Fear and Love: April 28, 2024

Year B, Easter 5                                   1 John 4:7-21         

                    I am afraid of a lot of things: cockroaches, mice, large crowds, Philadelphia drivers, cancer, COVID, infections…just to name a few.  Some of these are rational fears.  Some, not so much.  Thus when I see this line from 1^st John that says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…”--- I want to know how I can get this kind of love. I am pretty sure I know God’s love.  I know that I am loved by God.  It’s something that I have felt certain of my whole life and has held me up, even when I doubted every other thing.  So why do I still have these fears? Unfortunately the author of 1^st John wasn’t talking about the more mundane fears like rodents and aggressive drivers, or even the serious fears like disease.  John was most likely talking about the fear of God’s judgment, which was a much more prevalent fear in this time period.

          Especially in our modern age, most Episcopal clergy tend to focus more on love than judgment.  Our presiding bishop, Michael Curry’s favorite thing to say is, “If it’s not about love, then it’s not about God.”  There is no doubt that Jesus talked a lot about love and that is an obvious theme in all of 1^st John. In the New Testament, you will find some version of the Greek word agape (translated to love), 140 times.   However, judgment also shows up a few times in the New Testament…not as much, but it’s definitely there.  While 1^st John was written a little later than most of the gospels and Paul’s letters, there were still a lot of people at that time who thought that Jesus was returning sooner, rather than later, and when Jesus returned people would be judged. That judgment would determine who was saved and who was not. That meant it was more on the forefront of people’s minds, this fear of God’s judgment. 

Frankly, I think that would be better to focus on that fear rather than all the others fears that preoccupy our minds because there is a clear solution to that fear.  All these earthly worries don’t have clear solutions, but there is an answer to the fear that we hear about in 1^st John.  That answer is God’s love.  John wrote: “perfect love casts out fear.”  Perfect love is God’s love. God casts out fear.

I wonder if we were really confident in God’s love for us and we felt that love, then maybe we would not worry as much about the concerns of this life.  So often we find we worry about how others might be judging us or we might even be pre-occupied by our own self judgment.  While few people like to contemplate God’s judgement, that would be a more productive thing to worry about—because God can help us in very tangible ways to find freedom from that judgment. That is what God’s love can do. It can free us.  Yet it is really hard to free ourselves from these other worldly concerns, probably because they are our own creation.  It’s hard to let go of what we create.

          While I love the Episcopal Church, I worry that we have watered down God’s love a bit too much. We have allowed it to evolve into a Hallmark emotion.  God’s love isn’t an emotion.  God’s love is action.  This text from John spells it out: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  I would like to get into a long discussion on what the “atoning sacrifice” means, but I am pretty sure that would only be interesting to about 5 of you.  (You can let me know on the way out who you are.) 

What I would rather focus on is the act of God sending his son to this world…this world that had disappointed God over and over again.  God sent God’s son to be with us, to live with us, and then die on a cross so that we might understand the depth of God’s love.  According to John, that is how God’s love was revealed to us.  God wanted us to see his love in action, up close and personal so that we could then show that love to others.

          I fear many things, but I don’t fear God’s judgment. And that’s not because I am perfect.  It’s not because I am an extraordinary Christian.  It’s because I know that God’s rooting for me.  God is rooting for all us.  In sending God’s son, God was saying, “I’m all in.”  And you don’t do that for a people you intend to damn to hell.  No, you do that for people you are intent of saving…in this world and the next. 

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Romans and reads, “If God is for us, who is against us?” Honestly, when I think of that text, or quote that text, that is the only part that I remember.  However it popped into my head while writing this sermon and I looked it up to make sure I had the quote correct. Then I looked at the lines right after. ^“He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”

          I realize that there are so many things that weigh on each of your hearts.  Even those of you who may not be prone to worry, still has something that burdens you.  I feel like the majority of my adult life, I have labored over the juxtaposition of my anxiety, versus my confidence of God’s love. That’s right, I worry about my proclivity to worry. So here is what I am going to try and I commend it to you as well.  I am going to try to dwell in God’s love, rest in the assurance of God’s love for me and God’s love for all of us.  Because God’s love is so much greater than the sum of all of our concerns.  I am going to remind myself that it’s ok if there is still fear in my love because my love is not the axis on which this world turns.  God’s love is the axis on which this world turns. That is the love I choose to dwell in. One day, I hope that my love and you love might look a bit more like God’s love…but for now, we can dwell in God’s love.

Be a doer: August 29 2021

Year B, Pentecost 14                                     James 1:17-27                                                                                 

            Whenever I am in a new environment and not around church people, I kind of dread the question about my profession. If it’s one on one, it’s ok, but in a group setting, it’s always awkward. Because inevitably, someone will say something like, “I guess I will have to try not to swear.”   Really there is no good way to respond to that. I can’t say, “Go ahead, swear as much as you like.”  But I also don’t want people to change the way they are talking just because I am there. 

