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Sermon – Matthew 27.1-23, Ecumenical Lenten Series, March 15, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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When the clergy of our Ministerium gathered and decided to slowly walk through the passion narrative, a narrative that most of us normally consume in one service – either on Palm Sunday or Good Friday – I thought it would be great fun to dive deeply into the text, tarrying longer on the parts that seem to whizz by otherwise.  I was excited to find hidden gems, or maybe moments of grace and goodness.  But I confess, so far, the deep dive has been harder than I imagined.  I have begun to wonder if we churches do not read the entire passion narrative in one sitting because we know how hard the text is:  so we read the text in its fullness, like chugging awful tasting medicine in the hopes of getting the foul experience over with as quickly as possible.

Of course, when I started reading our portion of the text for this evening, I thought maybe there was hope after all.  The text starts off with such promise.  The very first words from the New Revised Standard Version are, “When morning came…” or, even more promising, in the paraphrase from The Message, “In the first light of dawn…”  Immediately, my mind filled with the words from that old hymn, “Morning has broken,” with lyrics like, “Praise for the morning!… Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden… Praise with elation, praise every morning, God’s recreation of the new day!”  Surely the inbreaking of light will mean the inbreaking of hope and renewal.  Those things that happened in the cover of darkness:  Judas’ betrayal, disciples unable to keep watch and pray with Jesus, disciples scattering as Jesus is arrested, false testimonies, and finally, the gut-wrenching betrayal of faithful Peter – surely in the first light of dawn, in the sweetness of the wet garden, the light will drive away the darkness.

But the morning light of this text does not overcome this day – at least not in the ways the light comes Easter morning.  First, we have to walk through the darkness and light of Jesus’ final day.  We start with Judas.  What feels like redemption is coming for Judas.  The NRSV says Judas repented, but this is not the same word used to describe what Peter does.  Matthew is quite careful not to use the same word in the original Greek for repentance.  Instead of the word for “repent” or “turn around,” the word in Greek for Judas means “regret or “change one’s mind.”[i]  Somehow, Judas’ actions happening in the first light of dawn makes them more devastating.  His hanging himself brings up for us all sorts of feelings, and quite frankly, some of the Church’s more damaging teachings about suicide.  But in Judas, darkness and light get muddled.  Theologian Stanley Hauerwas argues, “What Judas did is not beyond the forgiveness enacted in Jesus’s crucifixion.  Indeed, Judas’s betrayal can be remembered because it is not and cannot be the last word about Judas’s life or our own.  The last word about Judas or us is not ours to determine because the last word has been said in the crucifixion.  The challenge is not whether Jesus’s forgiveness is good, but whether any of us, Judas included, are capable of facing as well as acknowledging that, given the opportunity, we would be willing to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.”[ii]

In the light of day, as the morning comes, the text seems to tell us that the darkness of night might be dispelled after all.  Pilate’s wife appears in the midst of Jesus’ trial – something that no other gospel describes – and tells of how Pilate should have nothing to do with Jesus.  She, like so many others has been warned in a dream:  the magi early on in Matthew, Joseph, Jesus’ father, and now Pilate’s wife.  In all these cases, while people scheme to destroy Jesus, even Gentiles receive communication from God in dreams to preserve Jesus’ life.[iii]  But today is not a day of Easter light – or a day of near misses like in Jesus’ birth.  Instead, the darkness overcomes.  Even though Pilate knows Jesus is innocent, he cannot muster the political strength to follow what he knows is right.  And so, Pilate, whose name in own creeds remind us that Jesus was killed in a specific time and space, becomes complicit with the darkness even as the light of morning tries to break through.

The final mingling of darkness and light comes as the crowds get swept into the guilt of this day.  Pilate cleverly offers the faithful an alternative – to release Jesus the Messiah or to release Jesus Barrabus, the murderous rebel.  Caught up in the fervor stoked in the darkness, the people’s demand of Barabbas’ release feels like all the light goes out of the story.  Those words, “Let him be crucified,” feels like the shroud of darkness and our human failure is complete.  But even in this darkest moment, all light is not lost.  What we forget in this moment is that when Jesus dies, Barabbas goes free.  Scholar N.T. Wright tells us, “Barabbas represents all of us.  When Jesus dies, the brigand goes free, the sinners go free, we all go free.  That, after all, is what a Passover story ought to be about.”[iv]

We will not get the brilliance of that old hymn, Morning Has Broken, until Easter.  God’s recreation cannot happen until the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Famed preacher Thomas Long tells a story about a congregation who many years ago built a small and secluded chapel for prayer and meditation.  Inside that little chapel, they placed twelve wooden chairs, each inscribed with the name of one of the disciples.  You want to know which of the chairs is the most heavily worn from use?  Judas’ chair, like stone step that shows its overuse, is the most worn, the most relatable, perhaps the most hopeful for visitors to that old chapel.[v] 

We are not at Easter in this Lenten journey.  In fact, most of our days even outside of this ritual time feel closer to the darkness of Lent than the lightness of Eastertide.  But that does not mean that all our days do not have glimpses of light.  Even on this darkest day, when Jesus’ fate is sealed and the worst thing will happen, light keeps fighting through.  Whether in Judas’ remorse, whether in the witness of outsiders around us, or whether in the grace given to those who do not deserve grace, even on this darkest of days, the morning comes. 

