Gospel

Ash Wednesday, Year A, 2008

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we begin, what seems far too soon, the season of Lent. We take off our Mardi Gras beads, put away the pot of chili from the Superbowl game, and turn off CNN after watching Super Tuesday coverage. We quiet ourselves, center ourselves, and open ourselves to Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and his own death.

To honor this, we traditionally choose some sort of sacrifice, a fast, to help us connect to Jesus’ experience.

This year, I was well on my way to considering whether to give up chocolate, or wine , or ice cream for Lent. After all, those are all things I really, really enjoy. I would be sad if I could not enjoy them for six weeks. I might even channel that sadness into moments of thinking about God, or a deeper prayer life. And giving up television would be cheating, since the Writer’s Strike took care of that, anyway.

In the midst of these deliberations, I began preparing this sermon. Oof. Our passage from Isaiah today certainly takes the wind out of our sails, doesn’t it?

Here we are, gathered to think about our own mortality and begin six weeks of repentant behavior, when Isaiah reminds us that the kind of fasting we begin today does not mean much to God.

Isaiah writes,

Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.

Ouch.

I have no workers to oppress and I don’t intend to start any quarrels or to strike anyone with my “wicked fist”, but the kind of fast I traditionally do MIGHT just serve my own interests. After all, giving up decadent foods would make my cholesterol levels drop, my skin clear up, make my pants fit more loosely.

It is important to note that Isaiah does not say all fasting is bad. His fasting would go a little bit more like this:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

While we probably should not go spring prisoners from local jails, there are fasts we can take that fit into these standards.

We could take the money we would normally use at Starbucks, Best Buy or J. Crew and send it to a food bank or homeless shelter. We can sacrifice a couple of hours of paid leave to help out at Disciples Kitchen later this month. We can go through our clothes, or even buy new ones, and donate them to Shelter for Help in Emergency or another worthy organization.

We could even do something radical like start thinking about what we can do with the tax refunds that will becoming our way later this winter or spring. We may not have trouble paying our mortgage, but maybe we know somebody who does. Or maybe we’d like to tithe part of it to a group that provides transitional housing or housing assistance.

We can also sacrifice our time and money by becoming involved in political advocacy for those who cannot advocate for themselves. We can join the Episcopal Public Policy Network or the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy. Instead of watching another endless hour of really terrible strike TV, we can write letters to our congressmen about the Millennium Development Goals to help eradicate global poverty.

There are many ways to experience the repentance that comes in Lent with out making the repentance all about us. Lent is not for endless naval-gazing, but for aligning ourselves with the One who came to earth to free us from all that oppresses us, even when that which oppresses us is ourselves. As people who have been freed and lifted up by God, we are then empowered to do the work God has been asking humanity to do since Leviticus was written—to treat one another fairly, to help the poor, to protect widows and orphans, to seek justice and to behave mercifully.

Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem, to his own death, so that we might live within the grace and affection of God. In return, the least we can do is offer some of that grace and affection to our fellow men.

Epiphany 2, Year A, 2008

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

A dear friend of mine recently moved to New York City.  She is a gifted actress, recently graduated from UVA, and is working in a legal office by day and acting in a play by night.  Every few months she sends long, gossipy emails about her new life filled with stories of life in a small apartment, working in a big city office, the auditioning process, and of course celebrity sightings.

Recently, she went to see Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner.  After the play, they went around to the back door in order to catch a glimpse of the stars exiting the building.  My friend was at the back of the pack of people, and I’ll quote from her email to tell you what happened next,

We were reconciling ourselves to trying to get pictures of the famous people by waving our camera in the air over our heads (which yielded a surprisingly awesome picture of JG) when a little door immediately behind us opened and a bodyguard-ish type person poked his head out.  We looked around in surprise, as we were the only people who noticed him, and he holds the door open and out sails MATT-freaking-DAMON.  Matt Damon.  Matt Damon saw the show the same night we did.  And of course, OF COURSE we didn’t take his picture/speak to him/tell him we loved him because we were too busy squealing at each other and yanking each other’s arms and squealing some more.  I am way too easily starstruck to be an actor. 

I tell this story, because I think her experience parallels the experience of those who followed Jesus in our Gospel reading today.  People had flocked to be baptized by John. They were fascinated by him, drawn by his message.  While they were excited to see him, they were also expecting to see him.  Seeing Jesus, however, was a huge surprise.  A few of the disciples start following him around, star struck in their own way.  He senses they are behind him, turns around and asks them, “What are you looking for?”

And they become completely flustered.  This was not just a movie star they were following, this was God.  Even if they did not realize that consciously, they sense there is something wonderful about Jesus.  They cannot pull themselves together, and instead ask the Messiah, “Um, uh, where are you staying?”

Jesus next issues the most important invitation these people will ever receive.  He invites them to “Come and see.”

Come and see.  Jesus does not give them a direct answer.  He does not lecture them.  He does not bombard them with theological arguments or grandiose pronouncements about himself.  He simply invites them to come and see for themselves. 

The experience of knowing Jesus can never be fully explained or taught.  In order to know Jesus, one has to encounter him. 