Yet what bugs me most about this comment is the assumption that it’s based on—that we in the church are more concerned about how people present themselves, than bigger things, like how we love one another. What I want to say, but rarely do is, “You know, I think God has bigger things on his plate right now.” 

            I have found that non-church people’s first impression of Christians as a group is a bunch of very boring and condescending people telling them what they can’t do.  That might be true in some churches and denominations.  Some churches have a lot of rules that they like to emphasize.  And I am not saying that they aren’t good rules—most of the rules have purpose.  But when we focus on what we can’t or shouldn’t do, we miss the bigger picture.  We would be a lot more effective, if we focused on what we can and should do as Christians.

           James is an interesting book of the Bible, which is good because we will be reading from it for the next 5 weeks.  One of the things that I appreciate about James is that he was trying help people apply their faith to their everyday lives.  James is one of the more practical books of the New Testament. His words were intended for a community of new Christians.  They might not have even been calling themselves Christians at that point. They didn’t yet have a canon of scripture for the Christian faith.  Most of what very early Christians had were oral traditions, stories about Jesus.  If they were converts from the Jewish faith, then they also had the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament). 

            Some early Christians felt that the best way to be Christians and to follow Jesus was to separate themselves from the world—not get involved with worldly concerns or even the concerns of their neighbors.  It’s not surprising that people would come to this conclusion when James recommends to people that they be unstained by the world.  But James never intended for people to separate themselves from the concerns of the world.  In fact, he said that the way to be unstained by the world was to care for orphans and widows in their distress.

            The Bible talks a lot about the importance of caring for orphans and widows.  There was a huge emphasis on that group, especially in the Old Testament.  The widows they were talking about were women. In Biblical times the women’s only source of livelihood was through the men who were caring for them.  It was the father and then the husband.  If the husband died, there were even Jewish laws that said that the unmarried brother of the deceased husband had to marry the women to care for her.  However if there was no brother and the woman’s father had died, then the widow would almost surely live in poverty.  There was no social safety net for orphans or widows. 

            Therefore they came to represent the most vulnerable of society. There are certainly vulnerable widows and orphans today, but the best way to interpret James words for our context is to consider not just the widows and orphans, but all those people who are vulnerable and powerless today.  It might be children who have parents or a parent but are still hungry because their parents cannot provide for them, or children or teens who live in neighborhoods that are so violent that they cannot leave their home without fear.  It could be the elderly who live alone and might have money and resources, but struggle with loneliness and depression.  This list could go on forever.  There is no shortage of people in our community who desperately need compassion and action.         

            Action, that is one of the things that James emphasized in his writing and especially the reading today.  “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers of the word…”  That is how we live a pure and undefiled life.  It’s not about simply following rules and maintaining the appearance of a good Christian, it’s how we care for our neighbors.  He writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress…”  So often purity is associated with avoiding getting dirty, but for James and Jesus, purity meant associating with the very people who most would consider unworthy of their attention. 

            Please understand I am not saying that we can avoid all rules and moral conduct. Jesus gives quite a list of things to avoid in the Gospel.  But the emphasis of Jesus was always on how we display and embody God’s love, rather than the rules we are to follow. In fact, right after the Gospel reading we heard today, Jesus helped a woman who was considered completely unworthy and unclean.  So you see, Jesus spoke the words and then he showed what those words meant.  That was exactly what James was telling people to do.  Don’t just hear the Gospel or speak the Gospel, live the Gospel.

            All of us here live in the real world.  None of us are cloistered in a monastery. That means, we all have opportunities to help those around us and be doers of the word. Instead of worrying about how we might be negatively affected by whatever is going on in our culture, let us consider how we might be doers of God’s holy and life giving word in our everyday lives.

I want all of you to consider your upcoming week, what you will be doing, who you will be seeing. Then think of one time when you can be a doer, when you can take what you have heard today, and turn it into an action that shows compassion and love.  Because I guarantee you, whatever your job is, whether you are a lawyer or a teacher, whether you are retired and volunteering, even if you are at home and can’t go out---there will be an opportunity to care for someone who desperately needs to experience God’s love. 

Every Sunday, our deacon ends the service with, “Our service is ended, but your service has just begun.” We come to church to be nourished with God’s words. And I hope that God’s presence here brings you peace, but also fortification.  This is not the place where the disciples of Christ do the work of God.  You carry God’s word and work into your lives so that you can be Christ for someone else.  Because there is someone who needs God’s love and you might be the best person to share that love.

May 2, 2021: Being right isn't enough

 Year B, Easter 5                                                                 1 John 4:7-21                                                             

            In the church, we like to discuss the humility of Jesus Christ.  Typically when we are referring to his humility, we are talking about his humble origins—being born in a barn to a poor couple with no connections.  Or…we focus on his death on a cross, the experience of being stripped, whipped and then hung on a cross between two criminals.  It was a method of killing that was meant to humiliate.

