We live: August 23, 2015

Year B, Pentecost 12  (Feast of Jonathan Daniels)                      
Luke 1: 46-55                                                                                     

            I went to Gettysburg College.  Gettysburg is known for being one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War as well as a turning point in the war.  While the history of the war does not have an overt influence on campus life, it has subtle influences.  Our main administration building was used as a hospital for both union and confederate troops.  There are a lot of ghost stories involving that building, as well as almost every building on campus.  Some of the influences I have only seen in retrospect.  For instance, I love the Battle Hymn of the Republic.[1]  I do not usually like hymns that use battle imagery to depict the strength of God, but I love that hymn because we sang it in my college choir.  Every year our choir would go on tour and there would be one song that would be civil war era.  We sang the Battle Hymn when we were in the north and “I wish I was in Dixie” when we toured the South.  I don’t know if I knew that the Battle Hymn was a union song, but someone reminded me of that recently when I was discussing my love of the hymn.   The reason that the hymn has been at the forefront of my mind over the last couple of months is because our Presiding Bishop elect quoted pieces of that hymn in his sermon at General Convention.  The piece he ended with was “Glory glory Halleluiah!” 

            But that’s not why I chose this hymn for today.  You see, there was another well-known preacher who liked to quote pieces of this hymn in his sermons and speeches, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  His last public words before his death were, “Mine eyes have seen the glory.”   This hymn was a popular hymn during the Civil Rights movement and today we are remembering a martyr of the Civil Rights movement.  His name is Jonathan Daniels.  This year marks the 50^th anniversary of his death. There were many martyrs of the Civil Rights movement, but one of the reasons that he is on our calendar of holy men and holy women is because not only was he a martyr, but he was an Episcopal seminarian. 

            In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. challenged students and clergy to join in the march from Selma to Montgomery.   Jonathan Daniels left seminary in Boston and joined the march.  He returned to Boston and asked his bishop if he could finish the Spring term in Selma working with the Civil Rights movement.  He worked with voter registration, picketed local businesses, tutored African American children and brought those children with him to the white Episcopal Church.  He went to jail for picketing and after a week in jail he went to a local store to buy a soda.  He was with a couple of other people including an African American teenage girl.  A volunteer sheriff stood in front of the store with a rifle to bar their entrance.   When he aimed his gun at the teenage girl, Jonathan pushed her aside and was shot.  He was 26 years old when he died.

While the call of Martin Luther King Jr. obviously moved Jonathan Daniels to action, it was also a moment in evening prayer that propelled him to Selma. It was singing.  No, it wasn’t the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  It was the Magnificat.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirt rejoices in God my Savior…”  It is Mary’s reaction to her cousin Elizabeth’s proclamation that Mary is the mother of God.  It was a hymn of joy, but it was also something else.  It indicated her growing awareness that this baby she was about to give birth to was going to change the world.  Typically changing the world isn’t a smooth process.  You can’t change the world without stirring things up a bit. 

Mary stirred things up.  She was the only woman who the author of Luke allowed a full speech.  Right there in the beginning of the Gospel, a woman, Mary spoke as a prophet.  Mary dedicated only a couple of sentences to her own blessings.  She then moved on to heavier things. 

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” She was talking about a God who would speak for the oppressed and the marginalized.  He had already done so in choosing her, a poor girl living under the authority of the Romans.  She had no rights.  No one listened to her.  But God had listened.  God had heard the cry of his people and he was on his way.  He was going to bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly. 

Because we often hear these words in the context of the joy of Christmas, we don’t always notice how incredibly revolutionary they were.   In many ways, this was a rebel cry.  The magnifcat is not just a beautiful hymn that we sing at Christmas.  It’s more than that.  It’s a call to action.  It’s a reminder of who Jesus is.

Jonathan Daniels wrote of the moment he knew he would return to Selma.   He said, “As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled "moment" … Then it came. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things." I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.”[2]

We have made great strides since the 1960’s, but we still have a long way to go.  All week I have been hearing the Battle Hymn in my head, but not the part about swords, or trampling, or even altars.  What I hear is the arrangement we sang in college.  The final verse came in after the lofty “glory glory halleluias.”  It was quiet and gentle.  It spoke of the beauty of the lilies.   And then there was a crescendo at the line, “As he died to make men holy”. It got louder and more powerful when we sang, “let us live to make all free. While God is marching on.”

As I meditated about that, I thought of the martyrs of our church.  I thought of the saints who have come and gone.  But what really struck me is the call to live. “Let us live to make all free.”  I don’t have the courage of Jonathan Daniels or Mary.  I am almost certain I don’t.  Some of you might.  What I pray for is the courage to live the life that God has called me to.  Jesus died so that we could live.  That is what we do.  But we don’t live for ourselves.  We live for God and we live for one another.  And we sing the magnificat and the Battle Hymn so we can feel that stirring in our heart. When I am singing, I feel that for a moment like I can do anything while God is marching on.  I can do anything if I am marching with God.  Your song might be something else. It probably is. Find your song.  Find whatever it is that reminds you that you are strong and you are courageous.  You are both of those things because God loves you so much that he died so you can live.  We, Christians, we live so all can be free.  As long as God marches on, we live.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVzbjbMBDGE.  I found Gettysburg choir singing this on youtube.  It was 1991, which was before I got there.  It’s the same arrangement we sang when I was there.