This invitation to come and see is repeated an additional three times in the Gospel of John.  Soon, after Jesus offers his invitation, Philip is talking to his friend Nathanel who asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Philip says, “Come and see”. Next, after Jesus engages with the woman at the well, she goes and tells her friends, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  Finally, when Jesus has come to visit a grieving Mary and Martha after their brother Lazarus’s death, he asks where the tomb is, and they invite him to come and see.  Ironically, it is they who will really see and understand when Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for these star-struck followers of Jesus to be issued an invitation to come and see?  I can assure you, Matt Damon did not invite my friend to follow him around, and even if she had, I don’t know that she would have gotten much out of it. 

Following Jesus, however, is another matter.  To follow Jesus, to observe Jesus as he went about his daily business, was a chance to observe God.  To follow Jesus, was an opportunity to engage with the God who created all of us, to understand what his love means for us.  To follow Jesus was to learn about how to be fully human.

Thankfully, Jesus’ invitation to come and see is not limited to those encounters recorded in the Gospel of John.  We, too, are invited to come and see.  To come and see what happens when we begin to pray more regularly, or study scripture, or serve the poor.  We’re asked to come and see what Jesus was doing in Biblical days and what Jesus is doing today.

And while it may not feel like it, our annual meeting is another chance for us to come and see what Jesus is doing in our midst.  The administrative part of church life may not feel as uplifting or spiritual as the ritual or fellowship part of the church life, but Jesus works amidst those decisions, too. 

As we choose our leaders for the next year, and engage in conversations about issues relevant to our life together, we have the chance to discern where Jesus is working in this church and in the greater community. 

So, come to the annual meeting and listen very, very carefully.  You may hear Jesus invite you to come and see.

Epiphany, Year A, 2008

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Epiphany: it is a word that evokes inspiration! Lightbulb moments! Big breakthroughs!

Why then, was this Epiphany sermon so hard to write?  This should be an easy sermon-I could write something really poetic about how our encounters with Jesus parallel the encounters of the Magi.  I could write something about how we each bring gifts to Jesus.  I could write something about how life is a journey, but ultimately we find and are found by Jesus. 

Instead, this year, when I read the Epiphany story, the story of the wise men really bothered me.

After all, the wise men were not kings.  There were not three of them.  The wise men do not go to a stable or see Jesus in a manger. They didn’t even bring camels with them! Is nothing sacred?

Like many stories in the Bible, the Sunday School image we have of the Epiphany story does not match up with the actual text.  The story is different, and much darker, than the one we re-enact in Christmas pageants and carols.

So who were these wise men that visited Jesus? 

The Greek word for these wise men is magos, which is where we get the word Magi.  Magi were political and also religious advisors to the kings of Persia.  They were probably nothing like what would happen if Karl Rove and Billy Graham merged into one person, but that can be a starting point for us to understand their function.  In their culture and time, kings wanted to read the religious landscape as well as the political landscape and Magi were their translators.  Magi were not part of the Jewish tradition, and part of their religious practice was to read the stars for meaning and wisdom.  When we think of astrology today, we think of newspaper columns and batty old ladies, but for the magi, astrology was a way to understand the universe.

So, when the Magi read the stars and see something unusual-about a new King of the Jews in Bethlehem–they are intrigued and go on a journey to meet this new king.  They get to Jerusalem and start gabbing about this king, and soon enough word gets to Herod.  Herod was the official King of the Jews, but Herod’s appointment was purely political.  He was a Jew yes, but by all accounts a Jew in name only.  He was appointed by the Roman government and was their puppet.  In addition, Herod was not a stable person.  Herod was the kind of person who loves power, but is fundamentally insecure, so must undermine everyone around him.  You may have worked for a mini-Herod at someone point in your life.  The more power people like Herod get, the more damage they can do.  Herod considers this baby a huge threat to him, and so orders the Magi to go and search for the baby and report back to him.

Remember, the Magi aren’t even his employees.  They are just wise men, from hundreds of miles away, but since they were going to go on this journey anyway, they acquiesce and make the journey to Bethlehem. 

They see the star, just as they predicted, and find Jesus in a house, not a stable. 

And here is where the story really starts to get upsetting.  After the Magi worship Jesus, they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so then the wise men go on their merry way, back to their riches, back to their safe life.

Have you ever wondered what happens after the Magi leave Bethlehem?  Well, in the latter part of the second chapter of Matthew, Joseph also has a dream that tells him to get out of dodge, so he, Mary and baby Jesus become refugees in Egypt.  And if that is not bad enough, Herod orders all the baby boys of Bethlehem, age two years and under to be executed.  And they are.

I don’t believe the massacre of the infants is ever mentioned in the New Testament again, but I wonder how it affected Jesus.  Did he know it happened?  Did he feel guilty?  Was that part of the reason he was so kind and welcoming to children?  Was the massacre why he was so critical of those in power?  Did he have any memories of Joseph and Mary terrified, sheltering him in Egypt, wanting desperately to go home?

Happy Epiphany, indeed.

