is something so very fitting about placing it in the context of the winter months, when the sky is grey and dreary, and we are all in need of new life and family and warmth. The shepherds are never depicted as shivering, but we shiver with them in their loneliness out in the pastures near Bethlehem.

The lack of a precise date for the Holy Birth is also somewhat fitting in that the time frame given by Luke's account also poses some historical problems. There is no other record of a census or a registration of the Roman Empire under Caesar Augustus. Neither is there any other source to suggest that people had to return to the home of their ancestors in order to be enrolled. Also, Luke writes that it happened when Quirinius was governor of Syria, though it is likely that he was appointed governor some years after Jesus was born.

Now, before you pick up stones to throw at me, let me explain why I think these facts are not a threat to the story, or, more importantly, the deeper meaning of Christ's birth.

The simple truth is: this is how we remember it. You can change the date we observe it. You can raise questions about how and when, and what—but the plain truth remains that we will always remember Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem, because they were being obedient to what they were told.

We see, in their story, a young family having to jump through hurdles to do what was right. And in the midst of that, we find Mary giving birth to Jesus under less than desirable circumstances. Instead of some cozy story of Mary and Joseph staying put in Nazareth, and having the baby surrounded by their family and synagogue, we find them this evening, and at every Christmas, alone, probably afraid, and the infant placed in a feeding trough.

Shake away for just a moment the cozy depictions of the greeting cards and the nativity scenes, and see them as they are: a young family, "harassed and helpless, like sheep needing a shepherd." And that is the mystery. That God comes through the womb of a human mother and is born humbly—some might even want to say, shamefully.

And so Christmas, like Easter, confronts our notions of stateliness and dignity with a depiction of the complete opposite. Should you go from here, this evening, and encounter a young family holding a baby in their arms, not knowing quite what to do next, you will see a much more realistic depiction of the first days of our Savior. Is that good news? Yes. It is the news that "lifts earth to heaven, and stoopes heav'n to earth."[1] It is the glorious news that God's ways are not our ways, nor our thoughts, his. His ways and thoughts are higher, ironically, in sending the heir of all Creator to be placed in a lowly manger.

We celebrate not only the birth, but the ironic circumstances of the birth, which altogether preach their own sermon: that God is pleased to be with humanity in all its broken beauty.

Such a mystery. Such a never ending mystery that is the person of Jesus Christ: Son of God and Son of Mary; fully God, fully Human. And by his holy Incarnation, God takes your hand and says, "I know what this feels like. There is no more us and you—now, there is only us." Even if he had never been crucified and resurrected, God had embraced humanity simply by being born and living among us. (Pause.)

In the Western rite of the Church, it is traditional that three celebrations of the Holy Eucharist are offered—once for each facet of Christ's birth. Once at midnight—or late at night—symbolic of the birth of the eternal Son, who would come to be born of Mary. Once at dawn, symbolic of the birth of Jesus from the womb of Mary. And once during Christmas Day—and this one delights me to no end—symbolic of the mystical birth of Jesus in the souls of faithful Christians.[2]

So it should not bother us at all that we cannot know the precise date of the Nativity, or the exact date of its anniversary. In a sense, that is completely and utterly fitting, because neither can we know the precise moment when Christ is born in our hearts. As with all other actions of God: It happens then, and it happens now. It is timeless; it is eternal.

When your heart makes the space for him, he will, like a baby be born there in your soul, which is often "harassed and helpless, like a sheep needing a shepherd."

And Jesus, will be both infant and shepherd—leading you like a little child to discover meaning in the smallest of things, and in the simplest of joys.

If you have never really believed in Jesus authentically … If it has been difficult to see him because the Church has gotten in the way, or because it seemed too trite or unsophisticated to believe that God is real, and his Son loves you—well, then I really am very sorry about that. The Church is not always the best example of Christ's teaching—and we are painfully aware of that.

But these things are not apprehended merely by intellect. Christianity in its fullness combines the spirit and mind. So when the candles start to be lit, and the music starts to play, you may discover a little baby of a thought in your lap. A little baby looking up at you they way you once looked up at your mother or father, seeing you for who you are, and what you hope to become. The baby comes into your life—however imperfect you may be, however harried and uncertain—and changes everything.

Like a child, he will come to ask you why you do certain things, and say certain things. He will wonder if you care about others the way you care about him.

The little Messiah will grow in you—perhaps difficult and uncomfortable at times, but always somehow delightful. And one day he will grow up, but he will always be your little boy. (Pause.)

If time has made you cynical, and the slings and arrows of life have pierced and deflated the joy you once knew—I want to tell you tonight, from the bottomless love of God—that it can come back.

It will happen when you respond to the Angel the same way Mary did, when she said, "Let it be with me according to your word." The Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and the power of the most high will come upon you.

When it happens, how it happens… That is a complete mystery, but it does. And then you will understand the words of Isaiah (9:6), "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." God's Son, and our son. So fully human as to understand and question and ponder, and so fully God as to save us from ourselves.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

[1] Crashaw, Richard 1612-1649

[2] Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Christmas, pg. 335.

Advent 4A. 18 December 2011.

2011-12-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select 4^th Sunday of Advent.

The last two Sundays we have been reading about John the Baptizer and recalling his background as well as his ministry—which are two very different things. I think it is clear from a comparative study of the Gospels that John was born in an aristocratic family of Temple priests. He was likely educated by the best teachers. He was probably expected to become—one day—a Temple priest, like his father and his ancestors.

The Temple priests were of a group of people known as Sadducees. The Pharisees were rather like the middle class—but I have to be careful with saying that because there was no middle class. In first century Palestine, you were either rich or poor. The difference is one of social position, not money, which is hard for us to fully envision, because in America, we believe—at least we say we believe—that all people are created equal.

The disparity—we like to think—is financial. In other words, money equals status, but that's not at all as it was in first century Palestine, and it's not the way it is, even still, in many parts of the world today. The disparity between Sadducee and Pharisee was not money, but privilege and position. A Temple priest might or might not be as wealthy as a Pharisee, but that didn't matter. If the two should be in the same room, there is no question that the Pharisee will defer to the Sadducee.

Today, we step aside from John; and we turn our attention to Mary. And since I have been talking about John's aristocratic background, my train of thought rather forced the question about Mary's social position. Let me ask the question that, honestly, rather surprised me: Was Mary a Pharisee?

Well, it's an interesting question. One of my clergy friends was quick to say no, because she was a woman and women had no standing in first century Palestine. While that may be true, it is still, I think a fair question, since it's really a question of what group of Jews her family belonged to.

Now, let me back up just a moment. I am well aware that many people, when they hear the word "Pharisee," they check a little box in their minds next to the word "hypocrite," which really isn't fair. The word "Pharisaical," which may not be in the common language anymore, is defined as "hypocritical," but again, that's really not fair.

You may be tired of hearing me defend them, but the Pharisees were people who really tried to do the best they could. They were trying to be faithful to their understanding of the Torah, and they did that rigorously—I think—because of the Babylonian exile. They understood the exile to be a direct result of their ancestor's lack of faithfulness, so when they were allowed to return, they would likely have taken great pains to be as scrupulously faithful to the words of the Law as they could.

Once burned, twice shy. If we got in trouble with God for not obeying the commandments and the Torah, then we need to set up better schools and synagogues, and we need to be a little more strict with our teaching so that we don't wind up in Babylon again. God had clearly said to Moses—as it is written in Deuteronomy:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (20:15-29)

I think, when the elders returned from captivity, they sat down and drew up a system of rigorous Judaism that was intended to insure that they would never fall away again. And for that, I admire them greatly. There were some bad apples in the same way that there are always bad apples—but most of them were decent, respectable, clean-cut people. I am convinced that I would have been one of them. I would probably have been one of those who didn't think Jesus was the Messiah at first, because I am a creature of habit, and resist change. I'm an Episcopalian.

So here's the question. Was Mary of Nazareth, Mary the Mother of Jesus, by birth, upbringing, and culture a Pharisee? What makes me ask that question is that the angel Gabriel is sent to her. God chose her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son, and that story is recorded in Luke's account of the Annunciation.

When I read it, I am sure you noticed that the story is very much about the history of the Hebrew people: "the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

My question is based on the fact that God is entrusting his only-begotten Son's birth and rearing to Mary and Joseph. Presumably, God has selected Mary for her health and personality, and any of the intangibles that make her an ideal mother. And I wonder if part of that list of attributes would include her levels of devotion. If she was a very devout and observant Jew, then I wonder if she had Pharisee parents and was born a Pharisee. It makes sense, because Gabriel would not have needed to educate her on what the birth of Jesus would mean.

If I walk up to a stranger on the street and say, "Wine and Bread," they might know about Holy Communion, but they might not register anything meaningful to them personally. Whereas a Christian might go to a restaurant and see wine and bread on the table and suddenly find themselves thinking about church. You see? If Mary knows the story and can envision herself as part of that story, then it places her in the column of the faithful Jewish people—the Pharisees.

I don't know. I asked the internet, which is always a dangerous thing to do. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff. In one place I looked, the author of the article reminded me that the Sadducees did not believe in angels, and the Pharisees did. So for Mary to accept the angel's word, that alone meant she was a Pharisee.

Couldn't she have just been a common, ordinary Jewish Galilean woman? If you never had to think about it, that's probably where you would file her. But there were three groups of Jews: Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. The Essenes were, relative to the size of the Pharisees and Sadducees, a small group of ascetical Jews—they were even more rigorous in their observance than the Pharisees. They undertook a lot of fasting and self-denial—some refused to get married. There is nothing in the Bible that speaks about them directly—we can only piece together aspects of their traditions from the accounts of Josephus. In one place I looked it said there have even been some scholars who doubt the Essenes ever really existed as we have thought.

We might want to believe that Mary had no affiliation to any of these three groups, but if it is true that you had to be Pharisee or Sadducee, then we are left with the inevitable conclusion that Mary and Joseph were Pharisees—and I think that's rather wonderful, quite honestly.

I think it's wonderful that Jesus's background was Pharisee, because it fits with the Spirit of the New Testament, and what we want to believe about Jesus, that he had an absolutely ordinary upbringing within the tradition. And like John's implicit criticism, leaving the Temple culture to be with the common folks, Jesus similarly criticizes his own people when he begins his ministry.

Both men were saying, "The tradition isn't wrong! Our way of observing it is wrong. We have come away from the first principles of the Torah, which are to love God and care for those who are harassed and helpless: the widows and orphans, the sick and suffering, the poor, and the despised. (Pause.)

I wonder how close to that conviction Mary was. Don't you? You have to wonder what the conversations were like around the family dinner table with Joseph and Mary and Jesus. I would like to think that there were some incredible conversations.

"I saw Rachel today from across the street," says Mary.

"How is she doing?" asks Joseph.

"Well…it's been hard. Her husband is sick, so they haven't been making much money. They don't feel like they're welcome at the synagogue because of the sickness, and they don't want to ask for help, but you know they have to buy food…"

Jesus sits there, not a man, not a boy—how old would he be? Around 10? Has he heard these conversations all his life? Have Mary and Joseph been helping Rachel across the street? –carrying little amounts of food over there. Letting them have an old coat, because it's getting cold out there…

Jacob, the cantor at the synagogue…great guy. Everyone loves him. Lovely man. Mary and Joseph like him a lot. His wife died a few years ago, and they miss Miriam, too. Jacob and Miriam always brought that special herbed bread to Sabbath dinners, and Jacob would tell the funniest jokes. Miriam always rolled her eyes at the old, old jokes. Jacob still tells those stories, but it's not the same without Miriam rolling her eyes.

"Have you seen Jacob lately," asks Mary.

"No…" says Jacob, "Well…actually, yes. He was at the synagogue, but he's not singing as much. He sits in his seat close to the front, and listens to the rabbi, but there is this far away look in his eyes. He hasn't told any jokes lately. I'm beginning to worry about him."

"Maybe we should go visit him."

"Maybe we should."

I have to believe that Mary and Joseph were like this. I have to believe that Jesus grew up with parents who –okay, were Pharisees—but who represented a righteousness that was a heart level devotion.

And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine little scenarios where Jesus would have seen the depth of love that was envisioned in the sacred story of the Hebrew people. It seems to me that Word became flesh through Mary, because God knew—long before he sent Gabriel—that he could trust her.

I have a special place in my heart for Mary. Depending on which side of the Episcopal Church's broad spectrum of piety you are, you might be more or less comfortable with her. I grew up only really acknowledging her presence at Christmas, and even then, she was pretty, silent, and on the whole, inconsequential—except that "someone had to be the mother of Jesus."

I don't really feel that way anymore. I look at my son, Peter; and I watch as my beautiful wife cares for him, and it becomes impossible for me to look at Jesus without looking across the room to Mary. She watches him, carefully, when he is teaching. She hears every word; she notices every wrinkle in his clothes. I see his eyes occasionally look over to her, as if to say, "How am I doing? Is this okay? Do you approve?"

The son looks at the mother, and the mother looks at the son. Love looking at love, looking back at love.

This is a relationship that was formed the moment Gabriel found her, and asked her, "Will you do it? Will you teach him? Will you show him the way that he should go? Will you be the mother of God?"

And she said, "Yes."

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Advent 3B. 11 December 2011.

2011-12-12T09:36:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select 3^rd Sunday of Advent.

Last week I spoke at length about John the Baptizer. I spoke about the fact that he was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were both of Temple priestly families. John likely grew up expected to succeed his father in the Temple hierarchy, which makes his appearance out in the wilderness, preaching, such a fascinating story.

John would likely have been taught all the customs of the Temple—how to offer incense—the theology of his Israelite ancestors, the history, as well as the underbelly of Temple politics.

One can see John comparing what he learned from his masters with the way many of the actual faithful knew—saw the disconnect between public and private piety, the corruption of the sacrificial system—and when he coupled that with his own convictions about the people's need for a deeper understanding of God, he emerges—much more understandably—in the wilderness, trying to bring authentic devotion to the people, wanting to bring God out from the shadowy ritual of the Temple to the very midst of real people.

I am convinced that John's story is rooted in the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament—and that he understood himself to be a continuation of that tradition. It's a tradition that continues on to this day, and we see it every once in awhile in the man or woman who has an experience of the Holy Spirit that propels them into wanting to spread the Gospel.

