Humility

Homily for August 28, 2016            Graves Chapel

  

Who does he think he is?  He hangs around with all the worst sorts of trashy people. Just get a look at those friends of his.  Fishermen and tax collectors, women with bad reputations.  Just who does he think he is? I’ve heard his father is a carpenter. A carpenter of all things! And there is also that story going around about his mother being in a family way before she married his father. Who does he think he is? Just the other day, he said that a bartender—a bartender—knows how to pray better than I do.  Where does he get the nerve to lord it over me—my family has always been of high social standing! I have studied with all of the first-rate scholars, and he never went to college. I know my scripture forwards and backwards, and yet he has the nerve to correct my teaching. Just who in the heck does he think he is?

Like the Pharisee, we may ask such questions.  Why did God, the Lord of the Universe, decide to send his own Son, the long-awaited Messiah, into the world in such a humble way?  Why, of all things, did he have to be born in a stable, have a manger for his first bed? Why did he have to grow up in a poor family and be executed in such a demeaning way, hanging on a cross between two thieves?  In some ways these are the most fundamental questions all of us should ask about Jesus. God certainly could have sent Jesus as a king if he chose.  The great king, the one God clearly loved and blessed and forgave over and over, King David, could have returned to rule his people. God can do that kind of thing, after all. The prophecies about the Messiah all said that he would be a descendant of David and would come to rule his people. It is no wonder that the Pharisees were perplexed to find the son of a carpenter preaching with such authority.  He defied their understanding of propriety.

If you have heard me preach before—and some of you have kindly listened to many of my sermons—you have probably noticed that I often speak about LOVE. I admit that the Lord’s admonition to us to love our neighbors as ourselves is my favorite Biblical theme. Since Jesus called this the second part of the “Great Commandment,” connecting our requirement to love each other to the rule that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, then my conclusion that LOVE is of the utmost importance seems correct.

The lessons for today, from Hebrews and Luke, suggest that only humility makes it possible for us to express Christ-like love in a way that makes it acceptable to the ones we love.  If we love others from a position of equality with them, and not authority over them, they find it easier to accept the love we offer.

Jesus says in Luke 14, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”  How and why do we find ourselves in situations where we “exalt” ourselves?  Ahh…one of those questions (and indictments from Jesus) that makes me squirm.  Sometimes I just need to be able to feel good about myself.  Life can throw a lot of things at us, after all, that can make us feel very low. I don’t think I am the only one who has suffered wounds to my ego from time to time, and wounded egos need reassurance. We want to know that we are okay, that others believe us to be respectable. Isn’t it lucky for us that Jesus has been there, too? Jesus understands that our wounded ego wants to be seated at the head of the table, that it can be hard for us to accept a lower position. But Jesus also understands that, in the long run, we will feel better about ourselves when we manage to be humble.  I wonder if that is why Jesus was thirty years old when he finally began his ministry—old enough and wise enough to have experienced many wounds to his ego and to understand the necessity of putting our egos—ourselves—last.

The mystery of humility is the way we are actually blessed by it. Beloved priest and theologian Henri Nouwen had these words to say about today’s lesson from Luke: “The poor have a treasure to offer precisely because they cannot return our favors. By not paying us for what we have done for them, they call us to inner freedom, selflessness, generosity, and true care. Jesus says, ‘When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind: then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you, and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again.’  The repayment Jesus speaks of is spiritual. It is the joy, peace and love of God that we so much desire. This is what the poor give us, not only in the afterlife, but already in the here and now.”

Love is a spiritual gift because it is intangible. Love is both an emotion and a behavior, something we know when we encounter it, but cannot really define. Love for one another is required from us by a God who embodies love.  But it is humility that provides the stance, the posture, from which love is properly extended to others. When someone says, “I love you,” from a position of power, out of a need to control us, does it feel like love? When an act of charity is performed, say of giving a few dollars to a beggar, and it is made from an attitude of condescension, does it feel like love to that poor beggar?  I quite often hear complaints about the “attitude” of a homeless person, and I wonder if the offending attitude may have begun in the manner the gift was offered. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Jesus tells us that our job is to govern our own behavior with humility and not concern ourselves with the behavior or attitudes of others.  As the writer of Hebrews says in today’s lesson, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”  Wouldn’t it be just like God to send us a grumpy and unappreciative angel to test our willingness to be generous—and humble?

On the evening of the Last Supper, when Jesus gathered all of his disciples together for the Passover, the very last time he would have an opportunity to be with them before his death, he illustrated to them the true importance of humble service to others. It was a lesson the disciples found very disconcerting. Jesus knelt before each one of them and washed his feet. To the disciples, it seemed very wrong for their Lord and master to perform what seemed to them to be a humiliating task. That was precisely the Lord’s lesson for them—and for us. Jesus wanted all of his disciples to understand that humility and humiliation are two very different things. An act of love, performed in true humility, makes all involved feel whole and worthy. An act of humiliation is something done to us by another who behaves toward us as our superior and who wants to make us feel inferior. Humiliation wounds our ego—and that is its purpose.

To return to my earlier supposition, then, is it true that only humility on our part makes it possible for someone to accept the love we offer?  I believe so. Love of this kind is love exchanged between equals. We call this kind of love unconditional.  Sometimes we say that only God is capable of unconditional love. Only God can put up with the bad behavior of humans and still love them. God is clearly the expert, but God also asks us to emulate his love.

