Monthly Archives: December 2012

Sermon – Luke 3.1-6, A2, YC, December 9, 2012

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

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I have been thinking about this sermon for weeks – the sermon to lead us into our Annual Meeting – the sermon to lead us into a time of celebration and inspiration.  But then I remembered that we are in Advent, stuck once again with John’s crazy witness of repentance.  Repentance is not quite the sexy message I was looking for to promote what has been a great year.  Who wants to tarry in the wilderness when we have good news to celebrate?

But the more I have thought about the wilderness this week, the more the wilderness seems to be the perfect place for us today.  The wilderness is a holy place in our scriptures.  The wilderness is the sacred place where our ancestors journeyed toward the Promised Land.  Many a scriptural figure has ended up in the wilderness with only God for company.  For the gospel of Luke, the wilderness is a key place of activity – where testing, prayer, withdrawal, and miracles happen.[i]  Many a spiritual Christian has fled to the wilderness over the centuries – a place where the quiet is deafening, and where one goes to strip away the distractions of life.

The wilderness is where we find John the Baptist today.  There is a stark contrast in where we find John and where the powerful men of the time are.  Luke details the leaders of the day:  Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate in Judea, Herod in Galilee, Philip in Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias in Abilene.  These names are not just in the text to trip up the priest on Sunday.  Luke mentions these rulers and the towns that they rule so that we can understand the significance of where John the Baptist is.  The towns of the rulers are places of wealth and comfort.  Each of those leaders is treated with dignity and respect, lives in lavish homes, and is worshiped like a god.  But the word of God does not come from these posh places.  The word is spoken in the wilderness.  In the Greek, “wilderness” is translated as “solitary, lonely, desolate, and uninhabited.”  Here in the middle of nowhere – a place where people feel utterly alone and desolate is where the word of God is proclaimed.

So how could I possibly be excited about a journey into a stark, barren place on such a celebratory day as this?  Because St. Margaret’s went through its own wilderness journey not so long ago.  As a relationship with a priest was dissolved, tensions rose among parishioners, and many left our family, St. Margaret’s journeyed through what felt like a time of desolate wilderness.  Although I was not part of the St. Margaret’s family at that time, working through the healing process with you this past year has taught me a lot about what that wilderness time was like.  Many of you wondered if we would survive.  Some of you sat in the parking lot before Church, not sure if you could walk through those beautiful red doors one more time.  For many of you, the wounds from that desolate wilderness are tucked away in a box on the back shelf of your hearts, but the box seems to keep slipping off the shelf when you least expect.

The truth is, I am not sure if we are out of the wilderness time.  We still have some work to do here at St. Margaret’s and there are going to be times when we are not happy with each other (I know, that is hard to believe!).  But just because the wilderness is a place of solitude and desolation does not necessarily make the wilderness all bad.  The wilderness is where the people of God encounter God.  Abraham’s journey into the wilderness brought about a blessed covenantal relationship with God – with the gift of descendants as numerous as the stars.  The people of Israel’s journey through the wilderness brought them to the Promised Land.  And even when they were in the wilderness, they felt God with them – helping them find water from rocks, food in the form of manna and birds, and leadership to comfort and guide them.  Even John the Baptist, preaching repentance today from the wilderness, finds that his message in the wilderness is the herald of the Messiah, the one who finally brings about redemption.  The wilderness is not necessarily a bad place.  The wilderness is an intense place – an intense place of encounter with God, but not a bad place.

That is the tricky part about wildernesses.  When we are in the wilderness, we can feel lonely and despondent.  Jesus himself is thrown into the darkness of temptation when he goes into the wilderness for forty days.  But being in the wilderness does not cut us off from God.  Being in the wilderness cuts us off from the padding we use to cushion ourselves from pain; that same padding that can be a barrier between us and God.  When we are in the wilderness, there is no avoiding God.  The wilderness is like an empty locked room with only you and God.  In some ways, I think this is why we are encouraged to go on silent retreats at monasteries.  The few times I have been, the first day is always awkward.  I am such an extrovert, that the first day of silence kills me.  I want to talk, I want to engage others, and I want to keep my busy, active pace.  But when all you have is a cell, the worship space, and perhaps somewhere to walk quietly with your thoughts and prayers, things get clear much more quickly.  That padding is gone immediately and you are left with God to reconnect.

