The Holy Silence: Sermon for Proper 14A, August 13, 2023

In the dawn of the mornings when I am first to rise, I let our three dogs out through the front door, and they go galloping off to chivvy the squirrels that stalk the birdfeeders. It’s a luxury and also a danger, since our yards are not fenced, so before opening the door I look to see if any deer, possums, or raccoons are visibly lurking, and rather than leave them alone I walk out with them.

I have learned in the months we have lived here to look up as well as out. More often than not, as they got rocketing into the woods, I will catch a glimpse of one or two barred owls launching themselves huffily from the very tops of the ash trees bordering our driveway. The first time I noticed this was in winter, and their large brown bodies stood out starkly against the pale gray dawn and the descending snow. In fact, I noticed that the hissing sound of snow caressing trees and ground as it fell was much louder than the sound of the owls’ flight. I was amazed that snow, which has sound-dampening qualities of its own, could be louder than the flight of these very large birds.

I later learned that, due to the unique structure of their feathers and wings, certain owls can fly absolutely soundlessly, despite their large size. Scientists speculate that this is a survival feature: given how slow they are, their silent flight can both help them sneak up on their prey, and help them be able to listen as they fly to locate and then track their prey (1).

In the stories we hear today about both Elijah and Jesus, silence plays an often overlooked role. In our story form the first Book of Kings, Elijah is in hiding in the desert, and feeling like God is not doing enough for him. He has obeyed God zealously, as he notes, and it has come at great cost to him. He lived when Ahab was king, a very weak king he was, childish and not too bright. Ahab foreign-born queen, Jezebel, was the real power behind the throne, and she encouraged the worship of Baal, a local storm god. At God’s command, Elijah had engaged in a spiritual contest with all of Jezebel’s Baal prophets. When they could not entice their God to outdo Elijah’s God, Elijah had not only triumphed, but had slaughtered them all. This caused Jezebel to demand Elijah’s head, and off into the wilderness he fled. In anger, he lay down under a shrub and demanded that God take his life.

In response, God led him up to Mount Horeb, we are told, and actually goes before Elijah. What we are NOT told is that Horeb is also known as Mount Sinai. This might help us make more sense of this story, especially compared with what we heard last week. Elijah kills agents of the corrupt Kingdom, flees into the wilderness, and then has an encounter with God. Does that sound like any other prophet we have ever heard of in the Hebrew scriptures? Try this: Moses, though raised in a position of privilege as the adopted son of an Egyptian princess, strikes down and overseer who is beating an Israelite, and then flees into the wilderness, where he encounters God in a burning bush. After freeing the Israelites from slavery, Moses climbs up the same mountain Elijah is on and converses with God in such a transformative way that his skin glowed, as we heard last week. In our story we hear today, we are meant to hear echoes of the relationship that God had with Moses. Undoubtedly, Elijah is meant to make that connection as well.

When things get rough for Elijah, he loses his faith in both God and himself. He loses faith in God because he expects God to be a thunderous, storming, smiting kind of God-- the kind of God that Baal was. Elijah doesn't want the God that we heard about being described in Psalm 85. Instead he wants the God who has described in Psalm 77, which describes God this way.

16 When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the very deep trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side. 18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.

But God is greater than a puny storm god. God therefore takes Elijah up on one of the most significant mountains in Israel's history, and actually reveals God's self to him.

So is God in a mighty wind? No.
In an earthquake? No. Once again, puny Baal-like parlor tricks.
God is not even in a fire, not this time.

Instead, God is in what is described in this translation as “a sound of sheer silence.” Other translations describe it as “a small still voice.”

And yet Elijah is not impressed. After having the very presence and glory of God pass him by, when again he is asked why he is there, he simply repeats his complaint about God, implying that God is not supporting him enough.

In our gospel story, Jesus shows us the importance of silence and soft voices in communicating with God. After a day in which he's fed a multitude and healed countless others, all Jesus wants is a little bit of peace and quiet so that he can pray to God. And the only way he can get it is by forcing the disciples into a boat and sending them out on the waves. And in the midst of his quiet prayer time, he becomes aware that the disciples’ boat is in the midst of a storm, and so stops what he is doing and goes out on the waves to save them.

In this description of Jesus walking on the waves, we once again are reminded of those same lines from Psalm 77, this time being enacted by Jesus as the Son of God: “Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.” Jesus is here revealing himself as more than just a prophet. Unlike Elijah, the disciples are incredibly impressed-- so impressed in fact that you could call it terrified. They call out to him in the midst of the storm and even though he answers still can't believe what they are seeing understandably enough. Then Peter-- impetuous, leap before you look Peter, asks his teacher to allow him to walk on the water too, as proof that it's really Jesus. And so Peter is invited to step out into the waves, walking in the footsteps of the almighty, only to lose faith even quicker than Elijah and begin to sink. Jesus comes to the rescue, returned him to the boat, and stills the storm--the storm that is a symbol, as it often is, for a lack of faith in God., Just as it was a symbol of the worship of Baal in the time of Elijah.

As I think about the challenges facing the capital C church in these times, I wonder if the lectionary isn't trying to lead us into a place where once again we are being challenged to focus our imaginations and our attention so that we may see the presence of God all around us, and be encouraged. We are told that Christianity is in the midst of a storm of disbelief and irrelevance, Especially in the incredibly loud and busy world in which we live, a world where the quiet that allows us to see the wonders all around is deliberately almost impossible to come by.

