We Had Hoped: Speaking to the Soul, April 20, 2023

Luke 24:13-24

We had hoped
that he would redeem Israel,
make Israel great again, a power among powers.

We had hoped
that he would cleanse us of sin
without changing us too much–
that he would keep out of politics,
hate all the people we do,
and keep us comfortable in our prejudices.

But instead,
he appears to us as a stranger,
slightly shiny around the edges,
but a stranger
making our hearts burn,
setting us aflame
for the love of the world
including all those we render invisible,
powerless,
voiceless,
and excluded from the table.

In the breaking of the bread,
he is at once revealed and vanishes,
lightning crashes at our feet
and rolls away the stone of our hearts.

He vanishes into those he renders visible
by his companionship and kinship,
and bids us welcome all to the table
where he is at once both host and guest.

This is the eternal life he gives:
to be his hands
pierced yet restored
that break bread
and hearts
open
tenderly
on the way to Emmaus
and beyond.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 20, 2023.

Guests, Not Hosts: Speaking to the Soul for August 25, 2022

In the beginning, 

our very first story about ourselves ends
with the reminder we were born hungry,
body and soul:

On the day before God rested, at the dawn
of time, God granted the newborn humanity
every herb and fruit tree for our food,
sprung from the same soil
as we were. God invites us all
to a seat at the wedding table of creation-
creation we are bound to
creation we are bound to care for,
into which we ourselves are woven
as a part of the whole. There is
one table, and it is the altar
and sacred precincts
of life itself, insisting on our unity
in shared need for nourishment.

And so it is that we are reminded
in our body’s hunger, and by our food,
from the juiciest boredom-plucked berry
and truffles worth their weight in gold,
to bologna with spelled-out first and second names,
that all the sustenance we receive
is provided from this fragile planet
by God’s tender loving-kindness.

And so it is the soul’s hunger
draws us around God’s holy table
for a foretaste of heaven,
bearing our offerings from God’s creation
formed by human hands, yes,
but sacrament at the invocation
of the finger of God in our midst.
It’s a wonder
our hair doesn’t stand on end.

We are fed
not through our words
but by holy gift
that calls us into God’s own unity.

You can have communion,
or you can have competition,
but not both.
We share with each other
what is not ours to give
or take away.

There can be no jostling or jockeying
for the best place at this table, just rejoicing
that all are invited,
that there is room to spare,
that we are guests, not hosts.

-- This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 25, 2022.

Beauty Broken Open: Speaking to the Soul for April 14, 2022

(Maundy Thursday, 2022)

When I was a child, our neighbors across the street, Veta and Myron, were a retired school principal and a retired school counselor. They were generous with their time—inviting us over to play on the swing set they still had up even though their son was long grown and gone. In a rarity for Tulsa, their home sat atop a cellar, and there our neighbor had a collection of rocks, semi-precious stones, and fossils. There were dozens of rose rocks, the State Rock of Oklahoma. He told me about the great inland sea that had once covered the central part of North America, and showed me rocks he had brought back from trips all over the continent. It didn’t take long until I was hooked, and I spent hours over there learning.

One day, he handed me a mud-colored gray-brown orb. It was perfectly round, and surprisingly light—about the size of a croquet ball. I thought it was pretty cool. Then he handed me a hammer. I was confused when he told me to put the rock on the work bench and hit it. But eventually I realized he was serious and did as I was told, not too hard. After a couple of whacks, the thing cracked, and he gave one more expert tap and the orb cracked open. Inside there was a glowing array of light lavender colored crystals. He told me it was a geode. He then let me take my treasure home. I wondered that something so drab and nondescript could be so beautiful when it was broken open.

Tonight, we observe Maundy Thursday—a day when we ourselves are invited to be broken open to the beauty and pathos of these next three holiest of days in the Christian calendar. Our service tonight begins what's known as the Triduum, the great three days leading up to Easter Sunday. In the early church, the Maundy Thursday service always began after sundown, just before Passover will begin for our beloved Jewish kindred after sundown tomorrow.

It is traditional for Christians to meet for a simple meal, engaging in foot washing as a sign of our servanthood, just as Jesus set an example for us, and then have Holy Communion one last time until the Great Vigil. And as we share together this Holy Communion, we are called to re-member that Jesus takes and blesses the bread before the meal itself has really started—he takes it and urges that it be broken and shared among those who sit with him at table for the meal. That bread cannot be shared unless it is broken. It cannot be used for eating the rest of the food. It must be broken in the same way that dawn must be broken, in the same way that geode must be broken in order to allow the beauty within to dazzle our eyes.

Tonight, we are reminded that Jesus gathers us, just as he did those apostles on that night long ago, and offers us the Peace of God, not for our own comfort only, but so that we can share and embody that Peace and Grace to those around us. Tonight we remember that Jesus showed us that the heart of love is service—humble, tender, and compassionate. Jesus shows us in word and action how to live the best life we can have. Tonight Jesus shows that only in breaking ourselves open can we be then filled with eternal life and love.

