Charles Amory homily: August 9

Psalm 121                                        

            The psalm we heard today(Psalm 121) falls in the category of the psalms of ascent.  This category of psalms is made up of 15 psalms that speak to some element of pilgrimage or journey.  This particular psalm talks about trust that can sustain us through the journey o f life. This idea of life being a journey isn’t really a new idea for us.  We are accustomed to that imagery. Some of our journeys take us to many different places, and some of our journeys are more figurative. While Charlie lived in Hampton for most of his life, that did not make his life any less of a journey.  It was full of twists and turns.  It was full of excitement, but also constancy and stability.

            I spoke with a number of people about Charlie, and read the beautiful obituary and the many loving comments that followed. A common theme was that he was a man of integrity.  What I loved about the obituary was that it did not focus on his successful business or his importance in the community, but instead on how he operated his business, which really was more of a family than a business.  (Which is why the people from Amory seafood are seated with the family.) One person said that “Charlie proved that ruthlessness and rudeness are not necessary to be a large success in business.”  He was a businessman with a heart.

I was told that you would not hear an unkind word said about him because he did so much for people.  He took care of people.  People knew that they could put their trust in him and that he would not let them down.  That’s a good legacy to have.

            Psalm 121 talks about the trust that we have in the Lord.  The trust that this psalmist has in the Lord allows the psalmist to face the challenges of life and feel safe, even when life feels anything put safe. One of the themes is that God is the keeper of our soul.  When in trouble, the psalmist looks to the hills and asks where help will come from and immediately answers that his help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.  It’s a popular psalm because I think many people crave that kind of faith, that belief that there is a caring an omnipotent presence in our world that loves us and wants to be loved…a being that we can trust our lives and our hearts with.

            I try hard never to compare people to Jesus or God, because as we know, we all fall short of that.  But I also believe that we see glimpses of God in people. We see attributes of God in people.  Charlie was described universally as a man with integrity, and what is integrity, but another word for trust?  So often in this world we are told that only the tough survive and thrive.  The tender hearted get trampled on.  There are so many people who live in fear of being trampled and taken advantage of-- they refuse to show vulnerability, or even kindness.  Yet from what I have gleaned about Charlie…he was tender hearted.

He was successful, partly because he loved so fully and completely.  His wife told me that he was the soft touch in the family.  If she ever said, “Wait until your father comes home” when disciplining their children, they would know that she was kidding.  He was kind.  And you know what, kindness is severely underrated in this day and age.

            Right now in our world, we look to all types of places for help and direction.  We look to the internet and social media.  We look to things that we can buy and sell.  We look to false prophets of all sorts.  And those things and people fall short.  I know that losing someone like Charles, even someone who had a wonderful and full life is devastating.  We rejoice in the way he lived, but we also mourn the loss. 

The author of Psalm 121 tells us to lift our eyes to the hills.  We don’t have hills here in Hampton Roads, but we have the sea.  We have the horizon that seems endless.  Charlie and his family built their lives on the vast waters of our region.  These waters are unpredictable at times, yet the yield of those waters have provided for generations.  They have nourished our bodies and to some degree, our souls.  Charlie has finished his earthly pilgrimage, but he continues his journey beyond the horizon, to a place we cannot see, but a place that we see glimpses of in the sunsets and the storms.  I hope that his words and actions will continue to inspire you to love fiercely and loyally, to earn and deserve trust.  May we never forget that in the end, our help, our faith rests in the Lord, the keeper and protector of our souls.  May we find comfort in the relentless love of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

God's Big Risk: Christmas Eve 2017

Christmas Eve, Year B                                                                       
Luke 2:1-20                                                                            

 

Deli meat, fish, soft cheeses, unpasteurized milk, caffeine and alcohol.   These are some of the things that pregnant women are supposed to avoid eating. Of course, there are also the daily pre-natal vitamins. It’s best to avoid stress.   Generally traveling in the last few weeks of your pregnancy is discouraged. 

While Mary probably avoided deli meat and caffeine, she did not avoid stress or travelling.  The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem was 90 miles, much of it over hills.  Mary and Joseph travelled by foot and donkey.  It probably took them over a week to make that trip.  At that time of year it would have been 30 degrees during the day and colder at night.  They slept on the ground.  They lived on bread and water, because that was all they could easily carry.  It was a perilous journey for anyone, but especially a woman about to give birth.  When they arrived at their destination, the best place they could find was a stable.   This wasn’t a sterile environment, not the cleanest place to give birth.   

It makes me wonder a little about God’s judgment.  There are lots of ways he could have sent his son to earth to bring his message of love and salvation.  He could have sent him fully grown.  He could have sent him to a family with money and power. He could have waited a couple thousand years and sent him to a developed country where the baby Jesus would have been much safer. It’s baffling to me that God would take that kind of risk, that he would take a chance on this young powerless couple.  I personally think that all children should be wrapped in bubble wrap to ensure their safety. There was no bubble wrap! There was hay in a feeding trough. 

