Sermons Ingeman

We have a promise, a divine promise, you and I, that God will call us, His people, to the “glorious inheritance among His saints.” So says Paul in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus. His words echo the even more ancient promise made by Ezekiel, the promise that God will search us out from all the places we have strayed – that doesn’t mean geographically - gather us, feed us and lead us to shelter and to rest. That is a very nice promise.

Of course, being biblical, both Ezekiel and Paul put the promise in terms of sheep, a very common sight in their world. The people of their audience lived in the midst of flocks of sheep, sheep everywhere, and they knew that those sheep had a few common characteristics. One characteristic was passivity; as long as the grass grew green, life was fine. Another characteristic was that they were easily led; born followers. It took very little persuasion to move the entire flock, to green pastures or to disaster. Any leader would do.

So Paul and Ezekiel talk about leaders, shepherds. Ezekiel speaks of David; Paul speaks of Jesus; one shepherd, placed by God over all His flock, one compassionate, loving shepherd to lead all those wandering sheep – read people – to safety and security. That’s the point of the Gospel isn’t it, the point of every Gospel reading? It speaks of compassion and care and love, the love of God for His people.

This morning’s Gospel is the final reading for this year. Next Sunday our church calendar begins a new year with the season of Advent, a new season of preparation for the Feast of the Incarnation, Christmas, and all that that great breaking into history brings. This Sunday we receive the promise, but we also receive a job. We are working sheep, strange as that may sound. We are sought out and brought in to be God’s special flock, led by our shepherd, Jesus Christ, to do His will, to be His hands and eyes and voice in this huge pasture of ours.

Which means it is our task to feed the hungry, to give water to the thirsty, to welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked, to care for the sick and to visit the prisoner. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. You will remember that Jesus asked Peter no less than three times “Simon, do you love me?” Presiding Bishop Allen, a few Presiding Bishops ago, always said that that was the final exam for all Christians, for us all, and that in saying “Yes, Lord” we take upon ourselves the work given by Jesus, “Feed my sheep.”

This morning’s reading from Judges sort of leaves us hanging, doesn’t it. I read it and thought “Wow, let’s see how God is going to smite Sisera and all his army. So, assuming that the story would continue I looked at next week’s Old Testament reading and it won’t be from Judges at all; it will be Ezekiel and it’s something about sheep.

This sent me straightway to read Judges, specifically Chapter 4, to finish the story. Have you read it? It’s awful.

The short version is that there is a huge battle. God, through the army of Israel, triumphs over Sisera and is army of iron chariots, a real upset, and Israel’s enemies are routed and they all run away.

Apparently in the area of the great battle a small tribe or family of nomads, Kenites, are camping. One of them, a woman named Jael, happens to look out the door of the tent and sees Sisera running for his life. She tells him “Come in here and you will be safe. Jael tells lies. Once Sisera is inside, hiding under a rug; Jael dispatches him with a tentpeg; I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say, so much for hospitality, compassion and honesty.

Why, we may ask, is this story in the Bible? What has it to do with the Gospel reading about coins and servants? Having pondered that, I have concluded that the connection has to do with opportunities. The question is “What do we do with the opportunities God gives us?”

Appalling as it may seem God gave Jael an opportunity to strike a blow, literally, for the liberation of His people from oppression. Appalling as it may seem she took it.

That’s not unlike the good and faithful servant in the Gospel, the one who is given 5 talents and actually uses them to his master’s benefit. The servant saw an opportunity to serve and benefit his master and he made the best of it. He used what he had been given to do what he knew his

master would wish to have done. Perhaps he took a risk at seizing that opportunity; nothing is accomplished if opportunities are not taken.

A story: A few weeks ago I came to the church on Saturday morning to set up for a Confirmation class, I suppose it was just before 8. On the walkway just outside the nursery windows was what appeared to be a pile of clothing lying there. I walked over and realized that it was two women sleeping under a pile of clothing. They woke up as I was standing there. The one on the left was Liz, probably in her early twenties, a runaway from a Rehab Center in Lake Park. The woman on the right was Darla, a much older wandered on her way south, weather beaten. They had no idea where they were but they said “We saw the name Christ and we knew we would be safe.” Liz had only her clothing and book, a volume of the Worldbook Encyclopedia. Darla was equipped for the road with a backpack, a Bible and a stuffed animal.

We could have said “On your way.” We could have run them off to somewhere. We could have buried the opportunity to serve God by serving his poor lost sheep, but we didn’t. We invited them to breakfast.

We found Liz’s Rehab Center; they were relieved to learn that she was safe. They came for her. We hoped that Darla might go with her but she was back the next day, Sunday morning, sleeping on the porch of Miller House. Perhaps you saw her that day, much of the parish did. Nobody took offense or fright at her presence; nobody told her to leave. On the contrary, people brought her breakfast and coffee, and lunch and blankets and a jacket; people listened to her story with respect and compassion and, finally, people of Christ Church bought her ticket to her destination in Florida.

That is a real-life opportunity; a God-given opportunity to show the love and concern and compassion that every Christian is called to. We could have done nothing, burying that opportunity, and failed our Master, but Christ Church chose to use the opportunity.

Occasionally we watch news programs on cable television. I am struck by the fact that, on what is supposed to be a programming presenting information, a group of people can spend a full thirty minutes shouting and interrupting each other. Nobody is listening. We have slipped into the age of polarization.

At some point in the past few years we seem to have lost the art of intelligent and informative conversation and discussion. We have lost the art of persuasion; lost the middle ground of reason. There used to be something called, in philosophical terms, the “Hegelian Dialectic.” The dialectic was very simply that if you have an idea, a thesis, and I disagree, I have an antithesis, we can, through reasoned discussion come upon a new idea called a synthesis. Obviously, the process actually implies thought and we seem to have lost that. The mantra for our time would be “I have an opinion; don’t annoy me with yours.”

The next step after polarization, and we already slipped into it, is demonization. Demonization is when the person who disagrees with us not only wrong, he or she is evil. We must not listen to evil people; hence the shouting and interrupting.

The frightening fact is that all this is infectious. It really concerns me that I can sit in my own chair, in my own home, watching my own TV and feel compelled to answer those people, to shout back. Of course my repartee is on a much higher level but it’s still shouting.

What, you may ask, has all this to do with today’s readings? It’s this; Jesus is in the midst of a very polarized crowd.

On the one hand the Herodians, the ones who asked the question about taxes in the first place, are collaborationists, supporters of Herod, the puppet king of Judea and, therefore supporters of the Roman occupation. The Herodians are doing very nicely under the Roman authorities; they have no problem with taxation. They always receive far more than they give; Caesar can be very generous with his friends.

On the other hand the crowd, the people of the streets, don’t receive much if anything for what they pay in taxes. They carry the burden without the benefits. They see the fruit of their labor disappear into the hands of the Romans and, of course, the Herodians. Religious scruples aside, they have every reason to oppose taxation,.

Here is Jesus standing between these two polarized factions. If He answers “yes, pay taxes to Caesar” the crowd will be very ugly toward Him; if He says “no, do not pay taxes to Caesar:” He is speaking as a revolutionary and precipitating a rebellion. One glance at the armed might of the Roman army says what the chances of success would be; the cost in lives and property would be dreadful.