Tonight may we be willing to be broken open ourselves, broken open to the call of love and community and service to our neighbors and to creation, especially during these next beautiful three days.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 14, 2022.

Prayer 2053: A Song of Praise

In peace,
I rest in contemplation before you, O Creator:
your mercies are new every morning.
The heavens dance to the melody of creation:
as I rise and turn my face to the sun, 
let me sing a song of gratitude
from the foundation of my soul,
for I know that our Redeemer lives.

Let my delight and faith in you, O God,
always be green and flourishing:
plant my heart within your domain,
in the verdant garden of your grace,
and enclose me within the beauty of your dwelling.

Blessed Jesus, my hope is ever in you:
You are my companion and my shield,
my savior and my shepherd.

Lead us into wisdom and compassion,
O Spirit of Healing and Holiness,
that we remember our kinship with all the earth
and walk mindfully in companionship with all creation.
Holy One, anoint us with the oil of gladness,
and grant your peace like a balm
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Illustration: a Dine Tree of Life rug.

Wonder All Around: Sermon for Proper 16B

It all started with a memory and a pair of miracles.

The memory was the story of God providing manna in the wilderness, which was the first miracle. The second miracle was the one we heard five weeks ago, where Jesus took five barley loaves and two fish and turned them into a feast for over five thousand people.

The crowds that have been following Jesus around after he fed that multitude on the grassy shore saw what Jesus did, and immediately thought he was a second Moses. They started talking about manna in the wilderness with a wistfulness that only someone who hadn’t had to eat manna every single day for 40 years could manage. Manna was what God provided when the Israelites complained about their hunger during the Exodus from Egypt. And those crowds were hungry, no doubt about it.

They might have thought twice about eating it if they had acknowledged what it really is. In her book Bread of Angels, renowned Episcopal preacher Barbara Brown Taylor described what manna was in one of her sermons. Manna is believed to be basically dried bug spit,
… or something that rhymes with spit.

Mmm! Dinner!

See, these plant lice in the desert have to frantically eat a lot of sap from a certain kind of tree, and they then have to excrete the excess. Those secretions, dried in the hot desert air, form a flaky substance that to this day is gathered and baked into cakes called manna, which actually means, “What is it?”(1)



And I bet some of you are thinking, “I wish I didn’t know what it is, either.”

Sometimes, just like with hot dogs or Slim Jims or pork rinds—all things I grew up eating as a kid-- it’s just better not to know what’s in something, I guess. But, manna was better than nothing. So basically they ate something called “whatchamacallit” for forty long years in the desert.

Yet at the same time, that’s a long time to eat one thing and not grow to hate it. I was only in college for four years, not forty, but my manna was ramen noodles. Ramen noodles were cheap and easy—ten cents and some boiling water, and you keep body and soul together so you can buy $200 art history textbooks you may never open again! And so I ate ramen noodles a fraction of the time that the Israelites ate manna in the wilderness, but for years afterward I would shudder when I thought about it.

Not manna.

Through the beautiful amnesia of time I now can look back at those days fondly—kind of, like with childbirth. And generations later, those crowds following Jesus had heard the stories of their ancestors eating manna often enough that the idea had become wonderful. Manna was transformed from dried bug spit to something magical in their minds. So they have been pestering Jesus for manna for the entire sixth chapter of John.

But Jesus loves them too much to offer them dried bug spit. He offers them—and us-- something better. He offers us himself. He asks us to believe, and through that belief to invite Jesus to abide within each of us. In doing so, we then abide in Jesus.

Yet because he is being honest, the complaints begin, which turns into anger and offense. “Whoa, now Jesus!” the crowds cry out. “All we want is manna—full bellies without thinking about it too much, so we can go on about our lives.” Again and again, Jesus offers himself to us. Yet too often we’d rather have bug spit.

For five weeks now we have been taking a detour into the Gospel of John and the teachings on Jesus as the bread of life. Maybe they thought Jesus was kidding. But now, in John’s gospel for this Sunday, even the disciples are confounded by Jesus’s sayings about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Some of them recoil in bewildered hurt, blinking their eyes as if emerging from a dream into bright sunlight.

For some of them, the dream was that Jesus would be Moses getting God to conjure up manna. For others of them, the dream was that Jesus would be a warrior king like David or Solomon, perhaps; and walking in the footsteps of his royal ancestor he would vanquish all the foes of the Jews and sit once again in splendor upon a throne.

Or the dream was that the Messiah would be a valiant rebel like the Maccabees, that he would swoop down upon the oppressors of Israel like an avenging fire. His glory would be the people’s glory. Some in the crowd now wonder if they haven’t been following a madman rather than a prophet, a healer, a miracle-worker. They asked for manna and Jesus gives them riddles about eating his own body. 

That’s what we’ve been puzzling over alongside that crowd for more than a month. We don’t get what we think we want, and so then we are blinded from seeing the good things we DO receive. 

God’s good gifts to us come in packages we often may not be ready for or be able to really appreciate, in ways both great and small. In every instant, life changes, and we can either see those changes as challenges or gifts. In the words of my people, as blessin’s, or lessons.

