Christmas Message 2021, St. Paul's

 

Christmas

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC_RCL/Christmas/ChrsDay1_RCL.html

These are not the circumstances I expected for a Christmas message.

Like all of you I was caught off-guard when in the span of 24 hours it seemed clear that we would have to move back to being church virtually.

I am speaking to you now, trying to reach into your homes through the wonder of modern technology, while what most of us are probably most aware of is the distance between us.

I do know, however, that each of us is doing the best we can with the deck of cards that we have been dealt. The wonder of God's work in us is precisely that God takes who and what we are and works with that. God isn't finished with any of us.

Opening

It’s Christmas. The season of Christmas will stretch for 12 days. It’s all around us and its impact stretches as far as we can see. The supply chain, the success of the economy, images of lights and candles, and stories of generosity and self giving, -- all of these are impacted by what happens at Christmas time. Everyone knows it’s Christmas, but what it means is so many different things.

I was surprised to learn long ago that the sort of Christmas that we have been accustomed to was not always the case. Puritans looked down on Anglicans in the early days of our country thinking them beyond the pale because they celebrated Christmas. Many are aware of the traumatic invention of the consumer oriented Christmas of the last century or so. Similarly many are aware of the association of the winter solstice and the date chosen for the celebration of the incarnation.

If we go back 150 years or 850 years the celebration of Christmas was, of course, very different from what we are accustomed to today. So that if everything that we have been accustomed to seems to be thrown out the door with the realities and challenges of the era of pandemic and covid 19, well -- we're not so very different from where the church has been for the last 2,000 years.

Among other things it encourages me to try to focus on The Essentials, on what really matters about Christmas.

The main thing that has stood out for me over the years is the essential theological understanding of what Christmas is all about; namely, "Incarnation".

"In-carnation"

It's a Latin term made up of words for "becoming something" and "flesh". Not very interesting I guess in terms of grammar or the warmth that we get from hearing Christmas music. But it is a pregnant and rich concept soak in and hold on to. Incarnation means something like embodiment, becoming a body, being made manifest in a body.

Think of these words:

• incantation: making song
• illuminate: making light (the in-luminate doubles the consonate and becomes illuminate)
• incandescent: make glowing
• incense: make censing (burning perfume) # "Embodiment"

"Incarnation" is about embodying. In its Christmas usage: at this festival we celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus -- which is to say, "In Jesus we now have the embodiment of God's very self."

Embodiment. Embodies. Jesus the embodiment of God. Interesting word that -- "embodies".

It connects a noun with a quality.

Think of someone who "embodies"

• love
• generosity
• self-sacrifice
• service to the least of God's children
• kindness
• gentleness
• gracefulness
• courage

The list could be extended quite a ways, I think.

I could get lost in each one of those words, thinking of the possibilities and connections, the examples and -- well the embodiments of them.

I'm not so much interested here in how those words might be embodied in my life (or your life) as I am in the basic proclamation of Christmas; namely, that in the Incarnation Jesus embodied God.

These are days when we tend to hear about these kinds of examples. Just the other day I heard about one. ## Nonprofit "Santa’s Workshop Helps Families In Need" read the headline.

https://www.acn.news/nonprofit-santas-workshop-helps-families-in-need/

Cortney Loften has helped others during the holidays for over a decade but started the Red Sled Santa Foundation nearly two years ago. The nonprofit creates a meaningful Christmas by providing gifts and financial assistance to families in need.

The story that I heard on the news was about a project that the nonprofit was doing with a down syndrome group. They were helping the members to create toys and gifts to give to needy children. Because I have known some down syndrome people and I know how much love they have to give. The story brought tears to my eyes.

---

Teacher raising $

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/19/us/north-carolina-teacher-fundraiser-food-winter-break-durham/index.html

Another story appeared recently.

A teacher raised more than $100,000 to purchase enough food to keep thousands of children from going hungry over winter break

(CNN)Turquoise LeJeune Parker ends every class by telling each of her students she loves them.

The 34-year-old library teacher at Lakewood Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina, does everything she can to prove it, and her recent fundraiser, which collected $106,000 to feed her students in need, is her most recent gesture of love.

Winter break can mean weeks of food insecurity for children and their families, Durham Public Schools spokeswoman Crystal Roberts told CNN.

"It's a basic human right. We're not talking about raising money to buy people a vacation; this is food, a very, very basic thing," Parker said. "We need to make sure we take care of our schools, because when we take care of our schools, we're taking care of our community."

Her endeavor, which she named Mrs. Parker's Professors Foodraiser, used the money she raised to purchase, pack and distribute more than 5,200 bags full of food to students at 12 schools throughout the Durham Public Schools district.

The ways in which those characteristics get embodied is really boundless.

• love
• generosity
• self-sacrifice
• service to the least of God's children
• kindness
• gentleness
• gracefulness
• courage # The embodiment of God

The Word was made flesh

One of the gospel passages which is deeply associated with Christmas is not the "Christmas story". It is the Prologue to John's Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
The Word was with God in the beginning.

Everything came into being through the Word,
and without the Word
nothing came into being.

What came into being
through the Word was life,
and the life was the light for all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.

Jesus as "embodiment"

This most amazing truth has been proclaimed from the earliest days of the church. It is in somehow or other God's very self becoming human. One of us.

I was amazed and delighted with a popular song of 25 years ago or so. It was titled "One of us" and sung by Joan Osborne. The opening stanza of the song is:

If God had a name what would it be? And would you call it to his face? If you were faced with Him in all His glory What would you ask if you had just one question?

Then in masterful fashion, she sings the line: "What if God was one of us?"

I was amazed at the popularity of the song at the time. But even more amazed because she is asking one of the most profound Christian questions there is. "What if God was one of us?" Well, that is precisely what the Incarnation is all about. That is what happened. And what does it mean? For us, for the world?

God Himself / Herself is embodied in Jesus.

• God who is beyond gender was manifest in a very real male person
• God who loves and embraces all at all times, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, was embodied in a 1st c. Palestinian laborer

God became flesh. It is a most breath-taking proclamation.

Advent 4c -- St. Paul's, Monroe

Advent 4

Opening

It's so often happens that I am boggled in my mind with what we say and read in church. I think did we really say that? Did we really mean that?

Take, for example, the Collect of the day we opened our liturgy with.

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We just let it roll off our tongues. But listen! In just the most simple sort of way, we acknowledge that Almighty God comes to me everyday. I can imagine that might be a kind of theoretical statement whereby we acknowledge that God the creator of the universe is somehow maybe in the universe itself present. But with me? When I'm getting out of bed, groggy from sleep and wanting a cup of coffee? Me when I'm crabby or impatient?

But we are claiming that God comes to visit me in order to prepare me for meeting God's Son Jesus Christ. It's like getting ready for church when I was younger, my mother made certain that I was dressed in my finest Sunday clothes. "You never know who you're going to meet."

But we're not talking just dressing up in fine clothes. No we're talking about the finest mansion. God is visiting us So that we become the finest dwelling place in the land.

The Son Jesus Christ is going to live with us. Amazing. Don't you think. And then there's this whole Mary thing.

Magnificat

Experience

My earliest abiding memory

Today’s reading begins a pivot from a focus on John to Jesus, culminating, of course, in Christmas and the Incarnation of the Son of God. Today the focus is on Mary, his mother.

When I was growing up I didn't know much about Mary other than what I encountered at the annual children's Christmas pageant.

We hear from John in the Gospel, but it’s focused on John’s relationship to “the one who comes after.”

The psalm is that “Song of Mary” that I so treasured at Evergreen camp in my teens.

When I was in my early teens for several years running I attended church camp in Evergreen, Colorado. Many years later I learned that that particular camp had a very significant role in the life of the national church from the 1940s and '50s. I learned also that it was dominated by High Church clergy in the 1960s when I was there. That, I guess, explains why every night we had Solemn Evensong. So imagine a group of 13-year-old boys and girls gathering every evening for prayer with incense and chanted lessons and prayers.

It was at that point that Mary became an active part of my spiritual life with the intonation of the Magnificat -- the "Song of Mary" -- and the petitions in Evening Prayer. There's something about the combination of smell and music that one never quite shakes.

It was there that I first imagined that I wanted to be a priest. I was called to be a priest. I was also a 14 year old trying to find his way in a sometimes strange world.

I heard my first dirty joke, told by a priest. Did that have something to do with it?