Our trying to be like God, to love in God’s unconditional manner, sounds like an impossible requirement.  Richard Rohr explains the radical nature of God’s expectations of us by showing how scripture teaches us what he calls “four moral equivalencies.”  Rohr says that the first of these is the moral equivalency Jesus makes between himself and other humans: “Whatever you do to others, you do to me” (Matthew 25:40). The second moral equivalency, according to Rohr, is the one Jesus makes between himself and God: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).  The third moral equivalency is the one between any person and God: “The Spirit is within you” (John 14:17). Throughout the Gospels and on his final departing, Jesus promises the eternal presence of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, within each individual. The fourth and final moral equivalency, then, is the one Jesus makes between any one of us and every other person: Jesus tells us, “In everything you do, treat others exactly as you would have them treat you” (Matthew 7:12).

Accepting that, in God’s terms, we are equal to every other human being, even those we dislike, requires humility. In God’s eyes, we are no more and no less worthy than any of our neighbors. Accepting that God the Holy Spirit dwells equally within each of us is both reassuring and challenging—and also humbling. We are called to recognize that the indwelling Spirit of God extends love to others primarily through us, through our actions. Accepting that we are God’s hands and feet on this planet, that we are required (as today’s beautiful collect says) to bring forth the fruit of good works calls us to humble service.

The four “moral equivalencies” define unconditional love. In any mathematical equation, an “equals” sign offers the guidepost.  Whatever we place to the left of that symbol must be, in some way, exactly the same as whatever we place to its right. How can this be possible when we say we are equal to each other, equal to Jesus, equal to God?  I guess the answer to that question can only be—with great love and great humility. 

In every equation of human moral behavior, the grace of God is the equalizer.  On that we can put our faith.  AMEN.

Salvation?

Homily for Sunday, July 31, 2016

Salvation.  When you hear that word, what first comes to mind?  For Christians in general, do you think the most basic understanding of salvation is that of being saved from our sins, through our faith in Jesus Christ?  For this reason, we speak of Jesus Christ as our Saviour.  We abide in the hope that if we are faithful Christians, our sins will be forgiven and we will be rewarded by an afterlife in heaven.  May I please ask you to consider a larger frame of reference for the concept of salvation?

The disciples who followed Jesus, as Peter pronounced, believed him to be the Messiah, “the Son of the Living God.” As religious Jews, Peter and his companions would have believed these things about the long-awaited Messiah: That he would be descended from King David. That he would come to unify the tribes of Israel. That he would come to save them from their oppressors. That he would usher in an age of global universal peace. On this list of Messianic attributes, the word save is used only in reference to the Messiah saving his people from their oppressors. How did we get to our current understanding that the Saviour came to save us from our sins?  In Joseph’s dream about the baby Mary carries, the angel appears to him and says, “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Does our gospel lesson for today give us a way to connect the angel’s message about Jesus—that his role would be to save sinners—to the Hebrew prophecy of the Messiah’s charge to save his people from their oppressors?  Maybe the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. 

Consider today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke. Listen to what Jesus says to the crowd in this parable about the rich man and his barns: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” 

Wealth—and being “rich toward God”: how do we balance those two contrary things?  This parable and the one about a rich man having as hard a time getting into heaven as a camel would have passing through the eye of a needle may give pause to those of us who live relatively wealthy and comfortable lives simply by virtue of being American.  (I think that means all of us!)  How are we supposed to be “rich toward God”?

One other thing believed by Jews about their Messiah—he would be the king of God’s kingdom on earth. Jesus acknowledges this aspect of his Lordship when, on many occasions, he says, “The kingdom is at hand” or “the kingdom has come near.” All people come within the wide embrace of his kingdom—God’s kingdom on earth. As Jesus preaches so forcefully in Matthew 25, “And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  Being rich toward God means being rich toward God’s people.  When the rich man planned to build larger barns so he would have enough room to store the excess of his crops and his goods, he hoarded what he could have shared.  He chose to live outside God’s kingdom on earth—a kingdom of love and shared blessings.

Yes, Jesus the Messiah came to save us from our oppressors. What oppresses us more personally than our very own sinfulness? As we see in the example of the rich man and his hoarding, selfishness and self-centered pride may very well be the original sin underlying all others.  Jesus has shown us how to live in such a way that we can be relieved of the sinful burden of self-centeredness. Trying to be well-behaved when we are ready to behave is not something we do in expectation of a life to come, as the rich man hoped.  Even St. Augustine, before his full conversion, prayed, “Lord, let me be pure—but not yet.” The rich man gambled his soul so that he could continue to “eat, drink, and be merry” as long as he had the means to do so. Living in the kingdom means being part of a loving family right now, following God’s way as we provide water for our neighbors who are thirsty and food for those who are hungry; clothing for the naked and healing care for the sick; mercy and justice for those in prison. These are the ones some may consider the least in God’s kingdom—but Jesus puts them first.

Remember the verses that we have come to know as the beatitudes?  Jesus welcomes those who most need his love and mercy into a kingdom of heaven that exists right here, right now. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the pure in heart; blessed are the peacemakers.”  By way of humility, kindness, generosity, and love, we are expected to bring God’s kingdom of universal peace to the world we now inhabit. Having followed his Way in the present kingdom, we will have no trouble making the transition to the larger Kingdom that awaits us.  

