Homily for Sunday, October 30, 2011
Lessons:
Joshua 3:7-17
Psalm 107: 1-7, 33-37
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12
You may be familiar with the work of T Bone Burnett if you are a fan of the soundtrack of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou. Not only is T Bone a successful producer of popular recordings, but he is also a gifted singer-songwriter as well. In one of his songs, he has this to say about humility: “As soon as you think you’re being humble, you’re no longer humble.” Achieving humility is a really tricky thing, as T Bone tells us. It is also an attitude and a behavior required of Christians and modeled for us by Jesus. I’ve heard humility defined as “being in a proper relationship with God, acknowledging that all of our goodness comes from Him.” Every gift we possess and any righteous act we perform originates with the Lord. As today’s collect says, “It is only by your gift, Lord, that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service.” Pride, therefore, has no place in the Christian heart.
In the Old Testament lesson, God enables Joshua to put on a big show, as He had done with Joshua’s predecessor Moses. Joshua is to prove his power and leadership ability to the people by parting the Jordon River and making a dry path for the people to cross over, as Moses had done with the Red Sea. God stops the flowing of the river and Joshua says, “By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.” Note that Joshua doesn’t claim this power for himself; he gives all the credit to the Lord, who had told him, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.” If there is any exalting to be done, God does it. Still, when you have been exalted by God, as were Joshua and Moses, it must be difficult not to want to flaunt your power just a little bit. Indeed, Moses struck the rock at Meribah to release the water for the people without calling on the Lord first—as if the power to bring forth the water was his alone. For that one prideful act, God barred Moses from entering the Promised land with the people.
In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul seems to be succumbing to another form of human pridefulness: self-righteousness. He says, “You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers.” Isn’t there a definite whiny tone to that speech? I have to admit here that self-righteousness is a sin way too familiar to me. I find it very hard to try to be good every day and not give in to feeling superior about it, particularly when there seem to be a lot of people out there who don’t even try. Paul, who suffered punishment and imprisonment for his faith and good works, may feel justified in claiming his righteousness, but he ultimately does not give in to it: he rightly gives God the credit and gratitude for his accomplishments when he says, “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers.”
Paul’s case is a useful one to consider as we examine the sin of pride. Once a well-respected Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, Paul was a man motivated by deeply-held convictions and proud of his work. Only sudden blindness and the sound of the Lord’s voice speaking to him could radically change the course of his life and cause him to join the church he had once set out to destroy. Other than by God’s grace, how could Paul have integrated two such disparate versions of himself? How did the new Paul forgive the old one? Only by grace must be the answer.
Pride, classically known as hubris, is said to be at the root of all sin. Had they not wanted to be like God, knowing what he knew, Adam and Eve would not have eaten the forbidden fruit. Theirs was the original example of pride “coming before a fall.” But I think there is something else underlying human pride that we ought to contemplate. Don’t all of us experience things that wound our egos? From being called ugly names as a child to suffering rejection as an adult, we can probably all name a time when our pride was deeply wounded, when we felt shamed in some way. Our wounded egos need a little pride to bolster them, and we may have felt we had to exalt ourselves in some way. It’s painful to be humble when we’ve experienced humiliation. On the other hand, even false humility (“Oh, this old dress—I just wear it when I don’t care how I look”) is truly egotistical. How do we navigate the treacherous waters separating pride from humility? As old T Bone said, “As soon as you think you’re being humble, you’re no longer humble.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus uses the example of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees to make a point about pride. He says they do not practice what they teach, that they do all their deeds to be seen by others. The Pharisees are very concerned about their outward appearance, the trappings of pride, making “their phylacteries long and their fringes wide.” But Jesus does not tell his followers to disrespect or judge the scribes and Pharisees; in fact, he says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it.” No, Jesus tells his followers to be aware of the damning pride of the Pharisees and to remember that humility will be the source of their security and their future reward: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."
So, it seems that humility is really about being so comfortable in our own skin that the pride (or just plain bad behavior) of others doesn’t affect us. Trusting completely in God’s love for us, our wounded egos can be healed. Knowing that it is only by God’s grace, as Paul did, that we can call ourselves either righteous or humble, we can let go of self-consciousness. It isn’t our job to make ourselves look good. Only God can accomplish that for us!
In this season, with All Hallow’s Eve approaching and All Saints Day to follow, I was thinking of the saints as I wrote this homily. I don’t think anyone makes it to sainthood without possessing a good measure of humility. Knowing themselves as both indebted to and connected to God was fundamental for the saints. I like to imagine them living most of their days, anyway, with such strong conviction of their faith that they experienced true inner peace. Maybe that is what is meant by this lovely quotation on humility: "Humility is perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. It is never to be fretted or vexed, or irritable, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing that is done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is seeming trouble.”
We can remember the words of Isaiah 57:15: “Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, ‘I dwell in the high and holy place and also with the one who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” When we are content to inhabit our own inner space, the Spirit is pleased to join us there—and to exalt us when the time is right.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Work of Kindness
Homily for Sunday, August 28, 2011
Lessons:
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21 [Broadman Hymnal responsive reading #551]
Matthew 16:21-28
We have work to do! The collect for today reminds us of that and provides a rubric for the way God enables us to work: “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.” I’m reminded of the steps we take as gardeners: we tend the soil, adding improvements to it; we plant the seeds, then water and fertilize them; then, if we’ve done our part, the fruits of our labors come naturally. As God “increases in us true religion and nourishes us with all goodness,” out of gratitude and peace of mind, we bring forth the desired good fruits.
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul tells us what some of these fruits are supposed to be, and they don’t involve especially hard labor: “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord; rejoice in hope; be patient in suffering; persevere in prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” Paul is more than usually straightforward here, and what he considers to be the proper works for Christians (or saints, as he calls them) is also summed up in the Great Commandment: Love the Lord with all your heart and might and love your neighbor as yourself.
In today’s lesson from Exodus, God calls Moses to a work that sounds, not only to Moses, but to us as well, like a supremely difficult task to undertake. Moses, not unlike most of us given such a task, tries very hard to get out of doing it. Like us, Moses believes he simply is not equipped to carry out what God asks him to do: to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. But here’s the key statement God makes as he convinces Moses to obey him, and it’s well worth our remembering when we find ourselves undertaking a challenging task: God says to Moses, as he also says to us, “I will be with you.”
Jesus’s words in Matthew 16 are pretty clear, too: “If any want to be my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me…For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of the father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.” The ultimate work of Jesus’s life was to die on the cross for our salvation. In his life he modeled love, kindness and generosity to the poor, helpless, and sick people he encountered. The cross he asks us to take up is certainly not HIS cross. There have been saintly martyrs down through the ages, but martyrdom is not likely to be what we are called to do. However, we are called to do whatever God puts before us that needs doing; when we model our lives on Christ’s life of love, kindness, and generosity, then we have taken up our own cross.
I see that Christ-like kindness bearing fruit here in Graves Mill. This past winter, Michelle and Bill and Doug and Dreama and many others came to the aid of Cecil Berry, and you continue to provide for his needs. Fellowship and neighborly kindness seem to come naturally here in the valley, and that’s a wonderful gift.
My mother, Lillian Estes Haney, was born here and carried that Graves Mill spirit with her throughout her life. Mama never did anything noteworthy enough to call attention to herself, but she lived every day with a kind and loving spirit. She didn’t follow a call to do something deeply challenging for the Lord, as Moses did. But since her death, so many people (including people I didn’t know) have told me stories of the ways my mother helped them or treated them kindly or made them feel loved. Kindness was both her gift and her work.
Recently, the public radio station in Harrisonburg, whose program called “Virginia Insight” airs on Monday afternoons, delved into the topic of kindness, and I listened with great interest. A couple of scholars who have written books on the subject were the featured guests on the show, and what they had to say about their research on kindness sounded like simple common sense to me, expressed in “high-faluting” language. One of them said that kindness was an evolutionary imperative. Survival of the fittest depended on human beings learning how to give and receive help, learning how to value kindness. The other one said that sometimes kindness has an ulterior motive: a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” attitude. Both of those things are probably accurate.
What I really found moving and true was a story related by a woman who called in to the show. She told of an act of kindness she had witnessed in a grocery line one day, and it was both very simple and very profound. The checker had to deal with a customer who was slow and clumsy, handicapped in some way. Although most of those in line behind that patron were visibly expressing their impatience at having to wait, the checker continued to treat the person she was serving with kindness and patience. When the woman in line in front of the caller got to the checker, she said to her, “I really appreciate the way you took your time with that customer and treated him so kindly.” As she said this, the checker, who had heard a few complaints, smiled with gratitude.
So, really, there were two acts of kindness: that of the checker in handling her disabled customer and that of the woman who praised her for her generous deed. As small as both of these gestures may have seemed, it would be impossible to measure the way such kindness bears fruit, how far-reaching such acts can potentially be.
“Live in love as Christ loved us and gave his life for us.”
“Serve the Lord with gladness.”
Amen.
Lessons:
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21 [Broadman Hymnal responsive reading #551]
Matthew 16:21-28
We have work to do! The collect for today reminds us of that and provides a rubric for the way God enables us to work: “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works.” I’m reminded of the steps we take as gardeners: we tend the soil, adding improvements to it; we plant the seeds, then water and fertilize them; then, if we’ve done our part, the fruits of our labors come naturally. As God “increases in us true religion and nourishes us with all goodness,” out of gratitude and peace of mind, we bring forth the desired good fruits.
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul tells us what some of these fruits are supposed to be, and they don’t involve especially hard labor: “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord; rejoice in hope; be patient in suffering; persevere in prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” Paul is more than usually straightforward here, and what he considers to be the proper works for Christians (or saints, as he calls them) is also summed up in the Great Commandment: Love the Lord with all your heart and might and love your neighbor as yourself.
In today’s lesson from Exodus, God calls Moses to a work that sounds, not only to Moses, but to us as well, like a supremely difficult task to undertake. Moses, not unlike most of us given such a task, tries very hard to get out of doing it. Like us, Moses believes he simply is not equipped to carry out what God asks him to do: to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. But here’s the key statement God makes as he convinces Moses to obey him, and it’s well worth our remembering when we find ourselves undertaking a challenging task: God says to Moses, as he also says to us, “I will be with you.”