St. Martin’s continues to struggle against a storm of financial challenges caused by lack of revenue, despite all the wonderful ministries and faithfulness of so many of her people--a problem that has existed for decades but is reaching crisis proportions now. And this couldn't be at a worse time, but also is somewhat unbelievable-- this is a parish that when I arrived here five years ago supposedly only had three years left to exist--and then COVID happened and yet we survived that and even in many ways flourished, even as we experienced terrible losses, including of beloved members of long standing. They loved this parish-- and entrusted it into our care.

Yet there seems to be this constantly swirling storm that assails our ears and our hearts and fails to believe that there is enough-- even more than enough-- to be able to place this parish on a sound financial footing so that we can concentrate on the really important things: seeing, and hearing, and proclaiming the generous and life giving presence of God in our lives and in the world around us. Even further, we are actually called to then embody that belief so that others may see it as well. Like Elijah, rather than believe that we already have the resources to succeed, we are tempted to act like Elijah and crawl under a bush and ask to die. God plays in 10,000 places all around us, and reveals the glory of God's love to us in every moment--if only we quiet the incessant grumbling of our expectations that God do our fighting for us. What if we decided to stop drowning out God’s compassionate love for us, reinforcing our own fears, and instead expect to see God even in the quiet little miracles that surround us every day—and even empower us to be miracles ourselves, as this parish church IS already to so many people?

As scripture repeatedly reminds us, and psychology affirms, our expectations have enormous influence on our ability to discern and experience the presence and activity of God and the world around us. If we expect to see God in the storm, that's the only place we will see god. But if we expect to see God all around, we will have the faith and the courage to do what we need to do to continue in the ministry God has blessed us with.

I wonder if each and everyone of us made an effort to mindfully seek the presence of God in silence for even 15 minutes of a day and silence so that we could hear that small still voice of God in every heart beat how that would change us, both as individuals and as a parish.

One of the gifts of my classes this June at Sewanee was an assignment to spend 30 minutes each day (at least five of the seven days of the week) in unstructured prayer: to simply sit and open my heart and spirit to God. Because my accommodations were in a busy apartment building, I decided to find quiet places around campus, often near water or an overlook. Sometimes I prayed in the morning, some days it was so busy I could only pray at night.

I want to invite you into considering joining me and seeking out the small still voice of God both in our common lives and in our lives as individuals, each and every day.

Be still, and know that God is God.
Be still, and know that God is there in quiet and in stillness.
Be still and look for God's hand at work in our lives-- not in the earthquake, or the wind, or the fire, but in the quiet love and tenderness that surrounds us and upholds us always.

May we seek out the small still voice within the sound of God's loving, precious silence, and then go into the world, charged to truly testify to the amazing presence of God’s love that will be revealed.

Preached at the 505 on August 12 and the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, Missouri.

Readings:

1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33


Citations:

1) Lesley Evan Ogden, “The Silent Flight of Owls, Explained,” July 28, 2017, at Audubon.com, https://www.audubon.org/news/the-silent-flight-owls-explained

Words and Actions: Sermon for Easter 5A

In 1988, a little-known jazz and folk musician named Bobby McFerrin broke nearly every rule of popular music and popular culture with a little ditty he wrote that rose all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

First of all, the song was a capella, which means vocal music with no instrumental accompaniment, and we are talking about rock and roll.

Second of all, it displaced Guns N Roses’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine” at that number one slot-- a song that one can both simultaneously love and hate. You can love it for lead guitarist’s Slash’s musical genius, as guitar aficionados consider his lead guitar work to be #37 of the top 100 guitar solos of all time. You can also hate it because first of all, this damn song never seems to die. You can hate it due to Axl Rose’s whiny vocals blatting all over a six minute song—one that was so long the band didn’t know how to end it, which is why Rose sings “Where do we go? Where do we go now?” as they look for some kind of musical stopping point. Seriously. And if you are from St. Louis, you can hate it even more because a 1991 riot at the- then newish Riverport Ampitheatre here in St. Louis ignited by Axl Rose almost destroyed the joint and got the band banned from St. Louis until 2017. For real. You can look it up.

But back to Bobby McFerrin. The little song he wrote, as he himself tells us in its opening lines is called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” McFerrin was living in San Francisco, and he saw posters reminiscent of the 60s for a jazz duo named Tuck and Patty (look them up, they are also fabulous) repeating this slogan from the 1960s: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which had first been popularized by the Indian guru Meher Baba.

The song starts out with happy whistling and scat singing, which is repeated in between each verse. Then the singer, in a humorous accent, begins:

Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry, you make it double
Don't worry, be happy…

McFerrin then goes on to list things that one might worry about: not having a bed, your landlord threatening to begin eviction proceedings, being broke, being unfashionable, not having a girlfriend… The answer to all these things is “Don’t worry, be happy!” and happy whistling like you don’t have a care in the world. The video, since this was the age of MTV, was also charming, and included our favorite Hollywood Episcopalian, Robin Williams.

It was infectious. And it was amazing—especially when we learned that every single sound on the song was produced by McFerrin using his voice and his body. And by the way, how many of you now have this tune echoing around in your head? You’re welcome.

Now, there are always going to be naysayers who sneer at the idea of a song making much of a difference, and there are also those people who will fight you tooth and nail if you try to encourage them NOT to be miserable.

But.

The world NEEDED this song in 1988. It was an intense year, and not just because that’s the year I got married. The US was embroiled in the Iran-contra affair, which alleged that government officials had illegally provided the Iranians weapons in their war with Iraq in exchange for secret payments that could be laundered to fund extremist rebels against the extremist government in Nicaragua a half a world away. 

Iraq, meanwhile, was poisoning the Kurdish people who lived within its borders with poison gas. We finally concluded yet another treaty trying to control the spread of Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons, because yes, we were still afraid that some madman would launch a nuclear war that would extinguish the human race and indeed the planet. In southwest Asia, Myanmar erupted in pro-democracy protests led by students against its military dictatorship, as Poland experiences the rise of protests against its Communist government by the working class movement called “Solidarity.” 