Salvation, then, is not so much meant to be something we seek for ourselves, but rather something we share with our neighbors.  Every human being is created in the image of God, and we are called to seek and serve the Lord in each other. As Jesus asked the rich man, and as he asks us, “And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?”  Clearly, the answer Jesus expects is “Someone other than myself.”

Eight centuries before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah pondered the role of the Messiah.  He gave us these beautiful words, as from the mouth of God the Father, to express the wideness of the coming kingdom:

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Yes, it is too light a thing to think we were created just for our own individual purposes. Susan Dente, a Franciscan nun, said, “Because we are made in God’s image, each of us is another promise to the universe that God will continue to love and care for it.”

We pray that we can do our part in service to this planet and all its inhabitants, fulfilling the promise of Creation. And as we find our salvation in serving others, may we help to establish the Savior’s kingdom of light, love, generosity, kindness and peace.  AMEN.

Casting Stones

Homily for Sunday, June 26, 2016    

            “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  [Paul’s words in Galatians 5: 22.]

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  These are the words of Jesus [in Luke 6: 37].

            When asked how many times we should forgive our brother—our fellow human being—Jesus responded, “Seventy times seven.”

            When the woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus by the authorities, scribes and Pharisees who hoped to prove this prophet of Nazareth to be a hoax, they challenged him: “The Law of Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” [John 8: 4-11] Even though surrounded by a crowd of people and authorities who had stones in their hands, Jesus had the courage to stand up to the would-be executioners. Jesus said to them, “ ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ When they heard it, they went away, one by one.”

            We live in a wonderful country, where people are protected by laws that promise them due process, trial by jury, and a status of innocence until proven guilty. We live in a country that is predominantly Christian—and often proud of it. Our judges are selected for their wisdom, and the penalties we assign in due process are intended to match the gravity of the crimes committed. Capital punishment exists in many states, but it is reserved for the worst of crimes—murder. Since we can trust in the rule of law and our judicial system, we are not called to take the law into our own hands.

The men who brought the adulterous woman to Jesus not only took the law into their hands, judging her to be guilty of a sin worthy of capital punishment, but they also were prepared to be her executioners. The challenge Jesus made to the authorities is a challenge He makes to us:  “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” 

            Unfortunately, as much as we have a long and beautiful history of generosity, patience, kindness, and justice, we Americans also have a long history of throwing stones.

America, our beloved country, has used Christianity itself at times as a basis for accusing, judging, and condemning people. Some of the early and very striking examples occurred in Massachusetts.  As a nation, we enjoy our celebration of Thanksgiving every November, and when we are children, we may draw images of the Pilgrims sitting down to a bountiful table with their Native American neighbors.  The Pilgrims came to this country for religious freedom, to found a Christian community. They also helped to found a largely Christian country.  As we honor the Pilgrims, we often forget how they slaughtered most of their native American neighbors, the very people whose kindness had helped to keep them fed and alive during their first harsh winters on this continent. Why?  The Pilgrims considered the Native Americans to be infidels who stood in the way of their conquest of the land God wanted them to possess.

            We also forget the witch trials that centered around Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.  If you read a history of the witch trials, the term “mass hysteria” is often used to describe what happened, but few historians can offer a reasonable explanation for HOW it happened.  Remember, the Pilgrims (also known as Puritans) were part of a very strict Christian sect that believed in predestination.  According to their beliefs, only a select few of their own number would be among those chosen for the rewards of heaven; the rest would be condemned to hell (along with the Natives).  They believed that those who were chosen would demonstrate their worthiness by good behavior. Beginning from that basic premise, it became an easy matter (and a desirable thing since it improves one’s own odds) to accuse others of sinful behavior and consign them to Hell.

            Those first accused of witchcraft were those perceived to be the obvious sinners among the Puritan community: the habitual drunks, women who had children out of wedlock. Then, when some of the wiser and more compassionate members of the community objected to the accusations that such people were witches, they were also accused of witchcraft.  The only way to avoid execution was to admit your guilt and sign a document stating you were a witch. Some of the 200 people accused did sign such a statement, but many, who were true to their Christian faith and would not sign a lie, were executed. In all, 200 people were accused. Twenty were executed. Awaiting execution, five, including children, died in prison.

            In subsequent years, history revealed that some of the accusations were most likely made out of greed or resentment—an accuser wanting a piece of land that belonged to someone else or resenting the prosperity or status of a neighbor.  No matter what the motivation behind these accusations, all were made in the name of Jesus Christ.  Somehow, the oft-repeated command made by our Savior—“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged”—was conveniently overlooked by the Puritans.  They judged the everyday sins of ordinary people—public drunkenness, the pregnancy of an unmarried woman—as offenses worthy of capital punishment.

How Jesus must have wept!  Our Savior died a humiliating death by execution, and like the executions of the Salem witches, his death was completely unjustified. The purpose of his death was to end death. As Christians, we believe that Jesus died so that we, as sinful and selfish as we may be, do not have to fear death.  Trusting in Jesus, we have faith that our sins—and the sins of our brothers and sisters—are forgiven. Our Lord promises mercy to all.

I have had all these things on my mind since June 12^th. On that day, we awoke to learn of another horrible mass shooting in this country. In Orlando, Florida, forty-nine mostly young men and women were gunned down at a nightclub.  The shooter, an American-born Muslim citizen, seems to have had many of his own issues. He judged the people gathered in the Pulse nightclub to be sinners worthy of execution, and he killed them. But Omar Mateen is not the subject of this sermon. 

