Faces – many, many faces – young and old, smooth and wrinkled, male and female – all looking up in expectation – eyes fixed on Jesus, ears straining to hear His words . . .

“You were strangers in Egypt” – sojourners in a strange land. That thought was central in minds and the lives of God’s people.

They knew well what it means to be a stranger – to be different; to be other. . .

I received an invitation some time ago. It came in a very fine envelope, obviously first class; it looked expensive — best quality. The invitation said “It’s a party; you’re invited!” Now that is exciting. Reading on it gave the details. I was very enthusiastic until I read down to the part that said “The menu will be fat things full of marrow and wine on the lees.” That brought to mind a vision of my doctor solemnly intoning the word “cholesterol” . . .

I recently heard from my cousin Bill in California. Actually he now calls himself Chuck, which is fine by me.

SERMON 19 AUGUST 2007

Jeremiah 23:23-29
Hebrews 12:1-7(8-10)11-14
Luke 12:49-56
Psalm 82

Just the other day, while sitting in three lanes of stalled traffic on I-95 just a few miles south of Washington DC in 100 degree heat, I got to thinking about interpersonal relationships.

Perhaps it was the thinly masked hostility I sensed in the drivers of the cars around me; perhaps it was the silent mouthing of words I, mercifully, could not hear, but something, something seemed to say, in the words of Jesus in this morning’s Gospel, “division.”

Stress has an interesting effect on us fragile human beings. Stress makes quick casualties of patience, cooperation and community. Stress sends us back into our own private little comfort zones, some of which are automobiles in immobile traffic, from which we peer out at the world with general suspicion, absolutely certain that we deserve a lot better than we are currently getting. Do I exaggerate?

Jesus had some familiarity with stress; that’s what He’s talking about in this morning’s Gospel. The stress Jesus is talking about isn’t anything so ephemeral as a slowed-down traffic or a slowed down life. He’s talking about the opposite, an acceleration, a leap into something totally new. There’s stress for those who make the leap and for those who stay put.

In this age, when religion is no longer the constant center in the lives of many, perhaps most, people, it’s hard to comprehend the division that Jesus predicts – and it is a very accurate prediction indeed. Families split apart, communities split apart, as one person sought to follow Jesus and others would not. There was anger and tears and bitterness, even violence. Christianity did not bring peace to the world, it brought a very divisive sword, but why?

What on earth can be found in Jesus’ message of God’s unearned, undeserved, unrequited love for His children that would cause such grief? You know what it is, don’t you? It’s the second half of that message of God’s grace, the part that says “go and do likewise.” That is what Jesus taught; that is what Jesus modeled. He is the very embodiment of God’s expectations of our behavior, better, God’s demand for our behavior. If God so loved us that He would suffer His Son to live as one of us that He might die like one of us, nothing, nothing we can possible do can match that love.

However, that does not mean that you and I can’t try. It’s the want of trying that troubles the world today. It’s the want of trying that sends us all to our own private hidey-holes of personal isolation, our very own cars trapped in a spiritual traffic jam that has no end.

But it does have an end and that’s our job. So, when you are caught in that same mess on your own I-95, give it some slack, open some space. You may get some words and some looks and hear a few outraged horns honking but, for a moment, you will have made the world whole again. That’s enough.

SERMON JULY 15 2007

Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37
Psalm 25 or 25:3-9

It’s been a few years now – Happy and I were driving down I-95 from Savannah to Honey Creek, near Brunswick, to a meeting. We still had the big old 1988 Volvo station wagon.

Just south of Darien we had a flat tire.

I pulled off, bumping across the apron of the highway. It was the right rear tire and it was blown out, very flat indeed.

I moved the luggage and got out the jack and the wrench and the spare and started to jack up the back of the car. I had the tire almost off when the jack broke, it just collapsed, and the car came down, pinning the tire to the ground and narrowly missing pinning my hands under it.

We had no cell phone. All we could do was stand by the side of the highway and look pathetic hoping someone, maybe a policeman, would stop. It took quite a while. Apparently our pathos didn’t communicate with cars going by at 70. Finally an off-duty South Carolina patrolman on his way to Florida did stop. He tried to fit his jack under the car but there was no room. He drove off to find help.

At which point a really beat-up old red pickup pulled up behind us and an equally beat-up drive got out; T-shirt, skinny, missing teeth, dangling cigarette – visualize.

He sized up the situation, took a 2x4 out of the back of his truck, stuck it under the Volvo – the big, heavy Volvo – and lifted it. He held it while I pulled out the tire and the jack, put on the spare and tightened the lug nuts. Then he took his 2x4 and drove away.

So, a long time ago there was a man stranded by the side of a different road, the road that goes from Jerusalem to Jericho. He had been beaten, stripped, robbed and left for dead. He was pathetic. You couldn’t miss him, lying there in trouble and in need.

A priest saw him and walked on. A Levite didn’t stop to help. Why do you suppose that might have been? I’m sure they would have given us all sorts of reasons but there’s really only one. The real reason is that they lacked the one thing that was needed at that time and place. The wounded man needed compassion; compassion that would inspire a person to stop, help, get involved. I have no doubt they were filled with sympathy for the man but sympathy can be passive, compassion is active.

Compassion can cause help to come from the most unlikely and unexpected sources; the least probable people. Compassion can reach across all those things that separate people from each other. It’s good to know what ought to be done; it is far better to go ahead and do it.

Compassion means that we, like that Samaritan focus on the needs of others, not just on ourselves. I imagine the priest and the Levite would have explained that they were on a tight schedule, on their way to somewhere to do something really important and that they simply could not take the time to be delayed, to stop and to help.

I imagine that the man in the beat-up red pickup was on his way to somewhere to do something that was important to him, if only to go home for supper. He was busy too but he saw our need. We intruded on his plans and his day but he put his own needs aside for a while and helped us. That, I think, is compassion.

Of course, I must warn you that compassion has a cost. Compassion really might call for self-sacrifice. It might even mean having that vague feeling that we’ve been taken advantage of. It probably won’t mean praise or material reward.

But it will mean this; that one tiny corner of the world is better, more human, more livable because of one small act of kindness by one latter day Samaritan. I am quite sure Jesus would approve.

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2007

We are a strange nation – a very improbable assemblage of peoples from all over the globe – peoples with very different backgrounds and philosophies and expectations. Some of us are very recently arrived – some come from stock that has been here a very long time indeed. But we must remember that no matter who or what we are – our people came from somewhere to be part of this nation.

Why did they come? There are all sorts of reasons but all those reasons are summed up in the phrase “seeking a better country.”

What is a better country? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that a better country is a “heavenly country,” a nation whose architect and builder is God. A nation with firm and deep foundations and those foundations are, the Deuternomist tells us:

Marks tells us that it is a nation that renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s, and knows the difference.

We began with a flat, incontrovertible statement that all people are created equal – all people. That doesn’t leave much room for partiality.

We began with a constitution and a set of amendments that lay out quite clearly that we are a nation built upon laws and that everyone is entitled to equal protection under those laws – that money or position or power should not set anyone above those laws – we have a statue of justice that is blindfolded, a symbol of legal impartiality.