Jesus has no money of His own; He must ask for a coin and He receives a Roman coin bearing the image of Caesar. He asks “whose image is this?” Someone raises his hand and says “I know; it’s Caesar;” the obvious answer and it’s the wrong answer.

In the world of Jesus there is no division between the secular and the sacred. God is sovereign in all things; all power and authority to rule is from God, including that of Caesar. The image on the coin is not simply that of whoever might be Caesar at the moment, it is of God because we are all made in the image of God, including Caesar. The Caesars of this world have their brief hour and then they are gone, transients in history; only God is eternal. God’s image is stamped upon the world of His creation, upon a Roman coin and upon us all.

Jesus sees beyond that polarized moment, beyond Herodians and Philistines and Romans and the disadvantaged. Jesus sees the presence of God in all His creation, in all humankind. Jesus knows that polarized moments do not last forever. Jesus knows that the message of the Gospel is not to be appropriated and used to promote, or to serve as an excuse for, anger, conflict and division by anyone.

The faith of Jesus is true faith; faith in the long-term presence and love of God that transcends polarizations and divisions of the moment. Jesus’ faith is in the inexorable, inevitable progress of God’s plan for the salvation of the world, a plan that is far greater than all the apparent, momentary failures and crises of time and people.

But we left Jesus standing holding a Roman coin; what about that coin? You recall, I am sure, that somewhere around Matthew, Chapter 6, Jesus talks about coins saying “You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve God and Mammon.” The coin is a little piece of Mammon. Jesus holds up that little piece of Mammon for all to see, Herodians and the crowd, and, predictably, all eyes are riveted to that little coin. Jesus is standing between Herodians who have lots of Mammon and the crowd who have none and He knows that Mammon is master of them both, one for the love of it and one for the desire for it.

Jesus knows, and you and I know, that Mammon, money cannot be master. Money is a tool in our hands, a tool to be used. Our task is to use it wisely. If we do use it wisely and properly in the service of others it is being used in the service of God and to His greater glory.

Actually, Happy and I have two sons, Bill and Steve; they have been here on several occasions, you may have met them.

Bill is the older son; he was with us for about a year. He is an artist. He has a real touch for portraiture and has long experience in computer graphics . He is also a trained, certified sushi chef, speaks Japanese and now teaches English at a high school in Wakayama, Japan.

Steve is a few years younger. He has degrees in philosophy and library science from William and Mary, Indiana University and the University of Tennessee. He taught philosophy at Indiana, was at Marymount College and now is with the library system in Falls Church, Virginia.

Can you detect a difference in their personalities? It was ever so. Bill has always been the mercurial, emotional artist; Steve the calm, reflective detached philosopher.

When they were small we would say, with good reason I might add, “Please clean up your room.” Bill, the artist, would go ballistic. He would sputter and fume and then go and clean up his room. Steve would say “ok’ and go straight to his room. Perhaps an hour later, noticing that we had neither seen nor heard Steve for some time, we might peek in to see how he was doing. We would find him sitting in his room, happily playing in the midst of chaos.

Reflecting on that, and on today’s reading from the Gospel, it occurs to me that there really are only four possible responses open when we are given a task or a mission.

One is to say “no” and actually not do whatever we are asked to do. That certainly makes it all very simple; annoying, but simple. In a way I suppose it’s also quite honest. It does put false expectations in their place.

Then, of course, we can also say “yes” and not do it, like the one son in the gospel. At the very least, that’s polite. If something is so important to a person that they would ask us to do it, who are we to hurt their feelings by failing to agree with them? We really do think that way, don’t we? Apparently, so did the son in the reading. Happily, there is always the possibility that the one who asks may forget all about it.

Or, we can say “no” and do what is asked, like the other son; we all do that sometimes too. We do that when that annoying little voice we call a conscience nags us into admitting that yes we can do something and yes we do have the time and yes we do see that you need help and yes and yes and yes. Never underestimate the power of guilt. The value of it all is that, first, the task gets done and, second, the one who asks has a happy surprise.

Does that all strike you as needlessly complicated; would it not be better, and far simpler, to say “yes” and get on with it? That’s the WWJD thing. Surely you remember when “WWJD , what would Jesus do?” bracelets were everywhere. Personally, I rather liked a cartoon of Jesus wearing a WWID bracelet.

What Jesus would do, and did, was to say “yes” and fulfill the task without reservations. He did as the Father said and therein hangs our salvation. Therein also hangs our calling as children of God. Ultimately, I really doubt that anyone gets away with saying “no” to God and I think that God knows perfectly well when our “yes” is not sincere.

So I think the point is that when Our Father calls upon us to clean up our room, and this world is our room, and our lives are our room, He can handle the sputtering and fuming, He can wait while we finishing playing in midst of the clutter we’ve created, but the room will be cleaned.

As you know I’m sure our Bishop plans to retire in a year or so, whenever his successor is named and consecrated. So a process has begun to elect that successor. That is one big job! Several committees have been appointed to assess the needs of the diocese, the vision of the diocese as to what that next bishop should be, to supervise nominations and the election and plan the transition to the new bishop. Our own Walter Hobgood has been tasked with conducting the assessment process; a truly massive task.

Thus far he has conducted “town meetings” for lay people and clergy at a number of places around the diocese, meetings open to everyone. I attended a meeting for clergy; it was very interesting. You may actually have noted that we clergy are a diverse, perhaps eclectic lot and, if you believe what is written about us, we might even be fractious. Perhaps this diocese is unusual, of course it is, but fractious the meeting was not. There were many ideas expressed bu8t all were given credence and respect.

Now I must say that if all the qualities that were asked for in the next bishop were really fulfilled we have no need for an election process. He will come again in the manner in which we saw Him depart. However the assessment of what the diocese, let’s say the church, is and what we would want it to be spurred my thoughts. This morning’s readings, by a strange coincidence, are really appropriate.

What would you say is the center, the glue that holds together, the worship community is the Old Testament readings. The psalmist makes it very clear that the bond is the statutes, the commandments, the decrees. The reading from Exodus is a wonderful example of those decrees; it outlines in detail exactly what must be done by all the members of the community, first at the Passover and then down though all the succeeding generations. The identity of the nation is found in the memorial of that act and that is fine. There’s room for that; there is a great need for traditions that speak to God’s saving acts for His people.

But then hear the words of Paul in his letter; “Love one another for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” “Love your neighbor as yourself…love is the fulfilling of the law.’ That has a very different sound, doesn’t it? It brings the statutes, commandments and decrees up close and personal. What Paul is saying is that the worship community rests upon the love and compassion and sacrifice of one member for another, in emulation of Christ Himself. Without that sense of love the community may crumble. Is that not what Jesus speaks of in telling His followers how to resolve problems among them? He admonishes them to strive for reconciliation and understanding; division is not to taken lightly or effected in haste because what we do is for eternity.

What then is the central point, the bond, the glue of a Christian church. It is love and we cannot together in Jesus’ name without love. When the church, large or small has love, He promises He will be there.

Now what was apparent at the clergy meeting was that both the traditions of the commandments, our faith history is to be honored, without we are lost or, worse, reinventing ourselves again and again, and the overwhelming need for love and compassion, the love and compassion that has been and is the great characteristic of our church will carry this diocese through.

Have you ever wondered about Satan – who or what is Satan? We all have. Personally I can’t really accept the classis picture of a figure with horns, a pointy tail, a red suit and a pitchfork. I mean that’s certainly colorful and unforgettable, really alien and other.