This Epiphany, I want the Magi to be more heroic.  I want their faith and excitement about the birth of Jesus to motivate them to stop Herod’s madness.  I want them to do something about the impending massacre.  I don’t want them to run away to safety.  I want them to stand up and fight.  I want them to use their wealth and intelligence to trick Herod or have him deposed.  The Christmas story is all about people of little influence-shepherds, a carpenter, a young woman-whom God uses to bring about the salvation of the world.  The only set of characters in the story who have any power or wealth are the Magi.  And the Magi run away. 

God did not ask the Magi to stand up to Herod, so maybe hero was not their role, or maybe they understood that this Christmas story was not all shiny stars and gifts of gold. Maybe they understood that the birth of Christ has a dark side.  After all, one of the gifts they brought Jesus was myrrh-a fluid used in embalming.  Maybe their visit was both worship and a warning.  Maybe the Magi are in the story to warn Jesus and his parents that his journey will not be an easy one.  Maybe they are in the story to remind us that Christmas is followed by Good Friday.  And in this year, with only six weeks between Christmas and Lent, we will barely have put away the Christmas ornaments, before it is time to cloak ourselves in the memory of Christ’s death. 

But maybe we, as Christ’s followers–who have seen the horrors of Herod’s massacre, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda and Sudan or this week in Kenya-maybe we who have the benefit of history-Maybe we can stand up to the Herods of this world even if the Magi were not in the position to do so.  We have the wealth. We have the power.  Heck, we even have the internet!  Maybe it is up to us, through our votes, through our charitable donations, through our advocacy to help stop future massacres, future despots.  Or, maybe we start smaller, and just deal with the mini-Herods in our workplaces or families.  Maybe we finally stand up to them knowing that we have the power of Christ-he who was born, died and rose again-behind us.  Maybe that is our gift to the Christ Child this Epiphany-that we will do all in our power to protect families like his family, and children like those who were slaughtered by a ruthless leader so many years ago.

For the power of the Herods of the world isn’t real power-it is just thuggery.  We have the real power-the power of a loving, creative, holy God who works in us and through us for good. 

And maybe that is our epiphany this Epiphany-that despite the dark underbelly of the Christian story-the Herods of the world do not win. The powerless, and those who love justice and those who practice mercy are all vindicated and redeemed by Christ’s resurrection, while the Herods of the world are left to the judgment of God. 

And that’s the good news that compelled three Magi from Persia to travel hundreds of miles to a no-count town in Israel to worship a tiny baby-A tiny baby that would change everything. 

Amen.

Christmas Eve, Year A, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Are you lost?

We all get lost sometimes.  I get lost around these parts fairly regularly.  I wept like a little girl more than once my first year as a priest in Greenwood, when I was lost in the country because someone had stolen a street sign or because I missed an obvious landmark.  We get lost in other ways, too, of course.  We forget who we are and start acting in a way that is false and hurtful.  We get lost in the deep seas of grief or depression.  We get lost in our relationships.  We get lost in our social circles, in school, or at work.

Getting lost is a human problem.  Even Mary and Joseph were lost for a little while.  They were travelers against their will, filling a civic obligation.  They were not wealthy and had not planned ahead.  They were going through an experience that must have been completely isolating and strange.  They were in an unfamiliar land and in a completely unfamiliar situation. 

Being lost is scary.  Being lost makes us feel vulnerable and unprotected.  We are not people who are designed to be lost.  We are designed to be safe at home, blanketed in love and security.  Yet, like sheep, we get lost.  All the time.  Over and over.

Wouldn’t it be nice if when we got lost, someone would come after us?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were say.. .a shepherd who would guide us through our difficult and lost times?

It is no mistake that the first visitors Jesus had after his birth were shepherds.  After all, God could have sent the angels to any group of people.  Why not milkmaids, shopkeepers, or doctors?  Why were shepherds the lucky ones who got to hear the good news first?  The author of the Gospel of Luke is an extremely careful storyteller.  He is not loose with words and carefully considers every detail in his account of the Gospel.  The fact that shepherds were the first to visit Jesus should grab us by our collars and shake us to attention.

Where else in Scripture is the image of the Shepherd used?  Why would shepherds be the first to visit Jesus?

Shepherd imagery is used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.  Imagery of Israel as lost sheep begins as early as Numbers:

Numbers 27:17 who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD may not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

Verses almost identical to this can be found in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles.

Later, King David describes feeling shepherded by God in the Psalms, when he says in the 23rd psalm:  The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

But God does not speak of himself as a shepherd explicitly quite yet.  First, in Isaiah, the prophet records God telling him that a king will,

feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

But of course king after king after king failed these ideals, so God begins to identify himself as the shepherd of these lost sheep.

Years later, in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet says, “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd of a flock.”

And then the prophet Ezekiel fleshes out this imagery further, saying that God as shepherd will rescue his people:

Ezekiel 34:12 As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Ezekiel goes further and says God will act as Shepherd through King David:

 Ezekiel 34:23 I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.

Remember that before David was King of all Israel, he was a shepherd boy.  The author of Luke is setting up Jesus as the great Shepherd who will gather God’s people together. Jesus comes from David’s line-so Jesus already has David’s credibility both as shepherd and as king.

When Jesus grows up he acknowledges his role as shepherd, too.  In the gospel of John, one of the primary images of Jesus is as the Good Shepherd.  In the tenth chapter of John, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.”  Jesus fulfills years of prophecy and steps into the role of God as shepherd, as our caretaker.