We put a big statue in New York harbor, a gift from France, a symbol of liberty raising a beacon to the world, and wrote on its base “give me your tired, your poor… I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” It was a moment in which those who had been strangers in this land could see their own beginnings in the eyes of the immigrants and would share the bounty of this nation.

Are we perfect as Matthew tells we must be, just as our Father is perfect? Of course not. Can we try; can we do better? Oh yes.

Do we lose sight of our past, caught up in the trials and terrors of the present? Momentarily, yes I think. But there have been trials and terrors throughout the history of this nation and dark times that seemed to have no end – but they did end. And little by little those ideals that are the very firm and deep foundation of this nation have been recovered and endured.

That takes work and it’s your job and mine to look back on the ideals and strengths of the past, assess the present and shape the future to be that “better country”.

SERMON 17 June 2007

I really have very few family remembrances. They came to this country from Norway to begin a new life in a new country and, although they were always nostalgic about “The Old Country,” they brought very little of it with them. Perhaps what they did bring was particularly significant to them, sort of representing the world they had left behind.

There was a pipe, a very ornate pipe made of porcelain with decorations, the sort of pipe you see in old paintings of the country people. My cousin has that.

I have a mug, a very large and heavy mug, carved from one piece of oak. The lid was held on by a wooden pin set through a figure much like a lion; the bottom is footed with more lion figures. The very top has carving of one of those patterns of intertwined branches. Over many years it has taken on a rich, golden color. I once saw another much like it in a restored Norwegian farmhouse in an outdoor cultural heritage museum.

I don’t know how old it; I don’t think my grandfather really knew either. I do think it’s a fair replica of a vessel from the Viking era of a thousand years ago. Now if it were really that old, an authentic Viking vessel, we might see an interesting carving on its very bottom. It would look like a figure “T.” Actually it would be a symbol of the hammer of Thor, the Norse god of war and thunder and general mayhem. It was carved there in the very earliest days of the Christianization of the North, carved there just in case this new religion didn’t work out. Why take the chance?

So there is the question of the old faith versus the new faith. That’s what has Paul all distressed about Peter’s behavior. What is Peter up to? Apparently he’s slipping back into some old ways, an old faith, as soon as the pressure is applied. Peter is vacillating between the old way, the Old Testament understanding of what God desires and the New Testament understanding of God in Jesus Christ.

What does that sound like to you? It sounds as though Peter is running away again doesn’t it/ It sounds like another instance of denying Christ. I have no doubt that’s what Paul thought and he was distressed and he was disgusted. After all, Paul knew a lot about the old and new faiths and he took conversion and commitment very seriously. Paul, more than anyone, knew what it would mean to give up faith in Jesus and return to the old ways.

Take the story of David in our Old Testament reading; David sins in first lusting after Bathsheba, then causing her husband’s death in combat so that he might have her as his own. He runs roughshod over the lives of others for his own ends, a perfect example of pride and greed. Nathan tells the whole story in a parable; David recognizes his own error, repents and, apparently, is forgiven. But there is a terrible price to forgiveness; the price is the life of David’s son, a sacrifice to atone for David’s sin. To put it bluntly, in the Old Testament if you sin, you pay; God is a God of judgment.

In the Gospel Jesus enters the house of a Pharisee and is accosted by a sinful woman who washes his feet with her tears and anoints them oil. The others present represent that old way, pure judgment, but Jesus sees something else. He sees that her actions reflect her repentance and that her repentance reflects her faith; she has sought out Jesus to make her unspoken confession and to seek his forgiveness. She receives it.

In the New Testament if you sin, Jesus pays and pays and pays. That God is a God of mercy.

Judgment is so easy, isn’t it? It comes so naturally to us all, perhaps were born with it. On the other hand, we have to learn about mercy.

Mercy demands that we see and acknowledge that God is present with us, even in those who seem most bent of demonstrating that He isn’t.

PALM SUNDAY 2007

Were they the same people who lined the streets of Jerusalem shouting “Hosannah to the Son of David” a few days before?

Perhaps, but humanity being what we are, I imagine the great majority of those people shouted, waved their palms and went home. The said “what a great parade; that was fun,” and went on with their daily lives.

Although some probably followed Jesus to see where He was going and what He would do. They had a little time on their hands and they were curious; they wondered “who is He?” Some of the more presentable people might actually have gotten near Him in the Temple when He apparently pitched a fit, toppling tables and releasing sheep and doves and pigeons.

They ran all the way home saying “that was not fun!” They did, however, have really good story to tell as they went on with their daily lives.

Then there was a tight little group of twelve and a few more who stayed with Jesus. They had been with Him all the while.

Now do any of those people sound like they were so involved and impassioned that they would reassemble a few days later and call for Jesus’ death? Don’t they seem like “plain folks,” not really involved in the big events around them, simply making their way through one more day? People like that don’t change their minds very quickly because daily life is too uncertain and treacherous to take chances.

So perhaps we aren’t hearing a story of the fickle, changing nature of humanity; perhaps it’s a deeper, darker story.

We usually say that the people turned on Jesus because of dashed expectations. There had an idea that there would be a Messiah and he would bring instant, total change to their lives and to their world. All their problems and hardships would just evaporate. Israel would be paradise on earth. The future would be bright. Some of them may well have seen Jesus as that sort of Messiah; we can only guess at what they thought but if that was what they expected this man processing in triumph through Jerusalem really disappointed them. Nothing they could see had changed. The question is, were they so disappointed as to turn on Jesus and demand His death? Considering how much disappointment they had in their lives, that would be a huge emotional change indeed. Hopes and dreams become highly theoretical the longer they are unanswered.

There are, of course, other people who absolutely hate the thought of the Messiah. They are the comfortable ones. They don’t have hardships or problems; life, just as it is, is really, really good. They are doing very well in the Roman occupation and see themselves at least a step above those people in the streets. In fact, it may be the first time they have even been aware of the people in the streets. They have two great fears; that Jesus will show those people in the streets the terrible inequity that reduces some to poverty while others live in riches, and that Jesus will somehow change things. They are the ones who have a great interest in silencing Jesus. Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes it doesn’t matter what we call them.

I really think they are the ones who cry for Jesus’ death. The Romans know them; they count on their support. That explains how Pilate, an otherwise shrewd if ruthless governor, would even permit them in his courtyard. It explains how Pilate, who admitted that he saw no guilt in Jesus, would have Him crucified. And it explains how the official after-action report, the spin, on His crucifixion could reduce Jesus to just another prophet.

Those people who had waved their palms in a very brief brush with God Incarnate would never know what truly happened. Life simply went on for them as it always had, nothing changed, or so they thought.

But we know, you and I, that the old world and the old way died on the cross and that all things had changed.

LENT 5, 2007

I read somewhere that in a recent survey the majority of Americans said that they believe in God; at least in some sort of “supreme being.”

They didn’t say that they believed in organized religion. They didn’t say that they attended a church, just that they believed.

The second question was “How does that belief in God effect your everyday life?” The answers became quite fuzzy. Some said that, at best, God was someone who set a few rules but was either too remote or too neutral, perhaps too nice and sympathetic with us, to really enforce them.

The picture that formed was that of a sort of vague something that was a cushion, a benign, sympathetic “help-line” sort of God. A nice God; a God with whom we could be comfortable.

