What Holy Does: Nov. 2

 Year C, All Saint Sunday                        Luke 6:20-31         

          All Saint’s Sunday can be a little complicated.  We call it All Saints Day, but that’s confusing for a lot of Christians, especially anyone who has spent time in the Roman Catholic Church.  Catholics and Episcopalians share the belief that all baptized Christians (alive and dead) are considered saints.  This is how the apostle Paul used the word saint.   We hear that in his letter to the Ephesians: “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints…” When Paul used the word saint, he was always referring to the faithful, but imperfect Christians. 

What has led to some confusion, is that at some point the Roman Catholic Church created a process of canonization or beatification (and I am simplifying this greatly right now) in which a pope would declare a person worthy of veneration.  The pope doesn’t create a saint as they are already a saint because they are a Christian….the pope declares them worthy of veneration.  What is a bit confusing, is the person then has a “Saint” in front of their name…despite the fact that we are all saints.  I could refer to our baptismal candidates as Saint Matt, Saint George and Saint Owen….but let’s face it, that sounds a bit odd.

          What further complicates All Saints Day is that we read the names of those who have died in the last year and we have baptisms.  Reading the names of those who have died reinforces the idea that you have to be dead to be a saint.  In baptizing people we are reminding one another that saints are also the living.  I wonder if instead of asking what it means to be a saint, it would be helpful to consider what it means to be holy. 

In Hebrew and Greek (which are the languages that most of our Bible is translated from) holy meant to be set apart. To be holy meant to be separate from the world.  This caused some people to physically separate themselves from other people.  That’s why so many in the early church went to the dessert, to seek a deeper relationship with God away from everyone else.  It’s why even today there are Christians who think they should only associate with other Christians, as if non Christians would defile them in some way. 

I think one of the strengths of the Episcopal Church is that while we came from the Church of England, the Episcopal Church was really established in the very early years of our nation right here at this church and they were surrounded by different denominations and religions, very much thanks to the vision of William Penn.  Those church leaders who were around at that time understood that holiness didn’t mean that one had to be separated from those who weren’t like them.

          Yet over the years, especially the last 20-30 years, the Episcopal Church has been criticized for not being set apart quite enough.  We have been accused of going along with popular culture instead of standing up for the doctrines of our faith. Maybe that is true sometimes. Occasionally we can compromise a little too much.  But often we have worked along side popular culture because it’s actually the Christ like thing to do.  Ordaining women at the height of the women’s movement.  Did we do that just because that was what the public was telling us needed to happen, or were we listening to the movement of the Holy Spirit and studying the scriptures as well the traditions of the early church? When we consecrated the first openly gay man as a bishop, were we going along  with popular culture or were we once again moving with the Holy Spirit and as our baptismal covenant says---respecting the dignity of every human being?  I am biased, but I believe we were moving with the Holy Spirit. We have made many mistakes in the church over the years, but we have also corrected a lot of those mistakes, often with the help of people who are not in the church.

          Today, an interesting thing is happening. Popular culture is moving in a different way.   Many are trying to rebrand Christianity, in ways that I think are contrary to much of what Jesus taught. Some are trying to make Christianity the religion of the empire and that was never Jesus’ intention.  We Episcopalians have a unique opportunity right now to be counter cultural, as the church was when it started.  We can be holy in a different sense of the word.  We are not set apart from the world, we are just refusing to go along with what popular culture is trying to sell as Christianity. 

I was struggling with this sermon I asked my 9 year old son what he thought holy meant and he said, “When you host a party, you wash everyone’s feet.”  He didn’t try to define holiness.  He said what it does.  Holiness isn’t a state of being. It’s action.  And that is exactly what our Gospel is about.  After Jesus shared the beatitudes where he lifted up a very counter cultural message he said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.  Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you…”

          It’s probably one of the hardest messages of the Christian faith.  It would be easier to be separate from these people who are hating us, abusing us, stealing from us, begging….  But holiness, and saintliness is not about how we separate ourselves.  It’s how we connect ourselves to one another.  That doesn’t mean we don’t stand for what we believe in even when it is contrary to what others are saying we should believe.  It means we don’t stand alone.  We continue to stand in the midst of the chaos, the crime, the self righteousness, the anger, the hate….all those things we want to ignore.  We stand in the midst, sometimes holding up the others who can’t stand for themselves because they have been too beaten down, too battered.  We stand with them or we don’t bother standing at all.

          This is where the community of the saints comes together. This is why we read the names of the beloved faithful who have died over this past year and we baptize children who have no idea what they are getting into (but have parents and godparents who do) and we baptize adults like Matt who knows mostly what he is getting himself into.  You are not just being baptized for yourselves, but for the whole community, so you have strength to stand for others, the strength to do the hard things like loving our enemies….even the really really annoying ones.  And it’s ok if you are not there yet, whether you are a child, or a young adult, or you are 94.  I am not sure I am ever going to get good at loving my enemy.