I first heard about this author named C.S. Lewis. We read from his space trilogy, particularly the volume named Perelandra. That same priest made the case that in this novel Lewis was painting a portrait of what a renewed and redeemed creation looks and feels like.

This, then, was the first time I encountered the notion that -- the Gospel, the faith, God's very self and presence, -- might be communicated through fiction or other kinds of writing. Later I would encounter it again and again in poetry.

20’s

In my 20s I became particularly interested in experiencing and understanding contemplative style prayer of various kinds. During that time I experimented with the well-known Catholic practice of praying the Rosary. I wasn't trying to be Catholic, but trying to be closer to God, in some sense or other made a "mansion". Interestingly, some years later I learned that more and more Protestants were praying the Rosary for just the same kinds of reasons I had. Eventually there developed a method for Anglicans, the aptly titled "Anglican Rosary."

In ministry

By the time my children came along, I was committed to praying with them and trying to ensure that they didn't remember a time that we didn't pray together. Among others, at bedtime we prayed the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary -- though I modified both of them slightly. I didn't use the word "hallowed" in the Lord's Prayer because I figured my kids would never use that word in a normal sentence, that it was not a real word in that sense. I also didn't use the phrase "at the time of our death" in the Rosary, figuring that young children didn't need to be daily reminded of death. They would be exposed to that enough in time.

"Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus."

Marianists

Much later in life, I began a close relationship with the Marianist community in Honolulu. It began with my spiritual director telling me to find a Christian community outside of my own community and commit to worship with them at least once a week. As their name implies, the Marianists have a particular devotion to Mary.

Mary sentimentalized

Taking Mary seriously

In my view, Mary has for too long in the tradition been sentimentalized and even trivialized. It's a way of seeming to idolize her without taking what she represents seriously in our lives.

Putting Mary on a pedestal

The church had regarded Mary's place in the gospel as central from the very beginning. Early on the tradition gave her the title God bearer -- theotokos in the Greek.

In the Middle Ages she was regarded as the paramount model of chivalric love and figured prominently in poetry, art, and song.

Later in the Roman Catholic tradition her place was so elevated that she seemed almost to be on a par with Jesus himself. It was one of the points of contention at the time of the Reformation.

That may seem to contradict my claim that Mary was not taken seriously. When we exalt someone so high -- "Queen of Heaven" is one of her titles -- that person is so remote that she is inaccessible by us mere mortals.

I had experienced in my own prayer that Mary was very real and very much a part of my every day life. Others had the same sort of experience.

Mary’s humanity emphasized

I was moved to discover representations of Mary in the 70’s and beyond that reacted against the sentimentalizing of Mary. Her pregnancy and child-rearing were portrayed – well, the way real people are.

It didn’t make her less important in my prayer life, but more. What Mary had to say to me became more and more important. Not the least of these was the song of Mary, the Magnificat.

This canticle begins with a wistful, spiritual sounding cry from Mary:

“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

It is the tenor of that phrase that I first resonated with, Mary helping me to turn my inner eyes and heart toward the awesome mystery of God.

But the song continues to be firmly planted in the world we all live in.

Rather closer to a revolutionary

Her song rings out the message:

• God has mercy on those who fear him.
• God Scatters the proud in the height of their hubris.
• God Casts down the mighty when they think they're most powerful.
• God Fills the hungry with plenty to eat while the wealthy go without.
• God Fulfills the promise of Abraham and his offspring.

Mary speaks the language of the Gospel that her son would later preach. The expectations that we place on the world are over-turned when God does the preparing. Mary is in harmony with the gospel from before Jesus was even born.

The Magnificat and the Beatitudes are very close and speak to the same divine reality, the same promises of God that are already (but not yet) fulfilled.

Mary's voice is at the heart of the Gospel that we preach. Not because she is exalted in heaven, but because she lives in the world that we do.

We live in a world where the proud appear to be victorious. We live in a world that takes advantage of the poor and the weak. We live in the world where power is the be all and end all.

Mary courageously proclaims that in God's mansion, those values are turned upside down. She is something of a revolutionary, at least in a manner similar to the way Jesus was a revolutionary.

Closing

On this last Sunday before Christmas, Mary is the featured speaker. A mother. A mother who would go through all the pangs and anxiety associated with becoming a mother. But a mother, also, who would one day be at his side as he was executed for being a danger to the state.

Mary knows the utter devastation of seeing it all come crashing around her. But she believes in God's promise that, in the end, the poor are lifted up and the proud are put in their place.

This Sunday is sweet in the cycle we call Advent. The promise of things to come is almost tangible, almost a taste on our tongue, almost within reach. She exemplifies for us the world we live in, in which we are called to put our faith in that which we don't yet see. Some have called it the "already but not yet" of Christian hope.

When I was in college I studied the 14th c. English mystics. Among them was Julian of Norwich. She was one of the reasons that we named our 2nd child Julian. Julian (or Juliana) of Norwich lived in a time of pandemic. It was called the "Black Death." When she looked around her there was not much evidence that God's promises would be victorious. And then she got sick and was near death. There she received a series of "Revelations" which she wrote down so that we have them in our own day. She did not see all that was wrong in her world. She did not see all the things that weren't working and were tearing people down and apart.

She saw what Mary saw. In words that I first encountered and memorized in T.S. Eliot's long poetry sequence the "Four Quartets":

All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

That is hope -- an Advent hope. Amen.

00-st-pauls-rite-1-early 00-st-pauls-late-rite-1

Advent 3c St. Paul's, Monroe

 

Tis the season

It is Advent.

We are swiftly moving through Advent, now. The time is running short. Do you feel the pressure?

Maybe your goal is to be ready to travel wherever you're going for Christmas. Perhaps it is to get things in the mail on time.

I know in our house we've missed deadlines related to Christmas by weeks and even months.

Such is the season.

Why is it that the harder we try the behinder we get? What are the barriers that somehow we erect to hinder ourselves in going forward?

Advent a time for self-examination

Advent is precisely the time for asking those kinds of questions. It is a time for looking at ourselves with sharp eyes. And it is a time of becoming more sharply aware of what is the goal.

And the goal isn't really about letters, or packing, or any of the myriad things we fill our days with. The goal is our encounter with the living God.

Paul to Philippians

Paul seems to present us with a list of things of that order.

• rejoice always
• Don't worry about anything
• ask God with thanksgiving in your prayer (as if it's already completed?)
• The peace of God will settle around you

I'm really inclined to think of this as pretty much outside of my realistic zone of expectations. It really feels like Paul is laying other worldly expectations on us. Something along the lines of, "Yeah, right."

Yet the season calls us, somehow, deep within. Paul really is providing us with a goal for us to live by.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins,...

Zephaniah

There's singing in the air. People sing in December who don't sing any other time of the year. There's somehow an expectation of hope for gifts in this season, even if the kind of gift shifts with our age.

Our hope is different at age 5 and age 15. Remember those years. For many of us the struggle is to remember those ages of our children.

The hope of the season is for Grace.

The singing we hear within us is for the grace of God to liberate us from all that has held us back.

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, * for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

Self-examen

Baptismal promises

At St. Paul's this year we are in the midst of preparing for an event just on the other side of Christmas and Epiphany. The bishop's visit on Jan. 9. There we will be renewing our baptismal vows as Bp. Sam will confirm Lizzie Becker.

This year one of the great blessings, as I see it, is that we are setting our anticipated Christmas in the context of baptism.

In my view, everything we do as Christians ought to be in the context of our baptism. There we proclaim our faith and trust in the living triune God and we promise to God that we:

• Renounce: spiritual the forces of darkness, evil powers of this world sinful desires drawing us away from God;
• turn (conversion, repent, metanoia) to Jesus Christ;
• put our "whole trust" in his grace;
• and promise to follow and obey Jesus Christ.

These are awesome promises that we make and our only hope for even coming close is two-fold: 1) we put our whole trust in God, and 2) we daily work at living into the goal.

Each day ought to feature a look at ourselves in the light of those promises. One traditional time when that takes place is in the evening or the night, when the busy-ness and tasks of the day are past.

We find this in the office for night-time prayer in the prayer book. It's titled "Compline" and it begins with a confession, using familiar language: "We have sinned against you, through our own fault, in thought, and word and deed, and in what we have left undone."

For many centuries that kind of self-examination -- known as a "daily examen" -- has been followed by Christians.