Jesus’s words in Matthew 16 are pretty clear, too: “If any want to be my followers, let them take up their cross and follow me…For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of the father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.” The ultimate work of Jesus’s life was to die on the cross for our salvation. In his life he modeled love, kindness and generosity to the poor, helpless, and sick people he encountered. The cross he asks us to take up is certainly not HIS cross. There have been saintly martyrs down through the ages, but martyrdom is not likely to be what we are called to do. However, we are called to do whatever God puts before us that needs doing; when we model our lives on Christ’s life of love, kindness, and generosity, then we have taken up our own cross.
I see that Christ-like kindness bearing fruit here in Graves Mill. This past winter, Michelle and Bill and Doug and Dreama and many others came to the aid of Cecil Berry, and you continue to provide for his needs. Fellowship and neighborly kindness seem to come naturally here in the valley, and that’s a wonderful gift.
My mother, Lillian Estes Haney, was born here and carried that Graves Mill spirit with her throughout her life. Mama never did anything noteworthy enough to call attention to herself, but she lived every day with a kind and loving spirit. She didn’t follow a call to do something deeply challenging for the Lord, as Moses did. But since her death, so many people (including people I didn’t know) have told me stories of the ways my mother helped them or treated them kindly or made them feel loved. Kindness was both her gift and her work.
Recently, the public radio station in Harrisonburg, whose program called “Virginia Insight” airs on Monday afternoons, delved into the topic of kindness, and I listened with great interest. A couple of scholars who have written books on the subject were the featured guests on the show, and what they had to say about their research on kindness sounded like simple common sense to me, expressed in “high-faluting” language. One of them said that kindness was an evolutionary imperative. Survival of the fittest depended on human beings learning how to give and receive help, learning how to value kindness. The other one said that sometimes kindness has an ulterior motive: a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” attitude. Both of those things are probably accurate.
What I really found moving and true was a story related by a woman who called in to the show. She told of an act of kindness she had witnessed in a grocery line one day, and it was both very simple and very profound. The checker had to deal with a customer who was slow and clumsy, handicapped in some way. Although most of those in line behind that patron were visibly expressing their impatience at having to wait, the checker continued to treat the person she was serving with kindness and patience. When the woman in line in front of the caller got to the checker, she said to her, “I really appreciate the way you took your time with that customer and treated him so kindly.” As she said this, the checker, who had heard a few complaints, smiled with gratitude.
So, really, there were two acts of kindness: that of the checker in handling her disabled customer and that of the woman who praised her for her generous deed. As small as both of these gestures may have seemed, it would be impossible to measure the way such kindness bears fruit, how far-reaching such acts can potentially be.
“Live in love as Christ loved us and gave his life for us.”
“Serve the Lord with gladness.”
Amen.
God's Will
Homily for Sunday, August 7 Buck Mountain Church
Lessons:
Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28
Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22
Romans 10: 5-15
Matthew 14: 22-33
The collect appointed for today, like many others, could be a little sermon on its own. "Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will." As I interpret the collect, it suggests three things. The first is we want to follow God's will, but we find it hard to do so. Secondly, to follow God's will means to think and do what is right. Finally, the only way we can manage to do that is if God enables us. Hence, we pray. Does this really mean that whether we follow God's will or not is completely up to God? Surely human free will also has a role to play. How do we discern God's will for us?
In his famous book, The Will of God, Leslie Weatherhead offers a convincing clarification. He wrote the book because he didn't agree with people who explained away awful tragedies, like the death of a child, by saying they were the result of "God's will." He said such expressions made no sense, adding, "Surely we cannot identify as the will of God something for which a man would be locked up in jail." Weatherhead explained God's will by dividing it into three parts. The first is what he called "the intentional will of God," or "God's ideal purpose." Quite often, however, "God's ideal purpose" is thwarted by circumstances related to human free will and the existence of evil in the world. Then God has to work through such bad circumstances in order to fulfill his ideal purpose, and Weatherhead calls that "the circumstantial will of God." Finally, in spite of all of the difficult things that may have stood in the way, when God is able to bring about something truly good and fulfill his original intentional will, Weatherhead calls that the "ultimate will of God."
The familiar story of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, and all of his brothers is a great illustration of Weatherhead's treatise on God's will. It is clear from the beginning that God has big things planned for Joseph, who can interpret dreams. Remember, Joseph had a couple of dreams--one about sheaves of wheat and the other about the sun, moon and stars--which he interpreted to mean that all of his brothers and even his parents would one day have to bow down to him. The problem was Joseph just couldn't help telling his older brothers about his dreams. How could they hear that prediction and not think Joseph was gloating over them? His words must have sounded like boasting, so there was at least a little bit of hubris on Joseph's part, and pride often comes before a fall, as the old saying goes. It didn't help the brothers feel any more tolerant of Joseph when their father gave him that special robe with long sleeves.
Siblings. If you’ve never had one, you’ve surely heard stories about sibling rivalry. This story about Joseph and his brothers is one of the most famous. You may have seen the movie version of “Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” starring Donnie Osmond as Joseph. Even without Donnie Osmond, it’s easy to see why Joseph annoyed his siblings, and it wasn't just because of his "nanny nanny boo boo" dreams or the fancy coat. Joseph brought his father a “bad report” about his older brothers. Nobody likes a tattletale.
I can personally attest to that. When I was about four years old, I told on my big brother, who is eight years older than I, and got him into trouble. My brother cornered me, grabbed me by the arm, and said in a very soft and ominous voice, “If you ever tell on me again, I will kill you.” That was a message even a four-year old doesn’t need to hear twice. My tattletale days were over. Maybe Joseph's older brothers should have been kind enough to give him a warning. At least Reuben cared enough about him to figure out a way to keep Joseph alive. So, instead of being killed by his brothers, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt.
The intentional will of God for Joseph, "God's ideal purpose" was that he would one day be the salvation of his family, the salvation, really, of Israel. The dream Joseph shared with them about their bundled sheaves of wheat bowing down to his sheaf may even have suggested the upcoming famine and Joseph's role in saving his family from starvation. The evil circumstances that nearly prevented that from happening--the jealousy and revenge of his brothers--had to be used and redirected by God--the "circumstantial will of God." The entire story of Joseph reads like a novel. When he is sold in Egypt, he ends up in the household of a prominent official in Pharaoh's court, a man named Potiphar. Potiphar learns to value Joseph and places him in a position of trust, but Potiphar's wife develops a thing for Joseph and tries repeatedly to seduce him. When he refuses, she accuses him of trying to "lie with" her, and Joseph is thrown into jail. It is in jail that Joseph's talent as an interpreter of dreams is finally revealed, and two years after he correctly interprets the dream of Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, he is brought before the Pharaoh, who has had some troubling dreams. Joseph predicts the upcoming seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and the grateful Pharaoh makes Joseph his second in command. It is in that capacity, and during the famine, that Joseph is able to give help to his starving brothers when they journey to Egypt in search of food. Psalm 105 fills in the details: "Remember the marvels he has done/ the wonders and judgments of his mouth/ O children of Jacob his chosen...He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave./...They bruised his feet in fetters/ his neck they put in an iron collar.../The king sent and released him/ He set him as a master over his household." Think how many twists and turns and unpleasant circumstances had to happen, how many years went by, before the intentional will of God for Joseph could be fulfilled as an ultimate reality. Weatherhead's explanation of God's will supports my belief that God neither causes nor permits the bad things that happen to us. We are the victims of our own mistakes and emotions (fear or pride or envy or anger) or of the bad choices others make. Sometimes we are the victims of unlucky circumstances or natural disasters. But our God is capable of working through all of these things to bring us to his ultimate will for us--that we be happy, well, and free.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that discerning God's will for us can be easier than it seems. Quoting Deuteronomy, Paul tells us, "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." If we have any conscience at all, if we "think those things that are right," as the collect suggests, then we ought to know how to do the right thing. Listening with our hearts, having faith, trusting in God's love for us will help to carry us through the dark circumstances over which we have no control. His faith in God sustained Joseph through his many trials and brought him to maturity and a gracious generosity when he was finally reunited with his family.
Yesterday was the celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration. That event in the life of Christ revealed to his chosen disciples that the man they called friend, someone who was much like themselves, could be transformed into a light-filled heavenly creature in the twinkling of an eye. When God exercises his intentional will for us, we too can be transfigured. Our mistakes, our accidents, our weaknesses and sorrows do not have the last word. God can take our darkest circumstances and shed some light on them.
"Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will." How blessed we are to be the children of a loving and persistent God, who grabs hold of us and won't let go
Lessons:
Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28
Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22
Romans 10: 5-15
Matthew 14: 22-33
The collect appointed for today, like many others, could be a little sermon on its own. "Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will." As I interpret the collect, it suggests three things. The first is we want to follow God's will, but we find it hard to do so. Secondly, to follow God's will means to think and do what is right. Finally, the only way we can manage to do that is if God enables us. Hence, we pray. Does this really mean that whether we follow God's will or not is completely up to God? Surely human free will also has a role to play. How do we discern God's will for us?
In his famous book, The Will of God, Leslie Weatherhead offers a convincing clarification. He wrote the book because he didn't agree with people who explained away awful tragedies, like the death of a child, by saying they were the result of "God's will." He said such expressions made no sense, adding, "Surely we cannot identify as the will of God something for which a man would be locked up in jail." Weatherhead explained God's will by dividing it into three parts. The first is what he called "the intentional will of God," or "God's ideal purpose." Quite often, however, "God's ideal purpose" is thwarted by circumstances related to human free will and the existence of evil in the world. Then God has to work through such bad circumstances in order to fulfill his ideal purpose, and Weatherhead calls that "the circumstantial will of God." Finally, in spite of all of the difficult things that may have stood in the way, when God is able to bring about something truly good and fulfill his original intentional will, Weatherhead calls that the "ultimate will of God."
The familiar story of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, and all of his brothers is a great illustration of Weatherhead's treatise on God's will. It is clear from the beginning that God has big things planned for Joseph, who can interpret dreams. Remember, Joseph had a couple of dreams--one about sheaves of wheat and the other about the sun, moon and stars--which he interpreted to mean that all of his brothers and even his parents would one day have to bow down to him. The problem was Joseph just couldn't help telling his older brothers about his dreams. How could they hear that prediction and not think Joseph was gloating over them? His words must have sounded like boasting, so there was at least a little bit of hubris on Joseph's part, and pride often comes before a fall, as the old saying goes. It didn't help the brothers feel any more tolerant of Joseph when their father gave him that special robe with long sleeves.