          But I worship a man named Jesus who was born as a baby to poor parents and was killed by the Roman empire for crimes he didn’t commit and forgave those people as he was dying on the cross….and then rose from the dead because he wasn’t just a really good guy. He’s God and he showed us all—not just what holiness looks like, but what it does. 

When Paul was Tactful: Sept 7

Year C, Pentecost 13                                                          Philemon 1-21                                                    

           In 1619, about 20 Africans landed on the coast of Virginia, about a mile from my previous church.  While slavery was not yet institutionalized in the colonies, these 20 individuals were enslaved, mostly in Jamestown.  The first recorded baptism of an enslaved person was William Tucker in 1624.  He was baptized by the rector of my previous church and many more baptisms of enslaved people followed. What we don’t know is how those baptisms happened.  Were they required? Did William Tucker’s parents want him to be baptized or was it the decision of the Christian who owned him?  We were still the Church of England in 1624, but the practice continued through the first 80 years of the Episcopal Church, until slavery was abolished. 

            I imagine that many of you can see the disconnect between baptizing a person into the Christian faith while still maintaining that the person can be owned.  Some might assume that the enslavers just weren’t thinking that way, as if it didn’t occur to them that baptizing enslaved people might then lead to different kinds of freedom.  Evidently someone was thinking that way because in 1667, the General Assembly in Virginia felt the need to pass an act that said being baptized doesn’t exempt an enslaved person from bondage. In other words, being baptized didn’t make you free, at least not if you were African.  The words that were used in the baptismal service was that the individual being baptized was “grafted into the body of Christ’s Church”[1] But according to lawmakers at the time, being a Christian didn’t give someone rights in this life— only the next. 

            Of course slavery wasn’t just in the United States.  It was happening during Jesus’ life as well, not quite in the same way.  At the time, slavery didn’t last a lifetime.  People were usually freed by the time they were 30.  In Paul’s letter to Philemon, we heard a little about slavery in the ancient world. Philemon is the 3^rd shortest book in the Bible…which means we have the rare opportunity to discuss an entire book of the Bible in about 10 minutes.

            The other unique thing about this letter is that it’s to a person rather than a community.  Why would a personal letter be included in our sacred text?  If you read the entire run on first sentence, you will see that it’s not just directed to Philemon and a few others, Paul included “the church in your house.”  At this time, it was common to worship in people’s homes.  There were no Christian churches, so new Christians organized around a home and family.  This letter was directed to an individual, but it was meant to be shared with the community, which meant it had wider implications than just a few people.  Paul knew that and evidently those who put together the canon of scripture saw that as well. 

Most scholars believe that Paul was a prisoner when he wrote this letter and that was possibly how he met a man named Onesimus who was an enslaved man who escaped.  During Paul’s time with Onesimus, he was converted to Christianity.  It’s not clear whether Onesimus was in prison with Paul or was simply helping  him while he was in prison.  Prisons at this time were truly horrible places and your needs (food, clothing, etc) had to be provided from someone on the outside.  Since Paul wrote about how useful Onesimus was, it’s possible that he was supporting Paul while he was imprisoned.  This letter is asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus (because he escaped) and possibly free him.

            Since Paul can often be rather offensive and unconcerned about the feelings of the person receiving the letter, I find the tone of this letter fascinating.  On the one hand, I want Paul to write Philemon and call him out as a hypocrite because he should obviously see why being a Christian and owning someone is wrong.  But Paul is uncharacteristically careful in how he handles this confrontation. 

He started how he often started letters, he told the receiver how he prayed for them and thanked God for them, in particular, “for your love for all the saints.”  When Paul referred to “saints” he was referring to all Christians.  He was reminding them of the compassion they already exhibited. He then went on to say, “though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love…”   What frustrates some modern readers, is that Paul never explicitly told Philemon to give Onesimus is freedom, nor did he condemn slavery as a whole.  Instead he asked that he should receive him “no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother.”

            The point might seem clear to us, but during the time when slavery was still around, slave holders used this text to defend slavery. They said, “Look, Paul wasn’t telling Philemon to free him, he was just asking that he not be punished for running away and that since he was now a Christian, he should be treated just a little better.” I think Paul was arguing for freedom. He later said, “So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.”  Treat this man who was formerly enslaved as you would the apostle Paul…the man who was highly respected in this community.  Paul also later shared that Philemon became a Christian because of Paul, which means Paul would have been held in high esteem by Philemon and his family.