We like to think of Satan as other, something apart from us and unlike us. However, the word is Hebrew and Arabic, Semitic, and it simply means adversary – on who asks questions. Who asks us the most questions, after our children of course. The answer is, we do. We are constantly running tapes that start with “what if, should I, if only I had” all those little voices that follow us around all the time. Call it what you will, introspection, self-doubt, insecurity, obsessive behavior” it’s lots of questions.

Now in this morning’s Gospel we have Jesus rebuking Simon Peter saying “Get behind me Satan!” Actually Jesus is saying “Leave me!” Why? Because Peter has said no; God forbid that you should undergo suffering at the hands of the priests and scribes, God forbid that you should be killed.

Let’s go back a few years in the Gospel. Jesus has been baptized by John in the Jordan and designated to be Son of God. He’s gone to the wilderness. Why? Perhaps to try to understand what has happened; perhaps to try to prepare himself for that such an identity must demand. He’s alone in the wilderness when Satan appears. Satan says “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” Jesus is hungry, he must be hungry; he has been in the wilderness for many days. The hunger gnaws at him. Satan is really saying “do you really have to be hungry? You do realize that it’s unnecessary, don’t you?”

Jesus is alone in the wilderness, he must be lonely, he is human after all. Satan offers company past anyone’s wildest dreams. All the kingdoms of the world, all of humanity, will be with Jesus. Wouldn’t that be nice? You need not be alone, you know; you need not spend this time in the wilderness all by yourself.

What if it’s not true? What if it’s all an illusion, a dream and God really isn’t there to support and uplift him? What if he embarks on his earthly ministry and it all falls flat and he’s rejected? All that must have gone through the mind of Jesus at some point. Satan suggests, why not test it? Why not place yourself in danger and see what God does? Why not test your faith in God, and God’s faith in you.

Jesus rejects Satan, drives him away, until, as the Gospel tells us “…an appropriate time.” Now he’s back and he has another question. Through dear, impulsive Peter Satan asks “Why? Why should you suffer and die? Why should you go through these things if, as you say, you will be raised? What’s the point?”

The point, and it is surely lost on Satan, is faith. Jesus has perfect faith that God loves the world so much that he would give his Son, his own life, for his creation, an atoning sacrifice for all. Jesus calls his disciples and calls you and me and all the world, to such a faith. He tells us all that if we would save our lives, if we withhold from God our utter faith in that love and care, we will lose everything. If we emulate Jesus and give what we can offer, however great or small that may be, give it in faith, we have salvation.

That is, actually, a choice we have to make and it is our choice. Years ago a comedian named Flip Wilson created a character named Geraldine, one rowdy individual, whose mantra was “The devil made me do it.” The devil can’t make us do anything. The devil, Satan, relies on our cooperation, which means, he relies on our paying heed to those voices of doubt.

A few years ago Happy and I attended a birthday party for one of her three sisters. The party was a surprise. All sorts of people – childhood friends and neighbors from years before were invited. Of course many of them were people from Happy’s past also and many of them remembered her. Inevitably, there were people who would come up to her and say “I bet you don’t remember me” How true. Of course she didn’t. Year had gone by since she had seen them. She had changed and they had changed. Surely you have been in that same situation; we all have. With any luck they may identify themselves, but not necessarily.

So here’s Joseph in Egypt; it’s sort of a homecoming party, at least for Joseph. His brothers don’t have a clue. Years have gone by. Joseph has changed, really changed. Joseph is an Egyptian, or so it appears. He’s in a palace, seated on a chair of gold, fanned by slaves with peacock feathers. He’s wearing a sort of crown and lots of gold. He looks good.

Here are his brothers, fresh from the flocks smelling vaguely like sheep. They are a ragtag bunch in rough clothing, with scraggly beards. They aren’t very clean.

Joseph knows who they are. It’s probably hard to forget the faces of people who throw you into a pit, then haul you out and sell you to a caravan of slavers. I should think that sort of thing would stay in your mind. Needless to say, the brothers do not recognize Joseph.

In all honesty, what would you do at that moment if you were Joseph? Tempting, isn’t it? What a great position to be in; what a great scenario for sweet revenge. Joseph is big; he can have them jailed, made slaves, killed. There was no one to complain about it, no one to criticize him. He has an absolutely free hand.

Joseph doesn’t yield to temptation. He has grown up. He has come to realize that who he is, all that he has, all his good fortune is the direct result of the brothers’ one act of cruelty, the direct result of the brothers’ yielding to just such temptation. Good has come from evil.

Which means, he knows, that something far greater than Joseph and his brothers has been at work in the world, that it is God who has taken a hand in the life of Joseph. Joseph’s faith in God has never wavered, even in the darkest moments of the pit and the prison. God has led him through those times to the present. Object Lesson Number One is that God can and does cause what we call bad to lead to good; it is one of God’s many graces to His people. Object Lesson Number Two is that if God can be so gracious to Joseph, then Joseph must be gracious to others, specifically, at the moment, those scruffy, clueless brothers. He doesn’t say “Bet you don’t remember me.” He says, “I am Joseph.”

Just who or what is Joseph; what is this story really about? Of course he’s a character in Genesis but he really is a universal. Joseph is everyone who has been abused, victimized, injured or abandoned and has yet not lost faith; there have been, and there are today, countless Josephs.

Saint Paul was a Joseph. In the course of his ministry as a missionary Paul was beaten, imprisoned, run out of town, all of which without ever losing faith in the God that had sent him on the road. Strange as it may sound, the woman who confronts Jesus in this mornings Gospel is a Joseph. Faith in the healing power and presence of God brings her into Jesus’ presence and faith gives her the courage, the temerity to stay there in the face of what you and I would call rejection.

The point is, of course, first that nobody, absolutely nobody, is forgotten in the sight of God; He does remember us, you and me, even if we haven’t talked to Him in years.

Jesus speaks of a yoke; what is that? I am sure we’ve all seen pictures of a yoke, perhaps seen one in person in Colonial Williamsburg or some other living history display. It’s no more that a big piece of wood, a beam shaped to fit across the neck and shoulders of two big draft animals, perhaps oxen. The beam is attached to traces that lead to a plow or a wagon. The entire purpose of the yoke is to allow the two to work and pull together as one. Two pulling together can do far more than one alone.

In his letter to the Romans Paul has a different sort of yoke. His yoke is not making his life and his work easier; his yoke is a burden. It’s as though there were two of him; as though he could look aside and see himself, a very different Paul not working in harmony with him but pulling against him.

Paul really wants to be good. He has encountered Jesus Christ and knows well exactly what he, Paul, should do to follow Our Lord. In fact he is so certain what one must do to follow Jesus that he writes letters telling people about it, laying down the rules to all sorts of little churches. We are still reading those letters several thousand years later.

But then there is the other half of the yoke. There is that part of Paul that does not follow his own advice. As good as Paul would be, the other half thwarts him and does what is evil in his sight; the other half pulls against him. Of course, unless two halves pull together a yoke is useless, nothing is accomplished, and Paul feels that he is getting nowhere.

