Don't be alarmed: November 17, 2024

Year B, Pentecost 26                            Mark 13:1-8    

                Do you remember at the beginning of COVID, when every time you turned on the news or checked your newsfeed, it was a string of stories about how horrible things were looking? If I were to sum up those stories it would be, “be alarmed, be very alarmed.”  I remember the Daily Show started a segment called, “Is this how we die?”  It was funny…until people started dying.   It feels a bit like that now, every time I check the news, there are some new dire threats.  This is the end of democracy.  This is the end of freedom. This is the end of women’s rights. Because of the magic of algorithms, someone else is looking at their news and seeing a different set of stories: the stock market is sky rocketing, it’s the end of politics as usual, it’s a new golden age in America.  Either way, the news has been attention grabbing.   Some people are feeling great. Some are neutral and some are alarmed. Pretty much everything about the pandemic was horrible, but the one thing that was kind of refreshing was that the majority of people agreed that COVID was bad. It was unifying in a weird way. 

            I will confess that in general, I am prone to being alarmed by any drastic changes, sometimes even small changes. Thus, I pay attention whenever I see something in scripture telling me not to be alarmed.  The reading we had from the Gospel of Mark is sometimes referred to as the “little apocalypse.”  In it Jesus says, “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed…” Then it goes on to say: “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.”  Now, I have already admitted that I am prone to being alarmed, but is it just me, or are those verses extra alarming?

Someone brought this up at our Wednesday Eucharist—how interesting it was that Jesus would tell us not to be alarmed about war.  I thought, well, people said that kind of thing a lot in scripture.  One of the most common pieces of advice in scripture is: Do not be afraid.  It’s usually the first thing that an angel says when he brings a message to a human.  Jesus is often telling people in his midst not to be afraid, especially after a miracle or a healing. It makes sense that in the presence of holiness one would expect the words: Be not afraid. It’s helpful advice, when you are in the presence of something awe inspiring and something that is so unexpected that it’s frightening. 

I assumed that the Greek word translated to alarm and the Greek word translated to afraid were the same word.  They are not.  The word translated to alarm only appears in two other places in the New Testament. One is the version of this same story that Matthew tells. Often the Gospels tell the same story is slightly different ways. The other instance is in 2^nd Thessalonians.  The Greek word translated to alarm can also mean troubled or disturbed.  In each of these three readings, the advice to “not be alarmed” comes in response to what is referred to as the 2^nd coming or the apocalypse. 

What is interesting is that Jesus wasn’t even talking about the end of the world (which is what many of us think of when we hear warnings like this).  Jesus was talking about the events that would lead up to the end of the world. The funny thing is that every time I preach on an apocalyptic text, I come up with many examples of how what is going on in our country or our world feels kind of apocalyptic.  Yet, not even once since I have been preaching, has the world ended.  I am beginning to think that maybe these events that Jesus mentions are not pointing to the end of the world. They are just life.

  Last Sunday, I got out of my car and the weather was lovely.  Thirty minutes later I walked outside, and it was smoky. You could not even see the sun.  Someone told me it was from the fires in New Jersey.  I thought since, when were there fires in New Jersey?  This is clearly a sign of the world ending.  Apparently when you preach these texts too much, that is where your mind goes.  Guess what, we are still here. The world has not ended and Jesus is telling us all: “Do not be alarmed.”

Does that mean we become complacent? Does that mean that the fire fighters shouldn’t put the fires out and we can feel free to use fireworks in the middle of a dry forest?  No.  It means that we don’t let the fears that come out of these events paralyze us.  The problem with fear is that it narrows our vision.  All we see is the worst case scenario.  Then the only people who we talk to are other people who are also alarmed…very alarmed.  Suddenly anyone who isn’t alarmed is blind and foolish and we definitely don’t want to be associating with those people. 

As much as I appreciate a little company in my misery, I do worry about how we handle our little apocalypses.  The literal definition of apocalypse is revelation or unveiling.  Many think this election revealed something about our country.  Maybe it did.  I wonder if what we should also examine is our reactions to these apocalyptic events and what those reactions reveal.  I don’t know what any of this reveals.  Perhaps time will tell.  What I know is that refusing to engage with people who think differently will accomplish nothing.  I am not telling you to take this moment to reach out to your family and friends who voted differently. We might not be ready for that. My brother reached out to me and offered to talk and I said, “Thank you for the offer, but I am not ready.”  He responded that he loved me. I responded that I loved him too even though he was wrong. (just kidding, I just said I loved him too.) Thus I understand how hard this advice is, but I think it is what Jesus would want.

This week President Biden invited the president elect to the White House.  It appeared extremely awkward.  There were some who criticized Biden for maintaining this tradition.  They said it showed weakness. I think it showed decency and strength. Would he have done that if that was not the tradition? I don’t know. That is the beauty of traditions. They hold us accountable.  They give us guardrails on our life.  Sometimes when we get too attached to tradition, those traditions can make us rigid and stubborn.  But sometimes, perhaps many times, traditions help connect us with our ancestors and people today. 