On the evening of June 12^th, at a Baptist church service in Sacramento, California, a preacher stood in his pulpit and said these words to his congregation: “Aren’t you sad that 50 sodomites died? …The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is…I’m kinda upset that he didn’t finish the job!” He went on to say, “If we lived in a righteous nation, with a righteous government, then the government should be taking them…I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against the firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them…”

I really do not have the heart to quote any more of the hate-filled words of this so-called Christian pastor.  I do know, without uncertainty, that the Lord who forgives seventy time seven, the Lord who himself suffered the painful horror of capital punishment, would never condemn anyone to death for his or her perceived sinfulness. This California pastor took it upon himself to judge as sinners the 49 who were slaughtered in the Pulse nightclub. Like the scribes and Pharisees who brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus, this pastor believed that those he considered to be sinners should be executed.

           I am not here to address the issue of homosexuality. I know there is wide disagreement among Christians about that issue, although I am glad most Americans demonstrate acceptance and tolerance for members of the LBGT community. What I do want to say is that our Lord and Savior would never condone the mass execution of any group of people. He would not condone any kind of intolerance. He would not condone any behavior other than mercy on the part of a self-proclaimed Christian. Jesus said there were only two commandments his followers needed to know: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

           In each of these commandments, the word love is a verb. To love is to act in a specific way. Love is a behavior—not just a feeling or a thought or an idea. Love is only truly expressed through our actions. We are not called to cast a stone, either by our hands or by our thoughts. We are called to lay down our stones, remembering our own sinfulness and need for mercy. We lay down our stones as an act of love—and obedience to Jesus. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 

May our all of our actions illustrate the way we bear these fruits of the Spirit on behalf of our Lord and his Kingdom. 

AMEN.

The Authority of Love

Homily for Sunday, May 29, 2016     Graves Chapel

The rhythm of the church year has taken us from Lent into Easter and now into the season after Pentecost.  The Lord has been crucified, has resurrected, and has ascended to the life of the greater kingdom.  In our walk of faith, we journey with Him.

In the last chapter of the gospel of Matthew, in the gospel’s last verses, the risen Lord appears in Galilee to the astonished disciples. He says to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  From that position of authority, the Lord tells the disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In today’s lesson from Luke, the centurion also speaks of authority. What is authority? When Jesus says he has been given “all authority on heaven and on earth,” how do we Christians understand these words?  Since this is the resurrected Lord speaking, do we recognize that he speaks out of his union with God and the spirit, as member of the Trinity? Now that his span of time living as a human being on earth, among humans, has ended, Jesus reveals himself to his disciples as the face of the eternal God. His parting words to his disciples are words of comfort: “Remember, I am with you always.”

That statement must have bewildered the disciples, as it often bewilders us, the present-day disciples of the Lord.  How do we overcome our sense of distance from the Lord, in spite of his promise to be with us always?  We learn to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit, which speaks to us most intimately with words of comfort and guidance. Many, many generations of Christians have encountered the Spirit dwelling in that part of us which we call our soul, that part of us which seems to occupy a space very near our hearts.

In his parting words to the disciples, Jesus clearly connects these two ideas: the authority of God and the way God shares his authority with us through the Spirit that dwells in our soul, in our very heart. God’s authority is one that seeks what is best for his people.

In today’s lesson from Luke, we return to the years of the ministry of Jesus on earth, to the story of the Lord’s encounter with the Roman centurion, truly a man of authority.  This is the only story we are told, in all of the gospels, in which Jesus is said to be amazed by someone’s faith. In fact, he turns to those around him, presumably his disciples, and says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  By this point in his ministry, Jesus has encountered throngs of people and healed many of them. Some elders who have heard of Jesus, friends of this centurion, tell him that Jesus can heal his “highly valued slave” who is gravely ill.  The centurion sends these Jewish elders to Jesus, and they tell the Lord what a good man the centurion is, what a good friend he has been to the Jews, how he had built their synagogue for them. Accordingly, Jesus follows them to the centurion’s house. Before he can even arrive, the centurion sends another message by a friend.  This friend relays these words of the centurion: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore, I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word and let my servant be healed. For I am also a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say ‘Go,’ to one, and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes.”

Please consider with me why Jesus is said to be amazed, why the faith of this centurion astonishes him. First, we should understand that centurion was the only term for a professional officer in the Roman army. This centurion commanded at least one hundred soldiers, but he may also have had other “centuries” (or groups of a hundred soldiers) in his command. He was most likely the highest ranking official in Capernaum, where this story takes place.

If you are Jesus--a poor Galilean, a carpenter, an itinerant preacher—how would you react to having a high-ranking Roman official send you a message that begins with the words, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” If you are Jesus, you have traveled throughout Palestine and many people have come to believe in you and follow you, but many more have not. How do you explain the immediate faith of a Roman official, who has only heard about you through some of your followers? What does the centurion’s expression of deep humility—“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof”—tell you about this man?

Jesus listens to the entire message from the centurion before he expresses his amazement. What the centurion says about the relationship of authority to obedience may be the key to understanding his humility. Before he mentions the power he possesses to give orders to other men, the centurion says, “For I also am a man set under authority.” In this simple statement, the centurion acknowledges that any power he exerts is derived from his service to the emperor—he is set under authority.  Somehow, simply from hearing stories about the miraculous healings Jesus has performed, the centurion has recognized two significant things: first, that Jesus has been given the authority to perform miracles, and second, that his authority must be derived from a divine source—surpassing even the power of the emperor. Why else would a centurion say that he, a high-ranking Roman official, is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof?  No wonder Jesus is amazed—and is pleased to reward the centurion’s faith by healing his servant, as he requested, from a distance.

