Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, we sing a song of thanksgiving before You, recalling the comforting weight of your hand shielding and guarding us through the night: O God, we lift our hearts to You. God of Compassion, grant us wisdom, that we may study your Word, and never stray from the heart of your law: to love You in word and deed, and to love our neighbors as our own selves. Almighty One, you command us to relieve suffering, to stand alongside the oppressed, to welcome the homeless, remembering that your law is grounded in love, for we are ourselves upheld only through your grace and mercy. Blessed Savior, strengthen us in integrity and compassion, that we may we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly and honorably with You in every moment. May we tear down the edifices of cruelty and injustice, remembering we are each other's keeper as Christ's hands and heart in the world. Accept now, we pray, our intercessions and our cares which we place before You, O Merciful God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, that your blessing may cover these beloveds in a cloud of comfort and peace. Amen.
In 1939, an incredible cinematic masterpiece burst onto movie screens all over America and all over the world. It was called The Wizard of Oz. The story of a simple, orphaned Kansas farm girl named Dorothy who was taken up in an enormous tornado to a land beyond the rainbow enchanted millions. And those millions needed to be enchanted. The entire world was in the grip of the Great Depression. The evils of totalitarianism, militarism, and fascism were sharpening their fangs and claws over much of Europe and Asia. Transported from her dull gray world to a land of vibrant hues of yellow, red, and green, all Dorothy wanted was to go home—to her familiar life, even if it had been filled with hardship and misunderstanding. It was a longing that resonated with everyone whose lives had been changed by the worldwide economic downturn. Dorothy was Everyone. The story of her adventure offered hope for those suffering under the challenges and trials of that time. There was promise embedded in this fanciful story. Even as Dorothy longed for home, she also kept and gained friends who accompanied her on her quest to find the person who supposedly had the power to return her to her home. Her little dog represented loyalty. The tin man, the lion, and the scarecrow represented wisdom, courage in the face of fear, and compassion. And they walked alongside her, loyally being willing to lay down their very lives to protect her from danger. Along the way, they defeated a malevolent presence, the wicked witch, and her minions.
Yet what they learned in the end was the most powerful magic of all. Dorothy learned that her power to return home resided within herself all along—she just needed to be strengthened and supported as she embraced her own abilities. She found out she had advocates and companions who championed her when she needed it most. And when she did return home, home seemed more loving and beautiful than she had previously imagined. But it wasn’t that home had changed. It was that Dorothy had been changed—changed by assurance of the steadfast love and companionship of her friends along the way. Today in our gospel, Jesus too realizes that his disciples are afraid they will be orphaned, abandoned, unable to find their way home. And Jesus offers his followers the assurance that they too, will have an abiding advocate to remain with them always and to lead them to new knowledge about themselves and their abilities to see the world through eyes of hope. That advocate would be a teacher, a comforter, a companion. We know that advocate as the Holy Spirit. Many of us have a sort of misunderstanding and even possibly aversion to the Holy Spirit. I know I did, growing up in Oklahoma, especially after my mom took me to some charismatic churches. A charismatic church is one that professes to invite speaking in tongues, prophecy, and other so called spiritual gifts. I know that this kind of worship is uplifting for many people. But as a small child, having a lot of adults all around me shouting, screaming, and dropping to the floor in a faint absolutely terrified me. I thought about those “tongues of fire” over the disciples’ heads in the Pentecost scene from Acts, and said a quick “No thank you” to God when it came to the Holy Spirit, at least. And so I spent a large part of my youth afraid of the Holy Spirit, mistakenly believing that the Holy Spirit’s work within a person was more like a possession or invasion and less like cooperation, a sparking of potential, and teaching. In other words, I wonder if too often we have equated the Holy Spirit with the tornado that carries Dorothy away from all that she knows and loves. Instead, we need to see the Holy Spirit as being like Dorothy's companions on the yellow brick road: loyalty, wisdom, courage, and compassion.
Because that is exactly what Jesus is promising here. And the use of the word “Paraclete” is helpful, for its English translations are gentler, and comforting: Advocate. Comforter. Helper. This holy presence will remain and sustain us after Jesus’s ascension. The gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives reminds us that there is more to Easter than just the empty tomb. That resurrection isn’t just a moment in time but an ongoing reality and promise to us as Christians that eternal life is rooted in the present, not some distant future. And it is always, ALWAYS rooted in love. Love as an action and a force of life, not as a mere emotion. As noted in the very first verse in our gospel today, Jesus links love and obedience to commandments together; love is the mark of obedience and discipleship.
