Proper-28-chester.md

Homily November 18:

St. Mark’s, Chester 11 am
Proper 28

The end times

We have entered into a peculiar time in the church year, at least it always strikes me that way, when we are approaching the last of a year-long sequence but the world around us is in some other place. It is in a mode of buying and selling. It is in a partying mode.
Next Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year. It often happens that the readings we are hearing today occur just before Thanksgiving day as it does this year. Sometimes Thanksgiving is later and we would hear lessons for the last Sunday of the church year. Those lessons all have a theme having to do with the end-times, apocalyptic occurances, the big picture.
The Thanksgiving readings, of course, reflect the tone of the day and are completely about thanksgiving for all the gifts that God has given us. It’s a day about gratitude. Often this Sunday appropriates such a tone.
By design the gospels of the Sundays leading up to the last Sunday of the church year are designed to evoke a very different kind of awareness. They are apocalyptic readings or evoke images. They are intended to give us a sense of the ultimate importance of the moment in which we live because we do not know the times or the seasons of when the end will come.
In the year – shall we say 30 – of the common area, many ordinary people might have looked around themselves in Palestine and seen that the trend of events pointed towards some kind of calamity. The Romans soon crush the tiny vassal state of Judea. Those who were sensitive to what was going on around them at the time might well have imagined that the most impressive building for thousands of miles around, the Temple of Jerusalem, might well soon come tumbling down during that climactic time.
The disciples looked around themselves, and they saw the majestic Temple before them, and they were awestruck. Maybe they gave thanks for such a monument to God. But Jesus looked at them and said, “Look now because the time is fast approaching when all those stones will be brought down to the ground and carried away.”

Hannah

The lectionary of the church year in its ending and in its beginning of the first couple of Sundays in Advent, leads us to pray and reflect not about the festivities we may see going on around us, the controversies that however important do not set our eyes and hearts on eternity. The lectionary at this time of year invites us to turn away from the facade we see going on around us and to look into the heart of things. There we see a laser-like attention to the things of lasting value. There we see what some might call an apocalyptic landscape looming.
Seeing that apocalyptic vision, one would be understanding if not forgiving for those who would like to just drink it away. I regularly hear comedians on TV, as they review the events of the day, exclaiming that the only sane thing to do now is just to have a stiff drink.
Hannah was in such a state in the opening of first Samuel that we hear in our first reading today.

She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly.

She was at the end of her rope as the saying goes. But she was caught up in the spirit of the Lord not in the spirit of the bitterness around her. The priest Eli couldn’t see it. He presumed she was just drinking too much.
It was, of course, her deep relationship with God that led to her troubled spirit and her open weeping.
We know because we have heard the narrative before, again and again really, but we heard it in particular all throughout the early part of this church year, last winter. It is the story of Samuel who chose the first kings of Israel. Then the litany of kings with the great king David standing above them all. The one we follow, the Lord Jesus, is counted as a descendent of David. His relationship to the anointed one gives him the title we know Jesus by, the Messiah, or in Greek, the Christ.

Focus on Time

For me the clearest way I can think of this concern for end-times that I hear and read today and for the next few weeks, particularly in the gospel, is to imagine it as a kind of focusing of our attention. In the way a magnifying glass focuses and concentrates and intensifies the light that shines into it. The Spirit want us to intensify and focus on this moment and place in which we live.
It is the only time we will ever have, now. What has been and what will be out of what we have left behind and what we are becoming.

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.

So begins one of the poems of T.S. Eliot’s *Four Quartets, *one of the greatest religious poems in the English language. ¹ In this section he reflects on how fragile our life is. He marvels at the continuous flow of birth to maturity and then to decay and death – only to find the seeds of re-birth.
The beautiful poem ends with a reversal of the opening:

Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel (large seabirds) and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

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Mystical Time

For me the words are mystical. For me this time of year enters not into the cacophony, the noise that surounds us, but into the stillness new beginnings. It is a time rather when God and God’s presence enters into my life in unsuspecting ways. It is the time of year for remembering over and over again that what we experience as endings, as catastrophes, are often as not the very building blocks of a new beginning.
It is not a magical time. I leave the magic to the ad men who run our online and on-ground commerce. It is a time when the sun seems submerged in murky water. And we end up forgetting that it is out of murky water that life emerges.
It is a time for slowing down when all around us screams hurry up.
Apocalyptic literature has always been produced during times when catastrophes seem to be all about us. Apocalyptic visions are not meant to scare but to reassure. Apocalyptic literatures cries out from the mountain tops, “all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”
The so-called holiday season is upon us. Don’t be seduced. Don’t worry about running to catch up. Don’t worry about how to get it all done, how to pay for it all in the end. Don’t worry about the invitation lists or the packages needing wrapped. Don’t worry.
Eliot’s poem sequence ends:

