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Sermon – Luke 2.1-20, CD, YA, December 25, 2019

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

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This past year I have been learning a lot about Godly Play, the program we use with our smallest children in Sunday School, and more recently, the program we use with the Kensington School too.  At first blush, the program is pretty simple:  we tell Bible stories, using simple props to engage the children visually, we let the children play with the story, and then we wonder about the story along the way.  But when we are telling the story with the Kensington School, we have about fifteen kids, ages two-and-a-half to five years old.  I do not know how much time you have spent with that age group recently, but what that means is working super hard to hold their attention.  Being the loud extrovert that I am, I assumed holding their attention would mean using a loud, commanding voice.  But I have discovered from our seasoned teachers that the opposite is true.  They lower their voices to a slow-paced, almost whisper, and they manage to keep the children on the edges of their seats – as if something amazing is going to happen if they listen really hard.

Oftentimes, when we think of Christmas, we imagine a similar pattern.  When we gather on Christmas Eve, we look forward to savoring the familiar story, imagining being able to hear a pin drop as the beloved story is told again.  Our favorite song on Christmas Eve is usually Silent Night.  The song lulls us to imagining Mary and Joseph blissfully enjoying a silent night of wonder.  But that holy night, and most Christmas Eve services, are anything but quiet.  Bethlehem is inundated with people coming in for the registration.  The fact that there is no room for Joseph and Mary tells us how crowded Bethlehem is.  But Mary and Joseph not only have to tend with homecoming revelers, they also have to contend with the animals over whose abode they have taken.  Add into the mix a screaming newborn, and the idea of a silent night is almost comical.

But Mary and Joseph get even more noise than that.  You see, nearby shepherds hear a cacophony of praise from the heavenly hosts in the middle of the night.  Their night has been anything but quiet too.  Instead of trying to get the animals and themselves back to sleep, they decide to go into town and see this thing which has come to pass.  And so, they spend the night, talking to Mary and Joseph, maybe taking turns trying to soothe the baby Jesus.  When they leave those rudimentary quarters, they leave town praising and glorifying God.  This is no silent night for the shepherds either.

I think that is why I enjoy our celebration on Christmas Day so much.  Silence is in short supply on Christmas Eve.  We sing carols, we hear the giddy laughter of children awaiting gifts, stockings, and cookies, and we chant the mass, singing our traditionally spoken words.  For those of us with small children, even the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Day are loud – filled with cries of elation, joy, and battery-operated toys.  But on Christmas Day, after a noisy night and morning, we make our way to church and find, perhaps for the first time, the silence for which we have been looking.  We do not sing carols.  We do not have to speak over the hubbub of full pews.  Instead we gather in relative quiet, and tell the old story again – but this time with a softness that cannot be found on Christmas Eve.

What I love about finding true silence on Christmas Day is that our morning is structured a lot like I imagine that first holy morning being structured.  Christmas Eve is full of noise – of animals, shepherds, angels, and crying babies.  But that next morning, the dust has settled.  Gone are the shepherds and angels.  The animals have calmed down after too many midnight guests.  I even imagine baby Jesus has given in to sleep, since most newborns get their nights and days reversed for the first few weeks.  Into this relative quiet is when I imagine Mary treasuring all those words and pondering them in her heart.  The night before is just too loud.  The exhausted, travel-weary, physically and emotionally spent Mary gets a moment in the morning to begin to process what God has done in and through her.  After the break of dawn, as the sun rises and the loud revelers and news deliverers have gone, she can have a quiet moment as she rocks or feeds baby Jesus and ponder in her heart this child at her breast.

I do not think that night is silent.  But I understand why our hymnodists would want to talk about silence.  I think that is why I prefer the hymn, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence.”  Instead of depicting a silent night, that hymn invites us to keep silence as a form of reverence.  The first verse says, “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.”  I like the hymn because that is the kind of pondering I imagine Mary does in her heart this morning.  Unlike most new mothers, I do not think she is worried about the impact of birth on her body or even about her humble surroundings.  I imagine her thoughts that morning are consumed with nothing earthly minded.  Instead, I imagine her heart is pondering the blessing of Christ our God descending on earth through her – and the enormity of the event drives her to pay silent homage as she gazes on Jesus’ precious face.

That is what the church invites us to do today as well.  We structure a morning for worship.  The dust of gift wrap, eggnog, and stocking stuffers is settling.  The noise of carols, singing choirs and priests, and antsy children in pews is fading.  The anxiety of preparing for the big event of this day is easing.  And all that is left is a moment to let our mortal flesh keep silent before the Christ Child.  This morning we take a moment to ponder nothing earthly minded, and instead join Mary as she ponders all that has happened in her heart.  We come to church on this holy morning to ponder the miracle of the Christ Child.  We honor the way in which God is ever trying to honor the covenant God has made with us – willing to go to the extreme of taking on human form to care for and preserve us.  Our God’s love knows no bounds.  Humbled by that knowledge, we come to pay God homage.

The question for us in our pondering is what we will do with that love.  Though we make space this morning for silence, we do not remain here all day.  Like any other Sunday, the clergy will dismiss us to go in peace, and serve the Lord.  Anytime we feast at Christ’s table, that is our charge:  to take whatever sustenance we have gained and to go out into the world to do the work that Christ has given us to do.  Certainly that may involve cooking, travel, or more gift giving.  But the news we ponder in our hearts today is much bigger than today.  Today we are commissioned to consider the impact of the birth of the Christ Child on our lives, what our response will be to the God who is so faithful to God’s covenant with us that God would take on human flesh to redeem us.  As our talented Godly Play teachers might pose, I wonder what new work God is crafting in our hearts.  Perhaps this morning, or for at least the next few minutes, you can let your mortal flesh keep silence and ponder with Mary.  And then go out with the shepherds, glorifying and praising God in your work.  Amen.

 

Sermon – Luke 2.1-14, CE, YA, December 24, 2019

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

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This December, my elder daughter and I are slowly finishing the last book in the Harry Potter series.  The process has taken us several years, since we usually only finish a few pages each night.  But each time we pick the book up, I can never tell who is more excited – her or me.  You see, I have read the series at least three times – once during a summer interning at a hospital, when I needed a brain break from the emotional labor, and twice while spending lots of time nursing, when I needed a brain break from a different kind of labor.  But reading the books with my daughter has been different.  Although I know what will happen, there have been parts of the seven books I forgot entirely.  As I have watched through her eyes, I had forgotten the range of emotions the books evoke, the anticipation the author builds, and the slew of questions that take ages to answer.  In rereading them with her, I have also seen bigger truths – some allegories and religious parallels that only sink in after multiple readings.  The whole experience has been so fun, I cannot wait to start all over again with our younger daughter!

I have been thinking about how our favorite books are often like that.  Though we have endless options of books to read, sometimes we will pick an old favorite to read again.  I think many of us will reread favorite books because we like the familiarity, like cozying up with old friend.  Some of us enjoy rereading books because we enjoy catching new tidbits we never caught before.  While others of us enjoy rereading books because there is some comfort in knowing how the story ends – of being certain about what will happen.  The same can be true for small children too.  I cannot tell you how many times I read Goodnight Moon over the years.  But I never minded because I totally understood the comfort my kids found in the familiarity of a known book; the comfort they sought in Goodnight Moon was the same comfort I sought in familiar books too.

In a lot of ways, that is what we are doing tonight.  We are telling a story we have heard over and over again – although tonight’s New Revised Standard Version may not sound as familiar as the old King James Version; even Charlie Brown’s friends knew that version.  Every year, every single Christmas Eve, we make our way to church – sometimes having fought over what to wear, when, where, and what to eat, or whether or not to open any gifts beforehand.  But we make our way here tonight because we know the ultimate reward is sitting here, in the quiet of night, listening to the story we hear every year of a powerful emperor imposing a tax; of a very pregnant Mary making her way to Bethlehem with her betrothed, Joseph; of Mary giving birth and putting the Christ Child in a manger because there is no room in the inn; of shepherds minding their business in the dark of night; of angels appearing announcing glorious news; and of a chorus of angels singing magnificent truth.  And our reactions are much like they are with any favorite book.  We find comfort in the story’s familiarity, we look for and sometimes hear tiny details we forgot or had not thought about before, and we find comfort in knowing how the story will end.  Glory to God in the highest, indeed!