Jesus invites us to share in the real life of God, if only we can open our eyes and really see the signs of God’s love all around us, although it may not be what we though we wanted at the time.

For instance: all summer long, oh, it’s dry and hot, and who can stand it? But just like that, here’s a wonder! Suddenly from leaden skies rain materializes, determinedly tracing a straight path to the ground. Then the trees begin murmuring louder as the raindrops grow larger and more percussive on the leaves, and the hummingbirds dash for shelter under the leaves of the Rose of Sharon that my husband calls weeds, which are exactly the same size as their bodies. The bees tuck themselves inside the pink, white, and lavender blooms or under the broad leaves of hostas that bounce under the weight of fat raindrops. And everything waits. This will pass, but really, aren’t those leaden skies a blessing? And aren’t we dependent upon those birds and bees for our very life?

Just like that: your heart beats a steady rhythm in your chest, you breathe in and out thousands of times each day, air scented with the slightest tinge of wet grass and jasmine and crushed marigold and maybe even wet, adoring dog if you’re lucky. Just for a moment you KNOW the beating of that heart, the miracle that drives it steadily on, bringing you each precious moment working in tandem with each precious breath.

And just for a moment, instead of motoring through the mad scramble of your day, maybe as you sit at yet another interminable stoplight on Manchester Road, or are held like a hostage at yet another rotten meeting that could have been an email, or as you soothe a fretful toddler who has refused to fall asleep unless sweatily sprawled across your lap clutching your finger at 1 am, you feel the wonder of that heartbeat that has brought you to this moment and made it precious rather than something to be endured.

Suddenly everything shifts in your perception, what was unclear comes into focus, and you feel a spark within you catch and begin to grow into a hopeful flame that there is wonder all around us.

It was all good when Jesus was passing around the bread and sardines. But just like that, Jesus’s teachings HAVE proven too hard for some of his followers. They have not signed on for this. To drink blood and to eat flesh is unimaginable. They asked for bread, and Jesus seems to be giving them stones. Worse than stones, actually, they think. Jesus speaks matter-of-factly to them about bewildering mysteries when they were asking for another miraculous sign. “Moses,” they said, “laid out feasts in the wilderness. We want bread just like that.” They wanted manna, which they called the bread of angels, but Jesus instead gives them riddles. And so, many leave.

But a few remain—then and now. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." The ones who leave and the ones who stay do not yet understand that, better than loaves and crumbs, Jesus is offering himself to them—and to us.

Too often, we fall into the silken trap that undergirds our modern world—the stubborn insistent voice that insists that each person is in control of his or her own destiny. Other people will get there first, and there won’t be enough to go around. We are driven by fear of scarcity, fear of the Other. We scramble after manna and ignore the feast Christ offers us.

Jesus, however, reveals a different standard for defining reality. Jesus comes into the world as part of God’s proclamation “God loves, therefore we are.” God freely sends God’s Son into the world as the Incarnate Word through love. There it is in John 3:16—“ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus is the sign and representation, the icon of God’s love for the world, love that feeds and sustains real life, not just existence.

Oh, that’s hard for us to believe, I know. Too often, we too, bustle about and want things NOW, and we miss the blessings laid before us. God’s Son becomes human flesh and lives alongside us to remind us of how we all are created in the likeness of God. When we choose to abide in Jesus and invite him to abide in us, we change just like that into who God has called us to be: truly one. Truly alive. Truly human.

The miracle of God’s love is bound up in the ordinary. We offer up bread and wine and water, ordinary stuff from the Earth, formed and shaped by human hands, and God uses that ordinary stuff to remind us that we ARE the body of Christ in the world. That we are not separate doubting minds, but each one of us is part of a community of disciples gathered together by the love Christ himself embodies in the world.

Jesus, the Holy One of God, who was and is and ever shall be, stands before us in every moment, even when we are scared or anxious or joyful, asking to be allowed in, to feed us in a way that sustains us. To see that all we have that really lasts is made not of flour or rice or grape, but of the wondrous, self-giving love revealed to us throughout creation. Jesus is calling us to the table not just so that we can be fed but so that we can love and know that we are loved ourselves and then take that out in the world and LIVE it where it is so desperately needed. This love is what brings life to the world-- a true banquet spread before us in the wilderness.

All that we need is here. Let us taste, and not just see, but believe and know and become. There is wonder all around. And it starts with being fed by love.

Amen.


Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, at the 505 on August 25, and at 8:00 and 10:15 am on August 26, 2018.



Readings:
1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

References:
1) Barbara Brown Taylor, "Bread of Angels," in Bread of Angels, pp. 6-11. This sermon was a godsend to helping me reorganize my thoughts as I tried to bring the sermons of the last few weeks together.

Illustrations:
1) Medieval painting of Israelites gathering manna falling from heaven. Check out the freakishly disproportionate fingers pointing toward heaven.
2) Secretions from plant lice on a tamarisk tree, from http://flora.org.il/books/plant-stories-2/chapter-e/useful_plants_e7/.
3) Bee pollinating a Rose of Sharon flower in our backyard.
4) Communion bread baked by my dear friend Pamela Dolan for my and my friends Andrew and Maria's ordination to the priesthood on Jun 29, 2017.