That’s not such an uncommon situation is it? Do we not all know people who seem to betray their own best intentions and defeat themselves again and again? It’s not that they don’t know what they should or could do, they aren’t fools, Paul is no fool. It’s as though, as with Paul, something holds them back. I know there are all sorts of psychiatric explanations for that obstruction, all of which are, I’m sure, valid. I can try to understand them, to help them, to encourage them, try to help them to pull in the right direction, but, in all honesty, I know I can’t change them. The question is, who or what can?

So Jesus says “Take my yoke upon you.” That’s an offer to take up the other half of the yoke and pull with us. Jesus isn’t saying that he’ll do all the work and pull the load alone, He expects us to do at least fifty percent of the task, but He does offer to lighten the load. His yoke is easy; His burden is light. Our burden is light whatever that burden might be.

It really comes down to our choice between two options. We can, of course, be like Paul and just bemoan our failures, acting as though we are powerless to do better, or we can listen to Jesus and accept His offer

“Help us O Lord, to finish the good work begun here.” We will pray that together soon; it’s one of the prayers set aside for this day. It says two things about us.

First, it says that we, as a nation in this world, are a work in progress; we aren’t finished yet. We have come a long way, though, from the days of our formation as a people.

This country was founded in revolution, that’s a well-worn phrase. When we hear it we think of the trials and the heroics of a great struggle with Great Britain, winning our independence. There was another revolution just as, perhaps even more, significant.

The other revolution was in the minds and the hearts of the people. That revolution had to do with the nature of humanity itself. The document on which we rest our identity talked about the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” That was itself a revolutionary idea. It elevated humanity; it said that we have choices and decisions to make about the present and the future; that we participate in the decisions that shape our lives and our world. Those very rights have been praised and asserted in other places and at other times but here, in this nation, they have remained the active center of our understanding of our selves.

Consider our Baptismal Covenant; we, as a people, acknowledge our belief in and dependence on a higher power, God. Then we make some promises.

We promise that, with the help of God, we will” persevere in resisting evil,” and that when we do fall into sin, and you know we will, we will repent and return to God. Nations can sin as well as people, of course, and nations can repent as well.

We promise to “proclaim the good news of God in Christ,” a nation demonstrating to the world that it is possible to forgive, possible to make sacrifice for others, possible to live in peace and in harmony; that all humanity are cherished children of God and have His love.

We promise to “seek and serve all persons,” to “love our neighbors.” That promise does not concern just the family next door or the people down the block, it means our global neighbors with whom we share this earth, and it calls us to actively seek ways to better their lives, not for our own gain or glory, but for the love of God.

We promise to “strive for justice and peace,” and we promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” Every human being! In a world of respect there can be no have-nots, no impoverished nations, no exploitation, no wars.

Can you visualize such a world, a world in which the agendas of God and Caesar are the same? Can you visualize a nation that truly shines forth the Christ light? Can you visualize it all beginning in such places as this with such people as you and me?

I have always supposed that one of the great attractions, selling points of the faith in the very earliest days of Christianity must have been that it had no secrets, nothing arcane or hidden. It was available and accessible to everyone; no secret passwords or handshakes, just one simple story about the love of God and the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ.

Of course there was a rite of initiation, perhaps not at the very beginning but very early in the life of the Church. Just a few years after the Resurrection Paul is telling the Christians at Rome that they are “…united with Christ in Baptism.” Baptism was, and remains, the entry into the family of God, joining with Jesus as God’s sons and daughters. That’s not too strenuous an initiation considering what it brings to us.

It brings salvation. To be “…united with Christ” means that, just as Christ died to atone for our sins, we, with Him, die to sin; we are washed, cleansed and born anew. That is the plain fact of the Christian faith.

The wonder of it is that it is a gift to us all. Paul spoke of the love of God in that when we, humanity, were still sinners, Christ made His sacrifice for us. The sacrifice in unearned; we have nothing so valuable as to be given in exchange for His saving act upon the cross.

It is His gift to us because He loves us; we have value in God’s eyes. We fret and fume and worry about the pains and surprises of life, sometimes losing sight of what is truly significant, truly important in life; that is God’s unqualified, inexhaustible love. “Fear not, you are more value than many sparrows,” means that we, created as we are by God, share in His love for His Creation.

Realistically, however, proclamation has pitfalls; be aware that there is a cost; there may be conflict. You and I both know that there are people out there who cannot or will not or simply do not believe what we have to say. Why?

For some people it’s inertia; it’s just too much trouble to hear and learn something new. If they believe the proclamation they might have to make a commitment and that’s just too much bother.

Some people really do prefer a life of sin, strange as it sounds, and cannot imagine changing from the life, shallow and pointless as it may be, that gives ease and pleasure.

Do not be anxious! Your job is to tell the world the Good News of the Gospel message, the salvation of the faithful; God won’t leave you out there struggling with the words to say and the courage to say them. His has been, is now and will be your support and your guide.

I attended Nashotah House, the Episcopal seminary in southern Wisconsin. The seminary is in a mixed area of very expensive resort property and summer homes on an abundance of very beautiful lakes, and farm land, principally in corn.

The soil in that area a deep, rich and black; perfect for farming and for gardens.

Happy and I lived in an old building, built in the 1860s, called “The Fort.” It was so called because the seminary dean had been the first to live there; when he died his widow refused to vacate the building. There was a genteel stand-off until the seminary built a second such building a few hundred yards away; just a bit of history.

Next to “The Fort” was a large field, most of which was leased to a local farmer. The remainder was available to us seminarians to plant gardens and many of us did so.

As I was saying, the soil and the temperature and the rainfall at Nashotah combine to create really good gardens. The problem is that the growing season, compared to South Georgia is very, very short. Seeds are planted in late Spring, May; by mid-September there might be the first frost, by mid-October the first snow. However, in the weeks between the gardens grow and grow and grow.

Many seminarians plant gardens, mostly vegetables such as sweet corn, carrots, radishes, beets, beans and tomatoes, lots and lots of tomatoes. Happy and I planted wild flowers, which was, I suppose, rather counter-cultural.

Of course, some of the seminarians traveled during the summer and didn’t really tend the gardens they planted; some just lost interest but most worked at it and made a real harvest. Then, once the season was over the weeds quickly overwhelmed the area and the plantings simply disappeared, submerged in the tangle.

I found that to be sad. I think there is a real sadness about gardens that are no longer tended; gardens that have received years of planning and work and love by some one. There is a house on Williams Street that, for many years, had a garden lovingly tended by an elderly man. It was a delight to see the flower beds so cared for. Last year he was gone, I don’t know why or where and the flower beds faded away untended; this year they are gone and a little corner of loving care is gone with them.

The gardens at Nashotah, overrun by a tangle of weeds and no longer cared for, had a special sadness, too. One very crisp and frosty September morning I was feeling that sadness looking at the field when a small spot of color caught my eye. It was bright red. Then I notices another and another. So I walked over and found, under the weeds, beautiful little tomatoes, survivors.

“The harvest is plentiful; laborers are few” says Jesus to His Disciples. Perhaps that is as true today as ever. This is the age of weeds, all sorts of weeds. Most of the weeds have been growing for a long, long time; weeds such as self-pride and false idols, lots of false idols. There isn’t much in the world out there that extols Our Lord’s call to love and charity and humility.

And then, of course, we have our divisions and dissensions in the church, weeds of theological controversy that has little to do with His commission to us. It’s as though the garden is being overwhelmed while the harvesters stand on the edge of the field arguing the fine point of agriculture.