The shepherds who come to honor the infant Jesus foreshadow the infant’s future role.  Just as these shepherds gather and watch over their flocks, Jesus will gather the people of his time together.  Jesus will watch over them, and Jesus now watches over us.  A shepherd’s job is to tend to sheep:  to make sure they stick together, to make sure they have enough nourishment, to find any sheep that might go astray.  Jesus does that for us.

Jesus gathers us stray sheep here, now, in community.  Jesus invites us in from wherever we might have been a few hours ago: whether we were having a wonderful celebration or fighting with our partner, rolling our eyes at our parents, celebrating Christmas without a cherished loved one-wherever we were-Jesus gathers us together.

We gather, here, now, to remember that we are not stray sheep. We are not wandering in the wilderness alone.  We are sheep who belong to a shepherd.  A shepherd who loves us with great passion-such passion that he was willing to be born as a human, in a stable, to parents who were just as lost as we are.  A shepherd who would grow up and love us so deeply he would offer his very self on our behalf. 

Today we honor this Shepherd’s humble birth, and we give deep thanks that he has found each of us, and gathers us to himself.  We give thanks that with the birth of Jesus, we are no longer lost.

And we gather every week, here, in this space together, not just to remember this Shepherd, but to encounter him.  When we worship together, when we gather at the altar, when we offer each other the Peace, we meet this Shepherd and occasionally we get a glimpse of the deep, patient, all-encompassing love this Shepherd feels for each of us. 

We may be sheep.  We may be lost sheep.  We may even be spectacularly lost sheep, baaing away in the wilderness, but we are beloved, sought after lost sheep.  And that makes all the difference in the world.  Amen.

Advent 2, Year A, 2007

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God never shows up in quite the way we expect.

I wake up to NPR in the mornings and this Wednesday, after a story about funeral homes for pets, another of the endless stories about faith and the Presidential campaign began to play. At a recent speech, when explaining his faith, John McCain told a story. 

When John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, at one point his hands were tied tightly behind his back and he was forced to sit with his head between his knees.  After a few hours of this, one of his captors snuck back in the room, put his finger to his lips and quietly loosened his bonds.

Weeks later, during one of McCain’s rare ten minute breaks outside in fresh air, the same captor came alongside of him, gave him a meaningful look, and then drew a cross in the dirt with his foot.

If I were McCain, I would have wanted God to show up as a liberating army, not a kind captor.  I would have been surprised, and maybe even a little disappointed at the way God appeared.

In the Christmas story, for the most part, God communicates in a way that is pleasing to us.  In Luke’s Gospel anyway, Mary and Joseph have dazzling encounters with Gabriel, shepherds are alerted by a choir of angels; wise men are alerted by stars.  The signs pointing to Jesus’ birth are spectacular and beautiful.

Today, though, we’re reminded that not all signs pointing to Jesus as the Christ were what we might want or expect.  Instead of Jesus announcing his ministry with fireworks, and seas parting, and spectacular healings, we get a scene that does not even contain Jesus.

Instead we get John.  Weird, wilderness-dwelling, locust-eating, hair-shirt wearing John.  Why would God send a smelly, gruff, loner from the wilderness to announce the arrival of God incarnate?  John is not what we expect.

Jesus’ birth, life and the ministry that John announces were not God’s way of doing show and tell.  God does not need to show off.  God is pretty spectacular on his own.  But God does want to communicate-and communicate with US. 

When God chooses John in the wilderness, God is making no mistake.  Instead, God is speaking to us in images that have been familiar for thousands of years.  The wilderness has been a rich place for God’s people ever since Moses and his followers wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.  Moses and the Israelites did not want to wander in the wilderness.  Wandering is the wilderness is rarely any person’s choice, but, in their case wandering was a consequence of their betrayal of God.  Instead of arriving in the Promised Land in a prompt manner, the Israelites wandered.  And it was in the wandering, and in the wilderness that they learned who God was and who they were as a people. 

John’s wild behaviors and rough garments evoke images, too.  Images of long-dead prophets, who were called by  God to call God’s people to repentance-to a changing of ways. 

So, while the image of John in the wilderness would have been shocking to the sophisticated Jews of Jesus’ time, the shock would have come with a pang of recognition.  These images mean something, they were familiar and stirring.

What better place for God to announce that he is sending humanity his son, than in the wilderness?  The wilderness is a place of chaos and fear and emptiness.  God’s desire for us is order and love and wholeness.  John announces Jesus’ ministry in the wilderness as a symbol to all his listeners, then and now, that God is not afraid to tackle those places.  John announces Jesus’ ministry in the wilderness, because it is in the wilderness, when all niceties of life are stripped away, that listeners can truly hear him.

People of Jesus’ time did not expect the Messiah to come.  They really didn’t expect the Messiah to come in a small manger in a barn somewhere in Bethlehem.  So, John needed them to change their minds. The word John uses that we translate as repent is metanoeo, which literally means “to change one’s mind or purpose”.