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God's presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God's hand at work in our whole experience.

One version of it breaks the process down as follows:

1. Become aware of God's presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

Note how this outline is not marked by sorrow at all the ways we've fallen short of our goals. It starts with an awareness of the constant and eternal presence of God -- which we are all too commonly unaware of.

It proceeds through paying attention to the gifts (the grace) of the day for which we are grateful.

It then pays attention to our body, our emotions, our gut, our intuitions, our "feelings", for clues as to what's going on inside.

From there the process asks us to choose one thing that emerges in our examination and in whatever way makes sense to us we place it before God, we "pray about it."

And then we "hope". We "expect" what is to come tomorrow.

It's so "advent".

Advent: a time of Preparation

Preparing ourselves to meet the Lord.

As I suggested last week: each of us has some variation of the vocation to precede the Lord's appearance, preparing those we encounter to be ready to truly meet the Lord when he comes.

Advent(us) is Latin for "coming". It is about anticipation, expectation, getting things ready.

And as I suggested last week, that is a process closely associated with John, the John who is again this week so vividly present in our passage from Luke's gospel.

John:

John is full of fire and brimstone -- appropriate for a time of facing our own demons and failures.

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.

Whoever doesn't bear good fruit will be pruned. Yes, we know those prophetic warnings.

But there is much more to hear today. John asks us to look within and without for the signs of the coming Lord.

How will we recognize the Lord when he arrives?

They were questioning in their hearts whether he might be the Messiah. Is this the one? Is it some other?

How will we know when the living God comes into our midst, touches one of our loved ones, touches us?

John's answer is that the one coming after baptizes not just with water but with the Holy Spirit and Fire.

I know I was taught that these might be read as symbolizing sacraments, baptism and confirmation, perhaps.

As with so much else about my faith these days I'm inclined to hear it much more metaphorically.

If my task is to sweep the impediments away, to clean the pathway that others will come down, it is up to the living God to find the right time -- usually a surprising time -- to touch the ones who come after me.

I've watched it happen, sometimes from a distance. Someone who is struggling sees something, hears something, understands something, and they are startled. "Wait! What?" is the look.

Often with tears, always with a sense of tenderness, the person recognizes that they are loved. The living presence of God has touched them -- and they are changed.

The purpose of our lives is to prepare for those moments.

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

00-st-pauls-rite-1-early # Notes

Lectionary

Homily Advent 2c

 

Advent 2

lectionary

Opening

It was many years ago. I was still a youth. I'm not sure where I learned it. Was it that I had a physician and a nurse for parents? Was it that I was an oldest child? Was it learning about people like Mother Teresa? I don't know. But I knew, deep down, that the lives we lived were not primarily for ourselves, for our enjoyment or fulfillment, but for others.

Man for others was the title of an address by the head of the Jesuits in 1973. ¹

I also may have heard it in connection with the movement of the 90's, focused on men and led by the football coach of the Colorado University football team: Promise Keepers

Called to prepare the way

We are not here for ourselves. We are here for those who come after us. That is a startling thing to acknowledge. It is shocking to try to put it into practice.

If we are not for ourselves but for others, it is clear that we are not not even here for our generation, but for those we will not even meet in the next generations.

That is a frightening set of claims if we pay any attention to them at all. But perhaps it is even more frightening not to pay attention.

We are not here for ourselves but for those who come after us.

Transition between eras

Last week I spoke about the anxiety that occurs as one era passes from one to another. The times we live in are part of the passing of eras that are measured in decades and centuries, not weeks or months.

It is not only our generation that is living in an "in between time". It is our parents and our children as well.

The former times are passing away, and the long-expected "world to come" has not yet arrived.

The prophets of Israel centuries ago spoke of these things. Prophets of our own time are well aware themselves. Prophets appear for us and are sent for our benefit because they can see the passing of times. They are a link between eras.

Word of God came to John and he was empowered to be a link -- a go-between if you will -- between the age that was passing away and the new era emerging, by Christians it is understood from the Old Covenant to the new Covenant.

The collect for today describes the vocation of the prophets and our responsibility to pay attention to them:

to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer...

Canticle: Song of Zechariah

The canticle associated most closely with morning prayer uses these words for Zechariah (the father) describing the vocation or calling of his son (John):

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, * for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

To give his people knowledge of salvation * by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God * the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, * and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

I began regularly praying the Canticle of Zechariah while still in my 20's. By my 30's I somehow interiorized the words, made them my own.

It has been both a gift and a burden to understand that I am responsible for going ahead of others, "before them", in order to prepare the way for the Lord of heaven and earth to enter into their lives.

Of course, I'm not the only one responsible. That's the whole thing. We've all been called to that.

I am indebted to those who made me who I am, and I am accountable to those who come after. Preparing the way. We are preparing the way for those who come after us.

Ultimately, this becomes an identification with the prophets. We walk in their shoes. It's an awesome responsibility. We walk in their shoes. Accountability is passed on to us.

John's Day

This Sunday is John's day like no other. He is the featured voice.

John has an out-sized place in the gospel as we have received it. He appears at the beginning of each of the 4 gospels. His message seems to have been passed on to Jesus who then molded it and shaped it in his image.

Cf. Advent 2 2019

All four gospels provide testimony that John was the forerunner of Jesus. He was older and part of an older tradition.

I have said this to you before, but it is important and worth repeating. There are only a few elements of the gospel narrative that are present in all 4 gospels.

They tend to be the basic building blocks of the narrative:

• crucifixion and death
• condemned to death by the Romans
• accused by Jewish authorities
• betrayed by one of his own
• triumphal entry into Jerusalem
• feeding of the multitude
• Peter’s profession of faith
• calling of the disciples
• John the Baptist as a forerunner and (as it were) introduced Jesus to the world

Clearly John’s place in the Good News of Jesus Christ is important.

In the hands of the gospel writer, John is linked to the prophets through the words of Isaiah:

"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ...
'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,...'"

The work has begun.

There is a rich heritage at St. Paul's. The memories run deep here. I have been asking folks for months now, "Why did you come to St. Paul's? What attracted you in the first place? Why did you stay?"

Many of you have pointed to "the people." "It is the welcome and acceptance I experienced."

This speaks to who we have been. And it is a noble and respected placed. Paul the apostle would be proud of you just as he was of the Philippians.

But we are in the transition to a new era. If we grew and were strong because of our care for one another, now we are in a different posture. We look to a future that is only beginning to emerge.

A new day is dawning.

You may know that a "day" in Judaism is reckoned to begin at sunset. I used to think that that was just a quirk -- and not the way we measure a day.

More recently I have come to see a deep wisdom in experiencing a new day beginning with sunset. It means that a day begins in the dark. "It's darkest and coldest just before the dawn."

We really experience that. Physically, out in the slowly changing dark of night, the air is crisp, but it seems colder somehow. And then the fiery ball peaks over the horizon. And it seems better.

But we experience it figuratively, too. In the transition to a new job. A new project. A new relationship. Living alone where once we were a we. Living as a we where once we were alone. So many transitions. From time-past to time-future.

It often seems to be most difficult just before the breakthrough when it becomes -- what? becomes good again.

The rock group "U2" wrote a song titled "Yahweh." It includes these lines:

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still I'm waiting for the dawn

We are in this place where we have begun a good work. Our prayer, our hope, our expectation is fulfilled in what comes ahead.

Paul, writing to the church in Philippi, gives thanks for all that the church has accomplished. They have begun a good work and that is a cause for rejoicing and praise.

But there is more. There is expectation and hope, focused on the coming "day of Christ." It will not be easy and it will be a labor of love, "having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God."

As the sun rises over the horizon, it signals a time for us to rise up, not a time to rest. Our equipment is the love of Christ that it may "overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight."

Our first reading from the book of Baruch provides a vivid image of the hope and expectation I am describing.

We don't hear from Baruch very often in church readings. The only other place it is scheduled is at the Easter Vigil.

Today the words are addressed to Jerusalem -- as if in song.

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.

As St. Paul's begins a new work for a new era -- the "Jerusalem" in Monroe, NC -- let us put on the "robe of righteousness" and may we wear the "diadem of glory" to be a light to reveal "the glory of the Everlasting."