And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Appendix ²

• Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life
• “drunken” Hannah before the priest Elkanah
• Every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.
• since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,
• Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he! and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars,

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1. "“In my beginning is my end.” This line opens “East Coker,” the second section of T.S. Eliot’s poetic masterpiece, Four Quartets. It is followed by a haunting, elegiac reflection on the fragile and transitory nature of life as seen in the cycle of life and death in nature. What is the meaning of our short lives? What hope is man given in this passing world? In whom shall we trust for our salvation? cwr ↩︎
   
2. (lectionary) ↩︎
   

proper27-epiphany-spartanburg.md

Proper 27

November 11:

Ordinary Time, Proper 27
Epiphany, Spartanburg
Since I last saw you, we have certainly traveled a long ways as a people. One thing I know of that has been huge in our family is that we have passed from the place where Mary Pat was anxious about my being away from the house long enough to come to Spartanburg and be with you – that was June – up until the present day when she is able to be with me as I come to celebrate with you. Oh, the wonders of what God is doing in our midst.
As a nation we have traveled to the end of the midterms. I said in our morning prayer on Wednesday that I was grateful to have the whole campaigning experience be over even though I knew that the next campaign was beginning already that morning.
When I was in my 20’s, the experience of having one generation in conflict with another seemed inconvenient but bearable. On the downward slide to the age of 70 I am weary of the pervasive rhetoric that pushes us apart, that encourages our divisions, and that imagines our journey together as a people to be one of combat and facing down enemies.

Ruth

In our first reading from scripture this morning we hear short excerpts from the dramatic conclusion of the book of Ruth. The book is very short and easy to read because the narrative is vivid and relatively easy to follow. The conclusion which we hear today presents the context of the narrative as it places the forebears of the people of Israel and of David in particular. Ruth it turns out is the great grandmother of David.
It will be a breathtaking journey, the journey of the people of Israel, the descendants of David. They will become a nation, although never a great nation. In their geographic location at the eastern sure of the Mediterranean Sea, The nation of Israel and then the nation of Judah were positioned to see all the great empires of the world fighting for dominance. Fast forward 2500 years and the story is pretty much the same. And one might say get all began with Ruth and her mother in law Naomi.

The beginning of the book of Ruth reveals to us what is perhaps the older and original meaning of the story. Ruth is a foreigner living in the land of Israel. She was an undocumented immigrant and God chose her from among all the women of the world at that time to be the great grandmother of his chosen and anointed king David. It turns out God loves immigrants.

Widow’s Mite

Our gospel passage this morning adds another striking layer to the picture of what and who God has special favor for. I remember hearing this passage read in church on a Sunday morning when I was still a young child. I suppose it was Sunday school teachers who made a point of addressing their little children by teaching them that God favors the widows mite – which is to say – the small sum but huge percentage that the poor person – the widow in this case – is able to give.
Jesus in this story is not impressed by those who put themselves forward as the most important, the most favored, the richest, those who strut about in their importance. Beware of them he says.
We regularly come home in the evenings and watch the evening news together. Sometimes its later than the news hour and we are watching a recording of the earlier program. And very often the closing story of the news is about someone in a seemingly obscure place or unheralded position, someone who has made a huge difference in the life of their neighbors and even in the well-being of people far beyond themselves.

• Oklahoma mom offers to be stand-in parent at gay weddings: After hearing from LGBTQ couples whose parents did not support them on their wedding day, 54-year-old Sara Cunningham offered to step in as “mom.”
• Lava evacuee volunteers to save others’ homes: Heath Dalton lost his home in Leilani Estates and is now spending most of his time rescuing pets and putting out fires to save other peoples property.
• Powerful Image Captures War Zone Photographer Rescuing Child: Abd Alkader Habak told NBC News he was photographing Syrians being evacuated aboard buses on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo Saturday when the huge bomb hit. Habak, a photographer and anti-government activist, said he came across children lying on the ground after he picked himself up. … What happened next was captured by a fellow photographer and shared widely online, with the harrowing images becoming yet another window into Syria’s brutal six-year civil war. Habak said he picked up the child who appeared to still be breathing and ran to seek shelter.
• Inspiring America: At Maine Restaurant, Paying Your Bill Means Paying it Forward. Laura Benedict is using her small town restaurant, Red Barn, to raise millions of dollars for her community, things like helping to send a group of veterans to the WWII memorial in Washington DC or raising $ to help a 6th grader suffering from a debilitating, uncurable, nerve disease.