Our invitation this Lent is to open our eyes to the light.  Judas, Pilate’s wife, even Barrabas invite us to seek the light, to name the light, to be the light.  We will never master the perfection of Easter Sunday where the sweetness of the wet garden makes us praise with elation.  So maybe our song this night is not Morning has Broken, but another gospel hymn, Walk in the Light.  When the darkness threatens to overcome, we raise our voice, “Walk in the light, Beautiful light, Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright, Shine all around us by day and by night, Jesus is the light of the world.”  Jesus is here, in our sinfulness, in our resistance, in our hardheartedness, giving us beams of light to walk in – beautiful light where mercy shines bright.  We can walk in the light together because Jesus is that light.  Amen.

[i] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1993), 314.

[ii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 230-231.

[iii] Thomas G. Long, Matthew:  Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 312.

[iv] N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 178.

[v] Long, 310.

Sermon – Luke 23.33-43, CKS, YC, November 20, 2022

23 Wednesday Nov 2022

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If the foyer of our house is a painting of the crucifixion by an artist from Tanzania.  The painting is hauntingly beautiful, with deep reds, purples, and blacks.  For some reason this week, our younger daughter noticed the painting and asked who the other two men on crosses were.  “Why are there three crosses?  Wasn’t just Jesus on a cross?” she asked.  I offered a short explanation, including why people were crucified in Jesus’ time.  Her rage was immediate.  “That’s not fair!  We should crucify those people who crucified others!”

I confess her reaction was not what I expected and led to a rather pedantic conversation about The Golden Rule.  But the more I thought about her reaction, the more I though she was simply reflecting those base feelings we all have.  In her mind, justice is retribution:  a consequence equal to the offense.  Her reaction is why twenty-seven states still have the death penalty.  In fact, there are whole political science courses on the concept of what constitutes justice. 

That’s why today’s feast day, Christ the King Sunday, is tricky.  The people of Jesus’ day had notions of what a king should be – in particular, what the messianic king should be.  The messianic king was to be about justice – righting the wrongs of a people who have been subjugated by the Romans, establishing power, authority, and control, and running out anyone opposed to the rule of the Lord.  Suddenly why Jesus is on a cross is more obvious – the Messiah whose “triumphal entry into Jerusalem,” instead involves riding into town on a lowly donkey, who seems more focused on healing people than on establishing a new political order, who questions the authority and motives of the religious leaders.  This is why a mocking sign, “King of the Jews” hangs over his head, this is why religious leaders and soldiers are taunting him, this is why a thief condemned to the same fate, hanging in agony, channels his anger toward Jesus.

And yet, here we are, reading this text of seemingly failed leadership while simultaneously celebrating the crucified Christ as the king.  We modern Americans know what successful leadership looks like.  We have spent the last two weeks anxiously awaiting who will control the House and Senate in Congress.  Presidential hopefuls are revealing themselves.  Political pundits have been explaining the consequences of split leadership, and what we can anticipate in the next two years.  Given the chaos of the times, a traditional messianic king might be kind of nice.

But here’s how we know why we prefer Jesus’ version of kingship.  In the midst of this chaos are those two men my daughter saw in that painting.  According to tradition, the one on the right, who defends Jesus, is named Dismas; the one on the left, who insults Jesus, is named Gestas.[i]  Both men are likely political criminals, since crucifixion was reserved for the most extreme political crimes.  And since they are both on a cross, we can imagine that both their political dreams did not come to fruition.  And so Gestas, bitter and angry mocks Jesus.  He’s often called the “bad” or “unrepentant thief,” so we have our cues about how to judge his behavior.  But who among us, especially when our dreams or political hopes have been dashed, is not bitter?

Meanwhile, Dismas is equally defeated.  He does not presume to plead his case to Jesus – he has surrendered his dream.  He asks the only thing left to ask, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”[ii]  His plea is a defeated, vulnerable plea.  But here’s where the beauty of Jesus’ version of kingship comes in.  Jesus, as scholar Debie Thomas says, “tolerates the terrible tension between despair and hope, absorbing both into his heart…”  Jesus offers, “a hope so paradoxical, [the hope] transforms our suffering and changes our lives.”  “Today,” he says to Dismas, “You will be with me in Paradise.”[iii]

Today we celebrate the king who remembers us, who hangs “in the gap between our hope and despair…who carries our dreams to the grave and beyond.”[iv]  No matter what is happening in our political lives, Christ the King Sunday invites us to follow this third way of Jesus.  We will not always feel like victors.  In fact, our defeats may be the only thing that help us see the way out of the world’s suffering.  The way is not on gallant horse, flag in hand, proclaiming victory.  Ours is the quiet victory of a man who hangs in the midst of hurts and declares a new way of the cross.  Our invitation is to follow that kind of king.  Because today – today – we can realize the kingdom with Christ our King.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022), 184.

[ii] Luke 23.42

[iii] Thomas, 184-185.

[iv] Thomas, 186.