Note for e.g. of contemporary prophet

source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/12/philip-agre-ai-disappeared/ author: By Reed Albergotti August 12, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. EDT

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Philip Agre predicted technology’s pitfalls and then he disappeared - The Washington Post

Excerpt

Philip Agre earned his PhD in 1989 in computer science, but his greatest impact came when he left the technical side of the field and helped create the field of social informatics, or the study of how technology and humanity interact. Then he disappeared, leaving behind a legacy of work that was eerily prescient in predicting how technology would impact society.

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1. https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/men-for-others.html MEN AND WOMEN FOR OTHERS by Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Superior General of the Society of Jesus 1973, Valencia, Spain↩

Advent 1c -- Monroe

Notes¹

Opening

We're still in apocalyptic / end times mode this week. This focus on end times is characteristic of the shift from the old church year to the new church year. It is characteristic of the transition between one era and another. From a Christian perspective it marks the transition from the old covenant of ancient Israel to the new covenant of the church founded on the Messiah named Jesus. It applies to the transition of other eras as well. For example from ancient Rome to modern Europe. For example the shift from the primary role that Great Britain had prior to the world wars and the increase of influence of the United States. It seems likely that it accompanies our own time as the influence of the United States declines and that of China increases. Great change brings with it dramatic anxiety and worry, fear, and imaginary enemies.

We live in such times. It applies equally well on a small scale. The transition from childhood to adult hood. The changes that occur when one marries or divorces or loses a spouse. The changes associated with major moves.

Such are the times we live in. It would pay us well to pay attention to the signs of the times.

Parable of fig tree

Be on guard, when you see these things you will know it's about to take place

With the new church year we shift from listening to the Gospel of Mark to hearing from Luke. We don't just start at the beginning though, we will listen to selected passages appropriate for each Sunday in season. Today it is from near the end of Luke's Gospel and we hear Jesus speaking in striking images, appropriate to the apocalyptic tenor of the season.

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the > earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and > the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is > coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

"Your redemption is drawing near," he says.

The same Jesus as 2 weeks ago?

This seems utterly opposite (contrary) to what we heard from Jesus 2 weeks ago. When we first heard this apocalyptic theme, Jesus seemed unconcerned with the anxiety of his disciples. The disciples wanted to know about the signs that all around them pointed to an apocalyptic end of things. I suggested that Jesus’ seemingly cavalier attitude to their concerns was a way of saying, “Don’t be concerned about those things. Go forward in faith and trust, like a true child of God.

Here it is Jesus saying, "Look at the fig tree. Read the signs. Look at the evidence all around you.” “When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

Two weeks ago Jesus seem to be saying, "Don’t pay any attention to the signs." Today it’s something like, "Pay attention to the signs why don’t you.” Some of that might be the difference in perspective of the two different Gospels Mark and Luke. But I think we have much to learn from a Jesus who doesn’t tell us what we expect, who surprises us at every turn when we are ready to listen with ears that hear.

Look Back – Look forward

Today Jesus is urging us to make the shift from looking backwards to looking forward. It is helpful and important to look backwards. We learn who we are and who we have been by looking backwards. But we are not only who we have been. We are much more who we shall be. Jesus call us from the nostalgia of looking out of the back of our head at what has been to looking forward with eyes of faith to what shall be.

I remember Soren Kierkegaard's pithy but profound quote: “One can only understand life looking backwards. But life must be lived forwards.”

The logic of that statement is that we cannot live with anything like ultimate understanding. We can only live by faith.

When I look for an image of that kind of faithful living I think particularly of my youngest daughter. We had a game where she would jump off the staircase into my arms. I suppose for her it felt a little like riding a roller coaster but she was only three or four at the time.

She was still small so that I had some confidence I would, in fact, be able to catch her. And she had not yet discovered that the world isn't fair and doesn't always respond with what we want or expect.

In those moments when she was flying through the air she was living by faith.

Looking back – Looking forward

It’s funny to me that those two similar phrases suggest quite different things:

• one evokes a mother in the front seat of the car who can see what her children are doing with eyes in the back of her head. There was a time when I believed that about my mother.
  
• But “looking forward”, is a phrase that means a number of things including the anticipation of something one longs for or hopes for. One “looks forward” to a birthday party or a long awaited vacation. It suggests a deeper emotion, an anticipation, a hope, an expectation of accomplishment. Those are very Advent feelings.

We can look back at what has been these past few years with some understanding. But we can only go forward, toward Advent and Christmas and a new year of unknowns -- only by trust and hope. The good news for us today is that Jesus is urging us to make just such a move.

Serenity Prayer:

… urges us to do just what I have been describing. Look back at what has been, to be sure. But over that we have no control. More important is that which awaits us. That we have some control over.

In its expanded version:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

The days are surely coming (Jer)

… we hear from the prophet Jeremiah. We can certainly hear that as Christmas is coming. It surely is, Thanksgiving has come and gone. If we listen to the rest of Jeremiah’s words he’s talking about the fulfillment of God’s promise. It is surely coming he says. I could hear that as the birth of Jesus is surely coming, as it did two millennia ago. We could also hear that as God’s promise that our long hoped for future has arrived, almost. It is already but not yet.

We would do well to ask ourselves what is the promise of God for which we would stake our lives? What is it that we know in our bones?

In those days: (He) shall execute justice and righteousness in the land, the psalmist says. Is that the future we would stake our lives on? Is it political? In the psalm it surely sounds like it. Is it interior and personal? Many people through the centuries have understood it that way. Is it that are we all alone in the universe? Or are we all together in the universe? Perhaps it is, as I put it above, “both at the same time.”

There is a story about the people in Wyoming. One of my first priest-mentors said of Wyoming that it was Paradise on earth. He said, “You can tell when you'd crossed the state line from Colorado, because on the Wyoming side, if you waved at someone they would wave back.” I even found that to be true a few times. He said of folks in Wyoming that they were a living paradox. They were both fiercely independent and utterly dependent on one another at the same time.

1. Fiercely independent. Nearest neighbor 25 miles away.
   
2. Knowing also that at any moment their life and existence may depend on that neighbor.
   

Closing

We are bound together and survive together. At the same time each of us must live our own lives on the terms each of us has been dealt.

As Jesus has told us today, live it with hope and expectation, leaning with all you have on the promises of God, that surely are coming.

1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
my God, I put my trust in you; *
— Psalm 25 Ad te, Domine, levavi

... may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Thessalonians

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Footnotes

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1. http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv1_RCL.html↩

Christ the King -- Monroe

November 21, 2021: Reign of Christ - Proper 29 (34)

Note: Lectionary

Opening

When I was young I was well aware that the imagination was important at least in school and classes like English. I thought of myself is not very good at using my imagination. I was an oldest child, the namesake of my father, and for my early education I was intent on doing what I was told. It was really not until I was in my 20s that I came to realize how much using my imagination was something that fed me. Even then I thought of imagination as kind of luxury item. At that point the most important thing for me was finding a job and learning how to support myself. By the time I was in my 30s life itself was getting pretty complicated. I came to learn that using one's imagination was an important tool in the therapeutic setting. A healthy use of imagination could help one get well or to cope better with life.

Later still I was introduced to the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola. His conversion to Christianity was built on his remarkable imagination.¹ Later, in his Spiritual Exercises he integrated the use of “imagination” into an entire life of growing into maturity as a Christian. I have come to see imagination as an absolutely essential part of discerning what it is that God wants us to do with our life.

Imagine that we had been there when our normal sleeping arrangements would have been in an underground cavern: the catacombs of Rome for instance, or in the subways in London under the blitz?

• What is your sense of the goodness of God?
• Do you believe in love?
• What do you want to do when you get out of the darkness?

Imagine that we had been there looking at Jerusalem from a drone's eye view as it burned, as the stones of the Temple fell with an enormous crash onto the pavement below, and as the blood flowed in the streets.

• Would it look like God’s kingdom was at hand?
• What kind of Kingdom would that actually be?
• Would you be tempted to despair? Or to rage?

Imagine that we were there before the cross, as Jesus hung there, gasping for air, finally breathing his last?

• Would it seem as if Jesus was “Christ the King”?
• Would that question itself seem more like a bad joke?
• What do we imagine with a “king” afterall?
• Why did the people of ancient Israel clamor to God that they wanted a “king” like everybody else? And why do people today clamor for the same thing?

Whenever the feast of Christ the King comes around, my imagination travels to images like I have just sketched. I ask myself questions I don’t have easy answers for. I wonder how I’m going to get through the rapid events crashing onto our horizon.