We’ve been here before. If the history of the faith tells us anything it is that the weeds may grow and seem to flourish but the faith will survive; the faith will survive the weeds of dissension and the frost of neglect, irrepressible and utterly tenacious, waiting to be discovered once again

This Abram in this morning's Old Testament lesson is one of a generation of travelers from Ur in Mesopotamia to Canaan. But the journey has been interrupted, it's incomplete, and now he and his people are settled comfortably in Haran. They've been there a while. Now their leader is dead. Their question is "Why go on; what's to be gained by going to Canaan; what can we have there that we don't have here?"

Matthew is seated at a table in a comfortable chair viewing the world, viewing life, across stacks of gold and silver coins, the taxed wealth, and the taxed poverty, of his neighbors. Matthew is feared. Matthews is hated, but Matthew is rich. Why leave this life; what riches might be found that would match what lies before him on that table?

Then comes the voice, the irresistible prompting. In a poem titled "The Explorer" Rudyard Kipling gave us a hint of that voice. He wrote, "'til a voice as bad as conscience rang interminable changes, on one everlasting whisper day and night repeated so, something hidden, go and find it."

On one level Kipling's poem is about an intrepid Victorian British pioneer going bravely alone into an unknown place of mountains and valleys, impelled by that voice inside him. On another and deeper level that voice is saying "There is more to life than what is to found here, there is something greater, something better; go and find it It is yours."

That is what God is saying to Abram, isn't it? There is a great new land, a great new life, and it is yours. It is mine to give and I give it to you. You've come this far on your journey and I have walked with you. I am not going to abandon you halfway on the road to what you have been promised; land of your own, a great nation, descendents as many as the stars in the sky and the sands in the desert. _Allthose things are yours, waiting for you. Just get up; just go!

That's what Our Lord Jesus Christ is saying to Matthew, the collector of taxes. Jesus is asking Matthew "Are you truly satisfied with this life of yours? Do you measure your life, your person, by piles of dead, cold silver and gold? Is material wealth _allthat matters to you or is there more to you?" Jesus asks if there is not deep inside hard old tax collecting Matthew a person with a heart, with a spirit, a person who secretly yearns for a world of peace and justice and compassion. If that is so, and Jesus knows that it is, the little voice says "Get up; follow me!"

It occurs to me that Abram and Matthew could have had a very modern view of life, the life view that extols possessions and position and appearance. We are constantly bombarded by messages that call us to place our attention and our values on what we possess. Abram and Matthew could have judged the world, judged themselves, in those terms of personal comfort and wealth; but they didn't, so how about us in this modern world of ours?

I dare say every one of us lives in the midst of more daily comfort and convenience that Abram ever dreamed of in his tents and mud walled villages. I dare say we all have a bigger pile of silver and gold than Matthew ever amassed.

I suppose that in the midst of our comfort and plenty we might miss that little voice, that persistent whisper; we might even think that it has fallen silent.

Here follows a short personal story, a reminiscence. If it sounds familiar, it probably should because I guarantee that others here this morning share this experience.

The first whisper came for me a long, long time ago. It was just a passing thought, an enchantment with the look and the feel and the sound of the Episcopal Church; it was when Happy and I were married; then the demands life and time reasserted themselves; employment, family, graduate schools, a career as an officer in the Army. Twenty years went by really fast! I never lost contact with the church; the best times were always when we had a church family.

I had an assignment to Headquarters, Department of the Army in the Forrestal Building on the Mall in Washington DC. Behind my desk on the top floor was an enormous window through which I could look down the Potomac River to Alexandria, Virginia. There is an Episcopal

seminary in Alexandria; the whisper returned. One day I finally called the seminary requesting information; I had them send it to the office, no point in alarming the children.

Almost immediately I received orders to attend Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which was very, very good for my career. At the time I thought those orders originated from the Army; in retrospect I think it was God whispering "You're hooked; I shall reel you in presently." I suppose it was the equivalent of Abram making it as far as Haran and receiving further orders.

Reel me in He did! On completing the year of school I was offered a three year assignment in Hawaii; we turned it down. We were offered three more years in Europe; we turned it down. We went to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia; once again, God at work. Finally taking the hint and listening to the whisper, I simply stopped saying "no." You realize that you never need actually say "yes" as long as you don't say "no." Once you stop saying "no" it all falls into place; for me it was ordination as a Vocational Deacon, retirement from the Army, seminary, and Priesthood.

I suppose I am saying that this is my personal Canaan. I have been on the road to this place, with a few Harass, a few detours and side excursions, far longer than I knew. Kipling's poem closes with "He chose me for this whisper."

SERMON 25 MAY 2008

The Forrestal Building is a large Federal office building on the Mall in Washington, D.C., a sterile gray concrete and glass creation of the sixties, standing a contrast to the exuberant red sandstone architecture of the Smithsonian Castle just across the street. Looking South from the building you can see the Capitol; from the top floors of the Forrestal Building there’s a sweeping view of the Potomac. The building housed, some years ago, some of the offices of the Department of Army.

There was I, a Captain, fresh from some years in Europe and a graduate school assignment, walking the corridors of power on my first day ready to report to my new assignment. I was to report to Colonel Snyder.

As I reported to Colonel Snyder my eye was drawn to a framed picture on the wall over the Colonel’s desk. It was a picture of a dog with his paws over his head; the caption was “Today is the First Day of the Rest of the Trouble.” This did not instill confidence in the new guy.

I now know that it was obviously a paraphrase of this morning’s Gospel from Matthew, “…tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” I’m sure that’s just what the Colonel had in mind. The Colonel embodied the antithesis of the other phrase, “Do not worry about tomorrow.’ He worried.

He was a big man, slightly balding; in memory I see him at his desk, head between his hands, much like the dog in the picture, staring morosely at some paperwork, obviously feeling himself the victim of cruel fate.

It’s that two o’clock, in the morning, or anytime for that matter, playing of the “what if” tapes over and over in our minds. What if this happens; what if it doesn’t? Why do we do that? We do it because we have the strange notion that we are in charge. We really feel that we can predict, and therefore control, the future; no we can’t. We don’t do all that well controlling the present much less the future.

Now I’m not saying that it’s pointless to plan ahead; we need to do that or we have perpetual chaos The trouble arises when planning becomes so rigid that it produces fear and anxiety; then we have a problem. We have to leave room for faith.

“Faith is believing in things not seen;” I believe Paul said that and the future, tomorrow, is certainly something not seen.

Paul also said that “The Lord will bring to light things now hidden.’ The future, tomorrow, is hidden from us. Paul assures us that not only will Jesus be present with us tomorrow, and in all the days to come, He will open our hearts and minds to His presence. We will see His light.

Isaiah assures us that tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow the Lord will never forget us; He has given us comfort and will always give us comfort because He has compassion for us in our human plight.

It’s been called “Blessed Assurance.” It’s real and it is ours. What better news for the future could there be?

Friday evening, I suppose around eight, Happy and I walked in the Relay for Life, in the midst of many, many other walkers. We walked the track at the Middle School. There came a moment when the sun was setting, the sky in the west turning flaming red , the sharp light filtered through the rising smoke of cooking fires at the tents set up by churches and businesses and civic groups in the infield of the track, a forest of tents.