Sermon – Luke 8.26-39, P7, YC, June 19, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Today we will be commissioning five of our members into a new program at Hickory Neck called Stephen Ministry.  These individuals have gone through six months of training, with over 50 hours of class time, homework, and practice preparing for this new role.  Stephen Ministry uses the tagline, “Christ caring for people through people.” The idea is that a parishioner going through crisis or a major transition can be assigned a trained Stephen Minister, a person who will meet with them regularly for a season to offer support, care, and listening ear.  The Stephen Minister does not solve issues, but is a companion on the journey.  Care receivers may be looking for this confidential support through an illness, the death of a loved one, divorce or a job loss, or any number of painful life experiences.  The Stephen Minister walks with us, prays with us, listens and hears us, reminding us that we are all broken, and through Jesus we can be made whole.

I think that is why I love that we get the wonderfully bizarre story of the Gerasenes today.  The Gerasenes have become care providers of sorts, but in today’s lesson we learn they are scared.  They have developed a system for dealing with the possessed man of their village.  They know when to bind him and when to abandon him.  They know he is dangerous, and unclean, but they have figured out how to keep the town safe.  He is the identified patient of the town – the one who has the “real” problems.  By identifying the demoniac as the patient, no one else has to look at their own demons – the ways in which each of them are “vulnerable to forces that seek to take [them] over, to bind [their] mouths, to take away [their] true names, and to separate [them] from God and from each other.”[i]  So, when Jesus casts out the impossible demons, and sends them to their death through their herd of swine, and the townspeople find the demoniac healed, clothed, and sitting in his right mind at the feet of Jesus, they do not celebrate or thank God for healing.  Instead, they stand afraid of the power of God.  Now that the demoniac is healed, they are afraid this Jesus will see their demons or challenge their feigned health.  In response, they do not ask for an explanation, but ask Jesus to leave.  Their fear leads to paralysis.

To be fair, fear is a natural and sometimes necessary emotion.  Fear helps us develop a healthy sense of preservation.  Fear allows us to make necessarily cautious decisions.  Fear can keep us safe.  But fear can also lead to paralysis, and perhaps more importantly, to a lack of trust.  And when we are talking about God, a lack of trust evolving from fear gets us into trouble.  We start doubting the graciousness we know God intends for us.  We start avoiding the very work that will give us joy and fulfillment.  We start losing our sense of connection to God – who happily emboldens us when we allow God to do so. 

We see in the Gerasenes’ story the goodness that can happen when we work through our fear.  Despite the fact the townspeople are fearful of Jesus’ power, Jesus brings about healing anyway.  And knowing the people of Gerasene may continue to be fearful, Jesus has the former demoniac stay behind so he can testify to the salvific work of God.  As one scholar points out, “The story ends with Jesus commissioning the healed man to stay where he is and serve as the first missionary to his townspeople — the same townspeople who feared, shunned, trapped, and shackled him for years.”[ii]  Jesus does not scold, shun, or shame when he is asked to leave.  Jesus keeps holding out hope in the face of fear – Jesus holds hope that the townspeople might be healed like the demoniac is healed.  Jesus loves graciously and expects transformation in the face of hopeless fear.      

We commission lay ministers today who are more like the healed demoniac than the Gerasenes.  They have experienced brokenness and pain in their lives, and they stand in the light of Christ’s healing, ready to walk with us Gerasenes in our fear.  Maybe our fear is in acknowledging our brokenness, when we would much rather just ask Jesus to leave.  Maybe our fear is sharing our vulnerability, especially when we feel like we are coping “just fine, thank you very much.”  Or maybe our fear is the unknown path of what we may need to go through to get to healing, health, and wholeness.  If a man possessed with legions of demons can come out the other side whole and healed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, surely Jesus stands ready to handle whatever demons we have.  Whether we take a Stephen Minister along that journey with us, or we simply hear God longs to wash us with grace, kindness, compassion, and love, our invitation today is let go of all the scary brokenness around and in us.  Yes, letting go is scary.  But God shows us over and over again how when we let go of our fear, God is there with abundant, wonderful, powerful love.  And just in case we doubt that love, God offers us companions on the journey.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Legion,” June 16, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2259-legion, on June 18, 2022.

[ii] Thomas.

Sermon – Isaiah 43.1-7, Luke 3.15-17, 21-22, EP1, YC, January 16, 2022

23 Sunday Jan 2022

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A couple of weeks ago, despite months of planning, I was not sure today would happen.  Of course, we would celebrate the feast of Jesus’ baptism regardless of whether we were gathered in person or online, but I really wanted all the things that come with an in-person baptism – babies crying the middle of sermons, moms and dads rhythmically bouncing their children to soothe them during the service, crayons scattered wherever children find themselves in the worship space.  But most of all, I love having the congregation’s children gather around the font, eyes fixed on the pouring of water, clutching onto the sacred items we have asked them to hold, nervously giggling as they wait for the big moment of their friends’ baptism.  Their energy is reflected by the adults in the space but seeing that energy up close is invigorating.

But then, we suspended physically gathered worship, and everything shifted.  We had choices in front of us, and after much prayer and discernment, the baptismal family decided to gather their small family without the enthusiasm of the whole congregation physically present.  Not until I read today’s Old Testament lesson did I appreciate the parallels in our collective journey to this day.  You see, Isaiah has been prophesying to a people in exile.  The sinful generations of Israel have led to their own demise, and they now sit in Babylon in despair, recognizing their failings, feeling isolated from everything familiar, wondering if they will ever find God’s favor again.  Though we have not been exiled from our land, this pandemic has created our own exile of sorts.  Our weary hearts long for good news.