Siblings. If you’ve never had one, you’ve surely heard stories about sibling rivalry. This story about Joseph and his brothers is one of the most famous. You may have seen the movie version of “Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” starring Donnie Osmond as Joseph. Even without Donnie Osmond, it’s easy to see why Joseph annoyed his siblings, and it wasn't just because of his "nanny nanny boo boo" dreams or the fancy coat. Joseph brought his father a “bad report” about his older brothers. Nobody likes a tattletale.
I can personally attest to that. When I was about four years old, I told on my big brother, who is eight years older than I, and got him into trouble. My brother cornered me, grabbed me by the arm, and said in a very soft and ominous voice, “If you ever tell on me again, I will kill you.” That was a message even a four-year old doesn’t need to hear twice. My tattletale days were over. Maybe Joseph's older brothers should have been kind enough to give him a warning. At least Reuben cared enough about him to figure out a way to keep Joseph alive. So, instead of being killed by his brothers, Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt.
The intentional will of God for Joseph, "God's ideal purpose" was that he would one day be the salvation of his family, the salvation, really, of Israel. The dream Joseph shared with them about their bundled sheaves of wheat bowing down to his sheaf may even have suggested the upcoming famine and Joseph's role in saving his family from starvation. The evil circumstances that nearly prevented that from happening--the jealousy and revenge of his brothers--had to be used and redirected by God--the "circumstantial will of God." The entire story of Joseph reads like a novel. When he is sold in Egypt, he ends up in the household of a prominent official in Pharaoh's court, a man named Potiphar. Potiphar learns to value Joseph and places him in a position of trust, but Potiphar's wife develops a thing for Joseph and tries repeatedly to seduce him. When he refuses, she accuses him of trying to "lie with" her, and Joseph is thrown into jail. It is in jail that Joseph's talent as an interpreter of dreams is finally revealed, and two years after he correctly interprets the dream of Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, he is brought before the Pharaoh, who has had some troubling dreams. Joseph predicts the upcoming seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and the grateful Pharaoh makes Joseph his second in command. It is in that capacity, and during the famine, that Joseph is able to give help to his starving brothers when they journey to Egypt in search of food. Psalm 105 fills in the details: "Remember the marvels he has done/ the wonders and judgments of his mouth/ O children of Jacob his chosen...He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave./...They bruised his feet in fetters/ his neck they put in an iron collar.../The king sent and released him/ He set him as a master over his household." Think how many twists and turns and unpleasant circumstances had to happen, how many years went by, before the intentional will of God for Joseph could be fulfilled as an ultimate reality. Weatherhead's explanation of God's will supports my belief that God neither causes nor permits the bad things that happen to us. We are the victims of our own mistakes and emotions (fear or pride or envy or anger) or of the bad choices others make. Sometimes we are the victims of unlucky circumstances or natural disasters. But our God is capable of working through all of these things to bring us to his ultimate will for us--that we be happy, well, and free.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that discerning God's will for us can be easier than it seems. Quoting Deuteronomy, Paul tells us, "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." If we have any conscience at all, if we "think those things that are right," as the collect suggests, then we ought to know how to do the right thing. Listening with our hearts, having faith, trusting in God's love for us will help to carry us through the dark circumstances over which we have no control. His faith in God sustained Joseph through his many trials and brought him to maturity and a gracious generosity when he was finally reunited with his family.
Yesterday was the celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration. That event in the life of Christ revealed to his chosen disciples that the man they called friend, someone who was much like themselves, could be transformed into a light-filled heavenly creature in the twinkling of an eye. When God exercises his intentional will for us, we too can be transfigured. Our mistakes, our accidents, our weaknesses and sorrows do not have the last word. God can take our darkest circumstances and shed some light on them.
"Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will." How blessed we are to be the children of a loving and persistent God, who grabs hold of us and won't let go
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Wrestling With God
Homily for Sunday, July 31, 2011
Lessons:
Genesis 32: 22-31
Matthew 14: 13-21
Wrestling with God. At first glance, it seems like a pretty crazy thing to do. Who would stand a chance in a battle with the Almighty? Yet, in this famous story of Jacob spending all night wrestling with the Lord, it is the Lord who willingly enjoins the fight and who gives in first.
A couple of years ago, I delivered a homily I called "The Bad Boys of the Bible. " On my list of bad boys were Moses, David, and Jacob--all of whom, in addition to being notorious misbehavers, are three of the most significant figures in Hebrew history. Moses, remember, murdered an Egyptian taskmaster and had to flee from Egypt. When God spoke to him from a burning bush, Moses tried every ruse he could think of to get out of the task God gave him--leading all of the Hebrew people out of Egypt. And King David, remember, had an affair with a married woman and then had her husband killed when he found out she was pregnant. These are not the everyday sins of average human beings. In their efforts to do what they wanted to do rather than follow the will of God, Moses and David wrestled with God, struggled and failed more than once, but ultimately served God to the best of their abilities. Moses and David were big men and big sinners, but God still loved and forgave them.
In our story about Jacob, he is on his way home to encounter his twin brother Esau after living in exile for twenty years. Remember, Jacob had to go into exile after he manipulated the elder Esau into trading his birthright for a bowl of soup. Then he tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing that also rightfully belonged to Esau. Jacob was in fact an ambitious con man. Even so, the Lord willingly grapples with him, and Jacob's stubborn determination is rewarded when the Lord blesses him and changes his name to Israel. The twelve sons of Jacob became the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, the people led out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and into the Promised Land by Moses. Once again, it is clear that even the worst of sinners (and the greatest of wrestlers) can be loved and used by God.
This is really good news, because I think most of us spend a lot of time wrestling with God. I wrestle with God when things around me seem to be going all wrong and I'm not patient enough to let God reveal a solution. I am also prone to wrestling when what God seems to be calling me to do is not at all what I want to do. We wrestle with God when bad things happen and we want to know why God allowed them. Jacob's story tells us that God not only understands why we wrestle but also encourages us to do so.
In other words, God can handle anything we might want to say when we are anguished or stressed. God seems to prefer that we speak our hearts honestly, express our anger if we need to do so--as long as we stay tuned in for God's response. There's a story about St. Teresa of Avila that illustrates the point very well. St. Teresa, who lived from 1515 to 1582, was traveling by cart one day, on the way to visit one of her monasteries. The cart overturned as it crossed a stream, and St. Teresa's leg was broken. She looked up to Heaven and said, "Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few."
St. Teresa also said,
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes
God never changes
Patience obtains all
Whoever has God wants for nothing
God alone is enough.
Amen.
Lessons:
Genesis 32: 22-31
Matthew 14: 13-21
Wrestling with God. At first glance, it seems like a pretty crazy thing to do. Who would stand a chance in a battle with the Almighty? Yet, in this famous story of Jacob spending all night wrestling with the Lord, it is the Lord who willingly enjoins the fight and who gives in first.
A couple of years ago, I delivered a homily I called "The Bad Boys of the Bible. " On my list of bad boys were Moses, David, and Jacob--all of whom, in addition to being notorious misbehavers, are three of the most significant figures in Hebrew history. Moses, remember, murdered an Egyptian taskmaster and had to flee from Egypt. When God spoke to him from a burning bush, Moses tried every ruse he could think of to get out of the task God gave him--leading all of the Hebrew people out of Egypt. And King David, remember, had an affair with a married woman and then had her husband killed when he found out she was pregnant. These are not the everyday sins of average human beings. In their efforts to do what they wanted to do rather than follow the will of God, Moses and David wrestled with God, struggled and failed more than once, but ultimately served God to the best of their abilities. Moses and David were big men and big sinners, but God still loved and forgave them.
In our story about Jacob, he is on his way home to encounter his twin brother Esau after living in exile for twenty years. Remember, Jacob had to go into exile after he manipulated the elder Esau into trading his birthright for a bowl of soup. Then he tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing that also rightfully belonged to Esau. Jacob was in fact an ambitious con man. Even so, the Lord willingly grapples with him, and Jacob's stubborn determination is rewarded when the Lord blesses him and changes his name to Israel. The twelve sons of Jacob became the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel, the people led out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and into the Promised Land by Moses. Once again, it is clear that even the worst of sinners (and the greatest of wrestlers) can be loved and used by God.
This is really good news, because I think most of us spend a lot of time wrestling with God. I wrestle with God when things around me seem to be going all wrong and I'm not patient enough to let God reveal a solution. I am also prone to wrestling when what God seems to be calling me to do is not at all what I want to do. We wrestle with God when bad things happen and we want to know why God allowed them. Jacob's story tells us that God not only understands why we wrestle but also encourages us to do so.
In other words, God can handle anything we might want to say when we are anguished or stressed. God seems to prefer that we speak our hearts honestly, express our anger if we need to do so--as long as we stay tuned in for God's response. There's a story about St. Teresa of Avila that illustrates the point very well. St. Teresa, who lived from 1515 to 1582, was traveling by cart one day, on the way to visit one of her monasteries. The cart overturned as it crossed a stream, and St. Teresa's leg was broken. She looked up to Heaven and said, "Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few."
St. Teresa also said,
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes
God never changes
Patience obtains all
Whoever has God wants for nothing
God alone is enough.
Amen.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Faith of Our Fathers
Lessons for today:
Psalm 13
Genesis 22:1-14
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
When I was attending Waverly Yowell Elementary School, back in the 1960s, we had a special visitor once a month. We called her the Bible lady, and her name was Miss Neff. She brought in an easel with a flannel board and told us stories from the bible, using colorful flat figures arrayed on scenic backgrounds, all depicted in flannel. When she needed a new scene, she would just flip a new sheet of flannel over the top of the easel and be ready to continue her story. I especially remember the dark open maw of the empty cave and the gray rock she moved away from it to show us Jesus' tomb. Having a visit from the Bible lady was fun for us, and looking back on it, probably one of the few times during the month when our teachers got a break from their students. If we memorized Bible verses and recited them to Miss Neff, she gave us prizes. I still have the white faux-leather KJV Bible I received after learning 500 verses.
I attended Sunday school regularly, and often read evening devotions with my mother, who was a devotee of the King James Version. That beautiful language, the stories and pictures, the images I formed in my head of important figures in our faith history, such as Abraham and Jesus, gave me a distorted sense of historical time, I believe. I knew Jesus and Abraham lived a long, long time ago, but since they seemed to dress alike and speak the same language, I had no idea that nearly 2000 years separated the eras of their lives. I didn't have a clue that Abraham lived in a very primitive, ancient world and, in contrast, Jesus lived in the highly civilized age of the Roman Empire. That distinction is very important to our understanding of today's scripture lessons.