It happens to me, from time to time, that the Gospel of Jesus becomes so incredibly beautiful and important that I want to shout it from the street corners. But like anyone who has ever felt those stirrings, we inevitably bump into the awkward cultural reality that many have heard, but haven't really heard.

If you start to talk about the Gospel in mixed company, a.) it's hard to do, b.) it may be considered impolite, and c.) if you live in places like Shenandoah County, most people do have a cursory knowledge of the story, but they don't believe it, or d.) they don't like "the church," or e.) they think Christians are crazy. And of course, lest we forget, in any multiple choice, there is f.) all of the above.

However, I think it's a mistake to believe that it was easier for John the Baptizer. We don't have all of his story. We do not see him failing miserably with some people; we meet him as a success, everyone coming to hear him. People from all over Galilee—even from Jerusalem. But it's very likely that many people viewed him as a religious fanatic, and didn't listen at all.

That he wore the camel's hair and leather belt—the clothes of the prophet Elijah—was probably John's attempt to communicate non-verbally who he was and why he was speaking. Like a department store Santa Claus—you see the costume and you know instantly why he's there and what he wants to do.

Elijah was a beloved prophet. The narrative of the Hebrew people spoke of his return—and so it was likely quite jarring to see him. His sermon was simple, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

And as his message was heard, people felt the need to do something to respond, and so the symbolic action of being baptized became part of the experience. It was a symbolic action going all the way back to the most primitive civilizations—cleansing the body, cleansing the soul. It's a perfect metaphor, and therefore a perfect liturgical expression.

Holy Baptism continues to be the rite of initiation in the Church, but for the disciples of John, baptism was not an eternal sacrament, but a response to their inner conviction of sin and the need to repent.

John's following grew and grew. Like many of the prophets, they had disciples—people who followed John around, and formed the "Amen pew," people who felt that God was speaking through John. So the questions began to arise—who is this man?

We have been studying John's Gospel in our Advent study on Sunday evenings. The community that John's Gospel would have been written for were likely—in part—followers of John the Baptizer who had become convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. This section of John's Gospel (that we read today) is likely a recollection of the confusion John the Baptizer caused. Is he Elijah; is he the Messiah; is he a prophet?

The community of John's Gospel remembered that the leaders of the Jews sent priests and Levites from the Temple to question John about who he is. Now, remember, John the Baptizer likely grew up in the Temple! It is somewhat surprising that John didn't simply say, "It's me…John! Son of Zechariah," but that's not the point, is it?

The question is "Who are you?" And John begins by saying, "I am not the Messiah." So they look at his clothes and say, "What then? Elijah?" He said, "No." "Are you the prophet?"—which is the same as saying "are you Elijah?" He answers, "No." So they say, "Well, just tell us…what is your self-understanding, who do you believe yourself to be? And John replies with the words of Isaiah, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord.'"

Well, that's okay. It's not as much of a threat if he's just out there preaching—and there is a long and venerable history of country preachers. A man sits in the synagogue listening to the stories, asking questions of the rabbi, and he wants to say a few words at the marriage feast or the bar mitzvah. Let him speak. He loves God—we love him. He's a nice man.

The answer almost ended the conversation, but the priests and Levites said, "Well, now wait a minute. If you are just a voice in the wilderness, why are you baptizing? What is that all about?" In other words, the voice is just a voice, but when you add the baptism, you're saying that this is more than just words.

You see, they really took this as a threat to the power structure of the Temple, and the local power structure of the synagogue. If John the Baptizer wanted to do this right, he should have started off as a cantor, working his way to rabbi, and then he might be able to get away with a little country preaching. But this is… you know… coloring outside the religious lines.

So why are you baptizing, John? He didn't say why. He almost shrugs off his own baptism in a way. He says, "I baptize with water." What's that? Everyone washes themselves. You wash you hands all the time. You take a shower. Water is just water. But then he says, "Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal."

Wouldn't you love to see the looks on their faces?! Here they came to plug the hole in the dam, and John pokes another hole—a bigger hole. He says someone else is coming—bigger and better—we don't know who, but he will be the real deal.

It seems as if John is almost winking with his answer. "You're looking for Elijah or the Messiah? Well…there is someone coming who might just fit that bill…I don't know who…but when you head back to your cronies in the Temple, let them know: this isn't over with `ole John. (Pause.)

I never really used to like John the Baptizer, but lately I have been spending more time with him. At first I was put off by his outfit and diet. The camel's hair and leather, the locusts and wild honey. I saw him as a sticky mess of honey and hair. Maybe my imagination was too vivid.

But John has grown on me a lot lately. I was actually looking forward to seeing him this Advent, because of his authenticity, and because of his drive. He really believed—in the way that I think of Abraham believing—that God was speaking to him, and that God was speaking to us all.

John had a lot of followers, and he probably felt on top of the world when he was preaching and watching these people come forward for baptism. How could he not? And he would end up paying for his deeds with his life.

You remember the story. Herodias's daughter danced for Herod at his birthday. You can see it now, if you close your eyes. You can hear the laughter and wine being poured, and music and women. Young women. And Herod was pleased.

When the young woman finished her dance, Herod said, "Anything you want, missy. It's yours." And Herodias put it into the mind of her daughter, "Ask for the head of John the Baptizer." And that was that. (Pause.)

The Church draws aside with John the Baptizer in Advent. We do it because John continues to stand just outside of our community, calling us to repentance and renewal. If you look at his face and clothes, you see a mess of leftover locusts and honey—a tangled, complicated, unrefined, rough sort of creature.

If you corner him, he will tell you that he is just "the voice;" and his baptism, just water. But even that is a glimpse of the kingdom of God, which is coming after him. In the kingdom of God, "the voice" is also Elijah, the water is also the living water, bread and wine are not just bread and wine. Everything that follows John carries in its bosom the fullness of God.

The Holy Spirit is on the move, transforming everything, redeeming and sustaining, causing things that seem trivial to become pregnant with the power of God, who breaks into human history with the humble consent of an ordinary Galilean woman. We'll meet up with her next week. But until then, listen to John. See the future in his gaze, and hear the Good News from his lips.

His voice continues to be heard down through the centuries. Sometimes it sounds like a whisper, and sometimes, a shout, but the message is unmistakable for those who stretch their hearts wide enough to believe.

The voice says, "Behold, the king is coming."

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Advent 2B. 4 December 2011.

2011-12-05T09:38:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select the 2nd Sunday of Advent.

If you really want to know someone you almost have to know their family and how they grew up. I want to tell you about two very devout people named Zechariah and Elizabeth. Zechariah and Elizabeth were from similar backgrounds. They were both born into priestly families in the Jewish tradition. Zechariah was born of the order of Abijah and Elizabeth of the tribe of Aaron. Aaron, you may recall, was Moses's helper, and from his family, a tribe was formed.

When I say they were of priestly families in the Jewish tradition, you must understand that the priests were the men who served in the Temple—and the Temple, you will recall, stood in Jerusalem. It was this massive stone structure with inner courtyards and outer courtyards and places and buildings for everything.

There is no way to describe how large and how meaningful that place was for the Hebrew people. There were many synagogues in which the faithful would worship and learn the sacred story; but, there was only one Temple. The Temple was the place. The Temple was where the physical presence of God abided in the stones that Moses had inscribed with the Torah—the Law. The stone tablets were kept inside a gold encrusted box, called the Arc of the Covenant. The Arc was kept inside the Holy of Holies, which was the most special room in the Temple. Only the Temple priests could enter the Holy of Holies, and even then, only one day of the year, which is known as Yom Kippur—the day of atonement.

The Temple had a system of hierarchy that was just as intricate and political as, for instance, Washington DC. You have your insiders and your outsiders. You have honest and dishonest. Inside the system, you know exactly who you are, and who everyone else is. If you were born to a Temple priest, then you were at the top of the social ladder—you are a Sadducee. You could not join the priests—you were born one. You knew who your father's father's father was. You knew that you would always, always have a place in the system—because the Temple was too large and too important to fail or be destroyed. We will always have a Temple; we will always need the priests to care for it—guaranteed job security and social status.

The Pharisees were a different group—highly devout, very political—but for the most part these were the middle class. We almost can't see them clearly anymore because Jesus spends so much time fussing with them, and sermons that mention the Pharisees almost never really paint a full picture.

I don't mean this to sound offensive—truly—but the modern day equivalent would likely be us. I'm not saying that we're hypocrites. Not all Pharisees were hypocrites. But it's this group of people were the rabbis, the people who went to synagogue regularly and gave to support the widows and orphans. Yes, some of their folks were corrupt—and yes they got in trouble with Jesus.

Most of what Jesus did not like was their lack of care for the less fortunate, and their inflexible social structure. Jesus did not like that they often taught one thing and did something else—but they were not without merits. In one place, Jesus says, "Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees." Meaning that they were a decent group—but not as righteous as the followers of Jesus should be.

But now, as with the Sadducees, if you were born a Pharisee, you were a Pharisee. You may have become a rabbi, or a cantor, or some other official in the synagogue, but you could not be a Temple priest.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were advanced in years, and had no children, though they had prayed and prayed for a child. Zechariah was a priest of the Temple, and one of his duties was to offer incense in the sanctuary—which was the enclosure just before the Holy of Holies. People would come to pray outside the sanctuary, and the priests would take turns offering incense in the sanctuary.

One day, while Zechariah was offering incense the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him that his prayers had been heard, and the God was allowing Elizabeth to have a son. Gabriel said, "You will name him John and he will make you very happy, because the Holy Spirit will be upon him. He will turn the hearts of many of the Israelites toward their God."

Zechariah was thrilled, but doubted. "How can this be?" he asked, "Elizabeth and I are too old to have children." Gabriel responded, "I'm not the pizza boy, Zechariah. I stand in the presence of God, and I'm telling you, you're going to have a son. But because you have not believed, you will be mute, and unable to talk until these things have happened."

So Zechariah was unable to talk, and Elizabeth did, indeed, become pregnant. And after she gave birth to a boy, and it was time to circumcise him, they asked for the boy's name—although it was a foregone conclusion what the child's name should be. Zechariah. His dad's name. Temple priest, born to Temple priest, Order of Abijah. Zechariah was the son of Zechariah, who was the son of Zechariah. Plain as the nose on your face.

Elizabeth said, "No; he is to be called John." "Excuse me, did you say, uhm…John?" "Yes, John." Well, now wait a minute. We need to ask the father. The family line comes through the mother, but he's a boy, and his father is entitled to pass along the name. Zechariah is mute. Unable to speak. But they ask him just the same, and he said, "His name is John." And everyone was in shock, because he had been unable to speak until then.

And Zechariah praised God and fear came upon everyone—they said to one another "We're going to have to keep our eyes on this child. He's going to be something special—the hand of the Lord is upon him. (Pause.)

The Bible does not tell us anything about John's childhood or puberty, but look at his background. He was born into the class and culture of the Temple priests. He was surrounded by a community that prayed and worshipped regularly, and frequently. He learned the Torah from the best scholars, he learned the intricate choreography of Temple worship, its hierarchy, its privileges. I am sure that he learned the under belly—he saw the corruption, the pettiness.

I would imagine that he played with other little boys, born to Temple priests, and knew the families who were jockeying for position and power. He would have been tested and graded and scrutinized and altogether expected to become a Temple priest. Even though his name is different, even though the story of his birth is a little different than the others—his life is mapped out.

What happened to him? What happened to make him leave all that behind and become a prophet in the wilderness? What made him trade the fine clothing—long cassocks and embroidered capes—for camel's hair and a leather belt.

I think I know. I think John grew up learning the Torah so well that he looked around at the Temple system and said, "There is very little in the way we do things here that corresponds with God's Law to care for the widows and the orphans and the strangers."

"I don't see how we can expect the poor to come and pay the fees we are telling them they need to pay to offer sacrifices in the Temple. They come and empty their pockets to sacrifice pigeons and sheep, and what happens? We slaughter them, and then we have to clean them up, and if we don't burn the carcass, who get's the meat? The people who paid? No. We do. We're eating and drinking at their expense—and here, we're supposed to be helping them.

"And what about the sacrifices? David said in the Psalms, "For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:16,17.

"I think we have a problem here. I think we have some systems that have very little to do with God, and an awful lot to do with keeping the poor down and the rich rich. And what really turns my stomach about it is that we're doing that in the name of God." (Pause.)

John knew the Torah. He started at a very early age and probably knew it better than Zechariah. He knew about the prophet Elijah, who was supposed to come and herald, or announce, the end of the age—the coming of the Messiah. John knew that Elijah was described as a hairy man who wore a leather belt. He knew the prophecy of Isaiah, "The voice of one who cries in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord."

So John packs up his things, shakes the dust of the Temple off of his sandals. Shakes off the traditions and the culture and the hierarchy, and he makes his way to the region around the Jordan river. He puts on the clothes of the prophets of a bygone era. No one wore camel's hair and a big leather belt. These were the vestments of Elijah. To see him out there in the wilderness was to see the Torah come to life. The Word was becoming flesh in John. The Word of God, written in the book, leapt off the page and there he was. Is he….Elijah?

John was rooted in an incredibly devout background. The son of a son of a son of a Temple priest, and with all the learning of his aristocratic background, he shed every vestige to bring the Gospel to the average, poor, lonely people of Israel. He came to the lost sheep. And his message was simple, "Repent, prepare…there is someone coming who is more learned and powerful than I am. I am baptizing you to cleanse you from your sins, but there is a man coming who is going to baptize you with the Spirit of the Living God. You might think I'm something, but I am not worthy to shine his shoes." (Pause.)

John's message has become the Church's message in Advent. A call to repentance, a call to prepare the way for the Messiah. Like John himself, this time is deeply rooted in tradition, but always new and relevant.

It is time to wake up, shake the dust of worthless endeavors off our sandals, and reclaim the true teaching of the Torah—to care for the poor and the helpless, to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

John's background made it possible for him to carry the best teachings of the Torah out to the countryside, and made space for the Holy Spirit to move anew. We all have this ability. We have all been groomed in the Church with the wisdom of the Torah. We have feasted at the table of plenty.

The wilderness is calling. The mission field awaits. So, in the spirit of Advent, go, and prepare the way. Behold, the King of glory is coming.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Advent 1A. 27 November 2011.

2011-11-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select 1st Sunday of Advent.

