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Deacon Patricia Marks

 

 

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Sermons for 2009

ermon Advent 4, Dec. 20, 2009

Micah 5:2-5a
Canticle 3 or 15
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

When I retired from VSU, I brought home crates of books and a mountain of classroom notes. And I promised myself that if they remained untouched for five years, I would throw them away. Five years came and went in 2006..

 

And truth is, since I am a Victorianist,  every time I survey that wondrous mess I think of Dickens’ novel Bleak House and the eccentric Mrs. Jellyby. This is a character who never threw anything away. Open a closet door, and

wonderful things came tumbling out -- letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes . . .  firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, footstools, brushes, bread, bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, candle ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-`grounds, umbrellas--

--and the list goes on.

 As for me, I’d have no trouble getting rid of damp sugar and shrimp tails . . . but . . . what about the other stuff I treasure? What about all those Agatha Christies I’ll never read again? Or that stack of out-of-date New Yorker magazines? Or clothing --my beloved silk suit, for instance,  whose generously padded shoulders are advertisements for  bygone fashion folly? I can still hear music when I look at that suit—it was my nearest companion at some wonderful concerts.

 And all those unworn tee-shirts, reminders of splendid adventures—“I climbed the Great Wall,” says one; and on another, the words “Masai Mara” dance happily over an embroidered hot-air balloon hovering over an African plain. But that scarcely scratches the surface. I have a drawer full of long, dangly earrings; another crammed with thank-you notes and birthday cards; and shelves stuffed with notes and drafts and Xeroxes and photos generated by some thirty plus years of writing.

 You see my problem.

 Which is why today’s collect, that we prayed a short while ago, speaks to me loudly  and clearly. “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”

 What would it take to clean house so thoroughly that we could say without reservation, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God”?

 What would it take to make ourselves into a mansion prepared for God himself, that we could truly say, “As soon as I heard the sound of your coming, O God, the hope in my heart leaped for joy”?

It’s really not the books and clothes but the other kind of clutter that is so hard to get rid of. That pile of half-worn ideas, half-thought-out good deeds. The stack of “must-dos” that keep us too busy to take time to talk to the Creator of our being. The drawers full of long, cleverly woven scarves, ready at moment’s notice to veil the truth. The air itself, thick with words—unspoken apologies; good intentions; thoughtless discourtesies. And in the corners, along with Mrs. Jellby’s guttered candles of hope, lie bits and pieces of personal puzzles never completed, broken friendships, and letters half- written.

 I think we really, in our heart of hearts, know what to do. To begin with, we need time away from the demands of our busy lives, away from the constant twittering and ringing and buzzing that shape our every minute.

 It is then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that we can find courage to pray, if only in a whisper, “Purify our conscience, O God.”

 After that, we can pick up the dust-cloth of repentance and set to work sorting and cleaning.

 Advent really is like a little Lent, a time of preparation for the glorious gift that we are to be given--the gift of a child, of a Savior. And just as Nikki and Bobby (Yarborough) prepared a room, put the  sheets on the crib, and chose toys for their beloved new son Blake, who is to be baptized today, we too need to get ready.

 We need make room for the infinite joy that is coming; the glorious promise of new life; the Messiah himself.

 We need make room for all He brings with him as well. Hope; energy; the flame of life renewed; the spirit washed clean of death.

 But that’s not all. That gift of life also means that we must make room in our hearts for all those Christ brings with him—the hungry, the needy, the dispossessed. These are the ones that replace the things we cling to. We are to throw open wide the doors of the mansion of the self and invite in the stranger, saying, “If you are hungry, I will give you food; if you are thirsty, drink; if you need clothing, I will clothe you; and if you are sick or in prison, I will visit you.”

In doing so, we welcome in the Christ Himself—like a new-born baby, in need of love and care.

 In this fourth week of Advent, then, in the meeting of the two mothers, we are given a glimpse of the marvelous hope we are heirs to. Mary and Elizabeth have been called the first prophets of the New Testament, for they know in every fiber of their being that in days to come, when their children are born, the scripture will be fulfilled in their sight.

 May we too this season be so vibrantly alive with the Holy Spirit that we pour out our hearts and say,

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
    . . .    the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.    

Amen.

Stole PinsNovember 7, 2009 Jim Elliott’s ordination to the Transitional Diaconate

 

Ecclesiasticus 39:1-8

Psalm 119:33-40

Acts 6:2-7

Luke 22:24-27

 In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.+

Just for a moment, let us imagine that it is a different time and a different place. It is 1932, and we are sitting in St. Mary the Virgin, the University Church at Oxford. And before us stands William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Together, we are singing the hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

 Suddenly, he stops and asks us to look carefully at the words of the last stanza. "Now," he says, “if you mean them with all your heart, sing them as loud as you can. If you don't mean them at all, keep silent. If you mean them even a little and want to mean them more, sing them very softly."

 When the organ plays again, two thousand voices whisper:

 

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

 

No wonder they whisper--it is  breathtaking, that last line. Such love “demands my soul, my life, my all!” Down through the ages different people have hearkened to that call in different ways. Saints and mystics see visions and hear voices and dream dreams. But all of us today—if we listen closely—can hear that call as well.

 We can hear it because it is everywhere--it is the call to life. If you listen, you will hear it through the whole realm of nature. You will hear it whisper in the leaves of the trees, in the rustle of the grass, in the very song of the birds on a cool fall morning. You will see it in the light that shines in the sky, in the spiders’ webs bejeweled with dew. And that call to life comes out of all things growing, out of everything that puts down its roots and raises its head to blossom in the grace of myriad colors and shapes.

 The call comes in other ways as well—often, when and where you least expect it. There you are, going along in an ordinary way, and suddenly your sight is focused, your hearing grows sharp, and your whole being is moved. In the crowd around you, you see the one person who is hungry. The one who is grieving. The one who is in some kind of need.

 Watching the news, your eye will be drawn to the refugees, trekking wearily across a parched landscape. Visiting a city, you will weep for the beggar  on the corner and the woman who lives in a cardboard box. You will see, as I once did, a homeless man sitting under a mural on a church wall. “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” were the words dancing over his head. And your heart will turn over. 

There are so many ways to answer that call. Jim, who has already been working, praying, and giving of himself for the spread of God’s kingdom, has been our chancellor, keeping the diocese on even keel so that we may focus our lives on worship and ministry. And now, in the midst of a busy, fulfilling life, a life filled with learning and love, with laughter and prayer and good purpose, he is about to take on an even deeper commitment, representing Christ and His Church.

 But this is not the Christ arrayed in the satins and silks, the gold threads and bejeweled robes of glory that we see in old paintings. By no means—this is Christ the servant, the one who waits on tables, washes the feet of the weary, listens to the cries of the needy, feeds the hungry, and  comforts the grieving.

 In answering this call, Jim is to serve as a bridge between the church and the world. He is, as best he can, turn the word into example. He is to take the word and make it dance and shine and so flood people’s hearts that they, too, will see that in serving the helpless, they are serving Christ Himself.  

And such love on the part of God for his people that he gave his Son; such love on the part of Christ for his people that he gave his life—such love demands our souls, our lives, our all.

 Jim, my friend, please stand up.

 As our chancellor, as a dedicated layperson at Christ Church, you have ministered to all of us with truth and fidelity, with caring and conscientiousness. But now you are about to step on a different path. And because you are to be a deacon, wherever the dust gathers, you will want to sweep it clean for those who follow.  When they stumble, you will try to pick them up; when they weep you will give them your handkerchief; when they need your time in the midst of a busy day—God willing, you will find the time. And when they hurt—well, you will hurt too.

 And then, somewhere down that path, with God’s grace you will take another turn and walk toward the priesthood. But just as you cannot completely take the lay person out of the deacon, you cannot take the deacon out of the priest. For in serving  as a transitional deacon, you will be laying the groundwork for loving and guiding all who will eventually be under your care.

 Today is a day of great rejoicing as Jim is vested as a deacon, both inside and out. Today he stands before you as Christ stood before his disciples, saying,  “I am among you as one who serves.”

 I pray that Love, so amazing, so divine, may shine the light of grace into your life.

 Amen.

Sermon 18 Oct. 2009, PR 24 PENT 20


 

Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Psalm 91:9-16

Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

When he brought the dragon into my house and laid it on my kitchen counter, all I could do was stare in wonder. It was perfect in every way—its wings folded, its body pleated like an accordion, its head cocked to one side as if at any moment smoke would come from its mouth.

“I invented the pattern myself,” he said shyly.

This was the same young man who, the day before, had been standing in my living room covered the kind of dust you get after you scrape and repair and repaint the inside of a house. He was an origami-designer in his spare time, as it turned out; and he went from his daytime labors to the quiet of his room at night to plan and fold and twist flat sheets of paper into strange and exotic creatures.

Many years have passed since then and I still can’t make a dragon. I can fold a peace crane—probably because when I was young my father, a born artist, could never sit still when anything was in his hands—he would either draw on it or make something else from it. But me make a dragon? No way—even if I sat at the right hand of the greatest origami-maker of all.

Which leads me to wonder whether James and John really grasp what sitting with Christ  means. “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you, “ they demand, and they don’t even say please. Like them, Job had a request—but instead of exultation, he wants to understand the age-old problem of suffering.  “I would speak to the Almighty,” he says, longingly: “Oh, that I knew where I might find him, / that I might come even to his seat!”

And wonder of wonders! The LORD answers out of the whirlwind:

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Gird up your loins . . .

I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

 

And unlike his later brothers James and John, who are confident that they can drink the cup that Jesus drinks,  Job answers with humility.

"Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further."

 In coming face to face with his Maker, Job has learned something –that he is not the artist, but the origami. And he has learned what it means to have power. Ruling the universe isn’t just sitting in splendor; it  means work. “Tell me, if you have understanding,” God demands of Job,

“Who determined its measurements--

Or who stretched the line upon it?

. . . or who laid its cornerstone ?”

 

And that’s not all. Along with designing it—folding the mountains, creating the waves of the sea, lighting all the stars in heaven—being a ruler means caring for all of those fragile creatures made from the dust of the earth. More than that: it means entrusting them with the stewardship of the very ground they walk on.

So all those who drink the cup that Jesus drinks need understand that to sit at the right and the left of Christ means that we are his hands and feet in the world. If we expect to wear glorious purple robes we must weave and dye them. If we want our throne to be solid and beautiful, we need to  carve it and polish it by the sweat of our brows. If the people are to be healthy and well-fed and well-educated, we need to have a hand in that too.

We are the ones sent out as apostles to all the nations. We follow in Jesus’s footprints on that long and circuitous path to the cross. We see the places he stopped—at the well, at Lazarus’s door, at the tombs where the demoniac lived, at the pool where the blind man sat, at the crossroads where the lepers begged for help.

When on earth did he rest? When he stopped to eat, he was surrounded; people with outstretched hands, hungry for attention, for food, for healing. When he withdrew into the mountains, the crowds camped below, waiting, waiting, for help.

Yet he never stopped saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul!”

We are God’s creation, our beings woven together by intricate strands of DNA, our personalities braided and folded and curled by the gifts we’ve been given and the choices we’ve made. Asking for anything different would be like my origami crane turning around and demanding to be made into a dragon.

And as God’s creation, living within the glories of his greater love—the floods of light from the sun and the heavens spread out like a curtain above; the wings of the wind blowing, shaping the hills and valleys—we have been entrusted with all of it. To rule over all creation, to sit at the right and left hands of Christ means being his right and left hands—feeding, healing, loving those whom we have been given.

That is our baptism and the cup we are to drink.

But oh what a miraculous cup! Because when we are out there in the fields, our arms growing weary and our shoes wearing thin, we know that we God’s own children, doing what he designed us to do, helping to create new life and a new world for everyone.

And that is why we can join our voices to the great thanksgiving,

when all the morning stars sing together

and all the heavenly beings shout for joy!

Amen. 

Sermon  Sept. 27, 2009

 

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 19:7-14

James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

It is tiny—so tiny that a single grain of it is liable to be overlooked. Under a microscope this little crystal looks enormous, as if we would be dazzled by its diamond brilliance in the sun. But we don’t usually see it that way. This is table salt, the most common of seasonings, the thing that is noticed most when it is missing.

In its natural state it astonishes and amazes. In California’s Death Valley, for instance, salt forms plate-like crystals that are seamed together by water and heat and stretch for miles.

And in Mexico and the caves of Iran, in Austria and Bavaria, the sight is breathtaking. Huge crystals, glowing in the miner’s headlights like enormous moonbeams; delicate dragon’s teeth; translucent spears that point heavenward—this cityscape of natural wonders eventually ends up in our kitchens sprinkled over soups and stirred into stews.

Here is a precious condiment that was carried in the holds of pirate ships and traders’ ships alike. It was loaded on donkeys, camels, horses,—whatever would carry it across desert, farmland, and forest to the markets of the city. And this flavorful morsel became a legend and a byword. You throw salt over your shoulder to ward off bad luck; you bring bread, salt, and a candle to a new house. You take a questionable statement with a grain of salt.  

And what  a wealth of tradition salt holds. Temple offerings were sprinkled with salt, both grains and meat. Ancient traders sealed a bargain by exchanging handfuls of salt: once they were mixed in a pouch, they were impossible to separate. No wonder the unbreakable Covenant between God and David was called a “covenant of salt.”

Last but not least, we are told that we are the salt of the earth.

That is our nature. Raised from the dust of the earth and brought to the baptismal font, we are washed with water and sealed as God’s own forever. And just as a tiny grain of salt grows into a beautiful crystal, the Holy Spirit is the seed that grows in us. And  oh that sounds wonderful: it is manna and spices, all rolled into one. It  empowers and sustains us! It is the joy of the world, it is the undeserved gift of grace that sends us out renewed.

Sends us out into the world as Jesus’s disciples. But not before we hear him say . . .  

“You will be salted with fire.”

Salted with fire! That sounds uncomfortable--fire burns, after all. That sounds as if something is going to change radically, from the very shape of our own being to the way we deal with others, from our cozy everyday routines to the very meaning of life itself.  

And change can be unsettling. So perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the people, tested and tried by their long Exodus, go grumbling and weeping to Moses. “You should have left us in Egypt!” they cry out in protest. “There, at least we had cucumbers, leeks, onions, and garlic to eat—why oh why did you make us leave our comfortable homes and feed us with nothing but tasteless manna?”

So Moses turns to God.

“What,” he says, “have you done to me? Did I give birth to all these people? They are impossible. They wanted food, and you gave them manna; now they complain because it isn’t spicy enough. I give up!”

So God—who listens: believe me, he always listens--sends down some spice. But it’s not the kind the people expect. This is the spice of the Spirit,  that he pours out upon the seventy who are to help Moses—he sprinkles them, in short, with a very special kind of salt. And with that tiny bit of crystalline Godhead in them, they are empowered to roll up their sleeves and deal with the problems in front of them. And the Spirit even falls on two people—Eldad and Medad—who never made it to the tent of meeting.

And what do all these people do, the ones that are blessed with the salt of God’s spirit, with the fire of God’s love?

Why they go out and prophesy. The Spirit doesn’t follow neat rules; it blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. It even falls upon the magician that Mark writes about, the one who did a deed of power in Christ’s name.

All of them are salted with fire.

But it’s not just them—it is us, too. We who have been baptized with water and the Spirit; we too have been salted with fire. And that is enough to give pause. For as we walk our own Exodus through this life, our eyes will be opened and we will have to see and grapple with all sorts of things.

We will see that we are like those handfuls of salt that the traders exchanged. We are joined in covenant with God and with one another; we are brothers and sisters with whatever grain of salt is sitting next to us.

And like the people of the Exodus, we walk through the shadows of mortality.

On the one side, we see the fire that burns, the unquenchable flames of Gehenna.

On the other side, we see the fire that heals, the fire of the Holy Spirit.

And that is the fire with which we are salted. That is the cross: it is the way and the truth and the life.

Amen.

 

 

Sermon  23 Aug. 2009  Year B,  Pentecost 12

 

1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84

 Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

For the past week, my garden has been heavy with dew. Drops hang like jewels from spiders’ webs, the leaves glisten, and small things teem in the ground, as if the rich,  moist earth were a builder’s paradise. The orb-weaving spider—the one that stitches a zig-zag in the center of her web—has woven a labyrinthine pattern between the house and the pink azalea. At sunrise she was already at work  spinning  her silken path, an ancient path that reminds me of the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, where the sun pours through the great rose window like a benediction.

How beautiful is your dwelling place, I told her as I walked to the back where the purple vine runs in wild joy over the fence.

Some day, I suppose, I will see that spot only in my mind’s eye. Some day the garden may be dug up and turned over to the practicalities of  concrete and garage.  

But today it is a place where birds of all kinds of feather—including myself— stop, look, and sometimes nest.

A real gardener would tie up the vine and trim back the flowering shrub where every so often a hummingbird pauses; would move the lilies to a sunnier place and cut back the towering redbuds under which our two cats, furry friends both, were laid to rest many a year ago.

Well, we are all gardeners, I think, only we delve into different kinds of earth. Some dig through the fine dust that covers floor and shelving, restoring them to gleaming order; some reach out and nourish the small ones who grace our nursery and preschool; some grow ideas that blossom into computers and medicine and books.

But my trowel and spade and rake are safely locked in the shed. So I can stand in peace in that green growing corner and  remember all those for whom I am thankful, all those who, I wish, would find a place of springs in the desolate valley they walk through.

And because there have been house-wrens nesting in my carport, because the cardinals have carried on a noisy courtship amidst the vines in my border garden, because I always hope that one day, if I hold out my hand, they will not scatter in  fear, I carry bread with me. Piece by piece, I toss it to the ground, naming one by one the names I carry close to my heart. Short names, some carrying a burden of fear and illness; loving nicknames; long, elegant names, carrying short, sharp wounds. Some I know well; others have become woven into my life because someone who loves them has asked for prayer.

A mocking bird alights in front of me—several days ago I saw her lead her chick under the sasanqua bush. And she is calling to it now. Closer and closer she hops, eyeing the bread crumb inquisitively.

Her interest and her hesitation. Her fear that perhaps this is dangerous; that she must make a decision and must be quick about  it—all that makes me think of  those disciples long ago, the ones who gathered around Jesus looking for food for the soul.

And what they heard left them aghast.

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” What did they make of that? Was it a call to break Levitical law? To join a pagan cult? To climb the mountains and perform a sacrifice?

They had followed this far; they had heard the promise of life. They had seen the healings, seen the way He nourished those around him. They had seen, too, the welcome that was extended to one and all, the littlest and the least. But perhaps they had not understood the cost, had not really understood that they too were to become part of the promise, heart and mind, body and soul.

The voice goes on. “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

So he is talking about food of a kind that never was before, food that gives strength to work both in the world and out of it; food that gives strength to see a joyous promise in the everyday stuff that gets our hands dirty. It isn’t the same as the manna that God sent to those on Exodus, manna that sustained only for a day, but something else, something quite different.

And if that weren’t hard enough to understand, he gives them—and us—another challenge: “what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

It is those words that call us to come and eat, that call us to be one body and one spirit. And with grace and glory born of trust, we too become a living sacrifice. We too need go out as Christ’s own, and loving God, loving our neighbor, seeking to heal a wounded world.

Things are seldom what they seem. That dry seed will fall and be buried, and will bloom in the spring. That motionless oval shell will one day crack and out will come a bird. The caterpillar who has feasted on my dill plant will become a butterfly.

It really is the promise that is woven into the very fabric of the world, I think, as stand at the threshold of God’s own garden. Here is food for the soul, sings the bird on the limb; here is comfort for the soul, whisper the leaves.

Here is life, calls the Christ.

Amen.

Sermon  12 July 2009  Pentecost 6; Proper 10


 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

“Whooo are Youuuu?” says the caterpillar to Alice in Wonderland, as she approaches the mushroom. “Whooo are Youuuu?”

And Alice replies, “I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“Who are you?” That’s a question that echoes through the centuries.   It was asked of John, who came walking out of the wilderness dressed in camel’s hair. I can see him in my mind’s eye. The shaggy skin rubs harshly against his shoulders, and he carries a rough staff in his hands, cut from a fallen tree limb. His sandals are worn thin by his long pilgrimage, and you can see the remains of his frugal meal of honey in his beard.

What could possibly be dangerous about him? He has no weapon but his tongue, and no ambition but to call others to repent. And who is he? No one, really; just a voice calling in the wilderness, preparing the way for someone whose sandals he is not worthy to untie.

So who could possibly fear him?