A timeless scene; the vision of the nomad tribes, the Israelites, camped on numberless ancient fields; the vision of armies through the centuries on what was once called “the tented field.”

Several years ago a book titled “Being Dead is No Excuse” was very popular. It was written by two ladies in a small town in Mississippi, a comparison of the funeral customs of the local Methodist and Episcopal Churches, very funny and embarrassingly accurate. There are differences in customs and the use of flowers; when, where and how receptions are to be held and, particularly, food.

There is a great difference concerning what might be appropriate music at a Methodist funeral as opposed to one at the Episcopal Church – but we all knew that, didn’t we? However, there is one point of universal agreement and that is that “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is listed as “Nevah again!”

What on earth brought all that to mind, you may ask. It’s the lyrics. It’s the words and what they mean, not just in history but here, this weekend. “I have seen Him in the watch fires of hundred circling camps.” It’s the presence of God, the omnipotent, omniscient God, present in the hearts and minds of His people, gathered for a great purpose – every great purpose. It’s the timeless smoke of fires, warming and sustaining fires, smoke rising like the prayers of the saints in incense hovering over the camps of His servants, reflecting the bright, flaming light of His glory.

Causes may be greatly different. The cause may so often be strife and war for many, many reasons. This weekend the cause has been compassion. Those in the tented field are motivated in many ways – patriotism, anger, pride. This weekend, the motivation was love, love for those who are with us no more, love for those with us who are survivors, and love for all those who may come after us; love that motivates us to find the means to make their lives free of suffering.

What better way to say it than in the concluding words of our hymn, ‘As He died to make people holy, let us live to make people free.”

EASTER 3, 2008 8:00 – 11:30

Where do we first encounter Jesus? Think back a bit. It was probably in Sunday school when we were very, very young. It might have been a picture of Jesus, a mimeographed sheet to color and take home, after the teacher had given us the morning’s lesson. Or, and this my own personal first encounter, a colorful picture of Jesus that clung, as if by magic, to a flannel board at the First Methodist Church of Irving Park. After a flannel board, mimeo sheets were never adequate again. My mind tells me that Jesus was shepherd at that first encounter but I may be mistaken.

Of course, whether picture or flannel board, Jesus remained a two-dimensional figure. We could learn a lot about Him – what He had said and done – but we couldn’t get very close to Him; we couldn’t sense His presence.

Now the two sometime disciples on their way to Emmaus are at the mimeo and flannel board level of faith. They were keenly aware of what Jesus had been doing. Of course they had made their own judgments and interpretations. To them Jesus was a prophet, they say so, like one of the Old Testament prophets that made such penetrating comments upon God and humanity. To them Jesus was a social reformer, almost a revolutionary, who would correct all the problems of the day. Prophet and social reformer are not necessarily the same as the Divine Son of God, the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world – that part they had missed.

So, not having really seen Jesus when He was in His earthly ministry, it’s not a surprise that they don’t see Him of the road to Emmaus. They are neither expecting to see Him nor are they open to see Him – they are utterly self- absorbed in their own interpretation of what has happened.

It is Jesus who joins them. It’s Jesus who initiates the contact. It’s Jesus who patiently explains to them all that has happened before, down through the centuries, so that they might grasp what God has done. You might say that they encounter Jesus with their mind, images on a flannel board.

They already know a great deal about Him. When do they come to know Him? It’s at the table, isn’t it? Jesus has reached out to them on the road; they reach out to Him asking Him to stay with them, still unaware of just who He is but sensing the wonder of His presence.

At the table the knowledge of Him gives way to the personal encounter with Him as He blesses, breaks and shares the bread that is His body. Had they seen Him do that just a few days earlier at what we call His “Last Supper?” Had they been present or had they been told that Jesus had proclaimed “This is my Body; whenever two or three gather in my name, I will be with them.” Here He is, present at table.

That’s how it is of course. In the midst of our lives, as we are totally absorbed in planning to do something quite different or caught up in the past, we somehow become aware of a presence, a presence we may have consigned to the mimeo and flannel board phase of life, long put aside. The heart knows Him first, feels the warmth of His presence, and then the mind, the understanding.

EASTER 3, 2008 9:30

Years ago – twenty, at least – there was a priest serving the parish of Atonement in Augusta whose name was Lou Lindsey.

Lou told the story of being at an ecumenical gathering of clergy – being the only Episcopalian at the gathering – at which the topic under discussion was Baptism. Lou said that the minister next to him – whose denomination shall remain nameless – turned to Lou with fire in his eyes and asked “Do you believe in infant Baptism?” a question obviously preparatory to a discussion or a lecture. “Believe in it? I’ve actually seen it done” was Lou’s response. Thus endeth the conversation.

Of course we believe in and celebrate infant Baptism. It’s surprising, at least to me, that there are those who don’t. It must be a matter of perspective, a matter of different ideas.

Well, going back two thousand years you will recall that Jesus Himself appeared on the banks of the Jordan River to be Baptized by John, no alone to be sure, but as part of a great crowd of people from Jerusalem and Judea, all sorts of people.

John was crying for them all to repent of their sins, turn their lives around –and it is highly probable that everybody in the crowd needed to do just that – everybody except one, Jesus, the one without sin. Everyone, save Jesus, was reaching out to God for pardon and salvation; Jesus alone realized that God was reaching out to us as vigorously as we reach out to Him.

Baptism, then and now, is a moment of God’s reaching into our world, our time and space, acknowledging that one of us is indeed His child, His son or daughter. If we could see it we know that at each Baptism the heavens open and a dove descends and a voice says “This is my child,” and an infant is transformed forever.

In the water of Baptism we, no matter our age, are reborn into that relationship given us by God. We make a sign on the forehead, a cross made with holy oil, a mark that signifies, indelibly and eternally, our identity, seen always by the eyes of God.

We welcome the very newest Christian in the world into the Communion of Saints, all Christians past, present and future, inviting the newly Baptized to share in both the wonders and the labors of our faith.

Jesus says to Mary “Tell the Disciples to go to Galilee, there they will see me.” Go back to where it all began; go home.

Galilee is home, of course. The disciples have only been away for a few years, three at the most. It’s really only a short while since Jesus had appeared to them in the midst of their daily work – they can still feel the coarse nets on theirs hand and hear the sound of the waves against the sides of the little wooden boats, see familiar faces in their mind’s eye, hear their voices and the myriad small sounds of the village, smell the cooking fires. They know well what they had left behind. And at times, perhaps in the small hours of the morning, they missed them, you can be sure.

But, oh the places they had gone and the sights they had seen in those three years of following Jesus! They had walked with Him from noisy, dusty little villages to the grand Jerusalem itself, happy memories and sad. They had seen sick people made well, lepers made clean, blind men given sight, deaf given hearing and even one man raised from the dead.

They had seen Jesus in controversy with all sorts of grand and important people, people of whom they had walked in fear, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God had come, a Kingdom when the poor and the weak and the humble would be exalted and the proud and mighty would be brought low.

They had bravely vowed that they would be with this wonderful Jesus to the end, but the end had come and, of course, their weak flesh betrayed their willing spirit.

Well, that was all over now; time to pick up where they had left off, resume their lives and tell wondrous tales to their grandchildren about the adventures of their youth. In time the bad moments would fade in their memories and only the good times would remain and it would become more and more difficult to remember exactly what Jesus had said and done, what exactly he looked like; such is our frail memory.