So unfortunately, John the Baptist is going to leave us in the wilderness for just a couple of more weeks of Advent.  But that is good news for us.  We have been through a time of experiencing the desolation of the wilderness.  That time was dark and painful for many of us and will never fully leave our consciousness.  But having come through that dark time, we can stay in the wilderness by choice.  Like Abraham who chose to take his small family into the wilderness for the promise of good things, we too choose to tarry in the wilderness this Advent.  We tarry here because we want to be closer to God.  We choose to journey through the wilderness because we need the guidance from the intimacy that only the wilderness can provide.  We claim the wilderness this Advent, and especially this day of our Annual Meeting because we want to be in a place where we can clearly hear God’s guidance for our future.

This year has already given us a taste of how wonderful the journey with God can be.  Although we have had some adjustments, joy has been the overwhelming experience of this past year.  From joyful liturgies, to the joy of new ministries, to the joy that each new parishioner has brought to our lives, we have much to celebrate.  If we have already seen this much joy this year, imagine what a little more intensive time with God can do for our spiritual journey in the year to come.  The promise is clear from John about what the time in the wilderness will bring:  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.  So stay with me in the wilderness for a couple more weeks.  We may find that our time here leads to even more blessing and joy in the year to come.  Amen.

[i] Miriam J. Kamell, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),47.

Advent Hope…

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

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I have been thinking a lot about Advent this year.  Many argue that Advent is primarily a season of repentance – we hear scripture lessons about John the Baptist and the call to repent.  In fact, many have called Advent a mini-Lent.

But this year, I am not feeling it.  Do not get me wrong, I almost always feel a need to repent of my manifold sins, but in seasons of repentance, I tend to become sober and somber.  And this Advent, I cannot seem to force myself into somberness.  I am just too excited.

Last year I did not really get to enjoy Advent too much.  Advent One was my last Sunday at Christ Church Christiana Hundred.  I was a mess of emotions – deeply sad to be leaving Christ Church and overjoyed to be joining St. Margaret’s.  Before we could blink, movers and packers came and we were sitting in a roomy house full of boxes and a disoriented two-year old.  We managed to find our Christmas boxes and throw up some decorations as I jumped into to work on Advent Three.  But everything was foreign and new.  Even having our “stuff” in the Rectory did not make it feel like home yet.  There was a way in which that season felt quite lonely.

A year later, Advent is very different.  The Rectory feels like home, and everything feels so much more familiar – where the tree goes, where the nativities go, where the Advent calendar goes.  Our daughter is more aware at age three, and so the anticipation of Advent, and even the short devotionals with our Advent Calendar, is more meaningful.  And, this Advent, I am preparing for our Annual Meeting.

Now, you might think an Annual Meeting is the perfect time to be somber – who really likes Annual Meetings anyway?  But as I have been shaping the Meeting with our Vestry, I find that I am super excited about the Meeting.  We are going to use our time to celebrate what has been a truly incredible year and to think forward and dream about what can be.  The planning alone has reminded me of what an incredible journey this first year has been and how much we have to anticipate.

rays_of_light-480x360And so, this year, my Advent really is a season of hopeful anticipation.  We will still make room for stillness of the Lord, but for me, that stillness is full of happy expectation.   We will still simplify our liturgies, but the promise of what is coming keeps creeping in like rays of light.  We will still repent of our sins, but the joy and promise of our forgiveness is within reach.  I am afraid this mini-Lent will be full of smiles – and this year, I am grateful for that!

Sermon – Luke 21.25-36, A1, YC, December 2, 2012

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

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On the way to Simone’s school this week, Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song” came on the radio.  As I tried to teach Simone the words of, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” I suddenly became teary-eyed singing the familiar song.  Something about Christmas songs on the radio can do that to me.  Whether Judy Garland is singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” or Mariah Carey is singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” a wave of nostalgia hits me and a sense of deep happiness washes over me.  The tricky part about these songs though is that they do not connect me to the reality of my lifetime of Christmases.  Instead they simply remind me of my idealized dream of Christmas – the glossy picture I have devised about the utter perfection of Christmas.