I can't believe it's Advent already. How did we let this happen? I am beginning to feel as if time is simply slipping through my fingers. Of course, I know, and you know, that it doesn't. A minute is a minute is a minute. But that's not how it seems.

I remember some years ago hearing Brother Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist at clergy retreat. He told the story about an Abbot in a monastery who was known for his absolute devotion to God. He would go and spend hours and hours in silent meditation and prayer, and had the respect of the older and younger brothers.

Well, the Abbot had contracted some sort of illness that advanced very quickly, and within a month's time, he lay dying in his cell. The Prior of the monastery sat by his bed, and in time, behind him sat the sub-Prior. In a little while, the novice master sat behind him, and then the elder monks, and down through the seniority all the way to the youngest novices.

The Abbot was dying. The question arose and came up through the line, "What is the Abbot's parting wisdom?" The Prior asked him, "Father Abbot, what would you tell us?" After a few minutes of silence, the Abbot whispered to the Prior, "Life is like a cup of tea." (Pause.) Nothing else was said.

So the Prior turned to the sub-Prior and said, "The Abbot says, `Life is like a cup of tea.'" The sub-Prior turned to the novice master, and he to the elder monks, and the wisdom was passed, verbatim, down through the ranks to the youngest monk. The youngest monk thought about it for a few minutes, and said, "Why is life like a cup of tea?" And, then that question was passed through the ranks, back up to the Prior, who turned asked the question, "Father Abbot. Why is life like a cup of tea?"

Again, silence. The whole monastery was positively on edge. Finally, the Abbot responded, "Perhaps... perhaps life.. is not like a cup of tea."

When I first heard this story, I thought probably the same thing you did—that what was supposed to be serious was indeed a joke. Or that what was supposed to be meaningful turned out to be meaningless.

I suspect that many of you are all too familiar with expecting one and getting the other. How many times have you sat down to a book or a church service, or a television program, expecting something profound, and feeling unfulfilled? Of course. We've all been there.

I'm going to tell another story, but this one, while it may or may not have actually happened, is genuinely meaningful. It sounds very similar. A man went to visit a Buddhist holy man, high in the mountains. He was allowed to visit the holy man, and ask his question, "What is truly real?" And after a respectful silence—but not too long—the holy man responded, "What is truly real is what takes your awareness."

Christians don't usually talk in these terms, except among people who really pray, and who desire to follow God. The pulpit is always tempted to talk about doing better, or being better.   I recently heard that Christians don't really come to hear a sermon—they come to learn how to pray. I like that a lot. I think it's very true—at least, it's true for me. I come to church to know God better. And awareness of God is something that every Christian wants.

            Do you realize that awareness is the most precious commodity the developed world? Businesses want our awareness of their products. The competition is for as many eyes and ears as possible. If you are aware of something that you like, you may think of buying it. If you are aware of something, someone, someplace that might fulfill a need, you may pursue it. Without awareness, you can't make decisions.

            Of course there are levels of awareness.   When I work on a sermon, I can't listen to music, or do other things. I have to be aware of my thoughts and listen for the Holy Spirit. I like to have that kind of attention when I'm talking to someone. It's easier in person than on the phone.

            Have you ever been to one of these restaurants where there is too much going on? It's too loud. There are televisions on in the corners of the room. There are servers running everywhere.

            You try to focus on the person across the table, but the table is large, so you can't hear them very well, and there's a television in the corner of your eye that is constantly seducing your attention with it's light and movement and sound...

            I'm starting to sound like my dad. Or perhaps I'm finally beginning to understand why I like things to be settled. (Pause.) Wanting peace and quiet is not wishing for some kind of absence of life—but a better awareness of it.

            Think for a moment... Be aware of! The things you spend your awareness on. Are they meaningful? Consider how many things really aren't!   Consider how many things are only relevant to today, or this week, or this month.

            Now I have to be careful here, because just because something is temporary doesn't mean it's meaningless. Little things can be very big. I was talking with a friend of mine who is a lawyer in Richmond, and he told the story of the judge who refused to hear certain cases on Mondays during the autumn, because he might give a harsher sentence if his college football team lost the day before.

            But why do we focus our awareness so often on truly meaningless things? Why is it that I, for instance, will read a book, knowing that by the last page I will likely have forgotten most of it already? Why do I listen to the news about a celebrity, knowing that it has no actual relevance to my life?

            I could make a longer list here, but you know what I'm saying. If take the intellectual change out of my pocket on a really good day there's a silver dollar, but most days it's just pennies and nickels.

            Why do we consistently fix our minds on meaningless things? Well... I think I might know. Because when we fix our minds on things that are truly meaningful, it scares the living daylights out of us.

            That's why the lesson from Mark is so jarring. We feel this whenever we read something from the apocalyptic tradition in the Bible. Apocalypse comes from the Greek--calypso, meaning Afro-Caribbean music about bananas and the daylight coming. Anyone? Day-o?

            No... apocalypse comes from apokalyptein which means "to lift the veil," or to uncover. I like to think of it as the curtains getting pulled back so that you can see what's on the stage.   It's this notion that there is a deeper reality, or a more profound meaning and function of existence that we are either oblivious to, or have forgotten. The role of the prophet is to remind the people of this.

            The pastor or priest stands within the people. The prophet is one of the people, but stands slightly outside, often calling the people to awareness. Awareness of the lives we lead, awareness of the sin that infects our lives, and even our noblest actions. Awareness that God cares and sees and loves. Awareness that God is aware.

At first, Jesus was called a prophet, precisely for this reason—he was calling people to repentance, just like John the Baptizer—whom we will encounter in the next two weeks. Of course, Jesus was much more than a prophet, but that's how he first got the awareness of the people around him.

In the thirteenth chapter of Mark's gospel he describes the end of all things. A revelation, an apocalypse—the sun being darkened, the powers in the heavens shaken, and this depiction of the Son coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And the theme he repeats again and again is "keep alert, keep awake." He says it several times, "Beware, keep alert, keep awake, keep awake."

Now, speaking frankly being "alert" or "aware," or "awake" is not one of our weaknesses. In the morning I drink my coffee and I watch the news. I begin my day trying to become as alert and aware as I can, and I'm sure you do, too.

The point of the apocalyptic genre—whether from Jesus or John, or any of the prophets—is to be aware that there is more around us than just the latest news. That there is a deeper story than who said what to whom, and which team won the latest whatever. And that deeper story is the story of God's ongoing relationship with humanity.

If you read or listen to these words as an outsider—they seem foreign and scary. Maybe they even sound a little scary as a Christian! I know what that feels like.

I remember when I was in seminary, I was watching television one evening and I flipped around and discovered a rebroadcast of a Billy Graham Crusade. I sat there listening to Billy Graham, recorded in the 1970s. He was wearing a polyester suit, wide lapels. Big fat necktie. I was absolutely riveted.

He came to the end of his sermon, and he was talking about something missing from my life. –something that I knew just wasn't quite what it should be, and that what was missing was God.

Now… I've been baptized, confirmed, and have the stamp of the Commission on Ministry and the Bishop of Virginia on my forehead. I'm in seminary, for Pete's sake! And I still sat there wondering if I had turned my back on God!

Maybe you sometimes feel that way, too? Do you? No matter how long you've been coming to church.. prayers said…read the Bible, served the poor, served on the vestry, helped out here and there all your life… And you come across the apocalyptic language and you begin to wonder… "Have I missed it?"

I think that's the point. I think that's why we read something from the apocalyptic genre in the Bible every year on the First Sunday of Advent. It's like the lectionary has built in a little alarm clock that goes off like 6:30 in the morning. Wake up. Keep awake. Be alert. There is more to your life than just the news of the day.

So be attentive—as we head into Advent to the ways of the Spirit, because that story—the story of God's desire for you, and me, and all of us—is about to unfold all over again. We are about to launch into another year of remembering the sacred, profound, passionate story of God.

Have you heard it before? Of course, you have. Some of you know it like the back of your hand. But though the story doesn't change, we do. We are not the same people we were last year. We are different. So let this story baptize you again, and wash over you, and come into you.

Like a little child, welcome it into your hearts and let it blossom and flower.

"Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock; shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim…Stir up your strength and come to help us..." Behold, the King is coming.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Community Thanksgiving Service. 20 November 2011.

2011-11-22T11:23:00.001-05:00

Community Thanksgiving Service. 20 November 2011.

The Union Church in Mt. Jackson, Virginia

The Rev. Alexander D. MacPhail

Many a school child in the United States has been taught that Thanksgiving began with a celebration between the Indians and the English settlers, and while that may be true, it did not thereafter become the holiday known as Thanksgiving. President Lincoln established Thanksgiving in a proclamation on October 3, 1863. And I would like to share part of that proclamation with you now. The next words will be those of Abraham Lincoln:

The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties…others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart, which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity…peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict…

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him …[that they] fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

-o0o-

It is quite a proclamation, isn't it? You might be surprised by how intimately President Lincoln has communicated his desire that the people of the United States give thanks to God. His language is incredibly moving on a heart level, while at the same time presidential. He acknowledges the strife of the battlefield, and celebrates our lack of conflict with other nations. He says that harmony has prevailed, except in the theatre of battle—that we were good to each other except in the place of our greatest disagreement.

We are sitting in a building that has known first hand the division between North and South. The Union Church housed both armies at one time or another during the Civil War. It was owned by Alexander Doyle, but purchased by Reuben Moore and left in his Will to be used in perpetuity as a religious meeting place, school house—and the land, a place of burial. It predates the Civil War, and will likely be here long after us. It would not surprise me at all if the Lincoln Proclamation was read aloud in this place to an assembly of people like us. And as I read it again, I wonder, if these bricks, mortar, and plaster could talk, what would they say to us?

We are still, and will always be, in need of the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal our wounds. We are still, and will likely always be—by the very nature of our democracy—a land where some measure of conflict is unavoidable.

But the substance of the proclamation is not the conflict. The substance, and indeed, the soul of this holiday, is that we draw aside from what separates us—we call a truce to the divisions of party politics, and denominational identity—and give thanks to God with one heartfelt voice.

Notice that there is no turkey in the proclamation. No mashed potatoes, no pumpkin pie. They have nothing to do with the original vision of this holiday, which is simply to thank God, and fervently pray for the healing of our country.

There are no sermons preached in the proclamation. It is simply an invocation, a call to prayer. I don't want to take the proclamation beyond it's original intention, and thereby show disrespect for Lincoln by hyper-extending his words; however, I am a Christian, and I am addressing Christians. And it is therefore appropriate to bring this impulse of Thanksgiving from religious neutrality of the public sphere, and speak of it as Christians do.

In our context, our thanksgivings may be enumerated generally as friends, family, recovering from illness, God's provision of money and food, shelter, but ultimately the thanksgivings culminate and find their fullest expression in thanksgiving for Jesus, whom, we believe, is the one we should be most grateful for. For his life, death, and resurrection—which, all together, save us now and eternally.

This is a deeper story than the Civil War—and a deeper reality. Implicit in Mr. Moore's desire that this building should be used in perpetuity as a church building is a desire that the Gospel of Christ should be proclaimed in this place.

And this is the Gospel: that Jesus of Nazareth is the one anointed by God to be the Savior of the World. We believe that he was born of God and Mary, lived and died as one of us—a human being. But Jesus did not stay dead. God raised Jesus from the dead. Through his resurrection, into which we are baptized, we are granted new life that extends into all eternity. And that is the beautiful source of our hope and courage and dignity, and peace.

Many people who do not believe in Jesus have simply never heard why this tradition works, or understood what it really means. They do not know, or have never experienced the deep beauty that can well up inside our hearts for no apparent reason. They may never have experienced a holy tear on Christmas Eve, or a joyful Alleluia on Easter Sunday. Or they may have experienced those things, but the feeling never deepened—it did not reverberate into their soul in a way that changed their lives.

The only way I know to change that is for those of us who authentically believe to be willing to share what is different in us, because of our ongoing experience of Jesus. It is quite simply not enough to just live our faith, as if people will interpret our kindness as Christianity in disguise. Even the tax collectors and sinners do that. Being nice has never really distinguished a Christian from anyone else.

We have to say something. Some of us are from a time when the rules of politeness were such that we don't talk about politics, sex, or religion. It seems like people talk very freely about sex and politics now. Maybe it's time we talked about religion, too.

And I think many of us who hear the sermons encouraging evangelism find ourselves somewhat wanting to do that, but when we actually get into a situation where we are on the cusp of telling someone, we freak out. We become frightened that talking like this will change our relationship with the other person. And that it will brand us as a crazy person.

I was recently reading the New Yorker magazine and came across a cartoon that showed a solitary man on a subway, and he was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Ask me about my religion." And the caption read—something like—"How to have the train all to yourself."

I think the reason why evangelism has become such a dirty word—can I be honest with you all? The reason is because the old way of doing it is selling something that very few people believe they need. If you talk about getting to heaven, or eternal salvation—getting your ticket punched by St. Peter—you can just forget about it. No one wants to hear about that.

But if you talk about how living your life in relationship with God—with Jesus—has helped you through the loss of your husband or your wife. How this faith has kept you from being overwhelmed by the sufferings and craziness of life, people will listen to that. People will listen to the real story of how just the simple act of praying each day keeps you sane and grounded.

How you feel in your soul when a certain hymn is sung, or a certain prayer means something to you that you don't even fully understand… I could preach a million sermons and they'd never be as effective as just one non-preacher Christian speaking from the heart about this.

It's why John the Baptizer was so effective. Have you ever thought about John the Baptist? Rough man, rough clothes, out in the wilderness. He wasn't a rabbi. He wasn't someone who was taught how to preach, and people came from all the surrounding areas, including Jerusalem, to hear him talk. He was so effective that it worried the leading Pharisees and Temple priests, because people were coming to hear him instead of going to the synagogue. They were listening because what he was saying was real. It was from the depth of who he was. And people will listen when you say "This is really important in my life."

But I think there is actually an even deeper issue here. I think many of us don't really even know how to express the contours and benefits of the Christian life. How do you get your mind around it? How do you describe it?

It's like a flower that blooms inside of us—ethereal and wonderful in its beauty. It blooms, it dies, and it blooms again. As often as it dies, it blooms. It is a source of endless hope and love, and when properly nurtured with prayer, it blooms even larger and brighter.