[2] http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html

March 8, 2015: John 2:13-22

When Ruins Become Resurrection

Year B, Lent 3                                                       

            When I was first ordained, I never imagined that I would serve at a historic parish.  I am still not sure that I am called to serve at historic parishes in general as much as I am called to St. John’s specifically.  What I found most appealing about St. John’s was their story of continual rebuilding.  This site we are on now is the 4^th site of this church.  We have been on this site since 1728 and this building has been though three wars.  It has been burned and pillaged.  It has been rebuilt.  And that is what has fascinated me the most about the history of this church, the rebuilding and the tenacity of the community itself.

            Of course, I confess that I am occasionally guilty of the bragging rights that come with being the oldest English speaking church in continuous existence in America.  I have been known to refer to certain 300 year old churches as contemporary.  I also like to put air quotes around the word “historic” when it is describing any church that is not St. John’s.  It is slightly obnoxious, but I just can’t help myself at times. 

            I was thinking about my pride in this church as I was reading this Gospel reading regarding the Temple in Jerusalem.  Religious authorities had a lot of pride in the temple.  Jesus wasn’t always a fan of religious pride. This Gospel story is one that surprises people.  It does not fit into the image that people have of Jesus.  People picture Jesus with a lamb over his shoulders and children on his lap.  They imagine him teaching and healing.  They don’t usually picture him with a whip driving animals and people out of a temple while overturning tables and in general causing a scene.  This is not the peace loving Jesus who we imagine in our heads.  Yet it was clearly an important event in the life of Jesus because all four Gospel writers recorded it. 

What was it that got Jesus all riled up?  There are a lot of theories about that.  Since he said, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” some people have assumed that he was angry about the fact that people were selling animals in the temple.  This is possible but unlikely.  Selling animals was a necessary part of the temple system.  People were supposed to make sacrifices and most people did not travel with sacrificial animals.  So it made sense to sell the animals at the temple. Others have said that Jesus was not upset that these animals were being sold, but that they were being sold at an unfair price.  The sellers were taking advantage of people and profiting from these sacrifices that were meant for God alone.   This makes more sense in light of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  In those three Gospels, Jesus tells the people that they have made his father’s house a den of robbers.  But he does not say that in John’s Gospel.  He just tells them to stop making his father’s house a marketplace. 

             I wonder if what he really meant was that they were making the temple a market place for God.  It was as if they were implying that they had exclusive rights to God…that people would only be in God’s presence when they were in the temple.  This was especially a concern in a time when there were many people who were ostracized from the temple.  Not just anyone could go in the temple, which means that God’s love was limited. Jesus knew that this was not the case.  He knew that God was everywhere, present at all times.  Jesus also knew that his life, death, and resurrection would transform how and where people perceived God.   He wanted to introduce that change now. 

            The people who had the power in the temple were angry that Jesus thought he had any right to call this holy temple his father’s house.  So they asked him for a sign…presumably a sign of his power.  His response was even more troublesome.  He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  They were astounded. The temple that he was standing in had already been under construction for 46 years and it wasn’t even finished yet.  And this carpenter was going to destroy it and build a new one in 3 days?  But Jesus was not talking about a temple made of bricks and mortar.  He was talking about his body.  His body was where God dwelled.  And his body would be destroyed in the crucifixion, but in three days in would be raised.

Jesus was not saying that God was not present in the temple anymore.  He was saying that God was not limited to the temple and no human institution had control over God’s presence.  No person or religious body could say that some people had access to God and some people did not.   That is what got Jesus all riled up.  People weren’t just trying to control money and power; they were trying to control God.  They were trying to limit who had access to God.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g06697/

            One of my favorite images of St. John’s, is the painting that depicts the church right after the burning of Hampton.  It is called “the ruins of church at Hampton.” During the civil war, the town of Hampton was burned down.  The one structure that was left standing were the walls of St. John’s.  I have always loved this image because it conveys the strength and sturdiness of the church.  Recently, I discovered a new perspective.  The walls remained, but the doors, the windows, and the roof were gone. There is an openness to that image that is refreshing.  I imagine God’s presence overflowing from the open windows, doors and roof.  There are no limits on the expansiveness of God’s love. It’s like God’s love is breaking down the doors.  It is bursting out.

Obviously, since then we have rebuilt the roof, the windows and the doors.  Yet what if we were to adopt that image of the wide open church in some way? We could rename that painting.  It would no longer be called “ruins”, it would be called “resurrection,” not because of the building that it would one day be, but because of the opportunity that we have been given again and again to rebuild.   Since we now have actual windows, doors and a roof, the members of this historic church are called on to be our windows and our doors.  We are the connection to the church and the community.  We are here to tell the community that there is no limit to God’s abundant love.  It is overflowing and walls cannot contain it.  We, the members of St. John’s are to be the vessels of Gods overflowing love.  Not only that, but we too are temples of the Holy Spirit.  God dwells in us and even our walls cannot hold that.