Even John’s mind needed to be changed.  Later in chapter three, John finally sees this Jesus about whom John has been prophesying and Jesus asks to be baptized by John.  This completely flusters John who doesn’t understand why Jesus needs to be baptized.  Later, in chapter 11, when John is imprisoned, and he hears of the work Jesus is doing, he writes Jesus a note that reads, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” I love the sub-text here.  I wonder if the next paragraph read, “Because really, you’re not doing that much.  A healing here and there, an occasional miracle, and a LOT of talking.  Dude, where is the revolution?  When are we going to overthrow these Romans?”

After all, remember the tone John used when he was predicting Jesus’ coming:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. 

John is expecting Jesus to be a powerful leader who will lead the Jewish people to a political uprising.  John is expecting Jesus to be different.  Jesus needs to change John’s mind.

Just as John’s mind needed to be changed, ours does, too.  We need our own metanoeo experience.  And this is why we celebrate Advent.  We celebrate Advent, not just to extend holiday cheer or to think about how cute baby Jesus is, we celebrate Advent in order to prepare ourselves for the coming of God.  Not the coming of God 2000 years ago, not the coming of God 2000 years in the future.  We celebrate Advent in order to open our minds to the reality that God is here.  The function of the annual retelling of the Christmas story is to remind us that it really happened-God came to earth in human form.  The God that created the entire universe saw fit to limit himself so we could experience him more closely.  He chose to sacrifice himself so we could engage with him more intimately. 

We don’t expect that from God.  In a world where we don’t see direct evidence of God, it is terribly difficult to remember that God is real and that God loves us with great passion.  We have a hard time believing that God hears our prayers.  Or, we tend towards the opposite trend.  We get upset when God doesn’t answer our prayers exactly like we’d like him to.  We think of God as our divine servant whom we punish with our resentment when he does not come through like we expect him to.

We are invited this Advent to change our expectations of God, to spend time in quiet reflection with open hearts.  We are invited to dispose of any images or ideas we might have about God and make room for God to come to us as he actually is.  We are invited to stand in awe of Christ and to delight in Him.

Amen.

Thanksgiving, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Will your tables be decadent this afternoon?

Will you stuff yourselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, token vegetables, cranberry sauce, pie, and of course. . .stuffing?

Will you be so full you’ll need to take a walk to feel human again?  Will you be so full you’ll just fall asleep in front of the television?

During Thanksgiving the food we eat is bounteous because it symbolizes the bounty of all that God has given us.  When we stuff ourselves with buttered rolls and creamed corn, we are acknowledging that God has stuffed us with blessings.

Take a moment now and think about the blessings in your life.

Now, turn to a neighbor and tell them three blessings God has given you.

During so much of our lives we focus on what we long for.  We long for closer relationships.  We long for true love.  We long for the past or the future. We long for meaningful work.  Sometimes we long for any work at all.  We long for bigger houses, newer cars.  We long for new clothes and handbags.  Well, I long for new clothes and handbags.

During all this longing, it can be difficult to remember our blessings!  We live in a culture that feeds our longing, waters our longing, nurtures it until our longing feels like a need.  Our culture stretches and grows our longing until our longing looms so large that what we have been given looks meager and pitiful in comparison. 

Those that followed Jesus in John’s gospel longed, too.  They had just seen Jesus break bread and fish into thousands of miraculous pieces and feed a giant crowd.  Even though they could eat their fill-they could have been as stuffed as they wanted to-this food was not enough.  They don’t know what they want, but they know they want to follow Jesus.

Jesus knows the people are following him because of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  However, Jesus is not content to let them think of him as a miracle man or even a very generous chef.

Jesus knows that, even if they don’t know it, the people following him long for more than a snack.  They long for more than they can consciously identify.  Jesus knows that at the core of each of our longings, we long for connection with the divine.  Even a longing for a handbag, at its deepest core, is a longing to feel completed, accepted and loved.

So, Jesus turns the tables on his followers.  They want bread from him, but he tells them that he IS the Bread of Life.  Jesus’ followers crave something that will fill them temporarily, but Jesus knows he has the capacity to fill them eternally.  Jesus fills our longings, too.

Jesus fills our longings for acceptance, for love, for direction, for worth, for nourishment.  He is our bread of life, not just the bread of life for those who heard his discourses in person.

And for that, we count our blessings.

Proper 28, Year C, 2007

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Before I begin, I must say that the research and many of the images from today’s sermon are the result of the work of the Thursday night bible study group this month.  I’d like to thank Steve Bragaw, Emily Bardeen, Sherry Hauff, and Elizabeth and Bruce Guss for their insightful contributions.

“Ozymandias”

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.                       

In this poem, by Shelley, the reader is invited to picture a looming sculpture, vast in its scale and imposing in its grandeur.  Over time, the sculpture has been worn away and all that is left are two legs and a disembodied head, surrounded by desert sand.  On the pedestal of the sculpture lie the words, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works, ye mighty and despair”!  This statue has once represented a great King, a great society and yet now nothing is left but ruin.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus overhears some people oohing and ahhing over the temple, which is beautifully decorated with stones and gifts.  The temple was the center of religious life in Jerusalem.  Since the time of David and Solomon, the ark of the covenant, which held the very presence of God, was kept inside a beautifully built temple in Jerusalem.  This temple had been destroyed and rebuilt 581 BCE, and the temple remained a sacred place. 