The Soviet Army finally withdrew from its invasion of Afghanistan after 8 bloody years, and the Space Shuttle program flew its first mission nearly three years after the tragic Challenger disaster. An earthquake in Armenia killed 60,000 people.

We were tense, afraid, worried about the future for a variety of reasons. So thank God for Bobby McFerrin trying to reassure us with five minutes of light-hearted piece of perspective altering. The success of this song actually disproved the claim that telling someone to calm down never actually calms anyone down. As light-hearted as this song was, it was much-needed medicine. It was wrapped around the truth that worrying never solves ANYTHING, and that keeping our perspectives firmly fixed in what we have right now can help us avoid needlessly torturing ourselves about what might, or might not, be.

We all NEED these reminders. We are hard-wired to notice and hyperfixate on things we perceive as threats, and when we let that take up all our capacity, we then fail to notice and appreciate things that are gifts, blessings or causes for joy. Our adrenal system takes over when we worry, and we become blind to anything good. Ironically, one of the things that can most soothe moods is music. And so, yes, I am convinced Bobby McFerrin did us all a great service that year, and it paid off for him too. He received the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1989.

The opening words in our gospel passage today depict Jesus trying his best to encourage his followers not to worry as they too face some of the darkest days of their lives—so dark, they still don’t understand how dark it is about to get. And so he starts with “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” He then promises that even when his physical presence is no longer with his beloved friends and disciples, they can never be separated from him or from God.

We need that reassurance, because several of the readings for this week sound like the plagues of 1988. In Acts, Stephen, deacon and first martyr of the infant Church, is stoned to death by religious authorities who accuse him of blasphemy as he testifies to his experience with Jesus. Yet even with this horrific fate, he rejoices because he sees Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, and breathes forgiveness of his enemies even as he meets his fate—just as Jesus did upon the cross. Our psalm also has violence and betrayal as a subtext, yet the psalmist declares their faith in God for deliverance from those who are setting nets to entrap the psalmist. Our epistle scorns those who rejected Jesus, and calls him instead the chief cornerstone. And then here our disciples are huddled with Jesus, their heads swirling with his enigmatic statements as he tells them he will be leaving them, and that one of them will betray him.

We need that reassurance, because we also live in a time when it is hard to see and know Jesus within the world around us. Yet our Easter proclamation and faith is that he IS here, alive, and active in the world around us. He asks us to trust in that bedrock principle of faith.

Jesus tries to remind us that perception is key, just as McFerrin’s little song does in a whimsical way. Jesus also reminds us that there are many ways to see and to know someone. As anyone who has ever been separated from loved ones, either by distance or by death can attest, you can still see and experience the presence of someone even when they are not right here with you. Perhaps that’s one reason why this gospel passage is also used at funerals—so much so that many of you may be thinking about funerals as your first thought when you hear this passage.

Others of you may be thinking of the way this passage may have been misused in your own life to exclude people rather than comfort and include them. Because it certainly has been used to claim that ONLY professed Christians are the true children of God. And that is not the intention of this passage, especially when we look at the reality of Jesus’s ministry and actions during his human lifetime. Far from it. Just think of the stories we have heard in the previous weeks: last week, Jesus reminding his followers that he had other sheep than just this one flock, for example in John 10. Jesus treating the Samaritan woman at the well with courtesy, acceptance, and seriousness rather than condemnation and rejection.

I don’t know about you, but I do find comfort that those who have been Jesus’s closest friends and followers still have a hard time really seeing and knowing him, beyond mere physical presence and sight. I find that comforting, because it helps us have perspective about our own doubts and misunderstandings of Jesus. Let’s remember, the Gospel of John begins with equating Jesus, as the Word of God, with God Godself. This passage refers back to that assertion in the Prologue when Jesus asks Philip “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?” in v. 9.

Now here is a place that perhaps can shed some light upon us in our time. Even in this secular world, one would have to be willfully ignorant to claim that they have heard nothing of Christianity. We still have a very vocal portion of the American population claiming to be acting in the name of their Christian faith in all kinds of ways within our government, our schools, and our society. Often they do this because they have misunderstood that the Word of God we worship is Jesus. The Bible is the record of the Word of God, and should be studied and interpreted again and again as the Spirit and Jesus continue to reveal God to us in the world today. We worship Jesus—not individual verses or words in documents, as holy as they are. The books are the lens, but Jesus is the light.

What has the world heard about Jesus? As the season of Easter reminds us, Jesus has been with us all this time, yet what does the world know about him? As our gospel points out, there are two ways to know Jesus: by his words, and by his actions. Not just actions in the past, but action right now, acting through the testimony and the actions of each every one of us who claim the name of “Christian.”

In the end, Jesus urges us not to worry, not to fear, but instead to believe. To try and sometimes fail but to keep trying in our journey of discipleship. And this kind of belief operates not at the intellectual level but above it at the level of trust. Part of our charge to trust is to not try to use Jesus as a way of dividing people and stoking fear.

One way to avoid fear and worry, I have found, is by activity. If the world around us does not know Jesus, we are called to respond by seizing the opportunity rather than apathy or despair. To turn away from gossip, slander, and trying to make ourselves feel better by tearing those around us down and instead embrace Jesus’s call to integrity, responsibility, and duty to each other. Jesus will not get any better known by our silence—or worse my our misdeeds in public. Jesus is best known and seen in the world right now through us and how we behave.