God had already tried many ways to reach God’s people.  He sent the prophets who shared his words and wisdom.  Some of them displayed acts of power.  He sent a great flood so the world could start fresh.  He spoke through kings and warriors.  While some of the words of the prophets and kings got people’s attention, it never made the lasting impact that was intended. 

It seems that God then took a break.  There is about a 500 year gap between the end of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus.  500 years where it seems that God wasn’t communicating much, at least not in the big ways he had before. 

We can’t know what was going on with God in those 500 years.  But I like to think that he was pondering, maybe even convincing himself of what had to come next.  He realized that he had to take a risk, make himself—God—vulnerable like he never had before. 

Because God never does anything half way, he made himself as vulnerable as possible. He came not just as a baby, but as a fetus in the womb of a young woman who had no husband and no way to support herself.   There is no greater vulnerability.  For 9 months and then at least a year after, Jesus (God incarnate) depended on Mary for his sustenance.  God’s life was dependent on this one woman.  The future of humanity in the hands of one young woman.

Surely, God was still watching and protecting Mary and the baby Jesus.  One of the first things that the Angel Gabriel told Mary was, “The Lord is with you.”  The angel promised that through this all, God would be with her….not only in the literal sense as she was carrying the Son of God, but also that God the Father was providing strength and assurance.

As Christians, we talk a lot about trusting God and what that means.  It’s challenging to trust God, perhaps one of the greatest challenges that we as Christians face. What we sometimes forget is that God trusts us as well. He displayed that by allowing his son to come to earth in the form of a baby, a helpless baby.  One of the things that distinguished Jesus from other religious leaders, and certainly from anyone considered a god, was that he never asked people to do anything that he was not willing to do. 

We as Christians, put our lives in his hands.  Technically we do.  Let’s face it, it’s usually more figurative than literal. We put our future life in God’s hands in that we believe that if we follow God in this world, then we will live eternally. It’s a lot harder to put our day to day needs and concerns in the hands of God.  Jesus put his life in our hands.  He was completely dependent on human parents to provide for his needs.  He did not come out of the womb as a fully grown man; he was a tiny baby. 

If you look at Medieval art, the baby Jesus always looks kind of weird.  He usually has the face of a man, or maybe even the body of a man, but miniature. Obviously medieval painters knew what babies looked like.  But they could not imagine God in the flesh in that helpless state.  While we have gotten better at depicting baby Jesus in art, I am not sure we truly appreciate the kind of trust and love that God showed in sending his only son to earth.  How could we?

We have romanticized the story of Jesus’ birth and painted it in gentle and vibrant hues.  We have made it sweet and sentimental.  But if you look at the facts of the story, it was a very strange way to introduce God to this world. The crazy thing is, that it worked.  Because God wasn’t just telling people what to believe, he was showing them how he loved us.  For millennia, God had amazed and terrified people with his awesome power.  But with Jesus, people learned what it was to know God and be known by God. 

You might think, well that is all fine and good, but that was thousands of years ago. What do we do when we don’t have God in the flesh here with us? How can we learn to trust and love a God who we don’t know? That’s a tough one.  The best way to trust God is to enter into a relationship with God.  We can do this by reading the Bible, which is full of stories like the one we heard tonight.  We can embrace the traditions of the church, many of which are 100s, maybe even 1000 years old.  We have the Christian religion and the Episcopal Church, that while imperfect, have done a great deal of good in the world.  We have community worship, an opportunity to come and sit with a community of believers and worship God through music and prayers.  We have prayer and meditation.   Some people think that these are the things we do after we learn to trust God.  That certainly is true.  But these are also the practices we use to get to know God. 

People sometimes worry about coming to church when their faith is on perilous ground, or because they are doubting or perhaps even teetering on the cusp of disbelief.  This is exactly where we belong when we are in those situations.  Someone once said that the church is not a museum for saints, it is a hospital for the broken sinners.  I am convinced, that in a room full of broken people, we can find wholeness. We can create a mosaic of faith and trust.  It will not be perfect, but no relationship ever is.  The story of Jesus’ birth and life, is messy and disjointed. That is what makes it real. 

Jesus’ life on earth began with a 90 mile journey in the womb of a young woman.  This 90 mile journey was just the beginning of a wonderful, but difficult life; a life where Jesus loved and was loved, a life where trust was created and trust was broken.   As a result, God understands our journey.  While we are not carrying the baby Jesus in our womb (if you are, we need to talk), we are carrying a promise, a promise of God’s love, a promise that God will be with us now and until the end.    

(Quote from Abigail Van Buren.  It is assumed that she was quoting St. Augustine.)