So many parts of our liturgy are about connecting to God and one another. I was raised Catholic and the first time I visited an Episcopal Church, I found the tradition of kneeling at the rail very uncomfortable and awkward.  Now, I see it as an important reminder of what it is to be a community. It doesn’t matter how you vote, what your job is, your sexuality, your race…none of that matters in that moment.  All that matters in that moment is that we are together, gathered around the altar yearning for a piece of God’s presence.  Yearning for communion.

**The article about the "doomsday fish" popped up on my newsfeed after preaching this sermon.

 

Alleluia Anyways: November 10

Year B, Pentecost 25                                      Psalm 146                                                                             

            I often direct people to the Psalms when they are struggling with prayer. Many times people need direction in prayer and get insecure about what to say or they are just overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. I understand because I sometimes feel the same way, this week for instance.  The great thing about the psalms is that they encompass virtually every human emotion: anger, envy, frustration, joy, fear and utter desolation.  While there are 150 psalms, often times you will encounter several contrasting emotions in one psalm. I like it because it is true to life.  One moment you are on top of the world, the next moment you are asking God to vanquish your enemies.  Some days are like that.

            Given the last week, I had hoped we would have a good lament psalm.  One third of the psalms in the Bible are lament psalms, so I felt that the odds were in my favor. But no, not this week. This week was a praise psalm with the first word—Hallelujah.  I imagined how it would sound if I asked you all to say it. It would be a bit like when I ask my son to apologize for something he’s confident he bears no guilt.  Hallelujah. When I think of the word Hallelujah, I think of Easter and joy that cannot be contained— but it’s more than that.

It’s actually a transliteration of two Hebrew words that translate to: Praise God. It’s one of the few Hebrew words in the Hebrew Bible that wasn’t translated to Greek, then Latin, then English. All the other words were translated, but not this word. A music professor at Yale said it suggests the word was already charged with an emotion that transcends its linguistic meaning.[1] It’s like it was too beautiful, too lyrical, to translate it.

            When I think of praising God, I consider the times when it has just come out of me spontaneously, which frankly has been rarer than I would like to admit.  We praise God every Sunday through prayers, music and the celebration of the Eucharist.  But what I hear when I spend a lot of time contemplating the word Hallelujah, is singing the Alleluia chorus. It’s powerful and enthusiastic song of praise. I think so many of think of Alleluia in that context.  But the word Alleluia appears in all kinds of music.  I was struck by one piece the choir sang in our All Soul’s service last week.  It was a Ukranian piece written in 2007.  The whole piece is just Alleluia, but it’s much more contemplative and less triumphant then you would expect.  The author of the piece said he wrote it after a mission trip to Ukraine.  It was meant to be the “quiet voice of faith, praise and hope in the midst of suffering and tragedy”. That is how the composer of the piece described it. We don’t have to associate Hallelujah with joy.

            The Hebrew word is actually an imperative---it’s a command.  One commentator described it as a discipline. That means that even when we don’t feel it, we still say it.  We praise God not because of the wonderful things that are going on in our world.  We praise God because our God is worthy of praise. It’s not supposed to be easy.  It’s not supposed to be something that we only do when things are going our way and we are grateful to God for all the blessings in our life. We can’t just believe in a good God when all is right in the world.

That’s easy to preach, but how can we praise when we find ourselves in times of despair, when we have lost faith in people, when we have worked so hard and not achieved the outcome we wanted.  We grieve.  We act.  We organize. We remember the verses of this psalm that tell us not to put our trust in rulers, because they cannot save us…even when we have a really good one who we voted for. They cannot ruin us, no matter how very bad they are.  Only God can save us.

Because we still worship a God who loves us, a God who gives justice to the oppressed, food to the hungry, sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind and cares for the immigrant, the orphan and the widow.  When our human leaders let us down (and they will, because they are humans---and some of them are very flawed humans), we cannot lose hope.  Our hope is not based on who we elect or don’t elect.  Our hope has one source—God. So we continue to praise the Lord, not because we are pleased with what is happening in our nation and our world, but in spite of it.  Let your praise be your protest. 

            And I know how hard that is. Praising God is part of my job description and I still find it difficult in the midst of division and hatred.  There will be moments when we can’t praise God and instead we pray Psalm 13, “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” There have been many moments over the last several years when I have asked, “How long?” I don’t care what political party you are in, I don’t know anyone who believes things are going swimmingly.  I don’t know anyone who feels that our government is doing a great job of standing up for the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, the imprisoned, all those people that the God of justice, (the God of psalm 146) promised to love and lift up.

What I fear more than anything, is hopelessness, people giving up hope.  So I ask that when we sing our final hymn, we will sing with whatever energy we have left-- these words: “Save us from weak resignation, to the evils we deplore..  Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, serving thee whom we adore.” Let us not forget who we serve. We serve a loving God who cares deeply for all those people the world just tosses aside.