The most beautiful people I know are Christians. To be around them is to be in the presence of God. When they speak, there is a richness to their language and their being. I don't know how better to describe it. You feel safe in their presence. You feel that God has let you see just a glimpse of heaven in their laugh and in their smile. Do you know what I mean?

These are the people who have been my mentors and teachers, my neighbors and friends, my family—some are ordained, but many are not. People who drink daily from the living water. I grew up wanting to be like them. I grew up with this vision of the kingdom of God being here and now among people like you and me.

Thanksgiving, for us, is not just a civic holiday. It is yet another opportunity to recall the deeper story, and to have that Word become flesh again. Our flesh.

If you are a Christian, I want you to think about how you might describe to someone—authentically—why you believe in Jesus. How does this faith make you different inside? And then, I hope, you will share that with someone else. If you think it would kill you to do it, just think—they'll write on your tomb stone—"Died in the mission field." It doesn't get better than that.

So, let's give thanks this evening, as Mr. Lincoln has asked us to do—for our country, for the healing of our nation's wounds. But as the Church, let us also give thanks for the deeper story of Jesus. And may God anoint us and help us tell this story so that more people will come to know and believe and give thanks.

-o0o-

Christ the King A. 20 November 2011.

2011-11-22T11:18:00.001-05:00

For the audio version, click here and select Last Sunday after Pentecost.

We have come at last to the end of the Church's year. Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, and we will be reintroduced to the themes of expectancy for the birth and return of Jesus. The Church enjoys playing with time in that way—which is often confusing to people who are new to the Faith. Yes, we are preparing for his coming as a baby, and his coming again, full grown, Resurrected, in glory. How can we think of both arrivals together? Because we are not regulated by the lines on a calendar. Through Holy Baptism, we have become citizens of eternity. We are bound together in Jesus, who is alive and reigns in glory for ever and ever.

We get just the tiniest taste of this glorious reality whenever we hear the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's oratorio Messiah, and the sopranos and tenors seem to reach ever higher with the words, "And he shall reign for ever and ever." It seems as if heaven is enlarged in our minds as every word of that chorus is repeated, "Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!"

As we head into the mystical season of Advent, we will recall themes of his coming. Keep watch…you do not know the hour. We will meet up that rough prophet, John the Baptizer, out in the wilderness.

All of these apocalyptic themes of uncertainty and prophecy, mixed with the poetic reassurance of Isaiah are like birth pangs throughout the month of December, culminating on that Holy Night when the stars and angels will sing the news of a newborn King.

The Church, in her wisdom, on the last Sunday of the Christian year, has drawn aside from the steady rhythm of the teaching parables of Jesus, to recall the person of Jesus—King of Glory, King of Peace.

Today, in every parish and cathedral—every church that uses the Revised Common Lectionary, and the standard, historic calendar of the church—the pulpit is speaking about Christ the King—or the Reign of Christ. And it is very likely that many preachers are attempting to bridge the chasm of irrelevance between this kingly language and twenty-first century political reality.

The plain truth is that kings and queens no longer have the power they once enjoyed. Through advancements in culture, access to education, and the spread of democracy, it is people, not heredity, who determine who the leaders are. And I have no trouble at all allowing that system to pass completely into the history books, except for one man. And he is, of course, Jesus.

We speak of Jesus as a King because he was born of the house and lineage of David—as Luke takes great pains to remind us on Christmas Eve. David was anointed king, and his descendents—while not royalty in the strictest sense—were still respected for that royal background.

Jesus' kingship comes through that human lineage, but also, and most especially, by being the Son of God. But we have this beautiful irony, that though his family line was of David, and though he was and is the Son of the Living God, he was not born into great wealth. He likely did not grow up shielded from the strife and sufferings of peasant life in first century Palestine. Throughout his life and ministry, he made his place with the poor and lonely; the sick, the ritually unclean, and otherwise down and out.

He walked among them, associated with them freely; and yet, by his mastery of understanding how people felt—by knowing their deepest places of insecurity and need—he was able to lift them from their powerlessness, as only a powerful person can. To be around Jesus, was to be around a king—in the fullest sense of what a king could be.

Kings should not be kings because they like fancy robes and palaces. They may enjoy the trappings and luxuries of power, but kings should not be kings for those reasons—or, as history has taught us—they will be hated by their people. They will become so separated from the life most people live that they have nothing in common with the people they are meant to govern.

You know this as well as I do—and we'll likely be hearing more of it as our presidential election campaigns heat up—that one of the criticisms that is easy to lob at an incumbent is that they are out of touch. Out of step.

For a president or a senator—who works 70 hour weeks for weeks on end—never buys their own groceries, or clothing—never has the time to watch a little mindless television… They don't know some of the stuff that you and I do. Do you remember the first President Bush not knowing about the bar code scanner at the grocery store? And it was all over the news: "the President is out of touch."

Now, some of that is just silly, but where it does the most damage is when it seems obvious to everyone that the leader doesn't know, and doesn't care. It can be understood if he or she doesn't know, but he or she doesn't care, then the effectiveness of that leader will vanish like a puff of smoke. And it doesn't come back.

The French Revolution—storming the Bastille, the march on Versailles. For years, school children have been taught the high points of that conflict in history, and what do most people remember?—at least most Americans—an expression that has been attributed to Marie Antoinette. She probably never said it, but it's what we remember when we think of her being told that the common people of France had no bread to eat. The response was, "Let them eat cake."

It probably never happened, but it gets remembered, because it's indicative of an attitude we imagine among people in high positions of public trust, who don't really care.

It turns our stomach to think of it. In recent years we have seen the downfall and humiliation of several famous leaders, most recently Momar Khadafy. I remember hearing his name mentioned on the news as a madman and a tyrant when I was in the fifth grade. When he was finally captured, I have no doubt that part of the humiliation they inflicted on him was—on some level—a need for his people to believe that Khadafy could be made to feel helpless and harassed—as they had been for many, many years.

It's what the mob wants to do. It's what brings them together. They have been held down by the dictator for so long that when the situation is finally reversed, the act of torturing and killing becomes a ritual—a celebration of what has brought them together. It's the final act and curtain call of oppression and violence—to see the mistreators become mistreated.

Jesus walked among the people—one of them in every way, except without sin. One of them in every way, except a king—a real king. A man of great power who uses that power for the betterment of his people.

With cunning and craft, the religious establishment colluded with the Roman Empire, and it was decided that all their excesses, and all their abuses, would be attributed falsely to Jesus. The real king was branded a rabble rouser, a man who stirs up the people. He tells them that there is a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Temple and synagogue—a care for the average person that goes beyond daily bread, and into the heart and the soul. "Oh, he stirs up the people. You should hear him preach. He's a slick one. He'll have you thinking that all this tradition and power are meaningless."

And so they took the king, bound him hand and foot, and you know what happened. They wanted to watch him suffer. They believed that he was the problem, not the answer—that he was out of touch.

"Let them eat cake," he said.

"Is that what he said? I never heard him say that."

"Well, that's what they say he said…"

"No…"

"Look are you going to argue with them? Are you going to argue with Rome? We have an emperor! Caesar! We don't know this man. And he doesn't know us…"

Oh, yes, he did. He knew us, all right. He knew that we could not recognize the genuine article from the fake. We could not recognize the real king from the Roman Empire and Temple priests, Pharisees and scribes.

And from the Cross. Looking down on an angry, hateful crowd, Jesus the King of Kings, under the kingly crown of thorns, pronounces us confused. "Father, forgive them. They do not know…" They do not know the real from the fake.

He was laid to rest with over a hundred pounds of spices, which Nicodemus had brought for the burial. A hundred pounds of spices. It was the burial of a king. No one had to tell Nicodemus that. No one had to tell the disciples that. Something about the way he died…they knew—moments after his dying breath—they knew who he was. They could finally see it.

We killed the King of Glory. He offered his life by the way he let us do it, and we did not see that he understood us and loved us—even enough to respect our confusion—even enough to let us do this unspeakable horror. How could he love us that much? (Pause.)

The sun went down, the sun came up. The sun went down again. Just before light the next day, distraught, tired, lost in world without hope, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. She could probably smell the spices long before she neared the doorway. Approaching the doorway she sees that it's open. She looks inside. The king is gone. Someone has taken him. She sees a man she thinks is the gardener. He asks her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?" She says, "Sir, tell me where you put him, and I will bury him myself."

And then she hears him say her name. "Mary." "Do not handle me, but go and tell my brothers, I am ascending to your Father and my Father—to your God and my God." Ascending. It's what kings do, you know. They ascend.

And from that day forward and for all eternity, we have been governed by a King who will never need to be overthrown, because he has proven to us—in the way that lived, the way that he died, and the way he was resurrected—that he will always care.

Let us pray.

Eternal Father. Thank you for sending your beloved Son into the world—not to condemn the world, but to redeem it. We thank you for the boundless mercy of your Christ, whose love forgave us, even from the Cross. Send your Holy Spirit into us anew, anointing us to care for your people in like manner as your only-begotten Son, who is the King of Glory, the King of Peace, and who is alive and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Proper 27A. 6 November 2011.

2011-11-14T12:57:00.001-05:00

For the audio version click here and select 21^st Sunday after Pentecost.

Last Sunday I joked that we were in the middle of Advent, because of the early snow. I wonder if any of you heard today's Gospel lesson and began to wonder if suddenly we were in Advent rather than early November? I certainly did. When I sat down to look at the lessons, I had to double check that we were still in November. Both this lesson and the Collect speak about the Parousia—the return of Jesus—which is a topic the Church always rehearses during Advent.

The Collect asks for the grace to purify ourselves so that when the Lord returns, we might be made like him. It's a lovely thought, and one that stands—and has always stood—counter to the culture around us: this notion that we are to live lives of dignity and grace, purity and self-control. In our noblest moments—perhaps after waking from a good night's sleep, having a healthy breakfast and some time to pray—we may even feel somewhat close to that ideal. But as the day wears on, decisions get made, priorities get set—it is clear that the task of living this ideal is difficult.

Making decisions about what we do, what we see, how we behave, it takes discipline—in the fullest sense of that word—to reach for purity of heart and mind. And again, our culture does not, and never has, affirmed that.

What seems to be valuable is experience—of any kind. To have been there and done that. If you spend time around clergy—(and I don't advise that you do—we are a deeply strange group of people when we get together!) We appear somewhat normal in our churches, but when we get together the war stories come out. These are not combat stories in the traditional sense; they're stories about emotional conflict, parish conflict. Things said and left unsaid. Christians behaving badly—not living up to the baptismal vows, and sometimes clergy failing to live up to our baptismal and ordination vows.

I don't like these conversations. They are never edifying. Part of that is because it can become a game of one-upsmanship. "You had a hard vestry meeting? Well, it wasn't anything like mine…Listen to this…" Nothing at all to do with purifying ourselves. And it's the bad experience that gets talked about.

The stories I like to hear are the stories about crises averted. These are the stories the really solid clergy tell about seeing something coming from a mile away—and through phone calls and conversations, the church pulled together, and God was with us, and it didn't happen (whatever it was going to be.) Great stories—quiet wisdom and quiet successes of just good, solid churchmanship, and faithfulness to the Gospel.

I'm sure you know what this is like. In every vocation—in every job—you've got the good and bad. Sometimes you get the war story, and sometimes you get the story of diligent success. Men get together at Ben Franklin or Lowes. Women get together…wherever it is that women get together...and you hear the stories, don't you?

With men, it's usually about needing a 5/8ths and only having a 3/16ths. That's how men talk. "He put in galvanized when he should have put in stainless steel, and now he's got problems." "Who did he use?" "Sherman." "No." "Yep…and now he's got to rip the whole thing out and start again." "You're kidding." "Nope." "Didn't anyone tell him?"

But with the really solid men—the men who know better—it always ends with understanding. Some compassion. And the hope that it'll be all right. They'll say something like, "You know, he's got his brother helping him now, and his brother used to do that stuff. Anyway…you guys take it easy. If you need any help, give me a call."

That's how it is with the good ones, because at some point you realize that life is not really about winning or losing—it's about getting to sleep at night. It's about making decisions you can live with. It's about wearing good shoes, because you don't know how far you might need to walk. Do you hear what I'm saying?

If you do, then you will like the Gospel lesson. The wise and foolish bridesmaids. This parable would have been much easier for Matthew's church to understand, but wedding customs are very different now—so it seems a little strange.

Whenever you read of Jesus talking about weddings, he's almost always talking about his return. It was the custom that a man and woman be betrothed for a period of time before they are married. That time of betrothal is a time of preparation. The man is preparing a house to receive his bride. The bride is preparing herself to be married.

It was a very anxious time, just like engagement is now. Everyone is excited for the couple. The couple is excited, the community, the family, everyone is excited. But here's the wrinkle. The man does not decide when he gets to take his wife. The man's father—the father of the groom—gets to decide when the man is mature enough and ready to married.

So you see how this carries over into our theology of the return of Jesus? The Revelation to John uses this metaphor heavily. The Church is the bride, Jesus is the groom. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, and the Father will one day send the Son to claim the Church like a bride. While Jesus is preparing the place, we are meant to prepare ourselves. And we do that by purifying ourselves (as the Collect reads) so that we may be made like him when he comes again.

Now for the purposes of this parable, Jesus has changed the metaphor a little. Instead of the Church being the bride, he speaks of the Church as a group of bridesmaids—some wise and some foolish. They are waiting for the return of the groom to claim his bride, and the wise have plenty of oil for their lamps, and the foolish do not.

So the groom comes at night. "At an unexpected hour." And the wise ones have enough oil to see their way to the party. The foolish ones run out of oil and can't find their way. They try to buy oil, but it's night, the stores are closed, and door to the party is locked.

If you ask the question, why didn't the groom or the wise bridesmaids help them out—that's a good question!—but it's beside the point. The point is that the wise ones were prepared to wait. And this would likely have been a timely parable for Matthew's community to hear.

Matthew's Gospel was written about thirty years after Jesus ascended into heaven—and thirty would have been a respectable lifespan for an average person. Matthew's community, along with other Christian communities, were likely beginning to ask the question, "How long will it be until Jesus returns?" It is a question that you still hear from earnestly devout Christians. And one of the answers seems to be contained in this parable: It may be awhile. You need to be prepared to wait.

Being prepared is having enough oil—in this parable. What is the symbolism there? I'm not exactly sure. Enough faith? Enough acts of devotion and charity? I don't know. All of the above, maybe? I don't know.