But, as someone under authority himself, the centurion also fully realizes that for authority to be effective, then the humble and willing obedience of those under authority is also required.  Cruel, unwise, or capricious authority will never succeed in the long run. Might it be that the centurion, as a wise and caring leader, understood that helping the people of Capernaum build their temple would also allow him to maintain good relationships with them?  Remember, when the elders first tell Jesus about the centurion, they say, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people.”  Well-exercised authority desires what is best for those it serves.

Authority. When we hear that word, the first synonym that probably comes to mind is power, not service.  Interestingly, the word authority clearly has its derivation from author, and we think of an author as one who writes or one who creates. God our creator, the one whose supreme authority the centurion recognizes in Jesus, is also, at times, an author.

In Exodus 24:12, God says to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandments, which I have written for their instruction.” Later, after Moses has stayed a long time on Mt. Sinai, we are told in Exodus 31:18, “When God finished speaking with Moses, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, written with the finger of God.” I believe most of us remember what happened to those tablets as well as to the people for whom the laws were composed by God. The tablets were broken in anger, and over the long history of God’s people, including us Christians, God’s laws have been broken repeatedly. Such can be the reaction of human nature to any kind of authority!

Later, the prophets tell us, God chose new ways to express his authority. When the covenant written in stone did not have the desired effect, God spoke these words through Jeremiah: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their Lord, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) God understands that his authorship of the laws, his authority, must live within the people, written on their very hearts, to be effective. Their willing obedience to His laws must come from their trust in his love for them. In Proverbs 7, we hear the words of a loving father—God—to his children: “My child, keep my words and store up my commandments with you. Keep my commandments and live. Write them on the tablet of your heart.”

In our evolving understanding of God, and through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we now encounter a God who expresses his authority primarily through love and compassion. Jesus echoes the prophetic message of writing God’s words on our hearts when he says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

In Jesus, the centurion recognized someone who possessed the authority of God. And how was that authority demonstrated in a way that convinced even a Roman official? Having heard stories of the miraculous healings wrought by Jesus, the centurion believed Jesus could heal his servant. By the power of love, straight from the heart of God, the servant WAS healed.

Like the centurion, may we, who also hear stories of the miraculous love of Jesus Christ, believe in our hearts that Jesus loves us and is always with us, as he promised his disciples.  May we have faith in the divine authority, an authority always tempered by mercy, and serve the Lord in glad obedience.  AMEN.

            

The Way, the Truth, the Life

Homily for Sunday, April 24, 2016              Graves Chapel

Lessons:

Acts 11: 1-18

Psalm 148

Revelation 21: 1-6

John 13: 31-35

In the collect appointed for today, this 5^th Sunday in the Easter season, we pray, “Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps…” The prayer makes reference to things Jesus said to his disciples at the Last Supper. Reflect on these words from John 14: ‘Thomas asked Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. If you know me, you will know my father also…Whoever has seen me has seen the Father…Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me…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.”’   (John 14: 5-7, 9, 19-20).

To know Jesus is to know God. To follow the Way of Jesus is to become one with God, as Jesus is one with God. Since we are unavoidably imperfect in our humanness, how can we imagine ourselves as the embodiment of Jesus, part and parcel with God the Father.  What would it really mean to follow the steps of Our Savior, to walk in his Way?

A few years ago, a movie called The Way was released. In the movie, Martin Sheen enacts the role of a father who travels to Spain in search of his son. He embarks on the walking pilgrimage his son had begun, the Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James. This pilgrimage covers 800 kilometers (or about 500 miles), from Spain’s western border with France in the Pyrenees to the eastern coast, to Santiago de Compostela, home of the great cathedral where the remains of the apostle James are entombed. Records of pilgrims making their way by foot to the cathedral date back to the 9^th century, the Middle Ages, and succeeding generations of pilgrims continue to follow the Camino de Santiago.

Why would so many people, so many generations of pilgrims, suffer the hardships of such a long cross-country walk? As Thomas Avery (the Martin Sheen character) discovers, each pilgrim has his or her own personal reason. Ultimately, for us, the pilgrim’s way can be seen as a metaphor for the journey each one of us makes, the spiritual, inward journey we travel as we seek a closer union with God. As with the pilgrims who tread the Camino de Santiago, our spiritual journey requires focus and sacrifice.

The question then becomes, what are the things we cling to but must sacrifice if we want to achieve the goal of our spiritual journey? What needs to be discarded from our metaphorical backpack so that our load can be lightened? A difficult choice indeed…I think we are much better at sacrificing things that we don’t mind giving up.  I am reminded of episodes of spring cleaning—of things I take to Goodwill and things that are still in my closets, year after year, even though I never use them.  I just can’t give them up, even though my attachment to them may keep me stuck in some unhealthy emotional place.

Our souls need that kind of spring-cleaning, a dedicated time when we discard our treasured defects of character, the shields we erect that separate us from God. Maybe a 500-mile pilgrimage is indeed the perfect metaphor for the difficult, time-consuming task of becoming more like God in our thinking, speaking, and behavior. This is the challenge of the Way.