As Galatians 5:22-23 reminds us, the gifts of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. The presence of any of these characteristics can be seen as a sign that the spirit of God is present and active in a person or a place. Symbols used in the Bible to depict the Holy Spirit include wind, flame, a dove, pillars of clouds and fire, and, in 1 Kings 19: 12 a “still small voice.” In fact, that reminder is important. Too often, we think of the flames bursting out over all the disciples’ heads at Pentecost, and of the Spirit seizing control of someone and possessing them, like when we’ve seen depictions of people speaking in tongues. And so we fear the Holy Spirit—its power, its unpredictability from images like those. But the gifts of the Spirit are all gifts that comfort rather than frighten or threaten a loss of control and independence. These are gifts which call us even deeper into ourselves, so that we may be empowered to continued Jesus’s work in the world. It is the Spirit that empowers Paul to give his great sermon at Athens that we heard in our first reading. It is the Spirit that gives him the wisdom to appeal to them not through castigating them or trying to frighten them. Paul knows he is in the center of learning and reason in the entire known world. We have a lot in common with those Greeks. We worship all kinds of things— power, money, beauty, youth, celebrity being the most common in our culture. We see each one of these things as a highly desirable commodity, often one we are willing to risk our very lives or souls to obtain, when really they are a responsibility. And frankly that is our greatest challenge in this time of pandemic. We are hearing too much about people proclaiming, angrily and sometimes violently, their rights. And yet each right comes with an equally compelling responsibility—otherwise, chaos and destruction ensue.
How can we recover the sense of community necessary for our mutual flourishing in this time of pandemic? What if we circled back to those gifts of the spirit again? What if we resolves to be motivated not by anger, ignorance, and self-defeating self-interest, but instead by Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Gentleness Self-control Think of those gifts as filters and checks on the selfishness of those who insist in their rights regardless of the impact those rights have on others. We must meet the challenges of this time not with fear, resentment, anger, or lashing out. Instead, imagine how our world could change, even beyond the challenge of this pandemic, if instead, we rooted all our actions in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. We have an opportunity right now to examine the parts of our lives before this pandemic that didn’t work, and dedicate ourselves to making our society better. Times of upheaval can be times of blessing if we use them to critically examine places where we were told we had to accept the inequalities and injustices of the times in which we lived as the cost for our own comfort. And that is okay to some people so long as it is other people who are suffering. But Jesus calls us to stand for true justice and peace for all. Jesus calls us to be an advocate for those who have no voice. That’s why “Paraclete” may be a good synonym for us to get used to using when we talk about the Holy Spirit. The literal meaning of Paraclete is itself comforting—para means “alongside” and kaletos mean “to call.” In other words, the Paraclete is a tangible reminder of a leader who walks alongside us in empathy, in support, in sharing all our burdens—and who strengthens us to be able to be advocates and strengtheners for others, too. The leadership exhibited by Jesus and reinforced by the Holy Spirit is non-hierarchical. It’s balanced and compassionate. When have we ever needed such a model more than in a time such as this?
Jesus promises us an Advocate in the Paraclete—but other meanings of the word include Counselor or Helper. In the other mentions of the Paraclete in the Farewell Discourse, Jesus further defines the functions of the Holy Spirit to include teaching, reminding, abiding, and testifying to the truth of Jesus. The Paraclete is also not the property of an individual, but is sent to continue creating community. This is why the Church is mentioned in the section of the Nicene Creed that deals with the Holy Spirit. God knows, many of us wouldn’t turn down the offer of an advocate to promote our cause, especially in times such as this. And to make sure we feel comfortable with the advocacy being offered, we are reminded that the Holy Spirit is ANOTHER Advocate to abide with us—the first Advocate is Jesus. In our gospel today, one of the most touching things Jesus says about the Spirit is that she is sent to us so that we would not imagine ourselves abandoned, or more pointedly, as orphans. Any of us and those around us are struggling with that feeling right now. Those are important words for those of us living 2000 years after Jesus’s physical and historical life ended even in the best of times—and this time of uncertainty and fear only strengthens our tendency to lose faith in the love of God when times are in crisis. The Spirit is a powerful way we experience God’s presence, especially in times of turmoil or uncertainty—in other words, right now in the midst of this ongoing pandemic. Jesus’s words in our gospel today speak to us precious comfort as we, just like those disciples, hang suspended between real and imagined and dreaded losses. That’s why we need to hear that God is always accompanying us—especially in times of fear and anxiety. We need to remember that Jesus is God’s way, truth, and life, as we heard proclaimed last week—especially in this time when some people profit off of truth-denial and fear-mongering. Instead, the Holy Spirit gives her powerful witness to a leadership model that does not seek to enforce the leader’s will, but walks alongside others in love, compassion, and empathy. This is a time for us to call the Holy Spirit alongside us and lead us into wisdom, courage, and compassion. Not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of each and every person whose life we may inadvertently touch. In welcoming the life-giving power of the Spirit into our lives, we, like Dorothy, can be empowered to fight the forces of fear and greed that endanger all of us, and instead be empowered and encouraged to walk alongside each other—especially those who are vulnerable.