Herod Antipas, for one. He is a tetrarch, a minor ruler, a kind of tributary king, much in love with his own power. Can’t you see him? His sandals are laced with gold, and his beaded toga fastened to his shoulder with a ruby-studded brooch. His hair is carefully combed and oiled, his beard brushed and anointed. The large rings on his fingers make his hands flash as he imperiously gives orders for the splendid meal he has arranged to celebrate himself, on his birthday. Rugs  and pillows are spread on the floor, and important guests lounge at their ease. Servants scurry around with plates full of fish and lamb, platters piled high with bread, and flagons filled to the overflowing with the best wine of the season.

Yet despite all his wealth and power, Herod finds John so dangerous that he arrests him, binds him in chains, and confines him to prison.

Even so, Mark tells us that Herod was fascinated by John. He liked to listen to him, although he was perplexed by what he said. I wonder whether Herod used to creep away from the hullaballoo of the court and the scheming of Herodias to sit at John’s feet in prison.

There he might hear echoes of Isaiah and Amos:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the pathways for him. Get out your plumb line and measure the way you have been living.” And John would have invited Herod—even Herod—to be baptized into repentance in the Jordan river, the great place of miracles; the place where Namaan was cured of leprosy, where Joshua and the Israelites, Elijah and Elisha crossed on dry ground.

But Herod enjoys partying more than repenting. So he raises his cup and makes a rash promise to Herodias—and, then, too embarrassed to back out of his oath in front of his guests, has John beheaded.

And that is who Herod is. We know him by his actions, by his indecision, his folly, and his unwillingness to change. He reminds us of someone else we know, who washes his hands of all responsibility for the death of  a holy and righteous man.

Then,  when Jesus begins his own pilgrimage to the cross and rumors spread about healings and miracles, Herod is dumbfounded. “The one I beheaded has been raised!” he thinks. And it sounds plausible, because Jesus did follow John’s footprints into the Jordan to be baptized. Yet more—much more happens. It wasn’t John who told the paralytic, “take up your mat and walk.” It wasn’t John who raised Jairus’s daughter,  or who calmed the waves and cured the man with the shriveled hand.

Yet the questions and gossip are endless, as if Jesus’s being were not so bound up in his actions that the very stones criy out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But people keep wondering—even his disciples. “Who is this,” they say: “Even the wind and the waves obey him!” “Why does this fellow talk like this?” ask the teachers of the law.” “Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son? " ask those who heard him teach in the synagogue.

Some decide he is Elijah, come again  to restore a fallen world, or perhaps one of the other great prophets of old. But Herod, plagued by a guilty conscience, knows who he is. "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised."

He’s wrong, of course. The one who goes teaching and preaching about Galilee with nowhere to lay his head, the one who anoints and heals —he isn’t John, not by any stretch. To be sure, Jesus goes into the wilderness—but it’s the wilderness of want, of sickness, of trouble that he seeks to remedy. And instead of locusts and honey, he picks grain on the Sabbath and eats with tax collectors.

But Herod’s answer, complete with the stunning idea of resurrection, suggests that, after all, he may have gleaned something from John. More than that: his answer tells us that the whole story, from John’s arrest to his death, foreshadows the crucifixion. 

 

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples, asks us. “Who do you say that I am?”

May all that we say, all that we do, cry out the answer:  "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And who are we?

We have been changed, utterly changed. Baptized by water and sealed by the Holy Spirit, we know who we are.

Christ’s own, forever and ever.   Amen.

 

Sermon  Pentecost 4 Proper 8


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 They laughed at him. At Christ himself; at the Son of God; at the one who said of Jairus’s daughter, “She is not dead but asleep.”

 And that is one kind of laughter, the kind that says “aren’t you foolish—we know better than that.” But there is good laughter,  too.

 Long ago, as a child’s story by Helena Olofsson goes, a jester, a Fool, grew ragged and starved from wandering the streets—it seemed that no one wanted to laugh. And so he knocked on a monastery door, a monastery that was the proud possessor of an icon of the weeping Madonna that hung above the altar. The monks took him in, but the Abbot laid down the law: once he was fed, he was to be turned out on the road again.

 And the Fool was so thankful for a good meal that he began to do magic tricks and to juggle, and he made the monks laugh—something they had not done for a very long time. Then he pulled out his flute and began to play a merry tune, right in front of the altar. At that, the Abbot stormed into the church, angry at the commotion. But he stopped in his tracks, because Mother Mary was no longer weeping. She was smiling.

 And after that day, the monastery’s doors were thrown wide open to the poor and the hungry.

 But the laughter Jesus heard was very different.

 Its scornful tone echoes through the centuries. The early Greek philosophers heard it, the ones who believed that the world was not flat, but round. And so did Columbus, who didn’t sail off the edge of the earth as people predicted but rather discovered the land we are standing on today.

Galileo heard the laughter, too; Galileo, a master of observational astronomy, who looked through his telescope and determined that the planets revolve around the sun. And for that heresy, he was placed under house arrest.

 What kind of courage does it take to follow one’s belief, to exercise one’s God-given gift, no matter how foolish it seems in the eyes of the world, no matter how many expectations it defies or cultural taboos it violates?

 Those who laughed at Jesus were kin to those who were appalled that a woman—and an unclean one at that— would reach out and touch Jesus’ robe. She broke a Levitical law: yet she was healed. And Jesus, against all expectation, calls her “Daughter” and tells her that it was her faith that made her well.

 It’s the same crowd that tries to discourage Jairus. “Don’t trouble the teacher,” they admonish him. “Don’t be a fool! Your daughter is dead!” Jairus  is a synagogue leader, one of those who might in another situation have himself been laughing at Jesus. Yet when the moment of testing comes, when he is about to lose his beloved child, he follows his heart, despite what he knows his friends will say.

 “Do not fear, only believe,” Jesus says to Jairus, to us. What he is calling for is radical faith, faith rooted in love and, above all, in grace.

 And what follows causes the crowd to be amazed. The girl gets up and walks; and having fed her the gift of the spirit, Jesus asks that we too feed her.

 And that is our call to action, our call to break the mold, to go about the world doing good.

 Jesus shows us what love really means, love that is showered on those who are among the littlest and the least—a woman who is hopelessly ill, and a young girl at the point of death. Neither is really worth very much in the eyes of the community; neither is expected to go on to make a name for herself or her family. But both are restored to life in different ways.  

Jesus’s actions, which seem foolish to many,  are marked by courage in the face of scorn. Throughout his journey to the cross he faces people who are surprised that he teaches with authority. They are  amazed at his healings, at the new-found lucidity of the demon-possessed man and the energy of the one who takes up his mat and walks.

 But it isn’t just the crowds: even the disciples are astonished when the wind dies down and their boat is not swamped.

 Even the disciples are dumbfounded when Jesus tells the good young man who has kept all the commandments, “go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” The foolishness of God really is wiser than human wisdom.

 So there are at least two kinds of laughter. There is the kind that turns to scorn and mocking as Christ is crowned with thorns and crucified.

 And then there is the kind that only fools for Christ can evoke, the ones who follow him to eternal life. And that is the kind that makes Mother Mary smile through her tears.

 Amen.

Sermon Pentecost 2009 Year B    John 20:19-23

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

These are the words on a magnet that a friend gave me some time ago. It’s on my refrigerator, and every time I see it, I think of those really peaceful times, when inner and outer stillness seem to conjoin, seem to melt one into the other.

And many of those times were in strange places, faraway places. I can still see the tiny purple flowers that grew among the ruins at Iona, the  holy island in the Inner Hebrides, where St. Columba settled. That sign of green-growing life among the ancient, crumbling stones formed the backdrop for the Eucharist celebrated in the clean-washed air. There we stood, pilgrims from all walks of life,  bound together in a silent pool of prayer.

And there was sunset in the Galapagos, when we lingered on an island with our guide before a breathtaking panorama. A hush settled as the fading light washed creation’s brushwork in reds and blues and yellows. And the tortoises—unimaginably huge creatures, right at home in the tidal pools--raised their heads in homage to  the band of gold that crowned the horizon.

Oh I could go on and on. Sometimes peace isn’t quiet at all, like the time I stood atop a small mountain in Antarctica and the wind blew and blew, blew us free of old thoughts and patterns, inspirited us with a new perspective, the ice-covered cliffs and circling birds inscribed on our hearts.

But you don’t have to travel to have those moments of peace. Standing wordlessly with a good friend; holding a newborn baby; sitting on a garden bench, in the middle of the labyrinth, or in front of a painting: those moments of stillness, of resting in what is, not worrying about what has been or will be, these are the moments that provide healing for the soul. And more than that: they give us internal space  to welcome in possibility, to see beyond the ordinary, so that we gain the courage to open the doors and let in—whatever comes in!

All it takes is, as Canon Sutton used to say, “calming the chattering monkeys in your head.” He used to begin his class at the National Cathedral by asking his students to do just that for ten minutes.

I challenge you to try it for even one minute.

It’s hard. Because something always interrupts. But if you can do it, the kind of interruption that comes can be life-changing.

And so when the disciples gathered together in one place, when they locked themselves in a room—when they tried to escape from the world—they were interrupted, shaken up, turned upside down. And it wasn’t their enemies who came through the door: no, it was  something even more disquieting, more portentous. It was the newly-risen Jesus, not bearing weapons or the promise of safety—but another kind of gift altogether.

“Peace.” That was the gift. “As the father has sent me, so I send you. . . Receive the Holy Spirit.”

I think that those are the most frightening, most exhilarating words ever. Receive the Holy Spirit, and go out into the world! Go out into the world as I went, says Jesus; carry this gift to those who cannot or who will not hear or see or feel. Carry this gift into a noisy world, where the sound of greed and self interest drowns out the message of love.

There really is no hiding place from that call. And it is dangerous, my friends, because it changes you and it changes the world. When the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary, it brought her a son—and later the joy and the heartbreak of seeing the scripture fulfilled in her sight.

This Holy Spirit isn’t quiet. Whether it is a breath or a violent wind, it is an incarnation, an inspiration. It is what is called the “ruah,”  the breath of God that made dust to dance upon the face of the earth.

And it is the Holy Spirit that recreates us. It tears down walls, opens doors, lays a new path right at our feet. And it is accompanied by an order: “I send you into the world,  as the Father sent me. Go out to the ends of the earth.” Even the prophet Joel knew what that meant: the old would dream dreams, the young would see visions—and everyone was included: slaves and free, men and women.

And then, filled with that spirit, filled with the kind of peace that is carried in the heart because you are doing the thing that ought to be done, that has to be done, the thing that fulfills and celebrates your reason for being—filled with that spirit, you go out and become  NOISY in a new and glorious way.

When the wind of the spirit blows, when the spirit is poured out upon all flesh, the universe rejoices with marvelous sounds—of strangers talking to one another; of boards being nailed at a Habitat House, of soup being stirred at the soup kitchen. With the sounds of new things being created as researchers battle disease and artists embody their ideas in wood and stone and paint. With the sound of  laughter from the parish hall as Vacation Bible School gets under way.

These are the sounds of a new creation in the making, one in which there will be enough to eat and shelter for all; where swords are beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. These are the sounds of a new creation, where radical love embraces all peoples, even unto the ends of the earth.  Amen.


LENTEN HOUSECLEANING

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

Lenten housecleaning! That’s my good intention this season. But it means having the courage to open the doors of closets and shine light into the dark corners.

Storage sheds are the worst. You find  dust, forming a soft, feathery layer, obscuring the identity of whatever is lurking beneath.  And then there’s always a scurrying sound as something with multiple legs and teeth runs back to its nest.

Closets have their own problems. They are crammed with perfectly good unused things that could give a homeless person the wherewithal to walk the streets of  his or her heart’s desire. And clothing—too much of it.  A forgotten jacket, with loose change in the pocket—enough to feed someone, when added to the crumpled bills squirreled away in a purse no longer used. A skirt, too long by today’s standards; a skirt, too short by my standards. Lots of “just in case” stuff.

And my freezer! Packets of what looks like frozen mastodon in the back. My pantry, with cans of food that the food bank could use.

And I have a gracious plenty of cookbooks—if every recipe were to dance off the shelf fully made, I suspect I could feed a small village.

Why all this plenty? Is there anything wrong with it?

I think back to my visit to Kenya. The words of the tour director still ring in my ears.  Don’t drink the water—it isn’t safe. Don’t walk outside by yourself; there are lions in the brush. Use mosquito netting and take medicine; malaria lurks in the tiny skewers called mosquitoes. We were well protected—but what about the people who daily walked ten miles or more through the yellow dust, to pick produce for the big corporations? What about the rail-thin thirteen-year-old I met, holding her first baby?

I came home to fresh water, pouring from my faucets; to a car that took me a mile or two to the grocery store; to refrigerators, cell phones, air conditioning, an overflowing plate and overflowing closets.

If there was nothing wrong with all of this—after all, I had worked for it, earned it honestly—why did I feel guilty? Was it just the angst of an only child, like those infj’s I know who feel responsible for the very butterflies that visit the garden?

Jesus, the carpenter’s son, had also worked for a living—he knew the grainy taste of sawdust and the bite of a wood splinter by the time he learned to walk. He helped earn the food his mother put on the table. And then, he set out on that long dusty road to Gethsemane. He made his own Exodus from the security of  a family fireside up into the mountains to be tempted; he went down to the river to fish for that most valuable of all catches, the human heart; he came face to face with all kinds and conditions of humankind, the blind and the lame, the possessed and the dispossessed.

And all those skills he learned in his father’s workshop helped him. He knew how to make the rough places plain and to mend what was  broken; he worked with both heartwood and leftovers,  shaping doorpost, lintel, and crossbeam. So he knew, then, how to heal the sick and the troubled; but he also knew the straight from the crooked.

Perhaps that is why, when he saw that the temple had been turned into a marketplace; when he saw the disparity between the wealth of the merchants and the poverty of the pilgrims; when he saw the piles of stuff stowed in corners, in knapsacks, and in boxes, he was enraged.

Perhaps that is why, when he saw the interest the money-changers charged the worshippers who turned their life savings into proper coinage for the temple tax; when he saw that the lambs sold for sacrifice were supplied by the thief that came in the night—he was angry.

The place was desecrated. Even doves were being bought, bartered, and sold for profit—doves, descendants of the one that had borne an olive branch to Noah, a promise that the land was a goodly place, open and fertile and welcoming. No wonder he was grieved.

It was here in this holy place that God’s own commandments, the very basis for good living, had been cracked and splintered and broken. No need for a golden calf— instead, there were idols of avarice and envy, of using God to one’s own ends, of swearing falsely to the worth and value of things.

If Christ Church were overrun with milling, jostling crowds, the thief’s hand in the giver’s pocket and the sounds of buying and selling drowning out the voice of God – well, what would  you do?

I don’t think that any of us would want  to face the anger of one who, after pleading and warning, has to resort to action to get our attention.

So, I’ll try to clean everything out, this Lent. I need to start with my own closets, shining some light in the hidden places of the self. I need to get rid of the dust that obscures my vision, that blinds me to the needs of my brothers and sisters.  I need to do away with the egotism and hubris that stiffens my neck and twists my will. I need to throw out the clutter of worn-out ideas and the piles of unproductive intentions and actions. And most of all, I need to walk away from the comfort of having too much stuff.

It’s a spring-cleaning of the soul, a way of clearing space for light and love.

Only in that way, with God’s grace, do we make ourselves fit to live with—and the world fit to live in.

Only in that way, with God’s grace,  is there room for Christ to rise in our lives.

Amen.

 

HOMILY 1 Lent March 1, 2009    Matt. 4: 1-9  Psalm 51:1-13 (p. 656)

 

I will ask you to come and walk with me into the high places, and meditate on this passage, what it means, what it says.

 

Because I cannot tell you much that you do not already know in your heart of hearts. But before that we need to look at the two verses preceding the reading.

 

[16] And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him;


[17] and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

 The Spirit of God, descending on him. It is this same spirit that descends upon us. And perhaps for a moment—just at that moment—a voice also says, “This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

 

Because that is when, at our baptism, that we become God’s own child, sealed by him forever. And although he may never fail in loving us, through thick and thin, through up and down, through right and wrong, perhaps it is that moment that we need to live up to: when God can say of his newly washed and cleansed child, “this is the one with whom I am well pleased.”

 

In any case, it is from that moment on that we climb the mountain. And just as the Spirit led Jesus, it leads us too. And yes, we come face to face with things we never knew, situations stronger than we are, choices that seem impossible. But it is important to remember that it is the Spirit that leads us there, secure in the knowledge that we are God’s own children, that we may find help when it is needed.

 

So, Jesus, hungry after fasting for a very long time, is offered the chance to make bread of stones. As if he had not had that power before Satan presented it to him.

 

But, it is true, sometimes we don’t know what we can do until the opportunity arises.

 

And Jesus, who is himself the Bread of Life, says that that food is not enough to assuage hunger; that it is God’s word by which we live.

 

So, up there on the mountain or down here in South Georgia, we come face to face with the power to turn whatever our creativity touches into a way to make enough food to feed the peoples of the entire earth. Do we feed ourselves, or do we love our neighbor so well that we offer food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty?

 

But that is not all.

 

Jesus is set on the pinnacle of the temple and hears this:

"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, `He will give his angels charge of you,' and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"

 

I wonder what we hear on the heights of our adoption as the beloved of God, when in the tightness of the muscles of our spiritual life feel the tension between the joy of our freedom of will and the inevitability that we must take the consequences for our own actions.

 

But there is still more. Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. The cost? “Falling down” and worshipping Satan. Falling down, indeed—for that what it would be.

 

The truth is that up on this mountain we are confronting more than Satan. We are face-to-face with ourselves, with much of what we often take for granted. Food. Power. Belongings. 

 

We are here on the heights, face to face with our own love of things—from the aroma of freshly-ground coffee to the luxurious texture of finely-woven cloth; from the clean water that pours from our taps to the  polished hardwood of a beautiful table; from the nuances of a vibrant oil painting to a beautifully-bound book. All these can be ours. All these are ours.

 

But at what a cost. The hunger and need of those who live with little to eat and less over their heads. The illiteracy and illness of those who live with little education and no health care.

 

Unless, as T. S. Eliot says, we are drawn by Love into

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

 

It is then that

 all shall be well and    /    All manner of thing shall be well.

 

It is then that we live into our being as God’s Beloved, with whom he is well pleased. 

Amen.

 

 

SERMON 6 EPIPHANY Feb. 15, 2009

 


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

The picture that appeared in my email is just a snapshot—no fancy background, just a hospital chair, a bed curtain, and a glimpse of a fire extinguisher nearby. It came to me from Geri Nelson, a deacon friend whose son Bruce is in Iraq.

 

It shows a soldier in a rumpled uniform, sound asleep. And in his arms he is cradling one of the smallest victims of war, a little Iraqi girl. Like him, she has closed her eyes to the violence outside the hospital and is perhaps dreaming of her family, all of whom were executed. Her head is shaved, the better to treat the wound that she is recovering from.

 

The nurses say that John Gebhardt, the soldier, has a wonderfully calming effect on her. He has spent the past four nights in that chair holding her while she slept.

 

The good news is that she is healing.

 

I thank God for the modern miracle of medicine. And I thank God for the ancient miracle of human touch, the healing that flows from the loving hands of those whose hearts are moved.

 

So moved that they are blinded to color and race, size and shape, poverty and wealth. So moved that politics and prejudices mean nothing in the light of human pain, human need.

 

But I wonder what it was like not to have those healing hands outstretched. I wonder what it was like to be a leper in the days that Jesus walked through Galilee. No one to shake hands with, no one to give you a hug, no one to pick you up if you fell. Because it was not so much that you were thought to be infectious—no, it was rather that you were unclean, that you were sinful; that whatever caused those dreadful boils and scars that covered your body had made you unfit for human company.

What happened was like a sentence of death. You would be driven out town, banished from your family and neighbors. You would be banned from entering the synagogue. And it would be your responsibility to warn passers-by away from you— when someone approached, you would ring a bell and cry “Unclean! Unclean!”

 

And that is why the story of Jesus and the leper is so stunning. Instead of keeping his distance, the leper approaches Jesus. And Jesus, in turn, reaches out to touch him. They are both breaking Levitical laws and cultural conventions, the ones that say “Hands off!”, the ones that insist on isolation instead of community, conformity to an ideal rather than recognition of human weakness and failure.

 

What was it that drew the leper to this man whose footsteps led from town to town on an inexorable path to Gethsemane? There had to be something—some spark of recognition, some immediacy of feeling.

 

Because the leper’s first words are a confession of faith.

 

“If you will, you can make me clean.” If you will. I believe that this will happen; I believe that you can make it happen.

And it is telling that the leper is not asking for healing; he is asking to be made clean, to be made part of the community again. To be able to touch and be touched; to be welcomed by his own people, to rub shoulders with them at gatherings, to hold his own children in his arms while they sleep.

 

And Jesus is moved with pity. With sympathy. With compassion. He can feel the suffering of this man who is so outwardly disfigured, so inwardly alone. Jesus himself is in effect touched by the leper’s troubles.