Prayer 2034: inspired by John 6:1-15

Creating One,
Earth-maker, Redeemer, Sanctifier,
we rise from our rest to breathe in your peace.

May we seek to serve You, Lord Christ,
in humility and hope,
in trust and faithfulness.
Gather us around you, O Shepherd:
may we hear your voice of blessing
and offer you our all.
By the power of the Holy Spirit,
bless us and break us open
to be filled with new life and wisdom,
that we may testify to your lovingkindness and healing,
Blessed Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer,
Source of Life and Light,
you call us into communion with you and each other:
dwell within us,
that we may be your hands in the world.

Spirit of the Living God,
consecrate us and bless us this day,
and grant your comfort and protection to all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Love in Flesh and Blood: Sermon for Proper 15B

I grew up in the so-called “Bible Belt,” in churches that did not observe formal liturgy, in places that never spoke of the word “sacrament” or pondered what that word might mean. Yet, the first time I took part in an Episcopal liturgy when I was 12 years old, I felt an astonishing thing come over me. 

At one level, I had no idea what was happening. Instead of sitting still, listening to a 40 minute sermon followed by a twenty minute altar call, there was all this movement—what the late great comedian and Episcopalian Robin Williams called “pew aerobics.” Up, down. Stand, sit, kneel. Genuflecting. Bowing. Crossing yourself. Juggling a service leaflet and a prayer book and a hymnal—and, this being Oklahoma— a Bible.

But it was at the start of the Holy Communion part of the service that I was absolutely broken open, heart, body, and soul. It was there that I truly felt to be a part of the great body of the Church, and felt received and accepted as I was, with all my faults. I saw how the practice of communion empowered the church, with each and every one of us as a full minister of it, to offer ourselves and all the world’s prayers before God. It left me reeling and rejoicing, all at the same time.

Jesus’s words today can leave us reeling, too. Jesus reminds us that he is the living bread sent by the living Father, and that by taking Jesus into our physical bodies we are made one with him. That promise resounds for us two thousand years later and asks us to take it seriously. And that’s hard for us. The gospel is so radical and life-changing that we often can’t help but try to tame it a little—or a lot. We try to domesticate it, water it down, and therefore place it under our control. But that’s exactly what Jesus is pushing back against in our gospel today. His words call us to renew our understanding of how earth-shaking this act of communion and thanksgiving really is.

For weeks now, Jesus has declared that he is the bread of life, and the crowd asked him for this bread, always. And we DO have it always, in the Eucharist. In our faith that lives and breathes through us, when we let it. We have it always, when we open our hearts to the presence of Christ within us, both as individuals and as a parish and in the world at large.

Count how many times the word “life” or some form of it appears in this reading. We are talking about matters of life and death here—literally. Perhaps a question we can ask ourselves is this: are we really living, or are we just existing? Are we opening ourselves to the blessings and wonders of God’s gifts to us, and then seeking to reflect that joy and hope and light into the world?

There are often times that we get so overwhelmed that we just drift along, reacting rather than being mindful. And who can blame us? There seems to be a constant tattoo of bad news—illnesses, crises, struggles to put food on the table, struggles to find time to spend with those we love, political turmoil, natural disasters—the list goes on and on. Yet it is at moments such as these that we sometimes have to be shaken out of our cycle of anxiety, take a deep breath, and remember that we are not in this alone.

Look again at this passage. Jesus PROMISES us full, rich, abundant life in him—true and real communion with him and in him. That communion with Jesus also draws us into a precious communion with each other. Such devotion Jesus offers us can be overwhelming.

Jesus is asking us to have faith enough to let ourselves be wide open to his grace, light and truth.
To have faith in the Way of Jesus, a way that is governed by a wisdom that goes against the cynicism and miserly fears that attempt to dominate us.
To be wide open to being fed with the very substance of love.
Jesus is asking to be welcomed into our inmost beings, and to recognize our oneness with the divine love that is at the beating heart of the spiritual life-- of life itself.

If we take that seriously, of course it shocks us. 

Jesus’s words this week are meant to shock his listeners. When he talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, it probably makes most of us uncomfortable, and rightfully so. But even in our discomfort, we also need to see that Jesus is stating as forcefully as he can that he will feed us with his very self, seeking to be alongside us and within us always. And that’s why, for many of us, Eucharist is such a central part of our worship together each week. Yet hopefully it never becomes for us something commonplace, something expected, something routine. I personally hope to never take this for granted.

I remember the first time I listened to the Eucharistic prayer in an Episcopal church, and was invited to kneel alongside people who were largely strangers to me and raise my hands to receive this miraculous sacrament. Something electric went through me, and I have never been the same since. Even though it is years later, I can still see the faces of those around me as together we received the Body and Blood of Jesus. Each time we gather around this altar, we are joined together, and not just within this service or within this building, but across time and distance. 