However, while his birth and death are powerful images, they are not very relatable displays of humility.  Where I see Christ’s humility most abundantly is in his ability to love people, even when they were wrong.  Jesus was the very embodiment of the truth, yet ironically, he was often considered wrong.   He was judged or scolded by not only the religious leaders of the time—but sometimes--- his own disciples.

 He knew he was right.  If he had wanted to, he could have forced people to see the error of their ways, but he chose not to.  Why?  We know he wasn’t a pushover.  He still corrected people and taught people.  He spoke the truth.  He engaged in debate, but it was always out of a place of love.  He was right.  He was always right and even he allowed himself the humanity of not being able to convince people of how right he was.  That….from an all-powerful, all knowing God…that is humility.

            We often act like church conflict is a modern phenomenon, or at least a phenomenon of the last 500 years.  But conflict in the church has existed as long as the church has existed.  1^st John was written in about 100 AD.  By this time, the Christian community was somewhat established.  There was some structure and even doctrine to an extent.  Once there was a core set of beliefs, people started arguing about that core set of beliefs.  That was what was probably happening in this community that the author was writing about.  People were arguing and they were so mad at one another, some left the community all together. 

            The author of 1^st John was working hard to remind people in the community to love another—not because they were all of one mind, not because they were Christians, not even because they deserved to be loved, but because God loved them.  That was it. That was the only reason that mattered—the only reason that still matters.  We love one another because God loved us first. 

And it wasn’t a gentle admonition the author was giving.  He said, “Those who say, ‘ love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars…”  If you cannot show love to your fellow believers, then you cannot love God.   That was the interesting part of this.  He wasn’t even talking about their enemies; the author was talking about the people in their own community.  And that makes sense when you think about it. It’s harder to sincerely love the people we know than those who we don’t really know at all.

            This idea of loving one another is not new to 1^st John.  We hear about it in the Gospels, most potently in the Gospel of John.   At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Jesus said this to his disciples, right after Judas left to betray him and immediately before he told Peter that he would deny him (which by the way, Peter told him he was wrong about that.)  In the midst of all that pain, he washed their feet and shared a meal. He was showing his disciples what it was to love people, even when they have betrayed and denied you, even when they have deserted the community.  Jesus knew what they would face after his death, resurrection and ascension.  He knew how hard it would be establishing the Christian community.  He wanted them to see what it looked like, to love people who hurt you. 

            On the one hand, this all seems so obvious.  Of course we are supposed to love one another. We hear that over and over! But the rationale is less obvious.  Imagine a parent saying to his/her bickering children, “I love you and therefore, you must love one another.” I am not sure that would be very effective. 

But there is more at stake than simply how we treat one another.  The author wrote, “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” The word that is translated to perfect in Greek doesn’t define perfect in the way we perceive perfection. It doesn’t mean without flaw or sin. It means completed or fulfilled its purpose.  We must love one another because that is how God’s love for us is complete.  It’s a full circle.  God loves us. We love one another.  God’s love is made complete when we love one another.  God’s love lives in us and thus we love God.  This is not simply what we are asked to do as Christians, it is our primary purpose.  It is our very reason for being.

There has been a constant tension in the Christian faith between maintaining the doctrine of our faith and loving those who we may perceive are compromising that doctrine. We have seen it in a microcosm in the Episcopal Church over the last 20 years.  We could not agree about gay marriage and ordination, so a large amount of people left.  I am not saying they were wrong to leave.  That would kind of defeat the purpose of this whole sermon.  But it split the community.  It didn’t help us get along.  It didn’t solve any problems.  It just ensured that we wouldn’t even try to talk anymore.  They can’t learn from us. We can’t learn from them.  That makes it a lot harder to love another.

So what is the answer?  For once, it’s fairly obvious—but not easy.  We do as Jesus did.  We continue to engage in dialogue with those whom we disagree. We recognize that no matter how well we make our case, we may never convince our brothers and sisters in Christ of that case.  Yet despite that, we continue to come to the table as Jesus did at the last supper. We share the bread and the wine.  We even serve one another as Jesus did when he washed the disciples’ feet. We follow Jesus’ example. 

That doesn’t mean we can no longer stand up for what we believe in.  The author of John says that when we love one another and make God’s love complete, then “we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.” That is the great irony in this.  We think that not being victorious in an argument makes us look weaker. But in terms of our relationship with God, we have become bolder, more fearless.  I think the key is that we never stop trying to make our point. We do it as gracefully as possible, but we keep doing it, while also making sure that we listen even more than new speak.  I know this is hard, especially for a preacher.  But it is what God asks us.  Be bold. Be fearless. But above all, be loving.