To the dirge of the world around us, Jesus calls us to sing a song of peace, of relationships healed and enemies reconciled, of embracing justice and compassion as our lodestars against the ignorance, betrayal, and corruption that swirls around us in this world that needs Jesus now more than ever. To remember that Jesus is our shepherd, and everyone’s. That there are many dwelling places in God’s eternal home, and to stop thinking we get to decide who gets in and who is left out. But most of all, for us to take up our own share in the kingdom of God right now, and live so that our words and actions reveal Jesus to those around us every day.

Amen.

Readings:

Acts 7:55-60

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Preached at the 10:30 Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, 63011.

Citations:

Bobby McFerrin, "Don't Worry, Be Happy," from the album Simple Pleasures (1988).

Beatus vir qui non ablit

Come to the place where every breath is praise,
And God is breathing through each passing breeze.
Be planted by the waterside and raise

Your arms with Christ beneath these rooted trees,
Who lift their breathing leaves up to the skies.
Be rooted, too, as still and strong as these,

Open alike to sun and rain. Arise
From meditation by these waters. Bear
The fruit of that deep rootedness. Be wise 

In the trees' long wisdom. Learn to share
The secret of their patience. Pass the day
In their green fastness and their quiet air.

Slowly discern a life, a truth, a way,
Where simple being flowers in delight.
Then let the chaff of life just blow away.

-- Malcolm Guite (1957- ), English priest, poet, musician, and academic, from David's Crown.
Inspired by Psalm 1.

Winnowing: Speaking to the Soul, December 8, 2022

Bedeviled by thoughts ominous and thoughts profound,

wreathing fog about my noggin, sheathing
perspective, restive, I
did not know how to spy the blue sky,
to believe it abides, though veiled,
beyond the steel-gray vault of cloud.

What to keep, what to fling away,
wheat and chaff, seed and soil, shell and sand–
I cannot clear the threshing floor of mind
nor shoulder the load alone.

My Heart’s Companion whispers, “Peace.
Be still.” Fists unfurl. And the breath of prayer
sends the draff and dregs eddying away.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on December 8, 2022.

The Wilderness Way of God: Sermon for Advent 2B

In the Wilderness Prepare the Way, ©Jan Richardson janrichardson.com

This is a story of three prophets and three roads.

The first road is actually a crossroads. And poor tiny Israel --or what's left of it, the southern Kingdom of Judah --lies right at the connection of several major roads that tied Asia, Europe, and Africa together. Israel, already a small country, divided herself by inner bickering and made herself vulnerable two division by conquering armies, armies that often passed through Israel and the pinch point that she occupied on their way to take on their rivals at this juncture of three continents. That's where the book of Isaiah begins: Disaster looming on the horizon, disaster that the prophets believe is recompense for the people’s waywardness and faithlessness. Thirty-nine chapters later, that disaster arrives, and the elites are carried off into captivity.
Then a silence falls. One hundred and sixty years of silence. Years in which, undoubtedly the captive priests and rulers felt God’s silence deeply, and the people of the land left behind struggled mightily under the harsh expectations of their foreign overlords to produce food for their captors. As Psalm 137 describes it, years in which the people carried off into captivity mourned,

By Babylon’s streams,
   there we sat, oh, we wept,
      when we recalled Zion.

On the poplars there
   we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors had asked of us
   words of song,

and our plunderers—rejoicing:
   “Sing us from Zion’s songs.”
How can we sing a song of the LORD
   on foreign soil?(1)

Chapter 40, which begins a prologue to the second part of Isaiah, starts sixteen decades later. A new prophet has taken up Isaiah’s mantle, but reluctantly. We start with a silence, and then a conversation. Because the verses we hear are not spoken by one voice, but by three different voices: God, the heavenly hosts, and the second prophet to call herself-- yes, there is evidence that points to her being female—Isaiah.

God speaks first—as God always does. God speaks to the heavenly court, commanding them to deliver comfort to God’s people, communicating to Jerusalem, who had been completely leveled by her enemies, that she has been released from her shame of faithlessness. The double command (Comfort, O Comfort) adds extra urgency. Yet the focus is not on punishment (a sentence), but forgiveness.

A voice in the heavenly court cries out a word of hope, describing a scene of victory in which the exiled leaders of Jerusalem return from their bondage –but not along the terrible road upon which they were led away, but upon a new road. God’s highway, along which God’s glory will be revealed. Then another voice commands the prophet, who has been listening in disbelief, to cry out herself. The prophet objects, pointing out that humans are too fleeting in their existence to be able to join in this discussion; she has been worn down by the trials of exile alongside her people.

The heavenly host respond, yes, human life is fleeting, but God’s promises are not.

And so, the prophet takes up the words of reassurance, convinced by her encounter with God, and moved from despair to proclamation of that same comfort that at first was only expressed by the heavenly court. The prophet then calls the people to join her in seizing that hope and proclaiming the faithfulness of God. To proclaim faith and hope and strength where previously they have only bemoaned their abandonment. There is always a time for grief. But that time for grief is passed, and now is a time to renew their faith. So this conversation concludes. Point and counterpoint. And eventually the voice from the wilderness becomes one bearing tidings of tender care from the shepherd who cares for us all.

Haven’t we all felt like we have been in a wilderness at various points in our lives? And haven’t we felt lost and forsaken when all the neat, straight paths we’ve made for ourselves have ended up leading us astray?

In the most hostile of environments --wilderness and desert --the word of God comes to offer comfort, respite, and safety, despite Israel’s sinfulness and fault. It is in these most unlikely of places that God's comfort is offered and maintained. God’s comfort is a gift of grace in a time when all hope had been lost, when the fear of abandonment was seemingly permanent. Yet God’s promise remains true, and doesn’t depend upon human measurements of time to come to fulfillment. It is in this light that we read our gospel introduction of John the Baptist, who similarly is called to cry out from the wilderness to proclaim the comfort that is to come, comfort from the presence of God Godself taking on human flesh and living among the people.