After he overhears these persons admiring the temple, Jesus acts as a prophet, warning his listeners that this very temple they are worshiping will be destroyed, and sure enough in the year 70 CE, the temple was destroyed by the Romans. 

The destruction of the temple was a symbol of the end of an era.  Since the time of David, controlling Jerusalem had been a fundamental part of the Jewish identity.  When the temple was destroyed, an entire way of framing the Jewish faith was destroyed.  So, it is strange that, when Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple to his listeners, he does not seem dismayed by the news. 

Jesus does not seem dismayed because he knows that  yes, a new era is coming, an era in which a temple to contain God would be wholly irrelevant.

This incident in the temple happens toward the end of Jesus’ ministry.  He is days away from being betrayed and arrested.   He knows that after his death will come his resurrection and that resurrection will change everything.  His resurrection will transform faith.  No longer will believers need to visit God in a static temple.  Instead God will be found in the hearts of all believers. 

And this message of hope is communicated on another level in our passage today, as well.  Many modern scholars believe the Gospel of Luke was written after the year 70 CE.  So, Luke knew about the destruction of the temple when he was writing the Gospel.  He also knew that Christian, during the time he was writing his Gospel, were being arrested, tortured and killed because of their faith by authorities of the Roman Empire.

Jesus words about the destruction of the temple and of an apocalyptic future were relevant to those who received Luke’s gospel.  They were the ones being brought before kings and governors because of Jesus’ name.  They were hated.  They were terrified. 

In this Gospel, Luke reminds the persecuted Christians that Jesus cares for them and that the Holy Spirit will be with them, even as they are interrogated and threatened.  This passage gives them direct advice:  not to try to create their own defense, but to trust the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will give the persecuted the words they need to speak, when they need them. 

Luke also reminds them, through the prediction about the destruction of the temple, that no earthly authority, whether instituted by religious or civil law, lasts forever.  The power that oppressed them would not oppress them forever.  In fact, the Roman Empire would  not even be a power forever.

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Jewish temple did not stand, and neither did the Roman Empire that destroyed it.  The British Empire dissolved, and our capitalist empire will too, eventually.  The world around us is in constant change, constant flux.  Political power, physical structures, even social norms and behaviors-none of these remain constant forever.

Even our own Greenwood has seen enormous changes over the last hundred years.  In this month’s Crozet Gazette there is an article about Greenwood in the early part of the century.  Greenwood had a train station, shops, a highschool, even a hotel!  When the Langhornes moved into Mirador, Greenwood even had an early form of. . .paparazzi, believe it or not!

And while Greenwood may no longer have the population to start a high school or enough visitors to need a hotel, God’s faithfulness to those who live in Greenwood has never dwindled.  God’s love and affection for his people is not rooted in their structures or political systems or earthly power.  God’s love is the love of the creator for his creation.  God’s love is a parent’s love for his children.  And God continues his relationship with each of us regardless of our external circumstances.

As Christians, we don’t need political or religious structures for our lives to have meaning.  We don’t need to live in the most booming town or go to the most ornate church or be ruled by the biggest empire for God to love us, pursue us, and use us toward his ends.  God’s kingdom is about behavior and belief, not about power and wealth.

God’s kingdom is an active, living, breathing place.  Because it has no temples or structures or giant statues in the desert, it can never decay or be overthrown.  When we participate in God’s kingdom, even our temporal lives become connected to the eternal.  We may not be able to see or feel God’s kingdom, yet it will last longer than any kingdom that has ever been established on this earth.

Thanks be to God!

All Saints’ Day, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate the feast of All Saints day, perhaps the most bittersweet day of the church calendar.  Today we honor and pray for those we love who have died in the last year and we contemplate the long line of saints who have gone before us, those who will go after us, and of course, we contemplate our own mortality.

In the very early years of Christianity, the Church would honor the death of every martyr for the faith.  Unfortunately, because Christians were persecuted so thoroughly, soon it became impractical to honor each person martyred and a yearly celebration of the martyrs’ deaths was incorporated into the Church calendar.  Over time, the day of celebration morphed into a commemoration of all the saints.  For a long time, saints were defined as people who were heroically virtuous, but Protestants now celebrate All Saints day as a way to remember all persons who have gone before us in the faith.  The change came as the theology of justification changed-Protestants believe that we do not work to earn our salvation, but that Christ justifies all believers. 

This year, for us at Emmanuel, All Saints Day is particularly poignant, since one of our own saints, Bill Colmery, died unexpectedly of heart failure on Monday morning.  We read his name on the list of the departed, and it seems shockingly wrong for us to see his name there.  Bill was a devoted husband and father, a faithful member of this parish, and a consistent fixture at the Bread Fund, our food bank program.  He was far too young to die, and yet here we are, a mere six days later, celebrating his life along with the lives of the great prophets, apostles and martyrs of the church. 

All Saints day is a reminder that death is not very far from us, that we will all experience death. This is a sobering thought, but ultimately All Saints day is reminds us that death is not the end of the story.

None of us knows exactly what happens when we die, but one fundamental part of Christian belief is that Jesus’ death and resurrection radically changed humanity’s relationship with death.  Rather than just dying, Jesus’ death and resurrection invites us into an eternal relationship with God.  This relationship is not bound by the constraints of time or death. 