Photo by Harli Marten

God's Love is Unfair: March 31, 2019

Year C, Lent 4                                                        

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32                                                                 

            As some of you know, I have three older brothers; the oldest being 13 years older.  When he was in his late 20’s, he wrote a book that featured three brothers and a father who was in the Navy.  It bore some remarkable similarities to his life.  However, when I read it I was a little perturbed that there was no sister.  He just left me out completely.  I mentioned something to my brother about this and he replied, “This is a book about redemption, you don’t need redemption.” He was alluding to the fact that he and my other brothers were kind of wild children and teenagers.  I was not.  Also he was writing about himself as a high school student, which was when I was about 4 years old.  I was not satisfied with that answer.  It seemed to me, that I was being punished for being good.  What he did not realize was that I would get back at him by featuring him in sermons years later. 

            This Gospel reading is often referred to as The Prodigal Son.  The word prodigal is nowhere in the text. It has been assigned to the text because it describes a wasteful or reckless extravagance. Yet the way the father describes the younger son is lost, which is a far better description.  Additionally, it is not merely the story of one lost son.  It is the story of two sons who are lost.  One is lost in a distant country.  The other is lost in his own home, with his own family. 

            It might not seem so horrible to us that the younger son asked for his inheritance while his father was still alive.  However in this time period, that would have been considered the ultimate insult because it is basically saying to the father, “You are dead to me.”  In asking for his inheritance early, he cut himself off from his entire family.  To make things worse, he wasted that money on self-indulgent living.  He is not a likable character, not the kind of underdog you want to root for. He only returns when he runs out of money and is on the brink of starvation.  He’s kind of a jerk. 

            The other son isn’t particularly likeable either.  He is jealous and resentful.  While his brother is a jerk, you would assume that the elder brother would be at least a little happy to have his brother back safe and sound.  While the elder brother is not likeable, I think he is a little more relatable for most of us.  I imagine that most of us have had some experience where we have witnessed someone else being celebrated or rewarded when it was clear to us that they in no way deserved to be celebrated or rewarded.  It’s not fair.  I think there are few things that are more disconcerting to your average human than when we witness something that is unfair.  Despite the fact that most adults know life is not fair, we still feel the need to make it be fair.  And even if we know that life is not fair, we at least want God, the almighty, all knowing God, to be fair.  And why would an all knowing, almighty God, reward a son who wished his father dead, took his money and then came back when he needed him? 
            Why? Because there is nothing fair about God’s unconditional, unrelenting love.  When that unfair love is directed to us, it doesn’t seem to bother us that it is unfair.  Let’s consider this elder son.  It’s true that he was the good son.  He stayed with his family and did his work, but he also had servants.  It is clear from the text that his father was wealthy and generous.  He was able to provide for his sons in ways that other people could not.  His father was also clearly compassionate, forgiving and loving.  He was a good father.  He was the kind of father who ran out too meet his disrespectful and ungrateful son and pronounce forgiveness before forgiveness was even asked.  Do we really think the elder son ever lamented the unfairness of having a life like he had, having a family like he had when so many had nothing compared to him?  I doubt it.  Because he felt that was what he deserved. He was entitled to that kind of life. 

            He was lost, not because he had chosen to escape to another land, but because he chose resentment over gratitude, because he chose to lament the unfairness of a father who loved his brother too much instead of thanking God for a father who loved him with an unrelenting and all powerful love.  When we think of this parable, we can probably all see in our minds eye the father who runs out to meet his foolish and selfish son who treated him like he was dead.  It is a dramatic and compelling scene. But how many of us picture the father who then seeks out his bitter and unforgiving son and begs him to come inside; who reminds his petulant child that while he might not have rewarded him with a fatted calf, it didn’t matter because everything he owned, was already his. The father didn’t have to reward him with the fatted calf, because the elder son owned the fatted calf. God has already given us everything we need.

            When I was working on this sermon, I thought a lot about my own privilege and the truth is that most of are born into privilege, just by being born as an American. Most of us have guaranteed access to free education and clean water.  We take these things for granted even though there are many in our world (and some in our nation) who do not have these privileges.  But in the end, that is not what this story is about.  It is a story about something else we often take for granted--God’s grace. No matter where we are born or who we are born to, we all are born as children of God, beloved by God. 

Every day and every hour, we make a choice. We can either be grateful for this amazing gift, this amazing grace, or we can be resentful for the ways that life has cheated us, or what we do not have.  That was the sin of the elder son.  He could not be content or thankful for what he had because of his bitterness about what his own brother was receiving. 

It is hard to let go of resentment.  But there is a way.  Embrace gratitude.  You cannot be grateful and resentful at the same time. Thus when you find yourself growing bitter over some perceived unfairness, remember the gift that you have, the gift that God has given you.  Everyone gets lost at some point in their life.  Each one of us has a story of redemption. Part of what the season of Lent is about is admitting that we are all lost and then making the choice to be found. God is looking for you. God is that father who is staring into the distance, waiting for us each one of us to return to him. Embrace gratitude.  Choose gratitude. Because God has already chosen and embraced each one of us.