But the main reason we tell this story year after year after year is not simply for the familiarity and comfort – though the Church wants us to experience that goodness too.  The main reason we tell this familiar story again tonight is because we need to remember who we are and who God is.  You see, what happened on that beautiful, special night, is God came in human form among us – came as Jesus Christ incarnate – because God loves us so very much.  God saw we were struggling to be good, to live as loving people made in God’s image, and God knew we needed Jesus to help us.  We learn in this story that God is awesome, God loves us and is faithful to God’s covenant even when we are not, and God does unimaginably incredible things for us.  This beloved, almost quaint, story is full of good news about who God is.

But this beloved, familiar story also tells us something about who we are.  This story tells us that whatever baggage we came in here with tonight, whatever we are struggling with on a weekly basis, whatever self-doubts we might have, we learn in this story that we are worthy of God’s love.  We learn in this story that no matter who we are – an esteemed king, feared among the people and wielding great power; a couple with nowhere to go, feeling unsure about the future; everyday workers going about their daily jobs, just trying to pay the bills; or a vulnerable baby, unaware of the dangers all around – no matter who we are, we are loved by God, and given the opportunity to have a relationship with God.  We also learn in this story a bit harder reality.  We learn in this story that being loved by God means sharing God’s love – of going to visit people who need visiting and need to know the love of God in their isolation and loneliness, of caring for people who have no place to go no matter what we judgments we make about how they got into their current situation, of taking on tasks that seem insurmountable but will help more people experience the love of God.  We find out a lot about ourselves tonight in this familiar story too.

I know each of us who has gathered here tonight came for a different reason.  Maybe you just like the music, or maybe someone made you come, or maybe you came out of habit, or maybe you came because you wanted some sense of comfort and familiarity.  Regardless of how you got here, the Church tonight tells us a story full of meaning.  We certainly tell this story tonight because this is safe place we can cozy up to the story and feel comforted in familiarity.  We tell this story because we need reminding who God is and who we are.  But we especially tell this story tonight because God wants us to go from this place and do something with all the love and comfort we receive tonight.  God wants us to share God’s love with those who need love the most – even to the people we sometimes do not like (actually, especially to the people we do not like).  God wants us tonight to remember who we are, and who God is, and then go out into the world, rejoicing, sharing the love of Christ, retelling the Christ Child’s story, and bringing Jesus’ story to life for others.  Who knows?  Maybe this will become your new favorite story you want to read over and over again!  Amen.

Sermon – Matthew 11.2-11, A3, YA, December 15, 2019

18 Wednesday Dec 2019

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Advent is one of the stranger seasons of the Church, in which the experience of churchgoers seems completely out of alignment with the secular world.  The secular world put on bells weeks ago, has been playing songs about holly, jolly Christmases, and in general is so excited about Christmas presents, vacations, and fun that there is a little room for anything but joy.  Meanwhile, those sitting in church in these weeks have heard about preparing our lives and hearts for the return of the Lord, about repenting and making a way for our God, of quietly, soberly, and humbly waiting for what is to come.  But on this third Sunday of Advent, those two worlds collide:  the saccharine-filled, tap-dancing, over-caffeinated secular world of pre-Christmas and the quiet, methodical, prayerful world of Advent both turn us to joy.  This third Sunday of Advent, called Gaudete or Rose Sunday, we light a pink candle, and we proclaim a mini-sabbath from our somberness and lean into joy.  The church seems to be telling us, “Okay, take one day to smile, to linger on how cute baby Jesus must have been, and how exciting things must have been at the manger.  This time of year might just be the hap-happiest season of all!”

Given the Church’s permission to lean into to joy this week, we might anticipate a gospel reading that is also full of joy – maybe Mary and Elizabeth sharing their pregnant joys or angels delivering good tidings of great joy.  Instead, we get John the Baptist, sitting in a cold jail cell, asking an unthinkable question to Jesus, “Are you the one to come, or are we to wait for another?”  Now John has never really been a character who has embodied joy.  He lived the life of an ascetic, he preached about people’s sinfulness and their need to repent, he drove people to be baptized, in their hope to get right with God.  But John has been certain about Jesus in the past.  Earlier in Matthew, John says, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals.”[i]  In John’s Gospel, John the Baptizer says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”[ii] and “He must increase, but I must decrease.”[iii]  In Luke’s Gospel, John’s surety about Jesus happens before he is even born, as he leaps in his mother Elizabeth’s womb.[iv]  So what has happened to John?  Why can he not just get on the joy train with us today?

Well, a couple of things have indeed changed.  John is no longer free to roam around as he pleases, he is no longer surrounded by growing crowds who are mesmerized by his words, and his own disciples seem lost without him.  John is sitting in a cold, hard jail cell, his life hanging in the balance, and Jesus, the guy he was so sure about, is not exactly playing along.  He is not acting like he is supposed to, and in that dark, damp place, John is left wondering, “Was I wrong?  Is Jesus not The One?  If he is the Messiah, surely I would not be here, suffering without Jesus taking decisive, bold action.”  And John is right to question.  Wonderful things are happening through Jesus, blessings of which the prophet Isaiah had foretold.  But according to scholars, there are no distinctive documents that depicted the Messiah behaving in the way Jesus does.[v]  If Jesus is the Messiah, John’s doubts are not unfounded.

Truth be told, as much as we would like a joyful sabbath from our quiet, sober, season of repentance, we understand John’s plight.  We have all had those moments of darkness where we too have asked God, “Are you the one who is to come?”  That question is a question we have all asked at one point or another.  In the midst of chronic pain, as a romantic relationship is falling apart, as a pink slip is delivered, as loneliness overwhelms us, we have asked Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come?” because we too have been disappointed by God.  We too have expected God to be with us in a specific way, to make things right in the ways we imagined, or to fix the world and show the world that God is indeed present.  Hickory Neck acknowledges that very reality this coming weekend in our Blue Christmas service – a service where we boldly confess that Christmas is not a joyful season for all – and that is okay.  We understand the darkness that can live on the margins of the light.

Although we may all understand John’s plight in some way, although we have all had those deep, painful moments of questioning, we may find ourselves wondering, why we chose this specific text on the day that is supposed to be about joy.  Surely we did not don our rose-colored bow-tie, pink dress, or rose sweater for nothing!  Fortunately, we do get joy from this text from Matthew too – albeit not necessarily in the ways we may want.  When John asks, “Are you the one who is come?” I suspect he wanted a simple, “Yes, of course!  Do not fret!”  But Jesus does not usually do direct.  Instead, Jesus says, “Look around you, John.  What do you see?”  And for those of us not there, Jesus reminds us:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.  The Good News John is looking for may not look familiar, but there is good news.  Jesus’ version of Messiahship is not familiar, but his Messiahship is good.

One of the most powerful, and sometimes annoying, questions my spiritual director asks me when talking about my life and ministry is, “Where are you seeing God?”  The question is the same question I have asked many of you too.  Where in the midst of struggle, suffering, or pain are you seeing God?  The question is annoying because sometimes we just want to sit in our suffering – sit in our cold jail cells – with our questions and not look to joy.  But that is what looking for God does.  When we recall the people around us who bring us meals or baked goods, just because, we begin to see the loving care surrounding us.  When we remember the conversation with a good friend when she sees a profound truth that brings us comfort and peace, we begin to hear the comforting words of Jesus.  When we reassess the blessing happening around us – our everyday needs being met, the appearance of an encouraging bloom or bird’s song, or an unexpected act of kindness – we begin to see that maybe, just maybe, there is joy bubbling up all around us.

This Gaudete Sunday may not bring us the kind of joy that makes us feel like this is the most wonderful time of the year.  But today’s gospel does bring the kind of joy that matters – the deep, abiding joy that come from realizing God is active in our lives, making a way for goodness, healing, and grace.  Today’s gospel reminds us our questions and doubts are okay, and are answered by examples of blessing all around us.  Today’s gospel takes our frustrations about how life should be, and shows us the abundance in what is.  Jesus offers us today the kind of joy that eases those lines of stress between our furrowed brows, that softens the tension in the middle of our chests, and unclenches the teeth, shoulders, and hands that have been hardened for so long.  Jesus offers us the kind of joy that is a deep breath of release, a refreshing gulp of cool water, an all-encompassing hug of compassion.  Our invitation today is to receive Christ’s joy with assurance, and then share his joy beyond these walls.  Amen.