• Thanksgiving ... then in rapid succession ...
• Christmas ... Calendar year ... tax year ...

The busyness of life tends to speed up as the Church turns a corner. One church year ends, another begins.

Agenda / Calendar

The church year comes to an end and the end of the calendar year gathers steam as we approach endings and new beginnings. Each year as I enter this time, I am especially aware that the church follows a different model of time compared to the rest of the world. It is the difference between linear time and circular time. The rest of the world counts off the years, one year after another, after another, …

The church, in contrast, follows time through a series of interconnected circles. The unwobbling center of the church’s time is the Resurrection – Easter. By secular time that varies from year to year. By sacred time, everything else is measured by that anchor.

“Christ the King” is proclaimed in that context. Jesus is “king” in that place and time where the Resurrection is the only thing that matters, where it is the measure of all else, ### Apocalyptic The weeks surrounding this final Sunday of the Church year are marked by images of the end times. We saw that last week. We will see it in the weeks to come as Advent begins. Last week we identified elements of “apocalyptic”. This week we hear from the epitome of New Testament “apocalyptic,” The Revelation to John. Next week, even as we begin to hear the promise of the fulfillment of God’s promise, Jesus will acknowledge “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

This week, we have heard the dramatic and vivid beginning of the Revelation to John. The greeting is as if Christ is entering the universe on a royal coach, fit for the king of the universe. “The firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Look! He is coming with the clouds …

The Purpose of Apocalyptic is to encourage and build up.

You heard me make that claim last week. There is even more vivid evidence for that claim this week. The dramatic entrance of Christ as a “king of the universe” is followed by a breathtaking claim of the purpose of this king figure:

The king has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve the godly purposes of our world.

The encouragement intended for each of us in these opening words is to boldly claim that each of us is given an essential role to play in the building up of the kingdom. Each of us is anointed and ordained to contribute to the purposes of the “king.”

Gospel

If I allow myself to imagine myself in the presence of Jesus before Pilate, as we have heard from the Gospel of John, I encounter a “king” unlike what the world expects. "You say that I am king."

But just as the church’s sacred time is not what the world expects, so too “Christ the King” is not what the world expects. Jesus responds that the whole purpose of his life had to do with what was true.

For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

My imagination allows me to rest in the affirmation that in Christ there is no variable or uncertain truth. The world expects “truth” to serve the demands of whoever carries the power of the moment. Pilate could not recognize the truth because he served the demands of power.

Listen. Listen to the Truth today. Listen with your imagination and test the truth in your heart. If it is Christ that you see and hear, you can be assured that it is true.

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1. Source #### Imagine that we were there?↩

Proper 28b -- Monroe

 

Proper 28b

Notes ¹

The Jesus Movement

The Jesus movement emerged from the much larger Judaism of the first century. It was a time when people had a keen sense that it was the end of everything that they knew. They saw signs for it everywhere. Probably one of the most visible signs of that era was the bloodbath and destruction that the Romans inflicted on Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D.

I sometimes think that the Jesus movement will end at a time when people have a keen sense that the end of everything that we know is fast approaching. I have been aware I'm seeing and feeling that myself. When I was a younger man I couldn't have imagined that I would see the Northwest Passage. The Arctic north was a fabled mythic place and I dreamed of going there one day. In the meantime what has happened is that Mary Pat and I had the opportunity to take an Alaska cruise some years ago and we got to see some of the last glaciers of that part of the world in the process of falling into the ocean. The arctic has become a place where Russia and the US are racing to exploit the newly exposed and valuable mineral deposits.

Having read George Orwell's dystopian novel in junior high, I never imagined that the year 1984 would come and go. But it did.

When I was young I thought of the leaders of our nation as fitting descendants of the legendary heroes who created the country. The capital building was one of the centers of the experiment that we called the United States. It was a sacred building -- not Christian sacred but civil religion sacred. Up until the time on January 6 this year when Mary Pat said, "Quick, Dale, you've got to come see this," I could not have imagined the ransacking of the Capital that we saw this year.

We have become witnesses of these things. I thought I would never see them. They came. And here we are. We wonder, "Are these the signs of the end?"

The passage we've heard from the Gospel of Mark bears evidence of the kind of religious writing that was common to the 1^st century. It's called apocalyptic. Some of the elements of apocalyptic writing are:

• a concern for the end times,
• hyperbole,
• the battle between good and evil,
• dramatic imagery and symbols.

Mark 13, together with its parallel in Matthew 24, bears the markings of apocalyptic writing. The most dramatic example in the New Testament of this style of writing is the last book, the book of the Revelation to John.

I first had a desire to learn about apocalyptic writing when I was still in my 20's. I had read the Bible cover to cover. It left me more perplexed than before. I began to study with more focus. I came to realize that there was a major time gap reflected in the books of the Old Testament versus those in the New Testament. I took a graduate course at Marquette University from a leading scholar of the period. There I came to appreciate that the Catholic Bible, with the pseud-epigrapha (what we call "Apocrypha") did a better job of reflecting the time period of the couple hundred years before Jesus. This was the time of the flowering of apocalyptic literature and expectation.²

“This is but the birthpangs”

Jesus response to his disciples in today's reading immediately reflects a person who was unfazed by the dramatic events going on around him. A perfect image of a holy person. We might well suppose that that had something to do with the charismatic attraction that he held for some people. Jesus said don't worry about the dramatic signs that you may see going on around you. The struggles that you see are but the struggles of a new world emerging from the old. It is new life being birthed from the old

This holy man can see what others around him cannot see. Though destruction may surround him, he is the living epitome of hope. The actual goal you see of apocalyptic writing is to bring hope to the people. It is to encourage them to persevere and to endure when the times are a struggle. Recognizing the reality of suffering the word of hope that it presents is one of Resurrection and new life. It is a promise that is not yet fulfilled but is waiting in the wings to give birth.

In every generation

For every generation the “signs” are real and imminent — but they distract us from what is eternally important. Every generation focuses on what is passing away and not the eternal. It focuses on what is immediately before us and not what is lasting and of eternal significance.

What seems "urgent" has been different through the centuries of Christian life and experience.

• In the first century, a time when followers of Christ were just one group within Judaism and all were members of the same culture, the debate was about what kind of food one was allowed to eat, or what Sabbath actions were prohibited. Jesus pointed in the direction of the eternal.
• In the next several centuries, a time of persecution — what is urgent looked different. Christians were the outcasts in many cases. It was important not to be identified with the ruling culture. The eternally significant may have looked something like dying with integrity and honesty, true faith and trust in God.
• Later, for many centuries Christianity was the dominant cultural power. What was urgent looked different. Conformity and unity could be seen as urgent. On the other hand, suffering to share in Christ's own suffering might be seeing as eternally significant and important. Living life set apart in a monastic setting might be seen as urgent and important.
• In the 20^th century, Christians were persecuted and killed in parts of the world: Soviet Union, China, Africa, just for being Christians. Not unlike those Christians of the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries.
• But also in the 20th century, there were Christians who were complicit in the genocide of European Jews that is popularly known as the “Holocaust.” For such Christians there was an utter failure to see what was of eternal significance. They were able to assist with murder and torture as their most urgent need while being completely numb, to the loss of any semblance of what was suitable for citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Focus on the majors

True Christian faith focuses on the lasting, not the ephemeral.

In the last century, a tool became popular to help us discover what was genuinely eternal and lasting. ³ It had us discern the urgency and importance of a given action. Urgency was something that was immediately pressing and of concern. Important was something that might only emerge in the long run but not be immediately visible.

quadrants

With this tool one imagines a large square with 4 smaller squares within it. A cross, if you will, with a boundary around it.

In the top of the larger square is where everything that is important is placed. In the bottom half is everything that is not important.

The left and right side of the square is divided between what is urgent and what is not urgent.

Thus in quadrant 1 we place things that are crises and emergencies. They present themselves with urgency. Maybe in our present circumstances it is a leaky roof. It's important and it has to be dealt with.

In quadrant 2 we would place things that are important but not urgent. These are all the things that we can persuade ourselves that we can put them off to a later date. They are important however. Things like maintenance. Prevention training. Upgrades.

In quadrant 3 we place things that are urgent but not important. A phone call from a salesman. For some, a Facebook notification. Things that are clamoring for our attention. It was back in the 90's that I became aware that that was a goal of software companies who made their money off of our "facetime." Things that are urgent but not important.