Because of that, we keep saying Hallelujah, even if it’s barely a whisper. You don’t have to say it with triumph.  You don’t even have to say it with joy.  Say it however feels right in your soul. You know how we don’t say Alleluia during Lent? The one exception is at funerals. Because even in the midst of death and grief, we make our song—Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Even when we feel that all is lost, our God continues to save us and the people we love.  Let our Alleluia be our protest, our protest to the division, the hatred, the misogyny, the racism, the homophobia---all of those things that create walls instead of bridges. No one gets to take Hallelujah away from us.  Don’t stop praising God. Let our praise be our protest.

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[1] Hallelujah! The remarkable story behind this joyful word - Los Angeles Times.  Quote is from Markus Rathey, a professor at Yale

Tearing up the Shroud of Death: November 3

Year B, All Saints                                                       Isaiah 25:6-9                                                                                                 

            It’s complicated. All Saint’s Sunday is complicated. This is partly because the understanding of this day has evolved over the years. It was originally meant to be a day to commemorate all the Christian martyrs (those who had been persecuted and died for their faith).  In the first few centuries of the church, they would commemorate a martyr with a specific day. But by about the 4^th century, with the increased persecution of Christians, it became clear that they were going to run out of days.  Finally, by the 9^th century, they picked one day and called it All Saints Day.  This was to be the day that would not only commemorate all Christian martyrs, but all Christians who had died.  With all of these changes, the understanding of what it was to be a saint shifted to what many people perceive as the original intention…the intention of the New Testament—to include all Christians who have died and all Christians still living.

            When Paul used the word saint, he was almost always referring to those who were alive. In his letter to the Ephesians he wrote, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints…” Even knowing that---that saints includes the living and the dead, I have never completely wrapped my head around the reason that the Episcopal Church specified this day as a day when we should have baptisms.

There are 4 recommended days in the prayer book for baptisms.  One is Easter, which makes sense. It’s a celebratory day when we talk about new life and hope.  Pentecost is another as it marks the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the assembly and thousands of people were baptized as a result.  The other recommended day is the day when we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, which seems like an appropriate place to have a baptism.  But All Saint’s Day?

The challenge with having baptisms on All Saint’s Day is not just the grief  that comes with the recitation of the names of those who have died in the last year, but also the biblical readings themselves. The readings that we have on All Saint’s Day are the same readings that are recommended for funerals. They are about death and grief, at least that is what I associate them with. I recommend this reading from John when I am officiating a funeral for someone who has died unexpectedly, because people can often empathize with Mary’s frustration and anger and Jesus’ grief and tears.  I use this reading from Isaiah that talks about the feast of rich food and wine when the person who has died loved to cook or host gatherings.  I imagine them in heaven at this amazing banquet, finally being the recipient of hospitality rather than the host. 

While I associate these readings with death and funerals, our funeral liturgy in the Episcopal Church is about more than death and grief.  We try to emphasize with our readings, music and prayers, that we are also celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of us all.  Thus, it’s appropriate to have baptisms on this day when we read the names of those we have lost over the last year.  Because both baptisms and death are new beginnings—in very different ways, but they are new beginnings.

This year, I am just having a harder time with that idea.  I attended a funeral of a good friend a few weeks ago and I wanted to embrace the message of resurrection and this beautiful life to come, but it was hard.  The final hymn was, “It is well with my soul.” I struggled through singing that hymn, because it didn’t feel well with my soul.  My soul felt like it was covered in that shroud that Isaiah describes so perfectly in the first reading.  Isaiah talks about a shroud that is cast over all people.  Isaiah said that God will destroy that shroud and swallow up death forever.  But Isaiah was predicting what was to come in that time where there would be no death, when sin would be no more, when God would wipe away the tears from our faces. That time has not yet come.  People we love still die. We still live under the shroud of death, and sin is all too present in our world. 

In some ways, having baptisms on All Saint’s Day is little act of rebellion, and we do love our rebellions at Christ Church.  When we baptize our new saints, whether they be a small child like Rory or an adult who teaches the children of our city like Leah, we aren’t pretending that sin and death don’t exist. We are acknowledging their presence, but also protesting them. We are saying, yes, death is still a reality in our world. Evil and hatred are still present. In spite of all of that, maybe because of all that, we are still bringing new saints into our communion of saints. Not only that, we as a congregation are making a promise to support these new saints and be a community of saints with them, not because we are all perfect, or even close to perfect, but because we all know how much we need God in our lives. 

One of my favorite lines in the baptism is “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  When we say that line, we use oil blessed by our bishop.  We use that same oil for people who are very sick or about to die. It’s reminder that wherever we are on this journey that is our life and our faith, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  We will all die one day.  It’s the reality that we all face.  Before we die, we live, we live knowing that while death and sin are a shroud on this beautiful world, moments like this, when we are together celebrating new saints in our midst, provide tears and rips in that shroud and one day, God will come again and tear the shroud to pieces. 

The final line in our reading from Isaiah is: “This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Let’s not wait until God comes again to be glad and rejoice.  Let’s claim every moment we possibly can and rejoice in God’s love and salvation. Let’s do it now.