On the evening of the Easter Vigil, our last service here, I reflected on the biographical details of the life of Jesus.  Poor. Homeless. A refugee. A political prisoner. A martyr. Jesus was all these things.  To follow steadfastly the way that Jesus walked, we are certainly called to great sacrifice. We are called, in fact, to self-sacrificing love.  In today’s lesson from John 13, Jesus tells the disciples as he prepares them for his death, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If we really want to live according to His way, our task is to make Christianity visible in the world by how we show love. “They will know you by your love,” Jesus says to us, his 21^st century disciples. Unfortunately, the images of Christianity that many in the world see these days are false images. Someone who calls himself Christian and speaks words of hate and intolerance is not making Jesus visible by his love. We do not make Christ known when we who call ourselves Christians turn our backs on anyone who is suffering, or show indifference to any injured Samaritan lying by the side of the road.

If we followed the way of Jesus in our encounters with others, we would express unconditional love for everyone, even those some consider unclean sinners or unwelcome outsiders. Think of how often the Pharisees condemned Jesus for socializing with people they considered unworthy. In today’s lesson from Acts, Peter tells of a vision in which the voice of God declares, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  Peter concludes the Lord is informing him that everyone, even the Gentiles—people like us, not born into the family of the children of Israel—are beloved by God and worthy to be called brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we walked in the Way, we would remember how often Jesus said, “Do not judge, unless you yourself want to be judged in the same way.” Remembering His words, we would refrain from finding fault with others.  We would also refrain from finding fault with ourselves since we are asked to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

If we followed the Way, we would remember what Jesus said when asked how many times we should forgive our brother. The answer was “Seventy times seven.”  Anger, resentment, and the need to be right are all barriers we are asked to tear down if we want true union with Jesus.

If we followed the Way, we would want to be God’s hands and feet and loving face in the world. This is to be what Jesus was to the poor, the unclean, the sick, and the outcast: the embodiment of hope.  The hope Jesus offers is a hope of belonging when belonging has always been denied. The hope is a hope of healing when healing in this world seems impossible.  The hope is a hope of peace when war of every kind rages without and within.  If we are to be pilgrims who carry the Jesus hope, we must expect to follow a difficult path, to bear a heavy burden.  Then, we will find that the hope is our hope, too, and we discover the ultimate peace of true union with God.

Yes, the Way is not an easy way. The earliest Christians found what generations have discovered here in Graves Mill—that following the way of Jesus is easier when we live in a like-minded community, when we share in fellowship and mutual support. On the Camino de Santiago, pilgrims travel alone or in small groups, and as they walk, they pray and reflect. But in the evenings, all along the route, they stop for rest and communal meals.  Inns, hostels, and private homes open their doors to the pilgrims, invite them to sit down and converse at family tables, and give them a bed (or simple cot) on which to sleep. They find comfort, rest, and strength in community.

In Jesus’s life, we can see fragments of our own lives—or of the lives of the most desperate people around us. In his death, we confront our own deaths. But in his resurrection, we experience the promise of a new life in God, a life that becomes available to us now as we walk in His Way.  The church, the body of Christ, exists because Christians can only demonstrate their faith in relationship with others—in the way we make Jesus known in the breaking of bread and in the way we love one another. 

May the way of the Lord, a way that leads to greater love and stronger community, always be the Way we seek to follow. And may this little chapel always remain as a haven of rest, refreshment, and reinvigoration for those who travel in search of greater union with God.

AMEN.

The Vigil's First Fire

Homily for Easter Vigil, March 26, 2016         Graves Chapel

            Tonight we stand vigil, with countless Christians around the world and down through the ages, by the tomb of the Lord. We stand vigil in darkness as He rests in the dark embrace of death.

            For early Christians, the Great Vigil of Easter was the most important service of the year. It lasted from sundown and the lighting of the first fire on Holy Saturday until sunrise on Easter morning.  The most familiar reenactment of the Vigil in American churches and communities today is the Easter sunrise service.  Early Christians conducted the only baptisms of the year during this service, and it was a baptism of adults.  Choosing to become a Christian in those days was dangerous, even death-defying business since many Christians were persecuted and martyred for their faith.  The adults preparing for baptism at Easter would have undergone three years of intense study, and during the long dark night of the Vigil, they faced their final set of questions before the gathered community of the Church. If they passed that last test, they would step naked into the waters of baptism at sunrise. (That is, interestingly, a detail usually omitted from today’s sunrise services.)

             During this Holy Week we have entered Jerusalem with Jesus and shared in the “Hosannas” of Palm Sunday. We have joined Jesus and his disciples for their last supper on Maundy Thursday.  If you are like me, you may have been unable to attend a noon Good Friday service due to work or other unavoidable responsibilities. As much as we may regret that omission, there is historical precedent for it. If you’ll recall, most of Jesus’s followers, including the majority of his disciples, were not there at the foot of the cross to witness the anguish of his death. They and we, each in our own way, often fall short in our worshipful appreciation of the Lord. We can all of us, Christians then and now, offer a prayer of gratitude to Joseph of Arimathea, who stepped forward to claim the broken body of Jesus and tenderly placed the Lord “in his own new tomb.” Only Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” were there to witness the entombment.

            As I pondered the sadness, the silence and the shame of that hasty burial, it came to me that Jesus was never given a proper eulogy, as we think of a eulogy. There was no one there to tell the remarkable story of this young man’s promising life, so cruelly cut short.