In my life, I have heard a lot of churchy language about this, but it all seems so stale to me that I'm not sure I know what it means. It seems to me that the oil is something a little deeper than faith. Faith is kind of a given in the parable. I mean, even the foolish bridesmaids have faith. They're out there waiting, too.

What separates them is a reserve of…what? It's a kind of energy. It's a vision, and a slow burning kind of energy that doesn't just run out. (Pause.)

As many of you know, Bishop David Jones, our Bishop Suffragan is retiring after next year's Annual Council. Bishop Jones has served our diocese elegantly in that role since June of 1995. At our clergy retreat of this past month, Bishop Shannon asked him to speak, and I would have thought that Bishop Jones would spend his time talking about the changes in the Diocese of Virginia. I was almost expecting a "war story" or two, but he didn't do that.

Instead, with the clergy sitting in rapt attention, he renewed in us the call of Jesus to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel." Those words will always mean just a bit more to those of us who graduated from Virginia Seminary, as they are the words painted in large letters in the chapel that burned on October 29^th of last year.

I cannot explain to you the depth of coming to Morning Prayer everyday in that chapel. Standing up for the Venite, and seeing those words, "Go Ye Into All the World And Preach the Gospel." The very building itself is telling you "Get out there." Worship, pray…fine, great. But then GET OUT THERE. Preach the Gospel.

Bishop Jones is retiring, but his strength and vigor for the Gospel has never weakened, because he has cultivated it. He has stretched his life into it—stretched his faith into it. He has stretched clergy into it—never letting us rest on our "war stories," never being content to believe that just because it's hard, that we can't make progress for the kingdom of God.

I am talking about something that is a rich substance in heart and soul of an authentic Christian. It is deeper than faith. It is so deep that it assumes faith. It can't imagine life without faith in Christ.

I don't know what this substance might be called. It's not just perseverance. It's not just tenacity or drive. But it's this kind of oil that keeps the faith burning.

And it shows up in people who spend their lives in relationship with God. People who don't mind sharing with others that this relationship goes into every corner of their lives—how they make decisions about money, where to go, what to do, whom they spend time with, books they read…

These are the people for whom Baptism doesn't just mean a nice service on a nice day—it means now. Now. Now. Now. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." Go and do, sit and pray, but then go and do. (Pause.)

Life is not about winning and losing, it's about doing what gives life structure and meaning and dignity. The groom will come when the groom comes, and we'll keep after it. We'll keep going.

Today (at St. Andrew's) we baptize Mary Claire Belyea. In this Sacrament, the Church takes a deep breath with this new life. A new light for Christ in a dark world. As you see the water coming over her head, I want you to pray for the Holy Spirit's presence and power. And I want you to pray that she may not just develop the faith in Christ, but that she may develop a deep well of this oil—this slow burning oil that will one day give her the energy to carry the Gospel of Jesus deeply into the world. Pray that she may not think of life as winning and losing, but as properly spent with dignity and service and honor.

And pray that we will all be effective examples of that for her, and for each other, until Christ comes again.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

As I saw the images of Moammar Gadhafi

2011-10-24T14:45:00.001-04:00

being bullied in the moments before he was executed, my mind did not see what was literally happening. Instead, the images seemed to me to be so close to depictions of Jesus in the moments leading up to his crucifixion. I did not see a dictator or tyrant. I saw a man--bloody, near death, humiliated, scorned, and scared. And again, I thought of quite another man.

Did we need to see that? Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "we" and "need." The answer is a flat no, if you were born, raised, and have always lived in America. The answer may be yes if you were born and raised in Libya. Maybe you needed to see this human being be belittled so that you could be sure he could recognize himself as a human being before he died. But did you, really?

No, Gadhafi was not like Jesus in the way he lived. But Jesus allowed himself to become very much like Gadhafi in the way that he died. And if you've ever wondered if Jesus really does know what it is like to experience the totality of human life--look no further.

I would like to believe--and you can certainly disagree--but I need to believe that in those last few moments before Gadhafi was killed, Jesus spread his light in the darkness again. I believe that it's possible that the horror of love pierced the darkness and ignorance of that life--poorly lived--and said, "Truly I tell you...today...you will be with me in Paradise."

The Jesus I know would say that.

Proper 24A. 16 October 2011.

2011-10-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 18^th Sunday after Pentecost.

I remember when I was in college that I somehow came across a book—I think it was a history book, but I'm not exactly sure now. I don't remember the actual title of the book, but it was second titled, "The Age of Anxiety." I don't believe it was the poem by W. H. Auden by the same title, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. Nor was it the symphony of Leonard Bernstein that the poem inspired—which then also inspired the ballet by Jerome Robbins.

"The Age of Anxiety," as that era is called by historians, means Europe during the 1920s, or more generally the early part of the twentieth century. I was probably reading this book as part of a survey course in western civilization—and when I say I was reading it, I cannot guarantee that I, in fact, read the book. I can say that the book was in my presence—in my dorm room. It spent anywhere from three to five days cohabitating with other books near me, and I may or may not have read parts of it in connection with an assignment.

I can say with absolute certainty that I absorbed that part of the title which brought the book to my mind— and that that title attached itself to my soul in the way that disturbing things often do.

The title sits on my mental bookshelf, along with a handful of other images and thoughts that try to keep me from falling asleep at night. I keep it next to Elie Wiesel's classic book Night in which he recounts his experiences surviving life in a concentration camp. I keep it with memories of being about seven or eight, when in the middle of the night a firefighter pounded on the door of our house, and explained that we needed to evacuate, because a gas leak had been discovered somewhere on the block.

The Age of Anxiety. (Pause.) Again, Europe during and after the Great War, and World War II, which was the source of unprecedented trauma for the cultures of all the countries affected by it. The philosophical and theological movements that were part of the early twentieth century either explicitly or implicitly responded to the trauma of those years.

We cannot calculate the change in our religious culture that stems from the minds of Einstein, Nietzsche, Bonheoffer, Jung, Freud, Eliot, Proust, Pound. It was, I believe, the theologian Paul Tillich who wrote: "Today it has become almost a truism to call our time an age of anxiety."

If you look at the art and culture of the late 1800s and early, early 1900s, you will notice the almost sublime innocence of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras in England. The church composer William Harris wrote that majestic choral setting of Edmund Spenser's poem, "An Hymne of Heavenly Beautie."

If you read the liner notes from the Cambridge recording it reads, that the song "seems to evoke with infinite nostalgia the vanished Edwardian England of Harris's own youth: a world where the sun always shone, mellow and golden, through the cathedral windows, where life was secure, leisured and elegant (for the fortunate few) and, above all, where there was no inkling of the cataclysmic World War to come." The Age of Anxiety. (Pause.)

I always associate that phrase with the second title of that book that sits on the shelf in my mind. Occasionally, I will pull this book down from its perch and thumb through the pages. They are all blank. I don't remember a single word, but I can project onto the blank pages my own recollections of what I've been taught, and I imagine black and white photos of war torn Europe.

As my thumb flips deeper and deeper into the book, the photos become more familiar, as I see some of the men and women who were beginning to retire when I was a child. Soft, kind, white-haired men in polyester suits, and women who still wore hats and gloves to church and talked about gardens and canning. They lived through the Age of Anxiety. I see the little white flowers on their dresses, and their sturdy black leather clunky shoes.

I thumb through that book until the pages run out, and then I put it back up on the shelf, and stare at the cover. And whenever I do, I can't help thinking about the sheer poignancy of that title.

Yes, that was an age of anxiety—but is it shortsighted, or even (at worst) disrespectful to call it The Age of Anxiety.

It seems to me that the world has never known a time when "the sun always shone mellow and golden through the cathedral windows," or "where life was secure, leisured and elegant…" It may have seemed that way to a privileged few in every age, for a time, and it will always seem that way when you visit that beautiful elegant lady who lives just up the street, whose name is Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a sweet, sweet woman. I love her dearly. She wears these beautiful sundresses and is always happy to receive you. Somehow it is always autumn at her house, and it is always afternoon, getting on toward evening. She will invite you to sit on her back porch with a glass of iced tea, and you can stare up through the yellow and gold leaves on the trees in her backyard.

I love Nostalgia. I visit her all the time, and I'm always happy when I do, because she can take the most awful experience and filter it through an uncritical appreciation of how little we knew, and how much we hoped. She can squeeze a seemingly meaningless interaction when I was twelve years old into a syrup of sentiment that makes me realize how impossible it is to live my life to the fullest. No… You have to look back to see the beauty.

Nostalgia waves her air brush over the roses to make them drip with dew. She gilds every casual remark with a tinge of melancholy. She drops the soft words that fell from our parents lips into the wells of our memory, until the ripples become tears falling one by one. (Pause.)

She doesn't know this, of course, but after I visit Nostalgia… After the iced tea, after the spell of her company has faded… As I'm walking, or driving home, I catch sight of the book again, "The Age of Anxiety," and again, I wonder…isn't every age an age of anxiety?

Isn't there always something to life that keeps us from the idyllic sort of peace that we imagine could be ours, if only… Is it because we are Americans that we do this? Is it because we believe, somewhere beyond all the fuss and fury of this temporal existence, there is a real America that is happy, peaceful, prosperous, and blessed, if only this and this and this and this were different?

Well, maybe…but we cannot change this and this and this. We have always been trying, though. Human beings in every age have tried to get some kind of mastery over each other and over the future. We depend on some measure of control, or we'd go crazy. But what would it be like if we really did have to start again? What if our society had to start over, and even shrug off the nationality and geography that gives our lives a context?

The Hebrew people found themselves out in the wilderness. No more slavery, yes…but no more Egypt with its wealth and power. And Moses prays, and prays, and prays… He was anxious about the future. There was no game plan beyond the voice of God within him. And he was looking for help. Someone else.

He prays to God, "See, you have said to me, `Bring up this people'; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, `I know you by name,' and that I have found favor in your sight." Look God, these are your people. I'm trying to do what you've asked me to do. It's just you and me, here. I need more to go on.

Talk about an age of anxiety. There was no safety net. No hospital, grocery store, or bank. There was nothing but desert, and people, and faith that life was, eventually, going to be better. Moses wanted someone to be with him. Someone to help him along and take away some of the anxiety.

It is a prayer that comes from the deepest place of human need. It goes all the way back to the child holding on to the parent's hand in a new place. These people look nice enough, but who knows? Mommy needs to go now; Daddy needs to get to work. It's time for you to play with the other children. No, no, no…not yet. Not yet. Stay here. I have to go. Will someone be with me? Yes. But daddy has to go…

That's how we have to answer our children, but that's not how God answers that need—that fundamental need for someone to be there. Instead God says, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." In the Hebrew "my presence" is closer in meaning to "my face" will go with you. My being… I am.

And that is the fundamental answer that God gives to every child crying out for help, I am. I am here. I will go with you.

Every age is an age of anxiety. At certain points along the way we all stare up at the sky and wonder, with the Psalmist, "What is a man that thou art mindful of him?" Are you really up there, God? Will you not send someone with us to help ease the loneliness and to take away the anxiety?

God said, "I will be with you." And God has always been there for those who have eyes willing to see him. He has been there in the faith of Moses. He has been there through all the prophets and sages in ages past.

And the Word became flesh. God is there eternally and perfectly in Jesus—who, by the power of the Holy Spirit is present within the Church.

You and I have been placed among people who know both the anxiety of living amidst adversity, and the faith that God is going to be there through it all. This is the exodus from Egypt. This is the exile and return. This is cross and resurrection. The holy hope and faith that makes us who we are.

We are the people of God.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

"People who are really humble

2011-10-05T13:49:00.001-04:00

who know themselves to be earth or humus--the root from which our word "humble" comes--have about themselves an air of self-containment and self-control. There is no haughtiness, no distance, no sarcasm, no put downs, no airs of importance or disdain. The ability to deal with both their own limitations and the limitations of others, the recognition that God is in life and that they are not in charge of the universe brings serenity and hope, inner peace and real energy. Humble people walk comfortably in every group. No one is either too beneath them or too above them for their own sense of well-being. They are who they are, people with as much to give as to get, and they know it."

Sister Joan Chittister, OSB from Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, pg. 64.

Proper 22A. 2 October 2011.

2011-10-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 16^th Sunday after Pentecost.

I try not to do this too often, but I want to tell you a little story about my daughter, Maggie. Maggie is three years old. And like Peter, being the child of two Episcopal priests, she doesn't stand a chance of being "normal." Every little book that comes close to the size and thickness of The Book of Common Prayer is called a prayer book or a Bible. And she will carry it around, periodically opening it, and singing from it, or mumbling as if in prayer.

It will therefore come as no surprise to you that occasionally she decides to hold revival meetings in her room. Just the other week I came back from my run and was heading off to the shower, and discovered an entire congregation of some of the local stuffed animals—every head bowed, and every eye closed.

Every once in awhile, Maggie will announce that she will be leading Morning Prayer, in her room, and will ask us to come. Karin and I will go to her room, and Maggie will sing a little song, and then announce that she is ready to deliver her sermon.

Now, you must understand that she is very traditional. In the synagogue, it was the custom for the prophet or the rabbi to sit to teach. Maggie will pull out a little chair and sit down to preach.

I am about to offer you the entire sermon from a couple weeks ago. It has been very much on my mind, and I hope that it will be meaningful to you, too. Maggie said, "God is everywhere, and God loves us." That's it.

She may have heard this from Barbara Collins in Sunday school. She may have heard it from her teachers at either the Presbyterian preschool, or the Methodist day care. I am not kidding when I say that this may have come out of her own heart and spirit and mind through whatever processes of discernment she is capable of at her age. I mean that sincerely, because I was Maggie's age when I first believed I should seek ordination. The spirituality of children can be both cute and serious.

It has long been said that children are the church of tomorrow, but I have always liked how Bishop Lee would correct that expression to say that children are also the church of today.

But back to Maggie's sermon. After the power of the cuteness has faded—you and I are left with the theological profundity contained in that single—though compound—sentence. "God is everywhere, and God loves us."

Technically, Maggie's sermon is an aphorism, or a proverb. The structure is two simple declarative sentences: Subject, Verb, Adverb (God is everywhere), then Subject, Verb, Noun, (God loves us), which are linked by a comma, and the conjunction "and."