[i] Mt. 3.11

[ii] Jn. 1.29

[iii] Jn. 3.30

[iv] Lk. 1.41

[v] William R. Herzog, II, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 71.

Sermon – Matthew 24.36-44, Isaiah 2.1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13.11-14, A1, YA, December 1, 2019

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

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One of the cooler things about my grandmother was a unique skill she had.  She could hold her fingers just so, making a perfect circle between her middle finger and thumb, place the circle in her mouth, and create a whistle so loud it could be heard across a large campus or a packed room, full of people.  The sound was as loud as any instrument you could produce, and the tone was so distinct, you knew right away my grandmother trying to get your attention.  I always thought the gift was super cool, longing to master the gift myself.  But my dad, on the other hand, hated that sound.  Having grown up with my grandmother, he associated the sound with being in trouble.  And he was not alone.  My grandmother’s whistle was so loud and so distinct, the entire neighborhood knew the sound – and also knew the Andrews kids must be in trouble.  Other kids would tell my dad, “You better hurry!”  My grandmother did not need to raise her voice, or call out for her children.  One loud whistle, and the kids knew the whistle meant drop everything you were doing and come immediately.

Today’s gospel lesson has the same kind of impact.  Matthew’s gospel talks of the second coming, a return so shocking people will be caught unawares, with neighbors, family, and friends suddenly disappearing, or swept away unexpectedly, like the people outside of Noah’s ark.  The images are so vivid and alarming, whole book and film series have been created depicting what this dramatic second coming will be like.  Countless street corner preachers have used these images to drive people to Jesus out of fear.  Unfortunately for Jesus, these preachers, books, and films have been so dramatically fantastical, that Jesus’ words have lost their sense of realism.  We hear these words now and either roll our eyes is disbelief, brush them off in discomfort, or walk away in disdain.

Now, I am not suggesting you start watching or reading the Left Behind series, and I acknowledge the two-thousand-year delay in this second coming can leave us a bit skeptical.  But I do think there is an invitation today to step into the parts of the images that are disorienting or even unsettling.  Most of the images Jesus uses today are of people doing their everyday activities:  eating, drinking, working in the fields, preparing daily meals.  These are the activities of life:  reading the paper, driving the kids to school or practice, studying for a test, tending our gardens, preparing dinner.  The space Jesus is talking about is the space in life that can become so routine we can almost do them without thinking.  In fact, sometimes, the routine is so powerful we become absorbed in the routine – not just out of habit, but also because of desire.  Burying our heads in the sand of the ordinary is one of the ways we cope with the world around us.  When the world seems overwhelming or hard, we bury ourselves in routine, leaving little space in our minds, hearts, and spirits for much else.

The problem with burying our heads in the ordinary is that we start missing things.  We pass by the children boarding a school bus from a local motel without thinking.  We ignore how much desolation, deception, and destruction is all around us by avoiding the news.  We stop noticing that elder in church whose health is starting to isolate them from the community.  And we have every reason to bury ourselves – the chaos and need in the world can be thoroughly overwhelming at times.  We all know there are much more unhealthy coping mechanisms, so burying our heads in the ordinary seems pretty tame in comparison.  My family will be the first to tell you that when mommy starts randomly deep cleaning a part of the house, something big has gone awry.

But here’s the thing:  Jesus is not telling us to avoid the ordinary.  Jesus knows as much as anyone we need food to eat – everyday.  What Jesus is asking us to do is keep a part of ourselves out of the ordinary.  Jesus wants our ears to be attuned for his distinctive whistle – the whistle that can grab our attention whether we are in the middle of a conversation, are knee deep in a project, or are binge-watching the latest Netflix release.  But the reasons Jesus wants us to have our ears attuned for his whistle may not be as nefarious as they seem.  In turning to our other three lessons today, we begin to see the light.  Isaiah tells in the days to come, the Lord will be doing some mighty things – beating swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks.  Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more.  Isaiah’s message of peace is a message of joy and action.  Isaiah whistles to us, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”[i]

The psalmist’s whistle is similar.  “Let us go to the house of the Lord,” she says.  Out of the ordinary, and into the house of God, we hear a new prayer for us.  “May they prosper who love you.  Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers.  For my brethren and companions’ sake, I pray for your prosperity.  Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.”[ii]  Can you imagine missing such a beautiful blessing because we were working through our shopping list during mass or afraid of what we would find in the Lord’s house?

Paul whistles to us too.  “Wake up,” Paul says in Romans.  “The night is far gone, the day is near.  Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day…”[iii] Paul’s call for attention is a call to goodness, an invitation into a community of light – in clothing ourselves with that light.

If Jesus’s images felt threatening or scary, enough to drive our heads into the ordinary, the rest of our lessons tell us why we should, in fact, pull our heads out, and keep watch this Advent.  When we do, we hear some stunningly wonderful news – news of peace and harmony, news of blessing and soothing, news of light in a world of darkness.  Perhaps Jesus’ whistle was a bit more like my grandmothers – the whistle that let you and everyone around know you were in trouble.  But the rest of the lectionary today tells us the whistle is a gift – an invitation to turn into the light.

One of the things I loved about WMBGkind, the kindness movement happening in our community, was that the movement opened a real window into the light.  After reading the Last Word in The Virginia Gazette for several years, I had begun to bury my own head – reading the whole paper and then stopping short on the last page so I did not have to read the vitriol in our community.  But once I started paying attention to acts of kindness in our community, my perspective shifted.  I skimmed the Last Word to find the thank you notes – the notes of thanks for big and tiny acts of kindness.  I started to notice photos of countless churches, organizations, and businesses giving back to the community.  I started noticing neighbors holding doors for one another, kids picking up litter, and strangers giving up their time to help someone else.

I have seen the same sense of light here at Hickory Neck too.  As we talked about shining our light this year during Stewardship season, I saw parishioners trying out new ministries.  I watched parishioners increase pledges and talk excitedly about what a difference we could make in our community.  I have watched as longtimers offer lovingkindness to newcomers, as newcomers give of their time to welcome others, and as parishioners and clergy share laughter, love, and levity.  When I listen to the whistle of scripture, I hear light, I hear promise, and I hear invitation.

As a mother of five children, I know we often teased my grandmother for her ominous whistle.  My guess is her whistle was a necessary tool in her parenting toolbelt.  But I found myself wondering this week what might have happened if she had used the same whistle to deliver other news:  hugs and words of affirmation; a quiet whisper in their ear saying, “I just wanted you to know that I love you.”  Instead of the whistle being an ominous sound, the whistle could have been a song of promise.  That’s what today’s lessons offer to us:  a song of promise.  Sure, they may be jarring to the ear at first.  But when we really listen, we hear their promise in the depths of our souls – in places we bury when we bury ourselves in the ordinary.  Our invitation this Advent is to pay attention.  Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  Amen.

[i] Isaiah 2.5

[ii] Psalm 122.6-9

[iii] Romans 13.12-13a

Sermon – Luke 23.33-43, P29, YC, November 24, 2019

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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Fifty-one years ago, Mister Rogers Neighborhood debuted on public television.  Many people criticized the show, saying the show was too slow and too boring to keep children engaged.  For critics, children’s programming needed to be loud, action-packed, full of silly gimmicks, perhaps with a few characters that were made fun of or teased.  Knowing how frenetic young children can be, television producers had decided to mirror young children’s behavior in their television programming.  But not Mr. Rogers.  In the midst of frenetic behavior, Mr. Rogers sought a different environment for his show – something slower and more thoughtful, something kind and engaging, something simple and attentive.  Critics said the show would never last, that Mister Rogers Neighborhood was not what children wanted.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church year, this Sunday of jubilant triumph, we find a similar conundrum.  As we read from Luke’s gospel, we do not find Christ the King on a throne – we find him on a cross, leaders scoffing at him, soldiers mocking him, a criminal deriding him, and a crowd of people just standing there watching.  Nothing about today’s lesson connotes victory or royalty.  Jesus’ critics put a sign over his head that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”  The inscription is written as a declarative statement, but I wonder if there should have been a question mark at the end of that sentence.  This is the King of the Jews?  This is what royalty looks like?  This is what a savior is to you?