            We know only a few scattered things about the life of Jesus before he began his brief ministry around the age of thirty.  Some things we can surmise. As we’ve read the Old Testament lessons this evening, covering the long history of the children of Israel, we remember their many trials, and we know how very earnestly they longed for a Messiah. The Messiah they expected would not only be a descendant of King David—as Jesus was-- but the Messiah they hoped for would also be a great warrior king, someone like David who would deliver them from persecution and oppression.

            Even though Pilate recognized some quality of royalty in the demeanor of Jesus and placed a sign reading “King of the Jews” on his cross, Jesus was in no way the king of the people’s expectations.

            Jesus was poor. Even if Joseph and Mary had been able to find a room at the inn, they probably would not have been able to afford one. Being born in a stable identifies Jesus as someone we might today call homeless.

            Jesus was a Middle-Eastern refugee. We are told in Matthew 2:13 that an angel appeared to his earthly father Joseph in a dream with this warning: “Get up, take the child to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph got up in the night, bundled Mary and the infant Jesus onto a donkey, and fled to Egypt, where they remained for several years. Then, another angel told Joseph it was safe for him to take the child home.

            Jesus learned the carpenter’s trade. He was working class. When Joseph took his family to Palestine, their years as refugees in Egypt behind them, he settled them in the town of Nazareth, in the region of Galilee—a backwater place where Joseph hoped they would be out of reach of Herod’s son, the new ruler. Joseph was a carpenter, and we surmise that the little boy Jesus helped his father and learned his trade.

            What kind of child was Jesus? We next hear of him when he is twelve years old and stayed behind at the Temple in Jerusalem to sit at the feet of the elders. After three frantic days of searching for him, Mary and Joseph find him there. He tells them they should have known he was tending to his “father’s business.” Since what Jesus was doing has nothing to do with carpentry, we wonder how Joseph felt when he heard those words. This is a tiny glimpse into the pre-adolescent life of a precocious and determined young man.

            Jesus becomes a homeless itinerant preacher. We hear little about his young adulthood until he emerges from the daily grind of hard work and poverty to be baptized in the Jordan River by his cousin John the Baptist. The voice of God acclaims him as Son and the Holy Spirit descends to rest on him in the form of a dove. Jesus goes off into the wilderness for forty days to fast, to pray, to examine the enormity of the call he has been given. From that point on, as we are told in the gospels, Jesus follows a preordained pattern: he moves from place to place, since he has, as he himself exclaims, “nowhere to lay his head.” Once again, he is homeless. He forsakes all possessions, as he instructs his disciples to do—as he instructs us to do. He ministers to the poor, the sick, the outcast. Since his ministry is mostly carried on outdoors, on the streets and in fields, the church he works to inspire and build is a church of people, not a building. Jesus calls the people to him by showing them love. And the people become a multitude…

            Jesus is a radical, at least in the eyes of the mainstream authorities. When he becomes tired and is overwhelmed by the never-ending neediness of the people he serves, he retreats again to deserted places for rest and prayer. Recharged, he returns to his ministry, where he is opposed on all sides by the political leaders of the synagogue, who plot against him. Even so, Jesus always instructs his disciples—instructs US—to love God and each other, including our enemies, with our whole heart. When he washes the feet of the disciples at the Last Supper, making them extremely uncomfortable, he illustrates the message of his life: his disciples are called, as we are called, to service, not to lives of comfort and self-seeking. On the night of his betrayal, he tells the disciples to love each other as he—as Jesus himself—has loved them.

            Jesus is our savior. Out of the immense and unselfish love he feels for all arises his willingness to die for all. And that is what brings us here, to this evening and this vigil. Surely, in this dark and quiet time, we can contemplate how we are called to follow the path that Jesus forged—a path marked by poverty and homelessness as well as by a fierce, self-sacrificing love. 

            In the darkness of this peaceful valley, surrounded as we are by farms, let us consider these words by Thomas Merton about long-ago Easter vigils: “In the old days, on Easter night, the Russian peasants used to carry the blessed fire home from church. The light would scatter and travel in all directions through the darkness, and the desolation of the night would be pierced and dispelled as lamps came on in the windows of the farmhouses, one by one. Even so, the glory of God sleeps everywhere, ready to blaze out unexpectedly in created things. Even so, his peace and his order lie hidden in the world, ready to reestablish themselves in his way, in his own good time—but never without the instrumentality of free options made by free people.”

            Let us freely go forth this night as instruments of God to light the fire of the risen and living Lord—to bring his peaceful kingdom on earth. AMEN.

            

1 Corinthians 13

Homily for Sunday, January 31, 2016     Buck Mountain Church

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Love is difficult. Love is not for the faint of heart. The kind of Christian love Paul so beautifully describes in this famous passage from his first letter to the Corinthians is anything but easy to fulfill. Although we may think first of romantic love, Paul is not addressing only the kind of love that happens between intimate partners. Paul asks us to demonstrate this kind of love for everyone we encounter. In either case, succeeding at loving others in this way requires a great deal of maturity—and self-control.

Maybe, sometimes, we can manage to be patient or kind. I guess it should be fairly easy to avoid being envious, boastful, arrogant, and rude. But our culture tells us it’s okay to insist on having our own way; some would say it’s our right as Americans. Frank Sinatra and Burger King have told us so. And that part about not being irritable or resentful—avoiding those two reactions can be a daily challenge. Even though this passage is often read at weddings, the love Paul describes is a love that causes pain. Love this true calls for self-sacrifice. At the very least, we put the needs of the other first and relinquish our own. If we recognize that our exemplar of this kind of love is Jesus Christ and contemplate that he demonstrated this love by dying on a cross, how can we not accept that true love requires the willingness to suffer?