Once again, it is God who takes the initiative. At last, the light appears at the end of a long night. The Babylonian Exile stripped the people of everything that mattered to them. Our own exile—from faith, from compassion, from dedication to community and true justice and equality—has also left us longing for meaning, for purpose.

We think we can make our own pathways straight to success, to crushing our opponents. It’s part of the modern myth of independence that ignores how much we depend upon each other, and upon God.

Yet our paths to God don’t have to be straight. It is often the most indirect, wandering stop-and start journeys that end up being the truest, because they don’t fool us into thinking that the life of abundance can actually be acquired. The broken road is often the road that leads us to God, because it strips away all our defenses and resistance to God.

The wilderness is no barrier to God-- God loves the wilderness just the way it is. And God spends a lot of time in the wilderness with us. It is us who want the wilderness leveled, not God.  Since when does God see the wilderness and respond with a construction crew and truck full of asphalt? God’s time is NOT our time, and God’s schedule is not our schedule. God likes to take the long way home, reminding us once again that God’s home is everywhere, wherever God is but not limited to one place.

A friend of mine shared these words earlier this week: “I imagine God taking one look at the straight paths we’ve scarred into the wild earth and either laughing or weeping or both, wondering if what we wanted was a tamer God or just one on speed dial who is always waiting to pick up. But isn’t God perpetually going out into the wilderness, out with the wandering Israelites or searching out a lost sheep, out beyond the cell towers, voicemails, and text messages?”

Instead, God walks in the opposite direction our straightened paths lead, just to see if we want a God who follows us or if we want to follow God.” (2)

The life of abundance that God offers to us starts with opening ourselves to the wonder of God’s creation all around us, and of celebrating our place in a web of relationships that each offer us a chance to ourselves bear the light of God into the world. Have you ever heard anything more absurd than the idea of anyone making a path straight for God to amble down?

It is in the midst of the wilderness that the people are urged to faith. And the kind of faith the people are being urged to embrace is not an easy faith. It is faith that seems to fly in the face of all evidence. The people are being asked to sing joyful songs even from the chains of exile and oppression. Being challenged to take up this confident proclamation of God’s presence even when all evidence points otherwise is a call to faith that doesn’t deny fear but responds to fear by proclaiming the power of unity and community over those forces that attempt to use division and loss as levers of control.

We, too, may feel like there has been a long silence, these last many months as this pandemic has stretched on here in 2020. For us, who expect instantaneous responses, eight months certainly can feel like an eternity. In the face of that pause, two doubts commonly arise to plague our spiritual lives: we either believe that God is powerless to change our suffering, or that God is indifferent to us and possibly even inflicts the silent treatment upon us. None of these take into account, as we are reminded in our epistle, that God’s time is not our own, and that God doesn’t wander from us. When we feel God’s absence, it is when we have wandered from God, allowed ourselves to drift, or believe that God is punishing us when we go through trials.

We may feel that we do not know the way out, the way of God’s highway—and how can we be blamed for that? Even Jesus’s own disciples and apostles cried out the same plaintive plea when they couldn’t follow the path he walked right before them toward wholeness, wellness, and peace.

The wilderness is where God’s word will be proclaimed, by Isaiah and by John the Baptist and Jesus. It’s a place that strips us bare of all our illusions and vanities and pretended pride. It’s a place where are defenses against admitting our wrongdoing are shredded, but not so that we can be punished. So that we can be moved to repentance—to the turning joyfully to a new life that is more pure and truer to God’s commandments. And this awakening to our own waywardness, our own privilege—that has become such a loaded word but it is a word that MUST be spoken if we are ever to move to reconciliation and healing in our world. That acceptance of our own benefit from injustice is there, and it must become visible by looking at life through the perspectives of others when they offer us their truth. has to be seen not as a source of shame but as a starting point for accepting the relief of God’s incomprehensible grace.

But perhaps God is calling us to embrace a long pause, a resetting of our priorities away from our worship of the god of our unending appetite for more, and is calling us to see creation ongoing all around us. We are reminded that the arc of human experience is short, and that for all our technology the processes of nature-- the mutation of a virus, in this case, that has always been around us in one form or another—can call us to an accounting that we cannot just wave away every challenge in an instant.

After the long pause, God promises a way through the wilderness, not an exemption from the wilderness. God calls us back from the exile we have put ourselves in, through fear and faithlessness. The story of the Exodus reminds us that we cannot allow our fears to master us: when that happens, we often end up longing for the familiar chains of slavery rather than taking up the hard work of the journey to equality and true justice, which can only be found when we proclaim community and insist upon it.

The closing image of our reading from this section of second Isaiah is the image of God not just as a mighty warrior, but also as a tender shepherd—a shepherd who endures all things alongside their sheep. This is one of the most common claims about true leadership that runs throughout scripture. A leader is called to unify the flock, not scatter it. The flock itself is called to observe this tender care for the weakest of its members, and likewise stand in solidarity with them. God calls us to order our societies in such a way that the leaders share in the burdens of the flock, knowing their needs intimately because that leader is not aloof to them but intimately familiar with those needs. God will act as a shepherd, and calls each of us to take up our duty and responsibility to each other likewise—to order our lives so. That we too will carry the youngest or the frailest in our arms. God as our shepherd calls the flock to likewise never abandon the least of their members to the wolves that prowl often in the shadows and out of sight of the most privileged among the flock.