My father was not a church-going man, and hardly ever took communion that I can recall, yet in his last days, a priest from one of the churches I attended in Tulsa came to minister to my dad, assuring him of God’s love and offering him and all of us in the room communion. It gave him a sense of peace which I had seldom seen within him. I am convinced that every time we share in communion, he is there alongside me, and all those we love and see no more are gathered with us too. This altar stretches through time and space as we reaffirm that we all share in the heavenly banquet.

Sharing in the Eucharist together reminds us that eternity is not something trapped in the future but is now. If “Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ will come again”… if Jesus “was, and is, and shall be, world without end, amen”… then we participate in Christ’s life right now when we gather together in worship and singing and praise (as was discussed in our reading from Ephesians), and certainly when we eat of Christ’s body and drink of his blood. We are then “in Christ, and he in us.” 

And isn’t that what the Christian life is all about? To be transformed and transform ourselves and others; to be healed and to heal ourselves and others; to be fed and to feed ourselves and others. If we are in Christ and Christ is in us, we aren’t just waiting around for God to fix us or fix our society or fix our world. We are part of the life of God. Can we have faith enough to turn that around, and let God be a part of our lives, in the ways that really matter?

This is sacrament: a making holy of ourselves regardless of place, rank or time. In our gospel passage Jesus promises us this gift as part of his living ministry. We are given this gift for our benefit, and for the benefit and service of the entire world—no exceptions.

And while sacraments are all around us, and we live in what Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple called “a sacramental universe,” this sacrament of communion, along with the sacrament of baptism, melts away our walls and defenses, uniting us as one Body even outside the walls of this parish church. It reminds us that we are not just individuals, but we are members of the Body of Christ, and charges us to be Jesus’s hands, eyes, and heart in the world.

It’s an incredible thing. “This is my Body, given for you” has a multiplicity of meaning and seems foolish when we hear it. Yet through this statement, we reach up with hopeful hands and we accept that gift of Christ’s very body for us. We are also made part of that Body, and are thus called to sacrifice and service, ourselves. This sacrifice is not just done for us, but is done by us, and with us, and in us, and throughout the world. We all are empowered as ministers through this sharing and being willing to share.

It also means that, as Christ lives within us, sustaining us both body and soul, so we must be about the very real work of sustaining others. Living as Christ’s Body in the world calls us to hold nothing back, but to offer of ourselves in response to very real hunger we encounter in the world.

Here, around this altar, we meet a God who loves us enough to be one OF us. Jesus holds nothing back from us, but becomes one WITH us in spirit but also in our very bodies, absorbed into our very cells and sinews and bones. In defiance of our failures and shortcomings, because Jesus is always there with us, we become love in our bones; we are anchored within the eternal life and love of God, no matter where we are at that moment—in happiness or sorrow, in comfort or in pain, in joy or mourning, in peace or in turmoil.

In all times and in all places, may we trust in your promises, Beloved Savior, and remember that we are one with you, and you with us.

Amen.


Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, August 18 at the 505, and on August 19 at 8:00 and 10:15 am.

Readings:
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

Images:
1) Joey Velasco (1967-2010), Filipino, Hapag ng Pag-asa (Table of Hope)
2) from wiirocku.tumblr.com
3) detail from an early depiction of the Heavenly Banquet

Out of the Box: Sermon for Proper 14B

There’s an illustration that has gone around the internet and has caught my eye several times. It shows an empty cardboard box, flaps flung open, with a post-it note inside. On this post-it note is this message: “I don’t fit in your box,” and it’s signed “—God.”

This pointed yet humorous reminder is definitely what we see going on in our gospel reading today. First the crowds, and now Jesus’s opponents in the religious community of Judea try to force Jesus into the box they have created for who they think he is. If he IS the Messiah, he should do “X.” If he’s only “Joseph’s son,” he should only be able to do “Z.” All of these descriptions come with specific presuppositions.

For the second time since Easter, we get a gospel reading that includes people scoffing at Jesus and selling him short, based on their perceived familiarity with him and his family. This reaction of “who does he think he is?” is a common one that many of us experience in our lifetimes. How many of us have experienced that at one time or another, or maybe even right now, in some area of our lives? In my own life, people often assumed that because of my slight drawl on certain words, I just wasn't very smart. It’s maddening, isn’t it?

Jesus has just fed a multitude, and the religious leaders are shaken by that, and resentful. Just who does this Jesus think he is???

It is at this point that I remember something I learned a long time ago in the early days of my teaching career: be careful what you ask, because you just MIGHT get an answer you were not expecting. I learned this after watching a colleague ask a surly teenager, “Do you think I’m stupid?” Let me tell you, don’t ask a teenager that question, especially a surly one. You will probably get an answer you won’t like. 

Jesus answers his critics, and he answers them forcefully and directly. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty…. I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Unsurprisingly, this was NOT the answer they were looking for.

This statement is the first of the seven “I am” statements in the gospel of John. This particular claim is shocking because only Torah was referred to as the bread of life in Judaism at that time, so those who do not follow him see this claim as Jesus approaching if not crossing over toward blasphemy. What Jesus is saying here, though, for those who approached him then, and for those of us who approach him now, is that he is not going to fit in our boxes.