 

It is no accident that the word “pity” is in its etymology related to the word “piety”—which means being devoted to God and trying to do His will. So to feel pity for someone is an unmistakable call to holiness. Loving kindness cannot be disentangled from an act of faith.

 

So Jesus, breaking through the barrier set up by the law, by culture, by fear of contamination, “stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’"

 

What does it take for us to break through those same barriers?  To have the strength and the courage to reach out to others?

Perhaps before we can try to be like Christ, we need be like the leper.

 

I look at my own skin—I’ve washed my hands, and they look clean—but there is no way to tell what is underneath. All that is hidden: the bumps and scars, wrinkles and wounds that have come from not loving my neighbor, from not being honest in thought, word, and deed, from things done and left undone—all that is hidden.

 

[So I ask myself] If  all those transgressions and shortcomings could actually be seen, if they were written on our very skin, where would we find the courage to do what that soldier with the child in his arms has done—ignore the strangeness and disfigurement and stretch out our arms in love?

 

What Chaucer called the “cold cheer of Lent” is almost here; that God-given season when we are called into reconciliation, when we are called to examine and acknowledge all those bumps and scars.

 

It is profoundly moving, profoundly terrifying, to go down on your knees and say, “If you will, Lord, you can make me clean.” To say, “Lord, I am sorry for misusing your gift of life.” To say, “Forgive me.”

 

But it is then that Christ reaches out and touches us, that we may reach out to others.

 

In the body of the wafer, in the blood of the wine.

 

In His presence.

 

Amen.+

 

 

 

 

 

ABSALOM JONES   Wed., Feb. 13

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

I want you to imagine that you have come to Christ Church on a Sunday morning. You have taken care to brush your hair and shine your shoes. And as you walk in, you are overjoyed to see that a number of friends whom you  have invited have actually come and are already settled in the pews. So you slide into your seat and go down on your knees to thank God for all he has done.

And then, out of nowhere, there is a hand on your collar and someone lifts you to your feet. You and all those you have invited are made to go to the rear of the church and told to climb into the balcony for the service.

What would you do?

If you were Absalom Jones, whom we honor tonight, you would walk out of the church and onto a path that led to his being ordained the first Black Episcopal priest in the United States.

Here was a someone born a slave in Delaware in 1746.  And  because he was a house slave in the home of  his master Benjamin Wyncoop, instead of working in the fields, he was able to earn enough small tips to buy the three great treasures of his life: a primer, out of which he taught himself to read; a spelling book; and a New Testament.

By the time he was 16, his master had sold the rest of the family and taken him to Philadelphia to work in the family store. There he received some schooling from the Quakers, and ten years later married a slave named Mary King, and then worked overtime to buy her—and his—freedom.

And he found a church home: St. George’s Church, whose congregation was diverse. But in the mid 1780’s, the vestry decided to segregate. And that is why Jones was pulled from his pew and why the African-American population left the church with him.

It was the impetus for Jones and his friend Richard Allen to found the Free African Society, the first such in the United States. It provided economic aid to those who were transitioning between slavery and freedom. And it also provided the funding for a new church.

With the help of Bishop William White, the 2nd Episcopal bishop in the US, Jones laid the groundwork for the church and for his own vocation. He was ordained deacon in 1795 and priest 7 years later, to serve at the St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, a thriving community that still flourishes today.

In the first year alone, St. Thomas attracted 500 members! Some of that growth was due to Jones’s  pastoral concern and loving manner. And some was due to his earnest and passionate preaching. He roundly denounced slavery; to him, God was the Father, who always acted, as Jones said, on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.”

Jones was the Episcopal Church’s first black priest,  a shining example of  unswerving faith in God and in the church as God’s instrument, someone who tried to follow Christ, who said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

 For his faith and courage under adversity; for his championship of those who were enslaved whether by the system of the day or by their own ideas, we honor him today.      

Amen.

 

Sermon 2 Epiphany   Jan. 18, 2009

 
 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

If you walk outside in my garden when the early sun glints on the purple plum and the spiders begin to weave their webs . . .  

if you pause near the fig tree  where the old shed used to stand . . .

 

you will hear birds calling one to another and a soft rustle in the underbrush where something small and furry has begun its day’s work. And if you could be still enough, I do believe you might hear the oak tree  stretching its roots through the good brown earth and the bubble of sap rising.

 

There are always these furtive sounds, wherever you go. On Cumberland Island after dark, it’s the lapping of water and the soft creak of the porch swing, weathered to the grey of a rainy day. And the sound of branches sighing good-night after a long day in the sun.

 

In New York, where I grew up, you hear something different—a low, background hum in which the sounds of the Fulton fish market mingle with the 42nd Street vendor roasting his chestnuts. The pounding of the commuters’ feet, the screech of the traffic, the muffled roar of the subway—all blend together into the electric sound of a live wire.

 

City children play on the sidewalk. I still remember the sounds of childhood—the scrape of chalk for a hopscotch game, the swish of a bicycle, and the chink of marbles. And then, out of nowhere, you would hear your mother’s voice calling, calling.

 

Calling you home to a dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and afterwards, a bedtime story in which evil dragons were vanquished and everyone lived happily ever after. But, you know, it never seemed like the right time to go in. So you’d dawdle a bit, checking on the game of marbles, hopping one more time between the chalk lines, whispering a secret in your best friend’s ear. But the call would come again, and again. You were never forgotten.

 

I think it was rather like that for Nathaniel, studying the laws of Moses under the fig tree. Deep in fervent prayer that the Messiah would come—and—what happens? A good friend shows up, interrupts him, and says—“Guess what! We’ve found him!”

 

That’s a call to action, all right. But Nathanael is  unhappy about being disturbed. So he says rather testily, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

 

Come and see, says Phillip. Come and experience. Turn prayer into reality: make those 613 laws of Moses march right off the page and band together into one simple phrase. Follow me.

 

So taking a chance, Nathanael walks away from where he is most comfortable. And he comes face to face with Jesus, who recognizes him.

"Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Jesus says: here is someone who is sincere about what he says. And it is of profound importance to me, and to all of us, that Jesus saw Nathanael and his unabashed skepticism as good raw material for a disciple.

 

So Nathanael, both intrigued and irritated, says to this stranger, this upstart carpenter’s son from Nazareth--“Where on earth have you seen me before?”

 

And then comes the punch line—"I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."

 

I saw you—and then Phillip called you. I chose you—and then you were called.

 

So Nathanael, awestruck, bursts out—“Rabbi!”  “Son of God!” “King of Israel!” These two recognize each other; in some mysterious way, there is a bond, a sense of belonging. So Jesus, as Rabbi, begins to teach. “Something more astonishing is in store,” he promises: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

 

The Son of Man: right there, Jesus gives himself a more humble name than even Nathanael dared to do. Not king, not ruler, but human. And in His allusion to Jacob’s ladder, He gives a new twist to Jacob’s dream.   

 

Jesus is the inheritance, the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to Jacob. He  himself is the ladder, the truth and the way, the resurrection and the life. So Nathanael’s epiphany—no, let’s make that our epiphany—is just beginning.

 

As you sit under your own fig tree—and that is what we are doing, right now: praying, pondering lessons from the old and new testaments—listen carefully as if you were a child playing on the street, as if your mother were calling, your best friend were whispering in your ear.

 

Because you are being called.

 

Don’t you hear it? “Come and see.” Come and see Christ himself in the bread and the wine.

 

Come and see. And then, follow. Put your feet into the footprints that began in Nazareth so many years ago. And then reach out your hands to your brothers and sisters. For it is only on that path that the blind will see and the lame will walk; that the hungry will be fed and the poor will be given their own fig trees.    AMEN.

 

 

Sermons for 2008

 

Sermon 2 Epiphany   Jan. 18, 2009


 

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

If you walk outside in my garden when the early sun glints on the purple plum and the spiders begin to weave their webs . . .  

if you pause near the fig tree  where the old shed used to stand . . .

 

you will hear birds calling one to another and a soft rustle in the underbrush where something small and furry has begun its day’s work. And if you could be still enough, I do believe you might hear the oak tree  stretching its roots through the good brown earth and the bubble of sap rising.

 

There are always these furtive sounds, wherever you go. On Cumberland Island after dark, it’s the lapping of water and the soft creak of the porch swing, weathered to the grey of a rainy day. And the sound of branches sighing good-night after a long day in the sun.

 

In New York, where I grew up, you hear something different—a low, background hum in which the sounds of the Fulton fish market mingle with the 42nd Street vendor roasting his chestnuts. The pounding of the commuters’ feet, the screech of the traffic, the muffled roar of the subway—all blend together into the electric sound of a live wire.

 

City children play on the sidewalk. I still remember the sounds of childhood—the scrape of chalk for a hopscotch game, the swish of a bicycle, and the chink of marbles. And then, out of nowhere, you would hear your mother’s voice calling, calling.

 

Calling you home to a dinner of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and afterwards, a bedtime story in which evil dragons were vanquished and everyone lived happily ever after. But, you know, it never seemed like the right time to go in. So you’d dawdle a bit, checking on the game of marbles, hopping one more time between the chalk lines, whispering a secret in your best friend’s ear. But the call would come again, and again. You were never forgotten.

 

I think it was rather like that for Nathaniel, studying the laws of Moses under the fig tree. Deep in fervent prayer that the Messiah would come—and—what happens? A good friend shows up, interrupts him, and says—“Guess what! We’ve found him!”

 

That’s a call to action, all right. But Nathanael is  unhappy about being disturbed. So he says rather testily, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

 

Come and see, says Phillip. Come and experience. Turn prayer into reality: make those 613 laws of Moses march right off the page and band together into one simple phrase. Follow me.

 

So taking a chance, Nathanael walks away from where he is most comfortable. And he comes face to face with Jesus, who recognizes him.

"Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Jesus says: here is someone who is sincere about what he says. And it is of profound importance to me, and to all of us, that Jesus saw Nathanael and his unabashed skepticism as good raw material for a disciple.

 

So Nathanael, both intrigued and irritated, says to this stranger, this upstart carpenter’s son from Nazareth--“Where on earth have you seen me before?”

 

And then comes the punch line—"I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."

 

I saw you—and then Phillip called you. I chose you—and then you were called.

 

So Nathanael, awestruck, bursts out—“Rabbi!”  “Son of God!” “King of Israel!” These two recognize each other; in some mysterious way, there is a bond, a sense of belonging. So Jesus, as Rabbi, begins to teach. “Something more astonishing is in store,” he promises: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

 

The Son of Man: right there, Jesus gives himself a more humble name than even Nathanael dared to do. Not king, not ruler, but human. And in His allusion to Jacob’s ladder, He gives a new twist to Jacob’s dream.   

 

Jesus is the inheritance, the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to Jacob. He  himself is the ladder, the truth and the way, the resurrection and the life. So Nathanael’s epiphany—no, let’s make that our epiphany—is just beginning.

 

As you sit under your own fig tree—and that is what we are doing, right now: praying, pondering lessons from the old and new testaments—listen carefully as if you were a child playing on the street, as if your mother were calling, your best friend were whispering in your ear.

 

Because you are being called.

 

Don’t you hear it? “Come and see.” Come and see Christ himself in the bread and the wine.

 

Come and see. And then, follow. Put your feet into the footprints that began in Nazareth so many years ago. And then reach out your hands to your brothers and sisters. For it is only on that path that the blind will see and the lame will walk; that the hungry will be fed and the poor will be given their own fig trees.    AMEN.

 

Vespers Homily Nov. 23, 2008

Homily  Nov. 27, 2008  Christ the King

That the Feast of Christ the King takes place the last Sunday before Advent, with the  Gospel reading that we just heard, points up some ironies:

 

·         that Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews was ignominiously crucified;

 

·         and that no matter what the inflatable Santas and jingle bells tell us, we are about to enter a solemn season of preparation.

 

So I would ask you to ponder what it means to set foot on that Advent path. Think, for a moment, how time and space curl back upon themselves.

 

"What we call the beginning is often the end,”  says T. S. Eliot,
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . ."

 

And he writes of the still point, “Where past and future are gathered.” 

“Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

 

So, let us take a walk.

 

Although the path is covered now

its concrete hardness

hiding the heart beneath,

I think the land remembers

footprints

and the tread of feet

placed one before the other,

pushing through the yielding earth.

I think the land remembers

every flake of dust

every rock and stone

that felt the imprint of the cross.

 

Although the trees embrace the sky

and wave their golden leaves

bright coins that fall with richness to the earth

giving unto God what is God’s

 

Although the holly flings its berries to the wind

the ground is stained beneath;

Although we throw our roses down

to line the path with glory

and all the pines toss down their straw

and tuck it warmly on the path

I think the land remembers--

remembers Mary at the cross

her arms empty of the babe she cradled

where the path began.

 

For us the path is always there

And somewhere in our muscles

embedded in their tensile strength

there lies the will

to put our shoulder to the yoke

like Simon of Cyrene

to carry crosswise our own life

and that of others too.

For us and all the clothes we weave

the very fibers of the clothes we wear

are threaded through with love

in remembrance of their lineage

though they were parceled out

by soldiers casting lots.

That garment woven seamlessly

each thread beside the other

dancing together for the larger good

made more glorious now

and now a wider cloak

to wrap around the thief, and us, and all.

 

And in the cloak that covers us

the one that heals if we but brush the hem

the one that answers if we but touch the sleeve

there lies the thread of grace throughout.

 

And in the land whereon we walk

no matter where we dance

we find the footprints underneath

we find the land rejoicing in its death.

 

And in the figure on the cross

may we remember Mother Mary

who held a king upon her breast

his end assured at birth

and at his end

a new beginning.      

Amen.

 

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Psalm 78:1-7

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

 

When I think of those five foolish ones who failed to bring oil for their lamps, I wonder.

 I wonder what it was like to stand out there in utter darkness. I don’t mean the kind of  comfortable darkness you get when you draw the drapes or close the house up for the night. Or the lovely darkness of Christ Church at Sunday vespers, when the windows glow violet in the hush of the evening. And I don’t mean the kind of mysterious darkness that falls on Cumberland Island at night, when you walk out of the lodge past the live oak trees whose branches whisper as you pass. There, where the milky way spreads her sequined skirts over the night sky, it’s not really dark.

  Miners, archeologists, and spelunkers—those adventurous folks who explore caves—know the kind of utter darkness I mean. It’s the darkness that fell when I was on safari in Kenya, on a night jeep ride. You can’t see, but all your other senses go on high alert. The air is thick with the sound of small creatures in the underbrush, and the river gurgles deep in its throat as it washes up against the banks. And you can feel, if not hear, the presence of hunting lions.

And it’s the kind of darkness that fell in the tomb of the Great Pyramid when our guide turned off his flashlight. In that utter absence of light, darkness itself took shape and form. It was heavy, like a thick cloth against our eyes, our nose, our mouth. You felt pinned to the ground, bound by invisible cords. You could almost taste it.

Light is good; it is very good indeed. It is threaded through our lives from the moment of creation. It begins the day anew for us as we wander into the garden and see the pines tipped with gold. It sets in motion the birds and their songs; and it awakens all things four-footed and furry. Even the ants, tiny pinpoints against the dark earth, raise their heads and begin their busy day.

Light reveals the hidden. There are spiders’ webs threaded through the fronds of the fern. These clever weavers have been working since dawn, stringing shimmering bridges of silken light across the wide space between my roof and the purple plum tree.

But not all is beautiful. Light shows the dust on my windowsill and the  scratch on my car. I see crumbs on the table and find a piece of sharp-edged broken glass in the driveway.

Why is my world not neat and clean? Why do I still see the remnants of yesterday’s meal, leftovers from yesterday’s mistakes? What do I do about the dust that has accumulated on my best intentions, the sharp word that left a scar on someone’s heart?

Light makes us see. Without that pillar of fire, those who turned their backs on slavery in Egypt, who left hearth and home and lintel and doorpost behind, would never have made their way through the wilderness, through the dark night of uncertainty and the shadowed valley of fear. Without a guiding light we too would be lost.

And light brings understanding. It did for Joshua, who brought the light of wisdom to the people who had strayed, following other gods . . . whether they were clay gods made by pagan peoples or their own possessions or ambitions. On that day at Shechem, Joshua renews the covenant between God and his people. And the covenant is a simple one: they are God’s people; and he is their one and only God.

That is the covenant that leads them, that guides them; it is like a light that burns in their hearts. And that is the covenant that guides us.

Move to Paschal Candle

But as with all journeys, there is always the first step, the one that comes before we actually put our foot on the path. And that first step is the way of wisdom; it is the desire, the longing, the readiness to move out of the darkness into the light. Like Joshua’s people, we need be ready to follow God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. Like those wise ones who poured oil into their lamps, we need to be ready to welcome the Son of God.

It is by the light of Christ that our path starts to shimmer as it arches over wide spaces we never thought we could cross. It is by the light of Christ that we can see around the twists and turns, that we can follow that path through wilderness or desert, to the glorious banquet at the end.

There, where God breathes upon our dust and gives us life, we become Easter people. There, all scratches and scars are healed, and all brokenness is made whole.

So I invite you to begin your path by the light of this Paschal candle, lit at the Easter vigil earlier this year. It is the light of Christ, come into the world. And it is here that we pray,

May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting

 find this flame ever burning

he who gives his light to all creation,

and who lives and reigns

 for ever and ever.  Amen.

 

Sermon PR 23, YR A


 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works.

Well. Let me invite you to walk with me on that path of grace. We need take nothing with us—neither extra sandals or purse, cell phone or “to do” list. Only the heart, mind, and soul that the Good Lord breathed into us.

It is a path as short as the one that leads to the brother or sister sitting next to us. It is a path as long as the one Moses took when God called him up the mountain.

And the way will be just as hard. The rocks will jut out into the trail, their tips covered with moss that looks deceptively soft. The path will zigzag back and forth, making the trip feel longer than it really is. There may be an open chasm to leap across, one that echoes with the sound of danger; there may be a ledge to balance on, one whose edge is crumbling and whose width is narrow. And all along the way there are markers—cairns, the ancient Irish called them: signs of some sort, whether piles of stones or bent twigs, to show the way.

So we cannot get lost.

But as we go, far beneath, we will hear the sounds of those who have taken a different road. These are all the pilgrims who have followed Moses out of Egypt in hope of the  Promised Land.

For Moses, spending forty days and nights on the heights talking to God must be like a taste of immortality—the time passes in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:52). But to those who have walked many miles and who are now camped at the foot of the mountain, the days stretch out infinitely long.

“How long, O Lord, how long?” they clamor. The shopkeepers and businessmen among them long for their ledgers and the farmers for their green, growing fields; the housewives would be grateful to  hold a broom and sweep their own hearths. The artists long for their brushes, the writers for their quill pens, and the craftsmen for their tools. And all wish for something settled—those ordinary days that are so full of contentment, when the flowers bloom along the fence, the children play happily outside,  and supper is on the table.

Now, though, they are irritated and anxious. They want the Promised Land—this very minute. And so they forget their own promise, the one they made to Moses when he sanctified their covenant with God. They forget the words they shouted with all their heart—“We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey." And they take the short path, the one that gives results they can see right away. They pull off their gold jewelry—wedding and anniversary presents alike, pieces handed down through generations—and Aaron melts them down and makes a golden calf.

But this calf cannot guide them through the wilderness: it is motionless. This calf cannot bring them the Word of God: it is speechless. This calf cannot grieve at their sorrow and bring joy to their hearts. It is not alive.

But they party nonetheless! They eat and drink and dance; they play music and rejoice.

So. Let me invite you to walk the other road. Again, we need take nothing with us—neither gold earrings or gifts or food to eat. Just ourselves.

This is a pathway that rests in the fruition of time, in the acceptance that our time is not God’s time. It is the one that waits for the lush green grass of spring to lay its blanket over the dreaming earth; it is the one that leads past the beautiful old rose that blossoms on the fence, the one whose fragrance fills the air at its appointed time.

As the poet T.S. Eliot says, “The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree  / Are of equal duration.”

“. . . History is a pattern / Of timeless moments,” he writes, “ . . . With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this / Calling.”

This calling.

Moses climbed the mountain when God called—not before, not after. And just as he crossed the chasms and walked the ledges wearing only the garment of obedience to God’s call, we too must find that very garment in our own closets. For this pathway leads through a very dark valley indeed. It is a valley of sticks and stones and lurking shadows. It is a path lined with those who have created their own gods out of whatever they love best—their own position or ambition, or belongings. It is lined with the ones who have failed to see that God sent his servant, his own Son, to call them to the feast.

But it is a path that leads to God’s own kingdom.

And you cannot get lost. You have seen the cairns, the signs along the way. But these are not heaps of stones or twigs bent to mark the path. They are your neighbors; they are the woman whose car you helped to start; the crying child you comforted; the hungry family you fed.