Perhaps we can listen and hear God calling us to embrace the way of mercy and steadfast love, the way that lies straight and true before us, if only we will put our feet to the path and our shoulders to the wheel of mercy and compassion. And once we embrace that pause, seize hold of the chance to cleanse ourselves of all that draws us from love and faith, perhaps we, too, could then hear a word of comfort, and embrace a promise of renewal and resuscitation, of God’s Loving coming down and walking among us, teaching us to walk in the Wilderness Way of God.

Amen.

Preached at the online 10:30 am Morning Prayer service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO. during Coronatide.

Readings:

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

Isaiah 40:1-11

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

Sources:

1) Robert Alter, The Hebrew Scriptures, Volume 3: the Writings

2) The Rev. David Henson, quoted by my friend the Rev. Anne Lane Witt

Prayer, day 2854- Lord's Prayer Cycle, 6: Save Us From the time of Trial

Our Father in heaven, 

loving Parent and Creator,
tender Mother,
save us from the time of trial,
for we are prone to wander
and lose our way.

Make us stronger in our faith
and more willing to wrestle with the angel of doubt.
Guide us into living and loving more fully
according to your precepts.
Help us turn aside all vain ambitions
and concentrate fully upon your Word.
Give us courage to make our hearts bigger,
even if that makes them bigger targets,
for love is always the answer.
Help us to persevere
through the difficulties of life,
knowing that You are always with us.
Give us the sight to see hope amid darkness.

O Loving One, hear our prayers
and grant your benediction and grace
to those whose needs we now raise before You.

Amen.

Prayer 2840: Like a high-flying bird

Like a high-flying bird,
like a hawk upon a current,
let my soul arise on wings of hope
to You, my God and Savior.

Like a dawn sparrow
let me sing out my praise
for all the blessings and opportunities
of the coming day,
O Holy One.

Like the flash of a cardinal

as it hops among branches,

let me give joy and bring wonder

to someone today, O Savior.

Bring us within the bounds of your mercy,
Lord Jesus, we pray,
and gather us to you,
as a mother hen guard her nest:
hold us within your hands,
and nurture us in wisdom
that we may grow stronger in faith.

Give us courage
in the face of our trials and uncertainties,
O Rock and Redeemer,
and let your Spirit brood over us
and create within us clean hearts
to strengthen us to work and praise this day.

Draw within the bounds of your mercy, O God,
all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2839: For Resilience

Be among us, Lord Jesus,

as we make our prayers to You.

Be among us, O Almighty One,
as we meditate upon your Word
and remember your saving help.
Be among us, O Spirit of Truth,
to guide our hearts, minds, and souls
and make them holy offerings to our God.
Be among us, O God,
as storms rage without and within,
and lead us to safety and reconciliation.

May peace, justice, compassion, and love reign
in our lives today, O Merciful One.
May we embody God's grace in our words and deeds,
and testify always to your mercy and care as we pray

Prayer 2831

Almighty God,
breathe your hope into us at our rising,
that we may center ourselves within You
throughout the day.

Plant your gentleness like an oak,
deep within our hearts, O God,
that the branches of your blessing
may shade us always.
Imprint your Spirit upon us, O Holy One:
fill us with your truth,
so that we may proclaim your justice and peace
in all places.

Let our lives proclaim our love
for You, Lord Christ,
and may our actions be testimony
to your compassion and love.

May the beauty of this fragile world
fill us with awe and wonder,
that we may tenderly minister to all living things.

Strengthen and guide
all doctors, nurses, surgeons, and caregivers, O Lord,
and bless them for their care and skill.

Remember those who call upon You, O Redeemer,
and send your angels to minister
to those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2020

Most Merciful God,
we rise to greet this day You have made,
hearing the praise song of creation
testify to your glory.
May we echo that praise in every moment,
from our rising to our resting,
and bear witness to your Love.

We thank You for your manifold blessings,
especially your fellowship of saints and companions
who guide us in wisdom.
Set our feet firmly
in the paths of peace and compassion,
O Holy One,
and help us to love unreservedly
as Jesus taught us.
May your Spirit descend upon us like a cloud,
that our tongues may tell out your wonders,
O Earth-maker.

God of Compassion,
bend near to all who seek You,
and envelop all who call upon You with hope
as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2819: On the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Almighty One,
You are our Rock and our Hope,
Our Ever-present help in times such as these:
receive our prayers and praises,
as we proclaim your steadfast lovingkindness in our lives.

When our words fail us,
let our love be a prayer to You,
O Precious Savior,
and a witness to your grace.
As we meditate on your many blessings to us,
may we ever employ our reason and obedience
in the service of your reign over us–
a reign marked by tenderness
and a call for us to grow in faith.
Strengthen us in joy and gratitude
for carrying your light within us
for the sake of your Beloved Community.

Spirit of Devotion,
kindle within us a thirst for wisdom
that we may drink deep of love’s commandment,
and be a blessing to each other in God’s Holy Name.
Envelop all who seek you, O God,
in mercy and resilience,
and grant your peace to these beloveds.

Amen.

Wrestling with God: sermon for Proper 13A

Detail of "Vision after the Sermon" by Paul Gauguin

There has been a lot of action between last week’s reading and this week’s and that is a shame because the story is a good one. Jacob throughout his life was cunning and crafty, living by his wits. He was skilled in exploiting the weaknesses of those around him. Thus he found Esau’s weaknesses (hunger and impulsivity) and stole from him his birthright; with the help of his mother he stole the blessing that should also rightly fully have been Esau’s from his father by exploiting his father’s weakness (blindness).

He then leaves in a hurry to escape Esau’s anger—and to get a wife for himself from among his mother’s kin and ends up abiding with Laban, working for him for 14 years. Laban matches Jacob for trickery and dishonesty, substituting his elder, possibly less-marriageable daughter after making a bargain with Jacob, and then extracting another 7 years of labor from Jacob in order for him to get the daughter he loved as his wife. With each daughter, he received a maidservant, who also bore him children.