Finally, we have a 4^th quadrant where too many of us spend too much of our time. Things that are not urgent and not important.

Jesus's disciples came to him with signs of the end times all around them. We hear that same kind of noise around us in our own day. They are clearly urgent, but in the light of eternity they are of little significance.

Jesus responded to them, "That's not where you need to be focused. You need to be focused on the needs of the Kingdom -- which lasts forever."

Eternal Significance

How then do we discern what is of eternal importance? In my own life I have often found that what is most important has been there all along. I just needed to see it. Perhaps it was so old it had become invisible to me. It required “rediscovery.” This woman Hannah, whom we meet in today's first lesson from the book of Samuel is a case in point.

I first really began to meet her in my first Hebrew class. 1^st Samuel, chapter 1, is where we began reading. Word by word. Looking up in the dictionary every other one. Happily the language is at an elementary school level of reading difficulty.

Meet Hannah

And prominent in these 1^st two chapters is a woman. She is a woman who cannot bear a child. She is in a marriage that is fraught with conflict and mixed emotions. She takes herself away from the situation and pours herself out before God. She lays herself bare. The priest is of little help -- he is too focused on the urgent matter of "good order" in his temple and around his altar. It may seem important to him but it's not important, only urgent.

What is important is that God is making a grand beginning in this woman. It is the beginning of a new era in the life of Israel. And she has been chosen as an important instrument in beginning it.

In time her focus on the eternal and not just the urgent resulted in the birth of a son, Samuel. Samuel was the pivotal and vital ruler and prophet as the ancient nation of Israel emerged -- remember Jesus referring to "birthpangs" -- from the wandering tribes that Moses had led out of Egypt.

Hannah knew in her heart that she had been touched by eternity and something far bigger than herself was at work. She sang a song: Hannah’s song which was our "psalm for today."

Centuries later Mary same a similar song in similar circumstances. She would be giving birth to the Messiah, and she sang a song. We call it the Magnificat.

The circumstances are not unlike what we saw a couple of weeks ago in the conclusion of the book of Job. The pressing catastrophes of Job's life were put alongside the eternal importance of the creator of all things.

The only thing left was to stop and to give thanks. And that is what Hannah does in her song.

• There is no one like the Lord
• God raises up the humble, the poor, the vulnerable
• God's work is a reversal of what seems urgent and turns it into what is of ultimate concern
• God is at the beginning and at the end. That is the eternal.

He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's,
and on them he has set the world.

Hannah's song can help us to train for the race that needs to be run for the sake of eternity. The principles articulated there are in fact principles of the kingdom:

• a heart for the poor and outcast
• care for the widowed and orphans
• devotion and trust in the creator of all

Tell me, father, what is important? It is, my child, to "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, your soul, and your strength. And at the same time to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophet." Everything else is ultimately unimportant.

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1. Lectionary Page source: The text this week↩

2. www.britannica.com/art/apocalyptic-literature & www.pulpitfiction.com/narrative-notes/2-30↩

3. Eisenhower, quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller using a quadrant “Urgent vs. Important” (Eisenhower, quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller). Also Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of highly effective people.↩

All Saints Sunday -- Baptism. 2021

All Saints

Opening

Will our children have faith?

A formative book call my teacher from my early ministry. He has asked a fundamental question that has stayed with the church as far as I could tell for 30+ years.

An old joke from 100 years ago ask the question, when is a school not a school? The answer is, when it is a Sunday school.

What the church has done for generations to try to pass on the faith to our children has by and large failed. Right at the present moment even the question of what school is is being fundamentally challenged around the country. We don’t know what a school is for in a time when there is disagreement about what is truth, and truth or falsehood is seen to be for an individual to choose. But if that’s the case it is even more in question how one passes on the faith that gives us life through Jesus Christ.

The basic insight of Westerhoff is to shift the focus of how Christian formation is passed on to our children. In his words, no longer is it helpful or wise to emphasize schools, teachers, pupils, curricula, classrooms, equipment, and supplies. Instead we need to focus our attention on the radical nature and character of the church as a faith community.¹

Westerhoff asks the question whether our children will have faith in the future. His basic answer is that it depends on whether we have faith now. ### Baptism is a community Possibly the most important lesson I have had about baptism in the course of my ministry was discovering the author Vincent Donovan and his book Christianity Re-discovered.

His lessons have to do with basic questions like:

• Is Christian faith just for individuals or is it for the community?
• If it is for the community, as he argues, is baptism about the whole community in its wide diversity? Or is it about a select few who are in the know?
• Is Christianity about passing on a culture and cultural values? Or is it about something else which is more transcendent, more universal, more all encompassing?

Donovan presumed an age old pattern of baptism which culminates a process of deep and thorough formation. At the end of a months long process, he came to the village chief and announced that he was ready to baptize. He identified one person who had not attended any of the meetings, and he would not be baptized. He had spent his time herding cattle. There were another two who had paid attention and learned much of what he talked about, so they would be baptized. This other one did not show enough attention and would not be baptized. And on he went, evaluating each person in the village.

The old man, Ndangoya, stopped me politely but firmly. "Padre, why are you trying to break us up and separate us. During this whole year [in Maasailand, Tanzania] that you have been teaching us, we have talked about these things when you were not here, at night around the fire. Yes, there have been lazy ones in this community. But they have been helped by those with much energy. There are stupid ones in the community, but they have been helped by those who are intelligent. Yes, there are ones with little faith in this village, but they have been helped by those with much faith. Would you turn out and drive off those lazy ones and the ones with little faith and the stupid ones? From the first day I have spoken for these people. And I speak for them now. Now, on this day one year later, I can declare for them and for all this community, that we have reached the step in our lives where we can say, ‘We believe’".

I looked at the old man Ndangoya. "Excuse me, old man," I said. "Sometimes my head is hard and I learn slowly. ‘We believe,’ you said. Of course you do. Everyone in the community will be baptized."² ### Baptism is a Journey The story of baptism is a story about the journey of a community of faith. That journey has lasted for several thousand years and it will continue for an unknown number of years and beyond to where years do not measure time. As Hebrews 12 1 to 2 put it,

12 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, 2 and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne. ### Baptism is not about passing on cultural values. Donovan is among those who have taught us over the last century that there is a difference between cultural values and gospel values. Has he tried to share the good news of the risen Christ in Tanzania he experienced firsthand that often what he was trying to share was European modern values. ### Baptism is cosmic The fellowship all the saints to which Anna Claire and Reid are being initiated today is a fellowship governed by cosmic values. These values honor and respect local values of all kinds of great diversity.

Though they are being baptized in this local community of Saint Paul's episcopal church in Monroe North Carolina, they are at the same time made citizens of the kingdom of God.

I heard a bishop of Aotearoa (New Zealand) speak in Hawai'i. He was a natural story-teller. Clearly a man of God. And I sat at his feet enthralled. He wrote a little book about what it is like being a Christian from the perspective of a Pacific Islander. It took my breath away when he illustrated that for most westerners the ocean was the thing that divides. It makes continents. It separates islands from one another. But from the perspective of his life, the oceans are the thing that connects humans and gives life.

The stories of a boy with a makeshift driftwood canoe anticipating the future; Winston and his father catching fish from the sea to feed their family; the story of a pectoral cross once belonging to St. Peter Chanel being given to Fine Halapua when he was consecrated as an Anglican bishop and now worn by Winston; the sharing of food on the altar of the Anglican cathedral in Suva, Fiji, with people after sheltering from a hurricane; -- these stories and more are parables of hope, grace, ecumenical friendship and generosity. The stories emerge from life in Oceania where the sea is not seen as boundary or limitation but as part of the created order. ³

The baptism that we celebrate today is much more than a once and for all event. It is initiation into a journey that will take a lifetime to complete. The faith that we proclaim here today is not a static faith but a verb. When we say I believe we are addressing God with the word yes. yes we will. Yes we are prepared to follow you. Yes we are prepared to except forgiveness when we fall down. ### Baptism is about what we do We profess a threefold trust in father son and holy spirit.

The promises involved in the baptismal liturgy emphasize that baptism is a journey, it is an action, it is not a set of beliefs, or exclusive set of doctrines.

We are ourselves addressed by a series of questions:

• Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
• Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
• Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
• Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
• Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

And to each of the questions we respond with: I will with God's help.