This is  the path we are called to walk: it is the Christ-way, the way of grace that precedes and follows us.

The Lord has called us to the banquet; we have only to hear and go. There is the table spread before us; there is the cup that runneth over; there is the oil of blessing; there are the open arms of  Christ himself, to welcome us into his house.

And if we are wearing the Lord’s wedding garments—whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just; whatever is pure, pleasing and commendable—if we are wearing the cloak ripped in half to warm someone at night; the tee shirt made tattered by building someone a home; the skirt stained with the soup that fed the child in need—

O we will be dressed indeed in the wedding garments of the Lord.   Amen.

 

VESPERS HOMILY  PR 22 OCT 5, 2008

LUKE 17:5-10

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

 
As I stand outside in the fresh October air, I can’t help but think of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley—not one of my favorite, but today his words sing in my ears:  
 
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
 
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
 
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
 
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
 
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

 

There are seeds everywhere, under my feet, over my head, scattered widely in the borders, and rolled up tightly in the embrace of their mother’s petals. Seeds where the squirrels have gnawed through the great cones on my long-leaf pines, towering high above me. Seeds now strewn all over my driveway, my car, and even, I imagine, in my hair, as the winds blows through the slender bunches of needles swirling against the sky like so many fingers reaching heavenward.

Seeds crunch underfoot in the alley, where the neighbor boys have run their monster trucks through the mud, tires too thick to feel nature’s bounty.

Bounty? Well, yes, I think, there is a largesse in the hand of nature, that makes the dying of the year so beautiful, that colors the leaves with so lavish a hand as they drift to dearth. Bounty in the rich browns and golds and oranges, in the plentitude of her promise.

And I expect that those small round-leafed and nameless weeds that come up everywhere are following in the rootsteps of their cousins, the mustard weed—known in history as a prolific plant, one that could sprout in as little as three days. No wonder Jewish law forbade its planting; no wonder the conscientious gardener was quick to pluck and toss this over-friendly squatter.

Then why on earth does Jesus commend his followers to have faith as a mustard seed? And to cap  it off, why add insult to injury by claiming that faith, compared to a lowly and unwelcome weed, will have the strength to vanquish a really useful plant like the sycamine tree—a lovely addition to a working garden, because it is the kind of mulberry that silk-worms feed on.

What would it mean, I ask myself, to have just a tiny bit of faith—so small that it might easily be weeded out or tossed aside? What would it mean to possess something that might be seen as unnecessary for the practical workings of the day, something that others might try to root out, to get rid of? What would it mean to be in possession of a tiny, dry, seed, a miniature repository of all the genetic code of its parent plants, a microcosm of the entire history of that branch of the tree of life.

It can be inconvenient, for one thing, because it causes us to uproot all our tried and true ways, all our commonplace expectations; it causes us to bundle them up, like that sycamine tree, and toss them into the sea.

And it gives us a duty, for another; for ourselves for others, for the health and wellbeing of whatever we turn our hands and hearts to.

But to treasure that seed is to open ourselves to grace.

For this apparently dead and useless thing is the seed that runs wild in joy when the spring rains come to baptize it, when the sun smiles warm upon it and makes it grow. This is the seed of love, of hope.

And so I think of Shelley as I end my autumn stroll, Shelley, who in the midst of grief over the death of his child, wrote,

 
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
 
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
 
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

And I look over to  my dear neighbor’s yard— it is her loving granddaughter who is there now, but I still expect to see Juanita in her comfortable chair, surrounded by yarns and books. I look over to her yard, where her son Tim has planted pots full of bright red geraniums, as he has  always done.

So she too is rejoicing in the promise that this whole season brings amidst the abundance of pine needles and leaves, nuts and seeds.

Amen.

VESPERS HOMILY  17 Aug. 2008  PENT 14; PR 15; YR C

 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 Interesting things happen to people who walk innocently through parking lots while wearing clerical collars. It’s not that the sun shines brighter or the rain stops or little sparrows gather trustingly on your shoulders. Rather, it’s likely that someone will walk up rather nervously and say—“Um—may I ask you a question?”

 And it will be a very good question. It is never a stupid question or one to be ignored, no matter how it is phrased: because it is always a question that goes to the heart of things, whether it’s a worry the person has or a cosmic problem. And these are the ones called “coffee hour questions” on the General Ordination Exams, because they are come when you least expect them—you may be thinking of something rather mundane, such as what to make for dinner; and because they need a thoughtful response in a short space of time.

 

And that is what happened last Tuesday, when I went to Langdale for the weekly Eucharist. Someone stopped me and said that her friend had told her that at the End Time, only Christians would be caught up in the Rapture. She was worried about that, and wanted to know what I thought.

 

And I gave silent thanks to Fr. Peter, who had given me permission to do a Deacon’s mass that day; to Florence Nightingale, the “saint” on whom I had based my homily; and most of all to the Good Lord who had inspired Matthew (25:31-46) to write—

"When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.
Then the King will say to those at his right hand, `Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'
Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?  And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?  And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?'
 And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' 

So I pointed out that the word “Christians” didn’t appear in Matthew’s text—nor did “believers” nor “the faithful”; that what Jesus said very clearly was that ANYONE who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and welcomed the stranger would inherit the kingdom, would be blessed.

 

And I said, “If someone were starving, would you ask if he were Christian before you fed him?”

 

Well. Today’s reading makes me think of that chance meeting, because it has some of the same elements—fire, and baptism; a sense of impending judgment; and the kind of division that is caused when people argue over doctrine. And there is a warning, too, to see and hear—really to see and hear—the signs that are all around us.

 

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on that long path that leads inexorably to the cross, to that willing self-sacrifice that will transform the world. It is like a fire, a refiner’s fire, one that purges all the dross. It is what T.S. Eliot in Little Gidding calls the “flame of incandescent terror . . . The one discharge from sin and error.”

“Who then devised the torment?” he asks.

 

 Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame . . .

 

And Jesus speaks of the baptism that he must undergo, the cup that he must drink, and all out of love. He has seen all the signs that the people have turned away from—the political unrest, the economic problems, the multitudes who need food and shelter and healing.

 

But why, he asks, “do you not judge for yourselves what is right?”

 

And what is right?

 

Perhaps we do not need to wait for the End Time—or for the Rapture; perhaps in one sense, it has already come. It began when those who feared Jesus’s message of love and reconciliation so much hanged him on the cross. And it came when Jesus did the same thing he had been doing all along that long walk to Jerusalem. He defied death.

 

And even more. If we really do judge for ourselves what is right, we do what Jesus asked: we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. And in so doing, we reach out and touch the Son of God Himself.

 

He is here.   Amen.

Pentecost 13, Pr 14, Aug. 10, 2008

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

We all know any number of people who walk on water, people who face incredible hardship, difficult illness, with strength and courage.

And it is by God’s grace that they continue to live their lives, that they continue time and time again to step over the edge of the boat into uncertainty.

Elie Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, speaks out of that experience: "We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them."

Perhaps it is only those who know that they are walking on water who can see it for the miracle it is. Those of us who are wrapped up safely in our daily lives are protected from seeing that. We have become used to what is stable, what gives us a dependable foothold. But things are not always what they seem.

This is what I mean.

(Your children are going to love this.) Take your hand and knock HARD against the pew. HARD!

You are sitting on a solid bench, and there is little chance that it will buckle or break under you. And your feet are placed on a how firm a foundation indeed.

But in reality, the bench, the floor, isn’t really solid at all. In fact, it is moving at a tremendous speed under you. If we had eyes to see, what a spectacle it would be, this grand and glorious dance of whirling atoms, bouncing one against the other in a kind of cosmic karate match. These tiny bits of matter, too small for the naked eye, are everywhere, beneath us, beside us, inside us. They make up the whole universe, from the ground under our feet to the starry heavens above.

All things, even those that seem immoveable and stolid, are full of energy. In a very real sense, everything in the universe is alive, held together by the breath and will of God. And If we had an electron microscope right here, we could see through the floor under our feet, into the building blocks of the universe. We would be looking at the force fields that hold everything together so that we can indeed sit on our pews and pull down our kneelers and say our prayers to the one God who created absolutely everything.

And somewhere at the edge—the edge of the pew, the edge of the prayer book, there is what physicists call an indeterminacy, an uncertain place where book and not-book blend, a place where pew and not-pew blend, a place where the atoms of one whirl briefly into the atoms of the other.

And it is right there, where grace bridges the gap and one thing and another become joined, that Peter sets foot on the water. It is right there that grace gives to him and to us the courage to walk the path that Christ took.

And what a walk it is. We need Peter, the rock upon whom the church was built, to show us the way: Peter, who did not stay in the confines of the boat, who did not remain wrapped up safely in sailcloth and tunic.

Of all the disciples, he is the one who answers Jesus. This disciple, who speaks before thinking, but whose heart is in the right place, is the one who utters the great confession at Caesarea Philippi, that Jesus is the Christ, --yet he is also the one who denies Christ before the cock crows. This very human individual who makes mistakes and asks questions, is the only one really to hear and believe what Jesus says—"Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid."

But like us, he demands proof. "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." And in saying that he is asking for a miracle. If Jesus really is the Son of God, then his command will give Peter the heart to do what he thinks is impossible—to walk on water.

So Jesus says, "Come." Come to me over immeasurable odds; come to me on a path you never thought you’d take; come, step into danger for my sake.

And his faithful disciple does just that.

He walks into the middle of the tempest, with nothing to hold on to, over a surface that is constantly moving. Don’t you think as a fisherman he knew about the sharp rocks on the floor of the sea and the unknown creatures swimming around his shadow in hungry anticipation? Don’t you think he looked down through the foam of the waves and saw the hidden depths beneath?

In that moment of fear, he begins to sink. And he cries out, "Lord, save me!" Which is exactly what happens. Jesus reaches out a hand, and the storm ceases.

But this is not a story from long ago. It is today’s story. We too walk on water every day of our lives, whether we know it or not. And if we are like Peter and heed Christ’s call, there is no telling where we will be asked to go. We walk on surfaces that are not stable, that have hidden depths. We face the tempests that threaten to blow our lives apart.

Come, says Jesus. Come where the wind blows. Come walk the way of the cross. And if, like Peter, we have faith, we will set out across an expanse that beneath our feet is alive with possibility, charged with energy. We begin our journey by eating the bread and drinking the wine that blurs the boundary, that makes us one with Christ.

Come, he says. Take my body and blood in remembrance that I have died for you.

Come. Live with me.

Amen.

Pentecost 13, Pr 14, YrC   Aug. 10, 2008 VESPERS

“Do not be afraid, little flock.” That is the second time today that Jesus has felt the need to calm our fears. What on earth is coming? Why is he so concerned?

Fear is galvanizing. It can be overwhelming; it can paralyze. But when it doesn’t, it can be the clear light out of heaven, illuminating what is really important; it can be like a trumpet call to focus on the one thing needful—the most important treasure there is.

I have memories of the time our fire alarm went off—unexpectedly, as always happens. It was early in the morning. Next thing I knew, I was standing in the driveway next to my husband, wearing bathrobe and slippers, and clutching two squirming orange cats.

Well. I had all I needed. Dennis was safe, and all the living creatures under my care were safe. No purse, no driver’s license, no phone—they never crossed my mind.

And then there was the time when I was standing in my mother-in-law’s kitchen. I filled the teakettle—a regular ritual—and put it on the burner. And then, while we were chatting away, sparks suddenly arced all over the kitchen and rained down on our heads. What happened? Had Vesuvius erupted in Bala Cynwyd, PA?

No. She had not used the kettle since my father-in-law had died months ago, and the water had corroded the bottom.

I found myself on the stairs up to the second story. I had no memory of getting there. Once again, what was important? The treasure was life itself.

Now, Jesus’s disciples were safe from firetrucks and teakettles—but considering what they were about to face, my experiences seem tame indeed. And Jesus is giving them advice that flies in the face of worldly, practical behavior.

Give alms, he says. Give away what you have; give to those who are needy—and he doesn’t even suggest the word “deserving.” And, he says, there’s an easy way to avoid thievery and all of those pesky creatures with sharp teeth that nibble away at your best tunic; put all your treasure in a heavenly purse.

He doesn’t define that treasure—he just says that it is unfailing, that it is where your heart is. But he does tell his disciples—us—how to behave. We are to be expectant and vigilant.

We are, in fact, given the same advice as the Isrealites who were about to set out on the Exodus from Egypt. ‘Now you shall eat . . .  in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat . . .  in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover“—this is what the Lord said to Moses and Aaron.

In short, be ready and dressed for action. But what is the Exodus path that the disciples are facing? It doesn’t sound too scary—they will, in fact, be sitting down to a feast, with the Good Lord himself doing all the serving.

But it is the trial and tribulation that comes before; it is the strong winds and the tempest, the raucous crowds crying “Crucify Him!” that they will have to face. It is the devastating loss of all they had hoped for; the loss of an earthly Messiah, come to set matters right, to save them from unfair rulers and high taxes, from the terror of the knock at the door at night and the martyrdom by day.

That is the path they are walking; that is the path that will grow rockier each day until the authorities decide what to do about Jesus, this radical individual who heals the sick and makes the blind see, who feeds the hungry and protects the littlest and the least. And it turns out that the one who preaches love and forgiveness is so dangerous that he must be crucified.

It is a grim picture indeed—or, rather, it would be, except that . . .the descendants of  the people of the Exodus really did reach the Promised Land; and Jesus at the end of his earthly walk came into his kingdom as the resurrected Christ.

And we, as members of His flock, need take nothing with us as we walk the Way except for our heavenly purse filled with love for God and for the neighbors he has given into our hands.

Amen.  

FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION   Wed. Homily  6 Aug. 2008

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Today we celebrate the Transfiguration, a time when Jesus withdrew up a mountain to pray.

 

But that is not all that happened, of course. Jesus’s face and clothing were  transfigured; but  I venture to say that the three witnesses he took with him—Peter, James, and John—were also transfigured. They SAW for the first time what had been before their eyes all along: Jesus was the Son of God.

 

And this was not the first time that the Good Lord had affirmed his Son.

 

First, he sent the angel Gabriel to Mary, who by God’s own grace said Yes. Yes I will be His mother; yes, my soul magnifies the Lord.

 

Second, when Jesus came to John to be baptized, standing there in the Jordan, he heard words that I know you can repeat with me: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

 

So this day, the day of the Transfiguration, was the third time that the Lord God pointed to Jesus and said—He belongs to me.

 

And imagine what it must have been like for Peter, James, and John—three fishermen, having turned their backs on everything they knew. There they are, trudging up the mountain instead of pulling in their nets on the lake. There they are, expecting to get away from the crowds, expecting a quiet time of prayer with the person they have been following so faithfully.

 

And what happens? Well, it’s usually what happens with our expectations—God turns them inside out and makes something marvelous of them, and of us.

 

So up there on the mountain, it’s anything but quiet. Their eyes are dazzled and their ears are ringing.

They finally see Jesus the way he really is.

 

And he is talking to Moses and Elijah. Scholars tell us what that means: Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

 

But I wonder . . . like Moses, Jesus is walking the path of his own Exodus across Galilee, slowly but surely approaching the Promised Land of resurrection.

 

And like Elijah, who climbs a mountain and hears the still, small voice of God, Jesus pays heed to his Father.

In any case, Peter, James, and John are so astonished that Peter offers to build a separate house of worship for each one of them—for Moses, and Elijah, and Jesus.

 

And that is when the cloud rolls in and a voice says, “This is my Son. LISTEN TO HIM.”

 

Listen to him.

 

What does he say?

 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.

 

AND

 

 “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

LISTEN TO HIM, we are told.

 

What happens when we do? What happens when we are transfigured by the presence of Christ?

 

Well, like Peter, James, and John, we must come down from the mountain.

 

And there, back amid the crowds, we roll up our sleeves and feed the hungry, cloth the naked, and comfort the sick. By following in Christ’s footsteps, we help transfigure the world.         

Amen.
 

 

Sermon for July 13, 2008  Proper 10, Pentecost 8

Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

If you go out into the African bushland, where the small villages are, one of the first things you notice about the people is their hands. Brown and tan and bronze, all shades that the sun has blessed with the outpouring of its own warm color.

And all are outstretched. Small hands, tiny, some of them; encrusted with dirt or washed clean in the river where the hippos play and the lioness with her cubs lies in wait. Empty hands, most of them; and empty bowls, too, waiting to be filled. You can see the hunger in their eyes, the  great shining orbs of these children who cluster around you at every stop of the safari jeep, these ones who dance with joy over the great prizes they are given—a spare pencil, perhaps; a few pennies, a piece of candy; or the extra can of soda and cookies that you stashed with your luggage.

If you have the courage to look past that circle of need, you see other things as well. Gentleness in the hands of the mother who cradles her baby—the rail-thin mother, who may be 13 or 14 years old, if that. Expertise in the hands of the old man who milks the scrawny cows at night, who at dawn ties on sandals and cape and grabs his spear for the every-lengthening walk across plains that have grown dry and yellowed.

All of these are hands that are thin, that are fragile, that have little flesh to the bone; hands that have worked, that would work, if work were possible. These are the hands that through the millennia followed the old ways, building their huts and hunting for their food. Now, with climate changes even the Serengeti is going dry. These are the people who drive their famished cattle across ever-widening rocky ways to hoped-for greener pastures.

To this day I remember how I felt when—having seen all this—I came home. Came home to shelves spilling over with food—cereals and soups and spices; came home to my refrigerator bursting with celery and tomatoes and apples, with fish and steak and ham there for the taking.

I came home, to drink fresh water from the tap, to drive my sporty red car to the store; to have the world at my fingertips in computer and phone.

Where, oh were, is the Lord of the Harvest, is the heart’s cry; Why is there so little for so many, so much for so few?

We have bread. We have wine. We are given the stuff of life. And we, oh my friends, are here for the feast, for the seeds that were strewn with a generous hand. We are here for the Word that was spoken with generous lips, for the life that was given with a generous heart.

We are the soil upon which those seeds fall.

And in memory of all those who walk the dusty fields in Samburu and in other wastelands of the world, be they city streets or empty fields, it is a privilege beyond measure to carry the paten, heaped with the bread of life that has been given for us, and to carry the chalice filled with the wine that has been poured out for us.

And if you go down these steps carrying paten or chalice, one of the first things you notice at the altar rail  is the hands. Hands of all colors, all shapes. Tiny hands, of babies that reach out to grasp your thumb. Small hands of children, held out obediently; some with crayon marks and nail polish, some dusted with the good earth of the St. Francis garden, where they have been playing. Young people’s hands; old people’s hands. Couples with shining wedding bands and those that have grown worn over the years. Hands of all ages and types; hands that bear the signs of a lifetime of work, those who have answered phones and filled out forms, written on chalkboards and played pianos, made casseroles or  built a house or a business.

And how beautiful are the hands that come to rest on the altar rail, open and empty, praying for the bread of life.

So small a piece of bread, how can it nourish? So small a sip of wine, how can it slake thirst? These tiny memorials of God’s own Son fall into our hands as the seed falls on the ground. And those who have ears to hear; those who have eyes to see and hearts to feel—they are the ones who listen to the word of the Lord,

The Lord, who sends rain and snow from heaven to water the earth,

 making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

The Lord, whose word does not return to him empty, but rather

accomplishes that which he purposes,

and succeeds in the thing for which he sent it.

                                                             (Isaiah 55)

Those who have ears to hear the word that goes out from God’s mouth; who have hearts to turn and turn again to the grace that is showered upon them by the Great Sower Himself—they are the good soil. They are the ones who hear the word and understand it, who go out into the fields with hands overflowing for those who have so little.

Amen.

 

SERMON for Jun 29, 2008        Pr 8; Yr A   GLENDALOUGH and ST. MARY'S CHURCH

 
 
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

The ground was rough beneath me as I lay across the threshold of Our Lady’s church. I had walked the fields of Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, to reach this place, the remains of a tenth-century church. Over to my right, where I had seen the white horse galloping the day before, the grass grew long and thick, and the yellow gorse bloomed joyously. I had climbed over a stile in the waist-high wall. And there I was, the sun shining and the birds singing, and the blue, blue sky where the roof had once been.

Directly above me, was what I had come to see: the lintel, a stone crossbeam above the doorway. Carved into it was a cross saltire—a diagonal cross, sacred to St. Andrew of Scotland.

It was a sign of safety, that cross; an ancient sign of refuge for the countless women who had walked over that very doorstep, women who had come from settlements far far away to take refuge under Mother Mary’s wing.

This, after all, was the women’s church, built a stone’s throw outside of Glendalough, the monastery founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. With its tower, its seven churches, its expanse of property, St. Kevin’s was a major ecclesiastical center. But we know little about the saint himself, although legends abound. How he stood during Lent with arm outstretched, because a blackbird had built a nest in his hand; how an otter fed him with fish and herbs when he meditated in what is today called St. Kevin’s Bed, a tiny, secluded cave overlooking the Upper lake.