Footnote: If you are interested in this subject, I encourage you to read "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen. It is inspired and helped me a great deal on this sermon. 

Love is a verb: February 3, 2019

Year C, Epiphany 3                                      

1 Corinthians 13:1-13    

                                                      

            As some of you know, I had a last minute drive to St. Louis right after Christmas.  I was officiating my niece’s wedding and planned to fly out early Saturday morning as that was the day of the rehearsal.  We missed the flight due to a couple of factors. So we started our drive at 6am, already slightly sleep deprived with a very disappointed 2 year old who was really looking forward to a plane ride.  We were in no way prepared for a drive that long and I knew I would be missing the rehearsal. One of my big fears as a pastor is that I will be late for a wedding or funeral.  Another fear is missing my flight. This was those two major fears wrapped into one tidy ball.

            Needless to say, I was not in a good mood and I really wanted to yell at my husband. I wanted to make sarcastic comments.  I wanted to be snide. But here was the problem. I had written the wedding sermon the day before. It was all about how important it is to be kind to your spouse. Presumably, I was going to have to preach this sermon the next day in front of God and my husband, and I was going to have to do it without feeling like a big hypocrite. So I didn’t yell. I didn’t make snide comments under my breath.  I was nice. It was really really hard. It took a tremendous amount of effort on my part.

            One of the readings for the wedding was this reading from First Corinthians that we heard today.  “Love is patient. Love is kind…it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable and resentful.”  We all know this one. You have probably heard it at 90% of the church weddings you have attended because it’s beautiful and poetic.  It’s about love, which is what we are celebrating when we attend a wedding. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter and he was by no means a romantic.  He was never married and even discouraged people from getting married. However, he understood the importance of Christian love in the context of our relationships with one another and our relationship with God (which is primarily what he was talking about).   

            I am going to get a little detailed on grammar, but I want you to stick with me.  When we hear the word kind or patient, we would classify those words as adjectives. They describe something. Therefore, we might read this passage and think that Paul is talking about the attributes of love.  He is describing love. However, Paul did not speak English, nor was the Bible originally written in English. This was Greek. In Greek, those are verbs---action verbs.  Usually when we think of action verbs, we think of words like run, walk, talk, laugh.  We don’t think of being patient and kind as an action verb.  You see Paul was not describing some romantic form of love that would easily fit on a greeting card. This was not descriptive.  It was prescriptive.  He was telling us how to love. So often when we talk about love, we portray it as a feeling, a feeling that can come and go.  But Paul was quite clear. Love was more than a feeling.  It was about action and effort.

            In 1995, Gary Chapman wrote a book called: The Five Love Languages.  The premise of the book is that we each have a primary language we use to express our love, which is not-so-coincidentally the same way we prefer to receive love.  The five love languages are: receiving gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time and physical touch.  In the Old Testament God showed his love in a number of ways. He gave humanity the greatest gift by actually breathing life into us.  The prophets provided words of affirmation and judgment on behalf of God.  God also served his people by providing food and water in the desert, parting the sea, and even winning military battles. 

            In the New Testament, God’s love language shifted a little.  He began by giving another huge gift…the gift of his only son. Then his son shared his time with people.  He provided words of affirmation through parables and conversations.  However, if I was to pick Jesus’ primary love language, it would be acts of service---whether it was washing the feet of his disciples, providing food to hungry people, healing the sick or turning water into wine. His greatest act of service was his death, his willingness to die for his people. That was how he ultimately showed his love.

            Paul understood all this. He talked a great deal about Jesus’ ultimate act of love.  In our reading from Corinthians, Paul was talking about how God’s love is manifest in our words and actions.  He wasn’t saying we need to do anything drastic like sacrifice ourselves.  He was not trying to recruit martyrs. In fact, he is giving us very tangible and accessible action verbs.  In the 13 verse we heard today, Paul provided 15 action verbs….15 ways that we can express our love for God and one another.  Being patient, kind, truthful, and never giving up are just a few of those actions.

            These are not easy things.  I am not sure that I would have been as kind as I was during that car trip had I not had a sermon looming in front of me about kindness.  The people of Corinth were facing far more difficult challenges than a long car ride.  These new Christian communities were unique in that they included a tremendous amount of diversity.  Previously, communities had formed around blood relatives, ethnic groups, socioeconomic status or religious upbringing.  The people in the Christian community of Corinth were coming from all kinds of different perspectives and they were having a hard time loving one another.  Even when they worshipped God, they still found ways to compete.  They were competing over who was more spiritual, more gifted.  We still do that. We are often comparing ourselves to other denominations and churches.  How often have you heard… “well at least we are not like those Christians.”  Even in our Christian communities today, we still have a hard time acting with and in love.