Come, Holy Spirit. Strengthen us to be people who joyfully bear each other’s burdens, and who proclaim the comfort of truth in the name of love. United in love, we know you can lead us all home. Amen. Preached at the 10:30 service broadcast online on Facebook Live from St. Martin's Church, May 17, 2020. Readings: Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:7-18 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21
God of the Sparrow, God of the Wren, God of the Honeybee toiling with purpose among the blossoming fields, pitch your tent among us today, and lead us into holiness, empathy, and truth. Abiding One, may we make your wisdom our nourishment; may we be led by compassion against fear, and live into unity with each other. May we bear each other's burden with generous hearts, and, strengthened by your love and constancy, resist the death-normalizing ways
of fear and faithlessness. May we care for each other with one accord, and testify to the power of your hope, O God. Comfort the weary and strengthen the healers, O Merciful One, and grant the blessing of your Spirit to all who turn to You in supplication, especially those we now name. Amen.
Almighty One, you have crafted and tended the galaxies in their glory and the wren in her spry industry: we praise your wondrous works-- the tapestry of life, visible and unseen, that supports us throughout the day. Inspire us, O God, to defend the weary and the oppressed, the poor and the refugee, in obedience to your law of love and righteousness. As we confess the things we have left undone, let us consider our own indifference to suffering, our justification for inflicting pain on others for our own comfort or to assuage our own fears, and let us turn from the darkness of cruelty and greed to the light of love and empathy. For by your grace we live and move and have our being, O Creator and Lover of Our Souls: may we seek to do your will in the name of healing and restoration, for the sake of this world You have made and charged us to tend and preserve in peace. Pour out your reconciling power, O Holy One, on all who cry out to You, and place your hand of protection over all those for whom we pray. Amen.
Our Father in heaven, loving Parent and Creator, tender Mother, strengthen us and soften our hearts, for You call us to forgive others as much as You forgive us.
Help us let go of anger and resentment when we have been wronged, and nurture understanding in place of feeding the weeds of rage. Help us to understand that all are wounded and in need of healing, including ourselves. Help us to lower our defenses and not impugn the motives of those we love, and remember they love us. Help us to judge only as harshly as we ourselves wish to be judged, and no more. For You are our loving God, and You forgive us repeatedly when we fail You. Teach us that in bearing grudges we grip a weight that will sink us, and when harboring anger we risk loss in a sea of recrimination.
Let us embrace those who seek our pardon, and repair mutual injury with the balm of Love that never fails. O Loving One, hear our prayers and grant your benediction and grace to those whose needs we now raise before You. Amen. Image from Medium.com
Holy One, we bow the knee of our hearts, and give you thanks for your mercy and grace, the foundation of our lives. Lord, we confess to you our sins and offenses, that we may repent and honor the dignity of all and live in the Way of Love. May we examine the source of our comforts and the extent that they come at the expense and exploitation of others. May we rebuke and resist the powers of empire that use poverty and want as a tool
to divide and conquer. May we proclaim Christ's gospel of healing and embody the wisdom of compassion in all our ways. Let us joyfully proclaim God's abundant mercy in our words and deeds, and testify to the glories of your love, O Savior. Manifest your presence to all who cry to you, and rest your protecting hand
upon all for whom we pray. Amen.