Ultimately, there is a very important question embedded in this gospel: who IS Jesus, especially for us today? How do we encounter Jesus, living in the time we do?

Part of the answer lies in the importance of community, which is necessary for us as Episcopalians each time we prepare to celebrate Holy Communion. In our theology, it is impossible to have communion as a solitary act. There have to be at least two or more people in order to ask the Holy Spirit to consecrate the bread and the wine—I mean after all, that’s part of what communion means-- being together. Gathered around this table, we declare that we are “com-panions,’ literally, those who share bread. In the original Latin, com means “together with,” and “pan” means bread.

It is also in the sacrament of the Eucharist that we remember Christ’s incarnation from birth through death and resurrection and then taste and see Christ—where we obey his commandment to eat of his body and drink of his blood.

As the Son of God incarnate, in common human flesh, Jesus is not going to be the kind of leader or Messiah that people want. Rather, Jesus became human so that we could see God in a way we have never seen God before—and so that we could then imitate his example to the utmost of our abilities. 

Some people have used these verses in our gospel today to make exclusionary claims about God—that God will care for you ONLY if you do “X” or “Y.”

Yet that’s OUR box, again. 

What we also remember is that God’s call is to everyone. God is the One who makes sure ALL are fed, and fed abundantly—who sent the Son of God to be with us and alongside us, sharing our pains and our sufferings along with our joys, never ever giving up on us despite our repeated failures—and asks us to do nothing more than the same for each other in imitation of Christ. If we ourselves receive abundant amazing grace, we ourselves are called to give abundant, amazing grace to each other, whether friend or stranger.

As Christians, we are called to remember that, as our first verse from Ephesians today reminds us, “We are members of one another,”—and then to love each other accordingly. We are called to be transformed in pursuing the imitation of Christ. Our reading from Ephesians is about how we are called to be transformed once we accept Christ into our lives. It is not enough simply to believe in God and believe in Jesus, or even to have a “relationship” with Christ. Rather, we are called to live according to the example that Christ set for us, as hard as that may be.

That transformation starts with walking in love—in kindness, humility, and compassion for each other and this beautiful earth upon which we all depend. Why be kind? The very next sentence provides the answer: because being kind is integral to who God is, and as God’s children, as Christians, imitating God must be central to who WE are, if we are living the resurrection life called for in this passage and in our gospel. It also means paring away things which are damaging to our relationships with other members of the Body of Christ—lying, holding onto anger or grudges, bitterness, or slander—all things that have become all too common and sometimes even admired in our common lives together.

As noted last week, the call that we live into when we take hold of the promise of eternal life in the here and now is what can be expressed as a Eucharistically-shaped life, that starts with offering, gratitude, and communion with each other, shared for the life of the world. A sacramental life, which literally means a life that makes the ordinary holy. We do not come to this table for solace and pardon only, but for strength and renewal, to paraphrase the words in Eucharistic Prayer C. Jesus gives himself to us as the bread of life, so that we may give ourselves for others in imitation of him, as our reading from Ephesians today urges us.

There is an important caveat, however: in imitating Christ, we are NOT called to be JUST imitations, but REAL members of the Body of Christ.

Jesus’s critics start from the premise that Jesus is just an ordinary guy. And indeed, he was not born into a wealthy or notable family. He probably even had some version of a drawl. He was born in the backwateriest of backwaters, in the dusty, oppressed corner of a mighty empire, and he wasn’t even a citizen of that empire but a member of a subdued, occupied people. Yet within that ordinary flesh comes something extraordinary. And that same thing happens in the Eucharist every time we gather together and ask the Holy Spirit to consecrate the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine.

God declares God’s love for the material world and for us in working through common and ordinary things: bread, wine, water, you and me. God transforms the common elements of the earth, harvested and formed by human hands, into the “Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven,” and the “Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.” And in eating that bread and drinking from that cup, we ourselves declare ourselves to BE the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven to the world. 

That’s not ordinary—it’s extraordinary. Jesus breaks out of all attempts we make to box him in. And in doing so, he calls us to break out of the boxes we put ourselves-- and others-- in. As we gather around this table, we join hands and hearts as members of each other, fed by the bread of life, Jesus, so that we can feed, heal, and love each other. And carry that love right out into the world. Love that cannot be contained. Love that won't fit in a box.

Amen.


Preached at the 505 on August 11, and at 8:00 and 10:15 am at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

Prayer 2024: Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

Creating God,
we gather to worship You,
joining our hands and hearts around your altars,
rejoicing to hear your Word.

Bread of Life, your nourish us and nurture us,
offering us abundant grace and hope,
calling us to live and love as Your children.
Help us live a life shaped by communion
and work for true peace and justice in the world,
resolute and compassionate,
united by your Spirit.
Sanctify and hallow our offerings:
our bread and wine,
our hearts, souls, and bodies,
that we may walk as companions in your Way,
healing and reconciling in the Name of Christ.

Almighty One, Holy Trinity,
we place ourselves into your tender care,
and lay before you the concerns of our hearts as we pray.

Amen.


Image: Jesus, eucharist, and the twelve, Ethiopan.