There is a process of life-long learning that we agree to. And a commitment to finding ways to pass it on to the next generation. At every stage of the way learning can only take place if we are sensitive to age-appropriate methods and we pay attention to whether our words match our actions.

All of us will fall short. All of us must seek forgiveness. Those are the kinds of actions that will speak by themselves. "Proclaim the Gospel at all times and use words if necessary."

"Seek and serve Christ in all persons." That is a formidable thing to agree to. To recognize the likeness of God in all persons! With God's help I may be able to find my way.

To work for justice and peace. Among all people. We will say we will do it. But whence comes such hubris? With God's help I may be able to find my way.

Baptism is cultivating virtues

Promises will be made. A vision of the kingdom will be floated before us today. There is an ancient tradition of 7 virtues which outline the task for all of us:

• wisdom and discernment
• appreciation of justice and equity
• courage, perseverance, stamina to run the race
• humility, prudence, moderation
• faith and trust that God will indeed help us
• hope, seeing the paradoxes of the world as evidence of God's abiding care
• love, for one's self, one's family, one's neighbor, your neighbor's neighbor and so on unto the trillionth generation.

Commission

Anna Claire and Reid have come before us today, through their parents, asking to be included in the fellowship of All the Saints. I will with God's help. That's what we offer Anna Claire and Reid today.

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1. p. 52 Westerhoff, John. Will our children have faith↩

2. p. 92 Donovan, Vincent. Christianity Rediscovered↩

3. 16. vii Halapua, Winston. Waves of God's Embrace; sacred perspectives from the ocean
   ↩

Proper 26b, 2021

 

Lectionary:

Opening

Some of my best friends are good storytellers. In fact I reflected this past week that I think I trust a good storyteller more than I do someone who rigorously tries to stick to the facts.

Interestingly as I’m sure you’re aware, Jesus was a good storyteller. In Hawaiian pidgen the way you refer to friends sitting around sharing their life stories is the phrase "talk story". Talk story is what you do with friends. Elie Wiesel said years ago, quoting ancient rabbis, that, "God made man because He loves stories." Over the years I’ve become convinced that talking story with good friends is what changes lives and converts sinners to saints. Over the years I have found that talking story is one of the best ways to prepare someone for initiation into the body of Christ.

Next week we plan to have baptisms

The Colt’s grandchildren, Reid and Anna Claire, are expecting to be baptized here at Saint Pauls. We got to sit at the table of their grandma and grandpa, breaking bread and talking story. It changes lives.

Confirmation

We learned this past week that we will have a bishop's visit on Jan. 9th. Do you know of someone who would like to be confirmed at that time?

Have them get in touch with the church office or with me. Will try to figure out a way to share stories in such a way that we will be ready for the transformation that happens in the celebration of the sacraments.

Great Commandment

How do we learn to pass on the tradition that we ourselves have received? How does the community of the Saints give to the next generation the way of life?

The Jewish method of doing that involves among other things the daily repetition, recitation, of the Shema

שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃ 5 וְאָ֣הַבְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ֥ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ֖ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ׃ 6 וְהָי֞וּ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֧י מְצַוְּךָ֛ הַיּ֖וֹם עַל־לְבָבֶֽךָ

Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. The shema

A student one day asked Rabbi Akiba if he could teach the entire Torah while he stood still on one foot. Akiba responded that the whole Torah could be summed up in the phrase: "Do not do unto others what you would not have done to yourself. All the rest is commentary."

How does one convey “Torah?”

The word “Torah” in Hebrew means: “teaching”, “doctrine”, or “instruction”; the commonly accepted the word “law” gives a wrong impression.

Jesus articulates what I learned as "The Great Commandment" in the words from today's Gospel passage. Jesus is engaged in a classic Jewish study session -- Classic head to head questioning one another, back and forth. I first became aware of this pattern when I watched the movie Yentl many years ago. Maybe some of you saw it too.

When I was a child, there was only one liturgy for the Eucharist. And it included at the very beginning the Great Commandment. We still have it in Rite 1 in the prayer book. It was one of those passages I heard so often that I fairly quickly became numb to it. But it remains to this day as one of the basic signposts for me in how to live my life.

In many ways it is a summary of the "Torah" -- the basic teaching of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. "Law, doctrine, instruction", these words all convey something that is given to us from some authority. We are instructed when the higher up tells us what's what.

Torah is perhaps best conveyed by stories. Jesus thought so.

Surely the understanding of the scribes who were debating Jesus that day was that Torah could be logically argued, settled once and for all. Whoever had the superior logic would win the day -- for them.

Jesus, however, "answered well", for he knew that it is not authority or logic that taught the "great commandments" to steer a life toward the kingdom. He knew that stories had the power to turn hearts. That modeling a life on mentors who have traveled the road before was the way one learned the steps.

"Torah" is learning to tell stories and walking the talk.

We hear in the gospel passage an assortment of biblical texts:

• 3 of the gospels have variations: Luke 10:25-28, Matthew 22:35-40, Mark 12:28-31
• the Shema from Deuteronomy: Deut. 6:4-5
• and an early expression of the Israelite, later Jewish, commitment to love of neighbor (Lev. 19:18)

There is much to learn from these few short verses. One could have many sessions of talking story about these few verses, combining: Love of God and love of neighbor.

Ruth

But our first lesson from Ruth is just as rich in themes about how to be a faithful disciple.

I love to hear and read from this short book.

The main characters are women. That in itself makes it interesting. It is a story about Fidelity, faithfulness, and loyalty.

Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.

— I can almost hear Ruth speak those words. She feels like someone I have known. When I hear her share her story, I know that she is someone I admire. It almost seems like she’s someone I have known in my life. A guide and mentor for what it means to be a faithful disciple.

We will miss the 2nd part of the story which we would normally hear next week, because we will be celebrating All Saints Day and initiating the two candidates into the fellowship of the saints.

In the middle of this short story we hear how Ruth is eventually wed to Boaz. It's a steamy story for any of you who haven't read it. Give it a try.

The ending of the book identifies Boaz, as the great-grandfather of David. It establishes Ruth in the line of David. Jesus was later addressed by some of his followers as "Son of David." But note: Ruth was a foreigner.

Themes

The book of Ruth contains some exquisite passages about love and devotion.

• Ruth and her mother-in-law Na'omi.
• Boaz' devotion to Ruth --- as well as her rather scandalous seduction of him

Women, as I've said, are key figures in the story. This story of a woman who was vital to the larger story of God's people fits into the overall narrative of the bible. Beginning in Chapter 1 of Genesis, the biblical narrative makes it clear that women have a vital role in the narrative of God and God's people: this has to be reckoned with by those who would claim that the biblical teaching is that women must be subservient to men.

The verse in Genesis next after the one I quoted last week says:

God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.

Miriam was Moses sister, and though obviously her brother takes the spotlight in the Old Testament, she speaks what some scholars argue is the most ancient Hebrew to be found in the Hebrew Bible.

Sing to the Lord, for an overflowing victory! Horse and rider he threw into the sea!

Debra: I met a woman named Debra the other day. When I asked for a little bit of her story, she told me she was named after the Debra in the Bible. I told her that means she is "a woman to be reckoned with" -- a judge, a prophet, a hero, a ruler

Hannah: mother of the prohet/king Samuel. The first of the prophets by traditional reckoning. 1st & 2nd Samuel -- the scroll of Samuel, begins the story of the people who would produce the prophets. Her "Song" is now included in our authorized Canticles. Centuries before Mary and her "song", Hannah sang of the same reversal and divine justice that upends the expectations of the world as we hear from Mary and her "song", the Magnificat

Mary: the mother of Jesus. God-bearer in the Orthodox tradition. Icon of what is best about humanity. The one closest to Jesus. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord." Ruth takes her place alongside the great women of the biblical narrative.

It speaks of the tension between fidelity to family vs. fidelity to national culture. In a theme that is still very much with us today, Ruth has chosen fidelity to family over fidelity to a national cause. When families get together what do they do? They break bread and talk story.

The book of Ruth makes a point of identifying Ruth as an ancestor of King David, and by extension, Jesus many centuries later. Was that the whole reason for telling the story? No. But it may well be why it was preserved in the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures.

And then there is the theme of the outsider as being a vital part of the story of the chosen people. Women were outsiders just by being women. But Ruth was a foreign woman. From the initial books of the Torah and continuing through prophets and psalms, the Bible teaches that it is essential to care for the foreigner in the midst of the citizens of the covenant. Often the watchword is that once the people of Israel were foreigners in a strange land. Much like it is said of this country that the vast majority of the people living in this country got here as strangers and foreigners. Immigrants.