So, if we who are alive are in fellowship with God and those who have died before us are in relationship with God, then at some level, we are still in relationship with those who have died ahead of us.

We just celebrated Halloween this week, and many a ghost decked the porches of my more creative and industrious neighbors. We as a culture are fascinated with the dead. We love ghosts, haunted houses, psychics who speak with the dead, but for Christians, none of this is necessary.  We have a connection with our dead loved ones that is far deeper and more real and more profound than any parlor trick.

In every Eucharistic prayer you will hear a reference to the communion of all the Saints.  When we take communion-when we share in the body and blood of Christ-we become physically connected to the communion of all the saints-those kneeling next to us, those praying on another continent and those who are already experiencing the fullness of God in heaven.

We do not know exactly how this communion works.  We do not know at which level those persons who have died are cognizant of those of us still alive.  References to life after death in the Bible describe heaven alternately as a city, as a mansion with many rooms, and always refer to the saints praising God.  We know there is no grief in heaven.  We also know that heaven will have many features of the Kingdom of God that we read in our Gospel lesson today.  The hungry will be filled, the grief stricken will be comforted, and the poor will finally find their place.  We know our relationships won’t be entirely the same-Jesus straightened out the guy who wondered which husband a widow of several men would get to marry-there is not marriage in heaven.  But some kind of relationship will exist, though I imagine it will be centered on God in a way we cannot even imagine.

Our prayer book includes prayers for the dead and Catholics have long prayed to the saints, so maybe there is more of a relationship between the two parts of the communion than we might think.  As a child, I used to ask God to say hi to my grandfather when I said my prayers at night.  For a long time I was embarrassed by this, but upon reflection, I might have been on to something!

I think we have the Biblical and theological freedom to continue our relationships with our loved ones through prayer.  Sometimes as we grieve, we realize there are things we have not said to the deceased that might help if said prayerfully.  Alternately, we may experience a specific joy we’d like to share with a loved one.  While we may feel silly, and there is certainly no proof  that our communications reach our loved ones’ ears, I don’t think there is anything harmful or unchristian about speaking to our friends and family who have gone before us. 

Let me be clear-we make a baptismal vow not to mess around with the spiritual world-so I do not advocate séances, psychics, ouija boards and the like.  The church is not in the business of raising the dead.  Well, Jesus was, and the occasional apostle, but it’s generally wise for the rest of us not to mess around with all of that.

But when we prayerfully communicate with members of the Communion of Saints, we are not trying to raise them from the dead.  We are acknowledging that they have gone before us to a place we are soon to follow and that the bonds between us have not been entirely broken by death.

Acknowledging that we are part of a larger communion of saints than the communion that is currently alive is not a morbid Halloween exercise, but a celebration of the eternal life Christ has given us through his death and resurrection.  Today, as we celebrate the Eucharist together, just imagine who might be kneeling with you, joining with you as you become one in communion with Christ.

Proper 23, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

Today we celebrate the baptism of Sally Beights-we could not baptize her on a better day in the lectionary.  Today, in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, we read about life with God through Christ. 

We read the image of dying with Christ in order to live with Christ-this is the central image of baptism.  Baptism is just not a chance to get an adorable baby all dressed up in white to show her off.  Baptism is not an empty ritual to make parents feel better about the fate of their children.  Baptism is the central rite of Christianity. 

In the early church, and in many churches today, Baptisms are done by fully immersing the person.  Their heads are dunked fully under water three times, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  This full immersion was meant to simulate drowning.  This image of being held under the water, nearly drowning, makes the air you breathe when your head breaks through the water even more powerful. 

This week, I had the pleasure of receiving a surprise email from one of my best friends in the world.  We haven’t kept in touch much over the last decade, just an email here or there, but this week we’ve been emailing back and forth frantically, telling each other our stories.  The latest part of her story goes something like this. 

She has been living in New Orleans for a few years, and was there when the hurricane hit.  She, her boyfriend, and a friend carpooled out the city, expecting to return in a few days.  They did not.  In the matter of a day’s time, her life was irrevocably changed.  Her home was gone, car was gone, and most of her material possessions were gone.  Friends were missing.  Over the last two years the emotional toll grew heavy upon her shoulders and in her heart.  In a sense, you could say she felt like she was drowning.

Last weekend she realized she was trying to deal with all of this pain and sorrow with her own energy.  She realized she did not have the resources to do so.  And so she prayed.  She prayed for forgiveness and direction and guidance.  And God answered her.  She heard him say that he loved her and that he had everything she needed. And for the first time in a long time, she was able to breathe freely. 

That is baptism.  The baptism we perform today is an outward and visible sign of an experience that profoundly changes us. Today we are trusting that as we baptize Sally, she too, will experience the love, healing and guidance of God.  We are committing ourselves to telling her about God and how much God loves her. She may internalize this from the time she is a small child.  Or, she may not deeply experience God’s love until later in her life.  But as we baptize her, we entrust her to a God who will always remain faithful to her, no matter where life brings her.

Each of us can trust that God loves us and will remain faithful to us, even if we are not faithful to God. 