Prayer 2002: Inspired by Matthew 26:26-35

(Matthew 26:24-35)
Holy One, Creator and Sovereign,
we breathe in your love
and seek your face always,
rejoicing in the power of creation and renewal
You are constantly stirring up within us.

May we be steadfast in loving you and each other, Holy Savior,
in living according to your precepts,
in giving abundantly according to your example.
May we be fed and nurtured
by your wisdom and compassion,
remembering that the table is wide,
and that You, Blessed Jesus,
call all to be invited to the feast,
joined as one people, one body, one family.
May our cup overflow
with profligate grace and mercy,
that we may be your hands and heart in the world,
healing and reconciling in the Name of Love.

By the power of the Holy Spirit,
consecrate us to your service today,
and pour out your blessing
upon those whose needs we raise before You.

Amen.

Love in Communion: Sermon for Trinity Sunday B

I spent the first thirteen years of my professional life teaching middle school English, and one of the most basic things with which many of my students struggled was what was known as “subject-verb agreement.” You know: if you have a singular noun, you use a singular form of the verb attached to it, and if you have a plural noun, you use the plural form of the verb attached to it.

This should be simple—but in English there are always exceptions. One of those exceptions is this: there are some nouns that remain the same word, whether singular or plural. Like “moose.” Or “bison.” Or “news.” Or “shrimp”—unless you are British. With these words, we have to think hard about whether we use “is” or “are” for instance, because we only know if they are singular or plural based on the context.

Trinity, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Webster Groves

In Christianity, “Trinity” is another one of those words. Sometimes we speak of the Trinity in the singular, as a unity. Sometimes we speak of the Trinity in the plural, as three distinct “persons” or “aspects.” But the problem is, no matter how we try to speak about the Trinity, we run into the danger of limiting the relationship within the Trinity in ways that make one aspect dominant over the others, instead of “one in being,” as we say in the words of the Nicene Creed. It’s not made any easier by the fact that, while various terms for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all mentioned in scripture, the term “Trinity” itself does not appear anywhere in most modern translations of either the Old or New Testaments.

And yet each one of our readings can be seen as describing aspects of the Trinity. The Spirit of God calls to Isaiah and we hear both the singular and the plural in that call: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And Isaiah plucks up the courage to answer even as the vision he sees overwhelms him. In Romans chapter 8, Christ is described as the one who reconciles us to God, the Spirit leads us and bears witness within us, and the Father adopts us as children. All three aspects work together to redeem us and restore us to proper relationship as beloved children of God. Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus depicts the Jesus the Son talking about both God the Father and the Holy Spirit coordinating in the work of salvation—and just like us, Nicodemus probably emerged from that conversation more confused than ever.

This encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus reminds us that too often, we are more like Nicodemus than we realize—we may think we have God all figured out, only to find that God upends our comfortable certainties with endless and therefore discomfiting possibilities.

Even saints tread carefully around trying to define the Trinity, and most agree it is far safer to talk about what the Trinity is NOT, rather than what the Trinity IS. It is at this point that I have to tell you how excited I am that we have a visual aid for this right here in the rose window behind me, made by the good people of Emil Frei associates, my favorite stained glass artists. This does not always happen in such a convenient manner for a preacher, let me tell you.

Very useful window...

Have you ever looked at this window? Do you see what’s going on here? I am certainly no scholar of Latin, but you can see an example of that kind of negative explanation of the Trinity right there in the window behind me, visually representing the Trinitarian formula of blessing. The Father is NOT (that’s what “non est” means) the Spirit, the Spirit is NOT the Son, and the Son is NOT the Father. Yet all three are connected at the center to make up God—Deus, in Latin. Thus, the Father IS God; the Holy Spirit IS God; and the Son IS God. Together. All different, yet all working together actively and equally in creation as God.

And God is at the very center, so that as we look at this image, we are reminded that we are drawn by love into God’s very existence, the existence that is the center and gift of our own lives. 

Because language is limited and we are finite creatures, we speak imperfectly about God. St. Irenaeus, one of the so-called Fathers of the Church, argued against heresy that the “persons” of the Trinity were not equal partners, and that the God of the Old Testament was different from and inferior to the God described in the New Testament. One of the most famous metaphors Irenaeus used to talk about proof of the Trinity throughout scripture was based upon the statement in Genesis 1:26, where God says “Let US make humankind in OUR image, in OUR likeness…” Following the argument of St. Justin, Irenaeus argued that the use of the plural “us” showed evidence of the Son and the Spirit in God’s own voice.

In a beautiful image, Irenaeus then refers to the Word (Jesus) and the Wisdom of God (the Holy Spirit) taking part in creation as being like the hands of God that are mentioned in the psalms and elsewhere as molding and shaping creation. Irenaeus said, “In carrying out his intended work of creation, God did not need any help from angels, as if he did not have his own hands. For he has always at his side this Word and this Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit. Through them and in them he created all things of his own free will. And to them he says, ‘Let us make human beings in our own image and likeness.’”(1)

I like to think of that even more specifically: God the Father is the ground of our being, and the Son and Holy Spirit are like embracing arms that draw us into union with God and with each other. Yet I admit that this is just one image, and that for all its beauty it is still too limited to express the full glory of God.