Of course, I am not sure the people of God were any surer about what having a king should be like.  The people of God never really had a king until they reached the Promised Land.  They saw the neighboring countries with their armies and their admirable kings, and they wanted one for themselves.  That was their first mistake.  God granted them a king to rule over them, but inevitably, the kings, like all humans, were flawed – some more than others.  Hence, there are four books in the Hebrew Scriptures about the kings who ruled and the judges who tried to correct their behavior.  Most of the kings were corrupted by power, money, and greed.  Many abused the people.  Even the most revered king, King David, was a mess.  He was the one who coveted Bathsheba, slept with her, and then killed her husband when he got her pregnant and realized he would not be able to get away with it.

Having been through a horrible patch of awful kings, the prophets predicted the coming of a Messiah – the king of kings and Lord of lords.  This king would be triumphant and would make the people of Israel dominant at last.  You can imagine that with such a great promise, the people of Israel are not too pleased with the man who finally claimed be the Messiah.  Nothing about Jesus says “king.”  He is nonviolent, hangs out with sinners of all sorts, and travels with a sorry band of misfits.  Even his grand entrance into Jerusalem where he is heralded as a king is not so grand – he rides in on a donkey, for goodness sake!  This could not possibly be the king Yahweh had promised them.

And yet, this is exactly the king God sends.  The Lord, who never wanted God’s people to have an earthly king anyway, makes a king that represents everything that is kingly:  a man who loves the poor and cares for the sick, a man who sees through the pretenses of the temple and calls for authenticity, a man who loves deeply and forgives infinitely.  So why are the people of God not excited about this king?  Why can they not love this countercultural king as much as the king they think they need?

In talking to a William & Mary student a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded of one of the first Political Science classes I took in college called Political Theory.  When we started reading the first book in our Political Theory class, I knew I was in trouble.  We read John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.  In the book, he presents the best way to create a just political system.  He imagines gathering a random, diverse group of people who are essentially blindfolded about what their lot in life will be.  They have no guarantees about whether they will be old or young, rich or poor, male or female, member of a minority group or not.  In the midst of this blindness, the people gathered are given the task to create a set of rules to govern society.  Rawls’ basic argument is that if those people are truly blind about what their lot in life will be, they will be more likely to come up with a system of governance that is the fairest for all – since no one would want to take a chance on being the one victimized by an unfair system.  Although I appreciated what Rawls was saying, I was immediately annoyed at his argument.  How could we ever recreate a system of justice from scratch, and truly blind anyone enough to create such a system?  The entire premise seemed impossible, and thoroughly frustrating.  Needless to say, my focus in Political Science did not become Political Theory!

That being said, many years later, I think I may finally understand what Rawls was trying to communicate.  Our political system, or even this earthly life in general, is governed by a set of human-made standards that do not look out for the poor, create injustices, and benefit very few.  This is why so many of us get frustrated when we talk about justice or trying to make a difference – we see the system of injustice that fights against us and we can end up feeling helpless.  This is the very injustice that our king – Jesus – comes to fight.  Maybe Rawls saw this too.  Perhaps this world we can only achieve through blindness is the same world Jesus could see through God’s eyes.

In Rawls’ argument, when the blinded people make the rules, and then have their blindfolds removed, some are relieved to be well-off and others are dismayed to see themselves in poverty or at a disadvantage.  But all have some sense of acceptance because the rules they made do not make rich-life as advantageous and do not make poor-life as unbearable.  This is the kind of fairness into which Jesus invites us.  Jesus shows us a world where a humiliated man can look at his persecutors and forgive them.  Jesus shows a world where a man is willing to suffer for the salvation of others.  Jesus shows us a world where even a criminal can see truth in the last hour, can admit his guilt, and turn to Christ for leniency.

This is why we celebrate Christ as King today:  not because he is victorious in putting us in control over others, but because he invites us into a life that evens the playing field – the life of the kingdom of God.  There are certainly going to be days when we wish Jesus would just mount a mighty horse and triumph over evil.  Lord knows, in these days of political strife, of country-wide division and derision, of a time in our country where we say nasty things to one another, and the actions of the other side (whichever side we see as “the other”) are seen as the cause of all our troubles, we could use a Messiah, a king to come in and just “fix it” – to be a decisive, strong, powerful king to clean the slate.  But what Christ the King Sunday invites us to remember is we do not need a king on a throne; we need a king on a cross who enables us to create a world of fairness here and now – a world that is much more similar to the kingdom of God than the kingdom of humankind.

So why do we honor this not-so-kingly king today on the last day of the liturgical year?  I think the very best reason we close one year and prepare to start another with today’s gospel lesson is so that as we can more humbly approach the Christ Child.  If we can imagine ourselves gathered around that manger on that most holy of nights, not eager for vindication, but instead humbled by the path we will all walk with this king, then we enter into Advent with more reverence, less arrogance, and a healthy dose of gratitude.  This king – Christ the King – is the most sobering, challenging, merciful, joyous, steadying king for which we could hope.  He is not the king we always want, but he is certainly the king we always need.  Today we celebrate the wise gift by God of a true King – a king who makes us all better versions of ourselves, who helps us see there are no easy solutions, and who encourages us to embrace justice as fairness, not justice as vindication.  Our invitation today is to take a seat at the foot of the cross, to prepare our place in the hay surrounding the manger, to change out our shoes, to take off our jackets and zip up our cardigans, and to make a calm, quieter space for ourselves to hear how a real king can help us create not the kingdom we may want, but certainly the kingdom we need.  Amen.

Sermon – Luke 16.19-31, P21, YC, September 29, 2019

02 Wednesday Oct 2019

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I was listening to my favorite preaching podcast this week, which is hosted by three to four seminary professors and scholars.  Usually they spend about a third to half of the podcast talking about the gospel lesson, and then spend the rest of the time on the three other lessons.  But this week, the focus on the gospel was pretty truncated.  In fact, one of the scholars basically said, “If you are looking for some new knowledge or some hidden message in this gospel, there isn’t one.  This one is pretty straightforward.”[i]  After a convoluted, at times ambiguous, lesson last week about a crooked manager who gets praised for his deviousness, this week’s gospel has very little ambiguity.  You can almost hear echoes of Luke’s beatitudes from chapter 6, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God….but woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”[ii]

We could easily read this parable about the rich man and Lazarus and think, “Wow that rich man really messed up; I am so glad I am not rich so I do not have to worry about that kind of poor behavior.”  But here is the thing:  Jesus is not telling a story about “that guy.”  The fact that Lazarus has a name but the rich man does not gives us a big interpretive tool for this parable.[iii]  This is not a parable about a man who messed up ages ago.  This is a parable for faithful people everywhere who daily must navigate the truth of scripture with the reality of being persons of wealth.  Our very citizenship in this country means that we are people of wealth.  We are the rich man.

So, if we are the rich man, what can we learn from him?  Unlike in our passage a few weeks ago, Jesus is not telling us to give up our possessions so we are no longer rich.  What Jesus is saying is our wealth will make behaving faithfully very difficult.  Later, Luke will tell us behaving faithfully with wealth will make getting into the heavenly kingdom as difficult as getting a camel through the eye of a needle.  Jesus warns us because wealth has a corrosive impact on our lives.  Wealth can make us confuse wants with needs.  Wealth can make us think we somehow deserve wealth – as if we did something to earn favored position in life, instead of blessing coming from the grace of God.[iv]  Wealth can deaden our empathy, turning us inward, slowly turning us into people who avert our eyes in the face of poverty, who dehumanize those in poverty, seeing them as servants instead of equals, who become convinced just being Christians and not living as Christians is enough.