Almighty One, you have crafted and tended the galaxies in their glory and the wren in her spry industry: we praise your wondrous works-- the tapestry of life, visible and unseen, that supports us throughout the day. Inspire us, O God, to defend the weary and the oppressed, the poor and the refugee, in obedience to your law of love and righteousness. As we confess the things we have left undone, let us consider our own indifference to suffering, our justification for inflicting pain on others for our own comfort or to assuage our own fears, and let us turn from the darkness of cruelty and greed to the light of love and empathy. For by your grace we live and move and have our being, O Creator and Lover of Our Souls: may we seek to do your will in the name of healing and restoration, for the sake of this world You have made and charged us to tend and preserve in peace. Pour out your reconciling power, O Holy One, on all who cry out to You, and place your hand of protection over all those for whom we pray. Amen.
Today we celebrate and commemorate the combined feasts of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. We remember the faithful departed-- those who have witnessed to us the love of God in our lives and in the world. So, today, I want to tell you three love stories. The first is the love story of Naomi and Gladys. Naomi Feil is a Jewish social worker and therapist who works with patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementia that causes loss of communication. She visited 87-year-old Gladys Wilson to try to help Gladys communicate, because Gladys had late stage Alzheimer’s disease, and was mostly non-verbal after a stroke as well. Gladys spent most of her days moving her left hand repetitively, unable to speak.
Naomi uses gentle touch and music to connect with people with these illnesses. There is a video of her visiting with Gladys—have any of you seen this? Naomi starts by sitting in front of Gladys at eye level and speaking gently with her. Eventually Gladys focuses on Naomi and Naomi starts to sing to her, songs of Gladys’s childhood in the African American church tradition. Apparently Gladys had been a devout churchgoer from the time she was an infant, and so Naomi starts singing “Jesus loves me” in rhythm to Gladys’s movements. Jesus loves me, this I know For the Bible tells me so, Little ones to him belong, They are weak but He is strong.
As the song begins, Gladys changes from shaking her arm back and forth to tapping in beat to the music on the arm of her chair and then on Naomi’s arm, and Naomi sings in rhythm to the tapping, so that Gladys is now taking the lead in the speed of the song. Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me-- the Bible tells me so. Gladys’s eyes are closed at first, but when Naomi asks her, Gladys opens them and looks straight at Naomi. Naomi then asks Gladys if she feels safe with Naomi and safe with Jesus, and Gladys replies “yes.” Naomi then begins to sing “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,” and Gladys begins singing along, sharing the song—Naomi sings “He’s got the whole world…” and Gladys whispers forcefully “in his hands.” He's got the whole world in his hands! He's got the whole world in his hands! He's got the whole world in his hands! He's got the whole world in his hands! Together, they sing the entire verse of the song together.
Even though Naomi is Jewish, she sings Christian children’s songs to Gladys, and gives Gladys the gift of communication back, if only for a moment. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and I’ve probably watched it dozens of times since I first saw it. I've cried every time I've seen it too-- and not just because I'm a sap, although I am, but because something this beautiful should be worthy of our tears of appreciation and wonder. It is obvious that Naomi has learned and sings this song to Gladys out of the love, respect, and empathy that fuels her work with the elderly and disabled, people who are often locked into their own worlds. In that moment Naomi is Jesus to Gladys.
I was thinking about that video of Naomi and Gladys as I was thinking about our scriptures today. Here we are at the beginning of November, and there’s a lot of change that happens in November. Baseball season is bitterly over. The clocks change. The nights get longer. Thanksgiving is coming up, and the day after Thanksgiving, most Americans rampage out to buy more stuff mere hours after they have commemorated thankfulness and gratitude. The days get colder, and there’s usually a lot of rain here in St. Louis. There’s usually an election of some kind, and this year’s especially is fraught with anxiety, nastiness, and fear. We liturgical Christians are coming to the end of the liturgical year. In other words, it’s dark, cold, damp, and tense. And somehow, this is the season when we inevitably have stewardship campaigns. Because, why not?
Awesome, right? Our readings today are meant to remind us of God’s constant presence and love in our lives—a love that extends even beyond the grave. We commemorate the saints in our lives who have shown us the way of God, and as I was thinking about saints right now, one of the saints I thought of was Naomi singing to Gladys and making her feel safe, restoring to her a sense of security, peace, and connection, but most of all the assurance that she was known, valued and especially loved, even in the grip of an illness that causes confusion, frustration, and anxiety. I thought of the doctor at Tree of Life Synagogue and all the first responders who ran TOWARD the sound of shooting. Those are some of my saints right now, the righteous ones leading us to see the love of God. Watching Gladys reconnect, reawaken, and respond to the call of love was like watching someone literally come to life again. It was a kind of resurrection. This bring me to my second love story.