But that his asceticism, his desire to be alone with God should turn to opening his arms to the monks who set up a thriving monastery and built St. Mary’s Church is testimony to the grace of Celtic hospitality.

At the monastery entrance, near the ancient steps, is a figure carved in the wall. Depending on how you look at it, it is a large cross; or the rough outline of a human being. It is, you see, a spiritual cornerstone, another sign of refuge like the cross saltire. Touch your knee to the ground, where thousands of pilgrims have knelt before; touch your hand to the cross, and you have found haven.

Which brings us back to the haven of St. Mary’s church. What were all those women, who sought refuge there, fleeing from? Abuse?  Exile? They came over the Wicklow  mountains, carrying the fragments of their lives, children trailing behind, babies in arms. Some were pregnant when they arrived.

And how on earth did they find the refuge? Did they see the shadow of St. Kevin’s  bell tower, the one that soars high into the sky and calls all around to the daily cycle of prayer? Did they find marks on the trees along the path; or small piles of stones, secret codes to tell them that they were on the Way, that they would find a small space of God’s green earth to shelter in, in safety.

I like to think they too marveled at the ancestor of that beautiful white horse I saw when I walked the Green Way, up to Kevin’s bed.

When they had arrived, they must have seen the weathered gravestones clustered around the church’s entrance. Perhaps they also gazed wonderingly at the planting of smaller stones, some of them quite tiny, that lay off to the side, sequestered from the rest of the community, but just as well kept, the grass low, petals still strewn on some of them. Here, under those tiny stones, were lovingly buried all those little ones who had not been baptized in the church, but rather by their mothers, with three small drops of water .

All were welcome at the Church of Our Lady.  As they crossed the boundary from the old life to the new, surely they were greeted in the name of Christ or in the name of his mother. And just as surely they were offered a cup of cold water from the bubbling stream nearby.

Here is the essence of hospitality. It means taking in someone who is in need, whether friend or stranger.

It means serving as a host to all who come.

Aye, there’s the rub. A host. If we welcome anyone in the name of Christ, we too become the host, a sacramental sacrifice on behalf of whoever shows up.

And that is indeed what our baptism calls us to do.  Our reward? Oh yes, there is one. If we welcome someone in the name of a prophet or a righteous person, we may indeed receive our reward—and if history speaks truly, that may be stoning, imprisonment, and crucifixion. But that’s not the end of the story.

Because giving even a cup of cold water to the littlest and the least—one of the children of God, whoever he or she is—is the first step on the Way across the mountains, through brier and gorse bush alike, bearing the cross of Christ as we go.

And that is what makes us into one body with Christ: a host, a haven, a holy temple.

Amen.

 

 

 

Sermon for Pentecost,  May 11, 2008

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

Once upon a time, there was a community called Christ Church.

 

And on the day of Pentecost, its people were gathered together in one place. They had come from all over: Georgia, the Carolinas, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota. They brought with them their roots in other lands: Germany, Norway, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, France, Japan. There were cradle Episcopalians and visitors, and all those who, like me, had begun their life’s work in other churches. There were clergy and laity; there were doctors, and lawyers, and Indian chiefs.

 

And they were still—so still that the only thing that moved was the very air around them. So still that they could hear the breath of their neighbors, feel air wafting from the air conditioner, hear a faint sigh rippling along the organ pipes. So still that the whole place felt full, full to bursting with presence, as if Love divine had poured into their souls.

 

And the light of the lavender-tinted windows shone upon them, and the flame of the Paschal candle, the resurrection light, danced over the baptismal font.

 

Well. This is Pentecost, the day the church was born; this is a festival of the Holy Spirit. And like all of us, this celebration has roots that stretch back to other times and places. To the ancient Jews, this is Shavuot, a harvest festival celebrated fifty days after Passover, when the laborers were called to go out into the fields of praise, to gather the first fruits and offer them in thanksgiving.

 

So today, fifty days after Easter, we celebrate—celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit that causes the young to see visions and the old to dream dreams; that gives voice to the poor and hope to the despairing. Today we celebrate a new kind of harvest, offering to God the first fruits of ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a holy and living sacrament.

 

And that is why we, as Easter people, pray in thanksgiving for all the gifts that have so graciously been poured out upon us by the one Spirit. We give thanks for all the variety of services and activity stirred up in us by our Lord and God.

 

Gifts, service, activity—these are the flames that inspire us, that clothe us, that speak to others of the community of the Spirit.

 

So with the Psalmist who says, “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live,” let us give thanks for all the gifts Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians.

 

Glory be to God for the gift of wisdom, for words that flow outward like the wind’s own breath, spreading truth and justice, calling us to righteousness and understanding.

 

Glory be to God for the gift of knowledge, for memories of things past and people who have inspired us. Thanksgiving for the sharp-edged tools of the mind that hone and scrape and make us uncomfortable, that unsettle convictions that have become encrusted with usage and custom, so that we open our eyes and see, really see, by the light of the Spirit.

 

And glory be to God for faith, for the shining-eyed belief that rejoices in the gifts of bread and wine, for lives lived as if they were prayers, for those who welcome the peace of Christ into their hearts and homes.  

And for the gift of healing, we are thankful beyond measure. For the modern miracles of medicine; for all those empowered to pursue the dream of health for all. Thanksgivings for those who bring rest to the weary and wholeness to the broken-hearted.

 

Glory be to God for the working of miracles. For the great, wide sea and the leviathan that sports in it; for the manifold works of God’s hand; for the complexity of the entire cosmos. For joy in the midst of sorrow and strength in the midst of weakness.

 

And we are grateful for the gift of prophecy, for the vision that shows us God’s Way to the future and for the grace that inspires the work of our hands to shape it.  And what would we do without the gift of discernment, the voice that cautions and the conscience that chides? We give thanks for the still, small voice that speaks to us when we least expect it, for the call that comes to the waiting heart, mind, and soul.

 

Glory be to God for the gift of tongues, for the infinite variety of languages and dialects that map the pattern of the human mind. Thanks be for those who interpret those tongues; who open our ears and our eyes to the way others live; who take us walking in the slums and visiting the hungry that we may indeed become laborers in God’s own fields for the common good. And above all, we give thanks for the one overriding love that turns the many languages of the tongue into the language of the heart.

 

On this holy day God has poured out his spirit to renew us, in hearts, hands, and voices.  May the fire of our love for Him shine to the ends of the earth.

 

Amen.

 

Sermon for 2 Easter, March 30, 2008


 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

[Begin at the Paschal candle.]

Once we put out our candles, it was dark. Very dark. But as we stood there in the church tower at the beginning of the Easter Vigil, the darkness was deeper than just before dawn. And it was darkness of a different kind. The last time we had seen the church, it had been stripped; the hangings removed from the altar, the candles gone, the cross draped in black. Nothing remained but a Chalice, tipped on its side. No wine, no bread: Christ had been crucified. The emptiness was enormous. It spilled out from the church and covered the earth, covered the cosmos. Nothing to hear, nothing to see, no rhyme or reason for being.

Just . .. darkness, of body, mind, and spirit.

And then, someone handed me a candle, the Paschal candle. Just the day before, we had unwrapped it, laid it on a table, and carefully put nails in the shape of a cross, marking the place of Christ’s head and hands and heart and feet. And as they sank into the soft wax, I thought, yes, we help to crucify him; yes, we are the crowd that shouts for his death.

But on this day, at the Easter vigil, something else happened. The Paschal candle was lit with the first light of Easter, the glorious promise of the Resurrection. And these nails became part of the resurrection light. My hands became covered with a thin film of wax and I could feel the weight of the candle in my very bones. And at that moment, when all those who were there lit their candles from that glorious flame, I, we, became one with

. . .  the light of Christ.

And we walked through the doors rejoicing! And out of the darkness these banks of lilies came into sight, and we heard the great Easter proclamation, “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” And we said in reply – what? “The Lord is risen indeed!”

[Move to the pulpit.]

What, I wonder, did Thomas feel as he wandered  in the darkness of grief over the death of Jesus? Was the world for him a hopeless and silent place? He was not in the room huddled in fear with the other disciples when the light of the world walked right through that locked door. Actually, we don’t know what those disciples thought or said, just that they rejoiced. But they rejoiced after  seeing Christ’s wounds, where the nails had pierced his hands and the spear his side. They rejoiced after seeing proof that it was indeed the crucified Christ who said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Peace? Well, not as the world gives. Because what happens is that Jesus immediately gives them something to do. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says. No more locked doors; no more safe rooms; no hiding, no choosing to stay in darkness. They are illumined all right, illumined by the light of the Holy Spirit, and from then on they are on the move.

And what are they supposed to do?

Well, Christ’s first word gives them—gives us—a clue. They are to have peace, to bear peace to others. And that peace is a gift of the Holy Spirit; it brings us into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation. But in a world concerned with other things—power, for one; ambition; peace can be a heavy and dangerous burden to carry, a burden whose weight you feel in your very bones.

So they—we—are to carry peace through the closed doors of the world. And as if that isn’t enough,  they—we—are told to forgive as we are forgiven.

But poor Thomas misses all of this; Thomas, who was at heart one of the most loyal disciples. He was the one who, when Jesus was called to Lazarus’s side—called to a walk that took him ever closer to the tinder-box that Jerusalem had become—he was the one who said to the others, “Let us go and die with him.”

So Thomas is no fool; and he is no coward. This is an honest man, unwilling to give in to crowd pressure, unwilling to go along blindly unless he truly believed. So he says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

 Perhaps we need listen closely, since it is his words—not those of the other disciples— that are recorded. And Jesus’s invitation to him is astounding: “Put your finger here; reach out your hand and put it in my side,” he says.

Become one with me, he tells Thomas; take on my wounds as your own.

And Thomas’s eyes are opened. “My Lord and my God,” he says. Thomas lights his candle at the light of the world; he shouts with all of us, “the Lord is risen indeed .”

And it is Thomas’s epiphany that evokes the last beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Blessed are we. Blessed are we who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body; who feel the imprint of the nails in our own hands. Who suffer with the sick and starve with the hungry, who die with the dying and who grieve with the lonely. Blessed are we who are given the grace to show forth in our lives Christs's resurrection, to show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith.

May we, as Christ’s own disciples, open the doors and carry the light of God’s peace to all creation.     

 Amen.

 

Homily for Juanita Teasley’s Memorial Service, March 24, 2008

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind. This is the first great commandment; and the second is like unto it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And that is what I think of when I think of my dear neighbor Juanita. She was a faithful witness to what loving God really means on a day to day basis. Her arms and her heart were always open wide. She and Joel raised a family of good, loving people, whose great variety of gifts and talents are anchored in hearts that are kind and compassionate.

 

She and Joel were long and faithful members of Christ Church. The ushers who give out bulletins and greet you with a friendly smile, the workings of the vestry itself are built on Joel’s leadership. And when you walk this aisle, you are walking in their footsteps: you are following Juanita on the sure and certain path to the One who is the light of the world.

 

And it is just that—the light—that will, I think, evoke the most memories for me. The light in her window—it was always shining, welcoming in anyone who cared to stop in to talk. It shone at night, like a soft, warm beacon; it shone during the day next to the nest she had made herself in her den.

 

There, in later years, she would sit in her favorite comfortable chair, surrounded by all the things she loved to do. She never lacked for something to read--stacks of magazines and books were within arms’ reach. And oh how we enjoyed sharing mysteries together. She kept up on the latest ones much better than I ever could. And she loved following the life and times of Father Tim in the Mitford series.

 

And then, then yarn! When she could no longer do her smocking—and that was beautiful work indeed—she took up knitting. She was a wonderful, creative knitter, and an honorary member of the Stitchers of Love. There she would sit, surrounded by piles of yarn. Because she liked to be busy and useful, she always had several projects going—baby jackets for lucky grandchildren and great-grands; scarves and shawls for people she loved and for those who, well, just needed a warm hug. And in betwixt all those projects, she’d mention that she had knitted another shawl for the Stitchers to give away. But she hated to fringe! So I became her local fringer, and happily cut yarn for any project she wanted.

 

When the time came that she was unable to go out without much difficulty, Christ Church went to her.  I would come home on a Sunday morning, pick up my communion box, and we would share a special time together in her den. It was a rare privilege to take her communion, to walk across a driveway to where the door was always open.

 

And she had many a story about being a military wife; about raising her children; about her high hopes for her grandchildren. And they were always all there with her, in the pictures propped up on her piano and her bookshelves. Her family were always there with her, in her heart and memory.

 

And they were there in person, too. What a loyal family; what a wonderful model for others to follow. As I said to her on Sunday, the day before she died, “ You & Joel did a good, good job.” And she smiled.

 

When she was at home, there was always someone checking on her. I would offer to go to the grocery store: “No,” she’d say, Tim & Kim have just run to Publix for me.” Jane would stay with her overnight when she wasn’t feeling well; Hunt would drive up from Florida for a good, long, visit; Mike and Chris would cover miles to see her. And I haven’t mentioned a host of others who loved her as she loved them. And Boots & Patty—well. I’ll miss Boots saying, after the 8 a.m. service, “Are you going to see Sis, today?”

 

But, you know, the real answer is, yes: we are going to see her. Do not let your hearts be troubled. God’s love flowed through her, body, mind, and spirit. She knew the way and the truth and the life on earth, and she knows them now. And that is where the light of Christ is shining.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

Feb. 10, 2008

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
Psalm 32


All around me, I see mountains. Down on the plain below, next to the river, families are sharing around their loaves of bread and dried fish, and vendors are wrapping slices of meat in fresh flatbread and piling figs and dried fruits nearby. Up here, though, there is little or nothing; a berry or two on a stunted bush, a trickling stream nearby for water.

And I am hungry.

Down there on the plain, it is warm. Up here, where the wind howls around the rocks, the sun has draped clouds across its face, and the tendrils of mist twist into strange shapes right before my eyes.

Here, it is dark, and I am cold.

Yet the memory of what happened is written on my heart and in the very marrow of my bones. There were crowds milling about on the banks of the Jordan, and my cousin John the Baptizer was standing next to me as I came up out of the water into the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

But now, on this mountain, I am alone, with no one to distract me. I am alone with myself—my real self. And coming face to face with that is hard, immeasurably hard.

So I am frightened.

All that is what I might have thought and felt had I been the one Matthew was writing about, the one led up the mountain by the Spirit and left for forty days and forty nights. Even worse: led up the mountain in order to be tempted by the devil. Deliberately weakened; tired from climbing and wandering in the wilderness, without food, friends, or shelter, led up into the cold, thin air where the mists swirl and hide the stark clarity of right and wrong, good and evil.

And then to be offered exactly what I needed—bread and protection and untold wealth.

Well. Thanks be that God sent his only Son up there, and not me. Because the temptations Jesus faced were not easy ones.

Command these stones to become bread! Eat all you wish—and, even more: solve the world’s hunger with the flick of a wrist! No more orphans in Chad looking out at you with those huge eyes and sunken cheeks. No more Iraqi farm women, holed up in the mountains, trying to feed families of five with grain for one. No more starved refugees, carrying only the clothes on their backs.

But Jesus knows that even when God showered the Israelites with manna, they complained. And I’m sure he knows, too, that even with a pantry overflowing with good food, I still go shopping for groceries.

So God’s only Word, the Bread of Life itself, responds: "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

But the Tempter tries again. "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Imagine having a perpetual safety net around you, so that no misstep would send you hurling to death. No more worry about gangs or drugs or thieves; no worry about airplanes that crash or diseases that kill.

There’s a temptation for Jesus—to step, say, from one of the towers on the temple and float safely downward. That would show the high priests who was in charge, all right. But God’s only Son, loved and nurtured by his Father from the beginning; God’s only Son, in faith that his Father will be there at the end, replies, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

So the bread is already there, high up on the mountain; God’s love is already there. But the Tempter has one more trick up his sleeve.

"I will give you the all the kingdoms of the earth and their splendor, if you will fall down and worship me."

Just imagine having all the kingdoms of the earth belong to you. Think of the light you could bring to the darkness. You could build homes for the homeless and give teachers and doctors to the uneducated and the needy. What a temptation power is: you could drive out the Romans and establish the kingdom of David on earth.

It all sounds so good, so helpful. But there’s a catch.

All the kingdoms and their splendor—and not just the ones on earth—already belong to Jesus. He is the Bread; and he already has God’s protection. So he says, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

Again, thanks be to God that he gave us a Son who knows who he really is and doesn’t need to prove it. Who willingly gave himself as the sacrifice that saves us from temptation.

As we begin our Lenten journey, we will be travelling some very high mountains indeed, mountains where we may be led to see our own weaknesses, our own desires, mirrored to us in some very attractive ways.

On this day Christ shows us that the glory and joy of Baptism doesn’t guarantee an easy path. On the contrary: to be signed and sealed as Christ’s own forever means that we are tested at every turn. It means that we are dear enough to God to have value—great value indeed—more than all the kingdoms of the earth and their splendor.

Amen.

 

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7,10-14

 

There is a saying going around, that if the wise men had been women, “They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and there would be peace on earth."

 

Or so the modern retelling of the old story goes. And those would be useful gifts indeed— perhaps for a couple like Mary and Joseph, weary from traveling, they might seem even to rival gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Yet no matter how different they are, both versions bring  up the same question--what gifts are we bringing to the baby? Because, you see, those lovingly carved wooden Magi that have been slowly progressing across the front lawn of Christ Church are really us as we progress through the Christmas season. And today is Epiphany, when those Magi come to the crib where the Christ child lies. Today is Epiphany, a day that brings them—and us—face to face with the Incarnation and face to face with ourselves.

 

How do we respond to the birth of the Christ child?

 

I don’t know whether I would have had the courage to do what the Magi did—leaving everything in their native lands behind, traveling through day and night, their robes getting dusty and their backs aching from the relentless plodding of the camels and horses in their entourage. Yes, they were kings, and so traveled with lots of servants; but the trip must have been grueling nonetheless.

 

Did they ever doubt that they were doing the right thing? After all, they were traveling because they believed that they had been given a “sign.” It is like the feeling you get that you really need to give someone a call; you really need to stop in at the hospital. It is the feeling you get that leads you to talk to the one person in the group who is hurting inside. It is that incomprehensible “ought,” that sense that you should, you must do the thing that is the most inconvenient for you; the thing that makes your friends and neighbors wonder what on earth you are up to.

 

So these three kings began to travel. They came to Jerusalem; and braving the difference in culture, in language, asked about a new-born king. Didn’t they wonder why there wasn’t a great hullabaloo, a great rejoicing over the birth? Didn’t they wonder that no one escorted them to a fine house, to a luxurious lying-in room, where mother and child were covered with furs and silken blankets and surrounded by admiring family and friends?

 

Instead, the wise men became the unwitting cause of a political brouhaha. For Herod, even a rumor that the King of the Jews had been born meant trouble. For the priests and the scribes of the people, it meant that the old prophecies had come to fruition and that a new order was dawning, one that was focused on God and not on the petty power struggles of the everyday world.

 

So Herod was more than curious; he was frightened. And he was devious. So he sent for the Magi, to learn more about this king; and he intended to make them his spies—“go and find the child,” he said, “and then come and tell me so that I can go and pay honor to him.”

 

 Now I don’t know about you, but I would really worry about the kind of homage Herod had in mind. Don’t forget that this baby—even as a helpless child—posed an enormous threat to Herod’s political power. And the child also posed a threat to Herod’s beliefs—what if, just what if the Jews were right, that a Messiah was on the way?

 

So like the star, Herod’s instructions to the Magi are a sign—but an ominous one. Thank God, quite literally, that they followed the real sign, their irresistible calling to see the Christ child. And just imagine what it must have been like, these royal folks with all their followers showing up at a house in a small town, seeking out the family for whom there had been no room, no room at all, the family whose mother, giving birth, was surrounded not by luxury but by hay and the soft sounds of animals bedding down for the night.

 

Surely the Magi were followed by a crowd; surely people wondered about them, figured that there must be some sort of parade, or festival, that they just hadn’t heard about. And then, instead of receiving homage themselves, these royal visitors went down on their knees and offered gifts—and what gifts!

 

Gold—precious shining metal, the likes of which must have dazzled the eyes of Mary and Joseph. Gold, an appropriate recognition of royalty. Gold, in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. 

 

And frankincense, that lovely-smelling resin that was the ceremonial incense of the Jews. Every Sabbath, this incense was sprinkled on twelve loaves of unleavened bread—one for each tribe—and placed in the sanctuary in the temple in Jerusalem. This is called “shew-bread,” or, as the name means literally, “bread of the face.” It is the bread through which God’s spirit was shown to his people. Sounds familiar? Along with gold for the King, then, the Magi gave frankincense, in honor of the priestly nature of the Son of God.