 Notice the familial language that Paul used.  He referred to Onesimus as his child. He said that Philemon should consider him a beloved brother.  You can’t enslave your child or your brother.  Paul didn’t appeal to Philemon’s humanity or sense of justice.  He appealed to his Christian faith, his compassion and understanding of what it is to be a Christian.  When we say that we are siblings in Christ, we mean that. 

Now you might thing I am avoiding the Gospel, but the truth is I really wanted to preach on Philemon. However, they are related. Here is the 30 second explanation of the Gospel.  Jesus was using hyperbole to get people’s attention.  He was not advocating for us to hate our family.  But he was saying that people should prioritize God, even over family.  That doesn’t mean we are taking love from our family, as there is not a limited supply of love. It means we are expanding who we can love.  All Christians are our family.  And if all Christians are our family, then we really need to consider more carefully how we treat one another…which is why Philemon is in the Bible…which is why the men who put together the Bible 1800 years ago thought, this one page letter needed to be remembered for a very long time. 

Now you might be thinking, what about people who aren’t Christians? Are we allowed to treat them poorly? No.  There are plenty of other places in the Bible that talks about how God loved people from all faiths.  But in Philemon, Paul is talking about how we can use our Christian faith to guide us in how we treat the people who are considered less than.  Just imagine for a second if we could just get Christians in the world to actually do that…even if Christians were just treating other Christians well.  That would be some serious progress.

Now the reason Paul’s tone in this letter matters is that it can guide us in how we make certain arguments.  It’s satisfying to label people as hypocrites and bigots.  But it never accomplishes anything.  Paul could have just told Philemon what to do, but he wanted it to sink in.  He wanted Philemon to know why he was freeing Onesimus and expanding his family.  Because then he could be an example for others as well.  The other thing that made a difference in this situation is that Paul already had a relationship with Philemon.  He even said at the end of the letter, please make up a guest room, because I am planning to visit.  Philemon knew that Paul was going to check on Onesimus.  Paul was showing him how committed he was to this situation with his words and actions. 

What makes this letter so incredible is that not only does it teach us how our faith informs how we treat others.  It also helps us talk to others when we are trying to help them see something that might be quite obvious to us.  Just like Paul wrote in his letter, we must appeal to others on the basis of love, not anger or righteous indignation. Love.

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[1] 1662 Book of Common Prayer

Satan, Baptism, Death, Oh my: June 25, 2023

 Year A, Pentecost 4                             Romans 6:1-11                                                                                

            Normally we are not fortunate enough to have a reading coincide with baptismal themes.  For instance, if you were listening when I read the Gospel, you probably found that language about setting a man against his father and a daughter against her mother less than appealing for a baptism. I read that and thought, well that’s a horrible text for a baptism.  I mean, I could probably find some connections if I tried really hard, but it would have been a stretch. I was relieved when I saw that Romans actually talked about baptism because that meant I had a legitimate reason to choose Romans rather than the Gospel.  Then I read Romans carefully and I was sad again…because it’s a complicated reading.  It was a real roller coaster of emotions for me.   Our readings rotate on a three year cycle and coincide with whatever is going on in the church year. It’s called the lectionary.  It’s inconvenient at times to have such limited flexibility in terms of what we hear on Sunday.  At the same time, it means that our Bible reading is uncensored in some respects.  The preacher can’t just choose the safe readings.           

            I always like to go through the baptismal liturgy line by line when I meet with the parents and godparents of the child about to be baptized.  We have a saying in the Episcopal Church—that praying shapes believing.  In others words, what and how we pray shapes and in some ways shows what we believe.   If you read our whole baptismal liturgy, you will get a really wonderful overview of what we believe in the Episcopal Church. That said, there are a few places when it’s obvious to me that Iose the parents and godparents.  The first is when we talk about renouncing Satan. Obviously, no one is interested in approving of Satan, but people are confused as to why we are talking about Satan during a baptism when we don’t talk about it in any other worship service.  I will come back to that.

            The 2^nd place in the liturgy where I see people squirm a little is in the section called “Thanksgiving over the water,” specifically when we talk about what the water symbolizes and the role water has played in critical moments in the Judeo-Christian story.  We say, “In it we are buried with Christ in his death.”  Now you see why I was so excited that we had this reading from Romans today.  #1—this is proof that the Book of Common Prayer is based on the Bible.  #2. We get to see that some of what we believe about baptism comes directly from the Apostle Paul.  In our reading from today, he wrote, “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death…” I know what you are thinking, well now it all makes perfect sense. Obviously, this is why we talk about death when we are baptizing an adorable baby. No?  Not yet clear?  Well that’s ok, because that’s what I want to talk about. I am going to tell you why death in this context…is good news.