The Old and New Testament lessons for today are truly bookends, in an unexpected way. For modern Christians, the Genesis story, of God ordering Abraham to kill his son and Abraham's near compliance, is one of the most disturbing episodes of the entire Bible. The words of Jesus in Matthew 10 clearly suggest his desire that we adults should take care of children, an attitude toward children more closely reflecting our modern one: "...and whoever gives even a cup of water to these little ones in the name of a disciple...truly, none of these will lose their reward." In Jesus, there is a special blessing for those who care for the little ones.
We do believe we live in a world that cherishes children, that puts children first, and it is unimaginable to us that a father would be willing to kill his own son--or that our God would ask him to do such a thing. After the devastating tornado that ravaged Joplin, Missouri, I heard an interview on NPR with a young woman who was searching for the body of her sister. She knew her sister was dead because her nine-year old nephew had survived. In the chaotic hours just after the tornado, neighbors had found the little boy under a pile of debris, his dead mother's body above him. This young woman had done what any mother instinctively does--she had used her body to shelter her son from the storm. He was injured, but he will survive, thanks to his mother's self-sacrifice.
During my years of teaching, I had occasion to think of the legal term for the relationship between teachers and their students. Teachers serve "in loco parentis," Latin for "in place of parents" as they foster and nurture the children they teach. During mass school shootings at places like Columbine High School, teachers took that designation to its fullest extent, giving their lives to stand between their students and the shooters who took aim to kill them. We like to believe that most of the adults we know would go out of their way to protect children, and that's clearly the way the Lord would have the world operate.
So how do we comprehend the order God gives Abraham to kill his only son Isaac as a sacrifice on the altar? Since the story has a happy ending, with an angel intervening and a ram provided for the sacrifice, as a child I simply thought of it as an exciting suspense story. God knew all along he was going to preserve Isaac's life; who worried about how Abraham and Isaac must have felt when the father laid his boy, bound by rope, atop the pile of wood and took his knife in hand. The lesson was a pretty simple one: if you have as much faith as Abraham (and that's a lot of faith) you will always trust God to do the right thing. It wasn't until I reached adulthood and became a parent that this story began to trouble me.
If we put the father's near-sacrifice of his son into its historical context, taking place about 2000 years before the birth of Jesus (4000 years ago), we can see this incident from a very different perspective. Among the peoples of the region, child sacrifice was a common practice in those days, especially the sacrifice of a first-born child. That would explain why Abraham doesn't seem very surprised by God's command, why he obediently takes his son to the appointed place and prepares for the sacrifice. Oh yes, Abraham proves his faith, his complete trust in God. It is easy to see why he is the chosen one of God, with that much faith. But the truly important lesson is one the psalms and prophets reinforce repeatedly: God doesn't want human sacrifice. As the prophet Hosea simply states the Word of God: "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." Yahweh, the God of Israel, is a God of love, and in this pivotal story about the patriarch of the Hebrew faith, God shows us that he wants his people to be different from all the others. He wants us to love Him with steadfastness and obedience, to love one another, and to take good care of our children!
Of course, this story also carries with it a darker side, one that we may not choose to examine too closely. Yes, we love children and pass laws to protect God's "little ones." But we know that every day all over the world, children die for lack of food or clean water or decent medical care. Children are daily abused in horrendous ways, in spite of laws and our good intentions. On what altar are these children sacrificed? What, if anything, are we called to do?
One more thing to remember--as much as it must have pained Abraham to be told to sacrifice his son, in the end he was spared that terrible agony. But God did not spare himself; he allowed his own son to be sacrificed for the salvation of all of us. Father and Son have endured the worst the world can offer. Let it be a consolation to us to know they are with every child who suffers. Their eyes are on the sparrows, and their hearts are with the little ones.
Thanks be to God.
Psalm 13
Genesis 22:1-14
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
When I was attending Waverly Yowell Elementary School, back in the 1960s, we had a special visitor once a month. We called her the Bible lady, and her name was Miss Neff. She brought in an easel with a flannel board and told us stories from the bible, using colorful flat figures arrayed on scenic backgrounds, all depicted in flannel. When she needed a new scene, she would just flip a new sheet of flannel over the top of the easel and be ready to continue her story. I especially remember the dark open maw of the empty cave and the gray rock she moved away from it to show us Jesus' tomb. Having a visit from the Bible lady was fun for us, and looking back on it, probably one of the few times during the month when our teachers got a break from their students. If we memorized Bible verses and recited them to Miss Neff, she gave us prizes. I still have the white faux-leather KJV Bible I received after learning 500 verses.
I attended Sunday school regularly, and often read evening devotions with my mother, who was a devotee of the King James Version. That beautiful language, the stories and pictures, the images I formed in my head of important figures in our faith history, such as Abraham and Jesus, gave me a distorted sense of historical time, I believe. I knew Jesus and Abraham lived a long, long time ago, but since they seemed to dress alike and speak the same language, I had no idea that nearly 2000 years separated the eras of their lives. I didn't have a clue that Abraham lived in a very primitive, ancient world and, in contrast, Jesus lived in the highly civilized age of the Roman Empire. That distinction is very important to our understanding of today's scripture lessons.
The Old and New Testament lessons for today are truly bookends, in an unexpected way. For modern Christians, the Genesis story, of God ordering Abraham to kill his son and Abraham's near compliance, is one of the most disturbing episodes of the entire Bible. The words of Jesus in Matthew 10 clearly suggest his desire that we adults should take care of children, an attitude toward children more closely reflecting our modern one: "...and whoever gives even a cup of water to these little ones in the name of a disciple...truly, none of these will lose their reward." In Jesus, there is a special blessing for those who care for the little ones.
We do believe we live in a world that cherishes children, that puts children first, and it is unimaginable to us that a father would be willing to kill his own son--or that our God would ask him to do such a thing. After the devastating tornado that ravaged Joplin, Missouri, I heard an interview on NPR with a young woman who was searching for the body of her sister. She knew her sister was dead because her nine-year old nephew had survived. In the chaotic hours just after the tornado, neighbors had found the little boy under a pile of debris, his dead mother's body above him. This young woman had done what any mother instinctively does--she had used her body to shelter her son from the storm. He was injured, but he will survive, thanks to his mother's self-sacrifice.
During my years of teaching, I had occasion to think of the legal term for the relationship between teachers and their students. Teachers serve "in loco parentis," Latin for "in place of parents" as they foster and nurture the children they teach. During mass school shootings at places like Columbine High School, teachers took that designation to its fullest extent, giving their lives to stand between their students and the shooters who took aim to kill them. We like to believe that most of the adults we know would go out of their way to protect children, and that's clearly the way the Lord would have the world operate.
So how do we comprehend the order God gives Abraham to kill his only son Isaac as a sacrifice on the altar? Since the story has a happy ending, with an angel intervening and a ram provided for the sacrifice, as a child I simply thought of it as an exciting suspense story. God knew all along he was going to preserve Isaac's life; who worried about how Abraham and Isaac must have felt when the father laid his boy, bound by rope, atop the pile of wood and took his knife in hand. The lesson was a pretty simple one: if you have as much faith as Abraham (and that's a lot of faith) you will always trust God to do the right thing. It wasn't until I reached adulthood and became a parent that this story began to trouble me.
If we put the father's near-sacrifice of his son into its historical context, taking place about 2000 years before the birth of Jesus (4000 years ago), we can see this incident from a very different perspective. Among the peoples of the region, child sacrifice was a common practice in those days, especially the sacrifice of a first-born child. That would explain why Abraham doesn't seem very surprised by God's command, why he obediently takes his son to the appointed place and prepares for the sacrifice. Oh yes, Abraham proves his faith, his complete trust in God. It is easy to see why he is the chosen one of God, with that much faith. But the truly important lesson is one the psalms and prophets reinforce repeatedly: God doesn't want human sacrifice. As the prophet Hosea simply states the Word of God: "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." Yahweh, the God of Israel, is a God of love, and in this pivotal story about the patriarch of the Hebrew faith, God shows us that he wants his people to be different from all the others. He wants us to love Him with steadfastness and obedience, to love one another, and to take good care of our children!
Of course, this story also carries with it a darker side, one that we may not choose to examine too closely. Yes, we love children and pass laws to protect God's "little ones." But we know that every day all over the world, children die for lack of food or clean water or decent medical care. Children are daily abused in horrendous ways, in spite of laws and our good intentions. On what altar are these children sacrificed? What, if anything, are we called to do?
One more thing to remember--as much as it must have pained Abraham to be told to sacrifice his son, in the end he was spared that terrible agony. But God did not spare himself; he allowed his own son to be sacrificed for the salvation of all of us. Father and Son have endured the worst the world can offer. Let it be a consolation to us to know they are with every child who suffers. Their eyes are on the sparrows, and their hearts are with the little ones.
Thanks be to God.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Abundant Love
Homily for Sunday, May 29th, 2011
The Lessons:
Psalm 66:7-18
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14: 15-21
The Collect:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Have you ever heard of "prosperity theology"? It is also called "Name it and claim it," as in "Ask the Lord for something you really want, and he will give it to you." Proponents of prosperity theology believe that God rewards all true believers with health and wealth. In churches that promote this belief system, living the Abundant Life is the theological focus. But I don't think the theology of abundance in such churches has a whole lot to do with the words in our collect for today. Sure, someone could read "O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding" and imagine great wealth and all the luxuries that attend it. In fact, that is exactly the kind of abundant life the "name it and claim it" churches preach, but you and I know that is NOT the abundance Christ offers us. In fact, wealth is so removed from what His kingdom means that Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter his kingdom. The abundance Christ holds out to us is a kingdom of love.
The next words of the collect are like instructions for how to enter his kingdom: "Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire." Loving the Lord in all things and above all things guarantees our entrance into the kingdom. It sounds like it should be pretty easy, doesn't it? What are the things in human nature that prevent us from the kind of wholehearted love Christ asks of us? Sometimes, we have a hard time loving our neighbor because we don't love ourselves. In fact, we can be downright hateful in the things we say to ourselves in the mirror. Most of us don't take very good care of ourselves, and that's not loving ourselves, either. If we truly believed we are the "offspring" of God, as today's lesson from Acts tells us, or that God and Jesus "live in" us, as John's gospel says, we ought to treat our bodies as sacred space. We ought to recognize the indwelling of the divine in everyone around us. In doing so, we may come closer to loving God in and above all things. Still, it's very hard.