She has yet to learn how to illustrate her ideas with parable, symbolism, or rhetorical devices, the absence of which only serves to make her statements more powerful. Though she did not make eye contact with either Karin or me, and while her voice did not carry the message with gravity and force, the simplicity of her language, but the depth of her theology made me feel that I was at the Altar of God. And Karin and I looked at each other—stunned and amused in equal amounts—and realized, in a way we had not yet fully believed, that the Holy Spirit is not just for grown-ups.

I wonder if you realize how counter-cultural, and indeed, even subversive her sermon is. Maggie said that God is everywhere. You don't have to be a Christian to believe that. You can be a devout Jew, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, and believe that God is everywhere. You can ask people directly if they believe that God is everywhere, and I would be willing to bet that most people would say they agree. But if you were to get into people's minds—if you were able to get deeply into the consciousness of even people like us who go to church!—and ask the question…. For REAL. Do you believe that God is everywhere? I think that most people—truthfully—would say "Well…uhm…hmm..?"

I think we want to believe it. In our best moments, we probably do believe it. But I'm pretty sure that most of the time there is an asterisk next to the "yes," which leads down to a footnote that has a question mark at the end of it. (Pause.) And that is nothing new in the fabric of Christianity, and in the fabric of common life in this country.

It continues to shock many devout Christians that the founding fathers of the United States of America were mostly Deists. They were culturally part of the Church, but the spiritual contours of this country were such that many believed that God was like a divine clockmaker who created the world and then wound it up like an eight day clock, and let it go. God then observes his creation from a distance, intervening only in moments of great necessity, or perhaps not even then. "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."

God is at a distance, looking on, listening to prayers, but staying out of the way. It is possible to think of God in that way while reading today's Gospel lesson—the allegory of the wicked tenants. The landowner builds a vineyard and appoints it beautifully with everything necessary for a healthy and prosperous business. God leases it out to tenants, whose job is to tend the vineyard and return the produce. When the harvest time comes, the landowner—from a distance—sends his slaves to collect the produce, but the tenants beat the slaves and send them away. It happens again and again, until finally, the landowner sends his son.

Now, it may be that the tenants think that the landowner is scared to come on his own. They've beaten up everyone, surely they can beat up the landowner. So when the son comes, they think, let's kill the son. The landowner is too scared to come on his own. With the son dead, he will surely be too sad and scared to come on his own. So they kill the son.

And Jesus asks the Pharisees who are listening, "What will the landowner do?" And they respond, "He will put those tenants to a miserable death, and give the vineyard to more faithful tenants." And Jesus says, "Haven't you read Psalm 118? `The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that returns the fruit of the kingdom."

Do you really believe that God is everywhere? Do you, in your heart of hearts, really believe that God is truly everywhere, and able to see what you've done and haven't done, and doesn't care that you've been enlarging your own sense of importance at the expense of the people you are here to serve?

Or do you believe that God has simply wound up the clock and let you do whatever you want, and is too scared and feckless to come to you for an account? With this story, Jesus is able to cut right down between the flesh and the bone, between what the Pharisees say or think they believe, and how their behavior lives it out.

It's a rough parable. Actually, it's an allegory. And if it were only suited to the scribes and Pharisees, it would let us off very easily. But it's not. These parts of the New Testament were not written to preserve the frustrations of Jesus at the behavior of the religious establishment in his day—they were written to the church—painful as that idea may be.

Painful to think that Matthew took down this lesson, and said, "Okay Church, let's always remember and never forget what this looks like, and what Jesus said about this manner of infidelity. Let us never delude ourselves in only saying that we are accountable to God, because God sees and knows and cares, but let us make sure that our actions bear it out."

That is first part of Maggie's sermon, you see? "God is everywhere." God does indeed care, very deeply, when he sees the mistreatment of his creation, by the people who call themselves "the faithful."

But thankfully, Maggie's sermon has a second part. God loves us. And that is the more positive side of this allegory.

The vineyard is precious to God. Far too precious to be ignored, or to be left in the hands of those who only call themselves faithful, but are truly unfaithful. The vineyard, and the produce of the vineyard are worth so much, that God is willing to send messengers.

Classically, of course, this is understood as the prophets, and the Old Testament fathers and mothers who continue to serve as icons of faithfulness in the story of God's relationship with us. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, David, Solomon, Joshua, Ruth, Naomi, Isaiah, Micah, Elijah, Elisha. People whose faithfulness—even to this day—challenges us to greater devotion. Again and again, God sends the Holy Word of comfort and peace, compassion and healing—God's presence with and for the creation he so deeply loves.

God did not come on his own—he sent angels: messengers. Did you know? Did you know that in Greek and Hebrew the word "messenger" is the word "angel." In Greek it's άγγελος, and in the Hebrew it's ךלאמ (mehLAkh). Angels—when mentioned in the Bible—are understood as coming from God, and they are thought of and depicted in art as spiritual beings. But the raw sense of the word is just "messenger." They do not speak their own Word, they speak the Word of God.

And the Word of God came down through these messengers—these people who believed in God and believed that the only life worth living was to be in relationship with God. The Word of God was taking flesh in them, though imperfectly. They had their faults; they wanted to be able to be better examples of what they taught, but they kept going. The vineyard was tended all along the way by these beautiful people, and the beautiful message of hope and salvation they offered.

Yet, again and again those messengers were mistreated, ignored, derided, or they simply self-destructed. Finally, God sent his son, thinking: Surely they will respect my son. And so the Word became flesh for real. And lived among us. Pitched his tent beside our tent. And God was in our midst. The message and the messenger are one. God from God, light from light. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.

"He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…" (John 1:10-12)

And you know the story. The Cross, the shame, the Resurrection and Ascension. And the message still goes forth. The stone that was rejected has become the cornerstone. Jesus, the Word made flesh, is and will always be, the Way, the Truth and the Life. (Pause.)

St. Matthew, when he was writing his Gospel, probably never envisioned the Church being passed along for 2000 years through other messengers. He may have seen one or two come along before he died. I'm almost certain he believed when he was being martyred in Ethiopia that Christ would be coming tomorrow or surely the day after. But I know he is pleased that what he preached and taught and lived, continues to be preached and taught and lived. By you, and me.

It is so simple that even a three year old girl, barefooted, sitting on a Mickey Mouse chair… Not even making eye contact, and the message is still powerful. Do you remember her sermon?

"God is everywhere, and God loves us."

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Proper 20A. 18 September 2011.

2011-09-19T15:08:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 14^th Sunday after Pentecost.

As you know, I don't really like to bring the latest news into the pulpit. Part of that is because I believe that the preacher should not be reactive to the turmoil of the world. Too often social commentary sounds like politics; and I am not a politician, nor am I qualified to speak meaningfully about such things.

Jesus did not speak about the Roman Empire in grand, sweeping critique—he spoke about basic human interactions. He saw the behavior of an entire society in the Pharisees' hypocrisy, in plight of widows, and outcastes. I suppose that is also part of why I don't tackle the news of the day. It is too easy to over-generalize, and then hold everyone hostage to my own prejudices—leaving you to either agree or disagree with me—which in turn places us all in a very awkward position to receive the Holy Communion together.

Imagine for a moment going to someone's house for dinner, and before the meal is served, you have to have to listen to your host say things you disagree with. Eating the meal almost seems like saying you agree with them.

If I were to speak generally about our society—in a way that is as non-political as I would like—I would say that we consistently struggle with inequality—which is nothing new, of course. In many parts of our world inequality is as accepted as the air we breathe, but in this country—in the United States—inequality seems much more appalling because we believe that we are all created equal by God. That fundamentally, we are all equal. And I think as democracy has spread to much of the world, it has continued to reveal inequality.

I was having a conversation recently with a man who was working on our house. He took out his hammer and drew imaginary lines on the floor to indicate where people lived in Winchester. He was trying to say that there were people who thought too highly of themselves and they lived over here. And there are people who are just regular people—and he was surely speaking of himself—who lived over here.

There was tone to his voice that indicated sadness at general inequality, but of course, when you feel yourself to be on the lesser side, there is an edge to it. I was uncomfortable by the conversation, because, despite the ways that the Episcopal Church has, in many ways come a long way from its past snobbery, when I say "Episcopal priest" I am sometimes considered to be in the category of "the people who live over here." And that bothers me, quite honestly.

But my sense of our current struggle is the disparity in our access to power—whether that be jobs and money, or politics, or a sense of place in our country. And with that perceived lack of power come reactions of anger and depression. We see it all over the world, especially in the Middle East over the last several months. People who feel like they don't have a say may become so angry that they and become indiscriminately violent toward strangers.

We hear from the media that our own political system has become so ineffective and rancorous that the government no longer works. Yet, money keeps getting thrown at whomever people feel should win the fight—which only encourages more fighting.

The inequality of access to money and goods is very much on people's minds. The new numbers on poverty just came out a week or so ago. There are a lot of people who are out of work, who want to work. A lot of people in our area are hungry, and needing help—but may be too proud to ask for it. It is not so much that we are blind to the need as the need is not always conspicuous—but it's there.

If there is work, and money, and commerce, questions of fairness will always arise. And there will be anger whenever it seems that someone isn't getting a fair shake. Jesus knew this. And at first glance it seems like the parable in today's Gospel lesson is about inequality in the ways people are paid. It very much seems like Jesus is saying inequality is okay.

He talks about the man who owns a vineyard, and needs workers. The man hires workers throughout the day, telling them that he will pay them the usual daily wage. And when we hear this parable we start the time clock on the first workers. Daily means all day. It is simply not possible that workers hired later in the day would receive a daily wage. For pay to be fair, you have to take the daily wage, divide it by eight, count the hours they work, and there's your paycheck. Take out a little for Uncle Sam, and there you go. That's what's "right"!

At the end of the day, it's time to pay the men. So the landowner tells his manager to line the men up in the opposite order they started. And they all get paid the same amount. The johnny-come-latelies are paid first, all the way down to the men who clocked in at 7am. And that's when you know something is up, because that is not how you would pay them if you wanted to be nice. If you wanted to avoid conflict, you would pay the men who worked the longest first. They would get in their trucks, and off they'd go. If they thought about it, they would believe that the other men would be getting paid less and less. But so what? They've got their money. They've clocked out.

But see Jesus makes us watch as those men have to watch the others get paid first, and get paid the full day's wage, so that by the time we come to the men who—you might say—earned every penny, we see that they are steaming mad.

The climax of the story is this interaction between the long-working men and the landowner. We learn that the landowner had decided that everyone gets paid the same amount because he wants to be generous. The time clock means nothing.

It doesn't seem right at all. It just doesn't. And like many of Jesus' parables, even though it is a story, it still so vivid that we're tempted to believe that it really happened—like the Prodigal Son, or the Good Samaritan. If it did really happen, I seriously doubt that those men would ever work for that landowner again.

But as a parable, as a teaching story, something to tease the mind into active thought, this one teases rather more than I like. Almost every time Jesus is recorded as giving a parable he starts it by saying, "The kingdom of God is like…" or "The kingdom of heaven is like…" By implication, Jesus is saying "this is not how it is now…this is how it will be…or how it should be…" And most of the time I can go along with him. Yes, prodigal sons should be welcomed home. Strangers who are beaten up and left for dead should get care and concern. Have you noticed how many of the parables are about equality and fairness—and who gets what? Most of them, it seems.

What do we do with this one? Do you like it? Matthew liked it. Mark, Luke and John didn't. You will only find this parable in Matthew. I have heard it said that this was one of those stories that was just part of the culture of first century Palestine, almost like a nursery rhyme—like Johnny Appleseed, or some other thing, but I don't think that's it.

See, in the previous chapter in Matthew, Jesus has a conversation with the rich young man who wanted to know what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus tells him to go and sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow him. The rich young man is thinking "eternal life to come"—"one day..some day when I die" and Jesus is thinking "eternal life begins now, young man, if you follow me."

And you remember what happens, right? The man walks away sorrowful, because he had many possessions. He wasn't ready to sacrifice this life for the life to come—the life that would begin now and continue beyond his death.

The disciples overhear all this, and they begin to wonder. "The rich young man isn't giving up his stuff, but here we've given up everything—just like Jesus said—we gave up everything in this life. What happens to us?" Again…it's the equality/inequality question, isn't it?

And Jesus responds, "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, you will sit on twelve thrones judging the people of God..and anyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life." And then he launches right in to this parable, if you read it from the Bible, "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…"

If you just read it from the bulletin insert, it starts, "The kingdom of heaven is like…" But the lectionary writers have done us a disservice here. This parable is linked to the conversation that came before it.

That for is the clamp that binds this parable to the question of what the followers of Jesus receive. And we need this parable, because otherwise we would believe that—just like the workplace—those who work in the kingdom of God longer get paid more. But the kingdom of God isn't about money.

Payment is life. Payment is being able to stand face to face with God and look into each other's eyes and have peace. Peace in knowing that you are loved. Peace in knowing that you are forgiven and absolved from your sins. Everlasting life is everlasting relationship with the one who created, redeemed, and sustains you.

And you either get all of it, or none of it. It's the daily wage. God can't give more of it to some people and less of it to others, because you can't divide it. It is just "what's right"—for God's children. (Pause.)

If you try to lift this parable out of its context and make it a teaching about how God wants everyone to get paid the same about of money, then it's not going to work. I am sure that Jesus never meant this to be a teaching about the workplace. (Pause.)

Almost every Sunday, we celebrate the Holy Eucharist, and every Sunday we have a reception in the parish hall. At coffee hour, you grab a plate and you eat what you want. You grab a cup, and you get some coffee, or some juice. How much you get doesn't really matter. Some of us make up a plate, some of us just take one thing, some of us don't have any of it.

No one really thinks about how much—it's a reception. There is no meaning attached to it. But now, when you come up to the Altar, you are coming to receive the food that is not just food, and the drink that is not just drink. And the portions are the same: one piece of bread, and one sip of wine.

What did you do for the kingdom of God this past week? Have you fed the hungry? Have you tended to this sick? Have you tried to bring hope and healing and care and support? You get one piece of bread, and one sip of wine. What if you started on Wednesday? Well, I've got good news for you. You get one piece of bread, and one sip of wine. What if you started on Friday? One piece of bread; one sip of wine.