            In six days, Night’s Welcome will begin.  It is the week when we host the homeless in our parish hall.  We feed them. We provide lodging.  We treat them like our guests and show them the respect they deserve as our brothers and sisters.  It is a perfect example of how Jesus taught us to love.  It’s not easy.  We are forced to see things that we normally try to avoid.  I want to encourage you to take part in Night’s Welcome or in another one of our outreach ministries.  Or if you can’t do that right now, perhaps just reach out to someone who might be hard for you to love.  We all have those people in our lives.  We might be those people.

My hope is that the next time we hear this reading, we won’t envision a bride and a groom, but instead we will see a person who we loved even though they didn’t really deserve our love, perhaps someone we only saw once.  Or maybe we will remember a time when someone showed us kindness when we ourselves could not show that kindness.  Let us stop describing God’s love. We can let the poets do that.  Instead, let us show God’s love.   Let our faith be a verb—an action verb.   

Power: November 25, 2018

Year B, Christ the King                                                 

John 18:33-37                                                                                   

            Today is the Feast of Christ the King. It’s not one of our more well-known feast days. There are no greeting cards, no fun traditions and  no special decorations or cookies.  The feast itself is less than 100 years old.  It was 1925 when Pope Pius XI declared that this Sunday would be the Feast of Christ the King.  In 1925 Europe was still recovering from the devastating effects of World War I.   Italy was leaning much more secular than it previously had.  A church that had once experienced great power, saw their power and influence waning.

            Until 1870, the pope had authority and control over considerable geographic areas of Italy.  That changed in 1870 when the pope and The Roman Catholic Church lost power over all the land they previously held, which meant that while the pope retained spiritual authority, he had no political power.  This was a cause of consternation for the Roman Catholic Church.  After World War I, Italy was struggling to recover from the war.  Mussolini came to power and the Catholic Church found itself negotiating with this new fascist government attempting to retain some authority in Italy and the world.  The compromise was the creation of Vatican City as an independent city-state, and recognizing the pope as the head of state.  That final compromise came about in 1929, only 4 years after Christ the King feast day was inaugurated. 

            It’s interesting that this feast day, a day committed to recognizing the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, came in the midst of this political turmoil, a time when the Roman Catholic Church was struggling to hold on to their own authority.  Now, you could easily look at the timing and assume that the creation of this feast was a purely political move by the Church.  Many have come to that conclusion.  But I think it was more than that.  The Holy Spirit was in the midst of this.

I believe that the leadership of the church was genuinely scared about the future of Christianity.  They had just witnessed the First World War.  It was violence and death on a scale that no one had seen.  The Church that had once had a voice in the public and political sphere was now being virtually ignored.  The pope wanted to remind the people, anyone who was still listening, that God was still almighty, still all powerful.  Just because the church did not have an army behind it did not mean that it did not have power.  So they did what they knew how to do, they created liturgy to remind people of what real authority and power looked like.

            Now I have no idea who picked the readings that would be associated with this feast day.  It seems like choosing this reading from The Gospel of John would have been an odd choice for a church trying to reassert their authority.   If you asked me to choose a reading to display the power and authority of Jesus, I would have looked for something where Jesus looked impressive, perhaps the feeding of the 5000, or one of the many times he spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, or even one of the resurrection accounts.  Those are feel good moments. 

But the trial scene?? We typically associate this trial scene with Holy Week.  We read it on Good Friday and feel sad because Jesus is about to die and instead of defending himself like any other self-respecting king, he asks questions and responds with confusing answers about where his kingdom is.  Jesus was a gifted orator. He was often besting the great theologians of his time.  He loved to put powerful people in their place.   What happened to that Jesus? That is the Jesus we need when we talk about authority and leadership.  We don’t need this slightly docile and evasive Jesus who seemed to cooperate with this Roman leader, who was widely perceived as an ineffective leader.

            Or maybe…this was exactly the kind of leader that the pope was trying to remind a beleaguered people after World War I-- who were searching for identity and hope in the rubble and ash of their pre-war existence.  And frankly, this might be exactly the kind of leader we need now, in a time when the church has virtually no political power and very little cultural influence.  We are even losing our authority as a moral guide.  Church attendance and participation is at an all-time low and sliding lower every single year.  Churches everywhere are scrambling for the perfect program, the cure all that will enable us to thrive again….to matter. 

            I remember when I was first learning about the Episcopal Church, I was told that there were more US presidents who were Episcopalian than any other denomination.  I was appropriately impressed.  We were the church of the establishment. If you were an important member of your community, odds were, you went to the Episcopal Church. Alas, what no one told me was that since 1945, only 2 presidents have been Episcopalians, only one in my lifetime.  We are no longer the church of the establishment.  There are a lot of people who mourn that loss.  There are many days when I do, even though I have never actually experienced the church as a powerful church.  It would be a lot easier to be part of church whose name people could actually pronounce. 