In Judaism --- as well as Christianity --- respect and concern for the alien in our midst is at the heart of Torah.

Where does that point us in the world we live in?

As we prayed a couple of weeks ago, we live in a time marked by divisions, conflict, opposing points of view that seem intractable. In no small measure these are connected to divisions in culture, diversity, people different from ourselves. Just the kind of thing that the Book of Ruth is about. Just the kind of thing that the Great Commandment directly speaks of: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

There seem to be heightened passions about gender roles and the place of women in our society. As we have witnessed the sudden transfer of power in Afghanistan, we have also witnessed the sudden and terrifying threat imposed by those who would subjugate women to the rule of men.

My own conviction is that we live in an era -- spanning decades if not centuries -- where the relations between men and women are being examined and adjusted. What we hear in the story of Ruth is relevant to that process.

Love of God / Love of Neighbor

• What would Jesus do?
• A variation of that is: What does the biblical tradition teach us to do?

In today's readings from scripture, we hear God speaking to us of how we are to live in the world in relation to others who do not look like us, act like us, pray like us, -- but who are profoundly our neighbor. And Jesus commands us in no uncertain terms that we are to love our neighbor alongside our devotion and trust in God.

What would Jesus do? What would the biblical tradition teach us about it?

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Proper 25b, Monroe

 

Readings

Lectionary

Introduction

I want to talk about God -- (kind of an expected topic for a preacher) I want to talk about gratitude -- I long for the day when "gratitude" is as common place among believers as is judgment or anger. I want to talk about "stewardship" -- not so much in the context of giving money to the church but in the context of Genesis 1:26.

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.” (ESV)

or as the King James Version put it.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV)

The traditional translation is that men and women were given "dominion" or "rule" over creation. My understanding of the passage is that we were made "stewards" of creation.

I want to talk about "stewardship", something built upon reverence, awe, and gratitude. # Job's reverence before the majesty

Over the past few weeks, we have seen how Job was so secure about his relationship with God that he could even argue with God. He could maintain in his passionate pleading with God that he, Job, had been unjustly punished; but through it all Job held closely to his relationship with this God.

Finally, God's patience wore down, the bold mystery of God's creative majesty is revealed to Job, and he can only be silent.

Then Job spoke from the position of reverence before the majesty of God. Reverence is the operative word.

Job answered the Lord: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. [And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job.] "And Job died, old and full of days."

So the story seems to be in some sense a "happy" story. Through much suffering and strange divine behavior, but in the end a sense of calm and peace.

What I am interested in is our proper response to the majesty of God. It is not the larger theological issues that could occupy us a long time.

It only happened as the majesty of God was revealed to Job. From the whirlwind. To Elijah it came in the form of the still small voice. This past week it was revealed to me In the bare oak tree outside a window. Before such a revelation, reverence is an appropriate response.

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Out of our reverence we seek to respond with faith, hope, and charity (love).

Gratitude

A mentor and friend of mine was named Bart. He shared with me that he identified with our gospel passage from Mark because of the name of the blind beggar. "Blind Bartimaeus". The result for my friend was that every time his name was mentioned by someone it was like a reminder of the blind beggar who called out to a wandering healer, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

And he was healed. And like Job, in the face of such an experience, gratitude is the appropriate response.

For my friend, this passage in Mark's gospel was the single most important story for his Christian life -- outside of the Resurrection itself. It was this passage that told him who he was and whose he was.

"I once was blind, but now I see." After such an experience, gratitude is the appropriate response.

It's all grace

For myself, an analogous experience has been reading and re-reading a novel, titled A Diary of a Country Priest.

The narrative is what the title describes, focused on the priest, struggling to be faithful in his vocation, falling short by his own standards, but being picked up along the way by the love and affection of friends. Then comes a diagnosis of a terminal illness.

Not sure where to go after this stunning diagnosis, the priest decides to visit an old friend from seminary. After the two talk awhile, the priest isn't feeling well so he accepts an offer to stay at the friend's home for the evening. The priest dies that night. Although another priest can not be found quickly enough to give him his last rites, the priest's dying words are, "Does it matter? Grace is everywhere."

One writer said of the text:

The Diary of a Country Priest has changed me because it is so damned honest. The reality of suffering is to be accepted (ameliorated, yes, but accepted as a part of life) and countered with courage and faith in the mysteries and unfailing grace of God. In sum, Bernanos’ harsh honesty has forced me to be a bit more honest about how I am to live.

In 1948, as Georges Bernanos lay dying of cancer, he penned a letter to a friend saying, “May you feel the sweet presence of Jesus Christ who makes into one reality sorrow and joy, life and death.”

And in his last breath, Bernanos’ suffering, dying priest of Ambricourt weakly uttered with joy amidst pain and with hope in the consuming darkness, “Grace is everywhere.”

In the end, and through the darkness, it is.

To go back to the beginning of these words today, everything that surrounds us, all the vastness of inter-stellar space, grandmothers and aunties and uncles, grandchildren, and bare oak trees, deer in the forests, fish in the sea, and the breath-taking developments of modern science and technology ...

One could go on and on. But all of it is gift. And we have been made stewards of it.

Grace

Some of you have heard this story before. I have told it many times. I do that because it is a formative story for me.

When I was in seminary. My family of 3 had moved 900 miles to be at Nashotah House, Wisconsin. We abruptly went from a household with 2 incomes to one with none. Our first-born child was 1 1/2 years old. There were financial pressures galore.

One day I went to the mail room where all the students had mailboxes. I opened our box and there was an envelope with no stamp or return address, but inside was (I think) $50 in cash -- $50 was more in 1980 than it is now. That was all.

That was the first time I was really hit over the head with how my life was built on the unearned gifts of others.

Now, of course, at that time in my life I had already experienced the fruit of practically an infinite number of awesome gifts that made my life possible. But it was that event that left me speechless and determined to begin to build my life on the building blocks of gratitude.

I began to be intentional about giving from the abundance of the gifts of my life. That included giving to the church. But it was so much more than that. The criteria for my giving at first was undeveloped, but in time I learned that giving was something that I needed to do. For the sake of reverence. For the sake of gratitude. For the sake of stewardship.

I began reading, maybe 20 years ago, about how my generation (Boomers) was developing a new (relatively new, I suppose) set of criteria for giving away our wealth. I associate it iwith Bill Gates, but he was just a useful example at the time. He was the wealthiest man in the world based on the value of his company Microsoft.

I remember reading first of criticisms of him as being a self-centered exemplar of what was known as "Yuppies" at the time. It's a label that has been attached to my generation along the way of our journey. It evokes a concern with one's own well-being and happiness, success in the world. In op eds of the time I recognized the irony of the fact that 15 years earlier our generation had been known for our idealism, a commitment to change the world for the better. A commitment to being stewards of the gifts passed down to us.

It seemed as if since we found the task difficult, or met with failure, in the enterprise of making the world a better place, that we would just focus on bettering our own lives.

So there was criticism that with all his wealth, Bill Gates, did not have a practice or commitment to giving / sharing any of his wealth.

Seemingly Bill Gates took the criticism to heart and created a foundation from his wealth. That foundation has in the meantime become probably the leading and most important single foundation on the planet, it's mission being in part "to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the world, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S."

At their origins the foundation sought to use business practices and goals in how it invested its money. That's a big part of why they have become so important and so successful. I don't want to disparage the work of the Gates Foundation. I do want to question whether good business, being successful, is the main criteria for the kind of stewardship I'm talking about today. Is being successful what Jesus was getting at in his ministry? Jesus tells us often in his parables that the measure that this world applies to situations is not the measure of the kingdom.

Culmination

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity: “The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.”

Right at the top of the list of such things is "Love." A good case could be made that love is the most important and most valuable thing there is in this creation we share. But the only way to get love is to give it away.

I became convinced a long time ago, in the mail room at Nashotah House, that all the success, all the wealth, all the security that I might gather was only as valuable as what I gave away.

The criteria I apply to my giving is not based on success or sound profit and loss statements. Those are important. But my giving is based on:

• my dependence on so many others for who and what I am today
• my gratitude for the unearned gifts that have brought me to this day
• my desire to share the things that are most valuable: love, compassion, generosity, hope, faith.

And the greatest of these is Love.

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