Our entrance into Advent is a lot like that contrast.  You might have come into church today totally excited about the hope and love of Advent as we await the perfect baby Jesus.  We imagine Advent as a sort of pregnancy, where we wait for four weeks to birth the Christ Child.  We cannot wait to hear those stories that are coming – of Mary and Joseph, of shepherds and angels, of wise men.  Advent in our minds is this great time of anticipation.

Of course, the actual gospel text does little to fuel this happy anticipation.  Instead, our gospel lesson from Luke is an apocalyptic text about signs and fainting and fear.  “Stand up and raise your heads…Be on guard…Be alert at all times,” says Jesus.  The words from Jesus are not soothing or encouraging at all.  In fact the kind of waiting Jesus describes does not sound like a joyful waiting for a birth, but sounds more like the dreaded waiting for judgment.

As modern Christians, we do not tend to enjoy apocalyptic scripture lessons for several reasons.  First, apocalyptic readings are usually weird.  We much more often associate these texts with crazy fanatics who make predictions about the end of the world that rarely come true.  We have friends who like the Left Behind series; and even if we find the idea intriguing, we cannot really watch without feeling like the whole idea is strange.  We even make jokes with silly bumper stickers that say, “Jesus is coming.  Look busy.”

The second reason we do not enjoy apocalyptic readings is that we often do not understand what apocalyptic readings mean or how to interpret them.  If you have ever read the Book of Revelation all the way through, you know that your eyes start to glaze over as the images become stranger and more disjointed.  That style of literature is totally foreign to us.  Even John Calvin, theologian and father of the Presbyterian Church, who wrote a commentary on every other book of the Bible, did not attempt to write about Revelation.[i]  If John Calvin cannot interpret apocalyptic literature, we do not have much hope for our own understanding.

Finally, we do not tend to enjoy apocalyptic readings because we find them exhausting.  Even Will Willimon argues that, “It’s hard to stand on tiptoe for two thousand years.”[ii]  We know that Christ will return, but how can we possibly keep vigilant constantly?  Our life is already full of anxiety.  Between the Fiscal Cliff, wars around the world, and our own financial, personal, and emotional anxieties, we have enough to worry about without having to also be anxious about Jesus’ return.

Fortunately, on this first Sunday of Advent, there is good reason for us to turn to this kind of text.  The season of Advent reminds us that we cannot anticipate the first coming of Christ without also anticipating the second coming of Christ.  The two activities are intimately linked.  We celebrate the birth of this child because we know what this child will be.  We do not simply anticipate the Christ Child because he will be a cute baby.  We anticipate him because we know that he will be the Savior and Redeemer of the world and that he promises to come again.  Our anticipation is two-fold because we know the rest of the story.  Our anticipation would be like if we knew that baby Martin Luther King, Jr. or baby Mother Teresa were about to be born.  We do not celebrate this birth for the everyday joy of life.  We anticipate this birth because of the joy of this specific person and God-head, in whom we have redemption.

In this time between the two advents, the Church invites us through Luke to live a little differently than normal.  Our everyday faith usually means business as usual for us.  We know about the second coming, but we do not think of the second coming often.  We go to church (most of the time) and receive the sacraments; we read scripture (sometimes) and pray; we try to live by the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments; we have our version of Christian music (hymns, Christian pop, or gospels) that enliven our faith; and we faithfully spend money and time every week on what we might deem “kingdom causes.”  This is more than enough religion to keep us going in this in-between-advents time.[iii]

But this advent, we are invited to step back and look at the whole of our Christian faith.  Sure, we may not want to be on guard at all times, but being on guard from time to time is a good thing.  We can all use a little check-up from time to time – and not just during Lent.  As Lewis Smedes argues the hardest part of anticipating the second coming of Jesus Christ is in “living the sort of life that makes people say, ‘Ah, so that’s how people are going to live when righteousness takes over our world.’”[iv]  This is our work this Advent.  Not just to look busy because Jesus is coming, but to be busy.