Actually, that’s not so bad. It’s all right to be comfortable with God; in fact God might like that. He could be a sort of “best friend.” The trouble comes when we become so very comfortable that we think of God only as a friend, not The Creator, Sanctifier and Redeemer of the world. Then we reduce God to just another person remarkably like ourselves which makes God available for bargaining, making deals.

God becomes our equal. If God is our equal we have just as much right and entitlement to this “Vineyard” as God does.

Here we sit in our very own private “Vineyard” convinced that this creation of God’s is ours to play with and to dispose of. We really lose sight that we are just tenants occupying a very small piece of creation for a very short time and we really don’t like to be reminded of that. We get a little short with reminders that we are just passing through. We can still stone a few prophets if they really annoy us.

And we ask “If God really did take exception to how we behave, would we still be here?”

That, of course, is sort of a quotation from a bystander watching Noah pound the last few nails into the hull of the Ark; probably followed by “Did you feet a raindrop?”

You see the problem. If we reduce God to our level, and we have a pretty good idea of our capabilities, we demote Him from being the omnipotent, omniscient Creator of Worlds to being just another participants in things. That’s a long way to fall. We take away God’s power to change things and all things remain static, the same, forever.

Is that true? Is that your experience that things don’t change? Are we just what we have always been? Frankly, my aching back and sore feet tell me that time has its effect.

On a grand and cosmic scale Isaiah tells us that God is creating, constantly creating, a “new thing;” a new world, a new you and a new me. He tells us that even now God is cutting a path through the “dry wilderness” of what has always been to lead us straight to what is to be, The Vineyard that is the Kingdom of God here in our world. Then Noah’s flood becomes “Living Water” for all who thirst.

What if the sum total of your knowledge about the Episcopal Church was based on what you read in the newspaper or saw on television news? What would you think about the church?

A few words like “fractured, divided, in disarray” do come to mind. Moreover, I think you would really believe that we are all consumed with issues, one issue in particular, and that our entire life as a church community depended on the decisions and actions of people far remote from Christ Church Valdosta. Is that a fair description? Is it accurate?

Look around and see the people in our pews, all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds and opinions on all sorts of things. Are we all in agreement about everything? Is our life driven by issues? Believe me, the answer to all those questions is “absolutely not!” Do we serve Jesus, are we His Body here in this city? I think so.

I suppose we could call that image of us that seems to dominate the media “bad press.” I suppose they see and hear only the angry and the disaffected, the ones with issues of their own that they press upon others, the ones with an overwhelming need to be in control. Such people make it all so simple and the media just loves simple, black and white, yes and no stories. They sell.

You know who else received “bad press?” Pharisees. Of course some Pharisees deserved it. Some differed not all from the new makers of today. It is so easy to dismiss them all as enemies of Jesus but what about the ones in the Gospel this morning. Here they come to warn Jesus about the designs of Herod. Why on earth would they care? What possible common cause could they have with this Galilean Rabbi who seems to challenge everything they have ever heard?

The common cause, for them and for us, is the Kingdom of God. The Pharisees long for it; Jesus proclaims it. Beyond all their reservations about this charismatic Jesus, they see the possibility that He is right, that it is true, the Kingdom is at hand, and they can put aside everything else to save the one who heralds it.

Who is the enemy for them? It’s not Jesus. The common enemy of Jesus and the Pharisees is Herod. Herod represents power and control, not the control exercised by a loving God for His people but control based on coercing, on power. Herod is offensive to both the Law, the Pharisees, and to the Prophets, to Jesus. Herod is bent on control based on nothing more than his own self interest, his self-importance, and is perfectly willing to sacrifice both the Pharisees and Jesus and perhaps the Kingdom of God to get it.

At least some of those Pharisees can see that; some have their eyes open to both the threat of earthly power, the inevitable tyrannical end of the path of Herod, and divine intervention embodied in Jesus. So they warn the one who brings the divine very close. That took courage. It was, and is, far easier to see that as someone else’s task, someone else’s risk, and to allow the Herods of this world to seize and hold the center of attention. It’s not hard to get the attention of the world if you’re loud enough. If you can touch on pride and politics you are assured of a following in this world; it’s an age-old proven formula and works as well today as it did for Herod.

Jesus relies on neither. Jesus simply proclaims that the love and compassion of God will, and do, triumph over all the schemes and devices of humanity.

There is a kindness in the reply of Jesus to those who gave Him warning; the answer isn’t a puzzle. Jesus’ tells them, and He tells us, that they and we must never lose heart, never doubt, that the Kingdom of God is here. “Three days;” from apparent defeat to eternal triumph, a very short time in the grand scale of things.

That’s the message to you and to me in this Gospel. Never lose sight of who we are, a community formed in the image of Jesus Christ, and why we are here, to worship and to serve.

I was searching for words to summarize this morning’s readings; words that express just what these readings are about and why someone, I don’t know who, put them together for us.

The words that come to mind are “conversion” and “empowerment.” It does seem that in each story a life is changed and a new mission is begun; that’s certainly so for Gideon in his encounter with an angel, or perhaps, with God on that threshing floor. It’s so for Paul in his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and it’s so for Simon Peter on the beach at Capernaum when Jesus calls him.

Those are good descriptive words but, I think, there is another point to these stories.

Just what would it be like to encounter an angel, or Jesus, to have a very personal revelation? Apparently, according to scripture, revelations are accompanied by trumpets, clashing cymbals, peals of thunder, lightning bolts, heavenly angelic choirs, descending doves, tongues of flame, whirlwinds, I guess we must add burning meat and bread and, strangely enough, one talking donkey. It would seem reasonable that if all, or any, of those things happened God would have our full attention. But, actually, revelations may be accompanied by nothing at all.

We can have a revelation and an encounter at any moment, a moment just like any other. But do we actually live in the moment – the present moment – and actually hear and see what is plainly before us

What if Gideon had said “Excuse me, I have to get this grain threshed. I don’t want to be rude but I really don’t have time to talk to you right now; perhaps later. We can do lunch some time.”

What if Paul on the road to Damascus had said “Excuse me, I have a job to do – a very important mission and I’m on a tight schedule. There are people waiting for me in Damascus. And, by the way, who are you really and why are you shining that light in my eyes? That’s really dangerous. I could fall!

What if Simon Peter had said “Go fishing! I beg your pardon; I don’t think so! We’ve been out there all night, for hours and hours. Consider the wear and tear on the boat and on these nets and I have to pay these people you know! I’m sorry, this just isn’t a good time.”

That’s true. It isn’t a good time. There is no good time; there is no bad time. There’s only this time, this moment. It’s all they have. It’s all we have. What do we do with it?

It’s the present moment. It’s actually been called ‘The Sacrament of the Present Moment” by the French Jesuit De Caussade. A Sacrament because every moment of every day of our lives is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of God’s presence and concern and love. Every moment is a gift; it’s that simple.

The trouble is that the Gideons of this world, and we are many, will always have just a little more grain to thresh. The Pauls of this world, and we are many, will always have an appointment with someone, somewhere and the Simon Peters of this world, and we are many, will always be concerned about the state of their boats and nets and the size of their payroll, and you and I will always have something to do that will draw us into the future, some important plan or some terrible dread, or something to take us back into the past, a happy memory or more likely a deep regret. We can’t help it. The tragedy is that living in the past or the future means that we miss the present moment.