Human nature being what it is--fearful, suspicious, selfish--the kingdom doesn't seem to be so near as Jesus promises. Remember the rich young man who was attracted to Jesus' teaching and wished to follow him? He asked the Teacher what he needed to do in order to be his disciple, and when Jesus told him to give up all of his wealth, the rich young man turned sadly away. Jesus was sad, too, because he saw the potential goodness in the young man. I may have told myself that, not being rich, I am not like the young man; however, I know there are many things I would rather not give up in order to love Christ with my whole heart. (Comfort being a big one!) I wish it didn't have to seem so hard!
As I write these words, I am reminded that we are at the 6th Sunday in the season of Easter. All of the lessons for the Sundays since Easter have concerned the disciples and their reactions to the death and resurrection of Jesus. The second Sunday focused on Thomas and the way he expressed doubt and was reassured by the resurrected Lord. On the third Sunday, we read the story of Jesus' encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In this story in particular, as you read it you may want to shake those disciples and ask them why they are so blind. Why can't they see they are talking to the Lord? Priest and writer John Dominic Crossan says that we have our own Emmaus road encounters all of the time. Like the disciples, we don't recognize the Lord until we invite him in. Our ability to enter the kingdom with the Risen Lord, to live in love as Christ loved us, is completely dependent on our willingness. We have to want Him in our lives in order to see that He is already there.
It's really that simple, although we humans like to complicate everything. In today's Gospel lesson from John 14, we see Jesus preparing the disciples for his death and resurrection. (As usual, they don't get it.) Could his language have been any plainer than this? "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." Jesus speaks these words to us as well. He lives in our hearts. Since he is inside all of us, we are connected by his presence, all members of the same family and "offspring" of God. We are asked to be willing to pour out our love for him in the way we love one another. Our willingness to love abundantly grants us the abundant life of the eternal kingdom. Welcome, brothers and sisters!
The Lessons:
Psalm 66:7-18
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14: 15-21
The Collect:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Have you ever heard of "prosperity theology"? It is also called "Name it and claim it," as in "Ask the Lord for something you really want, and he will give it to you." Proponents of prosperity theology believe that God rewards all true believers with health and wealth. In churches that promote this belief system, living the Abundant Life is the theological focus. But I don't think the theology of abundance in such churches has a whole lot to do with the words in our collect for today. Sure, someone could read "O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding" and imagine great wealth and all the luxuries that attend it. In fact, that is exactly the kind of abundant life the "name it and claim it" churches preach, but you and I know that is NOT the abundance Christ offers us. In fact, wealth is so removed from what His kingdom means that Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter his kingdom. The abundance Christ holds out to us is a kingdom of love.
The next words of the collect are like instructions for how to enter his kingdom: "Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire." Loving the Lord in all things and above all things guarantees our entrance into the kingdom. It sounds like it should be pretty easy, doesn't it? What are the things in human nature that prevent us from the kind of wholehearted love Christ asks of us? Sometimes, we have a hard time loving our neighbor because we don't love ourselves. In fact, we can be downright hateful in the things we say to ourselves in the mirror. Most of us don't take very good care of ourselves, and that's not loving ourselves, either. If we truly believed we are the "offspring" of God, as today's lesson from Acts tells us, or that God and Jesus "live in" us, as John's gospel says, we ought to treat our bodies as sacred space. We ought to recognize the indwelling of the divine in everyone around us. In doing so, we may come closer to loving God in and above all things. Still, it's very hard.
Human nature being what it is--fearful, suspicious, selfish--the kingdom doesn't seem to be so near as Jesus promises. Remember the rich young man who was attracted to Jesus' teaching and wished to follow him? He asked the Teacher what he needed to do in order to be his disciple, and when Jesus told him to give up all of his wealth, the rich young man turned sadly away. Jesus was sad, too, because he saw the potential goodness in the young man. I may have told myself that, not being rich, I am not like the young man; however, I know there are many things I would rather not give up in order to love Christ with my whole heart. (Comfort being a big one!) I wish it didn't have to seem so hard!
As I write these words, I am reminded that we are at the 6th Sunday in the season of Easter. All of the lessons for the Sundays since Easter have concerned the disciples and their reactions to the death and resurrection of Jesus. The second Sunday focused on Thomas and the way he expressed doubt and was reassured by the resurrected Lord. On the third Sunday, we read the story of Jesus' encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In this story in particular, as you read it you may want to shake those disciples and ask them why they are so blind. Why can't they see they are talking to the Lord? Priest and writer John Dominic Crossan says that we have our own Emmaus road encounters all of the time. Like the disciples, we don't recognize the Lord until we invite him in. Our ability to enter the kingdom with the Risen Lord, to live in love as Christ loved us, is completely dependent on our willingness. We have to want Him in our lives in order to see that He is already there.
It's really that simple, although we humans like to complicate everything. In today's Gospel lesson from John 14, we see Jesus preparing the disciples for his death and resurrection. (As usual, they don't get it.) Could his language have been any plainer than this? "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." Jesus speaks these words to us as well. He lives in our hearts. Since he is inside all of us, we are connected by his presence, all members of the same family and "offspring" of God. We are asked to be willing to pour out our love for him in the way we love one another. Our willingness to love abundantly grants us the abundant life of the eternal kingdom. Welcome, brothers and sisters!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Homily for the Easter Vigil April 23, 2011
"Welcome Happy Morning, age to age shall say." So begins a very old Easter hymn, dating back to the 6th century. When that song was first written, Christianity had endured for 500 years, and Venantius Honorius Fortunatus, its writer, predicted the continuing of the faith down through the ages. 1500 years later, we can say the same--welcome, happy morning. Easter has arrived!
John's gospel calls Jesus "the true light, which enlightens everyone." On this night, we began our vigil in darkness, remembering the hours when the true light seemed to be snuffed out, when Jesus lay silently in a dark tomb. He, who was God incarnate, endured the pain of a human death, in suffering that can best be described as torture. He surrendered his life, in obedience to the Father, and by dying for our sins, gave us the promise of eternal life. His resurrection on Easter morning demonstrated the way to new life for all his followers.
Imagine what this night of vigil must have been like for those early Christians who came to be baptized on Holy Saturday. After three years of intense preparation, they walked naked through the water, like children entering Paradise: innocent and believing. They were not simply claiming a religion; they were entering a close-knit community. Being a Christian in those days was no easy proposition; those were very dark times indeed, when Christians were persecuted and many were martyred. Early Christians trusted that God would make a way for them in this world and would welcome them to a better life in the next. They entered the waters of baptism with complete assurance of Salvation.
Why did those early Christians pursue the faith in spite of the dangers they could face? Why are there still people of faith today, 2000 years since the death of Christ? For that matter, why are we gathered here in this chapel near Kinsey Run on a Saturday evening? The answer to all these questions is the same. We love Christ because he first loved us and gave his life for us. As Thomas Merton wrote, "We could not seek God unless he were seeking us." Some of us feel a gentle nudge and others, like St. Paul, find themselves knocked to the ground by the power of the call, but all of us are called into the body of Christ. We are called by the power of love and the hope of new life in the world to come. Our faith has survived all these years because many of us have had a personal encounter with Christ, and we bear witness to others. Resurrection is very real to us because Christ lives on in every faithful heart.
Just as each morning the light returns with the rising sun, the darkness of the tomb could not erase the Christ-light. In every act of love, in all our thoughts that turn toward him, Christ is alive in the world. As he told his disciples before the crucifixion, he had to leave them, but he would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in their hearts. The light of his love is eternal and infinite because of his death and the resurrection we celebrate this evening.
All of us have our own experiences with death and resurrection. As much as we'd like to recapture happy days we remember from years gone by--family gatherings at the holidays, graduations and weddings, the birth of a child--those events have died to us. Yet they live in memory and continue to bring us joy.
Both of my parents are long dead, but in my thoughts of them, I feel them to be very much alive. As much as we might want to, we cannot bring back the past, but the blessings of the past--the love, the joy, the hope--can never die.
Even nature has a way of reminding us of the reality of resurrection. We suffered through an exceptionally cold winter this year, but the flowering of dogwood and redbud and the mantle of green bring evidence that seeming death is annually conquered by the force of resurging life. The flood of June, 1995, nearly destroyed this valley and left many of us wondering if anything would ever grow here again, but by the following spring, the meadows were green once more.
Welcome happy morning, age to age shall sing. The light that came into the world and was heralded by the star of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve has now expanded to encompass the whole world with its radiance. The light of Easter Eve is the abiding light of love.
Amen.
John's gospel calls Jesus "the true light, which enlightens everyone." On this night, we began our vigil in darkness, remembering the hours when the true light seemed to be snuffed out, when Jesus lay silently in a dark tomb. He, who was God incarnate, endured the pain of a human death, in suffering that can best be described as torture. He surrendered his life, in obedience to the Father, and by dying for our sins, gave us the promise of eternal life. His resurrection on Easter morning demonstrated the way to new life for all his followers.
Imagine what this night of vigil must have been like for those early Christians who came to be baptized on Holy Saturday. After three years of intense preparation, they walked naked through the water, like children entering Paradise: innocent and believing. They were not simply claiming a religion; they were entering a close-knit community. Being a Christian in those days was no easy proposition; those were very dark times indeed, when Christians were persecuted and many were martyred. Early Christians trusted that God would make a way for them in this world and would welcome them to a better life in the next. They entered the waters of baptism with complete assurance of Salvation.
Why did those early Christians pursue the faith in spite of the dangers they could face? Why are there still people of faith today, 2000 years since the death of Christ? For that matter, why are we gathered here in this chapel near Kinsey Run on a Saturday evening? The answer to all these questions is the same. We love Christ because he first loved us and gave his life for us. As Thomas Merton wrote, "We could not seek God unless he were seeking us." Some of us feel a gentle nudge and others, like St. Paul, find themselves knocked to the ground by the power of the call, but all of us are called into the body of Christ. We are called by the power of love and the hope of new life in the world to come. Our faith has survived all these years because many of us have had a personal encounter with Christ, and we bear witness to others. Resurrection is very real to us because Christ lives on in every faithful heart.