            For Paul, the death he was talking about was a figurative death.  It was and is dying to sin.  It’s the idea that sin no longer has control over us because Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice when he died for us.  When he died for us, he was wiping the slate clean for all God’s people.  This is a major tenant of our faith but one that I think a lot of modern Christians struggle with.  Why did Jesus have to die in order that we might live? I am not sure.  Tomes of theology books are written on the topic, but I am not yet convinced as to why it had to be that way.  What I know is that Jesus died because it was the only way for him to be the person God called him to be. His goodness, his divinity, offended the people in power. He wasn’t willing to back down.  He wasn’t willing to be someone else.  So they killed him.

            That sacrifice, that determination to be his authentic self, allowed Jesus to show his love to people who were hell bent on rejecting him.  It’s what separated him from the false messiahs, of which there were many.  It was a demonstration of such immense love, that it broke the chains that enslaved God’s people.  It allowed God’s people to be free from sin.  It’s what I talked about last week---it’s grace. It’s the free gift that we didn’t deserve or know we needed. 

            Does that mean that now we are all sin free?  Clearly not. We all know that we sin.  However, what makes us free is not that we never sin, but that sin doesn’t define us.  It’s part of who we are, but it’s not all of who we are.  One of the last things we do in the baptismal service is anoint the individual with oil and proclaim, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  Baptism is about a new identity, it’s an identity where you can truly be yourself because you are created to be good and loving. You are created to love others and to love God and you can do that because you have gone through this figurative death.

            Now, Edie is young.  While she certainly has character and her own unique identity, no one would label her as a sinner in need of redemption.  At the same time, sin is inevitable and this baptism gives her freedom to always be defined not by her faults or sins, but by the grace that God has given her.  It’s the job of the parents, godparents, family and all the people in the church to remind her that her identity as a baptized child of God is steeped in goodness, and that is a goodness that can never be taken away.

Photo by Jon Tyson 

            So back to the devil thing.  Why do we renounce the devil in baptism? I think it’s to remind us that while we have been freed from sin, sin is still a relentless foe.  Evil is around us.  We can’t ignore it.  But we also can’t internalize it.  We can’t let it fester in our souls.  We must remember that evil is the enemy and it has to be renounced because our identity as children of God is goodness and light. Again, that doesn’t mean we are perfect. It means that we not defined by our imperfections.  We are defined—no---we are loved---by a God who refused to let the evil of this world change his identity. No matter what God’s people did, God’s reaction was to forgive and to love.  That was true when Jesus died and rose again.  It’s still true today.  God is a God of love and forgiveness and we who worship that God, we are people of love and forgiveness as well.    

We Need More Dreamers: December 4, 2022

Year A, Advent 2                                       Isaiah 11:1-10                                                                                                  

          I am horrible with plants. I love them and I am always trying to grow them, but it just never seems to work out for me.  Therefore, bringing a dead plant back to life seems almost unfathomable.  However, after reading this text from Isaiah about 10 times, I started to wonder if a dead stump could actually sprout. The text says, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  According to my extensive research on two different gardening websites, it’s possible. Apparently, you can grow a brand new tree out of an old stump. 

            Who is this Jesse and why does he have a stump? Jesse was the father of King David.  This stump represented the dynastic line of David.  Clearly things weren’t going particularly well for the House of David when Isaiah prophesized.  A stump doesn’t exactly project strength and vitality.  Israel had been ransacked by multiple enemies by the time the Book of Isaiah was written. The people were exiled, the kingdoms fell. They had a few good and righteous kings after King David, but the line was almost unidentifiable 500 years after King David reigned.  Since our country is less than 300 years old and created without a king, it’s hard to imagine a 500 year dynasty.  Seem like a pretty good run to me.           

            But this dynasty was about more than just leadership.  To some extent, it was about salvation.  It was about God’s commitment to Israel.  The people of Israel were supposed to be God’s chosen people and David was the chosen king.  When all they had was a stump, there was despair.   Yet what today’s text tells us is that this stump still held life within it.  Perhaps that is not the best description.  The stump wasn’t alive as much as it was receptive to the spirit that washed over it. The spirit gave that stump life. It changed everything.

            The first part of our reading is about the transition from despair to hope.  It speaks of a new leader who will be righteous and just.  This leader will receive God’s wisdom, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. “Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”  Of course one of the reasons that we read this in Advent is that Christians believe this is all pointing to Jesus.  And one cannot deny that Jesus was righteous and faithful.  I am not sure that he was the leader people were really hoping for as he ended up betrayed by many of his followers and crucified.  He was not the leader people imagined, but he was the leader people needed.

            The 2^nd half of the reading paints a picture of utopia.  It’s actually a kind of ridiculous image.   I can imagine a cow and a bear hanging out, but a child playing with a poisonous snake seems a little crazy.  Of all the creatures to play with, why a snake?  As you can tell, I am not a fan of snakes.  Of course if you think too much about the image, it loses its appeal.  The point is that this new world has no natural enemies.  Forget about the enemies we create.  There are no enemies at all. The whole natural order is thrown out in this new world. 