All of which makes me wonder just how many angelic conversations I have missed in my life, how many possible encounters with Jesus went unnoticed because I simply wasn’t there.

Being here is very, very difficult. Being here means accepting this life as it is, not as we wish it had been or would be. Being here means accepting ourselves as we are. If an angel can sit on a rock and accept us; If Jesus walking on our beach can accept us, it seems as though we can do that. What clarity we would have. Clarity to see ourselves as we are, to see the world as it is and clarity to see, and to hear that angel speaking to us and Jesus calling us.

Sermon 7 January 2007

Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-38
Luke 3:15-16,21-22
Psalm 89:1-29 or 89:20-29

My father’s parents had a summer cottage at the Des Plains Methodist Campgrounds near the northwest side of Chicago. They had bought the cottage in the 20’s when many members of their church, The First Methodist Church of Irving Park were doing so. It was a sort of summer retreat, at least for few weeks, not far from the city. The campgrounds had a summer hotel, a swimming pool at least three big, at least big to a little boy, tabernacles, round buildings with sawdust floors and wooden benches. On summer evenings all the old hymns would fill those tabernacles.

Of much greater interest to my cousin Jan and me was the Des Plains River for which the campgrounds had been named. It wasn’t a very big river; it didn’t flow very swiftly, but it was wet and it had marshy and muddy banks and that was irresistible to two little boys. We spent hours and hours playing by the river, just a few yards from the screened porch of the summer cottage.

On the opposite bank of the river was a picnic and sports area called Rand Park. One Saturday, and I know it must have been Saturday because Sundays were filled with things directed toward personal and group piety, there was a big event across the river. There was a big gathering and a preacher who I would now call Charismatic whose voice carried clearly across the water. He was dipping people in the Des Plains River. Jan and I were entranced; we sat in the reeds and watched it all. In retrospect I suppose what we watched was a genuine, old-time Revival.

I’ve been thinking that a Revival was going on at the banks of a similar river, the Jordan, led by a charismatic preacher, John, calling for repentance, and lots of people being immersed in the river water, two thousand years ago. That’s real staying power.

Why do people go the Revivals? They go for many reasons I am sure. I think some go out of pure curiosity not unlike two little boys on the bank of the Des Plains. It is quite colorful and exciting and, in a way, mysterious. Perhaps some go as thrill-seekers; that just doesn’t sound right, does it?

I actually knew a man who went to all sorts of Revivals and always went forward whenever there was an altar call. He said it was to encourage the actual sinners.

There are sinners, lots and lots of them. I think the vast majority of people at Revivals are sinners and people who think they are. That’s guilt.

Guilt is an incredibly powerful thing and its power can be both bad and good. There are people who carry such a powerful sense of guilt, some deep-seated dark secret, that they are paralyzed. They are trapped within themselves. They lead truly tragic and desperate lives. But, if that guilt and desperation lead them back to God, to repent, confess and accept His forgiveness, that same guilt has done good work; a person can be restored.

There was Jesus on that Jordan bank, come to be Baptized; why? I think there could be many reasons none of which imply that Jesus carried guilt, Jesus was sinless and guiltless but Jesus was compassionate. He could about, into the eyes of the faces of that gathering and see His ministry unfolding. Jesus was there as a sign of His complete dedication to God and as a sign of His acceptance of the future.

Jesus at the Jordan completely identified Himself with all those He is called to save through His Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Jesus was Baptized in the midst of sinners. Jesus lived His life in the midst of sinners and ultimately, Jesus died between two sinners, one of who heard and answered a call to repentance.

SERMON 4 ADVENT YEAR C

Micah 5:2-4
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-49(50-56)
Psalm 80 or 80:1-7

We all need and Aunt Elizabeth; some one to go to when times are hard, in times of stress and worry.

We need that wise, kindly familiar voice and familiar face, a face and voice we’ve always known, always found understanding and comforting. We need an Aunt Elizabeth just once removed from the responsibility of telling us what to do; some one who listens without interrupting or shaking her head and making that “tsk-tsk” noise.

Mary had an Aunt Elizabeth. She was sort of removed from the everyday, mainstream family, living with Uncle Zechariah out in the hill country. That’s really good. Mary packs up everything and goes off to see Aunt Elizabeth “in haste.”

Of course she does! Mary has just had the scare of her life. She has just had an encounter with a genuine angel – booming voice like rolling thunder, bright shining robes, perhaps even wings. There was this angel, completely unexpected and unannounced, telling her, Mary, that she had been chosen by God to be the mortal mother of His only Son, mother of the Messiah, the savior of the world. Who else can she tell?

That sort of thing does not call for moments of impartial and calm reflection, particularly if you are a young girl, perhaps no more than a teenager, spending your life in a little village in a cultural backwater.

That sort of thing leads to stress, real stress; so off she goes.

Every moment, every mile of that journey was filled with fear and anxiety. She knew that no one in Nazareth would believe the story about the angel and she knew that an unwed teenage girl stood every chance of being driven out, ostracized, perhaps even stoned to death by intolerant villagers. She knew that her whole family would suffer from the stigma of being associated with her.

She does not know that in the presence of that angel and in the act of being chosen by God for the world’ single most momentous motherhood she, Mary, has been transformed. Is her transformation something visible? Perhaps, but not every eye can see it. The transformation is to be felt; it’s a presence.

Elizabeth senses that presence; the baby in the womb of Elizabeth senses that presence. Mary need say nothing; no stories about angels.

It’s Aunt Elizabeth who says it all. “You, little Mary, are the mother of my Lord.” In those few words Mary receives a powerful gift. She receives a confirmation that what the angel has proclaimed will come to be. She receives the courage to fulfill the role God has given her. She sees that the wisdom of the world need not disbelieve her or, better, fail to see in her the presence of the Holy One.

Mary is transformed from a state of anxiety and stress to a state of joy and confidence in God’s word and in what will be. Only one with boundless confidence could say “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Only one touched by God could say that what is to be is for all time, every generation, and that in the birth of that child in her womb the world will be changed forever.

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY 2006

Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:1-11
Luke 3:1-6
Psalm 126

ADVENT 2, 2006

We were traveling from Texas to California in a change of assignments, driving west across the staked plains of New Mexico and the barren desert, then the pine covered hills of Arizona. This day we had left well before dawn; it was high summer and the heat of day came early. The road was filled with early travelers. Then, as though some unheard message went out to us all, it seemed that every one stopped to see the desert sunrise.

First we stood in darkness, the darkness of a sky free from city lights; a blackness punctuated by fading stars. Then there was the soft, almost imperceptible presence of light. Clouds appeared, first pink then orange then red, and the tops of mesas far out across the desert were defined by that same advancing orange light. Then the sun, a glaring physical presence on the Eastern horizon, long rays of light reaching out across the desert, so bright that we had to look away. Then, suddenly it was a new day.

There was a man named John who appeared in the wilderness of Judea, the Eastern desert of the people of Israel. He appeared in the deepest darkness of a night of estrangement from God, calling God’s people to come out to the desert, stop, repent, be reconciled.