Just as each morning the light returns with the rising sun, the darkness of the tomb could not erase the Christ-light. In every act of love, in all our thoughts that turn toward him, Christ is alive in the world. As he told his disciples before the crucifixion, he had to leave them, but he would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in their hearts. The light of his love is eternal and infinite because of his death and the resurrection we celebrate this evening.
All of us have our own experiences with death and resurrection. As much as we'd like to recapture happy days we remember from years gone by--family gatherings at the holidays, graduations and weddings, the birth of a child--those events have died to us. Yet they live in memory and continue to bring us joy.
Both of my parents are long dead, but in my thoughts of them, I feel them to be very much alive. As much as we might want to, we cannot bring back the past, but the blessings of the past--the love, the joy, the hope--can never die.
Even nature has a way of reminding us of the reality of resurrection. We suffered through an exceptionally cold winter this year, but the flowering of dogwood and redbud and the mantle of green bring evidence that seeming death is annually conquered by the force of resurging life. The flood of June, 1995, nearly destroyed this valley and left many of us wondering if anything would ever grow here again, but by the following spring, the meadows were green once more.
Welcome happy morning, age to age shall sing. The light that came into the world and was heralded by the star of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve has now expanded to encompass the whole world with its radiance. The light of Easter Eve is the abiding light of love.
Amen.
Homily for Good Friday April 22, 2011
"And we call this Friday Good." These are the last words of Part IV of T. S. Eliot's poem "East Coker." A provocative statement, isn't it? As a child I wondered why on earth anyone would call this anniversary of Christ's excruciating death good. What can be good about an unjust arrest and unfair conviction? What is good about the taunting of the crowd, the flogging by the Roman soldiers, the agony of the cross, the betrayal by the disciples, even the seeming abandonment by the Father? Why do we call this day good?
The first and obvious answer is that this is the day on which Christ died to atone for our sins, the self-sacrifice that gives us hope of eternal life. But there is something more. In what we call Christ's passion, we see the man Jesus at his most divine and the Lord Christ at his most human. In his willingness to suffer and die for us, in his obedience to God and his forgiveness of the very men who kill him, we see the man's divinity. In his tormented prayer from the garden--"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"--we see the mortal man. When he tells his disciples they will betray him, we recognize his human loneliness. Don't we all feel the pain of this young man when he cries from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
From the earliest days of Christianity, the question of whether Christ was truly both human and divine has been debated. In the 3rd century, a group of Christian followers of the Egyptian presbyter Arius contended that since Jesus was created by God, he was therefore subordinate to and less than the Father. He was, in their eyes, an ordinary mortal. At about the same time, the Gnostics were contending that Christ was completely divine and in no way human, that he was purely of the spiritual realm. Imagine how our understanding of the Lord would have changed if either of these interpretations prevailed. Our current belief that Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine underpins our understanding of his love for us.
The church's early controversy ultimately led to the 1st Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the source of the Nicene Creed we say to this day and reaffirm whenever baptismal vows are made. We recite the Nicene Creed so often that what it says probably eludes us. Why it was written, why we say it is simple: the Nicene Creed declares the full divinity and the full humanity of Jesus. It defines the three figures of the Trinity as being equal and inseparable. Listen to some of the familiar passages from it; see how they uphold both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus:
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten by the Father, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. For us, and for our salvation, he came down from Heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit...he was made man." Both truly human and truly divine, "he suffered death and was buried," but "on the third day he rose again."
On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to rise with Jesus on the cross and descend with him into the tomb. We are asked to enter into his suffering, his darkness. Despite his anguished prayers the night before in the Garden, Jesus calmly responds to Pilate, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world." He accepts and fully understands the cup that has been given him. As Isaiah had prophesied, "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
In the first line of the Good Friday section of his poem, T.S. Eliot calls Christ "the wounded surgeon," who heals us, as the prophet said, "by his bruises."
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart....
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good
As the poem suggests, we spend many of our days in lightness, going about our business, believing we are "sound," without considering the real cost of the peace we have been given by our assurance of salvation. On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to ponder the pain and the darkness of the cross and the suffering of the one who gave his life for us. "Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."
This willing descent into darkness, this complete surrender, the spiritual choice modeled by Christ, has been called the via negativa, the descending way, and it can be terrifying. In spite of his pain, Jesus trusted God and God's plan. In spite of the pain for his Son, God knew that ultimately His plan would be successful. Jesus surrendered his mortal fears and followed the preordained path to the cross. Do we ever truly surrender our fears, worries, preoccupations to God? When we manage to let go in that way, it can feel like "sinking into the arms of God," as Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic, described it. Maybe, like me, you only surrender when you have exhausted every recourse in a terrible situation until all you can do is surrender it to God. Maybe, like me, when you find that you are finally compelled to surrender, you feel immediate release and you know, on some very deep level, that "all shall be well." Don't you wish you could remember this feeling the next time you find yourself in turmoil? Why do we always take back the illusion we have of controlling our lives? Why is surrender so hard for us? I guess it's because we are fully human--and not very divine!
As many times as I've heard and read the Gospel stories of Holy Week, I still find my heart pounding as the events move relentlessly on to their bitter end. Jesus clearly knows all along what will happen--who will betray him, how he will die--but he continues along the path without veering from it. Yes, he has a few weak seconds of mortal fear and anxiety in the garden and on the cross, and in those moments we recognize our human brother. But his weakness is completely subsumed by his staunch courage and unwavering obedience. Those brief glimpses of human frailty, however, are essential to our understanding of the Lord. The Nicene Creed reminds us that it is important for us to believe that Christ was both man and God. As Edmond Browning, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church so beautifully states it,
"Jesus was really divine and really human. The way in which he lived that out has always been a mystery. People have often solved it by claiming Jesus didn't really feel the things we feel: no doubts, no temptations, no yearning for love and intimacy. This cannot be! His sacrifice was nothing if his life and its joys were a matter of indifference to him. Part of the glory of the Cross is its sorrow: a young man with everything to live for lays down his life out of a love purer than any the world has known."
Amen. Amen.
The first and obvious answer is that this is the day on which Christ died to atone for our sins, the self-sacrifice that gives us hope of eternal life. But there is something more. In what we call Christ's passion, we see the man Jesus at his most divine and the Lord Christ at his most human. In his willingness to suffer and die for us, in his obedience to God and his forgiveness of the very men who kill him, we see the man's divinity. In his tormented prayer from the garden--"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"--we see the mortal man. When he tells his disciples they will betray him, we recognize his human loneliness. Don't we all feel the pain of this young man when he cries from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
From the earliest days of Christianity, the question of whether Christ was truly both human and divine has been debated. In the 3rd century, a group of Christian followers of the Egyptian presbyter Arius contended that since Jesus was created by God, he was therefore subordinate to and less than the Father. He was, in their eyes, an ordinary mortal. At about the same time, the Gnostics were contending that Christ was completely divine and in no way human, that he was purely of the spiritual realm. Imagine how our understanding of the Lord would have changed if either of these interpretations prevailed. Our current belief that Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine underpins our understanding of his love for us.
The church's early controversy ultimately led to the 1st Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the source of the Nicene Creed we say to this day and reaffirm whenever baptismal vows are made. We recite the Nicene Creed so often that what it says probably eludes us. Why it was written, why we say it is simple: the Nicene Creed declares the full divinity and the full humanity of Jesus. It defines the three figures of the Trinity as being equal and inseparable. Listen to some of the familiar passages from it; see how they uphold both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus:
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten by the Father, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. For us, and for our salvation, he came down from Heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit...he was made man." Both truly human and truly divine, "he suffered death and was buried," but "on the third day he rose again."
On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to rise with Jesus on the cross and descend with him into the tomb. We are asked to enter into his suffering, his darkness. Despite his anguished prayers the night before in the Garden, Jesus calmly responds to Pilate, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world." He accepts and fully understands the cup that has been given him. As Isaiah had prophesied, "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed."
In the first line of the Good Friday section of his poem, T.S. Eliot calls Christ "the wounded surgeon," who heals us, as the prophet said, "by his bruises."
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart....
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good
As the poem suggests, we spend many of our days in lightness, going about our business, believing we are "sound," without considering the real cost of the peace we have been given by our assurance of salvation. On this day, this Good Friday, we are asked to ponder the pain and the darkness of the cross and the suffering of the one who gave his life for us. "Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth."
This willing descent into darkness, this complete surrender, the spiritual choice modeled by Christ, has been called the via negativa, the descending way, and it can be terrifying. In spite of his pain, Jesus trusted God and God's plan. In spite of the pain for his Son, God knew that ultimately His plan would be successful. Jesus surrendered his mortal fears and followed the preordained path to the cross. Do we ever truly surrender our fears, worries, preoccupations to God? When we manage to let go in that way, it can feel like "sinking into the arms of God," as Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic, described it. Maybe, like me, you only surrender when you have exhausted every recourse in a terrible situation until all you can do is surrender it to God. Maybe, like me, when you find that you are finally compelled to surrender, you feel immediate release and you know, on some very deep level, that "all shall be well." Don't you wish you could remember this feeling the next time you find yourself in turmoil? Why do we always take back the illusion we have of controlling our lives? Why is surrender so hard for us? I guess it's because we are fully human--and not very divine!
As many times as I've heard and read the Gospel stories of Holy Week, I still find my heart pounding as the events move relentlessly on to their bitter end. Jesus clearly knows all along what will happen--who will betray him, how he will die--but he continues along the path without veering from it. Yes, he has a few weak seconds of mortal fear and anxiety in the garden and on the cross, and in those moments we recognize our human brother. But his weakness is completely subsumed by his staunch courage and unwavering obedience. Those brief glimpses of human frailty, however, are essential to our understanding of the Lord. The Nicene Creed reminds us that it is important for us to believe that Christ was both man and God. As Edmond Browning, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church so beautifully states it,
"Jesus was really divine and really human. The way in which he lived that out has always been a mystery. People have often solved it by claiming Jesus didn't really feel the things we feel: no doubts, no temptations, no yearning for love and intimacy. This cannot be! His sacrifice was nothing if his life and its joys were a matter of indifference to him. Part of the glory of the Cross is its sorrow: a young man with everything to live for lays down his life out of a love purer than any the world has known."
Amen. Amen.