But you know what….I don’t think Jesus ever meant for it to be easy.  I think that if Jesus wanted his church to be a church that held worldly power, he probably would not have been born in a barn to a poor unmarried couple. He told Pilate, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep be from being handed over to the Jews.”  In saying that, he was not telling Pilate that his kingdom wasn’t this world.  Of course it is.  He was saying that he did not choose to wield his power in the same way that earthly kings did.  Could he have created an army and taken the Romans by force? Of course he could have.  He could have raised a dead army to fight. But he chose not to, because that was not what power looked like to him.  Power didn’t come from a weapon or a throne, it came from the heart.  It came from sacrifice. 

            Of course I wish that the church had more authority and that we could influence public opinion and behavior.  I would like that because we have some important truths to share.  In fact, that is one of the things that Jesus said to Pilate, that he came to testify to the truth and that everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice.  My friends, we might not belong to a powerful church, but that does not mean we don’t belong to something or someone powerful. We belong to the truth.  We belong to a King who wore a crown of thorns instead of a crown of gold. His throne was not a gilded chair with velvet cushions.  It was cross covered in his blood. That is the king who we belong to.  I truly believe that the more we can identify with that king, the more authority we will have.  It will not be authority given by worldly leaders whose power is fleeting.  It will be the authority of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. 

While I wish we could just create a new feast day and make that happen, we know that’s not going to work.  It didn’t work in 1925 and it won’t work now.  What we need to do is go back to our roots…not our 1610 roots, but our 33 AD roots.  If we actually follow God’s call to us, a call to sacrifice, a call to love the powerless, the abandoned, and the ignored, then we won’t need to claim authority.  We won’t need to sit in the highest positions of power, because then, we will be standing with the people who matter.  Then people will listen to us.  The world will notice. The world will change because we belong to the truth.

Let Your Praise Be Your Protest: Nov. 11 2018

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 they are saying or they are simply overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. I understand because I sometimes feel the same way.  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 to cover all the emotions, 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.

            Earlier in the week, I had planned to preach on the Gospel.  It’s a familiar text and an important message.  However, then I read about another mass shooting.  The Gospel wasn’t going to work and I prayed the psalm appointed for this day might lead me. I thought, surely this will be a Psalm of Lament, or one of those good fist shaking “why is this happening” kind of psalms.  Nope. “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, O my soul!” It goes on like that.  The whole thing is a psalm of praise.  It is very inconvenient.  Yet the more I read the psalm, and the more I read about it, the more appropriate it seemed. 

            In general there isn’t a lot of certainty about the psalms.  Tradition tells us that King David wrote the psalms, but this is unlikely.  We are also unsure when the psalms were written.  They were most likely written after the Babylonian exile.  Some of the psalms allude to a specific event or enemy or a generalized event (like war or betrayal).  Most of the Psalms of Lament end on a note of praise and there will be an explanation as to what the praise is about.  Yet Psalm 146 does not reference a miraculous event or a saving act.  It praises God for being God. 

            One of the slight detours this psalm takes is a warning not to put trust in earthly rulers.  It doesn’t give a specific reason why nor does the author refer to a specific ruler.  We are not to put our trust in any human ruler.  Now we are days after the election. In the months preceding the election, we had all kinds of people and groups telling us who to trust and who not to trust-- providing copious reasons not to trust a specific candidate, or even an entire political party.  Yet none of these smear campaigns tried the reasoning that the author of this psalm provided.  Don’t trust human rulers because they eventually die.  They are mortal.  Even if they are a great ruler worthy of our trust, their thoughts and leadership die with them.  It would have been an interesting angle for a political campaign to take.

            But then again this psalm isn’t about a specific leader. It’s not about a specific event.  It’s about what it means to praise God and believe in a God worthy of our praise.   You might hear this psalm and think, well clearly the author of this psalm wasn’t living in a time like ours, when things are complicated and someone is getting shot every other day for no apparent reason.  Because if he was, he wouldn’t have thought it was that easy to praise God.  While we do not know exactly what was happening when each psalm was written, we know that some pretty bad stuff went down.  If you were to read through all the psalms, you would see many examples of these bad things and the emotions people were experiencing as a result. 

Let me give you some highlights: (Psalm 73) “For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning.” (Psalm 44)  “All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face.”  Or the one that Jesus quoted as he was dying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22). I could go on and on with these kinds of cheery verses.  Bad stuff happened to the people of God in the Bible, just as it is happening today.

            In reading about the psalms, I read a comment that really got my attention, “Praise of God is sometimes an act of discipline.”[1]  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 things are going our way and when all is right in the world.

So what are we to do about the realities of the world we are living in?  Are we supposed to just grin and bear it when our Jewish brothers and sisters are shot down while praising God, or when college student are killed taking line dancing classes like they were last week?  Of course not.  We don’t praise God because of what is happening.  We praise God in spite of it.  We praise God as a form of protest to what is going on around us.  Praising God reminds us that we have a loving and caring God, 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 stranger, 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 in the might of our nation nor the state of our economy.  Our hope is not even based on how safe we can keep our citizens.