Was he truly a man or an apparition, the very embodiment of the hidden, unspoken guilt and shame of the people, touching their souls?

John stood there in the waters of the Jordan, planted in the path that had led the people of Israel to the land promised them by their God many centuries before, calling them to enter those waters again, be baptized and rededicated, turn and go home.

They came by the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, from Jerusalem and the villages and the countryside, all sorts of people, to answer that call, shepherds and farmers and merchants and Pharisees and Scribes, to see this apparition and to hear his call. They came in their humility and in their pride, their power and their weakness, their wealth and their poverty, seeking one thing; hope.

They came because they were pained and exhausted by the futility of a seemingly endless darkness of sin and estrangement; they came seeking words of comfort and assurance. They came seeking the light of a new day.

They came because in their hopes this John was the new Elijah, the herald prophet who would proclaim the Messiah; God’s anointed one who would reconcile all creation to Himself.

They came in their hopes to see the path of the Messiah made straight and smooth by the presence of John, the valleys filed and the hills made low, the beams of the light of God’s presence cutting though the darkness of the desert of their lives. They came to stand in the overwhelming power of the presence of God, dispelling night and darkness.

There stands John today, planted in our own metaphoric Jordans, yours and mine. He is calling each of us to the brightness of God’s presence. Advent is our time of journey; leaving those places of ease and comfort we walk our own silent paths through our own wilderness whatever it may be.

At he end of that journey stands John and the light of the rising sun.

Some years ago an author named Louis Auchincloss wrote “The Winthrop Covenant,” a fictional tracing of fortunes of one New England family over four centuries.

The earliest Winthrop, speaking in old age from his home in the New World, speaks of his encounter with the majesty and power of royalty many years before. The great Elizabeth is passing in the streets of London, surrounded by courtiers and soldiers and ladies-in-waiting, all in gold and precious gems, glittering in her finery. The adults bow to the ground as she passes; he, in his simplicity, looks at her and she looks at him. His memory is that of cold, hard power wrapped up in the beauty of the transient moment. Their eyes meet; the eyes of Elizabeth frighten him. He sees eyes that could welcome, forgive or condemn in one moment. He sees the danger of power.

Such was the power of Caesar, the only King in the world of Pilate. He had been to Rome. He had seen that power exercised and he had learned that no one was safe, no one was spared, if that power were challenged. The eyes of Caesar were as cold as those of Elizabeth. Pilate had learned that safety and prosperity were to be found only in blind allegiance to the one king and that all, all challenges must be suppressed.

So he confronts this simple teacher from the provinces who seems to have some special influence over these unmanageable Israelites. This Jesus is as plain and humble as Caesar is ostentatious. Pilate was annoyed and yet amused to ask this man “Are you the King of Jews?” It is, to Pilate, absurd. Better yet, “..are you any kind of king?”

He is in over his head. There is absolutely nothing in Pilate’s edcation and training that would prepare him for Jesus’ answer, “My Kingship is not of this world.” In six words the centuries of preparation for the Messiah, the anointed deliverer of humanity , are fulfilled.

It’s all here; we have heard the prophecies again and again. This is the one that Psalmist proclaimed; he is the one whose” throne is established forever, from everlasting;” the foretold one, a “king of might’ but, more important, a king of holiness.

Daniel prophecies that the dominion of this “king” will be everlasting, will never pass away, never be destroyed.

The power of this “king” is not “of this world” but of God’s world, a world in which God’s will is done and in which God’s presence is known. The power of this “king” is not “from this world.” That power comes not from weapons and politics but from God Himself, “descending on the clouds of heaven.” That Kingdom has been, is, and will always be, in the hearts and hopes and dreams of the world.

As He comes near look into the eyes of this sort of king, this King of Kings coming in humility and see, not the cold, hard power of this world but the warmth of God’s eternal love.

Sermon for THANKSGIVING 2006

When I was a boy we spent Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house in Chicago. It was one of those unbreakable family traditions; some traveled quite far to be there. We weren’t a very big family – they were a generation of Scandinavian immigrants and their children and like a lot of recent Americans we were very concerned to keep all the American holidays and keep them correctly.

So there would be a big Thanksgiving meal. We had all the traditional American Thanksgiving food, strange as it might be. There would be a big turkey. You know, not everybody eats turkey. When we lived in Germany we invited our German landlord and his family to our Thanksgiving dinner. We noticed furtive glances exchanged as the turkey was served. We later found that the only turkey they knew of was in the zoo in the next village.

There would be that good dry stuffing made with buttery bread cubes and crunchy celery - except when Aunt Viola made it. Aunt Viola was a rather short, rotund woman who, as I remember, usually wore purple. She had a slight mustache and played the piano at the First Methodist Church of Downer’s Grove, Illinois, with far more enthusiasm than skill. Viola made soggy stuffing.

Then there would be big bowls of mashed, white potatoes – I don’t remember ever seeing a sweet potato. Actually, the bright orange color of sweet potatoes would be too garish for a Scandinavian table – and all the usual American vegetables like peas and sweet corn and, of course the dreaded succotash. Succotash was to be avoided at all costs. It was a sort of flavorless mixture of corn and lima beans. I had a theory that if I spread succotash very, very thinly across my plate no one would notice that I hadn’t eaten it. I noticed that others subscribed to my theory.

Cranberries made no sense to us whatsoever; they were the wrong size and weren’t sweet so we ate the jellied kind that comes in a can; And, because we were Scandinavian, there would be really good Swedish rye bread and butter. Homemade Swedish rye bread is so good that even Norwegians like it.

And dessert would always be the traditional pumpkin pie – with whipped cream, lots and lots of whipped cream.

The meal always began with a prayer, in English. My grandfather – Lyle Swann Ingemansson – had a really nice voice – sang in a choir – at the First Methodist Church of Irving Park, Illinois. He liked to sing the doxology as grace. It didn’t particularly matter to him if anyone else sang. He also sang the doxology in restaurants.

At first of course I had to sit at the children’s table, a little table in the living room. I would look with envy at the big people’s table – an unreachable dream. I visualized witty repartee and sparkling conversation. The fact that some adults preferred to sit at the children’s table should have told me something. Then when I grew a bit I had to sit with the adults at the big, round dining room table. Boring! And I found that I was a right handed person in a left handed family – something that I had never really noticed until I became engaged in the competition for elbow room.

After dinner – which was at noon – all the women would gather in the kitchen with my grandmother – Tilla – and do the dishes and talk. The men would go into the parlor and sort of sink into the easy chairs. They’d unbutton their vests and sit talk and talk. Then slowly the talk would die away as one after another they would doze off. It would become very quiet. We call that turkey torpor.

I have a cousin named Jan – not the one who set fire to my other grandfather, Sven Olaf Christensson,s lawn in Wisconsin – that was Bill. For Jan the idea of calm and quiet was totally alien. Actually it’s still pretty alien and he’s my age. Even Jan would fall under the spell of the afternoon.

These were not dull people. They were adventurers. They were people who had left everything familiar – the old country, friends, family, places – and set out to a new country of which they knew very little, carrying nothing but their hopes and their dreams and their skills, and they had prospered. They had prospered through courage, self-sacrifice and plain hard work.