There is a well-known story that happened in the colonial period of American history.  The Connecticut House of Representatives were going about their work on a sunny May day, when all of a sudden, an eclipse caught the entire legislature off guard.  Right in the middle of debate, everything went to darkness.  In the midst of panic over whether this might be the second coming, a motion was made to adjourn the legislature so that people could pray and prepare for the coming of the Lord.  In response, one legislator stood up and said, “Mr. Speaker, if it is not the end of the world and we adjourn, we shall appear to be fools.  If it is the end of the world, I choose to be found doing my duty.  I move you, sir, let candles be brought.”[v]  Those men who expected Jesus went back to their desks and by candlelight resumed their debate.

We too light candles in Advent.  We too move into a time of actively living in the time between two advents.  We too take on the intentional work of living as though righteousness has taken over the world.  Of course we do not do this work alone.  We do this work “prayerfully, depending upon God to give strength to persevere despite temptation or persecution.”[vi]  Jesus is coming.  With God’s help, instead of “looking busy” this Advent, we can be busy this Advent.  Amen.

[i] Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., “In the Interim,” Christian Century, vol. 117, no. 34, Dec. 6, 2000, 1271.

[ii] Will Willimon, as quoted by Plantinga, 1270.

[iii] Plantinga, 1270.

[iv] Lewis Smedes, Standing on the Promises, as quoted by Plantinga, 1272.

[v] Joanna M. Adams, “Light the Candles,” Christian Century, vol. 123, no. 24, Nov. 28, 2006, 18.

[vi] Mariam J. Kamell, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),25.

Homily – Romans 10.8b-18, Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, November 29, 2012

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

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I lead a weekly Eucharist on Thursdays at St. Margaret’s.  The service is a short, spoken service, and my homilies are brief reflections on the saint or feast appointed for the day.  I do not usually write out these homilies, but instead outline my thoughts.  Last week a parishioner felt like it was a “waste of gems,” for me not to publish them on the blog too.  So, she is helping me type up my outlines, and I will try to start posting them here.  They are obviously less formulated than my sermons and will read a bit like an outline, but perhaps they will feed your spiritual journey.  Enjoy this first installment from the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle.

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But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?  And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

When we lament the shrinking church, we often forget one or more of these four steps.  In reverse order, the steps are a little clearer:  People have to be sent in order to proclaim;   Others cannot hear without proclamation; If others don’t hear, they can’t believe; and unless they believe, they cannot call on God.  Sending.  Proclaiming.  Belief.  Relationship with God.

Some of us stop at sending.  Church sends us out every Sunday, but we quickly move on to the next thing.  Some of us stop at proclaiming – we might invite others to church, but proclaiming sounds way too scary.  Others stop at belief.  We might be able to talk about our faith, but we can’t imagine being responsible for someone else’s belief.  Finally, we might convince someone to believe, but we can’t force them to have a relationship with God.

Today we celebrate Andrew the Apostle.  Andrew had every reason to avoid these steps, too.  Often he is simply known as Peter’s brother.  Andrew is not a part of the inner circle, which included Peter, James, and John.  Andrew could easily have left the work of going, proclaiming, and creating disciples to the others, just keeping his faith to himself.

What Andrew shows us is that everyone can be a disciple and evangelist.  We simply need:

  1. A willingness to respond.  Matthew says Andrew immediately leaves his nets and follows Jesus when he calls;
  2. A willingness to hear.  John says that Andrew had been John the Baptist’s disciple, and when John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus the Lamb of God, Andrew switched camps;
  3. A willingness to share the Good News.  John says Andrew’s first act after following Jesus is to go get his brother and bring him to Jesus.

Andrew is just a regular guy doing the work of proclamation!

Andrew teaches us today that we can all be evangelists.  Now I know how we hate that word and even the concept of evangelism, but Andrew makes it simple.  Go into the world, proclaim (tell your God story), encourage belief (you believe – it must be important enough to share), and foster a relationship with God (don’t stop talking – all your life is a witness to others that can foster others’ relationships with Christ).

Being an evangelist is all of this work, and the work really isn’t all that scary.  As Paul says, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.”