 

And finally, myrrh. Myrrh, like frankincense, is a resin. The word itself—myrrh—means bitter. It was used for holy oil; and it was used for embalming. Imagine presenting that to a newborn child.

 

So, in addition to gold and frankincense for Christ the King and Great High Priest, the Magi gave myrrh, in honor of the anointed one, the Messiah, the sacrificial lamb.

 

What can we give to equal those gifts?

 

What on earth, can we give?

 

Only our hearts, only our hearts.

 

Amen.

 

 


Numbers 6:22-27
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:15-21
Psalm 8
 

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.+

What is in a name?

I think that T.S. Eliot put his finger on it in his collection of poems that became a Broadway hit. Under his lighthearted manner, he is really saying something very profound.

Naming isn’t “just one of your holiday games,” he says; even cats must have “three different names.”

First, Eliot says,

“there's the name that the family use daily.”
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
All of them sensible everyday names.”

 And then, he goes on, there’s a second name, one

“that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified.”

 But thirdly—and this is the most important point—“there's still one name left over”:

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effan-in-effable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

 Now, Eliot was being clever and whimsical. But underneath all that, he was making a very serious point. What is in a name?

 Why do we, like Adam, immediately set about naming everything around us, from the stray puppy at the door to our cars and computers—and surely I’m not the only one who talks to them when they don’t cooperate.

 We wear nametags at conferences; we reach out our hands to strangers and say, “Hi, my name is . .  . .” And we are very particular about our own names. Our parents spent hours upon hours talking about what we were to be named, giving us a sense of history and identity with past family members. And then, as we grew up, we accumulated a whole list of other names. Every teacher knows about that; try reading the roll on the first day of class in a large sophomore survey, and every second person wants to be called something different from what the Registrar thinks they ought be called.

 So there is something special about names—they bring us into relationship with our roots and with other people; and they bring us into relationship with ourselves.

Yehoshua, Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus: look at the progression of what was a very popular name in Old Testament times.

In Hebrew the “Yeho” in Yehoshua refers to Yahweh; and the “shua” part means “saves,” or “salvation.” So in its roots, Jesus’s name means “God saves,” or “God is salvation.” But Jesus has other names as well. He is the Son of God; the Lamb of God; the King of the Jews. And you will think of more. But aside from that; he has the title, Christus—he is the Messiah, the Anointed One.

So on this special day, the celebration of the Holy Name, we follow a very old tradition that began with Mary and Joseph taking the baby and naming him as the angel instructed them.

And on this day we need remember also St. Bernardine of Sienna. This 15th century Franciscan walked through Italy preaching in the market places and churches, fearlessly attacking the personal and political corruption he saw about him. He was said to be a marvelous preacher and peacemaker, one whose words moved all who heard to undertake amendment of life.

To get his point across as he preached, he held a board in front of him with the sacred monogram of Jesus painted on it, in the midst of rays of light. So when people looked at St. Bernardine, they saw Jesus.

He even convinced many of the small cities, who were at constant war with one another, to take down the coats of arms of their political factions from the walls and in their place, inscribe IHS.

And that monogram is IHS, or JHS, the first three letters in Greek of Jesus’s name. It means, of course, Yahweh. It is a stunning reminder of the way in which Jesus reflects God’s image.

So it is St. Bernardine who shows us the way to begin the New Year. We carry with us all sorts of baggage. Our sensible, everyday names, to begin with; and we carry all they suggest—our habits, our daily rounds, our predictable reactions. And as Eliot says, we are also burdened with a second name, our more dignified titles, those that represent what we think we should be like, the honor that should be given us.

But it is only when we carry Christ’s monogram written on our hears; it is only when we are like the Christ child, born into God’s family, that we are given our real names.

And so we pray.

Heavenly Father,

May the name of Jesus so burn into our hearts, that we understand that Yahweh is salvation; and may our names and beings be so utterly changed by his grace and love, that those we touch, see Christ in us.

Amen.

 

Sermon  December 9, 2007:  2 Advent, Yr A

 

Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

A small chick sat on its nest, like a fluffy ball of white cotton wool, no more than two feet away. Its mother, unconcerned, stood nearby. All around us was the chatter of birds following their normal domestic routines. Along the path leading to the rookery, we had stepped over iguanas that draped themselves on the sunny dunes and hung over the outcroppings to dry from their foray into the ocean. We had seen small penguins, too; and they, along with the huge seals lolling in the sun, had simply looked at us with curiosity as we beached the zodiacs, rubber rafts that carried us from the ship to the bay.

Some imaginary place? Eden revisited? No—it was the Galapagos Islands, where animals have not learned to be afraid of humans, and where incense trees perfume the islands with a holy fragrance.

What kind of repentance, I wondered, as I pondered this week’s Gospel, what kind of repentance would be enough to bring the whole world to that blessed state, a time of such trust that even words like “justice” and “righteousness” are unnecessary because all actions flow from love?

Because repentance is what John is calling us to, this second Sunday of Advent; and if we listen carefully, we can hear his call through the holiday bustle of shopping and lights and ribbons and wrapping paper.

Repent! Not a popular notion, perhaps, but in John’s day people came from Jerusalem and all Judea to confess their sins.

Can’t you see them--whole families, babies in their mothers’ arms, children scampering along behind, overjoyed at their holiday, but, out of habit and hunger, gleaning from the fields as they went. Serious fathers, carrying the weight of family and community; pious mothers, their heads veiled, concerned about returning home in time to make the family’s meal.

And when they arrive, they find someone who looks rather like Elijah, a fearless, charismatic man, unafraid of saying and doing exactly what he has been called to do.

And that was to baptize! Yet, what is familiar to us would have been strange to those who came. Of course, they all knew about baptism for those Gentiles who wished to become Jews. You and your family would immerse yourselves, symbolically following the path of Moses through the Red Sea. When you emerged, you were a member of God’s family, able to pass through the Jordan into the Promised Land.

But this time it was different. John himself immersed them, both Gentiles and Jews, and then they confessed their sins—things they had done and left undone. In that water they were joined together as God’s chosen people. It was a boundary erased, a new kind of family, a step toward a peaceable kingdom on earth.

But John treated the Pharisees and Sadducees differently. “You brood of vipers!” he said to them—“why did you come? Did you have a premonition that your laws and traditions would be utterly transformed by the one who comes after me?”

 Well. What happened then? The working folks went home, back to their bread rising in the oven, back to working at the harvest. And the well-dressed, well-educated, elite class of Pharisees and Saducees brushed the mud from their robes and shook off the sand that caked their fine leather sandals, and bided their time, until they could learn what this new dispensation, the advent of the Holy Spirit, would do to their status.

 And us—what about us?

 John invites us also. “Come walk with me,” he says. So we make our way through the shouting, milling crowds, through those who push and shove and beg and cry. On the banks of the river we put down all the gaily wrapped packages we have been carrying, all the sacks and parcels and collections of things by which we define ourselves.

 And as we move into the same water that  flowed over the Israelites as they made their way from bondage to freedom, we are washed clean from the dust and the dirt of our old ways. “Repent!” we are told. “Begin again!”

 Repent not living harmoniously, repent being more like the wolf and the leopard than like the lamb. Repent not treating the poor with justice and defending the needy.

 And begin again: Sing praises to God and rejoice.

 So abounding in hope, we walking dripping out of the river . . . into the Promised Land? Well, no—rather, right back into the same milling, clamorous crowd.

 And that is what Advent preparation is; a time of cleansing, of rethinking not only who we are but to whom we belong; a preparation of the self so that when the child arrives, our hearts are swept clean and our lives put in order, our arms open wide to welcome a new way of living—a way of joy and peace—a way that runs counter to much of what the world tells us.

 It is like preparing for communion. We confess what we have done and left undone. And then we walk up to the altar, ready to be immersed, not in the Jordan, but in God’s grace, in the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might that fills us with the knowledge of the Lord.

 And then as sacramental people, we return to the noisy crowds outside, to jingle bells and Santa Claus, tinsel and lights. But having heard John’s Advent call, we are ready to prepare the way of the Lord.

 With love.

That’s all.

With love.

 Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

A note about sermons: Please remember that since sermons are oral presentations, they are likely to change each time they are given. Often they are constructed of notes, not whole sentences; and often they carry the rhythm of speech, not of writing, and so the sentence breaks and punctuation are individualistic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for YrC, Pr18, 9 Sept. 2007

 


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

Whenever I go to New York, I am energized by the hum of the city—it runs through the very marrow of my bones. I love all of it—the sidewalks under my feet; the the scent of fresh bagels; even the sudden rush to catch the subway, when Christian and Jew, Muslim and Hari Krishna, are all jumbled together in a single-minded quest for the A train or Broadway local. And I especially love the infinite variety of humankind and the dogs that walk with them—it’s as if the Creator Himself used every ounce of imagination and ingenuity when he blew life into dust.

 

Just thinking about New York takes me back to when I was a little girl growing up on West 85th Street. To our right was Riverside Drive, with wide pathways perfect for roller-skating and jumping rope, and park benches tailor-made for mothers and grandparents to sit and visit on. To our left, up a couple of blocks, was the Presbyterian Church and the Rev. Dr. McAlpin—I remember him still; and then Broadway, hospitable to all kinds of folk. There the Tip Toe Inn offered proscuitto and lacy Swiss cheese, while around the corner, the sausage shop sold paprika solona—a Hungarian specialty.

 

But best of all was the public library. Like Hollyhock in the comics, I’d happily delve into the stacks and emerge with arms full of exciting reading, like Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase. And I’d have other books, as well, that my mother would check out for me; books about the planets and stars, or about Egypt, or about dinosaurs. And then, if we stopped at the newsstand on the way home for a magazine or two—well, that was Nirvana.

 

So growing up, I guess I was a bookworm, and a happy one at that. I was fascinated by words—and still am; how they twist and turn and weave themselves not just into sentences, but into sense. I’ve never ceased to be amazed that such tiny marks of ink on a page, mere dots and scratches, can have so profound an effect.

 

And while words seem so authoritative— so orderly, so unshaken in form and shape, they are also allusive. What they say is not always what they mean. And their roots sometimes stretch back to places we’ve never seen and can scarcely pronounce.

 

Take the word “hate” in Luke’s Gospel, for instance. It comes from an Aramaic word meaning “to love less.” Nonetheless, it is a word that calls us to attention. This is Jesus speaking, after all, Jesus, who in the next couple of passages talks about searching after the lost sheep that has gone astray and about welcoming home the Prodigal. The word startles us; and it must have startled the crowds who followed him.

 

Those crowds—I wonder about them. Are they the ones who demanded signs even after Jesus healed the sick? Are they the ones who tried to trip him up, asking whose wife in heaven the seven-times married woman would be, or chastising him for picking grain on the Sabbath? Are they simply carried away by crowd fever, ready to vanish when the shadow of the cross falls across their path?

 

There is a cost to discipleship, Jesus tells them. To take the first step—to follow him—is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind. And that suggests that we must redraw our boundaries—to think beyond the ones we were born into or ourselves created. We are being asked to love large; to open our hearts and arms not only to our kin but to our neighbors. That can be hard enough now—think what it was  like in the fiercely tribal society of that time, when to walk away from tightly-knit family support was tantamount to turning your back on life itself.

 

There is a cost to discipleship. Following that path without understanding that it leads to the cross-roads is like being a builder who doesn’t calculate the cost of his tower, is like being the commander of an army who has underestimated his foe and thereby puts everyone’s life in danger.

 

There is indeed a cost. Oh but there is also grace—grace to turn hate into love, death into life, the cross into triumph. We see it in Jesus and we see it every day, in those who give and give again. We see it in Mother Theresa, who through the dark night of the soul continued to serve and love the sick and needy. We see it in the unnamed priest who died at the Twin Towers giving last rites to one of the fallen firemen. We see it in Martin Luther King who preached equality in the face of injustice. I see it in you, in all that you do.

 

And we see grace working in Paul, who against the cultural values of his time, crosses boundaries to embrace the slave Onesimus as his “child.” It is your choice, Paul says to his owner; but I ask you to welcome him not as a slave but as a “beloved brother.” In sending him, I am sending myself, my own heart, Paul says.

 

And Jesus says the same thing. Welcome not only your family but your neighbors as beloved brothers and sisters. It is your choice to welcome them as you would welcome the very Christ himself. In sending them to you, Jesus is sending himself.

 

It is by God’s grace that we have the strength to pick up the cross of our life, with all its difficulties and contradictions, and yet find joy; it is by the flame of God’s love that we have the light to see the face of Christ in all those he has sent to us to care for; it is by God’s grace that we have the strength to stretch the boundaries of our lives and families, our words and definitions so that we may love God with all our heart and soul and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves. Amen.

Sermon for August 26,  Proper 16, Year C                   

                                                                                                                                 Isaiah 28:14-22
Hebrews 12:18-19,22-29
Luke 13:22-30
Psalm 46

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

Strive to enter through the narrow door!

 

For some of us, that brings up images of black-and white gangster films with figures skulking through shadowy alleys, pulling on the brims of their fedoras and speaking lines like “knock twice and ask for Joe.” In the disciples’ day, however, the narrow door was a real, if hidden entrance in the city wall.

 

In those times cities were not simply marked with DOT signs saying “welcome to Zion”; rather, they were walled, often with tall guardhouse gates supporting huge wooden doors at the main entrance, doors that could be bolted shut at the slightest threat of danger.

 

They could be opened, too, for triumphal entries, the conquering hero riding high on his horse, preceded by ranks upon ranks of foot soldiers and cavalry, carrying long spears and shining shields. People would line the streets, then, to show their loyalty; would wave palm branches, would prostrate themselves on the ground.

 

Not to be there, in the midst of the crowd, shouting words of praise, was to be disloyal, was to be a traitor to the Emperor. Not to be there was to seek refuge in God, to sing with the Psalmist for war to cease in all the world, to praise God for breaking the bow and shattering the spear.

 

To turn away and seek the narrow door was dangerous and downright difficult. And it still is today. Those ancient doors, those magnificent entrances, are with us yet. We see them, we walk through them, in shopping malls and office buildings. And they are inviting, those doors that welcome us into the noisy space beyond, where people are eating and drinking and talking.

 

It is Jesus, who taught in our streets; Jesus, who calls us away from the crowd; it is he who tells us to strive to find the other entrance, the quiet one, where the cornerstone meets the sure foundation. But sometimes the path to that narrow door is circuitous.

 

Almost seven years ago, during Lent, Nancy Mills—our own Nancy Mills, who became a priest right here in front of this altar—brought a canvas labyrinth to Christ Church. We laid it down at the side, there where the pews have been added, and placed candles and icon nearby. And we were all invited to take part in an ancient form of meditation, to make our pilgrimage by walking the labyrinth, to open our hearts to the living God.

 

To take that meditative journey, circling back and forth on a narrow path until you reach the center, means letting go of all preconceptions. It means walking through a simple entrance with no fanfare at all, into a silent space where you can really hear. It means focusing; it means opening the door of your heart, mind, and soul to whatever happens as you pray your way around the circle.

 

And so on one of my walks, I found myself asking a question. “What, Lord,” I said, “should I do?”

 

“What should I do?” I who was about to retire, who had grand plans to write, to travel, to volunteer all over town. “What should I do?” I certainly hadn’t planned to ask that.

 

And so I walked. “Be patient,” said a voice in my heart.

 

“What do you mean, ‘be patient’!” I said—impatiently! “I want to roll up my sleeves and do something worthwhile. I don’t like to sit still!”

 

And God laughed.

 

Well. It was a while before I remembered my etymology—that the word “patience” comes from a word that means “to suffer,” or “to allow to happen.” And so perhaps patience and striving are in their own odd way related: perhaps to find that narrow door we must allow ourselves to turn aside from the hubbub and distractions of the everyday. It is then that we can roll up our sleeves and strive to enter.

 

And there are many roads to that door—they are everywhere!

Where justice is the line,

and righteousness the plummet—

there are the signposts,

there are the pathways.

They lead us

to comfort the child crying for her mother

to help the man by the side of the road

to make the soup and take the food

to weep with the broken hearted

to set free anyone imprisoned in distress or want or hunger.

They lead us to pray.

 

And because the door is narrow, we need to travel light;

we divest ourselves

of all the baggage we have accumulated over the years

of grudges and growls, grumps and griefs;

 

divest ourselves of all but the obedience

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

who saw God face to face.

 

And so we set out on our journey . . .

following the path to Jerusalem

following in the footsteps of Christ.

We set foot on the path,

the narrow path

and walk the winding way

east and west, north and south

we walk and walk

and we think we are walking in circles

until

until we reach the  center, and there we find the door we sought.

 

And all the times we turned aside

because we could not bear to see

grief go uncomforted

hunger go unsatisfied

thirst go unslaked

we were really living in God’s own time

moving along God’s own path

and opening God’s own door.

 

And all the times we thought we stopped

and put our lives on hold

to take the time to walk this aisle,

the pathway to God’s grace;

we really came from east and west,

from north and south,

and found the narrow doorway open wide

the table set, the feast made ready

to strengthen us to turn again

 

and go in peace

to love and serve the Lord.

 

Amen.

 

 

Sermon for August 5, 2007

Year C, Pr. 13, 10 Pentecost

Ecclesiastes 1:12-14;2:(1-7,11)18-23
Colossians 3:(5-11)12-17
Luke 12:13-21
Psalm 49 or 49:1-11

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. + 

The shopping mall looked, in some respects, like any other upscale mall. To my right was a window inhabited by artfully posed mannequins, all holding leather bags in rich chocolate browns and mysterious black shades. The "Louis Vuitton" logo was a prominent part of the decoration. To my left, Christian Dior was emblazoned over the heads of mannequins stylishly dressed in tones of cranberry, blueberry, and grapefruit. Further in, exclusive designer boutiques stood shoulder to shoulder with electronic stores virtually alive with the latest wires and plugs and glimmering screens, all calling out for a goodly degree of technical education, to say nothing of literacy. And on it went, as all malls do; mothers with baby strollers, looking at the svelte clothing; teenagers talking and laughing; passersby checking their reflections in the plate glass windows.

 

Outside, it was much the same. The square was crowded with families and single folks, strolling, playing, talking, or just basking in the unseasonably hot sun. The Mall of America? The Valdosta mall? Well, no: this was Moscow, and we were standing in Red Square, known locally as Krasnaya Ploschad. The towers of the Kremlin were visible on one side and St. Basil’s Cathedral on the other; and the mall we had walked through was GUM, the famous Russian department store.

 

In Russian, the word for "Red" is not necessarily a political term—it also means "beautiful." And some of the buildings on Red Square are beautiful. GUM is an elegant structure, a nineteenth-century arcade that replaced the original rows of merchants’ stalls, where everything from shoes to babushkas spilled over into the dusty byways, where raucous cries to buy buy, BUY! wine and fish and bread, sandals and shawls, carpets and headgear echoed down the aisles.

 

So I looked up at the glass roof, at the Finnish marble and Tarusa granite that graced the façade, and saw—Icons!

 

Yep—right there, over every arched entryway, there was an icon. St. Basil looked down at people toting shopping bags; Sts. Boris and Gleb—at least I think that’s who they were—stood side-by-side as tourists with pockets full of rubles passed underneath; and Christ himself looked down at me as I gazed wonderingly up.

 

"Oh yes," said the Russian guide, who had failed to point them out "each merchant who helped build the arcade gave an icon in thanksgiving for his prosperity."

 

And is there really anything wrong with this picture? Why not be thankful for prosperity, be grateful for the bigger barn and the tall wheat and the abundant crops? Where, after all, are we going to store all those goods, all that merchandise that our hard work has earned?

 

Shouldn’t we celebrate success, the fruits of our hands and our fields?

 

Why not ask an icon-maker

a painter with hands blessed and anointed

to take a board drenched with clay

(to write an icon, we begin at the beginning, you see,

our base the good, rich dust of earth;

the dust that God Himself enlivened with His Spirit)—

why not ask an icon-maker to pick up his stylus

and with the sharp, pointed tip

incise the figure of Christ?

(Yet, I wonder, do all good works begin in pain?)

 

Why not ask him to paint from dark to light,

and as the light of Christ begins to fill the board,

let him paint the piercing eyes, the ones that follow

every twist and turn we take along the straight and narrow way?

And then to take a thin sheet of gold

oh so thin it almost floats away;

and breathe on it as the good Lord himself

blew life into our clay

breathe on it until it clings to the board

in a glory around the Savior’s head.

 

And last of all, when it is sealed and blessed, why not hang the icon high overhead?

 

Vanity, all is vanity, I can hear the preacher say: it is like trying to catch the wind itself.