Actually, we all have our own personal Galilee, the place we call home. It might be a geographic place, a town or even a building, or it might be a time in our lives, a time filled with memories. Home is where we go for comfort. Jesus walked into the lives of the Disciples, into their comfort place, and said “follow me.” Jesus has walked into our comfort place too.

The question is, of course, where were we when He walked into our home place and called us? There’s no need to answer; it’s an unfair question. I imagine very few of us can point to a moment in time, a moment in our lives, when Jesus made His presence known, but walk in He did, or we wouldn’t be here this morning.

What then? There are those who, like Peter and James and John, have simply abandoned their lives and homes to follow Jesus – great heroes and heroines of the Church and there have been many more whose names we will never know. But we can’t all do that; far more have heard Jesus’ call and stayed put, stayed at home, with lives transformed. We are transformed if what we do is to the greater glory of God and in the unfailing presence of Jesus Christ every day – even the simplest routine task takes on new significance if He is present with us as we do them.

We can be sure that the villages of Galilee were more beautiful in the eyes of those Disciples returning from their great adventure. We can be sure that the nets of Peter and Andrew, James and John were different in their hands, all because of the presence of Jesus.

Of course we aren’t simply talking about an event of long ago. In His Resurrection Jesus speaks to every one of us, saying “This is your Galilee. Live here and now in this world as my good disciple” and “this is where you will see me.”

SERMON MARCH 2, 2008

There is a special darkness, the pre-dawn darkness after a long night, a darkness that descends as the stars fade away, after the moon has set, and no light at all penetrates the night. The night winds die away. The small sounds of the night, the rustlings and stirrings, cease. Then there is a profound sense of isolation, of being utterly and completely alone.

Of course, we have all the images of days and years past, days and years of light and color, blues and greens and reds, and the faces of ones we love, visual memories to cast light into those moments.

What if we had no such images, no such memories, what then? Such was the man born blind in this morning’s Gospel. Could he imagine, could he dream? Could he fill that deep, deep darkness in which he lived?

The dawn of a dark night comes slowly, gradually, unfolds for those who can see. There is a lightening of the darkness of the sky, grayness and a slow revelation of clouds and trees and the world about us. Then a flash of fire in the east, clouds made pink, then orange, then flaming red, and then the rising sun, long shafts of golden light breaking the last pall of night, dispelling the darkness, and it is a new day.

Was it so very different for the man imprisoned in the blindness of his birth? Of course there were no tones of gray, no slow spreading of light. There was just the sudden revelation, the fiery flash of a vision of a world which he had never seen, never known.

Are we still talking about a physical blindness? There is another kind of blindness, spiritual blindness. Perhaps that’s the real point of this story. Perhaps we are talking about a man who has never confronted, perhaps never heard of, Jesus Christ. Such people are legion. They aren’t exactly sinners, they aren’t really evil, they simply do not know what it means to be in the presence of Christ, to have Him in their lives and never having known Him, they simply don’t miss Him. They live in a true spiritual darkness, unrelieved by the vision of a different, better life. They just don’t know what they’re missing.

The blind man is this Gospel is just such a person. He doesn’t ask Jesus to give him sight; he doesn’t know what sight is. For him life is perpetual darkness, cold and hard; it always has been and it always will be. He doesn’t call out. It’s Jesus that reaches out to him; it’s Jesus who touches his eyes and opens them to a new and brighter world.

He doesn’t know who Jesus is; he doesn’t even care. All he knows it that he has received, without even asking, an incomparable gift, a new life.

That is the way it happens. If we just let Jesus come close, let Him touch us, we will be made whole and new no matter what darkness we carry about; we will be changed forever. “Once we have been in darkness” and darkness comes is many forms, but now that we have received His touch, “…in the Lord we are light.”

That’s not all. The newly sighted man, running about telling everyone about this incredible gift, finds himself in a world of doubters and cynics. He finds himself in the company of people who would deny his healing, throttle his joy and reduce him to a life of darkness again. But they can’t. No matter how critical, mean and hard they may be he has the one, perfect answer, the only answer. “One thing I do know that I was blind, now I see.” Is there need for him to say more; is there need for us to say more?

I don’t think the man was driven from the company of the doubters, he was too joyful, too spirit-filled to care what they said. I think he left to find the one who had given him sight, and he found Him. And his word and our words and the words of all who have ever known the presence of Jesus and felt His touch, who have been made whole by Him are “Lord, I believe.”

Nicodemus, a Pharisee with a Greek name, that must be unusual. Apparently, he is what is known as a Hellenized Jew. They were the Jews that were open to foreign, non-traditional ideas and influences, as opposed to the conservatives who saw and knew nothing but Torah, the Law. Those were the Pharisees, in the midst of which is this liberal, Nicodemus. How he became one of them is an absolute mystery.

All of which might explain why Nicodemus seeks out Jesus. Jesus is certainly an object of curiosity, a man with some very new, or perhaps old and forgotten, ideas about the relationship of man and God. Nicodemus is curious about Jesus in an intellectual sort of way.

He comes to Jesus by night. It may be that Nicodemus is a secret believer, it’s very nice to think so. However, it might well be that to be seen with Jesus would be embarrassing to a man like Nicodemus. This Jesus is a Galillean Rabbi, a man from the hinterlands, certainly no intellectual. Jesus is no Pharisee and, it may be that Nicodemus thinks Jesus is a bit beneath him. But, then again, there are these reported miracles; Nicodemus calls them “signs.” What to make of all that? Jesus is worth a look.

It all starts out well for Nicodemus. He makes a few opening compliments. He really expects to ask a few questions, hear the answers and get a fix on Jesus, categorize him and fit him into a place in Nicodemus tidy understanding of the world, Then Nicodemus could go home; it should take only a few minutes.

Actually, there’s a bit of Nicodemus in all of us. It’s not a matter of going through a crisis, not a matter of a loss of faith. We just want to fit Jesus into our lives, into our busy world. Perhaps it’s a matter of growing up and recognizing that this is not a tidy world, that there are and will be things beyond our comprehension and control, painful as that may be.

I went though that period of questioning; perhaps we all did. I had a long list of questions that begged answers for me to believe. I probably should reassure you that that was long time ago, nothing recent. In retrospect I imagine God was either amused, or perhaps bored, by the same old questions He had been hearing for millennia.

The big question was, and is, how do we fit what Jesus did, his miracles, into our understanding of the realities of this world? How do we live in this world according to the very compelling words of Jesus, the parables and teachings, the Beatitudes. It’s no easy thing.

We can try to reconcile it all by knowing about Jesus; that’s what Nicodemus is doing. What happens; every question is met with, not an answer but a statement, a call to faith not to understanding. Jesus tells him, you feel the wind, you experience it, you don’t know or understand it.

We experience Jesus; we come to his presence loaded with questions and his sheer presence overwhelms us. First come faith than comes a wonderful understanding of what faith in that presence means. Faith is a motivator; the power that inspires us to live according to what we have come to understand. What we understand is that a world freed from anger, hatred, violence and pride is not the way to the Kingdom of God; it is the Kingdom of God. We are the ones who will bring that kingdom to be.

Nicodemus experienced Jesus; what happened? The Gospel tells us that at the trial of Jesus it is Nicodemus, one of the Sanhedrin, the council, who protests “Does our Law judge a man without first learning about him?” It is this Nicodemus who, with Joseph of Arimethea, prepares the corpse of Jesus for burial.