Into these twin exiles in Babylon and in pandemic, God speaks words of redemption, belonging, and hope.  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine,” God says.  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned…For I am the Lord your God…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”  These words from God are a balm to the people of God.  But each of those promises are not only for the nation of God.  Those “you”s are accompanied by the second-person-singular verb forms, as one scholar explains, “as if speaking to each member of the community.”[i]  I will be with you.  You are mine.  You are precious and honored.  I love you.

That is what we do in baptism.  Although baptism is a communal event – whether, like in Luke’s gospel, as Jesus stands in a line of people to be baptized along with them, or whether we gather in some hybrid form of in-person and online worship – even though baptism is necessarily communal, baptism is also about the promises to a unique child of God:  who belongs to God, with whom God is present, and who is loved.  We hear echoes of God’s blessing from Isaiah in Jesus’ baptism, when God says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  The Church claims the same for Reed and Zenora today – “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”[ii]  Although Reed is old enough to hear and understand this blessing, we as a community, with Zenora’s parents and godparents, promise today to keep reminding Zenora of her identity as a child of God, whom God protects, to whom she belongs, and who is deeply loved and honored.  In truth, we all need that reminder, especially during these dark times.  That is why we will all reaffirm our baptismal covenant in just a few moments – so that we might reclaim our baptismal identity and receive again the charge of our call. 

This service today is not just a day of blessing for Reed, Zenora, and all of us gathered in hybrid worship.  Today’s baptisms are also a commission.  As one pastor writes, “Luke uses very few words to share with us the baptism of our Lord.  But those few words lead us to very deep wellsprings of joy in the faithful ministry.  To identify with all people, to depend upon God in prayer for the strength to live and to love, and to hear the affirmation of your God as the source of your calling and purpose in life are the most enduring joys of life.  Theses are the blessing of our life together in Christ as the church.”[iii]  Our invitation today is to take this pivotal moment for Zenora and Reed, to receive the reminder of your own beloved status, and then to go back out into the world with a reenergized sense of purpose and renewal.  God says powerful words to us today.  I love you.  Our work this week is to say the same to a hurting world.  I love you.  Amen.

[i] Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 219.

[ii] Robert M. Brearley, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 240.

[iii] Brearley, 240.

Sermon – Matthew 2.13-23, C2, YC, January 2, 2022

12 Wednesday Jan 2022

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Today is a very weird day for us scripturally and liturgically.  Even though there are two Sundays appointed for Christmastide, we rarely get to enjoy both because the feast of Epiphany, which falls on January 6, usually gets substituted for the Second Sunday of Christmas.  This year because we get to celebrate the second Sunday of Christmas, we go from Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve and last Sunday, to the flight to Egypt this week – which takes place after the magi arrive.  And next week, we will go backwards to hear about the magi’s arrival which happens before this week’s lesson.  Like I said, today is super weird.

But the timing is not the only weird feature of today.  The structure of the Episcopal lectionary varies from the Revised Common Lection today and cuts out verses 16-18 of the second chapter of Matthew.  Now, normally, cutting out a few verses is not that big of a deal, but today cutting out verses is a huge deal.  We go from learning that Joseph has a dream warning him to flee to Egypt because Herod wants to destroy the baby Jesus (because the magi arrived and told him a baby has been born king of the Jews – and Herod is not interested in anyone taking power from him), to Herod dying and Joseph receiving another dream in Egypt telling him to go back home to Israel with his wife and baby Jesus.  But in those three omitted verses is an atrocity so mind blowing, I can only surmise the lectionary crafters eliminated the verses because they thought we would be too distracted by the atrocity.  In those three verses, Herod realizes he has been tricked by the magi, and so he sends his men to kill every male child under the age of two in Bethlehem to make sure a new king does not arise.  In essence, Herod is so determined to keep his power that he kills about twenty infants and toddlers[i] to secure his leadership.

But the weirdness does not stop there today.  This text is laden with meaning and parallelism.  Joseph is spoken to in dreams which causes him to safely journey to and from Egypt.  Another Joseph – the son of Jacob and great-grandson of Abraham with the coat of many colors – he had dreams too that led to his bondage in Egypt at first, but eventually to his security and power in Egypt when he interprets dreams for the pharaoh.  So, we hear a parallel story of two Josephs.  We also hear a parallel story of Moses and Jesus.  As one scholar explains, “At Jesus’ birth, violent forces seek his life, just as violent forces had sought the life of Moses.”[ii]  If you remember, the reason Moses was raised in the security of Pharaoh’s home was because Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in a papyrus basket floating down the river – floating away because Pharaoh had ordered every male Hebrew child be killed because the Hebrews were becoming too numerous and he feared losing his power.  In essence, Jesus’ and Moses’ stories track one another – Jesus is the “Son of God and the expected prophet like Moses who will deliver Israel through a new exodus.”[iii]

Here’s the thing about the weirdness today.  We do not really want weirdness right now.  We are still in the twelve days of Christmas, and we want babies, and angels, and mom’s pondering, and dad’s standing righteously, and shepherds praising and marveling, and magi adoring the Christ Child.  In part, we want the sentimental comfort and joy of Christmas because our lives are running short on comfort and joy lately.  In fact, the wave of the Omicron variant is pressing upon us, and in a time when we thought we would be moving toward freedom, we are making a U-turn toward oppressive restrictions.  We have enough turbulence, terror, and violence in today’s world – the last thing we want to do is read about that mess (and more accurately, that repeated mess!) today in church.