 

Christ looks down on us amidst the hordes of people, as tourists, families, youngsters, pickpockets, preachers, old, young, of high degree and low, rich and poor together jostle by. Christ looks down, and I imagine that his tears mingle with the rain that strikes his face.

 

We are his people, who were made, like him, of the clay of the earth. We are his people, Christ’s own icons, breathed upon by God’s breath, given life and limbs and heart. And we are the ones who are called to stop, to consider the question in Ecclesiastes: "What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?"

 

Vanity, all is vanity, unless, says Paul, we strip off the old self with all its customs and practices and clothe ourselves with a new self, one made in God’s image. To do so is to be rich towards God.

Clothe yourself with compassion, Paul says: a fine-textured cloth that wraps around the shoulders with no questions asked; a priceless cloth that soaks up the tears and warms the aching heart.

 

Clothe yourself with the soft hue of kindness, a smooth and lovely drapery that veils awkwardness and heals resentment.

 

And drape yourself with humility, whose soft threads and open weave is gossamer thin; it is the cloth of courtesy and innocence, the cloth of unpretentiousness.

 

Make meekness your armor, he says, meekness that sheathes its sword and extends its hands in a gesture of friendship. And weave yourself a carpet of patience, ribbed and twilled and striated, a long-lasting swath richly embroidered with the lives of others.

 

And above all clothe yourself with love, woven by the grace of God himself, Creation’s Great Designer, his hand on the warp and woof of the loom.

 

And Christ Himself will come down and walk with you.

 

Amen.

 

 

 Proper 8, Year C

8 July 2007

 

 

A New Creation  is Everything!

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

“A new creation is everything!” says Paul. My father lived by that motto, although he gave it his own whimsical interpretation. For us, a paper napkin is good for holding a sandwich, wiping up spills, or serving as a coaster. Give one to him, however, and he would twiddle and twist it into a paper airplane; or fold it into an impromptu palette knife for a painting he was working on; or spread it out like a sketchbook. He’d make lists of ideas on it, doodle faces, houses, and mountains, and draw diagrams to show me how to stretch a canvas.

 

And oh the paintings he produced. Real artists transform whatever they look at, \ whether they work in ink or pencil, paint or marble. I’m prejudiced, of course; but his watercolors really are transparent, and even the little studies he dashed off make the world come alive in special ways—people sauntering down a street; an old barn, the very texture of its marled and pitted wooden planks attesting to its owner’s honesty and hard work; oranges and apples that practically roll off the canvas.

 

But his studio was hair-raising for anyone who subscribed to the “place for everything, and everything in its place” theory. Books balanced together became table-top easels; jam-jars held water-color brushes; and a radio, perched on a high windowsill, propped up the blinds at just the right angle so the light would fall on his worktable. For him, everything held potential to become something new, something other than what it was ordinarily thought to be.

 

I’m not sure that anything he touched would have wanted to change; would on its own have come up with the idea of being folded or stacked, or being obliged to carry on its shoulders the cross-bars of the window blinds. But given the choice of lying flat on a table or soaring through the air as a paper airplane; of lying dusty and unproductive or being useful in steadying a painting or focusing the sunlight—well.

 

And so I wonder what the crowd of folks really thought as Jesus sent them out in pairs to every place where he himself intended to go. Did any of them grumble or murmur, as their ancestors did when they went through the wilderness?

 

“No purse or bag—how will we feed ourselves?”

“No extra sandals—suppose ours wear out? I just bought a new pair of Nikes!”

“I’m not sure I really like the fellow I’m supposed to travel with. Can I trade?”

“Such a long walk—and my mother promised that I’d sit at His right hand!”

 

It’s hard, sometimes, to be taken out of the box; to be folded in an unexpected way, to be called to do something unimaginable, to be transformed into something that disrupts your very being.

 

But that is exactly what Jesus is asking. The commission he gives the 70—no, let’s be honest: the commission he gives us—means turning everything we expect upside down.

 

He asks that we pray for laborers to be sent out into God’s harvest. That means not just praying that the hungry be fed or the homeless housed; it means that we are being called to make the soup and nail the roof on the house.

 

“See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves,” he says—in short, we are going where no self-respecting lamb would venture—right into the wolf’s den, knowing that to answer God’s call may very well mean sacrifice, knowing that our strength and courage come only from the resurrected Christ.

 

To travel where Jesus intends to go means being a fool for Christ. It means, as Paul says, that the world is crucified to us and we to the world; that is, that worldly values are nothing—they are turned upside down and inside out and reborn and recreated by the way we act.

 

It means taking nothing with us but faith. And it means being focused—no chit-chat along the way, no dallying at the local coffee-house, being satisfied with whatever shelter and food are offered to us.

 

And when we get where we are going—which is, my brothers and sisters, right where we are today in our own lives—when we get where we are going, we have a task—to heal, to cure, to make whatever we lay hands on better in some way. To help make everything into a new creation.

 

Because when we do that, we change not only the people in front of us, the ones who are holding out their hands for help; we change the whole world. The poet Wallace Stevens says just that in an odd little poem about what happens when you put something made by human hands in the midst of the wilderness:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where. . .  .
 

To go where the good Lord sends you, to be the one thing different in the wilderness, is to follow the pillar of fire and participate in God’s creative act. To see with the eye of the Creator is to transform the ordinary: it is to take the old and make it new, the dusty and make it clean. It is to bring peace where there is war, education where there is ignorance, and tolerance where there is none. It is to mend the broken-hearted and to bring joy to those who weep. It is to comfort anyone who hurts. Anyone.

 

It means acting out of the compassionate heart of the Lord God himself, who has promised, as Isaiah says, to hold us and comfort us like a mother.

And in doing that, in making a new creation out of whatever you have at hand, you are saying by your actions that the Kingdom of God has come near.

The effect of bringing that Kingdom with you is to change the perspective on absolutely everything. You really are the light of the world. You really are the plate that is full, the hands that are overflowing.

 

And you are all those things because today, when the time comes to walk out of those doors and gather up the harvest, you will have been recreated by the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

 

 

 

Sermon, Trinity Sunday (Year C)

June 3, 2007

 Isaiah 6:1-8
Revelation 4:1-11
John 16:(5-11)12-15
Psalm 29


 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

 

“Things are seldom what they seem,” cheerfully sings Buttercup, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta H. M. S. Pinafore. That’s my theme song too on this Trinity Sunday as I contemplate a mystery that has caused untold theological speculation over the ages.

 

Contemplation: that’s the best I can do, since I am not a theologian, but rather a teacher of literature. And so it is that instead of analyzing definitions, I like to look beneath the surface, to catch a glimpse of metaphors lurking in unexpected places, symbols dancing on the edges of words. I love the double-sidedness of parables, in which the story on the surface hides the lesson underneath.

 

Perhaps that is why I also love origami, the art of making something out of nothing, of taking a flat piece of paper and creating a three-dimensional figure. Just an ordinary piece of paper—it’s nothing, really;

only . . .

it once was part of a living tree

bearing fruit in the sunlight and air

cradling in its arms the nests of birds,

digging its roots into the dust of the earth

that God the Creator breathed life into.

 

Just an ordinary piece of paper, with the mystery of the universe pressed into a single sheet. Talk about infinite variety. Look at the texture, the creaminess of real rag stock; the gently ruffled pages of old books. Look at the translucency of rice paper or the unassuming smoothness of plain stock.

And then, consider what that sheet becomes. Celtic monks in their austere cells on Iona put pen to paper, celebrating the Gospels with letters that curled around themselves into fantastic shapes and designs. They penned the precious Word with care and beauty, overlaying rich reds and greens and blues with gold leaf. And so from the dust breathed on by God’s Spirit comes the tree, comes the paper, comes the Book of Kells.

 

Things are seldom what they seem.

 

Last week, someone showed me a lovingly preserved family notebook, frayed at the edges—just an unassuming notebook, just a riffle of old paper. But look at it closely, and through the elegant penmanship, through the stories recounted in that small, bound volume, a wonderfully courageous and gracious ancestor takes shape. Holding that paper, tracing that penmanship, you can see her, you can know her.

 

Things really are seldom what they seem. This piece of paper, for instance; inexpensive, absolutely flat, a neat square—it’s a notepad; it’s a coaster for a dripping cup of coffee; tucked in a volume, it’s a bookmark.

 

But—fold it; and it’s still square, but there’s more about it than meets the eye Give it a few more twists, turn it inside out—something that no self-respecting flat piece of paper would ever contemplate on its own—give it wings, blow life into it—and—behold! A Crane.

 

There are many “flat” things, “flat” places that the spirit of creation transforms utterly. How do we describe that experience, that mystery of transformation? Eventually, words fail. Dante, in his great work La Divina Commedia, comes face to face with God and says at the end,

 

But oh how much my words miss my conception,

. . . Yet , as I wished, the truth I wished for came

cleaving my mind in a great flash of light.. . .

already I could feel my being turned—

instinct and intellect balanced equally

as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars—

by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

 

It is the great flash of light, the turning of one’s being that counts; it is being moved with the sun and the stars by Love itself.

 

And that, dear friends, leaves me speechless too. I, who have worked with words all my life, am in need of a hot, live coal to touch my lips, am in need of a guide, a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to help me bear the truth, to help me grow into God’s Love.

 

To help me understand that things are really not what they seem. What seems to be flat, like an ordinary piece of paper, may have many layers. The unity is the trinity; God’s Word became flesh; and Love came down to us in the form of a tiny, naked baby born to an obscure village girl.

 

Came down to us as a carpenter, as an itinerant preacher, as one who offended the rich and powerful, who walked the earth and cured the incurable, fed the hungry, comforted the poor.

 

God came down to us as flesh and blood, and His Spirit is with us still. And for us, today, this Trinity Sunday, what does that mean?

 

I think that to God we are like paper

and no matter how creased we become,

no matter what we are made of,

we are taken and shaped and recreated,

given wings, given the breath of life;

And that is sometimes hard to bear.

 

 

When His hot coal touches our lips,

and His Spirit makes our heart sing out, “Here I am—send me!”

What do we say “yes” to?

 

Just an ordinary person

touched by God’s word

can change the world,

can feed the hungry,

house the  homeless,

comfort the sick.

 

Just an ordinary person

hearing the Spirit of Truth

is transformed by the hand of Love—

reshaped

turned inside out

given wings, given the breath of life.

 

Just an ordinary person, flesh and blood, filled with the Holy Spirit.

And where that spirit is, is the very Christ Himself, is God Himself.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

VESPERS HOMILY / PALM SUNDAY, 2007 / Mark 11:1-11a

 

 

He had a shock of brown, unruly hair, this boy, the one who stood on the edge of the crowd. And if you looked into his eyes, you would see depths upon depths, like pools of deep water, only—around the edges, some movement, some perturbation, as if someone had thrown stones into a pond. He had a thoughtful face, and he was thinner than most boys his age. There was a frail air about him.

 

And yet he stood there quietly enough, in that crowd, a multitude of strangers drawn out of their regular paths to stand at the crossroad. There were mothers, holding hungry babies; grown men, ill-equipped for anything but field work, jeopardizing  their hard-won jobs by their very presence. Teenagers, old beyond their years at thirteen and fourteen, scrambling and jockeying to see the Hope of the Future. And the elderly . . . leaning on sticks cut from trees, crouched near the front, weary with waiting but determined.

 

The boy stood there quietly, but it was not always so. Throughout his childhood he would feel something come over him; and sometime later—he could never tell how long—he would awaken, covered with the dirt and dust of the ground where he had fallen, his sisters gathered around him holding up their shawls and spreading their skirts to protect him from the curious stares of the villagers. Later, they would tell him how he had writhed and twisted and clenched his teeth, but he never remembered that.

 

Always it was like coming back from the dead, always it was as if he entered a new world, his senses sharpened, his ears hearing sounds and eyes seeing what others couldn’t perceive. His parents, laborers like all the rest, refused to let him work, frightened that one day he would no longer be able to get to his feet. All that, until . . . until . . .

 

His father, his love for his son shining in his voice, had gone to a rabbi, a teacher, and had asked for healing. What courage that took, his son still marveled; what courage, for a meek and reticent man, to brave the ones he worked for, to brave the wrath of the leaders, to set himself up as a laughingstock. “Teacher,” he had said, “please cure my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid.” What courage it took to say, “Teacher, I believe; help thou my unbelief!”

 

And ever since that time, when the Teacher took him by the hand and lifted him up, he had been at peace. He spent most of his days listening to an old man in the village, learning all he could about this Rabbi; And yet, every so often, his senses would suddenly sharpen and his eyesight change; and people were afraid of what he would say, for it seemed that he looked right through them into the truth of their hearts.

 

And now, peering between the heads in front of him, he saw a colt come slowly down the road, the man on it almost too tall, his feet nearly touching the ground. And as it approached, the crowd became noisier and noisier, and the boy’s head began to throb in the old, familiar way.

 

“Hosanna!” they cry. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

 

“Hosanna!” they cry.  And in the root sense of the word, the oldest sense in the Hebrew, they are crying at the same time, “Save us, deliver us!”

 

At that, the boy looks closely and his heart swells with joy. It is the Teacher who took pity on him, pity on his father. And he tries to cry out, with the rest, but cannot. Save us, deliver us! That is what the boy’s father begged of the Teacher. And afterward, his son remembered, as if in a dream, his father falling to his knees in the dust and whispering “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord!”

 

Hosanna! “Save us, deliver us”—how many times has Jesus heard that plea? The wedding guests have run out of wine—what should we do? My friend, my child, my mother is dying! I cannot see, I cannot hear, I have leprosy, I have a demon. In their need, their desperate need, the crowd cries out for what it thinks it needs—an earthly Messiah, one of the house of David. But they are really crying out for much, much more—for God’s grace. For transformation. For God’s will to be done.

 

In that plea for deliverance we hear the undertone of a memory reaching back to a time when a lamb was sacrificed and its blood spilled on the doorposts, when a whole nation went into exile. That memory is bred in the bone of the One who turns His face resolutely towards Gethsemane, where he himself prays his own version of Hosanna: “Father, if you are willing, deliver this cup from me”; where his own pure faith speaks in adoration: “yet not my will, but yours be done.”

So they fling their cloaks in front of the colt, lest the mud of the road spatter the Messiah. Old cloaks, torn cloaks, dusty cloaks; cloth with patterns faded and torn; cloaks made painstakingly by hand, handed down, used day in and day out.

Flung without a second thought, these cloaks that covered the backs of the laborers, that sheltered the heads of the infants, that served as blankets by night. And the boy moved by something indefinable, joins in, pulling from his own shoulders a worn, blue cloak, woven so long ago by his mother. The edges, carefully embellished with a tiny pattern; the fringe, lovingly knotted.

 

And as he takes it from his shoulders, he hears his mother gasp and his father groan. “That is all you have, my son,” he says. But the boy is still speechless. Eyes shining, he pushes his way through the crowd and throws his cloak under the hooves of the colt.

 

What does he see, looking up at the figure who bends down towards him? The dust of the earth shot through with God’s own light; Heaven and earth coming together in one still point. The old covenant raised up and made new; the poor, the hungry, the grieving made whole; the potential of a new creation springing up in joy.

And the boy, astounded at the greatness of God, falls on his knees in the mud. The boy, possessed by the grace and the love of God, cries aloud,

 

"Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

Amen.

 

Sermon 3rd Sunday in Lent; March 11, 2007

Exodus 3:1-15
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Psalm 103 or 103:1-11

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sprit.+

I remember the time I discovered the Stations of the Cross at Honey Creek. I had escaped from a meeting to walk parallel to the salt marsh, listening for the birds and keeping a wary eye out for fire ants. And then, unexpectedly, there it was—a curved line of wooden crosses, nearly hidden by the underbrush. Planted there lovingly some years ago as a Scout project, they were overgrown, the underbrush heaped up, the vines wrapping themselves around the central pillars, and the dry twigs and nameless sprigs rising to the crossbars where Christ’s hands had been nailed to the wood so long, long ago.

Coming upon that forsaken place was like stumbling into Gethsemane and finding that those who were supposed to watch and weed had fallen asleep and deserted their post. It was like seeing that withered fig tree that Luke writes about. Today, I hear with no little joy, the Stations have been cleaned up and restored by a group of youth—many from Christ Church. No longer a forlorn reminder lost in the woods, the Stations have been given back their identity—they show the Way. And those who helped with the clean-up also showed the Way: these youth are like the gardener, digging and fertilizing to give the fig tree another chance to bear fruit. Their act makes it possible for others to walk the path and return revived, refreshed, and renewed.

What can a cross tell us? In my own study at home, I have a cross made of glass. This wondrous gift stands in my window, right where the morning sun shines through it. And the colors cast by this transparent cross dance across my desk, making a festival out of ordinary light. The blazing light from this cross casts jewels on my computer keyboard; it turns the stacks of books and notes and all the flotsam and jetsam of an undisciplined desk into a rainbow of order, a promise of letters answered, lists checked off, and projects neatly completed.

This cross you see through

it is what it is

no more, no less

transparent

without guile.

Its purpose is to be.

And in that honesty,

in the self-full ness of it,

it gathers up the light and focuses it;

it shines with a piercing fire.

 

I think that if I were

to take it to some place where my heart has been stirred—

the grassy expanse of the salt marsh at Honey Creek;

the hill where St. Columba stood when first he landed on Iona;

the crystalline heights of the Antarctic—

I think that if I were to take it there

it would illumine the whole earth;

it would cast its rich and glowing colors into the sky,

into our lives,

into our hearts.

 

And with that fire it would burn away

our cares our griefs

all those things done and left undone

(it would burn them quite away

and restore us to ourselves

and make us be,

be what we are—

no more, no less

transparent

without guile).

"Who am I—really?" Perhaps this was what Moses was asking when he saw the blazing bush on Mount Horeb. "Who am I?" asked Moses of the Lord our God, "that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

Who is he? Nothing, quite nothing. An alien in a strange land; an Israelite angry at injustice; a simple keeper of the flocks, a man known as Jethro’s son-in-law. Who is he, to face down Pharaoh and all the ones in charge? To walk the gilded path of the Pharaoh's court, his sandals caked with mud and cloak torn from sleeping with the flocks? To brave the shadow of those pyramids and banquet halls, the statues of Osiris and all the other gods staring in a kind of blank derision? Who is Moses, indeed?

God’s emissary, that is all; God’s hands and feet. "I will be with you," God promises.

And that is the key, of course. Moses is the sign of God; His presence in the world. And so it is that Moses becomes himself, his true self. Not the Moses who stutters and stumbles, not the one who is fearful and uncertain, but the obedient child of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses comes into his heritage as the offspring of the One who says, "I AM who I AM."

And in the face of all of God’s power, compassion, and mercy; in the face of all that loving-kindness, that presence, who are we? Who are we, to face to face down the Pharaohs of this modern world, to come, just as we are, to give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, to take in the stranger, to clothe the poor, help the sick, and visit those in prison?

Who are we but God’s children, carrying His presence with us.

 

Suppose, just suppose,

in this Holy Lent

in this season of fasting from our faults

of thought, word, and deed

we became true to the mind of Christ.

Suppose we became our selves—the selves we were meant to be;

transparent

without guile—

our infirmities healed,

our life redeemed,

crowned with mercy and loving-kindness:

Our purpose simply to be,

to rejoice in God’s presence with us.

If we carry our cross and walk the Way,

if we carry this cross

we might look through it

and see darkness vanquished,

see the world illumined by its Easter prism.

 

And if we are serious about amendment of life,

about resurrection from the old self to the new,

we might become the light ourselves

transformed

by God’s grace

blazing in our hearts.

 

We might become a rainbow of hope,

for those who stretch out their hands to us.

And we would have no need

to ask "Who am I"—

we would know who we are—

God’s own people.

Amen.

 

 

Sermon for 6 Epiphany; February 11, 2007

 


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

I have a confession to make.

 

I am an only child, and that—as other only children understand—has given a certain shape to my personality. And while I missed the companionship of brothers and sisters, there are some advantages to being an “only.” You get to play with all the toys, to begin with. And you are showered with attention—which can be a blessing or a curse, depending upon whether you’ve aced your spelling test or spilled raspberry jello on your mother’s white rug.

 

I have fond memories, though, of sitting for hours with my father, who was an artist. He would light his pipe, and the lovely aroma of apple-scented tobacco would fill the room, blending with the smell of turpentine and oil paint. He outfitted me with a little canvas and a fistful of brushes, with Strathmore drawing paper and Conte charcoal pencils. Nothing but the best for his only daughter! And with infinite patience he taught me to draw grapes that looked round, drapery that looked folded, and buildings that receded into the distance. It was like magic, three-dimensional shapes appearing on a blank sheet of paper.

 

And he gave me good advice. “You don’t need to put in every detail!” he’d say, as I painstakingly copied every hair of the tiger, every petal on the flower. This is your world, he was telling me; you make the choice. There are no lines to color inside of. Your sketch is a reflection of the lifeblood of the thing itself.