Nicodemus is profoundly changed by knowing the presence of Jesus in his life; so are we all.

ASH WEDNESDAY 2008

It has been said that Ash Wednesday is a “wake up call,’ a call to face both our sinfulness and our mortality.

Here we are, together, to kneel, to pray, to ask God to forgive us those many, many ways we have fallen short of being what we might be.

Point by point we lament our failures in the Litany of Penitence; we confess our sins, both big and small, and seek God’s mercy, humbly ask God to accept our repentance. And so we begin our season of Lent, forty days to open ourselves to God’s presence in our lives, to reshape ourselves to be what He would have us be, to allow God to transform us.

On this one day the cross that was made on our foreheads with Holy Oil at our Baptism is retraced in ashes. The ashes are the remnant of the palms of Palm Sunday, carried green and fresh in the joyous celebration of Our Lord’s triumph, now dried and brittle, signs of a faith grown cold in the course of time. That cold faith has come through a transforming fire and its reasserted in the cross of ashes that marks us, once again, as children of God.

That is what we proclaim today, not in pride as did Matthew’s hypocrites. Ashes do not connote pride, they tell of humility, of awe in the knowledge that God does love us, and is merciful, and seeks not the death of sinners but their repentance.

We have the forty days of Lent, beginning here this evening, to stop, to look at our lives, to think of where we are going. We have forty days of Lent to discard those things that keep us from being one with God, things that pale to insignificance in the presence of His love.

It has been written, “Remember, you are nothing but dust: Precious dust, molded and formed in the womb by a loving God, precious, precious and beloved are you.”

“Remember you are nothing but dust and to dust you shall return: Unique and precious, created for eternity.”

“Remember, you are nothing but dust: And that makes you free – free from human ambition – free from prideful denial – free from fear.”

Herding Sheep

Well, we lived in Germany for a while many years ago, in a mostly rural area in the southwest, in the hills close to the border with France. The village, complete with picturesque ruined castle on the hill, narrow winding streets and village square was nestled in a valley at the foot of steep, wooded hills. The valley opened on to a plain filled with farms. Places like that change slowly and painfully; in some ways we were living in a time capsule of many years ago. Some of the farming methods and machinery were pretty modern but a lot of the past was still to be seen. We would encounter wagons pulled by massive draft horses as often as we would encounter tractors and wagons. Livestock was everywhere, pigs, cattle and sheep, lots and lots of sheep.

There were what I took to be huge flocks of sheep on the farms; they also were the living lawn mowers of the region, often in the center of town or moving through the street. Caution was essential when driving.

Sitting in a car, waiting for a flock of sheep to clear the road, a task at which they never hurried no matter what your schedule might be, one can observe a great deal about sheep herding. One can also observe that, except for moments of great crisis, being a shepherd is a really low-stress job.

And now I imagine your thinking “I wonder when he’ll get to the point, assuming he has one.” It’s this: the first way to herd sheep, the one we all envision is to have a dog, a small, hyperactive, yapping dog that constantly circles the flock and keeps then in line. The dog can move the sheep along; it can chase down the sheep that wander away from the flock and make them run back to huddle together in the safety of the crowd. How can the dog do all that; because the sheep are scared to death. The dog drives the sheep by threats of terrible consequences if they stray or disobey. That’s herding method number one.

The other way is the bell-sheep. It was really common to see one sheep wearing a bell around its neck at the head of a flock leading the way. As far as I could see it looked just like all the other sheep, a sheep among sheep, not distinguishable in any except by what it did. It didn’t drive, it led by a calm example, showing the other sheep where to go by going there before them, finding the green pastures and the cool waters.

John the Baptist proclaims Jesus to be “the lamb of God.” Lambs were very important in the time of John and Jesus. Of course we don’t often see lambs in person but, to our mind, a lamb is a soft, cute, wooly, white creature to be cuddled. Not so with John and Jesus; lambs were for sacrifice in the Temple. Lambs were gifts to God, the life of one creature as ransom for another from sin. It was an everyday practice that probably recalled the tradition of a scapegoat, a goat on which everyone’s sins were placed and then driven out of town to take its chances in the desert. With it went all the people’s sins. It’s the same idea.

John also says that Jesus, the lamb, will take away the “Sin of the World.” Notice John says “sin” not “sins.” There was, and is, just one great, all-pervading sin, “Self-Will.” The great sin is preferring my way to God’s way, putting myself in His place, being unconcerned about anyone else or the greater good. It’s straying from the flock and going it alone. It’s the antithesis of sacrifice.

Jesus is God’s lamb, the lamb that God gives as sacrifice for His people. Jesus will go to the cross in perfect obedience to the will of God and therein lies God’s great love for us all. You see, God could if so chose, and there are those who say it is His choice, drive us all into being an obedient flock, sicing the dogs on us when we stray. That’s not His choice and it doesn’t work very well anyway.

The lamb of God is the bell-sheep, the leader who goes before the flock, showing the path to be traveled to the security and comfort of the presence of God.

FEAST OF THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

January 13, 2008

Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
Psalm 29

John is a man of the past. He’s the last prophet of the Old Testament. He looks like a prophet, specifically like the great prophet in the Book of Kings, Elijah. John wears what Elijah wore, a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt. John acts like a prophet, prophesying by his actions as well as his words. He’s out in the wilderness, the dry and barren land, land stripped all distractions, land favored by prophets, living out his prophecy like a new Jeremiah or Isaiah. He is the living embodiment of Isaiah’s words “a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” His message is prophetic. Prophecy is not a prediction of things to be in the future, prophecy is a statement about man’s relationship to God in the present, and for John, Israel and the world the present is dark indeed.

His message is simple. If you truly wish for deliverance, truly yearn for a messiah anointed by God to right the wrongs of the world, “Repent!” Turn your lives around and live as God would have you live. All your troubles come from your failure to be as God has commanded. You must eschew pride and all that comes from pride, do no wrong to anyone and worship God sincerely, not just occasionally in the Temple in Jerusalem but every minute of every day. As a sign of your repentance and your commitment to begin life anew, be baptized, immersed in the water of the Jordan. You must pass through the Jordan as your ancestors did and enter the Promised Land anew. You must honor the ancient First Covenant of God and His people.

Ironically, with John at the Jordan the Old Covenant comes to an end.

In that moment at the Jordan, when John looks into the eyes of Jesus, the old gives way to the new, ”The old has passed away, behold the new has come.” Everything is changed. John confronts the fulfillment of all prophecy, the answer to centuries of fervent prayer. John sees the “chosen one” proclaimed by Isaiah. How improbable! The “chosen one” is a plain traveler from Galilee but he is plainly there at the Jordan to be baptized. He is definitely not what John and Israel expected and, possible, not what we expect.

The point is, of course, that God is not bound by our expectations; God can be and do anything God chooses. This is the God of the Psalm, the almighty creator of all things. The idea that the Messiah would come in triumph as a majestic, powerful ruler, a new Davidic king who will restore wealth and prestige to Israel, was Israel’s idea, not God’s; if God so chooses the Messiah can be anyone. God chooses Jesus. This Messiah is the “suffering servant” in Isaiah’s writing, one who is God’s sacrificial lamb who will give up His l