But here’s where we find hope.  Matthew may lay out murder and fleeing and the continuation of a violence and oppression.  But as Dean Culpepper reminds us, “Matthew dares to see things as they are and still affirm that God is working, even in the worst that we can do.”[iv]  Today is not about glossing over the mess of this world.  Today is about naming the mess of this world and still being able to see God at work, doing something as radical as sending the Christ Child to us.  That is the real joy of Christmas this year.  “Nothing can defeat God’s promise of Immanuel, God with us.  Even when we cannot celebrate peace on earth…we can celebrate Immanuel, …the love of God and the promise of peace.”[v]  And that promise is better than any glossed over, sentimental wishes of a Merry Christmas.  That promise is weird, but tremendously good news, indeed.  Amen.

[i] R. Alan Culpepper, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 167.

[ii] Culpepper, 169.

[iii] Culpepper, 169.

[iv] Culpepper, 169.

[v] Culpepper, 169.

On Solitude, Gratitude, and Advent…

01 Wednesday Dec 2021

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Photo credit: https://www.horizonviewhealth.com/favorite-autumn-walks/

This Thanksgiving was a bit different for us.  Instead of making a drive, or having family come to us, the four of us had a quiet day punctuated by a traditional meal on the family China.  When I kept referring to Thanksgiving Dinner, even my children protested, “What’s the big deal – it’s just lunch!”  As an extrovert who has spent a lot of the last almost two years with these three other people, I felt a sense of absence for all the people with whom I have enjoyed this traditional day.  But as I watched my beloved introvert revel in the quiet, I began to see a peace among these four people who have come to deepen our trust and love for one another during this pandemic (even if that love is sometimes expressed in short tempers and bickering). 

I suspect we were not alone in our “new normal” Thanksgiving.  Many people from our church community had similar arrangements – couples who stayed home, four neighbors who came together in their “aloneness,” singletons who found joy over Zoom calls.  Even those who gathered in smaller groups commented on the quietness of the day – and a kind of gratitude that can only come from scarcity – scarcity of community, of gathering, of all things normal. 

For me, it was the perfect way to segue into Advent, a similar season of hushed quietness.  As the world whirls around us, we pull back, quietly preparing our homes, knowing the uncertainty of these times, and being grateful for every moment of comfort in this season of waiting.  That’s why I enjoy the Advent practice called “AdventWord.” – a visual way to meditate on a daily word throughout Advent.  It gives me a chance to scroll back through old pictures or turn my gaze to the world around me and snap something anew.  It is a solo, quiet practice that stirs creativity, gratitude, and hope.

What are you doing this Advent to set time apart?  How are you struggling to set time apart?  Maybe you can only find literal moments of peace.  Maybe you can squeeze out a half hour a day.  Maybe you can daily confess your desire for such a practice to the God who sees you in all your commitments.  Whatever you do this Advent, know that you have the support and love of a community who sees you too, and holds on to a desire for peace and comfort for you in this season.

Sermon – John 11.32-44, Isaiah 25.6-9, AS, YB, November 7, 2021

17 Wednesday Nov 2021

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Most Sundays we talk about Jesus’ life and witness and how we can emulate the Son of God.  Many years ago, there was even a campaign with the letters WWJD:  What Would Jesus Do.  But what we rarely talk about is how incredibly hard that ideal is – how hard as everyday humans emulating the Savior, who was both fully human and fully divine, really is.  So, in theory, a day like today should be a relief.  All Saints Sunday is a day we shift gears and talk about emulating people who were fully human.  Of course, that notion is tricky too.  By “saints” the church means those “persons of heroic sanctity, whose deeds were recalled with gratitude by

later generations.”[i]  These are people like St. Francis who shed his every earthly possession and obtained the stigmata, Mother Teresa who nursed this sickest of the sick and poorest of the poor, or even St. Margaret, who slayed her way out of a dragon after being tortured for her faith. 

I think that is why we often conflate All Saints and All Souls Day – the latter being a day when we remember all of those who have died in the hope of the resurrection.  These are the saints or souls who may not have been marked by heroic sanctity, but certainly had an impact on our lives.  These are the moms and dads, the spouses and friends, the children and lovers who may not have always been holy, but certainly taught us about the Christian faith and who we entrusted to the hope of the resurrection as we sat by their deathbeds or mourned their sudden deaths from afar.

We conflate the notion of All Souls Day into All Saints Day because there is something more human about All Souls Day – not only because we can relate to ordinary human life and death, but because the celebration today makes us feel like our humanity can be enough too.  That’s why I love the gospel lesson we get today.  In all the texts about Jesus’ healings, outwitting the challengers, and his ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross, today we get a text about Jesus being very human.  Before the amazing miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, we are told, very simply, Jesus wept.  Caught up in the grief of his friends Martha and Mary and lost in his own overwhelming sense of loss, Jesus cries; not just a single, artistic tear, but a full-on bout of weeping.  In that solitary moment of grief, Jesus feels deeply, tangibly human.