            Now part of me wants to say, this image is too unrealistic.  Look at the state of our world right now.  We’ve had 4 mass killings in the last month—and that’s just our country.  This idea of a world with no conflict is beyond our hopes and dreams.  Yet perhaps we have been trained to dream too little.  In our need for realism and attainable goals, we have lost sight of a God who wants us to see something we can barely imagine.  Unfortunately we lose that ability to dream as we age.  We forget what it is to imagine.  This place where there are no conflicts and only harmony is God’s dream for our world.  It’s God’s dream for us.  God wants our dreams to go beyond what we can see.  Isaiah’s vision isn’t a goal to be achieved.  It’s a dream by which we set our course.[1]  One of my favorite prayers is sometimes also used as a blessing. It reads, “Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little…”  I wonder in our desire for attainable goals and benchmarks, we have lost the ability to see what God so desperately wants us to see.

            Our Gospel reading was brought alive by that powerful depiction of John the Baptist.  John the Baptist is a typical prophet in many ways.  He was delivering hard truths to people who did not want to hear it.  John appears in all the gospels, but it’s only in this gospel when he specifically calls out the Pharisees and Sadducees, the people who were far too comfortable in their lives and confident because of their religious pedigree. 

            I think what was really frustrating John the Baptist wasn’t that the Pharisees were wrong or even immoral.  It was that they had become too complacent.  They were ok with the system as it was because it was benefiting them.  I think it’s fair to say that most of have become a little too comfortable in our lives. There are times, like in the pandemic when changes come that we can’t control and we are forced to change how we live.  That definitely shook a lot of us out of our complacency. But most of the time, we just move through our days quite contentedly.  This isn’t to say that things are smooth sailing or we never have bad things happen to us.  But all in all, we don’t want someone coming in here and telling us that everything has to change, that we have to change. 

            Like Isaiah, John was also trying to paint a picture of a new kind of leader.  He wasn’t presenting some utopian future.  In fact, the way he describes Jesus sounds a little scary. But he knew this leader would be led by the Spirit and would change people--- change the world.  John clearly still had the ability to dream and imagine.  He knew that whatever was going at that time wasn’t right. Too many people were suffering.  So he dreamed of another world.  I think it’s why he dragged people into the wilderness.  He wanted them to get away from their everyday lives, force them to see things from a different perspective. 

            As we age, it’s hard to keep dreaming, but there are moments when the blinders slide a little and we dream again.  Often it’s when we are with babies and children.  Children allow us to hope like we once did. They make us see new possibilities.  They also challenge us to make changes.  I never cared as much about the environment as I did after I became a mother.  Because the more I imagined his future, the more I realized that he was going to be on this earth a lot longer than me and the things I do now can have a major effect on him in 50 years. Children can remind us that there is a future worth fighting for, a future that can and should be better than what we have now.

So it is fitting that we have a baptism today.  Because baptism reminds us not only of the wonder and innocence of babies and children, but also about the renewal that is available to us all. That is why we do the baptismal covenant.  We want to remember who we can be as children of God.

            I want to give you all some homework. I want you to take some time to daydream, to remember what you hoped for as a child and also try to consider what you truly hope for now.  What is God’s dream for you?  Don’t be realistic. Don’t be reasonable.  Don’t try to create a smart goal.  Be like Isaiah.  Be like John.  Just open yourself to God’s dream and then take one step, any step, in the direction of that dream.  If an old stump can grow a new tree…if Jesus Christ can rise from the dead, then surely we can remember how to dream again. 

 

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[1]  https://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/advent-2-a-reclaiming-repentance/

Marked as Christ's Own: May 30th 2021

 Year B, Trinity Sunday                                                    Romans 8:12-17                                                                      

One of the parts of my job I have always enjoyed is talking with parents and Godparents before a baptism. It’s one of my few opportunities to talk to people in a small group about the very basic tenets of our faith.  What I typically do is walk them through the liturgy itself as pretty much everything we believe about baptism is in the words of the service itself.   I usually end by admitting that while there are many prayers and words in the baptismal service, you could, if you really needed to, skip them all and simply say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” I always feel a bit sheepish admitting this, as if I have just pulled a fast one over on the family.  Yet as I reflected on that particular line this week, in anticipation of Trinity Sunday, it had a different effect on me. 

I rarely preach on the Trinity.  Most preaching professors warn their students not to try to preach the Trinity.  It gets too complicated and almost any explanation of the Trinity ends up being labeled as heretical.   Trinity Sunday is one of the few feast days that celebrates a doctrine rather than an event, which means it’s kind of easy to ignore, because who wants to celebrate doctrine?  But it’s more than just doctrine.  And it’s more than an elaborate cliff note to our baptismal liturgy.