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Loving Parent
Homily for Sunday, February 27th, 2011
Scriptures:
Isaiah 49: 8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34
Since I preach only one Sunday a month, I am usually a little anxious about what the appointed scripture lessons are going to be for the 4th Sunday. There are many passages in the Holy Bible that are either very difficult to comprehend or so stern and forbidding that they can be scary to think about, much less write a homily around. But I was thrilled when I opened the lectionary and found the lessons for today to be some of my very favorites. Even the collect appointed for the 8th Sunday in Epiphany is a beautiful one, and it sums up the message of today's lessons in a concise and compelling way. Let's revisit the collect now:
"Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The opening words, "Most loving Father," hint at an underlying theme in Christ's teaching: We can trust in God because God loves us as a father loves his children. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we come to believe in God and have faith in his love for us through what we learn about love from our own mothers and fathers. Trusting in God to provide all we need, as he provides for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, relieves us of all fear. When we were very young children, we had no awareness of being in need. If we were fortunate, we had loving parents who met all of our needs before we could even name them. Having a father's hand to hold or a mother's loving arms to embrace us cast out all our fears. As the collect suggests, we grow into "faithless fears and worldly anxieties" as we confront the responsibilities and difficulties of being adults, but it doesn't have to be that way. Our loving Father and our Brother Jesus are ever with us.
For me, the passage from Matthew that begins with the words "Consider the lilies of the field" always reminds me of my dear mother, whose name was Lillian. She could not have been more loving or tender to her children, and in her own ardent faith, she exemplified the love that casts out fear. This passage also always reminds me of Graves Mill, since my earliest memories are set here, in the place where my mother was born. As a young child, in the early '60s, on summer mornings I would walk up Graves Mill road from my grandmother's home to get the mail and visit Dolly at the post office. Along the roadside, orange tiger lilies grew among tall stalks of Queen Anne's lace and blue bachelor's buttons. The fields were full of wildflowers, daisies and clover and buttercups, and bobwhites called from the fencerows. Singing as it tumbled over stones, the Rapidan River was my companion. Here, it was easy to feel both protected and loved, the way these old blue mountains surround the valley like a shield. Here, it has always been easy for me to know the presence of God, to know that I am "preserved from faithless fears and worldly anxieties." As today's psalm reminds us, it is in humble trust that we turn to God and find God's nurturing presence: "like a child upon its mother's breast, my soul is quieted within me."
The verses from Isaiah speak to those who have known the loving care of good parents, but is also offers consolation to the ones who may not have been so fortunate. God says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands." These words are not simply reassuring; they are insistent! God says "See! Look my way and you will find how very near I am to you. You are not only held safely in my hands, you are inscribed there. You are part of me."
When I was a very small child, I was afraid of whippoorwills. Nowadays, I miss hearing their beautiful call. Whippoorwills do not seem to be as plentiful as they were back in those days, and I rarely hear them. But back then, I couldn't fall asleep some nights for hearing their loud cries, and "Whip poor Will" didn't sound very friendly to me. One of my favorite memories of my father is of the night he found me awake, scared of the whippoorwill, and offered me some comfort. Sitting next to me, he turned on the lamp by my bedside and held out his hands, cupped together. He said, "Sue Anne, the whippoorwill is just a little bird. It could fit right here in the palm of my hands." I was never afraid of a whippoorwill again.
Jesus says to us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
When we are children and our parents are nearby, we trust we have nothing to fear. We trust that our needs will be met. Being so fortunate, we are grateful for our blessings. Today's collect begins, "Most loving father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us." God's will is for us to respond to our blessings with gratitude and to release our fears and worries to Him. I lost my mom twenty years ago and my dad, seventeen, but I cannot lose the Lord in the same way. The only way I can lose the one who has me inscribed on the palm of His hand is if I turn away from Him.
Oh, Lord, remove from us our faithless fears and help us, like children, to trust and love you more and to live our lives in joyful gratitude. Amen.
Scriptures:
Isaiah 49: 8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34
Since I preach only one Sunday a month, I am usually a little anxious about what the appointed scripture lessons are going to be for the 4th Sunday. There are many passages in the Holy Bible that are either very difficult to comprehend or so stern and forbidding that they can be scary to think about, much less write a homily around. But I was thrilled when I opened the lectionary and found the lessons for today to be some of my very favorites. Even the collect appointed for the 8th Sunday in Epiphany is a beautiful one, and it sums up the message of today's lessons in a concise and compelling way. Let's revisit the collect now:
"Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The opening words, "Most loving Father," hint at an underlying theme in Christ's teaching: We can trust in God because God loves us as a father loves his children. In fact, I think it is safe to say that we come to believe in God and have faith in his love for us through what we learn about love from our own mothers and fathers. Trusting in God to provide all we need, as he provides for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, relieves us of all fear. When we were very young children, we had no awareness of being in need. If we were fortunate, we had loving parents who met all of our needs before we could even name them. Having a father's hand to hold or a mother's loving arms to embrace us cast out all our fears. As the collect suggests, we grow into "faithless fears and worldly anxieties" as we confront the responsibilities and difficulties of being adults, but it doesn't have to be that way. Our loving Father and our Brother Jesus are ever with us.
For me, the passage from Matthew that begins with the words "Consider the lilies of the field" always reminds me of my dear mother, whose name was Lillian. She could not have been more loving or tender to her children, and in her own ardent faith, she exemplified the love that casts out fear. This passage also always reminds me of Graves Mill, since my earliest memories are set here, in the place where my mother was born. As a young child, in the early '60s, on summer mornings I would walk up Graves Mill road from my grandmother's home to get the mail and visit Dolly at the post office. Along the roadside, orange tiger lilies grew among tall stalks of Queen Anne's lace and blue bachelor's buttons. The fields were full of wildflowers, daisies and clover and buttercups, and bobwhites called from the fencerows. Singing as it tumbled over stones, the Rapidan River was my companion. Here, it was easy to feel both protected and loved, the way these old blue mountains surround the valley like a shield. Here, it has always been easy for me to know the presence of God, to know that I am "preserved from faithless fears and worldly anxieties." As today's psalm reminds us, it is in humble trust that we turn to God and find God's nurturing presence: "like a child upon its mother's breast, my soul is quieted within me."
The verses from Isaiah speak to those who have known the loving care of good parents, but is also offers consolation to the ones who may not have been so fortunate. God says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands." These words are not simply reassuring; they are insistent! God says "See! Look my way and you will find how very near I am to you. You are not only held safely in my hands, you are inscribed there. You are part of me."
When I was a very small child, I was afraid of whippoorwills. Nowadays, I miss hearing their beautiful call. Whippoorwills do not seem to be as plentiful as they were back in those days, and I rarely hear them. But back then, I couldn't fall asleep some nights for hearing their loud cries, and "Whip poor Will" didn't sound very friendly to me. One of my favorite memories of my father is of the night he found me awake, scared of the whippoorwill, and offered me some comfort. Sitting next to me, he turned on the lamp by my bedside and held out his hands, cupped together. He said, "Sue Anne, the whippoorwill is just a little bird. It could fit right here in the palm of my hands." I was never afraid of a whippoorwill again.
Jesus says to us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?'... your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
When we are children and our parents are nearby, we trust we have nothing to fear. We trust that our needs will be met. Being so fortunate, we are grateful for our blessings. Today's collect begins, "Most loving father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us." God's will is for us to respond to our blessings with gratitude and to release our fears and worries to Him. I lost my mom twenty years ago and my dad, seventeen, but I cannot lose the Lord in the same way. The only way I can lose the one who has me inscribed on the palm of His hand is if I turn away from Him.
Oh, Lord, remove from us our faithless fears and help us, like children, to trust and love you more and to live our lives in joyful gratitude. Amen.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
A Meditation on Light
Homily for Sunday, January 23, 2011
Lessons:
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27: 1, 5-13
Matthew 4: 12-23
On January 2nd, as David and I were driving home after visiting family and friends in Northern Virginia, we drove through a brief rain shower near Ruckersville, and then, as we turned onto Earlysville Road, a double rainbow appeared in the sky. How propitious seemed that rare and spectacular phenomenon at the beginning of a new year and in the midst of winter!
For a variety of reasons, January has often been a difficult month for me. The days are short, dark, and cold, and it seems that bad things always happen in January... the shooting in Tucson this year and that terrible earthquake in Haiti last year are examples. A few years ago, to ease my dread of this month, I decided to make a special effort to celebrate the season of Epiphany. My artificial Christmas tree has always gone up in early December, and I decorate it with white lights and blue ornaments and call it my Advent tree. On Christmas Eve, we add red, green, and gold trimmings, and the tree is bright with Christmas cheer. Now I have removed all but the white lights, the stars, snowflakes, and angels, and I call it my Epiphany tree. I'm delighted to be able to leave it up into March this year, since Ash Wednesday is late and Epiphany is a wonderfully long season. How fitting that it is called "The Season of Light"!
But what exactly IS light? As a certainty of everyday life, we fathom light most easily in its absence; at least, in darkness we better grasp our need for light. A scientist would tell you that light is electromagnetic radiation. Just as a living organism can be broken down into cells, light is made up of photons. When sunlight makes its way through droplets of rain, it is refracted into the colors of the spectrum, and we call it a rainbow. Although we think of the sun and moon as earth's primary sources of light (other than our man-made ones), the universe is full of light not generated by its heavenly bodies. Isn't it interesting that in Genesis 1, we are told that God said "Let there be light" on the first day? It isn't until Day 4 that He creates the sun and moon. Light, then, simply IS. Like air, it is a substance we can move through in space and time. Although it is intangible, light has a definite and important part to play in our lives.
The shorter days of the winter months, the preponderance of darkness, and the lengthening of twilight in the late afternoon have led to an ailment that afflicts a significant number of people--Seasonal Affective Disorder, more commonly (and aptly) called SAD. People who suffer from SAD are urged to use sunlamps and to go outdoors in midday, when the sun is brightest. Even if we've never been diagnosed with SAD, most of us can be a little blue on the darkest days. As much as we long for light during the darkness of our winters, imagine what light must have meant to people during the millennia of human history before the invention of electricity. Nowadays one has to drive very far out on back country roads to escape what is called light pollution, and we have more light than we need at the flip of a switch. Last February, by the fourth day of being out of power, I felt a shroud of gloom at nightfall, and I wasn't sure I could endure it for even one more day. Please imagine with me the world as Isaiah and Jesus, Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson, and even our great-great grandparents knew it, when every evening brought unyielding night. The light produced by candles, torches, and oil lamps couldn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, and darkness must have seemed like a wall.