In the ancient world, in the time of Jesus and Paul, all people who lived within the boundaries of the Roman Empire would have been aware of the Greek and Roman deities, even of the lesser goddesses known as the Three Graces-- the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity, of the qualities Greeks and Romans believed made life worth living. In naming faith, hope, and love as God’s abiding gifts to us, was Paul redefining the Three Graces in Christian terms?

Christians believe grace is God’s unfailing love and mercy for us—and for everyone. God’s grace is freely given, but it is up to us to receive it. In the Judeo-Christian heritage, this definition of grace is a long-standing one. Even in the Old Testament book of Lamentations, a book mostly preoccupied, as its title suggests, with the woes of the people of Israel, we read these beautifully reassuring words that sum up grace: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” Somehow, for Paul, the intertwining qualities of faith, hope, and love are bound together in our ability to welcome and receive the grace of God, so freely given. But why does Paul acknowledge love as the greatest of these?

We have all known people who lack faith in God, although they may place their faith in other things—wealth, reason, nature, family. Even though they lack faith, as we understand it, God’s unfailing love and mercy, God’s grace is still available to them. People without faith can be blessed to experience this kind of love through their beloved family members.  Hopelessness, on the other hand, can appear to be a more shattering state of existence. Someone who has no hope may feel dead within, having no sense of purpose or reason to keep on going. And yet, a hand outstretched in love may give such a person hope and restore him or her to life. Through the BMEC food pantry, members of this parish—YOU—offer hope to some who may feel hopeless. You extend God’s grace to them, in love.  “And the greatest of these is Love” makes sense, doesn’t it?

Why does Paul speak of putting “an end to childish ways,” of now seeing “in a mirror, dimly”? Is it because, when we are children, faith, hope and love all seem to be pretty easy to obtain? As we grow older, the three graces may become more elusive. In adulthood we endure hardships and difficulties, and when we try to comprehend, to understand why bad things happen, we can see only our own wounded selves—as “in a mirror, dimly.” We cannot see the larger picture, of ourselves in relation to God or to our neighbors, who may also be suffering.  We must endure—get comfortable with the darkness--before we can truly experience the light of God’s grace.

The words of T.S. Eliot that make reference to 1^st Corinthians 13 are found in the “East Coker” section of The Four Quartets:

“But the faith and love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought.

So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness, the dancing.”

Eliot’s words about waiting, about waiting “without thought” illustrate letting go, surrendering, and trusting in God. Each life inevitably holds times of hardship and pain, difficulties we surely believe we cannot endure and do not deserve. Yet, in that very endurance, in suffering through the darkness, in waiting for the light, we learn how to recognize God’s grace. It comes to us as surely and gently as the touch of a loved one’s hand. How we respond to that gracious touch, however, is completely up to us.

            Henri Nouwen, beloved theologian and author, professed that Christ was a Wounded Healer and suggested that we Christians are called to be wounded healers ourselves. Nouwen believed that how we respond to the wounds we inevitably receive over the course of a lifetime determines our ability to move forward with our lives in joy and thanksgiving. Any particular and personal response of ours, to pain and suffering, is a choice. Here are Nouwen’s own words:

            Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many, joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we may choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently from the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it. What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.

We face many opportunities to choose grace over pain. None may be more difficult than when a loved one faces serious illness.

            I asked for 1^st Corinthians 13 to be read at my mother’s funeral. In her life and in her dying, my mother Lillian exemplified the love expressed in this passage better than anyone I’ve ever known. She possessed in steadfast abundance all three of the graces—faith, hope and love.

            I was with her when she died, and it was a joy to release her tormented body to God. You see, she suffered from a rare and dreadful neurological disease—Steele Richardson Syndrome. Mama was about the age I am now when she began to exhibit symptoms of her illness, and she was dead within a few years of her diagnosis. Since Steele Richardson Syndrome shuts down, over time, every organ of the body except the brain, Mama was fully aware of what was happening to her, but she was unable to speak. Since even her best friends could not bear to see her in the state she was in, she had very few visitors, so her dying years were lonely. Still, whenever I was with her, I sensed the warm, burning ember of her faith and hope, and I knew that she knew—that God had assured her—that all would be well.

            In her life and in her dying, Mama possessed, also in abundance, the one quality that makes deep faith, hope, and love possible. Humility. I have heard humility defined as “perpetual quietness of heart” and my mother embodied that definition. What does that mean? I think a heart can only be perpetually quiet when its possessor is free of all striving.

            No striving to overcome the unfairness of things. No striving to fix or control others. No striving for possessions or status or success or power. No striving to be right about everything. Perpetual quietness of heart requires a simple acceptance that all is in God’s hands—all is well, and all shall be well.

            On the day of Mama’s funeral, the true marvel for me was that the rather large church was full to overflowing. People that I did not even realize knew my mother came to her funeral. It was amazing to see how much my mother’s simple kindness and unconditional love had touched so many people. My mother could have witnessed, with the psalmist, “For you are my hope, O Lord God, my confidence since I was young. I have been sustained by you ever since I was born.”

Or, as Paul said, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

            Grace upon Grace….

AMEN.