What if you did nothing at all? What if it never occurred to you that you had the power to do those things? That God had poured his Holy Spirit upon you and made you capable of doing and being and giving more than you first thought… And now you want to get out there and go to work for the one who owns the vineyard… Well, I have good news for you! You get one piece of bread, and one sip of wine. And that's the Kingdom of God.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Remembrance of September 11th 2001. 11 September 2011.

2011-09-12T11:16:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 13^th Sunday after Pentecost.

Remembrance of September 11^th 2001. 11 September 2011. [1]

As we gather as the Church today, we cannot help but remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001. We remember as well the disruption of our lives on that otherwise beautiful day.

W.F. Deedes, a British journalist for the international newspaper, The Weekly Telegraph, wrote at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom that the weather in England seemed poignantly beautiful while British and American forces were bombing Baghdad.

As a man of advanced years, Deedes recalled the conflicts of the past century, noting that at their beginnings the weather in England seemed so maddeningly beautiful. Song birds were singing in his garden, while newly sprouted leaves offered silent signs that destruction and bloodshed can coexist in the same world of new beginnings.

The beauty of the weather on September 11, 2001 clashed with the horror of annihilated lives, relationships suddenly and tragically ended, valiant rescue workers fallen in the line of duty, proud buildings made rubble, and the headquarters of the American military violated. If you weren't watching the television, or weren't directly affected by the attacks, you might have noticed that it was a warm, Indian summer day. The temperature was about 75 degrees, low humidity, and a light, occasional wind blew through trees, which had not yet turned color.

The beauty of that day was the height the summer season. Autumn truly began when the airplanes hit the buildings, and when the emotions of being violated hit us. From that day forward, the wind got cooler and leaves started changing—like our feelings toward the people we knew so little about, except that they hated us.

"Who were these people, and why do they hate us?" we asked ourselves. Some folks bought copies of the Koran in hopes of understanding how the Islamic scriptures were used to incite such violence. "Why do they hate us," we asked ourselves, as we exchanged our short-sleeved shirts for long ones, and began wearing light jackets.

Weeks followed weeks, and the bombs fell on Afghanistan as we then exchanged our jackets for heavy winter coats. Autumn turned into winter, and we bundled up, lest another attack should make us colder.

September 11^th 2001 was ten years ago. We have seen so much since then. Military action in Afghanistan, and Iraq, a series of hurricanes in this country, and natural disaster throughout the world, an uncertain economy, and unrest everywhere—especially, in recent months, in the Middle East.

We have been through a lot since September 11^th, in a way that makes that eerily beautiful day seem more and more poignant as time goes on. For some, perhaps, the death of Osama bin Laden has brought closure. I don't know.

Chapter three of the book of the prophet Habakkuk contains some of our loveliest biblical prayers in poetry. The prayer begins with a remembrance of better times, "O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work." But then Habakkuk prays, "In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known; in wrath may you remember mercy."

We may find ourselves with feelings of resentment—wondering why God did not override the abilities of the men and women who committed those acts of terrorism. "Lord," we pray, "we have heard of your power and seen your work." In our time renew your favor, O God; make your works known to us. In your wrath, remember to be merciful with us.

One of the most vexing questions in all of theology is: If God is good and all-powerful, why does God allow bad things to happen? September 11^th will always confront us with that question. One answer may be that it is that because God is good, God allows us to experience the totality of human life—and that includes tragedy. If we could only know happiness, we would never be truly happy. If there were no night, there would never be day.

In the cross of Jesus Christ we see that if there were no death, we would never treasure and make use of our lives.

So we are left with the question: when that beautiful Indian summer day ended in tragedy, how are we to persevere in the cold winter that follows? Habakkuk answers that question with the determination of true faith.

He writes, "Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights."

In the newspaper, just this past week, a daughter of one of the 9/11 victims expressed frustration that it seems like every year's remembrance is like another funeral for her mother. Her mother was a psychologist, and the daughter suggested that her mother would have not wanted her death to be rehearsed in this way every year. That perhaps the better remembrance would be to express a deeper compassion for others year `round. Perhaps it is only then that we can find some measure of forgiveness and closure. That certainly is something to think about.

If forgiveness is something you feel you can offer, God bless you, you have received a rare and powerful gift. For most of us, I would imagine, there are still mingled feelings of anger and sadness, which are very understandable.

So let us commend ourselves and one another, and all our life to God, who is able to bring life from death. Who is able to implant forgiveness in hardened hearts. Who is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.

May the souls of all those who died ten years ago, and all the faithful departed, rest in peace, and rise in glory. May we all find the compassion, healing, and courage to live new and nobler lives.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

[1] Updated from my sermon of 11 September 2005.

Proper 18A. 4 September 2011.

2011-09-06T09:38:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 12th Sunday after Pentecost.

There are some Sundays when the lessons presented for preaching do not seem to come bearing gifts. This is not always the case. Usually a nice parable will come, bringing along a full three course meal. Subtleties of meaning; paradox, symbolism—interesting vagaries in the original Greek or Hebrew. And with a little time and thought, something interesting will emerge. I have even known a short Psalm—not longer than eight verses—will ask me to go get a cup of coffee and sit outside and tell me things about the glory of God and the majesty of nature.

But then there are Sundays like today, when none of the lessons seem particularly intriguing. Of course, it might not be the lessons; it might be the preacher. Coming back from vacation and settling back in to the disciplines of study is a lot like going back to school; and what student has been able to sit at the classroom desk without staring out the window and remembering those carefree days of vacation?

I remember thinking it was so cruel that school started before it got cold outside. If grown-ups had even an ounce of memory about how hard it is to be a child, they would wait for the leaves to fall, and the air to become crisp with just the tiniest bite of frost before calling us to our textbooks. As it was, we would come home after school in those early September days, grab a snack, and then try to squeeze a day's worth of play into those painfully short hours before dinner.

Peter is about to learn this. He starts kindergarten on Tuesday, and my mind has been replaying scenes and moments from my childhood when I was his age and starting school.

Childhood is such a profound time of learning—unlike any other time in our lives. Children are constantly absorbing and retaining bits of information about how to manage their lives in ways that then become habits of behavior we adopt, and rarely examine. It scares me sometimes to think about it, because those little eyes see everything, and they want to know why some people do things differently.

Peter and Maggie think that everyone goes to church. They understand that there are many churches in the same way that there are many Cracker Barrel restaurants, but what happens when they learn the painful truth that many people don't even believe in God?

And do you realize that that simple—well, okay, it's not that simple—but that simple belief that God exists forms the backbone of so much about how we live our lives? A belief that God loves us and supports us becomes, in time, the context of how we learn to treat other people. When we offend others, we not only seek their forgiveness, but God's forgiveness as well, because God is the creator and maker of humankind. We are God's children. You cannot beat up on a child of God without expecting God to be upset.

Our normative patterns of politeness and civility have their foundation in a belief that what we do matters beyond the other person and ourselves—but that God cares about that.

This was something that Paul dealt with continually as he founded churches outside the Hebrew culture. The task would have been, it seems to me, much easier for the churches being started in Palestine—but as the Apostles made their way into Asia Minor and throughout the Roman Empire there were issues of culture and behavior that they needed to address and adapt to—or preach against.

So much of Paul's letter to the Romans is attempting to cast a moral vision for living life in relationship with God and others, because you cannot really talk about who Jesus is without talking about his radical obedience to God and love of humanity. A line dividing the two simply cannot be drawn; they are inseparable.

He writes, "Love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, `You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet'; and any other commandment, are summed up in this, `Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."

By law, of course, Paul means the Torah—the teachings of God about how we are to live in relationship. Paul is a Jew writing to Gentiles—but trying to bring the morality of his background and the radical morality of Jesus to people who were not raised with that understanding. The Roman culture was not without morality, but it wasn't a morality rooted in an everlasting relationship with one God—and that makes a difference.

If it's just between you and someone else—then it's pretty simple. But Jesus taught that it's never really just between two people. In fact, nothing we do can ever be so simply contained, because our relationships are never just one to one. Something happens to you, and you will share that with others, and those others will be affected by how you have either been helped or hurt.

I remember hearing someone on television say, "You had better not be rude to the cashier at the grocery store." He said, "She will be hurt, and she may be so upset that she's mean to boy in the back. He might be so upset that he cuts someone off on the highway. The trucker will be so upset that he misses his exit, and the delivery is late. Which will make the contractor angry, who will mess up the house of the senator, who was going to vote in favor of the president's bill, but was too angry, so the bill failed, which made the president angry, who said something on TV, which made the terrorists angry..." Well…the point is made. That's an absurd chain of events, but it's not too far from reality.

I'm not trying to say that our little slip ups, and moments of raw humanity are to blame for the instability of the world, but—let's face it—they don't help.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." That is a tricky one. The word love is our old friend agape—love that is willing to suffer. Love that does not draw lines around who is in and out. Love that may look like a tiny little stream in a meadow, but traces its source to the ocean.

Love your neighbor as yourself. One of the benefits of being married is that I can always ask for help. Karin was working on her own sermon on this and she mentioned that when she was a teenager, hanging out with her friends, one of the things they would do, when they wanted to say something about someone, was to say, "I love her because I'm a Christian, but…!"

It reminds me of the old southern expression, "Bless her heart." You can get away with all sorts of things when you say, "Bless her heart!"

I have heard so many Christians say that that you can love someone without liking them; and every time I hear that, it just doesn't sit well. It makes sense if you translate love as "care," but I'm not sure we're meant to do that.

I would not want to be loved "as a Christian," if that meant not being liked, too. I am sure you would feel the same way. Let me just pause for a moment to say, quite personally, that I love you all, and that does also mean like. When one of you gets sick, or when one of your loved ones gets sick—I may have trouble keeping all the medical histories straight, and I may fumble for the right names—but I care. I am not perfect at loving everyone—only Jesus is—but I certainly aspire to it. We all aspire to actual, genuine love. Yet, it's exhausting to think about all that that entails, or how we would ever be able to check the box that we had done enough.

I think we are meant to be a little uncomfortable with "love your neighbor as yourself." Agape is such a rich word that you can taste the difference when it's watered down. You can tell when it is applied too lightly, or too casually.

I remember telling a parishioner in my last parish that I loved her. She is the longest standing member of that parish, and she was in and out of hospitals the entire time I was her priest. She had seen clergy come and go. To her I was just the latest one, but I love my parishioners—and I have never met a Christian I didn't also like—at least a little bit. She said, "You keep coming to visit me. Why?" And I said, "Because I love you."

And she paused. It seemed me like she didn't speak for five minutes, but it was only about ten seconds. You know what I mean, right? You put yourself out there for real, and you don't know what could happen. It's even harder when the person is in her 80s. I could see her wheels spinning, and the divide between our generations seemed as far apart as from here to the moon.

I remembered my grandfather who grew up in the Great Depression, and who probably never heard his daddy say "I love you." I remembered crawling up into his lap when I was Peter's age and kissing his ear and saying, "I love you," and this rough workman's hand—both gentle and firm—would pat the side of my head, and mumble something I couldn't make out. It wasn't "I love you, too," but it was as close to that as he could get.

I would ask my mother why he didn't say it, and she would "draw her breath in pain," as Shakespeare said, to tell me that he wasn't comfortable with that. But everything about him was soft and loving, and with many little gifts and pats on the arm and cheek, he would say it, and not say it.

My parishioner was from that era. Love was not a word you said out loud—especially not to people outside the family. You don't show affection in public. Men shake hands and smile. They tell the truth. They stand around at the barn or the gas station talking. It's the length of time that says I like you, or I love you. It's the peace you feel when you are around them that says I care about you.

With women…well…I don't know about woman to woman. But it seemed to me that it was the offer of food. The kitchen was open. There was candy in the jar. There was the smile, the gift, the gentleness of their being—the way they sat in a chair. Something about them said it.

I watched my parishioner cycle through a series of possible responses; and at first I regretted using the word "love" in a way that might seem to be diluted to her—from her generation. I meant it sincerely, but she may have thought otherwise. This was awkward. I almost took it back, but I realized that her discomfort was not my discomfort. You are going to have deal with me, lady. You are going to have to deal with love that visits you in the hospital and visits you at home and won't let go of you. I am the one who may one day have the honor of laying you to rest in the churchyard. I am your priest.

Finally, the silence was broken. She said, "Well…I think very highly of you, too."

And I smiled and accepted that remark. I was not offended in the slightest bit. I would have been inauthentic for her to say, "I love you, too." And I probably shouldn't have said it, even if it had been in my heart—because sometimes what is most real is the inability to gauge how deep love runs.

Love is far too precious a word to be used unless you really mean it. Love cannot just go out for coffee with "regard" and "care" and "like." You can stop in at the Spring House and have a beer with "regard" and "care" and "like," but you might not find agape sitting that the table. Love, in it's most authentic form, shows up in the most interesting places—usually where it is needed the most: in the hospital, in the nursing home, in the preschool, in the break room at work—and of course, in any healthy church.

I have seen it wherever the pretence of invincibility is gone, and the soul of a man or woman is laid bare. Whenever I see it—and I'm sure you feel this way, too—its holiness changes me, and makes me want to a better man and a better Christian. It makes me want to love my neighbor as myself.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Proper 17A. 28 August 2011.

2011-08-31T09:43:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select the 11^th Sunday after Pentecost.

If God wanted to speak with you, what do you think he would do? Maybe I should back up and ask how you feel God speaks with you now. Is it the still, small voice, as we like to say? Or maybe you don't feel like you have heard from God in awhile, or perhaps…ever.

I know what it is like to feel that there is silence on the end of the telephone, or like it never even picks up. You open up the Prayer Book and dial the number, "O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth eternal life, and whose service is perfect freedom." And it rings, and rings… "through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost" Ringing, ringing… "Amen."

And you come to the part where your standard prayers have ended. The "Our Father" has been said, the names on the list of those who are sick have been read dutifully and lovingly, and the phone still seems to be ringing.

I have never gotten a busy signal, but I have known the phone to ring for long periods of time. Sometimes I have wondered if St. Peter or Blessed Mary would just pick up the phone and take a message. Some folks find it easier to ask the saints to pray than to try to get God directly. Have you ever found that to be true? I have. I have asked people to pray for me at times of personal struggle—times when I didn't feel that I could pray for myself. It's too hard to settle down to it…too much is going on. "Will you just please pray for me," and I leave off the rest of the sentence, "because I can't do it right now."