Thus he ends up with 11 sons and a daughter by the time his additional 7 years of service are completed. And in that time, Jacob has made Laban even more prosperous, with magnificent flocks and herds. Jacob and his father in law then work out a deal to give Jacob wages in kind, from among Laban’s flocks, with both of them again resorting to trickery and cheating to try to get the better end of the deal. This results in six more years of service with Laban, during which time, Jacob has eleven sons and one daughter by his two wives and by their maidservants.

Jacob prospers, despite every trick Laban can throw at him. This then causes jealous grumbling and resentment by Laban’s sons, which then spreads to Laban. Jacob and his growing family have worn out their welcome through their rivalry with Laban. So the whole family agrees with Jacob to leave without telling Laban. Laban is off conveniently shearing his sheep, and so it takes him three days to realize that Jacob and his extended family is gone. Although Laban chases Jacob down, in the end, they part with a truce declared between them.

As Jacob returns to the land of his father Isaac, Jacob realizes he will have to meet Esau, since he has to pass through Edom, Esau’s home, to return to Isaac’s lands. He sends messengers to send peaceful greetings, only to find that Esau is approaching with 400 men, Jacob rightfully panics, divides up his caravan so that hopefully some might survive if attacked, He then prays to God—the first prayer to be quoted in the Torah-- and acknowledges God’s aid in his life thus far, asking to be delivered from the hand of his brother. For his own part, he sends servants ahead to Esau with three caravans of livestock to Esau as “presents” or bribes to help ingratiate himself. Just in case this doesn’t work, Jacob also sends his wives and children across the Jabbok river, which flows into the Jordan and helps mark the boundary of Israel and spends the night alone, hoping to once again save his family by offering up himself. It is during the night that the events we have in our reading take place.

This encounter in the night with the mysterious man who wordlessly wrestles with him all night is one of the most puzzling and yet famous stories in the Torah. In Hebrew, there is wordplay here that we lose: the Hebrew verb ye’abeq mean to wrestle, and also sounds like the names of both Jacob and the river. Who is the man? Some have speculated it is Esau, or Esau’s guardian angel, or a river demon, or an angel, or God Godself, the last two of which are the most common understanding.

At the end of the night, Jacob himself has no doubt. After he has time to catch his breath, he knows has wrestled with God. And in so doing, he has also wrestled with himself. His story reminds us of this truth—that in wrestling with God, we also wrestle with ourselves, that in seeking to learn about God, we learn about ourselves and who we are as God’s children.

As his outward story has shown us, Jacob’s outstanding positive quality is tenacity—perseverance. Maybe also punching above his weight class. His outstanding negative quality is deception and double-dealing. And that has gotten him into loads of trouble—so much that twice in his life he has had to flee to escape the consequences the danger his treachery naturally has placed him in. But whoever that stranger is, they are locked in a tie throughout the night. His double-dealing against both Esau and Laban have brought him to this moment.

If you have ever studied wrestling or judo, or played any contact sport, you know that there are two forces with which to contend: the force from your opponent, and the force you yourself generate. That is why the metaphor of Jacob wrestling with God is such a illuminating metaphor for the life of faith. In our journey through faith and understanding, we struggle with our understanding of ourselves as much as we struggle with our understanding of God.

So Jacob wrestles with both himself and with God in this encounter—with his own understanding of who he is, and with his own resistance to accepting anyone as his superior, even God. And THAT reluctance to submit yourself to God and accept God’s guidance and will in your life is a problem we ALL struggle with--- it may be even THE religious problem, especially here in the West, with our emphasis on individualism.

It is especially in these kinds of basic struggles within ourselves that the willingness to persevere also serves us well. In Jacob’s case, even as the wrestling match rages silently through the night, and Jacob is matched at every turn by his opponent, still he does not give up. Even when the stranger moves from Greco-Roman wrestling to a little WWE and adds in a cheap shot to Jacob’s hip, still he will not quit or surrender.

Jacob is in a liminal space—between one life and another, between one family and another, between one home and another, facing a come-uppance with the brother he mocked and wronged with his cleverness and manipulation. He’s in the middle of nowhere. He’s in the middle of the night, and suddenly, the circle completes, and the baby who has born grasping his brother’s heel is seized and confronted by an unknown person or force in the night.

Finally, the stranger demands Jacob’s name—but the question goes deeper. His name, Jacob, means “supplanter” one who unjustly takes the place of another. But WHO is Jacob, really? Is he ONLY a supplanter? Apparently God doesn’t think so. And so during this wrestling match, Jacob is going to be led to taking on a new name, a new identity. And when we are engaged in our own wrestlings with God, that is the question demanded from us as well. Who are we? What do we stand for? By our actions in the world, not by our words, but by our actions, what do we show that we believe?

Because the problem for many of us, especially in American popular Christianity today, is that we say we believe in God on Sundays, and we tie “going to church” with being all that is demanded of us. And some people conversely get the wrong idea—that we must physically be together in church to worship God. That ONLY through gathering together in person can God be found. That’s actually not at all what the scriptures say, though.

If you look in the Biblical witness, if you look at this story, God is almost NEVER found in a building, in both the Torah, those first five books of the Hebrew scriptures that we are reading from right now, as well as in the gospels. God is almost always found out where people are in their lives—on a mountain, or on a journey, or in a burning bush, or like in our gospel, out on the seashore.