I do not know about you, but that is what I need from Jesus today.  Later in our service we will list the names of the beautiful souls from Hickory Neck who died in the last year – those who made us laugh, sometimes made us angry, who put a smile on our face, and sometimes made us weep.  In the Prayers of the People, we will pray for the over 750,000 people who have died of COVID in the United States, mourning not just their loss, but the loss of our old “normal” and all that this pandemic has taken from us.  We mourn the ways in which many of the funerals we celebrated in the last year cheated us from each other’s presence – a reality that has still not be fully remedied.  In the midst of what has been a time of significant trauma, we need a Savior who weeps with us – and not just for the dear friend who has died, but also for the fact that his raising Lazarus will soon mean his own death.[ii]

That very gift of Jesus’ humanity today is what empowers us to boldly proclaim hope[iii] in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of trauma, in midst of this strange in-between time.  The words of Isaiah remind us of the promise, the promise that, “the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.  It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”  On this All Saints Sunday, that is our hope for the week – the promise that the Lord God will wipe away tears – because God’s Son has known our tears – and that we will enjoy that rich feast with our loved ones again.  This in-between time is just that – a time in-between where the promise of new life is a rich promise indeed; one that gives us strength for the not-yet time.  Thanks be to God!

[i] Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints, (New York:  The Church Pension Fund, 2010),664.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “When Jesus Weeps,” October 28, 2018, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1999-when-jesus-weeps on November 5, 2021.

[iii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Mourn Loss, Proclaim Faith,” November 1, 2021, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/mourn-loss-proclaim-faith on November 5, 2021.

Sermon – Job 14.1-14, HS, YB, April 3, 2021

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

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Up until last year, I had not remembered that there was a liturgy in our Prayer Book for Holy Saturday.  I had always thought it was Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil on Saturday night (which is basically just Easter), and then Easter Sunday.  But when the pandemic hit last year, we realized doing a virtual Easter Vigil just would not work – there is so much reading, singing, doing things by candlelight, and the drama of being huddled together that we had to let the Liturgy wait until we could gather again.  So instead, we turned to this tiny liturgy, whose entire content is listed on one page of the Book of Prayer Book.

Still in a pandemic a year later, I found myself curious about this liturgy we are entering once again.  The truth is, the earliest accounts of Holy Week observances had no liturgies for Holy Saturday, with the exception of private use of the daily office.[i]  Instead, this day has simply been known as the “quietest day of the Christian year.”[ii]  That the church has not always gathered on Holy Saturday and that Christians might see this day as a day of quiet makes a lot of sense.  The Church says so much this week – from our waving of palms last Sunday, to our gathering around the upper room table to wash feet and share bread, to devastating betrayals of Jesus, to the vivid walk toward the cross, to the finality of the closed tomb.  We almost need a day of quiet to let the drama sink in and wrap our heads around what this week means.

But I suspect if your life is anything like mine or most Americans, we are not sitting quietly in our homes from 3:00 pm on Friday until Easter morning.  Instead, we are filling the time with preparations – tending to all the things we did not do while we were attending church this week:  dying eggs, entertaining children, stuffing Easter baskets, prepping Easter day meals, cleaning the house, or just having fun.  There is nothing inherently wrong about those things, but this year, of all years, I am grateful for a Holy Saturday liturgy.  With this last year of suffering through a pandemic and reflecting on our broken humanity’s inability to eliminate racism or mend civil discourse, even with the rise of vaccines, I find our country is in a Holy Saturday kind of time.  We have been through a tumultuous experience and are not yet healed. 

That is why I like having Job as a companion today.  Job’s words are stark.  As Job sits in the ashes of his sorrows, having lost his children, his livelihood, and his support system, he describes the brutality of life.  He talks about how trees have hope – even when cut down, they can sprout again, and new life can be born out of death.  But not so with humans, he argues.  No, when their bodies lay in the ground, there is nothing but death.  Job captures the essence of this day.  There is a similar finality at the door of Jesus’ tomb this day.  All the hopes and dreams, all the joys and blessings, all the promises of new life are sealed away in a tomb.  And after such a violent death and the threat for those who followed Jesus, there is no wonder why the Church has considered this a quiet day.  Unlike the quiet waiting of Advent, when the church is brimming with expectation and bustling around in preparation for Christ’s birth, today is a day of silence devoid of restorative peacefulness.  As one scholar says, “The waiting of Advent is like having warm bread in the oven.  By contrast, the air of Holy Saturday smells more like stale smoke, as though something essential was burned the day before.”[iii]  As our lives are not yet pandemic free, and as threats of spikes in cases emerge, we know that kind of waiting all too well.

And yet, in the very last verse of today’s reading, the despondent Job says something totally counter to everything else he has said.  “If mortals die, will they live again?” Job asks.  For someone who has boldly proclaimed the finality of human death, his question is a question that only a person of faith can ask – a question that reveals the tiniest bit of hope still left in Job.  Job communicates in this question a truth we people of faith hold dear:  no matter how bad the suffering, no matter how prevalent the experience of dread and doom, no matter how deep the failures of humanity seem to run, there is always hope.  The disciples and community surrounding Jesus Christ do not know that hope yet.  But as followers of Christ 2000 years later, we now stake our entire identity on the risen savior. 

So yes, receive the gift of stale smoke this day.  Sit in ashes with Job and mourn all in your life that feels dead.  Take time in this busyness of life for some uneasy silence.  Name all those who have been lost due to disease and violence.  But keep asking the questions.  Hold on to the hope, however infinitesimally small that God can indeed redeem us – us as individuals, us as country, us as Church.  Holding the two in tension is difficult – we want to rush to Easter and forget all that has happened.  But letting the power of all that has happened speak to us today will allow us to know the astounding power of resurrection much more deeply tomorrow.  Job, Jesus, and this faith community here will pull up a chair and sit with you by the ashes until we can reap with tears of joy tomorrow.  Amen.