Over 10 years ago, a book called “The Shack” was written. The Shack wasn’t a perfect book, but there was one thing I really loved about that book. It brought the Trinity alive in a way I had never experienced before. It made me want to hang out with every member of the Trinity....live with the Trinity.  Intellectually I knew what the Trinity was. I am not saying I have ever claimed to understand it, but I had the working definition.  Yet this book made me want to have a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And at its very essence, that is what the Trinity is about—relationship—their relationship with one another and our relationship with the triune God.

Paul had a unique relationship with God, different than the disciples who had actually met Jesus in the flesh.  Jesus spoke to Paul after his Ascension into heaven which is what led Paul to transforming his life.  He went from persecuting Christians to becoming one of the greatest Christian theologians and evangelists of all time.  This is amazing when you consider he never met Jesus. His experience with Jesus was limited to a bright light and a voice from heaven. It was over in a few minutes. 

The fact that Paul was able to address God as “Abba” (which is essentially Daddy) is remarkable because it means he had an intimate relationship with God.  In his Letter to the Romans he wrote, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God…”  Consider that moment when a child (or maybe an adult) calls out to a parent after having a nightmare.  It’s a moment of desperation and instinct, when you call on the person you know will always protect you, always come to you. That was Paul’s relationship with God.  His relationship wasn’t merely lovely prayers and exquisite theological arguments.  It was made up of cries in the night to the one he knew was listening. 

That is the relationship we are all meant to have with God—the kind of relationship we can’t always define but also can’t live without.  I believe that at our very base level almost all humans have personal relationship with God.  Even when self-proclaimed atheists are desperate, they call out to God.  Some might consider that insincere, maybe even delusional, but I think it’s proof that we are (at our very core) God’s children-- even those of us who don’t believe in him are still God’s children.

I have to admit that I have never dwelled on this part of this passage, because I am always a little uncomfortable when people pray to God as Daddy or Mommy.  Perhaps it’s because I am accustomed to the formality of the Episcopal Church, but it just seems unnatural to me.  Yet what struck me this time was the astonishing fact that this was Paul calling God Daddy.  Paul was not the warm and fuzzy type. He had been a Pharisee, a keeper of the rules. He followed the letter of the law. I am not saying his faith was insincere.  It was very sincere.  But before he heard the voice of Jesus, he definitely wasn’t calling God Daddy.  In fact, before Jesus came to the earth and embodied God, Jews were not even able to say the name of God.  Even when writing the name of God, they would leave the vowels out because to say or write the name of God was forbidden.  Yet here Paul is telling the Romans that as children of God, we call God Abba. 

This wasn’t Paul merely repeating church doctrine.  His letter to the Romans was written before the Gospels were written.  Surely he had been taught about Jesus, but it’s clear that he wasn’t merely repeating something someone told him.  He knew God intimately.  And if a Pharisee who once persecuted Christians can know God this well, then we all can.  Paul wasn’t trying to explain the Trinity here, but he was showing what it is to be in a relationship with God.

We have a baptism at the later service…which is a very appropriate thing to do on Trinity Sunday, not merely because we baptize the child in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but because we are blessing a relationship. Our catechism says that in baptism we are adopted as God’s children and made members of Christ’s body, the church. 

We are all born to a human family. Some of us are adopted into a human family. But every single one of us has the opportunity to be adopted into God’s family.  That family is far from perfect, but it is enveloped in God’s perfect and unconditional love.  My very favorite part of the baptismal service is the end where the priest makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of the baptismal candidate with oil and says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  The oil will wash off, but God’s promise will be with that child of God for all time. 

All of you who are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are marked as Christ’s own forever.  And once you are marked, you can never escape God’s tenacious love. He will find you wherever you go.  Even in your darkest time when you are certain God is nowhere near, I encourage you to touch your forehead, make the sign of the cross and remember what it is to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. Remember what it is to know God and be known by him.      

 

 

Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary: January 12, 2020

Epiphany 1, Year A          

Matthew 3:13-17                                                                                            

In my last church, I worked closely with the youth group.  I took them on mission trips, retreats, lock-ins.  For some reason, no matter how positive or meaningful the experience was, I would walk away feeling a little disappointed.  We usually had a Eucharist at some point in the week and I would hope that there would be some change.  All of a sudden things would fall into place for the youth.  They would break into tears and hug one another while we all praised God.  I just wanted a few tears, some acknowledgment that this was meaningful, maybe transformational.  Not once.  Finally in a moment of desperation, I asked them, when were we going to have the moment…the moment? They looked at me. They looked at each other. They rolled their eyes and we moved on.  I never got that moment, at least not the moment I expected and wanted.