 

So those were happy times. But being an only child has disadvantages too. For one thing, I was shy. Very shy. I didn’t like to talk to strangers; was terrified at the mere idea of standing in front of a crowd and talking. Which is why I decided that the one career I’d never, ever choose was teaching. And believe me—never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would stand here as your deacon.

 

Well. God really does have a sense of humor.

 

And so I can tell you, first-hand, it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hand of God. He shines a light into the hidden landscapes of our lives; he looks behind the sketch, beneath the surface outlines, shapes, and shades that we so carefully create

 

He makes us take the path we never thought of traveling. And it isn’t always easy. Walking His way brings us to the edge of things. But sometimes, by grace, we learn that words, and things, and people, are hidden by their surface; we glimpse the lifeblood beneath the fragile shell of life.

 

In the depths of what we think are silent seas,

the whale-songs resound

lovely incantations

like the music of the spheres, submerged.

The tiny seed that falls upon our lawns

becomes a pine-tree, sprung from next to nothing.

A strand of DNA encapsulates the miracle of life;

and neurons fire into ideas

that change the world and heal our various ills.

 

All around us is the resurrection story, told and told again!

Fishermen become apostles;

and Mary’s son,

arises from the wood and nails

of Joseph’s carpentry shop.

And tiny letters formed of pen and ink,

quirky shapes lying flat against the paper

go dancing off together to become a word,

The Word, God’s Word made flesh.

 

Things are seldom what they seem: and that is what Luke’s Gospel is telling us. And so we find God’s own Son sitting in the Galilean dust, teaching his disciples, teaching us.

 

“Blessed are the poor,” he says: “for yours is the kingdom of God.”

Blessed is the widow, whose two copper coins were untold wealth. Blessed are those who have nowhere to lay their heads, who are the victims of fear, injustice, and oppression. These are the ones who will be consoled by God’s kingdom.

 

"Blessed are you who are hungry now,” he says; “for you will be filled.”

Blessed are those who hunger for healing; the woman at the well who asked for living water; the Christ who said upon the cross, “I thirst.” Blessed are you who are filled with the bread and the wine and go out into the world, to be apostles and disciples.

 

"Blessed are you who weep now,” he says; “for you will laugh.”

Blessed are the women at the tomb who weep for Jesus. Blessed are you who grieve for the slums, the criminals, the sick and troubled, and who turn that grief into action, loving and serving the Lord.

 

And, finally, "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven.

 

BLESSED are you who love your enemies, who minister to those in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble, for your unconditional love will be returned tenfold. You will look at all people, at your families, friends, and neighbors, and those who are alone, and you will see the flame of the Holy Spirit.

 

To follow the beatitudes is to live by God’s Word, looking beneath the surface and coloring  outside the lines. It means that we walk on the edge, where we see the resurrection story in everywhere.

 

But it also means that we throw away the script that we have written to define ourselves. And that is very hard to do. For some of us—for someone like me, who loves the very shape of words and lines, the beautiful grain of pencil on paper—it is almost impossible. Except for the grace of God.

 

And so I invite you to walk with me away from everything that is safe—the pulpit; our preconceptions; our ordinary ways—and open the doors of the church and with our lives take God’s love into the world.

AMEN.

 

Sermon for 2 Epiphany; January 14, 2007

 

 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

Last Tuesday, we returned from a week-long visit to my home town—New York City. It was a treat to hear the hum of the city, to stroll along quiet side streets, and to revisit favorite haunts. Best of all, at Christmastime, the city is wrapped up like a gift! At Rockefeller Center, the Christmas tree—a Norway spruce—is crowned with a star and illumined with a myriad of lights, delighting tourists and city folk alike. Crowds hang over the railings around the ice rink, applauding the skaters. A pro zips by, waltzing and twirling for the sheer joy of it; ribbons of ice sparkle behind her. Children giggle and trip over their tiny skates; and a host of couples, clinging to each other for dear life, stumble over each other and everyone else, finally collapsing in laughter.  

 

It’s a sight to see. The store windows on Fifth Avenue are ablaze with fairy-tale decorations. Lord & Taylor’s features a Victorian Christmas story that unfolds, window by window. And so we stand hand-in-hand, like children ourselves, marveling at the little figures of top-hatted gentlemen and tiny-waisted ladies, merry elves and angels, all aglow amidst gingerbread houses, tiny gifts, and children playing in the snow.

 

Walking along the avenue to 57th Street, we see an enormous star suspended over the avenue; it shines radiantly against the night sky like a burning torch. People rush by with coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other; street vendors sell scarves and mittens, hot chestnuts and “Rolex” watches, and the scent of spices fills the air.

 

From Broadway and Mary Poppins to Lincoln Center and Pinchas Zuckerman—what a variety, what an offering.

 

For us, being there is gift enough. But the buildings themselves, wrapped in ivy and holly, are like treasure-boxes waiting to be opened. The Museum of Modern Art, newly renovated, with its open-armed welcome to the avant-garde; the Metropolitan Museum, with its beautiful Neopolitan crèche and wealth of old masters. Oh—I could go on and on. At the NYPL, there’s a display of Japanese Ehon—books with wood block prints. And I, who will follow the siren call of books anywhere, am entranced by this gracious display of art dancing with words. In front of me lies a panoramic book, some 6 or 7 feet in length; it was written by two friends, an artist and a poet. As they sailed a river together, the artist sketched the scenery; the poet wrote haiku beneath.

 

Eyes dazzled by this wealth of creativity, I am nonetheless brought up short. On the steps of Lincoln Center, where opera-goers and traffic are heaviest, stands a tiny elderly woman with a cane. She is holding a sign; “I need money for food.”

 

Is she an actress? Is she real? Is there truly, in all of Manhattan, no one to give her a morsel of food?

 

This is a common sight in a city wrapped up like a Christmas present. What should we do about this woman, who looks as if she has stepped directly from the pages of one of the slums in Dickens’s Christmas Carol?

 

Walking back to the hotel, we pass three churches. St. Patrick’s Cathedral is open, and so we go in. Amidst the splendor, amidst the triptychs and paintings and gold facing on the chapels, an exhausted young man clutching a guitar has fallen asleep in the pew. A guard stands nearby, studiously ignoring him.

 

Well. The guard gave him a gift that night, the gift of a place to sleep.

 

We go out and walk past the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church, on to St. Thomas, the beautiful Episcopal Church noted for its music. What an organ it has, nestled in the carvings over the choir; what a carillon; and what a magnificent altarpiece. Reaching from floor to ceiling, it is said to be one of the tallest in the world, carved with Christ the King and all the saints. The beauty of the surroundings is in itself a gift, a quiet space for contemplation.

 

But on the steps of both churches, we see heaps of cardboard boxes and discarded coats and trash of every kind—paper cups and newspapers; an old hat, a pair of scuffed boots; rags that even as dustcloths had seen better days.

 

And under these disreputable heaps, something stirs. Under these nesting places for those with nothing, are human beings. Someone’s mother; someone’s son; someone’s child. Forsaken. Desolate. Heads pillowed on stone-hearted steps.

 

These too are the gifts of the city

the city that ranges from gold to dust.

 

The guard at St. Patrick’s had pity. And us? What, oh what, should we do?

 

Imagine if we could open our hearts and arms and gather up all these forlorn ones; suppose we offer them to Paul, and ask—now what? What should we do? He will tell us, “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

 

God is in everyone, he says; and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we serve the common good.

 

And suppose we gather them all up and offer them to John? What does the Gospel have to say to us?

 

We are the guests

called to the wedding feast.

And we are given gifts—

the gifts of the city, or wherever we live—

and the gifts God gives to us are our brothers and sisters.

We are called to the feast

where baptized by one Spirit,

pressed into service by one Lord,

we are energized by the One

who made water into wine

who made us.

 

Who gave us grace

to sing a new song,

who gave us hands and hearts

to clothe and feed the desolate and forsaken

to make them into a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.

 

And this is what it means

to drink the wine,

to eat the bread,

to be wedded to God.

 

We come to the table together

and we leave, rejoicing in our wedding clothes

but they are neither silks nor satins,

but rather our own common flesh

illumined by God’s word and sacraments,

shining with the radiance of Christ’s glory.

And this light,

God’s light, that he has gifted us with,

shines through cardboard

through paper cups and newspapers

through old hats and boots and rags.

 

It gives us the strength and the courage

the honesty and the forbearance,

the will and the love

to manifest the Spirit

for the common good.

 

Let it shine.  Amen.

 

 

Sermon for 25 Dec. 2006

Christmas III

 Isaiah 52:7-10
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14
98:1-6

 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 What a Christmas gift we have been given! A glorious book, one that lies open in front of us, speaking to us in many and various ways. Its pages are vellum, a fine parchment made from lambskin. When you touch them, your fingers slide over the gently ruffled edges, the hallmark of hand-made paper, onto a velvet-like surface. And there in front of you is a story written in the ebb and flow of a calligrapher’s hand. No computer for this artist, for artist he is; rather, lovingly crafted letters, with the curly ends called serifs and the generous curves and delicate traceries of a master pen. The letters, too, have a distinctive slant, so distinctive that they are like a signature; it is as if the artist has put the stamp of his nature on what he has written. He has imbued all the characters with his personality, smoothed the way for them to move and dance, to shout with joy and sing. On these signs and symbols lies his imprimatur, his endorsement.

 And look at the capital letter that begins the reading “In the beginning was the Word.” It is  festooned with leaves and berries, angels’ wings and shafts of light. The deep reds and blues and greens, the gold leaf drawn from the treasury of the paint-box, all bursting forth with exuberant life, rejoicing along the border of the page in braided streamers. This is but earthly stuff—pen and ink and paper, after all; but it has come alive out of the love and joyful creativity of the artist.

And so, says John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . all things were made through him. . . In him was life, and the life was the light of all humanity.” Here is an invitation to enter a new story, to take joy in a new song, a new way of looking at creation, of looking at our brothers and sisters around us—a new way of looking at ourselves!

And what a way to begin an account about a marvelous creation full of light and life. But that infinite creativity that gave birth to all things—the mudfish and the supernova, the strands of DNA and the drops of rain, gave us, out of His boundless love and grace, even more. He has spoken to us by means of a Son; the Word itself became flesh.

So that very first letter of all creation, in all its glory, comes to us with the stamp of God’s nature upon Him. As if God were the calligrapher drawing on the finest sheepskin ever, His hand, his being, the very depths of his love and grace are revealed in that Son. He is the Word made flesh, God’s Son who comes to us as a flesh-and-blood baby—vulnerable, helpless, needing everything. What better way to evoke in us a human reflection of the divine love that created all things? What better way to give us a bird’s eye view of how God views us, his children; what better way to show us how to behave to the rest of our human family!

And us—what about us, we who are the other letters in the creation story—the  a’s, b’s, and c’s, and down through the end of the alphabet, we who are the assorted commas and periods and semicolons? As we look into the book of life, what do we see?

We are dazzled by the glory of the initial letter, spilling over into all the chis and rhos, the alphas and the omegas, speaking to us of an act of love and grace. And it is that very light, with its glorious profusion of colors and designs, that reshapes and recreates us—we who are often a chaos of tiny, quirky letters with minds of their own. We are invited into the story, into joining together in chapter and verse, paragraph and sentence; we are invited into making sense of who we are.

We are God’s children now, recreated into a community of song, of praise, of love,

lifting up our voices, rejoicing and singing,

Singing to the LORD with the harp, *
with the harp and the voice of song.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn *
shouting with joy before the King, the LORD

 . . . for he has done marvelous things!

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

 

Sermon for November 19, 2006

Proper 28, Year B


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.+

 

There is something about the ordinary that is comforting. Give me a nice, quiet morning—butter melting into the heart of a cinnamon muffin, good coffee with real cream, someone to share the New York Times with, and sunlight streaming through the blinds—there’s comfort, there’s something akin to paradise right there on West Alden Avenue.

 

So I unfold the newspaper and settle back prepared to read, expecting the stories to be like a kaleidoscope projected on a screen—like trailers from the movies, like snapshots of lives I might have lived—not quite real, not quite imaginary. It is then I see the pictures that burn into my heart—the Darfur mother, feeding berries to her child; the homecoming for the Iraqi soldier, not quite the same as when he left. I thought this was just a paper, carrying news; I thought I could hold it at arms’ length and let it go.

 

It is, as our reading from Hebrews says, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

And so I reach for comfort in my coffee mug, one of my favorite ones. It was made by a friend, a potter who learned to speak to clay, who learned to bend and shape it to her will. She has a studio in the backyard of her house, and outside a kiln in which to fire her pots. I love this mug; it has the imprint of her hands, the warmth of her friendship molded into the very grains of the clay.

 

She told me once that in her apprenticeship, her teacher had them make a pot—o it was a wondrous pot—the very first one she had ever made. She shaped it and glazed it until it was quite perfect in her eyes. And then, when it had come from out the kiln, had been cradled in her arms, he said— BREAK IT!

 

And so she did. And she went on to make a better pot, went on to coax the clay to bend and swirl beyond its wildest dreams. She became a real potter. She went on to count the very movement of her hands, the creation itself, as heart and soul of what she made.

 

It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

You cannot worship Him at arms’ length.

You can’t turn away,

and you can’t stay still.

You see the things you do not want to see,

you feel the pain you would not choose to feel,

as you are turned and shaped upon the potter’s wheel.

 

It is a fearful thing

to find the hand of God upon your shoulder,

a fearful thing

to break the life you planned,

the life you polished,

and loved into being.

A fearful thing,

when all you asked for was a quiet breakfast,

an ordinary morning

with time to watch the butter melting into liquid gold

with time to be warmed and comforted by the sun.

 

The small community of Christ, in Hebrews, must have felt that way, and more. They had pledged their faith, had put their trust in God and in His Son. And there they were, buffeted and turned this way and that, enduring a hard struggle as they were persecuted for the faith they held, a faith that cost not less than everything.

 

Can’t you hear them asking

Is this the reward the Messiah promised?

Why should our righteousness bring such pain?

Why should we suffer with the afflicted

be broken with the broken

give up the very roofs that shield our heads from rain,

give up the clothes upon our backs?

 

This community in Hebrews seems to be losing heart. It was the same for all the common folk in Daniel’s day, the ones who suffered through the days of anguish. It was the same for all the ones whom Jesus warned to flee up to the mountains. And it is the same for us. “Dear God, here they come again,” we cry with them, and right before our eyes are Roman soldiers, SS guards, and fanatics with their bombs. 

 

And we who sit in quiet rooms, who eat our breakfast in security

seem far removed from all those woes.

 

Until

the light that shines

God’s blazing light that shines

becomes the beacon of our lives,

and shows us those in danger, sorrow

or any kind of trouble.

 

The light that shines

God’s blazing light that shines

reveals the shadows of the bars across the prisoner,

reveals the shadows of the mother and her child

who walk across a dry and hostile land. 

It shines upon the housetops and the fields.

It casts a spotlight on the baggage of our lives,

on all those things

that we are told to leave behind.

 

And yet the light that shines

God’s light, that blazes through the ordinary

—it shakes us to the core

and makes us drop the life we planned,

the life we polished and loved into being.

And then it turns the pieces of our broken lives

to liquid gold.

It lights our faith

to make us see, to make us do

to bend and swirl beyond our wildest dreams.

 

As you have fed the least of these,

You have ministered to me, says Christ.

As you have had compassion

You have joined with me, says Christ.

 

And you have seen me and believed, says Christ,

if you have held the hands of the dying

prayed with those who are sick

borne the shackles of those in prison.

You have been broken with me

on the wheel of the potter

and you will be made whole with me.

 

 

Blessed are you

who have been

purified, cleansed, and refined

reshaped

retooled

revised

remade

and resurrected

to shine in my image,

says God.              

AMEN.

 

 

Sermon—All Saints’ Day, November 1, 2006

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. +

There are places that call to us with special meaning, places where God’s presence is palpable. Perhaps a grain of His wisdom and revelation has worked its way into our very being; perhaps the eyes of our heart have been enlightened. The poet T.S. Eliot calls this a time when “the soul’s sap quivers.” “You are not here to verify, / Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity,” he says; “You are here to kneel / Where prayer has been valid.”

 

One such place for me is the National Cathedral in Washington. In the springtime, if you get up very early, you can walk among the old-fashioned roses in the Bishop’s Garden; smell the sweet scent of herbs; and have for company a host of birds and a curious squirrel or two. And then you can walk through a doorway that says “The way of peace,” into the crypt where the early Eucharist is celebrated in the Bethlehem Chapel. Afterwards, you may wander upstairs into a glorious space of healing and transformation, where you are bathed in the light of the stained glass—all those saints and apostles and prophets reaching out their arms to you, drawing you ever upward into the rainbow of light—God’s pure light refracted through them in golds and azures and bronzes.

 

But having been washed in all that radiant joy, you may suddenly find that what you thought you came for, as Eliot would say,

Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
. . . the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.

 

 The last time I visited the cathedral, John Peterson, the Canon for Global Justice and Reconciliation, was the one who shattered the peace I thought I had come to find. He travels everywhere—into the jungles of wilderness and cities, into mud huts and meeting rooms—and he speaks about hunger and need first-hand. If you heard his 2005 Diocesan convention address, you will remember his story about the children in Recife, Brazil, whose families live in and on the city dump; children who gifted him with  the most precious cross in his possession—a cross fashioned out of the paper and sticks they found amongst the trash.

 

This time, though, he told another story. As we sat in the radiant light streaming through the windows, facing the carved choir stalls, the magnificent organ, and the gold and silver that shone on the high altar, we heard him talk about visiting a church in South America. Oh it wasn’t much of a church—mud floors and four walls, and a roof in the making. But it was jam-packed with men and women and children, all talking and laughing and milling about—because there weren’t enough places for all of them to sit. Some had walked miles to be there, and all had on their Sunday best. But no golds and azures and bronzes for them; rather, clothing faded and used, wrinkled and threadbare.

 

And Canon Peterson said that despite his exhaustion from his trip—a long plane flight and then hours on a dirt road—he was literally swept away by their faith and their joy. Afterwards, a reporter who had accompanied him asked the local priest a question. “How,” he said curiously, “can you all worship God when you have so little?”

 

There’s a question, there’s a conundrum. It’s one we struggle with daily, in different forms. How can we be expected to thank God in a world where children live on trash heaps, where at least half the world’s population has no health care and can’t make a living wage?

 

The local priest, standing on the mud floor under that unfinished roof had an answer. “How,” he said, “can you worship God when you have so much?”

 

Well.

 

It’s a good question to ponder, especially today on All Saints’ Day, when we remember the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and other folk who offered their wills, their souls and bodies in God’s service. As we picture those golden crowns, those robes of purest white—all that shining splendor—it is well to remember that many of them thought considerably less about the clothes on their own backs than the food in others’ mouths.

 

And today it is especially well to remember Luke’s beatitudes and woes, the ones that shatter our peace—and then give it back, but not as the world gives. This isn’t quite the same Sermon on the Mount we are familiar with from Matthew. This one takes place on a level place, a plain [move into the congregation. Christ is, after all, present at the altar; and he's talking to everyone, me included] “with a great crowd of [Jesus’s] disciples and a great multitude of people from all [over], who came to hear him and to be healed.”

 

So Jesus sits down, and looking up at his disciples, begins to teach them—begins to teach us, His disciples—how to live.

 

"Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied,” He says. Blessed are those who hunger for the just and proper use of God’s creation. Blessed are those who thirst to console the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression, those who build Habitat houses, work for the soup kitchen, and visit the sick. That hunger gives us the courage to transform whatever our talents are into a cross that we offer as a gift to anyone in need. That thirst brings us into communion and fellowship; it makes us into the body of Christ.

 

"Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh,” He adds. Blessed are those who mourn, those who go against the world’s injunction to eat, drink, and be merry. Be sorry and repent, Jesus says, for good intentions gone awry. Grieve for your own failings. Grieve for the slums, the criminals, the sick and the troubled. And turn that grief into action, loving and serving the Lord.

 

And, finally, "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you . . .  on account of the Son of man!” Blessed are those who have the courage to be righteous, to proclaim the Gospel and seek the Truth. Blessed indeed are the peacemakers, those who work for the peace and unity of the church of God. Holy are they who work for justice, freedom, and peace in this community, the nation, and the world, for they are God’s own children, the offspring of a Lord who gave His own Son to be good wine and bread shared among friends at table.

What can we say in light of these beatitudes? How do we answer that priest in South America?

 

We can begin by giving thanks for the saints who went before us and for those that sit amongst us.

 

And we pray that God’s grace may so shatter our peace that, following in the footsteps of all the saints, we are utterly transformed in God’s service and shine with the radiance of His pure light.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon Year B, Proper 21; October 1, 2006