[i] William Joseph Danaher, Jr., “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 310.

[ii] Christina Braudaway-Bauman, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 312.

[iii] Braudaway-Bauman, 312

Sermon – Jeremiah 31.31-34, L5, YB, March 21, 2021

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

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I do not know about you, but I entered Lent this year already done.  We talked about this reality five weeks ago, back on Ash Wednesday, when I told you that it was okay if you did not give up something this Lent – because we have already given up so much in the last year.  We have already fasted what feels like twenty Lents during this pandemic.  And then this week happened.  We started out with the words of the Vatican, declaring that although our LGBTQ brothers and sisters were still to be loved and welcomed in Church, their “sinfulness” would not be blessed within the covenant of marriage by the Roman Catholic Church.  I cannot tell you the pain and suffering those words created this week for so many who live in faithful, loving relationships and marriages.  Then, just a few days ago, a man in Atlanta murdered people of Asian descent, sparking off conversations about the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans since this pandemic began.  Our own Sacred Ground circle, the group studying the institution of racism in our country – not just towards blacks, but towards indigenous Americans, Latinos, and Asians – just finished its ten weeks of work; and yet within the same week we are talking about racism yet again.  And then this week, as administered vaccines slowly rise in James City County, I see people becoming lax about masking and social distancing, some folks in public spaces barely covering their faces.  Even the test positivity rate – the one whose decrease has allowed us to enact regathering plans – is creeping slowly toward the numbers that will shut us back down again. 

That is why I found myself gravitating to Jeremiah this week.  Part of the attraction is the good news of the text, but a larger part of my attraction is empathizing with the Israelites.  Jeremiah writes in a time of desperation for the people of God. The Babylonians have razed the temple and carried King Zedekiah off in chains.  Effectively, the Babylonians have “destroyed the twin symbols of God’s covenantal fidelity.”[i]  Sometimes we talk about the exile so much that I think we forget the heart-wrenching experience of exile.  Being taken from homes and forced to live in a foreign land is certainly awful enough.  But the things that were taken – the land of promise, the temple for God’s dwelling, the king offered for comfort to God’s people – are all taken, leaving not just lives in ruin, but faith in question. 

But today, in the midst of the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation, Jeremiah says God will make a new covenant.  God knows the people cannot stop breaking the old covenant, and so God promises to “forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”  Instead of making the people responsible for the maintenance of the covenant, God goes a step further and writes the law in their hearts, embodies God’s way within the people.  The words of Jeremiah in the section called “the Book of Comfort,”[ii] and this new covenant by God, show a God whose abundance knows no limits.  God offers this new covenant to a people who surely do not deserve another covenant.  God has offered prophets and sages, has called the people to repentance, has threatened and cajoled, and yet still the people cannot keep the basic tenants of the covenant established in those ten commandments.  But instead of abandoning the people to exile, God offers reconciliation and restoration yet again.  And because God knows we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves, God basically says, “Here.  Let me help you.  Let me write these laws in your hearts so that you do not have to achieve your way into favor with me, but you will simply live faithfully, living the covenant with your bodies and minds.”  And when even that does not seem to work, God sends God’s only son.  God never gives up on us or our relationship with God.  Even all these years after Christ’s resurrection, God is still finding new ways to make our covenant work.  

That is where I find hope this week.  Despite how broken we may feel because of this pandemic, despite how our nation seems incapable of not harming one another due to the color of our skin, despite the ways we seek to limit God’s love and abundance, God is relentless with God’s lovingkindness.  In Jeremiah’s text, when the Israelites have hit rock bottom, God turns not to vengeance or even a notion of just desserts.  God picks up the covenant of love, not relying on our hard work to be faithful, but declaring how God will simply put God’s law within us, will write God’s law of love on our hearts, will be our God and we will be God’s people.  In essence, nothing we can do will drive God from us.  And that, my friends, is good news indeed.  God sees us in all our fullness – light and shadow alike – and loves us anyway.  In this continued time of strain and strife, in this long night of COVID, God gives us good news.  As one scholar affirms, “God will bring newness out of destruction.  God will bring hope where there is no hope.  God will bring life out of death.  God will make a way where there is no way.”[iii]  Thanks be to God!

[i] Richard Floyd, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 122.

[ii] Jon L. Berquist, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 123.

[iii] Floyd, 124.

Sermon – Luke 23.18-26, People of the Cross, March 3, 2021

17 Wednesday Mar 2021

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This sermon was preached at New Zion Baptist Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, as part of the Upper James City County Lenten Ecumenical worship series. The series was entitled, “People of the Cross,” a journey with the characters of the Stations of the Cross.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of this pandemic, we have begun to fall into some dangerous patterns.  The more time we safely spend in isolation from others, the more the notion sneaks into our psyche that we do not need others – that we are solitary actors in the world.  The more safety measures become recommendations as opposed to mandates, we begin to think we have power over our destiny – freedom to wear a mask or not, freedom to spend time with people when we want, freedom to take a vaccine or not.  The more time we spend not gathering in our worship spaces, away from our communities of faith, the more distant we can begin to feel from God, slowly no longer watching those digital offerings or joining those Zooms because we are just tired of everything.