God is found alongside us in the in-between places in our lives. God is found when we search for direction. God is found when we are oppressed and seeking freedom. God is found when we look deep inside ourselves for our purpose. God is found when we are hungry, like in our gospel. That doesn’t mean that organized worship isn’t important, and that the communities that gather for organized worship and liturgy aren’t important, because they ARE. We can’t turn worship of God into entertainment for ourselves. If you come to church for entertainment only, you might as well just stay home and watch wrestling.

In the end, worshiping God is just a small part of our relationship with God and our willingness to let God rule in our hearts and in our lives. Jacob emerges from his wrestling match with God with a new name, a new understanding of himself, and a new identity. This didn’t come about through worship, but through a deep struggle within himself to learn more deeply who he is, and to deal forthrightly with the places in his life where he had depended upon his own talent for trickery rather than depend upon God. Perhaps he sees that in all his double-dealings and maneuverings, he has actually made his life more chaotic than it needed to be.

Jacob symbolizes all of us in our struggles and wrestlings with God --and ourselves as we go through, in the words of Prince, this thing called life. And even though he emerges with a temporary limp from his struggle, which literally requires him to walk in a new, more vulnerable way, he also emerges with a new name, and a new understanding of himself. He is now Israel—the one who struggles and wrestles with God. Just like his grandfather, Jacob will have a new name bestowed upon him in adulthood. But more importantly, this new name will become the name for an entire nation of people. A people who will struggle with God as the core part of their identity. That is literally what the name Israel means. And taking a step back from this wrestling story for a second, think about how absolutely honest it is for a people to name themselves in this way. They—and we, since we are grafted into their family tree through Jesus—are admitting that they will struggle with God. They will struggle and wrestle with obedience and bending their will with God throughout the rest of time.

And yet there is a promise in this story. God will always engage with those of us who are honest enough and open enough to wrestle with God. God will always ask us to examine ourselves and who we are, and encourage us to lean deeper into God’s guidance. God will always meet us, especially in the in-between, uncertain times in our lives, and never let us go.

We are together as a community to support each other in our wrestling with God—and our wrestling with the world around us, a world that denies the power of God in human lives and throughout history. A God who demands that we work for justice. A God that calls us to see the needs of the world and place them above our own self-centered concerns so that all may be free and brought to an awareness of the presence of God in their own lives. As our gospel today reminds us, our wrestling with God is meant to aware of the strength and resources we have to answer the hungers and needs that surround us.

In this time of COVID-19, we as a faith community are also being called to wrestle with who we are and how we can best serve God. And it is here that Jesus, God made human flesh, shows us the way: by encouraging us to look around us, to see the hunger and need around us, and, very practically, to meet those needs. To claim our power and identity as disciples, even when our wrestling may still be ongoing.

May we all find the courage to wrestle with God, to wrestle with ourselves, as we seek to live deeper into the challenge of living in this in-between time.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online worship service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, on August 2, 2020 during rising levels of COVID19 infection.

Readings:

Genesis 32:22-31Psalm 17:1-7,16Romans 9:1-5Matthew 14:13-21

Prayer, day 2742: Seeking the Nourishment of God

Wondrous Creator,
all that is has been hallowed
and shaped by your loving hand:
help us to see the wisdom and beauty
You have woven into the fabric of creation,
and knit into the bones of all living beings,
from rock and tree to stranger and friend.

We are tiny seedlings seeking your light,
O Holy and Blessed Maker:
make us mighty redwoods in the grove off your kingdom,
interconnected at our roots by love and faithfulness.
Help us to grow upright with integrity, Blessed Savior,
generously giving comfort to others
like the cool shade of a glade at noonday.

Lead us, O Spirit of God,
to stretch our arms ever toward each other,
and to be a blessing for the world.
Grant your mercy, O God,
on all the concerns we bear in our hearts,
and grant your peace to those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2730

You are near, O God.
Remind us to draw close as well.
Thru the night watches
we have called You between dreams:
Your love never sleeps.
We thank You, Loving One,
for your word in which we trust.
We meditate upon your promises,
for You are always at our right hand when we need You.
With our whole heart we call to You,
for you redeem us and give us strength.
Give aid, we pray
for these whom we now name,
that they may be comforted and praise your Name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2700

O Holy One, 
blessed be your Name:
You are our light and salvation,
abiding with us in sunshine or in shadow. 

It is You, O God,
who holds us fast in the palm of your hand. 
It is You, O Loving One, 
whose angels sit with us
when we are awakened by troubles in the night. 

You have whispered your comfort in our ear 
and soothed our brow in sleep: 
You have gentled us and given us peace. 
Your love sustains us 
as we turn our face to the dawning of the day, 
and calls us back when we wander into the brambles. 

May we seek You as our companion and guide 
in our journeys this day, O Most High. 
Give ear, O merciful God, 
as we confide in You our needs and concerns, 
drawing those in need into your embrace.

Amen.

Prayer 2542

Most Merciful God, 
we offer You our thanks and praise. 
The blessing of the morning light 
awakens us to the sure and certain promise 
that we have slept under the watchful hand of God. 

And now let us rise, 
and with full hearts greet the day, 
emptying ourselves of all but the desire to serve You, 
O God, Our Companion and Our Hope, 
by serving each other and embodying your lovingkindness,
sustained by the breath you have given us. 

May our restless hearts be alight with your wisdom,
O Ruler of the Ages, 
and may we come to rest within the lea of your mercy, 
offering You our gratitude 
for your grace and presence with us 
through our Savior Jesus Christ. 

 Whatever this day may bring,
may we remember your steadfast love with joyful hearts, 
and breathe in your peace and comfort
especially in the cares and challenges we encounter.

Holy One, grant us your blessing,
and pour out your mercy upon all
whose cares are lifted before You.

Amen.