A world that experienced genuine, almost tangible darkness for half of every day is the context for today's words from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah speaks of the Lord as a "great light." "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them, light has shined." The preciousness and power of God for his people is summed up in Isaiah's equating of God with light. But it is the ending of this chapter in Isaiah, Chapter 9, that connects the splendid origin of that "great light" to the coming of the Messiah: "For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Jesus is the Light of the World. He says so himself in John 8:12. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Light as an image of truth, power, life, and hope hearkens back to the first story of creation in Genesis, when the earth was called "a formless void" and darkness covered everything, until God spoke and said, "Let there be light." Isaiah tells us that the arrival of Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the creation promise. "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace..." The star that heralded his birth and drew three wise men from the east is the first association of light with Jesus. What were these wise men really seeking? Some scholars surmise that they came from Persia. At the time of Jesus's birth, the dominant religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism, whose doctrine was to believe in one universal God, a God that espoused truth, beauty, and order. For three men of high station (they are called kings, after all) and great learning to make such a difficult journey, it suggests they had very high expectations of the infant they came to honor. Could these men, who may have believed in one universal and unifying God, have sought out the infant hoping he would bring peace to all mankind? Is the story of the Epiphany foreshadowing the arrival of God's kingdom on earth?..."Thy kingdom come," we say...
In today's gospel lesson from Matthew 4, Jesus is specifically connected to Isaiah's prophecy of the Prince of Peace; in verses 12 through 17, Isaiah's words are rephrased. As he begins his ministry, Jesus tells the people that he has come to bring the kingdom of heaven: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And what will God's kingdom look like? In God's kingdom, people are cured of every disease and every sickness, as Matthew 4:23 tells us. Jesus is the light of the world. He is also love. In last Sunday's lesson from Living the Questions, a biblical scholar suggested that the idea of the kingdom of God is an easy one to understand if we remember that Jesus and everyone around him lived under the rule of a Roman emperor. The world would have been a very different place with God on the throne instead of the emperor. Better yet, this scholar suggested, if God was and is king, what would God's budget look like? How would Jesus spend your tax dollars? As he himself said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Here, of course, light means having little weight and being easy to carry. Even in our well-lighted world, the significance of light is still reflected in our use of the word. As a word, light has many happy connotations. Shall we mediate on a few of them?
When your grandchild calls you on the phone and says, "Are you coming over?" (as mine did yesterday), you might think, as I did, that child is the light of your life.
When you "see the light," you have finally understood something that had been perplexing and troubling you.
To "shed light" on something is to bring it out into the open so that everyone can appreciate its meaning.
When a person's face "lights up," it is full of joy.
Someone with a "light touch" has the grace to deal with others tactfully and delicately.
When a butterfly "lights" on a flower, anyone who sees it may be cheered.
To have a "light heart" is to feel released from care and worry.
If you are "light on your feet" you are nimble and graceful.
The Age of "Enlightenment" was a time when reason and science overcame superstition and prejudice.
Before I get too carried away with the various uses of the word light, I would like to ask all of us to consider what our world would be like if the light of Jesus had never entered it. Seriously, can you imagine this world without him?
I would never ask such a question anywhere but in a church. Here, we are united in our belief in Jesus as Lord. We profess the truth of his teachings and, in calling ourselves Christian, we acknowledge our faith in him. As Episcopalians, we are all part of the Anglican communion, and as Americans, we have been shaped by Western culture and Western civilization. The laws we live by and the way we conduct our daily endeavors all reflect the philosophy and mores handed down to us by our European ancestors. From the Magna Carta to the King James version of the Bible, from our own constitution to Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," we are a people who have inherited the benefits of living in God's kingdom. We believe in justice, in mercy, in equality, in our responsibility for and to others. We believe in self-sacrifice for the greater good, in courage, in integrity. All of these principles were modeled for us and for our ancestors by Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. The kingdom is very near when the Light prevails.
Lessons:
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27: 1, 5-13
Matthew 4: 12-23
On January 2nd, as David and I were driving home after visiting family and friends in Northern Virginia, we drove through a brief rain shower near Ruckersville, and then, as we turned onto Earlysville Road, a double rainbow appeared in the sky. How propitious seemed that rare and spectacular phenomenon at the beginning of a new year and in the midst of winter!
For a variety of reasons, January has often been a difficult month for me. The days are short, dark, and cold, and it seems that bad things always happen in January... the shooting in Tucson this year and that terrible earthquake in Haiti last year are examples. A few years ago, to ease my dread of this month, I decided to make a special effort to celebrate the season of Epiphany. My artificial Christmas tree has always gone up in early December, and I decorate it with white lights and blue ornaments and call it my Advent tree. On Christmas Eve, we add red, green, and gold trimmings, and the tree is bright with Christmas cheer. Now I have removed all but the white lights, the stars, snowflakes, and angels, and I call it my Epiphany tree. I'm delighted to be able to leave it up into March this year, since Ash Wednesday is late and Epiphany is a wonderfully long season. How fitting that it is called "The Season of Light"!
But what exactly IS light? As a certainty of everyday life, we fathom light most easily in its absence; at least, in darkness we better grasp our need for light. A scientist would tell you that light is electromagnetic radiation. Just as a living organism can be broken down into cells, light is made up of photons. When sunlight makes its way through droplets of rain, it is refracted into the colors of the spectrum, and we call it a rainbow. Although we think of the sun and moon as earth's primary sources of light (other than our man-made ones), the universe is full of light not generated by its heavenly bodies. Isn't it interesting that in Genesis 1, we are told that God said "Let there be light" on the first day? It isn't until Day 4 that He creates the sun and moon. Light, then, simply IS. Like air, it is a substance we can move through in space and time. Although it is intangible, light has a definite and important part to play in our lives.
The shorter days of the winter months, the preponderance of darkness, and the lengthening of twilight in the late afternoon have led to an ailment that afflicts a significant number of people--Seasonal Affective Disorder, more commonly (and aptly) called SAD. People who suffer from SAD are urged to use sunlamps and to go outdoors in midday, when the sun is brightest. Even if we've never been diagnosed with SAD, most of us can be a little blue on the darkest days. As much as we long for light during the darkness of our winters, imagine what light must have meant to people during the millennia of human history before the invention of electricity. Nowadays one has to drive very far out on back country roads to escape what is called light pollution, and we have more light than we need at the flip of a switch. Last February, by the fourth day of being out of power, I felt a shroud of gloom at nightfall, and I wasn't sure I could endure it for even one more day. Please imagine with me the world as Isaiah and Jesus, Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson, and even our great-great grandparents knew it, when every evening brought unyielding night. The light produced by candles, torches, and oil lamps couldn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, and darkness must have seemed like a wall.
A world that experienced genuine, almost tangible darkness for half of every day is the context for today's words from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah speaks of the Lord as a "great light." "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness--on them, light has shined." The preciousness and power of God for his people is summed up in Isaiah's equating of God with light. But it is the ending of this chapter in Isaiah, Chapter 9, that connects the splendid origin of that "great light" to the coming of the Messiah: "For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Jesus is the Light of the World. He says so himself in John 8:12. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Light as an image of truth, power, life, and hope hearkens back to the first story of creation in Genesis, when the earth was called "a formless void" and darkness covered everything, until God spoke and said, "Let there be light." Isaiah tells us that the arrival of Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the creation promise. "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace..." The star that heralded his birth and drew three wise men from the east is the first association of light with Jesus. What were these wise men really seeking? Some scholars surmise that they came from Persia. At the time of Jesus's birth, the dominant religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism, whose doctrine was to believe in one universal God, a God that espoused truth, beauty, and order. For three men of high station (they are called kings, after all) and great learning to make such a difficult journey, it suggests they had very high expectations of the infant they came to honor. Could these men, who may have believed in one universal and unifying God, have sought out the infant hoping he would bring peace to all mankind? Is the story of the Epiphany foreshadowing the arrival of God's kingdom on earth?..."Thy kingdom come," we say...
In today's gospel lesson from Matthew 4, Jesus is specifically connected to Isaiah's prophecy of the Prince of Peace; in verses 12 through 17, Isaiah's words are rephrased. As he begins his ministry, Jesus tells the people that he has come to bring the kingdom of heaven: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And what will God's kingdom look like? In God's kingdom, people are cured of every disease and every sickness, as Matthew 4:23 tells us. Jesus is the light of the world. He is also love. In last Sunday's lesson from Living the Questions, a biblical scholar suggested that the idea of the kingdom of God is an easy one to understand if we remember that Jesus and everyone around him lived under the rule of a Roman emperor. The world would have been a very different place with God on the throne instead of the emperor. Better yet, this scholar suggested, if God was and is king, what would God's budget look like? How would Jesus spend your tax dollars? As he himself said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Here, of course, light means having little weight and being easy to carry. Even in our well-lighted world, the significance of light is still reflected in our use of the word. As a word, light has many happy connotations. Shall we mediate on a few of them?
When your grandchild calls you on the phone and says, "Are you coming over?" (as mine did yesterday), you might think, as I did, that child is the light of your life.
When you "see the light," you have finally understood something that had been perplexing and troubling you.
To "shed light" on something is to bring it out into the open so that everyone can appreciate its meaning.
When a person's face "lights up," it is full of joy.
Someone with a "light touch" has the grace to deal with others tactfully and delicately.
When a butterfly "lights" on a flower, anyone who sees it may be cheered.
To have a "light heart" is to feel released from care and worry.
If you are "light on your feet" you are nimble and graceful.
The Age of "Enlightenment" was a time when reason and science overcame superstition and prejudice.
Before I get too carried away with the various uses of the word light, I would like to ask all of us to consider what our world would be like if the light of Jesus had never entered it. Seriously, can you imagine this world without him?
I would never ask such a question anywhere but in a church. Here, we are united in our belief in Jesus as Lord. We profess the truth of his teachings and, in calling ourselves Christian, we acknowledge our faith in him. As Episcopalians, we are all part of the Anglican communion, and as Americans, we have been shaped by Western culture and Western civilization. The laws we live by and the way we conduct our daily endeavors all reflect the philosophy and mores handed down to us by our European ancestors. From the Magna Carta to the King James version of the Bible, from our own constitution to Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," we are a people who have inherited the benefits of living in God's kingdom. We believe in justice, in mercy, in equality, in our responsibility for and to others. We believe in self-sacrifice for the greater good, in courage, in integrity. All of these principles were modeled for us and for our ancestors by Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. The kingdom is very near when the Light prevails.
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