We can see how the rich man in our parable gets there.  We are told his clothing is of fine quality.  He eats sumptuously every day.  He clearly ignores Lazarus, sitting by his gate every day.  We know he actively ignores Lazarus because we find later he knows Lazarus’ name without ever having reached out to him.  Even in his death, the rich man is buried with dignity and care.  Therefore, his behavior in Hades, or Sheol, should be no surprise.  Even in suffering afterlife, the rich man dehumanizes Lazarus.  He regards Lazarus as a servant and messenger who can be ordered around to bring him water or warn his brothers.  When your whole life has been blessed by wealth, slipping into a pattern of forgetting to respect the dignity of every human being is quite easy.

The judgment of the parable is both gentle and direct.  Beloved father Abraham, who gathers Lazarus into his bosom, still sees the humanity in the rich man.  Calling him “child,” he almost sadly has to remind him of his poor earthly behavior.  When the rich man desperately tries to help his living brothers, Abraham finally has to be firmer.  Like the beloved father he is, Abraham draws a definitive boundary.  As the rich man insists his brothers need a personal testimony to change their own wealthy behavior, Abraham reminds the rich man they have already been warned by Moses and the prophets. And if any of us wonder if Abraham is being overly dramatic, we need only catalogue the scripture lessons warning about wealthy behavior:  Exodus 22.21-22, 23.9, Leviticus 19.9-10, 19.33, 23.22, Deuteronomy 10.17-19, 15.1-11, 24.17-18, Amos 2.6-8, Hosea 12.7-9, Micah 3.1-3, Zephaniah, Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and on, and on, and on.[v]  And Abraham is not even talking about Jesus’ warnings.  Even later letters, like we heard today in the first letter of Timothy, take up the mantle.

So if our very citizenship makes us like the rich man, what can we do to resist the corrosiveness of wealth?  The gospel lesson today seems to suggest three things.  First, one way to combat the seductive lure of wealthy living is to root ourselves in Scripture and Christian community.  One of the things our Discovery Class attendees are learning is how steeped in Scripture Episcopal worship is.  Just by coming to church on Sundays, we hear a large portion of the Bible’s words.  Add in our songs and our prayers, and suddenly we find our liturgy is dripping with the words of Scripture.  Coming to church and hearing hard texts like this one and the ones we have been having for weeks, we find ourselves among a community of people who want to live life differently, and need Holy Scripture and each other to do that.  Of course, reading and praying with scripture and your Prayer Book outside of Sundays doesn’t hurt either.

Second, another way to resist the pull of wealthy living is to spend time examining the chasms in our lives.  Abraham insists Lazarus cannot help the rich man for many reasons; one of those reasons is the great physical, uncrossable chasm between the two realities the men now inhabit.  But that chasm is just a reflection of the chasm that existed on earth too – the rich man’s gate that prohibited connection, help, or even awareness of Lazarus’s suffering and need.[vi]  We create those same chasms, those same gates in our everyday lives too.  We ignore the dilapidated housing we pass on our drives, we allow ourselves to forget the vast number of students on reduced and free lunch in our schools, we choose homes and sidewalks that allow us to avoid the homelessness we meet every winter at the Shelter.  Today’s gospel lesson encourages us to use our eyes to see, really see, the gates we have built and to begin to dismantle them.

Finally, another way we fight the power of wealth is to use the wealth for goodness – to shine our light into the world, as our stewardship team will be encouraging us to do this month.  I know that kind of charge can feel overwhelming – we could give away every cent we have and not heal every Lazarus we meet.  I am not saying we should not use some of our wealth to try – whether we give to the Lazarus in front of us, the non-profits that create support systems for Lazaruses, or, and particularly important, we use our wealth to support this faith community:  the community that teaches us how to be faithful, that brings together the community of support we need to follow Jesus, and that propels us into the world as enlightened people of faith.  As the dishonest steward taught us last week, we can use our corrupting wealth for goodness.  We can use the precarious nature of wealth to be agents of light in the world – to shine our lights as Hickory Neck.

The work will be difficult.  Jesus assures us the work will be hard and shows us that reality in parable after parable.  But we are encouraged today because of the people in this room.  This is a community of people who not only give us a sense of belonging and support, this is also a community of people who have your back in figuring out this whole faithful Christian living thing.  This is a community of people who vulnerably, humbly, and joyfully are willing to walk with you.  We can shine our lights because each person in this room is shining their light too.  Together we can do the work to open gates, dismantle closed doors, and fill in chasms of separation.  Together we can turn the lure of wealth into a tool for goodness.  Together we can show the world another way, shining our lights.  Amen.

 

[i] Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave #682 – Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 26),” September 21, 2019, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1180 on September 24, 2019.

[ii] Luke 6.20, 24

[iii] Charles B. Cousar, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 117.

[iv] Fred Craddock, Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 196.

[v] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 3 (Collegeville:  The Liturgical Press, 1991), 253.

[vi] Skinner.

Sermon – Lk. 16.1-13, P20, YC, September 22, 2019

25 Wednesday Sep 2019

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In seminary I took a class about Reconciliation, and one of the requirements of the class was to lead a Bible Study at the local jail.  Our team of four Episcopalians waltzed into the jail, prepared with study notes, a lesson plan, and as much of an air of confidence as we could muster.  Not very long into the Bible Study, though, we realized we were in trouble.  You see, many of us had been drawn to the Episcopal Church because the Episcopal Church embraces the via media, or the middle way; we are a church that affirms the sacredness of the gray over the black and white.  But an inmate has no time for gray.  Their whole lives are governed by black and white, right and wrong.  The rigidity of life in jail is applied to Holy Scripture as well.  Most of the inmates were either perplexed by our suggestion of any ambiguity or gray in Scripture, or simply thought we were wrong.  Fortunately, our professor had come along.  After about forty-five minutes of debate and disagreement, our professor quietly spoke.  He invited the men to reflect on life where they were from, the complexities of the street, racism, and poverty.  If life at home was so layered, ambiguous, and complicated, surely Scripture could be too.  I am not saying my professor made any great strides in the debate around the literal interpretation of Scripture, but I believe he may have opened a window for some of the inmates.

I think today’s Scripture lesson is a bit like that jail classroom.  At first glance, this could be considered a text that is black and white.  The final verse of our gospel says, “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”  There is no gray in Jesus’ words.  Either we choose God or we choose money.  And based on the fact God is one of our two options, there is no ambiguity about which of these options we should choose.  But here is the problem with trying to assert this passage of scripture is black and white.  Whereas as the end of the passage Jesus seems to be saying we must choose God or money, in the parable, Jesus seems to be saying something else.

If you recall, in the parable, we have a poorly-behaving manager.  The manager has squandered away the master’s money.  When he is caught, the manager takes a good look at himself and admits some honest truths – he is not capable of doing manual labor and he is too embarrassed to beg for money.  Having been honest about who he is, he connives his way into a solution:  he will engender goodwill among his neighbors by doing financial favors for each of them – forgiving portions of their debts in the hopes that they will sometime very soon return the favor.  Both the master and Jesus recognize the shrewdness or wisdom in the manager’s behavior because the manager uses his wits to get out of a devastating position.  In verse nine, the text says, “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

This is where things get confusing.  At first, Jesus seemed to be clearly saying money is evil and we must choose God over money.  But when Jesus says to “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth,” Jesus seems to be claiming money can sometimes be one of those gray areas of life; in fact, money can be used as a means to an end.  Now, we all have varying philosophies about money.  Some of us manage to care very little about money, with money holding very little power over us.  Some of us struggle with money, sometimes remembering how money can be used for good, but most times feeling like money creates stress and anxiety in our lives that we cannot seem to shake.  And others of us become narrowly focused on money – either in how we can acquire more or what ways we can spend and enjoy money more.  What Jesus knows we often forget is money is inherently “dishonest.”  Money creates systems of injustice and hierarchies of power; money can destroy marriages and friendships; and money can be the ruin of many a person.  So when Jesus says to make friends through dishonest wealth, he does not mean to become a dishonest people; he means money inherently lures us into dishonesty, and we can either throw our hands up in the air in resignation and a refusal to be associated with that dishonesty, or we can use that dishonest wealth as a means to something much more important – relationship with others.