They had the sense to know the true source of all that prosperity. They were people of great faith and they knew that this day and every day they should give thanks to God for all they had - every gift, every success.

SERMON 5 NOVEMBER 2006

“Tell us about God.” Moses comes down from the mountain, back to the camp of the Israelites carrying stone tablets – we all know the scene – telling them that he has met with God and has received these commandments, the testimony of the will of God.

“God; what God? Who is this God you mention?” Of course they asked those questions; so would we. “Describe Him, please.” But Moses can’t describe God, Moses has seen only a burning bush and a great light, he’s heard only the words of the commandments.

Do we really know any more than they did? Do we have more than His words to be our guide? Not really. We do, however, have the words of this morning’s readings; Deuteronomy, Hebrews, and Mark.

We have the great, ancient prayer of the people of Israel; “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, souls and mind.”

It’s two parts. The first part says that God is alone; there is no other God. It’s a statement that no matter where the people might be, God will be with them. They need have no fear of the Gods worshipped by other peoples in other places. Their God is always present with them in any situation. God is One; universal, undivided, undiminished. What incredible words of comfort for a besieged people living in treacherous and uncertain times; incredible words for ancient Israel, and for you and me. We can be assured that God will be present for us.

The second part tells us what our response to that all-present, all-concerned God must be. How can we possibly do other that to love God with heart and soul and strength; that’s pure gratitude. Recognize that it is God who takes the lead, God who reaches out, God who makes that promise.

Remembering is not simply failing to forget. Remembering isn’t nostalgia. Remembering is acting as though we are conscious, physically conscious, of the presence of God every minute. Remembering is acting with God in mind.

How do we do that? First, you and I are called to live in His presence and to make Him a part of everything we do. That, dear hearts, is a tall order but generations of Christians have done just that; they are living so today. Then we are called to teach that sense of the presence to the generations to come. Christian Education is an all-day, every-day task. We teach by word and example and children listen and watch. They must know that there is no time-limit on God’s presence, no past of future, but an eternal present.

And Our Lord gives us the final commandment, fleshing out all others; “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we truly live in God’s presence we cannot do otherwise.” We will, as He would have us, remember Him; see Him in the faces of all we encounter. Perhaps we will teach them by reflecting God’s presence to them; we will certainly teach ourselves.

SERMON, OCTOBER 22, 2006

“Lord, what will we have?’ Peter has finally summoned up the courage to ask Jesus, somewhat belatedly, “what’s in it for me?” Well, to give Peter his due, he has made a major commitment to Jesus for quite some time. They have logged a lot of miles together; I’m sure Peter feels that those miles are worth something and, being one of us, Peter can see only the worldly and the material.

“We’ve left everything,” he says. Don’t we deserve something? Of course they do, Peter and James and John and all the others will have their reward but not here, not now. Their reward will be in the kingdom of God that their teacher constantly proclaims.

That answer may have satisfied Peter but not James and John; they want some specific guarantees. They want assurances of positions of real honor and authority in that Kingdom of God; they want reserved seats on the right hand and the left hand of the throne.

What do you suppose they visualize as the Kingdom of God? A great, golden realm ruled by a mighty king who dispenses justice and punishment from a grand throne, surrounded by His court, principally James and John. How can they have such an image? It has to do with what kind of Messiah you are expecting.

James and John aren’t alone in this. Many, many people in Israel saw the role of the Messiah as a conquering Oriental king who would restore them all to power and glory and wealth; a new David who would reign in splendor. They wanted a return to the “good old days” of the kingdom of Israel.

If that’s what James and John are thinking it isn’t difficult to see how they could hear Jesus in a vastly different way. He has already told them of His impending death. To them, in their mindset, Jesus’ death would have to be some sort of painless, seamless transition to glory. No conquering king in their experience could be tried and crucified. It had to be much cleaner and neater than that.

But Jesus is not that conquering king Messiah. Jesus speaks of another ancient tradition in Israel; He speaks in the voice of one called the “suffering servant;” the one who suffers and dies for the sins of the nation of Israel.

Isaiah speaks of that sort of Messiah. The words are not “glory and power” but “wounded, oppressed, afflicted, beaten, mocked, scourged.” That Messiah is “silent before his oppressors, the Sanhedrin, the mob, Pilate, and empties Himself even to death, a sacrifice to atone for our sins.

That suffering for the life of us all is Jesus’ Baptism; that death if the cup Jesus will drink; no gold thrones or silver chalices for Jesus. That is what James and John and countless others will share with their Messiah. Jesus will enter His glory not in a flash of fire but through His pain and sacrifice.

Jesus sacrifice is not made to gain a place for James and John at the left hand and the right hand of God; His sacrifice is not made to secure His own place before the throne. His sacrifice is made in the service of all humanity as a ransom for the sins of eternity.

SERMON OCTOBER 2006

It is made from the wood of a huge redwood tree that stood on that spot for years; years of being witness to the life of Christ Church.

The tree saw generations of our parishioners coming and going; witnessed Christmas services in the dark of midnight with refreshments on the church lawn; Easter Vigil services in the darkness of the pre-dawn hour; stately processions of wooden kings across the lawn in Advent.

The tree saw brides in white with their bridesmaids hurrying to the doors of the church; Bishops in colorful vestments with banners and incense; funerals and many, many committals in that garden.

Maybe it was a symbol of the strength of Christ Church; a tree reaching up to the heavens but firmly rooted in the earth, great roots stretching out in all directions.

A parish with its eyes on the holy, heaven-centered in worship and in its prayers rising to God; a parish of place, this place, reaching out in love and compassion to its neighbors, neighbors in Valdosta, in Georgia and the world.

How many have been lifted up and assisted by this parish? We will never know. Like the roots of the tree compassion and love often grow and spread unseen except by those who receive them. That is as it should be.

Some have been given help and encouragement through big programs, national or global; some have received just a smile, a welcome, a random act of kindness from unnamed individuals.

Reaching up and reaching out, that is how trees survive and prosper and grow. Drawing strength and nourishment from the Sun above and from God�s own earth here. Trees must have both. Churches must have both.

With both a tree can weather the worst of times; the heat, the drought, the winds, changing, bending, stretching, standing, growing, transforming.

A church that knows that its life is of both the heavens and the earth, as this church knows and has always known, is strong, healthy and growing.

And transforming? Yes indeed. Christ Church is transformed by every new person that worships here, transformed by the gifts, the talents, the questions and the love they bring; Christ Church is transformed by all those it reaches out to, all those it helps.

Christ Church is transformed by your presence here, by the talents that you share so lovingly, and by your gifts. Your gifts flow though Christ Church to its every branch, nourishing its growth, its ministries and its people.

That great redwood tree isn't gone; it's still there. It's still reaching up and rooted in the soil. Its wood is the wood of the cross. How appropriate.

SERMON SEPTEMBER 17 2006

It is a lovely day; not too hot, not too breezy. The sun is shining and the birds are singing and the Disciples are so happy, just walking along with Jesus, suspecting nothing.

Then Jesus stops, turns and asks, “Who do people say I am?” Oh no, a pop quiz! Nobody said there’d be a pop quiz. The Disciples crowd together, avoiding eye contact, hoping He won’t call on them.