            “Praise the Lord, O my soul!” What does that kind of praise mean? It means to praise the Lord from the depth of our being…to praise the Lord with the same breath that gives us life.  Every time someone is killed, they are robbed of their breath, that breath that allows them to praise the Lord. We still have breath.  We still have life.  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 violence 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?”  Yet let us not forget how Psalm 13 ends. “But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

            Now is not the time to give up on God or Christian hope.  Now is the time to declare to all who will listen who our God is.  Our God is a God of love and compassion.  Our God gives hope to the hopeless.  Let our praise be our protest to the hate and agony that surrounds us.  We may lament.  We may cry and yell. But let praise be the final word. 

---

[1] Beth Tanner http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3825

Bartimaeus' Story: October 28, 2018

From time to time I try something different.  This was one of those times. 

Year B, 23 Pentecost                                                           Mark 10:46-52            

                                                                                             

            My name is Bartimaeus.  I am the son of Timaeus.  I hear many things, some things I probably shouldn’t hear, but many things I should.  Lately I have been listening even more closely.  There has been a lot of talk about a man named Jesus.  It’s not all good.  Some people say he is a rabble rouser, that he is going to try to overthrow the Roman government or even or try to take power from the Pharisees and scribes.  That is what the loud and important people say.  I cannot see them, but I can tell they are important by their voices, the way they talk to me and other people.  These are the same people who only give me money on certain days, and when other people are around to see them.  The important people don’t like him, but I don’t like the important people very much either.

            It’s the other people….the people who give to me not out of obligation, but compassion, those are the ones I listen to.  There is one woman who will sit with me and pray sometimes.  She told me about Jesus.  She said that he talks about love and that he cares for people like me, the people no one else seems to see. They say I am blind, but sometimes I wonder, if maybe it’s the seeing people who are more blind than I.   My friend said that Jesus even performs miracles.  She has never seen it, but she has heard the stories.  There was one time when he fed thousands with just a few loaves of bread and fish.  She whispered to me…as though saying it out loud would give me too much hope, that he healed a blind man.   I told her there were all kinds of people who claimed to perform miracles, but even I had to agree that this Jesus man sounded different.

            After hearing stories from my kind friend, I started asking anyone who I encountered--- about this man.  There were different stories, but there were a few things that tied the stories together. He was kind to the people who needed kindness and tough on those who thought they didn’t need him or were better than others.  He helped the people no one else would help, even the sinners.

            It had been awhile since I prayed, but I began to pray to God that I could meet Jesus, at least once before I died.  One day my prayer was answered.  I was sitting in my regular place along the road, and the woman with the soft voice and gentle manner knelt beside me.  “He’s coming,” she said. “They say he is headed to Jerusalem and that there will be trouble there.”  I did not have to ask who.   I knew.  I could hear a crowd approaching.  I could smell their sweat as they came closer to me.  I could taste the dust that their feet kicked up.   I had one chance.   What could I possibly say to get his attention?  Surely, he had people trying to get his attention all the time.  What could I, a blind beggar--say to him?

            “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  I am not sure where that came from.  It just came.  I needed help.  It wasn’t just my eyes.  I was wounded physically, emotionally and spiritually.  I was desperate for something to believe in. Even if he could not cure me, I knew he could help me.  I needed mercy.  The people around me started telling me to be quiet.  But I couldn’t.  When I am quiet, people ignore me. I even felt the hand of my kind friend touch my sleeve, as if she was trying to warn me.  Their words and warnings meant nothing to me.  I had been waiting for this man.  It seemed like I had been waiting for him my whole life.  “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  I yelled until my throat was raw.

            Suddenly, the crowd around me grew quiet.  I could feel the travelers stop in front of me.  Then I heard him (Jesus) tell the crowd to call me.  The voices that had tried to silence me now were encouraging me, and telling me I had nothing to fear.  I did not need their encouragement.  Once I heard his voice, I leapt to my feet and threw off my heavy cloak, which was my protection from the world.  For a moment I worried what would happen if I could not find my cloak again.   It was the only one I had.  But it did not matter. He was here and he had called me. 

            He asked me….me…what I wanted him to do for me.  No one had ever asked me that before.  No one cared what I wanted.  I said, “My teacher, let me see again.”  It’s not just that I wanted to see…I wanted to see him.  I thought, if I could see this man –If I could see him, even for a moment, I would be whole. Then Jesus told me the last thing I ever expected, “Go; your faith has made you well.”  My faith.  He was able to see something in me that I could not see, my faith, the faith I thought I had lost—that was what let me see again. 

            Suddenly the darkness that had been my sole companion was swept away and there was his face.  His eyes.  Compassion, love, mercy, salvation.  I could see it all in his eyes.  I knew then that he was more than a miracle worker.  He was more than a teacher or a rabble rouser. He was holy and I promised myself that I would never lose sight of him again.   He did not say another word. He turned and continued on the road to Jerusalem, the place he would die.  He walked and I followed. I would follow him wherever he went.