One of the things I like to do when I am struggling with a challenging Biblical text is to look at other translations to see if I can make more sense of Jesus’ words.  This week, I found the most help from a translation called, The Message.  Now as ample warning, The Message is a very contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, which takes a lot of theological liberties that I am often uncomfortable with; however, I also find that the language from the paraphrase opens up the biblical text enough for me to start seeing the text with fresh eyes.  The Message translates Jesus words in this way:  “Now here’s a surprise:  The master praised the crooked manager!  And why?  Because he knew how to look after himself.  Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens.  They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.  I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.”

What Jesus is trying to say to us today is layered, and very much lives in the gray of life.  First, money has a corrupting force in our lives.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Jesus talks about money incessantly in scripture, from telling people to give away all their money, to scolding people about storing up their money in larger barns, to reminding people not to stress about money, to this odd text about money.  As Luke concludes today, Jesus tells us that we cannot serve God and money, because of the all-consuming way money can corrode our relationship with God.

Second, we cannot escape money.  Money is a part of our everyday lives, and as we all know is necessary for functioning – for food, for shelter, for clothing, for comfort, for ministry.  Even those monks and nuns who take on a vow of poverty still rely on the money of others for support.  Money, with all its potential for corruption, is inescapable in our lives.

Finally, once we understand the power and place of money in our lives, Jesus reminds us that when we are wise, keeping God at the center, we can use money as a means to goodness in our relationship with God and with one another.  The manager “transforms a bad situation into one that benefits him and others.  By reducing other people’s debts, he creates a new set of relationships based not on the vertical relationship between lenders and debtors (rooted in monetary exchange) but on something more like the reciprocal and egalitarian relationship of friends.”[i]   This kind of work is not about charity per se, but about making friends.[ii]

Many years ago, there was a commercial circulating around the internet.   In the video, a boy is caught red-handed trying to steal a bottle of medicine and a soda.  A woman is berating him in front of a marketplace, wanting to know why he would take these things.  He confesses that the items are for his mother.  A local merchant steps forward, and hands the woman a handful of money to cover the cost of the stolen items.  The man then quietly asks the boy if his mother is sick.  When the boy nods yes, the merchant has his daughter also bring a container of vegetable broth and other items, and sends the boy on his way.  The next clip of the commercial shows the merchant thirty years later, still working in his shop.  He collapses and is taken to the hospital.  The daughter becomes completely overwhelmed as the medical bills add up, even selling the shop they had once run together.  As she is found crying near her father’s bedside, she finds a revised copy of their medical bill.  The amount due is zero.  We find out through the video that the doctor who forgives the bill is that same boy who stole medicine thirty years ago.  He writes at the bottom of the bill, “All expenses paid thirty years ago with three packs of painkillers and a bag of veggie soup.”[iii]

Jesus knows how money corrupts our world.  To be sure there is no ambiguity about the place money takes when talking about God.  We are to choose God.  But Jesus also knows that we can shrewdly utilize our money as a tool to create relationships that glorify God.  This is Jesus’ invitation for us today:  to examine how our relationship with dishonest wealth can be used for goodness.  Jesus affirms for us this week that the way into the black and white, the right and wrong of life, might just be through the path of gray.  Amen.

[i] Lois Malcolm, “Commentary on Luke 16.1-13,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx? commentary _id= 1783 on September 18, 2013.

[ii] Thomas G. Long, “Making Friends,” Journal for Preachers, vol. 30, no. 4, Pentecost 2007, 55.

[iii] As found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XADBJjiAO_0 on September 20, 2019.

Sermon – Luke 14.25-33, P18, YC, September 8, 2019

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

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One of the things I enjoyed about living on Long Island was the directness of communication.  Now do not get me wrong, having been raised in the South, I know all too well that when your mom says, “You’re wearing that?” or if your grandma says, “Don’t you want to wear lipstick?” or if your friend says, “Well those new shoes are utilitarian,” they are not actually saying what they mean.  On Long Island things are much clearer.  Instead you’ll be told, “Don’t wear that,” “Put on some lipstick; I’ll show you which one,” and “Those shoes are awful.”  The words always sting, but at least you know you what people think.

Today’s gospel has me convinced some of Jesus’ relatives were from Long Island.  In these short eight verses, Jesus says if we want to follow him, we will need to sell our possessions, carry our cross, and hate our parents, spouse, children, siblings, and even life itself.  I have to say, on this Rally Sunday, on the day we return to the fullness of Hickory Neck, and we feast and laugh and worship together, I could have used a little more southern-speak from Jesus today.  At least Jesus could have saved the hard sell for Stewardship season!

But as we start putting our calendars together for the fall, as our children sign up for the extracurricular activities, and as we think about what ministries we may want to try at Hickory Neck this fall, I suppose there is no time like the present to get real.  This is a season of hard choices.  I know in our household alone, there were two awesome opportunities for afterschool activities that fell on the exact same time and day.  And so we had to make a hard decision.  As I have mapped out my own calendar, I have realized that there are things I can say yes to and things to which I have to say no.  And on the really tricky days, there are times when our family has to bring in a third adult to help us juggle four people’s commitments.  This is a season of hard choices and consequences.  This is a season of priorities.

I do not actually think Jesus is being harsh today.  I know we sometimes get so used to the inclusive, loving, embracing God that we forget that following Jesus is not all rainbows and sunshine.  Jesus, like our beloved Long Islanders, is not harsh – just honest.  And Jesus is not saying there will be no health, healing, and wholeness; no justice, mercy, and grace; no forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  But Jesus is saying those things will cost us.  All those rainbows and sunshine we will receive come at the cost of redistributing wealth, of being faithful even when being faithful gets us ostracized from our social circles, of being intolerant of injustice even if doing so risks our most valued relationships with others.

If we can agree that Jesus is just being honest, understanding why he is setting such a high standard can be helpful.  Starting with one of the trickier things Jesus says today may be best.  Jesus says in the final verse today, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  Though money is a taboo subject for most people, Jesus talks about money perhaps more than any other subject in scripture.  Jesus talks about money so much because Jesus knows the power money has over us.  Jesus tells us to give up our possessions, to stop worrying about what is mine because my obsession with owning, possessing, or claiming things as my own can make me think ownership is my exclusive, inviolable right.  Jesus knows having possessions can make me think all things are my own:  my money, my time, my comfortable lifestyle, my political or religious beliefs, my closest relationship, my independence.  Jesus knows when I get possessive, I cling to things that are not God, and create habits in myself leading me to smother, not love; to exploit, not steward; to hoard, not appreciate.[i]

On the podcast “On Being,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie retells an old Talmudic parable.  In the parable there is “a ship that is sailing, and there are many cabins.  And one of the people in the cabins on the lower floor decides to dig a hole in the floor of his cabin, and does so, and sure enough, the ship begins to sink.  And the other passengers suddenly discover what’s going on and see this guy with a hole in the floor.  And they say, ‘What are you doing?’ And he says, ‘Well, it’s my cabin. I paid for it.’  And down goes the ship.”[ii]  What this parable and what Jesus are trying to do is help us see that possessions tempt us to live like the man in the cabin – to believe our ownership negates our relationship to others.  Our possessions can create an obsession with “me, me, me,” with a disregard for the “we” to which we belong as followers of Christ.