But that's us trying to get God's attention. What if God wanted to get your attention and speak with you. Just think with me about this for a minute. How would God go about it?

I remember listening to Br. Curtis Almquist, who was, for a long time, the Superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist—one of our Episcopal monasteries—and he was asking us to remember how we felt God has spoken with us in the past, saying that we all have different ways of hearing from God. Maybe when God was trying to communicate he was abrupt—someone close to us marches up and says, "Why don't you just do….blank." And it hit us over the head, and we were taken aback. Maybe even spent a few days in shock, and then slapped our foreheads and said, "Of course! That's what I should do."

For me, God seems to work through my initial refusal. I have to say no first in order to say yes. I have said "absolutely no," to so many things that I have ended up being very blessed in doing. I could list them for you. I said no to getting involved with Karin. I said no—at first, in my heart—to every parish I have ended up serving—including this one! When I was growing up, though I knew in my heart that I would probably end up pursuing ordination, I tried to say no to it many times.

When I was first attracted to the Episcopal Church, at first I thought, it was a spiritual fling..an affair. I was cheating on my Anabaptist upbringing. The Episcopal Church was like the other woman. She had beautiful vestments and a gorgeous liturgy. At times she had bells and incense. Sometimes she was plain; sometimes she was pretty.

And I found myself thinking, "No. This is not for you." And I prayed to God that if the Episcopal Church was just a spiritual version of sowing my wild oats that God would remove all the desire from my heart to be part of it. …And I'm still waiting for God to let me know…!

But let us suppose for a minute that God needed to communicate with you, and be sure that a.) you would not be too scared to listen, and b.) that you would know beyond the shadow of a doubt—in a way that you couldn't shake from your mind—that this was God.

That's what I finally came to about the burning bush. I have known the story of Moses since Sunday school, and the burning bush has always bothered me a little, because I couldn't understand why it was necessary or what it meant.

I have been looking for symbolism ever since I was old enough to consider symbolism. Is the bush a metaphor, like the vine and the branches? Is the fire like the fire that came upon the disciples at Pentecost? And are we meant to carry that symbolism forward or backward from the bush to Pentecost or Pentecost back to the bush? What do we make of the voice?

I have looked in commentaries; I have thought about it on long car rides; I have even spent time trying to imagine the scene as if I was part of the action. And it has made no sense at all.

But the light went on. It is a paradox. It is the coming together of natural and supernatural. A natural bush and fire, and supernaturally, not consumed. The bush is common and uncommon. Something that is not strictly speaking alive or dead. It appears to Moses as a mystery—something that has yet to be fully revealed. Something that cannot be fully revealed except by God.

It is at the same time appealing and scary; dangerous, yet inviting; beautiful and grotesque. In short, the burning bush does not fit into any categories of existence, except that it exists. Kind of like….God!

Through this appealing, confusing, disarming combination of factors Moses is attracted to the bush. Perhaps he is even entranced by it. What does this mean? His curiosity is aroused, but he is not too alarmed, because the bush is not consumed. He's off balance.

He's just enough off balance to be ready to hear something new and wonderful and to consider something that would otherwise be improbable—because a bush that burns and doesn't burn is improbable, if not impossible.

Do you see that? God almost has to do this in order to say, "Hey, Moses…I'm about to ask you to do something that you are going to say, `This is not possible.' And before you can say that, you are going to see what happens when I am involved. What is possible and impossible is not up to you to determine. With me, all things are possible."

I have been around many people who are looking for a sign. A bush that burns and is not consumed—but what they're really looking for is a miracle. The big showy thing that can serve as some indication of God's blessing over a choice or a way of thinking, because they want direction.

I have begun to wonder if it is appropriate to spiritualize the paradox of the burning bush even further out. Let's suppose that this is a metaphor. The burning is aggression, or something disturbing, but the lack of consumption is like mercy. Bear with me here.

Have you ever had someone or some situation come up that was very aggressive or disturbing, and yet, for reasons you could not understand, your feelings weren't hurt, and you could actually embrace it? Something or some comment that might seem on the surface painful or destructive, but it didn't do that. In fact, it made sense. Could it be that that was God doing the impossible to show us what is possible? I don't know.

I do know that this encounter with God is the story of Moses' call to be the one to lead the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. And if you want to talk about probable and improbable, it was very improbable that that would ever happen. Yet through the combination of Moses' faith, and God's faithfulness, it did happen.

You and I will likely never see a burning bush, but there are so many other signs like it. So many other times when what seems dangerous or improbable does not destroy as we believed it might.

Do you remember Isaiah's call? It's in the sixth chapter of Isaiah:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.' The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: 'Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!'

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: 'Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.' Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I; send me!'"

Did you notice the fire? The fire that burns, but does not destroy?

These are stories of call. God's call to a human being to do something wonderful for God's purposes. So often the stories are read as history, and so often the sermons preached about God calling you or me to something fall on deaf ears, because we're so ready to count the ways that they are dissimilar from our common experience. A burning bush, an angelic visitation, an audible voice in the Temple…

I don't know how to break through the disbelief that God, who called Moses, would ever call me; but I do think that that is the implicit message. God, who called and sent Moses, can call and send you. God, who called and blessed Mary, can call and bless you. Call doesn't have to me priesthood, or diaconate, or missionary. Sometimes call can just mean "this task" that I think maybe I should do or pray about.

The indication of God's presence seems to come from the ironic, paradoxical combination of that which burns and is not consumed. Something that burns within us, like the words of Jesus to Cleopas and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus.

Maybe you have been walking around with a fire inside you. Something that you can't let go... Some impulse for action or devotion that defies all of your most dearly held assumptions about what you should be doing, or what is most authentic to you… And God continues to stoke that fire, which never destroys, but still burns.

When I was a child, on Christmas Eve, my parents and I went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. It has always been my favourite service of the Christian year. We sat in the balcony of our church, because I liked to watch all hand candles being lit at the very end. To watch all these little flickering flames dancing below, like a sea of fire that doesn't consume.

The ushers lit the candles of the people on the aisle and the flame was passed to each person with the words, "Christ is born." The ushers finally came up to the balcony, and my mother received the light, and as she lit my candle she said, "Alexander, Christ is born." And when she said that… It seemed to me that fire of faith which has always burned in her jumped from her heart onto the tiny wick of mine, and I knew… I knew…

I knew that I could run from it as hard as I could, but I would never really get away. Like Psalm 139,

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up…

³ You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.
⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the grave, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night',
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day…

This is the fire that does not consume—the call of the eternal God to the eternal Church. This is the Holy Faith.

May this fire burn within you. It will never destroy. May God continue to push his fire deeper and deeper, until all that is left is the light of his love.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

Proper 13A. 31 July 2011

2011-08-01T09:45:00.000-04:00

For the audio version, click here and select 7^th Sunday after Pentecost.

Proper 13A. 31 July 2011.[1]

The Rev. Alexander D. MacPhail

This sermon is dedicated to my beloved father, Ralph MacPhail, Jr., on his birthday. He is the most honorable man I know.

Today we read a very small part of the very long story of Jacob's life. In many respects, reading just the part we read today is like tuning in to a television series halfway through the season. If we don't know what Jacob has been through, or what happens next in the story, we can still enjoy what we have to see, but we don't fully understand why things are happening.

Sometime you might sit down and pick up the Bible and just read the whole book of Genesis. I can guarantee you that there is more action and suspense, more political intrigue, more tender love stories than anything you will see on television. And if someone calls you up on the telephone and asks you what you are doing, you can respond truthfully and piously, "I am reading the Bible." Honestly, read Genesis in one of the recent translations—you won't believe how much fun can be.

The part we read today is the famous story of Jacob wrestling with God. People often think Jacob wrestled with an angel, but if you read the text, it just says, "Jacob wrestled with a man." And at the end of the chapter Jacob interacts with the man, and becomes convinced that the man was God.

In the story Jacob is literally wrestling with God, because he afraid of meeting up with his brother Esau, who you might remember sold his birthright to Jacob for bowl of soup. (We read that story on July 10^th.)

Jacob is wrestling with God, out of guilt, out of fear of what to do if Esau wants revenge. The end of the story is really quite wonderful, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

Have you ever wrestled with God? I know I have. Maybe not in the same way that Jacob did, but there have been many sleepless nights I've spent wrestling with what to do, and not feeling entirely sure in the morning whether I was any closer to an answer.

I remember when I was a little boy in Sunday school and learned from the teacher that God always answers prayer. She read the part in John's Gospel where Jesus says, "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and a door shall be opened to you." And I remember wondering what the difference was between that and the Disney song, "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, when you wish upon a star your dreams come true." How is Christian prayer different from that?

And I wrestled with that question when I was about eight years old. We wrestle with those questions when we are growing up, and moving from childhood to adulthood, and wondering if God really is as good as the Sunday School teachers told us.

Think of the men who went off to fight World Wars I and II. There had not been armed conflict at on that scale in recent memory. And these men went off with the blessing of a grateful nation, and discovered that even if they weren't going to be killed, that something was going to die inside them. You can't witness the things they saw, and not be changed.

Some of you may have seen the Ken Burns documentary that's been on public television lately, called simply, "The War." I was talking with a parishioner who had watched part of it, and he quoted a man who was being interviewed who had looked around to see his friends massacred and then looked up to heaven and prayed, "God you have to come down here to stop this. Don't send Jesus—this is no place for children."

These wars took bright-eyed optimistic young men, and changed them forever. People who had not seen what they had seen could not really understand what they had been through. They came back to a weary nation and filled civic clubs, churches, and bowling leagues. They came back to start businesses, and build infrastructure, and get degrees, and teach, and get ordained, and have children. But they could not come back as they had been. They had been changed. They had no language to talk about what they had seen. No desire to talk about it. "Let's put this behind us and move on." And who could blame them?

For those men there was always a little tinge of sadness, a little edge in their voice. They came back to their churches and looked around at the people, who had not been through what they had been through, and they looked around at the stained-glass windows, and at the Altar, and listened to young clergymen preaching sermons about the goodness of God, and they wrestled with that. Deep down inside, without words they wrestled with how this could be true, when they had seen that. How can God be here, when it was clear to them that God had not been there?

They didn't stop coming to church. Many of them found God in the midst of the struggle. Some of our greatest modern theologians and preachers emerged from that generation. Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Richard Niebuhr, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Han Urs von Balthasar, Reginald Fuller, Karl Rahner, and they all wrote prolifically about the struggle of finding God in the mess.

Existentialism, as a philosophical movement, actually began with the Christian theologian Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote profoundly about the loneliness of faith—the struggle to find God in the silence, and in the disillusionment of chaos. Whether you are a priest or an atheist you still stand where you are trying to relate to the world as one, solitary, individual.

Kierkegaard points to Abraham as the Knight of Faith, the man who listened for the voice of God, and obeyed it. Despite the fact that no one else believed that there was only one God, and even if there were only one God, why would he talk to Abraham and no one else?

Abraham sets off with is family to find the place that God wanted for them, all because he followed the voice of God within him, and ignored the naysayers. Could you do that? Could I do that?

The people who came back from war were wrestling with God. The sun is coming up tomorrow. There is only so much change a man can take in his life, so let's support our government, let's support our churches, let's support our families and friends, and let's get on with it. Maybe God will show up, maybe he won't, but we'll keep on wrestling! We'll keep going.

A couple years ago Mother Teresa died and we found out through her memoirs that for most of her life and ministry she wrestled with God. She describes in her journals and letters that she found no solace in the Eucharist, and went for long stretches of time without any sense of God's presence. Mother Teresa probably did more for God and for humanity in one day that most of us will do over many years. And yet the anguish she faced was that though she was doing it all for love of God, she felt no love from God in return.

Anti-religious commentators were quick to jump on this story as proof positive that God could not exist. If God was real, then surely Mother Teresa would have a direct line, and that she and God would have been as close as anyone could be. Roman Catholic theologians were also quick to jump on the story to give historical and theological perspective. They cited St. John of the Cross's notion of the "dark night of the soul," and of purgative contemplation.

That what was really going on in Mother Teresa was such transcendent peace that it was probably difficult for her to know where she ended and where God began. She had achieved a level of such faithfulness that she couldn't even gauge it.

I don't think they got it. My guess is that she was wrestling. How could God not be there in her emotions, when God is clearly at work though her fingertips? How could God allow her to be praised by famous and influential people for her great faith, when she felt nothing but darkness inside? She was wrestling with God.

We all can understand that. Our faith when we were little boys and girls was a different faith than it is now. We've seen things that have taken our innocence away. Some of us are veterans, and have seen things that have changed us forever. We've seen car crashes, been lied to a couple times, made some decisions that have not gone well. We don't have many illusions about humanity. We've seen things you can't pretend were nothing.

And it's likely that on more than one occasion we have come into this church, knelt down to pray, and felt absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. And we have asked ourselves the question: how can this be true, when I have been through that? How can God be here, when we don't believe that he gave us an ounce of help there?

But do you remember in the story of Jacob wrestling, where in the midst of the struggle, the man puts Jacob's thigh out of joint? The man did it because he could not prevail in the struggle with Jacob. Jacob is so tenacious in his wrestling that he simply won't give up. The thigh being out of joint was a wound that Jacob would have as a sign of his struggle.

And as the sun is coming up the man asks Jacob to let go and Jacob says, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me"? "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." So the man asks, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he says. "Your name shall no more be Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with God and humankind and have prevailed." "Tell me your name," Jacob says. And the man replies. (Are you listening?) The man replies, "Why do you have to ask? You know who I am." It's God!

Of pivotal importance is Jacob's refusal to let God go. "I will not let you go until you bless me." Mother Teresa could not let go. The veterans could not let go. There is a profundity of faith in the wrestling that would be easy for us to overlook. Just because we are wrestling with God, doesn't mean we have given up. There is a difference between someone who says, "I feel nothing from God," but still comes to go to church every Sunday, and the person who says, "God is dead" and walks away.

The veterans know that. Mother Teresa knew that. And you and I know that.

There is a difference between wrestling with God and refusing to stop until we receive the blessing—and just closing the book and walking away. There is a difference.

-o0o-

If this sermon was meaningful to you, please consider giving to the church where you feel most at home.

The churches of Beckford Parish, where this sermon was preached, are:

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 122 East Court Street, Woodstock, VA 22664, & St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 117, Mt. Jackson, VA 22842.

[1] Originally preached as Proper 24C. 21 October 2007.