Sometimes I wonder if Simon of Cyrene was a man who thought of himself in similar ways.  Now, we have to remember where we are in Jesus’ story.  Jesus has already been betrayed by Judas, arrested in Gethsemane, been shuffled around by religious and secular authorities, undergone trial with Pilate, been sentenced to death, and is heading toward Calvary with a cross.  This is the point in Jesus’ story where we meet Simon of Cyrene.  We know very little about Simon.  He is only mentioned in the three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and even in those gospels, his story is told in just a verse.  Matthew says, “As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry [Jesus’] cross.”  Mark says, “They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry [Jesus’] cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.”  And finally, Luke, who we heard tonight, says, “As they led [Jesus] away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.” 

That is all we have.  One verse from each synoptic gospel.  We learn a few things though.  Simon was not from Jerusalem – he was coming in from the country.  Simone of Cyrene was a father of at least two sons.  And we know he did not volunteer for the job of helping Jesus.  He did not have compassion, see a man struggling, and offer to help.  He did not see the incorruption of the state and fight back or bravely step in to mitigate the injustice.  All we know is he was compelled or seized and put to work.  And Luke adds that he carried the cross behind Jesus.  The rest of the story we just do not know.

But here is what we do know.  We know the times where we have collided with Jesus, sometimes against our will or even our knowing.  The phone call from the needy friend when you just need some alone time.  The homeless person, who seems slightly unstable, who you know is going to ask you for something, even if they just start with conversation.  That person being bullied on the playground or in the board room, that if you stand up for them, the bullies may turn their evil on you.  The pastor who asks you to take leadership on a new ministry when you are already feeling overwhelmed.       

Author and Dominican brother, Timothy Radcliffe, reminds us that we Americans have a strange relationship with “the ideal of a self-sufficient person who does not need anyone else.   We should stand on our own feet.   It is humiliating to need others, especially strangers.”[i]  That very kind of thinking is what has led us to where we are in this pandemic – where my behavior, my choices, my agency to mask, socially distance, and vaccinate are my own, made in a bubble of self-sufficiency.  But in the heart of Simon of Cyrene’s experience with Jesus, we see how our own American ideals crumble.  We are not wholly autonomous peoples of self-sufficiency and self-actualization.  We are people who need each other.  Jesus shows us in this strange, forced encounter with Simon that vulnerability is not a burden to be scorned, but the place where holiness is encountered – where we see God.

Of course, Jesus taught us this lesson before.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus told his followers that when they see a stranger, the least of these, and see they are hungry and give them food, they are thirsty and give them something to drink, when they welcomed a stranger, they clothed the naked, and took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner, they did these things to Jesus.  We know our wearing of masks is not for our own protection, but for the protection of others.  We know in our keeping distant from our loved ones, including from our beloved churches, we are protecting others.  When we get vaccines, we do not take them for ourselves, but for the power of herd immunization to stop the ravaging of our whole country. 

Julian of Norwich, the Middle Ages mystic, once wrote, “If I look at myself alone, I am nothing.  But when I think of myself and all my fellow-Christians joined together in love, I have hope.  For in this joining lies the life of all who shall be saved.”[ii]  Simon of Cyrene may not have wanted to be a part of Jesus’ story.  We may not want to be a part of the work of saving one another, this community, the commonwealth, or even this country.  And yet, here we are, a pandemic having stripped us of all notions of our self-sufficiency and self-actualization, being forced to look at each other in vulnerability and mutual dependence. 

We may not choose this reality, this time, this country in all its sinfulness, but this is where God has placed us.  But just like Simon of Cyrene, even in those times when we are forced into encounters with the holy One, our lives can be changed.  Several scholars have argued that Simon of Cyrene, in this forced encounter, in being forced to carry a stranger’s cross, becomes a disciple of that same stranger.  Pastor Patrick J. Willson argues, “Simon follows Jesus carrying the cross, thus becoming an icon of Christian discipleship. Luke’s vision is not that of an imitatio Christi; only Jesus is crucified. Simon follows the way Jesus has walked bearing the weight of the cross.  Jesus going before him makes discipleship possible.”[iii]

That is our invitation through Simon of Cyrene.  Simon’s story – his one moment with Jesus, his one verse in the entire canon of scripture – offers a powerful invitation to, even in this moment, take our cross of discipleship and follow Jesus.  We do not have to go with an eager spirit.  We may not even go willingly.  But the promise of going is radical transformation:  transformation from a people whose primary concern is for self to a people who know we will encounter Jesus when we finally realize that only when we look at ourselves as joined with fellow-Christians in love can we look to the world in hope.  Jesus humbled himself, making himself vulnerable enough to walk to Calvary and die on a cross for us.  Our invitation is to walk humbly behind and allow the weight of the cross to transform us into people of love and hope.  Amen.

[i] Timothy Radcliffe, Stations of the Cross (Collegeville:  Liturgical Press, 2014), 30.

[ii] Julian of Norwich, Stations of the Cross:  A Devotion Using The Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich (Norwich:  The Friends of Julian of Norwich, 1998), 13.

[iii] Patrick J. Willson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Pt. 1, Additional Essays (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 4.