The doctrine of the Trinity, as difficult to define as it is, nonetheless teaches us some valuable truths. First, that no matter what, as Nicodemus was reminded, we can never rest on our own reasoning or knowledge to know God—God is a beautiful mystery, yet at the same time absolutely a loving, involved presence in each of our lives. Second, the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that relationship in community is at the heart of the life of faithfulness. We know God through God’s initiative, not ours, because God’s very being is love. Whenever we seek out God in prayer, in worship, in joy, in anxiety, in sorrow, God invites us into relationship.

God as Trinity declares that God is, by nature, relational: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, as we hear in our Book of Common Prayer. Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-Giver, in the words of the New Zealand Prayer Book. Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. No matter the terms we use, they can only partially express the active love of God in our lives. The three “persons” of the Trinity nonetheless are mysteriously but ultimately one, bound together in what can only be described as a dance of love into which we, as God’s beloved children, are invited, even if we ourselves think we only have two left feet. Yet we are made to dance, because if we are created in God’s image, that means we are created also to be fully who God created us to be only when we too live in community and communion with others.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us of the relationship and community at the heart of God’s very nature in his book he co-authored with the Dalai Lama, entitled The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. He writes, “Certainly in our sort of prayer, it is never the alone speaking to the alone. Our concept of God is of a God who is one, but who is a fellowship, a community, the Trinity. And we are made in the image of this God. When you become a Christian, you are incorporated into a fellowship." (2)

We are thus reminded that relationship is at the heart of being Christian. This is tonic in a society in which so many people feel isolated, marginalized, and beseiged, a society in which we see a marked tendency by many to define themselves against those who are different from "us."

But that is contrary to the very nature of God. The fellowship of love at the heart of God, and to which we are called, is not limited by the walls of this building, nor by race, nor by flag, nor by nationality. The fellowship to which we are called by God’s love is a fellowship with all creation. The Trinity is a celebration of interdependence, a true unity in diversity. What could be a more necessary miracle in this day and age?

Relationship is at the heart of who God is: pure love, as the first letter of John has been reminding us throughout the Great Season of Easter. Fierce, active, enduring, limitless love-- that is the foundation of fellowship, of communion with God, and with each other.

In the words of Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas, “the being of God is a relational being; without the concept of communion it would not be possible to speak of the being of God.”(3)  That word “communion” is important, for the eucharistically-shaped life we commit to in the Episcopal Church is one of the most obvious ways we ourselves are invited into the relationship of the Trinity. Through communion and thanksgiving, through God’s grace and invitation, the divine circle of love is expanded even more dramatically, to include all creation through each and every one of us gathered around this altar.

Listen! Soon you and I, all of us together, will ask the Father to accept our gifts of bread and wine, taken from this good earth. We will ask the Father that the Holy Spirit be present to us to sanctify those gifts and us, making Christ present to us, here and now. It is only through the loving activity of the Trinity, acknowledged in our Eucharistic prayer, that we may receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we may be present and one with him-- and one with each other.

We are not called to this sacrament only for ourselves, but rather so that we can be strengthened to go out into the world as participants in God’s reconciliation and redemption in the world. We take our place within the embrace of the Trinity through ourselves cultivating real love—love that doesn’t count the cost, but rejoices in the beloved. Love that is the basis of ongoing creation—since God creates us through a desire for relationship with us, and that then draws us to share that love with all that is.

It is only this divine love which we wonder at in the Trinity that can satisfy the hunger for meaning that plagues this time in which we live—and just look at the response to Presiding Bishop Curry’s sermon at the royal wedding to see how deep that hunger runs in the world.

I am convinced that the doctrine of the Trinity, when taken seriously, reminds us to be and remain humble, and to admit that we need to never lose our sense of wonder, of awe, of mystery—a real challenge and yet opportunity in our blasé, cynical world. We can rediscover that sense of wonder, awe, and mystery each and every time we gather together with our hands upraised and hearts open to partake in Christ’s Body and Blood, given for us so that we may then carry and reflect that love into the world for the sake of the world.

The love embodied in the Trinity is calling to us to be its vessels in the world, that love may overflow our hearts and spill into all the corners of the Earth. The voice of that sacramental love-- that is God, Unity in Trinity-- calls to us: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Sustained by wonder and nourished by Trinitarian, sacramental love, may we each dare to answer, humbly, joyfully, compassionately, “Here am I; send me!”

Amen.


Preached at 8:00 and 10:00 am at Christ Episcopal Church, Rolla, on May 27, 2018.

Readings:
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17

References:
(1) Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.20.1
(2) Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, p. 131
(3) John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, p. 17

Images:
(1) Greek icon of the Trinity in communion
(2) Trinity window from Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Webster Groves, MO. Photo mine.
(3) Trinity rose window at Christ Episcopal Church, Rolla, MO. Photo mine.
(4) Celtic Trinity image.
(5) Sweet Olivia at the communion rail. Photo mine.