And there is silence, a long silence. Finally someone says, “They think you’re John the Baptist.” Another says “Maybe Elijah or one of the old prophets.” Thank heaven somebody said something. There is general relief; smiles all around. Let’s get on with the walk.

Then come the second question, worse than the first, “Who do you say that I am?” Someone has the presence of mind to give Peter a shove, Peter usually has something to say. “You’re the Messiah” says Peter.

Then comes the third question. It’s not recorded in the Gospel but it had to be asked. Jesus looks at Peter and the others and asks “Just what is a Messiah; what does that mean to you?”

Israel and the world and you and I have been struggling with that question ever since. The reason that has usually been advanced as to why, having just performed a miracle, Jesus always says “Don’t tell anyone” is that the word Messiah meant, in their minds, some great conquering king along the lines of David or Solomon; someone who would restore glory and power and prestige to Israel. Since that wasn’t God’s plan to mention the word Messiah would be confusing and create disappointment. I used to think that was logical.

But, if that were true, why would the people be calling for John the Baptist, Elijah or a prophet. They are the ones who proclaimed, ranted, against exactly that sort of kingdom. They were outsiders, commenting on the deplorable state of affairs in just such a kingdom. If there is one consistent message in the prophets it is that things are an absolute mess around here.

If that sort of Messiah really was the expectation, centuries of waiting without any resolution must have desensitized them, lowered their expectations to the point of cynicism and doubt. They could not, or would not, recognize that Messiah of power or any other Messiah.

I question whether Israel really wanted that sort of Davidic Messiah at all. I really think that, in the time of Jesus, if the people had not slipped into a disenchanted cynicism, they had abandoned the Davidic power-state notion. What had that sort of kingdom given them? Glory, but also responsibility and anxiety and pain. Surely they knew, because the Roman soldiers in the streets made it very clear that glory was fleeting and power always succumbed to greater might.

I think, if we could ask the common man or woman on street of some village, perhaps even Jerusalem, “What do you want; what do you need?” the answer would be “peace.”

Is it so different? Haven’t the people of the world always desired, longed for, peace. Haven’t they longed for the security that only peace can give? Don’t we? There is a Jewish prayer “May you live to see your children’s children. May you enjoy the fruit of the vines you plant.” It’s a prayer for the security and prosperity and longevity that only peace can bring.

The Prince of Peace Himself walks with those Disciples. He Himself asks those three questions. He challenges them to look forward, not backward to Elijah and the prophets, to a new age, an age that John and Elijah and the prophets foretold and longed to see. He challenges us.

He calls them to a new life of personal commitment, re-ordered priorities and self-sacrifice. He calls us.

I have a friend named Paul Dix. He was the rector of a small country parish in Hartland, Wisconsin; I was his Deacon while in seminary. Paul had an attitude.

You know for some reason when you wear a collar some people feel compelled to say “Well, I really don’t believe in organized religion.” We hear it at parties and at check-out lines in supermarkets.

Paul had the definitive response. “If you really don’t believe in organized religion, the Episcopal Church is for you.”

I have a theory about that. I think that such people are like the man in the Gospel this morning. I know it’s one of the miracle stories; Jesus healing a man who is physically a deaf-mute; that is certainly one level.

But I hear a story about spiritual healing too. There have always been lots of people who are spiritually deaf, never hear the Good News, and are, therefore, spiritually mute. The man in the Gospel cannot physically hear or speak; the spiritual deaf-mute cannot or will not. Why? For many reasons, I’m sure.

So my theory is that when people say “I don’t believe...” they really want an answer. They want to be acknowledged; they want to be engaged.

What’s been lacking or them? Someone to take them seriously enough to tell them why they should believe. What actually happens is that their pronouncement shuts down conversation and we turn away. People just passed the deaf-mute by, physically. We pass by the spiritually deaf-mute. They become invisible.

Have you ever been invisible? It’s an interesting experience. You are probably thinking ‘Oh great, now the priest is getting weird.” So I’ll tell you a story. A few years ago I was visiting he Diocesan office in Savannah returning the Diocesan banner from some liturgy. Around noon we were all going out to lunch at Tubby’s Tank House in Thunderbolt, really. I went out to the car, the old Volvo wagon, in the parking lot to find that the right rear tire was flat. I got out the jack and the wrench and the spare. All the lug nuts came off easily, except one, it was absolutely frozen on. I couldn’t budge it with my tools so I went back into the office and called triple A. I went back out to stand by the car to wait for them and it started to rain, hard. I occurred to me that I had an old Viet Nam type bush hat in the car; it put that on. Then I took the black plastic trash bag in which I had carried the Diocesan banner, poked a hole in the bottom for my head and slipped that on. So I was standing there in the rain wearing a black plastic trash bag and a soggy, shapeless bush hat and, apparently, I had become completely invisible. No one could see me as they passed by.

That’s really not unlike the man in the Gospel. No one sees him, except Jesus. No one acknowledges him, except Jesus. Jesus is present for him; Jesus touches him; Jesus sets him free.

You realize, of course, that that is our story too. You and I, everyone of us, has been present for us and touched us, somehow. Jesus has answered our unspoken thoughts about faith and religion. Jesus has brought us here today.

Now it’s our turn. You and I are supposed to “doers of the word,” proclaimers that the Kingdom is at hand and that God is present in His creation and that we are loved. Jesus did that. We are supposed to follow His example.

It is easier to just ignore the spiritually deaf and mute. It’s easier to just write them off as a loss. We can’t do that; we can’t just reject them. It’s our job to be present for them as Jesus was present for the man in the Gospel; it may be that that is all that’s needed. What if they have never heard the Word; what if they know nothing of God; What if they have built their own prison wall to shut out the Gospel, a wall that may crumble at a touch; what if our touch is Jesus touch for them? What if you and I are all that is needed for a transformation?

We are talking about transformation; transformation for the one whose ears are opened and whose tongue is loosed, and transformation for you and for me.

When we speak of our faith we become “doers of the Word;” we see our faith and we see ourselves clearly. That’s contagious. Clarity spreads. Even that deaf-mute in the Gospel becomes a “doer;” he hears and he speaks as he runs off the tell the world about Jesus.

SERMON, 27 AUGUST 2006

Joshua has summoned all the tribes of Israel to a meeting at the shrine at Schechem. It is a huge crowd, a happy, festive crowd. They have their “promised land.” Now it’s time for a decision, time for a commitment.

After all those years wandering around the desert living on manna and quail, meeting all sorts of strange people and their strange gods, here they are, just as their God had promised. That’s quite an accomplishment.

However, being as human as we are, and with our short attention span, and our amazing ability to think that we can take care of ourselves, the people of Israel sort of say “so much for that” and go off after other gods, all those gods they had heard about in their journey, gods of the local Canaanites.

Does that make sense? Of course not, but it happened. And Joshua says “choose – now! Our God or theirs. Choose correctly and live your lives in this promised land; choose incorrectly and you will have nothing. There is nor compromise, no half-way faith. Our God or nothing.”

Amazing, isn’t it? That scene is repeated again and again and again. We, humanity, have an amazing capacity for creating and worshipping other gods. We don’t think of them as gods, but they are. They have lots of names; money, power, security, personal fulfillment, self-actualization. They become our gods when we raise them to such a level of importance that they run our lives, our decisions, our priorities.