Of all the people in scripture, there are only a few of which it is said that Jesus loved them. We all know that Jesus LOVES us, just as Naomi sang to Gladys, and Jesus had disciples and apostles and a mother and brother and sisters, but there are very few people singled out as Jesus’s friends. Lazarus, and his sisters Martha and Mary of Bethany are three of those people. John’s gospel makes it clear that Jesus loved this family especially, as his friends. Yet even as much as Jesus loved his friends Lazarus and Martha and Mary, Lazarus still dies, leaving Martha and Mary potentially destitute in the culture of that time. And Jesus weeps over the loss of his friend. He feels the sorrow of that parting and the bitterness of death as much as any of us do.
So one thing I think this reminds us is that loving and being loved by God does not mean that we will be protected from bad things happening to us, even pain, suffering, illness, and death. Even Jesus is not protected from loss, and from mourning the losses he encounters. As we have recently heard in the letter to the Hebrews, the fact that Jesus has experienced everything we have, sorrow and loss as well as joy, makes him our great high priest. That’s part of the assurance we have in Christ. If you live long enough, there are many losses you will experience. Yet even through those losses, Jesus’s actions in this story remind us that God’s love is always with us. As the reading from the Wisdom of Solomon reminds us, even in death we are never separated from the love of God, and that is the third love story we hear today.
The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Love never dies, even when our bodies wear out and our earthly lives here end. Love doesn’t protect us from loss—some, in the throes of heartbreak are despairing enough to think that if they don’t love, they will never experience the pain of loss again. Yet, even this is not so. For love is what carries us through loss. Love is what, over time, dulls the sharp edges of loss and sweetens the ache of memory until we move to being grateful for the blessing of love in the first place. Just like Lazarus, the call of love calls us out of the tomb of our lives of fear, anxiety, loss, and despair. Just like Lazarus, the call of God to us to new life through faith and resurrection restarts and reawakens our cold hearts of stone, calling them to beat anew in our chests. God calls us to wakefulness, calls us to stumble out of the desperate darkness that enshrouds us, to pull the veil from our eyes, so that we may truly see, truly love, truly be free.
Through the love of God, calling to us through even the deepest darkness, we stumble into life and are restored to hope. The abundant, generous, unfailing love of God in our lives gives us the courage, the heart, to carry on whatever may come, sure in the knowledge that we are never alone, that we are one in the Spirit and one in the Lord, as the song of my childhood goes. The heart of Lazarus beats again to the call of love. Oh, that we could all welcome the Lazarus heart to beat anew within us! God calls us through love to awaken, to be set free from the bandages of fear, hatred, suspicion, anger, and resentment that keep us dead to the full humanity implanted within us and within each other.
God calls us to be unbound, and be set free, just like Lazarus, through love. The love of Naomi in calling to Gladys through song, the love of Jesus calling to Lazarus from the grave, the love of God in calling us to resurrection and new hope, new faith. There’s freedom there—true freedom. Freedom rooted in hope and community, bound up in love and empathy for one another. Love calls us to walk from the darkness to the light, and it is the darkness that helps us see how precious the light is. Love that is perceived not by just the eye, but by the resurrected, Lazarus heart. Amen. Preached at the 505 on November 3, and at the 8:00 and 10:15 am services on November 4, 2018, at St. Martin's Church, Ellisville. MO. Readings: Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 Psalm 24 Revelation 21:1-6a John 11:32-44
Notes and Images: 1) The Unbinding of Lazarus 2) Video from Youtube. Naomi Feil is one of the founders of Validation Training, a compassionate and empathetic method to use with patients suffering from dementia, Alzheimers, etc. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Validation Breakthrough. 3) Jesus singing with Lazarus, Mary and Martha. 4) Jesus weeping 5) Icon of the Souls of the Departed in the Hand of God. 6) The Empty Tomb 7) Giotto's depiction of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus.
Abide with and within us, Lord Christ: guide us as we seek to walk your path of holiness. May we offer healing love and mercy to those who ask our help, remembering your abundant grace we receive, O God. May we stand in compassion and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, Lord, remembering that you call us to bear each other's burdens. May we walk in gentleness and humility upon the earth, caring for creation with gratitude and tenderness. Holy One, be our companion and stay, and pour out your blessing upon those we now name. Amen.