Each is a story of an ordinary person, someone like you or me, acting in an extraordinary way to make a difference, to share God’s love.
The stories go on and on.

The Gospel View

What is the Gospel view of all this? What mighty works is God unfolding right here in our midst? What world shattering news does God have for us today – for me? For you? That’s what I take the word “Gospel” to mean. " World shattering news."
Normally it is very difficult to see the big picture when all around us what we see is just us. Just the few of us. And our best days are behind us.
When the next generations tell the stories of the grandparents, the great grandparents, what will they remember? When I talk to my students at Winthrop I sometimes have reason to ask them if they have known any of their great grandparents. Usually here in South Carolina about 20-30 percent of the class has. And some of their great grandparents are still alive.
The reason I talk about it with them is that the great-grandparent generation – the same as Ruth in our first reading – is the length at which the stories get told orally. Unless they are written down, or repeated from generation to generation, they won’t be remembered.
You at Epiphany, Spartanburg, have been powerful witnesses over the years of God’s work in our midst. I urge you to find ways to tell your story. I saw a story in The State the other day (you probably read it). Remember and tell your story. ¹ No matter how small it may seem, I promise you – God promises you in the Gospel, Jesus promises you – God has been mightily at work here.

Closing

I take heart that God loves the little people like Ruth, like that widow Jesus was looking at who “out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” I take heart that in the long history of God’s relationship with his chosen people God has consistently chosen to use the unlikely and obscure person to bring about his purposes. It was true then. It’s true now. Thanks be to God.

Appendix

lectionary

• that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God
• Last week: Ruth 1 … Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge;
• Heb 9
• Widow’s mite

-beware of the scribes

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1. https://www.thestate.com/living/religion/article216294255.html ↩︎
   

all-saints-st-marks-chester

Homily:

November 4:Ordinary Time, Proper 26 st mark 11 am

Introductions

Thank you for the invitation to celebrate Eucharist with you, to give thanks for the work that God has done, is doing, and will do in your midst.

Briefly, about myself.

Hawai’i

parishes in WI, IN, HI, and supply in NC & USC.

Taught college in Indiana, Hawai’i, and SC. Currently an adjunct in Religion department at Winthrop. It’s because my wife, Mary Pat, got hired by the Math department to teach teachers how to teach Math that brings us to SC.

This is my first time in Chester, SC. I have a smattering of input from people who have knowledge of your community. For one person it has been the center for them over many years of one of his chief passions: skydiving. The bishop has shared with me his perception that the people of this particular community are seriously engaged in doing “God’s work” in this place, making Christ known by serving God’s people.

We drove around Chester on our way to observe the eclipse last year.

Observing All Saints (tr.)

Associated with Halloween. When I became Episcopalian as a young teenager, one of the things that happened was we shifted from Halloween to All Saints as the focus.

Necessary to start with a sense of the “Communion of the Saints.” We, of course, have saints days throughout the year. But only one day is set aside for – all the rest. Who are they? Well, it’s a lot as it turns out.

It’s about a time of a lineup of Saints, capital “S” and lower case “s”. What makes a saint? What a menagerie of different kinds of folks that make up our well-known saints.

It’s about All the saints. And that’s why we have to recognize how broadly the net is cast.

Paul and all the saints in …

Paul refers to “the saints” many times in his writings. The clearest definition of a saint is found in his salutation at the beginning of 1 Corinthians:

1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: 3 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:1–3)

All Saints calls us to recognize the vast family of humanity, known and unknown, as a part of the family that binds us together.

Communion of the Saints

I can remember when I first came head to head, eyeball to eyeball, really began to understand the communion of the saints. I think it was through C.S. Lewis. At one point I tried to read everything he had written – I didn’t succeed.

Although I had heard the phrase in the Apostles Creed that I had memorized when I was confirmed as a teenager. At that age it didn’t really impress me very much.

… I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Afterall, the 3rd stanza of the Apostles’ Creed sounds a little like a grab bag of concepts that were left over after you got through with the first 2 important ones: God & Jesus. (I’m being tongue in cheek there.)