We give those things immense credit; credit for our happiness, our success, our well-being, just like those comfortable ancient Israelites.

Jump forward a few centuries to as little band of disciples and Jesus. Those disciples are as human as we are. What false gods do you suppose they have at the moment of out Gospel? They did have them, you know. Perhaps self-preservation. That comes to mind. Jesus is becoming a challenge, saying difficult things. It’s not safe to be near him. Those who have trooped after Him, thinking they were on the way to their very own promised land, whatever that might mean for them, are falling away. It is much safer to worship their own gods.

Of course there is pressure in being with Jesus. And they, and we, have a driving need to be accepted, to be on the right side and never to be laughed at.

There are a few who see through the false gods, a few who remain constant. A few who can honestly say “where can we go? You have the words of life.” A few who know that there is no other choice.

Sooner or later we are all called to make that commitment, that choice. How do we choose?

Do we, like those Israelites, choose to follow God because, as Joshua says, “He’ is a jealous God” and, if you don’t He will do you grievous harm? That’s the stick.

Or do we choose the carrot, rather the bread, the “living bread” come down from Heaven, the gift of eternal life?

The second pew on the left – my left – the aisle seat; that’s Dr. William Gabard’s seat. It is a temptation to look down on that seat and be sad, to mourn the thought that he is sitting there no longer. We can’t do that; Bill would not approve!

Perhaps, with me, you read his obituary with a sense of awe; So many accomplishments, so many degrees and fellowships, membership in so many societies. What a contribution he made as a scholar, a professor, a historian.

Reading all those things we see a man who lived on a vast and grand scale indeed. A scale that encompassed the past and the present; the past and present of the world, his family, his church. A global scale of interests that spanned time and distance.S

The door of our nursery – the door of our pre-school opens and a man enters, a man whose presence radiates absolute delight, absolute love, for the children. They are his “babies.” He is their ‘Grandpa.”

How many days have brightened, how many lives have been touched by “Grandpa,” Bill Gabard? How many teens and even young adults remember his words and his kindness? How many memories fill this room this evening?

Those memories should give us great joy. And here is another thing about which we can be joyful. We have the promise of Our Lord Jesus Christ that in death life is changed, not ended. We have the promise that in faith we have eternal life with the Father. We have the promise that Bill has gone before us to take his place there and that we, in our time will be with him there again. We may find him in the company of great historians solving the mysteries of time. We may find him earnestly questioning the movers of shakers of this world. But, be assured, find him there we will.

We can never replace Bill Gabard here – there simply is no other like him. We can give thanks to God for those memories that brighten our lives still.

And, in time, we might actually sit in that seat, second row on the left, by the aisle.

AUGUST 20, 2006

What are we doing here? Sounds like a strange question, doesn’t it, but every once in a while it might be a good idea to pause and think about that.

The significant word is “doing.” We are a Sacramental Church, a church that is held together with what we do as a body. Our life as a church revolves around the sacraments – things we can see and do that are signs of a very special relationship to God, signs of God’s presence here in our lives. We uphold the importance of scripture, we read lots and lots of scripture; we confess our belief in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our ancient creeds, but the things that unite us are the sacraments. We are engaged in one right now – the sacrament of Holy Communion – a great sacrament that Our Lord Himself ordained.

We are about to receive bread and wine; such common things. Jesus and His faithful disciples had bread and wine at every meal. And then there was one very special meal, a last meal, when Jesus took those common things and transformed them and said “this bread is my body; this wine is my blood.” Transforms them forever in our Christian faith. Is that something to be analyzed and made literal; Of course not. We don’t have the words to describe what that means, we have instead the experience of that presence.

Jesus told those befuddled disciples, and He tells us, that whoever eats my flesh, my body, this bread, and drinks that blood, this wine, “abides in me and I in him.”

Abides; it means that they, and you and I, are one with Our Lord. It means exactly that. It means that through the sacraments we have gained life- eternal life – in Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

It’s not a simple idea, is it? It’s a hard saying to understand. No doubt His disciples and all who heard it were utterly confused, perhaps scandalized. Body and blood! Some are still scandalized.There are those today who cannot see what Our Lord meant.

In the first half of the twentieth century the church was graced by the guidance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. His term was tragically short but he was, arguably, the brightest of all in the church. He wrote many books, one of which was his commentary on St. John’s Gospel, this morning’s Gospel. It is still one the definitive works about John.

How would Temple answer the question “what are we doing here?” Temple would tell us that we become complete when we receive the sacrament, the body and the blood. In the flesh, the body, the bread, we are one with His sacrifice – His body given for us on the cross. In the blood we receive the sacred of essence of life itself – the life of Our Lord poured out for us.

In the Collect for funerals we make the confession that in death “life is changed, not ended.” Jesus, in His death for us, and in His Resurrection to Glory, changed the life of the world, your life and mine. He opened for us eternal life.

Our response to that great and joyful gift is the answer to what you and I are doing here.

November 6, 2005

“How long, o lord, how long?” That’s a plaintive cry from what we know as the Old Testament – a cry of the Jewish people awaiting the Messiah – awaiting the Day of the Lord. That will be the day, in their eyes, when everything will be made right – all will be perfect. . . .

“You were strangers in Egypt” – sojourners in a strange land. That thought was central in minds and the lives of God’s people.

They knew well what it means to be a stranger – to be different; to be other. . .

SERMON 19 AUGUST 2007

SERMON JULY 15 2007

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2007

SERMON 17 June 2007

PALM SUNDAY 2007

LENT 5, 2007

SERMON 4 ADVENT YEAR C

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY 2006

Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:1-11
Luke 3:1-6
Psalm 126

ADVENT 2, 2006

Sermon for THANKSGIVING 2006

SERMON 5 NOVEMBER 2006

SERMON, OCTOBER 22, 2006

SERMON OCTOBER 2006

SERMON SEPTEMBER 17 2006

SERMON, 27 AUGUST 2006

AUGUST 20, 2006

November 6, 2005

“How long, o lord, how long?” That’s a plaintive cry from what we know as the Old Testament – a cry of the Jewish people awaiting the Messiah – awaiting the Day of the Lord. That will be the day, in their eyes, when everything will be made right – all will be perfect. . . .

“You were strangers in Egypt” – sojourners in a strange land. That thought was central in minds and the lives of God’s people.

They knew well what it means to be a stranger – to be different; to be other. . .

SERMON 19 AUGUST 2007

SERMON JULY 15 2007

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2007

SERMON 17 June 2007

PALM SUNDAY 2007

LENT 5, 2007

SERMON 4 ADVENT YEAR C

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY 2006

Baruch 5:1-9 Philippians 1:1-11 Luke 3:1-6 Psalm 126

ADVENT 2, 2006

Sermon for THANKSGIVING 2006

SERMON 5 NOVEMBER 2006

SERMON, OCTOBER 22, 2006

SERMON OCTOBER 2006

SERMON SEPTEMBER 17 2006

SERMON, 27 AUGUST 2006

AUGUST 20, 2006

Baruch 5:1-9
Philippians 1:1-11
Luke 3:1-6
Psalm 126