Jesus also says in verse 27, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Part of Jesus’ cross is a redefining of the “we,” we were just talking about.  If you have read your September Nuggets, our newsletter, you know one of the rallying calls of stewardship this fall is going to be “We are Hickory Neck!”  When I thought about that call, I immediately thought about the movie We Are Marshall.  In the film, the rally call “We Are,” answered vigorously by “Marshall!” is a definitive moment about not letting tragedy overcome goodness – not letting death squash life.  When we start our own rallying, “We are Hickory Neck,” we probably all have things about Hickory Neck that are dear to our heart, that inspire our belonging here, and motivate our involvement here.  One of the things we are doing in the call, “We are Hickory Neck,” is also defining who the “we” is in that call.  In carrying our cross as Jesus invites today, we are not just talking about personal sacrifice.  We are also asking, to whom and for whom we are responsible.  We are widening the circle of “my people,” to consider who the people are we will love, welcome, serve, and for which we would make sacrifices.  We are taking on the task of widening our “we” to be broader and riskier than we have previously embraced.  By taking up our cross, we are saying the whole ship, not just my cabin on the ship, but the whole ship has an irrefutable claim on my life.[iii]

Perhaps the hardest thing Jesus says comes right at the beginning, in verse 26.  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Hate is a strong word – a word we have banned in our home, especially when talking about other family members.  I will not be going home today and telling our children they can pick up that word again.  But I do think Jesus uses a powerful word because the power of discipleship will involve taking on some powerful experiences.  We will need to be willing to hate some things about this life.  We will need to ask which customs, beliefs, or traditions we have inherited we need to renounce in order to follow Jesus.  We will need to look at what baggage we need to abandon, what ties we must loosen, what relationships we must subordinate.  What scholar Debie Thomas says is “Jesus spoke his hard words about ‘hating’ one’s family in a cultural context where the extended family was the source of a person’s security and stability.  Jewish families in first century Palestine were self-sustaining economic units.  No one in their right mind would leave such a unit behind in order to follow a homeless, controversial preacher into some uncertain future.”  What Thomas asks us to consider is what sources of modern-day security and stability we trust more than we trust God.[iv]

So if this is what discipleship looks like, where is the Good News in Jesus’ challenge today?  Why would we do all this hard stuff?  We do all the hard stuff of discipleship because of the rainbows and sunshine.  We give up a sense of possession, we take on crosses, and we renounce things we have loved because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of Hickory Neck:  we have experienced life-altering community here; we have experienced love, joy, and blessing we did not know we needed here; we have found purpose, meaning, and value here.  We also take on Jesus’ intense notion of discipleship because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of the world around us:  we have experienced the profundity of loving our neighbor as ourselves; we have experienced the blessing of seeing God in someone we thought unworthy of our love; we have experienced being transformed by walking right out of our comfort zones into life-giving discomfort zones.  We accept the invitation of illogical discipleship because of the more cosmic rainbows and sunshine of faith:  of being known and accepted by a loving, living God; of the promise of forgiveness of our most heinous sins; of the reality of eternal life made possible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Once we start thinking about the rewards of the life of discipleship, the cost seems surmountable.  Once we look at the depth of Christ’s rainbows and sunshine, letting go of possessions, taking up crosses, and hating the stuff of life that only brings death seems much less scary.  Once we realize we may not be able to do whatever we want to in our cabin, we realize we have a ship full of people ready to hold our hands as we take on the burden of discipleship together – because the burden is easy and the yoke is light.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “What It Will Cost You,” Journey with Jesus, September 1, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2346 on September 4, 2019.

[ii] Amichai Lau-Lavee, “First Aid for Spiritual Seekers,” On Being with Krista Tippet, July 13, 2017, as found at https://onbeing.org/programs/amichai-lau-lavie-first-aid-for-spiritual-seekers/ on September 6, 2019.

[iii] Thomas.

[iv] Thomas.

Sermon – Isaiah 1.1, 10-20, P14, YC, August 11, 2019

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

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One of the topics in Confirmation Class is how the Episcopal Church interprets and talks about Holy Scripture.  Confirmands are often surprised to hear the labels “Old Testament” and “New Testament” are not helpful labels.  Instead of calling the first portion of Holy Scripture the “Old Testament,” we call that portion the “Hebrew Scriptures.”  We make that change for two reasons.  One, we want to remind ourselves that the Christian Scriptures do not eliminate the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures – as if the “new” testament makes the “old” testament obsolete.  Two, the use of the “old” can connote irrelevance.  Neither of those things being true, we try to reframe our language.

Today’s Hebrew Scripture reading is a classic example of how our language can taint our interaction with Scripture.  Many of us hear the words of Isaiah and the judgment of Israel’s worship, and we slip into “they” language.  They are being as sinful as Sodom and Gomorrah – the same people who “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”[i].  Their worship, their sacrifice of animals, is meaningless to God.  Their prayers will be ignored by God.  They have blood on their hands.  The shifting of audience is easy enough for us; not being a community that offers sacrifices anymore, this piece of Scripture really can feel like an “old” testament.

That’s why I like one scholar’s rereading of this passage.  He argues we need to reframe today’s passage in our modern context.  Instead of condemning ancient practices, he rereads the text for the modern church as God saying thus:  “I hate your worship.  Your prayers make me sick.  I loathe your music.  Your sermons are a sacrilege.  Who asked for your offerings?  Your Holy Communion stinks.  I want none of it.”[ii]  I do not know about you, but that rewording made this passage come alive in ways “old” texts never do.  Suddenly, God is not talking about them; God is talking about us – our worship, our actions, our behavior.  With new ears for this text, God is not criticizing outdated, foreign practices – God is criticizing the thing we are right in the midst of: our worship, our music, our prayers, our communion, this very sermon!

Hearing this passage as a modern reading shook me up this week.  All week I have been pondering our worship – the primary marker of our identity.  Does our communion stink?  As I thought about the sacred meal this week, I could imagine how communion could be so rote communion loses its meaning.  But then I began to think about my experience with communion.  As a priest, I receive communion two to three times on a Sunday – sometimes more.  Despite that repetition, something about the physicality of communion keeps communion fresh.  Sometimes the wafers are stale, making them hard to swallow; sometimes the bread is dry and crumbly, making a huge mess around the altar; sometimes, especially by 11:15, my breakfast is so far gone that eating communion feels like a desperate attempt to ease the rumbling in my empty stomach.  The same happens with the wine:  sometimes the wine burns going down; sometimes the wine soothes a dry throat; sometimes I wish I could take a long draw of wine to wash down the gluten-free wafer that is stuck in my teeth.  Those experiences may sound silly or trivial, but I find God in every one of them:  How often have I longed for God the way I long for food when I am hungry?  How often have I cursed the mess of life before realizing Jesus makes our life messy?  How often has something from church or a word from God nagged at me like a wafer that scraped my throat on the way down.

I like thinking about those physical-spiritual connections in Eucharist because they do what God is challenging us to do in Isaiah today.  God is not saying worship is inherently bad.  The sacrificing of animals, the prayers, the offerings were all thing the community of God had been instructed to do.  There are whole books of the Bible that laboriously detail how to do these things, thoughtfully making concessions for those lacking the resources to make the recommending offerings.  God is not saying God hates the festivals, is repelled by their sacrifices, and will ignore their prayers because God finds them archaic or brutal or wrong.  God’s fervent and harsh criticism of their worship is the hypocrisy of their worship.  In verse fifteen, God says, “I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”  What God is pointing out is the irony of their worship. Here they are, their hands covered in the blood of the sacrificed animals – what should be a pure, sacred offering to God for the blessings of this life.  But what God sees is different blood:  their raised hands are not simply covered in the holy blood of sacrifice; their raised hands are covered in the blood of the oppressed, the orphan, the widow.  God, rather bluntly, says, “Do not come to me with the pretense of humility and righteousness when nothing about your life is righteous.  Do not come to me as though you are pure and sanctified, when I see you covered in the blood of the innocent you trampled on the way into the temple.”

In the aftermath of two more mass shootings last weekend, the cities of Dayton and El Paso gathered in vigil, in prayer, and in conversation.  In Dayton, the governor offered the kind of speech one usually offers in times such as these – a sense of condolence, an encouragement to come together in mutual support, an acknowledgment of grief.  But the residents of Dayton were not having that speech this week.  As the governor was speaking, someone in the crowd shouted, “Do something!”  The governor continued his speech, and two more voices cried out the same call, “Do something! Do something!”  The governor maintained his cool and kept going with his scripted speech, but within moments, the crowd was chanting in one voice, “Do something!” so loudly the governor’s speech was completely inaudible.  Perhaps reflecting the tenor of a nation who is emotionally exhausted by the repeated trauma of mass shootings, the people of Dayton broke.  No longer content to receive prayers and idle words, the people of Dayton demanded the governor do something to change their reality.