I would learn in time that I was quite mistaken.

It may have been in C.S. Lewis’s last volume, Letters to Malcolm, [1] The context is in a discussion of how we ought to pray to the saints, what kind of devotion is appropriately directed toward them. It’s a classic Anglican issue: How much are we like the Catholics? How much are we like the Protestants?

“The consoling thing is that while Christendom is divided about the rationality, and even the lawfulness, of praying to the saints, we are all agreed about praying with them.”

I was delighted to learn from him a vision of being connected to the whole family of saints, living and dead.

It allowed me to see and feel in Christian faith a connection with a multitude – rather than a laser-like focus on the inner movements of the individual.

A part of me thought, “What does God care about whether some individual accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior?” What God is about is way moe bigger than that – as Hawaiian pidgin would put it.

It has been said that “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses,” [2]

The communion of saints (Latin, communio sanctorum), when referred to persons, is the spiritual union of the members of the Christian Church, living and the dead. They are all part of a single “mystical body”, with Christ as the head, in which each member contributes to the good of all and shares in the welfare of all. [3]

All Saints is a central part of the who is my neighbor equation – you know the one where Jesus responds by telling the Good Samaritan parable. Our neighbors are all around us – and they are those who have gone before and those who will come after.

Honoring the past and our heritage

All Saints has been a prominent, even distinctive, Anglican celebration for many centuries. It’s important that it not be forgotten or lost amid the many competing forces.

We need it to keep the celebration – at a time when it can be a challenge for many who have lost the ability to celebrate, especially to celebrate in the face of loss and mourning.

An increasingly well-known festival-holiday associated with All Saints is the Day of the Dead.

The Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions, and by people of Mexican heritage kkelsewhere. The multi-day holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey. [4]

This holiday is being rediscovered or reappreciated by many because it lifts up in celebration those for whom we may mourn. Like All Saints at the center of it all, it guides us in lifting up our spirits at a time when we may feel surrounded by loss and fear.

Honoring elders

In some way All Saints Day calls us back to where we used to be, where many in the world still are, to a place that honors those who have come before us. Our elders, and grand-elders and grand-grand-elders.

Our elders are gone. But in some magical kind of way they remain with us and in us and All Saints is one time of year when we remember and we honor our fathers and mothers – the great cloud of witnesses.

Turning mourning into feasting

All Saints celebrations can turn us away from the modern focus on progress and consumption and at least for a moment connected us with the past – the past we have lost. It’s no longer the present. We mourn its loss. But to celebrate the saints who have made us who we are is to turn mourning into feasting.

Letting the light shine in

Someone said, “We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” All Saints is about letting the light shine through our brokeness.

We live in a time that seems dark to many. It is a time when people of all political and religious stripes look backwards and lament the loss of what used to be.

We need to re-learn how to turn nostalgia into celebration.

On Friday Shabbat services began at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. The members couldn’t hold service inside because the building was still a crime scene. CNN reported:

About 50 men locked arms and swayed, harmonizing in Hebrew under darkening skies, while police looked on and pilgrims laid stones and flowers at memorials for the 11 congregants who were slain last Saturday. The building is still closed while police process the crime scene.

Moslem response

Within days the Muslim community of Pittsburgh had raised thousands of dollars to assist their brothers and sisters of the Tree of Life Congregation.

All Saints helps us to know that those were our brothers and sisters praying, letting the light in.

Last Sunday at the church I was supplying at and yesterday at a Catholic church we were visiting, we sang one of my all-time favorite songs: One Bread, One Body.

Refrain

One bread, one body One Lord of all One cup of blessing which we bless And we, though many Throughout the earth We are one body in this one Lord

1. Gentile or Jew Servant or free Woman or man, no more

2. Many the gifts Many the works One in the Lord of all

3. Grain for the fields Scattered and grown Gathered to one, for all

That is All Saints in song.

It helps me to know that we are one with all the saints, that we are bound together across all the barriers that humans have erected. Thanks be to God.

Appendix

All Saints lectionary

• The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
  and no torment will ever touch them.
• I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
• Jesus began to weep. (Mary & Martha – Lazarus)

Proper 26 *

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1. This article says it was in his Letters to Malcolm; chiefly on prayer
   blog  ↩

2. In a piece on the sacramental imagination shared by the Oxford group. oxford-group  ↩

3. Wikipedia  ↩

4. Wikipedia  ↩