Thanks be to God.

Proper 22, Year C, 2007

/ Sarah / Leave a comment

I’d like all of you to turn your faces to the window and concentrate on the large tree between the church and the Marston La Rue House.

(Squeeze eyes)

Did it move?  Well, let me try again.

(Squeeze eyes, grip podium)

Oh, well.  I have to confess that every time I hear this passage, every time, I try to move a tree with the power of my mind.  This plan has yet to work.  Not one branch has wavered, not one root has become unhinged from the dirt that surrounds it.  I find this all very frustrating.

When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, they were frustrated, too.  They did not ask Jesus to increase their faith out of some selfless piety.  They asked Jesus to increase their faith because they had just heard Jesus say, “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.  “And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

This teaching was too much for them, as most days it is too much for us!  They did not want to have to forgive people who had hurt them, especially people who had hurt them a lot.

So, they ask Jesus to increase their faith-as if faith was a something that could be measured-as if faith could be used up and then replenished like gasoline in an automobile.

But Jesus reminds the disciples that faith cannot be measured in quantities. To have a gallon faith is not better than having a pint of faith.  Faith, in fact, is not about us at all.  Faith is about God, not about our capacity to believe.  Jesus tells the disciples that if they had the faith of a mustard seed, they would be able to uproot a local mulberry tree and toss it in the sea.  Obviously, none of us have the capacity to move a tree just by thinking about it.  God, however, can move a tree.

How many of you were around for Hurricane Isabel?  I was living at the seminary in Alexandria at the time.  When I awoke the morning after the hurricane I was shocked to see that giant trees, trees whose roots had stretched deeply, were knocked over as easily as playing cards.  In Richmond, the damage was even more intense.  In the lush Maymont Park, the carcasses of dozens of overturned trees littered the grass for almost a year. 

For God, moving a tree is as simple as creating a big wind.  For us, not so easy.

So, faith is not about us willing God do so something through the power of our own piety, but realizing that God can do things greater than we can even imagine.  God can even uproot us in places we are stuck and fling us into a new life of freedom and joy.  This part of the passage is about expanding our horizons, opening our minds, coming to terms with a limitless, powerful God.

And then, before we can get too excited about all this, Jesus turns a corner.

In the second part of our gospel reading today, Jesus tells a parable about a slave and a slave owner.  This parable is extremely, nail bitingly, glance around at your neighbor uncomfortable for us.  First of all, it addresses slavery, which in our country was the most shameful part of our past.  Secondly, Jesus encourages rude behavior!  We are in the South.  We thank people.  I sometimes write thank you notes for an event before I actually go to the event.  The idea of not thanking someone who has worked all day for you and then cooked is shocking!

When we think about this passage, it is helpful to remember the context of the time.  In Jesus’ time, slavery was not a race issue-it was a political and financial issue.  A person could be placed in slavery when his country was conquered by another country.  A person could also sell himself into slavery if he was deeply in debt and needed to buy his way out of the debt.  None of this makes slavery acceptable, but in Jesus’ time, it was a part of the system that was taken for granted.  So, when Jesus uses a parable about slavery, he is not endorsing slavery, simply acknowledging that it exists and using slavery as a metaphor his listeners will understand.

So what does this metaphor mean?  To Jesus’ listeners, the idea of thanking a slave would have been laughable.  Slaves had jobs to do-their whole purpose in live was to do these jobs, so to commend them would be silly.  I do not think that self-esteem was a big issue in Jesus’ time. 

Jesus is reminding his disciples that, as followers of Jesus, they have jobs to do, too.  Yes, their God is a mighty God who can uproot trees and transform lives, but that same God also calls us to responsibility.  When it comes to forgiveness, Jesus is telling his disciples to “just do it.”  He’s telling them not to expect to be coddled by God or thanked for doing what they are supposed to be doing. 

While these images of faith and slavery seem radically different, they are two parts of the same point.

God is God.  We are not God.

God can do amazing, nature defying, life changing things.  If we step back and let God do these things, all we have to worry about is doing what we’re supposed to do. We are not responsible for controlling the universe, or making miracles happen.  We are not responsible for changing the lives of others.  We are responsible for our own lives and how we live them-living with integrity, kindness, honesty, forgiveness, love.

If we acknowledge that we already have a mustard seed of faith within us, then all we have to do when we are worried about something or someone is to pray.  We are called to pray and wait for God and do the work God has given us to do without complaint.

When we do manage to do what God has called us to do, we don’t wait around to be praised, but we go on with our lives, knowing we have done the least we can do  to live lives worthy of God. 

So, we live in the tension of faith-of trusting in an endless God, while still navigating our own small lives.  We live in the tension of dreaming big dreams and praying big prayers, while still taking out the garbage every day.  The life of faith is both incredibly expansive and freeing, and limiting-as it provides us boundaries to live healthy and holy lives.

This tension is also a kind of freedom.  By trusting in God, rather than ourselves, an enormous weight is lifted off our shoulders.  By responding to God’s call when we hear it, we always know we are doing what God wants us to do.  Living out this tension offers us a life without anxiety-knowing that we are each fulfilling our own small role and that God is taking care of everything else.