I think that is what God is really upset about in our scripture lesson today.  God is not bored by their worship or saying the acts of worship of the Israelites are inherently bad.  What God is saying is their worship is invalidated by their actions outside the temple.  The people of God cannot do evil, ignore injustice, forget the oppressed, shun the orphaned, and leave the widowed behind while still seeking refuge in God.  God wants us to do something.  In fact, in verse seventeen, God says, “Learn to do good.”  We can pray all we want, we can mourn mass violence, we can even criticize politicians about their lack of action.  But God is looking straight into our eyes today and saying, “I am glad you are here and I love you.  But you need to do something.”  And if we are unclear about what that something is, God tells us right here in Isaiah:  cease doing evil, do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.  When tragedy strikes, when the world feels like the world is falling apart, when we feel helpless or overwhelmed by the evil of this time, God says your worship of God is odious unless you are doing something.

Now I do not want you to leave today thinking this service is meaningless.  Quite the contrary, “worship is essential for us and requires of us an awed and candid engagement with God that is life giving, community transforming, and world altering.”[iii]  What would be meaningless is for you to go through the motions, or for you to seek solace only, and not strength; pardon only, and not renewal.  The prayers, your offering, our music, the sacred meal are meant to empower us to go out in the world and do something.  I know that can be scary.  I know you may be thinking, “well, I have very strong opinions about guns and what our country should be doing.”  But I also know the people I have spoken to on both sides of the issue do not want the slaughter of innocents.  To that, God offers us encouragement.  God says in verse eighteen, “Come now, let us argue it out.”  God does not want you to run away from the evil of the world, but to dive in and figure out a way to do something.  God wants you to engage because God knows you can.  In fact, God says, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”  God does not hate our worship; but God does not tolerate our worship when our worship is void of action – when we forget the dismissal of our deacon, to go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.  Today, God invites us to wash the blood of the innocent off our hands, and to go out and do something:  to go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.  Amen.

[i] Ezekiel 16.49.

[ii] Paul Simpson Duke, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 319.

[iii] Duke, 321.

Sermon – Luke 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 28, 2019

31 Wednesday Jul 2019

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One of the practices highly recommended to clergy is having a spiritual director.  My director is a professor I had in seminary.  He is wise and insightful, and always helps me not only see the bigger picture, but also see goodness in what sometimes feels like darkness.  But perhaps my favorite thing about him is the way he prays.  You would think with such a spiritual, learned man, his prayers would be profound and flowery – worthy of the kind of prayers we find in our own Prayer Book.  But instead, his prayers are the opposite.  They are awkward and fumbling.  You can hear long pauses in them as he struggles to articulate what he wants to say to God.  He uses everyday language, rarely capturing the phrases we normally hear in prayers.  The first several times I heard him pray, I was admittedly a little disappointed and, when I’m really being honest, a bit judgmental.  But in time, I began to see his prayers differently.  His prayers may not be artfully constructed or perfectly paced, but his prayers are never canned or artificial.  His prayers may not be theologically intricate, but his prayers are honest, vulnerable, and capture the deep profundity of whatever you have just shared.  His prayers are not pretty, but they are real and raw – more real than most prayers I have heard.

Of course, I am not the first person to wonder, worry, or wander through prayers.  Today, the disciples ask a simple favor of Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  The disciples at this point have seen Jesus pray many times.  They see how good he is and they see how important prayer is in his life.  In fact, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is regularly found in prayer.[i]  They watch Jesus enter into prayer with God for months, and they long to be able to do that too.  And so they come to Jesus, and they vulnerably submit their request:  teach us to pray.

Their request is full of implications.  First is the admission that they do not have the first idea about what they are doing.  Maybe they learned some prayers in temple, or maybe their parents prayed with them.  But they realize in watching Jesus that they do not actually know how to pray themselves.  Not really.  Second, they see a real connection between Jesus and God that somehow is revealed in Jesus’ prayer life.  Perhaps they see how prayer strengthens him in his weakness and how he is more vulnerable with God than even with them.  They long for that kind of connection with God too, but still, they are not sure how the whole thing works.  Finally, a deeper implication is at hand in the disciples’ request.  Perhaps they are not only asking Jesus how to pray, but also wanting to know what is actually happening in prayer.  Perhaps they have tried praying on their own – for an illness, for a new job, for a broken relationship – but the prayer did not work.  They want Jesus to teach them the right way to pray so that the results they desire are fulfilled.

And so, Jesus responds.  Jesus gives them the ultimate prayer – the prayer we call The Lord’s Prayer.  The prayer Jesus gives them is so beautiful and powerful, that two thousand years later, people who never go to church seem to know this prayer.  This is the prayer we pray when we pray the rosary, when we end our days, and at the end of every Eucharistic Prayer.  This is the prayer we pray when we have no other words.  This is the prayer we teach our children to pray and we sing in our own unique Hickory Neck way.

But if you look at Luke’s version of this prayer, the prayer sounds a little more like one of the prayers my spiritual director might pray.  As one scholar says, “Pious convention has conditioned most of us to repeat this prayer so quietly and reverentially that we fail to recognize how we are risking an aggressiveness incommensurate with bourgeois manners.”[ii]  In other words, the Lord’s Prayer is kind of pushy.  There is no flowery language or even polite deference or usage of the word “please.”  Instead, Jesus just tells us to ask for a bunch of stuff:  give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.  And every week or even every day, we say the same words – give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.  And if we keep reading Luke’s gospel, after the prayer, we hear Jesus saying that our prayerful life with God is akin to being a pushy friend who through their shameless relentlessness[iii] is able to get a friend up out of bed in the middle of the night.

So why in the world do we teach our children this prayer when the prayer is so flagrantly pushy?  Next week Ella and Charlie will be receiving their First Holy Communion.  First Communion is not really the norm in the Episcopal Church.  As a priest, I first encountered First Holy Communion on Long Island, where the Episcopal Church was highly influenced by the Roman Catholic tradition.  Though the Episcopal Church’s theology is that any baptized person can receive communion, some families prefer their children to understand what Holy Communion means before receiving instead of learning to understand communion through experience.  There really is no wrong way to approach Eucharist, but if we are to do a First Holy Communion, one of the things we require candidates to do is learn the Lord’s Prayer.  In part we do that so that there is at least one part of the Eucharistic service they have memorized and in which they can fully participate.

But there is another reason we have candidates learn the Lord’s Prayer.  We want candidates to learn the Lord’s Prayer because the Lord’s Prayer teaches us about what our relationship with God is like.  Our relationship with God is not flowery or picture perfect.  We  may have moments of poetic beauty with God, but when our relationship with God is at its deepest, we cry ugly, full-bodied tears, we rage about injustice – both personal and in the world, we confess our shame and sorrow for the awful things we sometimes do, and we laugh and rejoice with the kind of dancing we would only do in the confines of our homes.  We do not use language with God containing the formality of language we use with strangers; we use language with God we would use with a friend who knows all our foibles and loves us anyway.  All of that is not to say the poignant prayers of the Prayer Book cannot inspire faithfulness; they can and do.  But we teach the Lord’s Prayer to our children so they know we can say unsure, vulnerable, real words to God.

That is what Jesus is really teaching the disciples.  Jesus does not tell the disciples to “ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,” because he is saying prayer is a vending machine for our every wish.  Jesus tells us to ask, search, and knock, because prayer and our relationship with God is active and relational.  As one scholar asserts, Jesus teaches us the Lord’s Prayer because he wants his disciples to know, “prayer is not a meek, contrived, and merely ‘religious’ act; [prayer] is the act of human beings who know how hard it is to be human.  Real prayer cannot be faked.  [Real prayer’s] only prerequisites are sufficient self-knowledge to recognize the depths of our need, and enough humility to ask for help.”[iv]

This week, I invite you to take a cue from Jesus’ own relationship with God.  Maybe you will start with a prayer like my spiritual director’s – one that does not lead with preplanned words, but instead tries to authentically say the words on your heart; not a structured collect, but a raw conversation with God.  Jesus gives you permission to ask for those things you need, the forgiveness you desire, the protection you long for, and the deliverance you seek.  Jesus invites you to just be you – to be a human with the God who loves you and made you in God’s image.  And if all that fails, then you can say the Lord’s Prayer.  You can rest in the assurance that although Jesus’ prayer sure sounds pretty, his prayer is one of the most honest ones you can offer – the small step you can take in connecting back to your Lord and your God.  Amen.

 

[i] James A. Wallace, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 289.

[ii] Douglas John Hall, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 288, 290.

[iii] Wallace, 291.

[iv] Hall, 290.