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 Or that stack of out-of-date New Yorker magazines?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.

November 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.

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.

“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.

 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.

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.

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 2^nd 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.

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

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.

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.

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.