There were a lot of expectations about what the Messiah was supposed to be.  Some thought that he would be a king, like King David.  Some expected a military leader who would lead an army and overthrow the Romans.  Some expected a god with supernatural powers who would require that everyone submit to him.  There were a lot of hopes and dreams about who the Messiah would be.  But what we can safely say is that no one expected a carpenter.  No one expected Jesus.

We don’t know that much about John the Baptist. Given the relationship of his mother and the mother of Jesus, we know they were related in some way, but it’s possible they had never met before (at least not outside of the womb).  It would seem from the text that John knew that Jesus was the messiah, but he was also surprised by the encounter.  John the Baptist prophesized about the Messiah, but talked about someone different than the Jesus we encounter in our Gospel. Just a few verses before the ones we heard today in the Gospel, John said, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  It makes Jesus sound fairly intimidating, almost otherworldly.

The very next verse, Jesus showed up right in front of John.  There was no fire.  There was no winnowing fork.  There Jesus was, looking just like any other man.  The weirdest part, the most unbelievable part was that he was asking John to baptize him. I wonder if John was disappointed in this moment.  I wonder if he looked at Jesus and thought, is this the Messiah that I have spent my life preparing for?

Obviously, we cannot know the mind of John.  It did appear that he was confused as he protested baptizing Jesus.  He felt that it was Jesus who was supposed to be baptizing him.  He even argued a little. But to his credit, he relented and baptized Jesus as that was what Jesus asked him to do.  If I were John, I would have expected something dramatic to happen.  If this is the Son of God, surely this cannot look like every other baptism. The text says that the heavens opened, a voice came from above and a dove descended.  That sounds impressive to us.  However, it could have simply been the clouds parting, a bird flying over and a voice that only Jesus and John heard.  It was probably something fairly subtle because there does not seem to be any major reaction. In fact, as soon as this was over, Jesus simply walked into the desert by himself.  It was obviously an important moment for Jesus and John the Baptist as Jesus was identified as the beloved Son of God, but I am not sure it had the fanfare that we imagine, that people wanted for the Son of God. I imagine Jesus walked away and John stood there, pondering what it all meant.  We know that later John sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  Apparently even John needed Jesus to assure him, to remind him.  We all need that assurance of the holy and divine.  It’s one of the reasons we come to church. 

It’s hard to believe, to have faith.  If John the Baptist had a hard time 2000 years ago, how much harder is it for us now?  We want what Jesus had, a voice from heaven, a parting of the heavens.  We want what Mary and Joseph had, an angel descending and explaining things.  We want a star to shine so brightly that we can follow it to the place where our faith will be sealed. We want miracles and signs. We want certainty and assurances.  When I worked with those youth, I had an image of what faith was supposed to look like. The more I focused on it, the more disappointed I was. 

It’s normal to want a miracle, a sign, drama, or in my case, tears.  Instead of looking for miracles and drama, we might just need to change our expectations.  I’m not saying you can’t keep praying for miracles and searching for signs—you should if that is what you need.  But you also need to look for the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary.  At Jesus’ baptism, maybe some people saw the clouds parting while a few saw the heavens opening.  Maybe some heard the wind whistling through the trees, while others heard the voice of God.

I never had that spectacular earth changing moment that I wanted with the youth.  I can’t be sure that they felt anything at all.  But when I left, they made me a collage, of words they associates with me.  Obviously there was chocolate, and shoes, but the words that came up over and over again wasn’t miracle, or transformation, of even faith, it was “my priest.” I was their priest even when I was begging them to just shed a few tears, even when I was crying because I was disappointed it how it all came out, I was still their priest.   They could see what I could never see because of my absurd expectations.

Epiphany is supposed to be about revelation and insight.  But sometimes revelation and insight comes with changing our expectations, or maybe releasing whatever expectations we have.  No matter how amazing they are, they fall short of the glory of God. They even fall short of the glory God sees in us.  Each of us ordinary human are glorious in God’s eyes.  We just can’t see it.

I think what made Jesus’ baptism special, what made it holy was that it was extraordinary not because of the majesty or the drama, but that the ordinary and the extraordinary were all wrapped up together. Jesus showed that he didn’t need fire and a winnowing fork to be glorious.  He didn’t need people falling on their faces in front of him to prove who he was. He just needed an ordinary river, with an ordinary prophet and an extraordinary God who was there no matter who could or could not see that God. 

Be a Neighbor: July 14, 2019

Year C, Pentecost 5                                                              

Luke 10:25-37                                                                                   

            We all know the story of the Good Samaritan.  Hospitals, churches, and even laws are named after it.  The story has become so well known, so secularized, that it has lost much of its power.  It is easy to interpret it as a simple morality tale, but there is more to this story.  Our Gospel reading begins with a question posed to Jesus.   “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  It’s a good question.  It’s kind of like asking, “What do I need to do to get to heaven?”  Jesus volleyed the question back to the lawyer. The lawyer was an expert in the law, so Jesus asked him, “Well, what’s written in the law?” (By the way, in referring to the law, Jesus was referring to scripture---specifically the first 5 books of the Old Testament.)  The lawyer provided the right answer ("You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.") and Jesus encouraged him to follow that law so that he might live. 

Now our text says that the lawyer was trying to test Jesus. Maybe he was at the beginning.  But I think his next question indicated that he really was searching for answers.  Part of the law that he quoted was loving your neighbor as yourself.  Had he merely been testing Jesus, it would have been wise for him to leave it at that.  But he asked a follow up question: who is my neighbor. 

            Jesus could have given a straightforward answer.  He could have said, “Anyone and everyone.” But instead, he told a story, because it’s easy to dismiss an answer like “anyone and everyone.”  In the story, 2 religious leaders pass by a man lying on the side of the road.   Neither stops to help. Now, there are a dozen good reasons why they would have passed without helping.  It was an infamously dangerous road.  They could have been afraid that it was a set up as this was a fairly common technique that thieves used.  They could have assumed that the man was dead and had they gotten even close to a dead man, they would have broken one of their holiness codes and become unclean---which means they would not have been able to perform their jobs.  Their intentions or lack of intentions isn’t the point.  We like to focus on them because it’s always easy to point out the hypocrisy of others.

            But Jesus was not interested in their motives. The star of the story is of course the Samaritan.  Jesus never referred to him as the good Samaritan.  He didn’t have to.  His deeds proved that he was good.  Jesus did specify that he was a Samaritan.  This was important because Samaritans were loathed by the Jews.  It wasn’t just that they didn’t like them. They were enemies. In the story right before this one in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and his disciples were rejected in a Samaritan village.  No one would have expected the hero to be a Samaritan, but that was part of what made this such an intriguing story.  Often when we hear this story, especially in secular environments, the focus is on the person lying in the ditch, the person in need.  The moral of the story is that the person in need is our neighbor. But after the parable, when Jesus asked the question of the lawyer, he didn’t ask who was the neighbor.  He asked who acted like a neighbor.  It wasn’t the man in the ditch.  It was the person who showed mercy—the Samaritan. 

The reason this distinction matter---the reason this specific question that Jesus asks matters--- is that it is so easy for us to argue about who is and who is not worthy of our mercy and compassion.  It is easy to judge people who we think aren’t helping enough or are helping too much, perhaps enabling.  Right now in our society, we spend a lot of time blaming anything and everything on different categories of people. It’s the ultra right.  It’s the unpatriotic left.  It’s the lazy millienials. It’s the entitled boomers.  Humans love to put people in categories.  Yet we get really irritated when someone tries to categorize us because we don’t want to be put in a box.  It’s so much easier to judge others. 

Who is our neighbor? That’s not the question Jesus was asking.  Because the answer really is everyone, but that’s way too hard to wrap our heads around.  So Jesus made it more concrete.  Instead of challenging us to identify our neighbor, he asked, how can you be a neighbor?  The answer is to show mercy to those who are suffering.  There are no qualifications, quantifications or specifications on who we are helping.  Show mercy.  This parable isn’t about the poor soul lying in the ditch.  It’s about our actions as the brothers and sisters of that person lying in the ditch. 

This conversation between the lawyer and Jesus started out as a debate. This lawyer wanted a debate. It’s so much easier to debate what we believe rather than act on what we believe.  The longer we debate and argue, the less we actually have to do.  Let’s stop talking about who our neighbor is and focus instead on how to be a neighbor, a good neighbor. 

We are about to baptize a baby.  There are few things we do in church that are more uplifting than welcoming a child into the household of God. Right before the baptism, we all affirm our baptismal vows together.  One of the questions we ask is: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? The people respond, “I will with God’s help.” I get it. Being a neighbor, showing mercy…it’s a challenge. We might wonder how to start. The answer is in the question of our baptismal covenant. Seek and serve Christ in all persons.  That’s how we start.  We seek out Christ in people.  We seek out the good and then we find a way to reflect that good.  Look at Wyatt.  How can you not love a baby like that? That baby deserves our love and compassion.  Remember that’s how we all start. We are all born into the world as children of God, deserving love and compassion.   We don’t usually stay that cute and fragile, but we never stop being beloved children of God who deserve love and compassion.  Don’t worry about who your neighbor is. Instead practice being a neighbor.  Seek and serve Christ in all person’s with God’s help.