Bearing the Name, Bearing the Cross: Sermon for Lent 2B

What’s in a name?

Shakespeare first famously asked that question in his tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a tale of two star-crossed lovers whose families were at war with one another in the streets of Verona. The Montagues and the Capulets were openly at each other’s throats—and Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague fall in love at first sight, despite their families enmity.

In Act II, scene II, the subject of names is the main topic. Juliet sits at her window and muses these famous lines, with Romeo lurking out of sight in the orchard beneath, listening in:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Of course, it is not Romeo’s given name that is the problem. The problem is his family name—and hers, for their families are at war under the banner of those names. Their names, and the communities each represents, threatens to forbid their love.

Names are important banners we wrap around ourselves, but they are NOT individual. They tie us to other people, to nationalities, to ideologies, to kin and kindred spirits scattered far and wide. Most importantly, most names are shared, and thus they establish boundaries and expectations for entire communities.

In our readings today, the idea of names and their symbols lies under all our readings. Abram, although a wealthy and faithful man, risks having his name die out, for he has no legitimate children. Yet even though he is 99 years old—about which St. Paul made an incredibly ageist crack in our epistle—we see a second covenant in two weeks, as God promises Abram descendants so numerous that his name will never die, and he will be the father of many nations. 

To emphasize this, God reveals a new name for everyone involved in this covenant. The name used here for God, meaning “God Almighty” or “God of the Mountain,” is “El Shaddai” in the original text. Abram, meaning “Father is Exalted,” become Abraham, which means “Father of a Multitude.” Sarai, which means “Princess,” becomes Sarah, meaning “Mother of Nations.”

In our section from Romans, Paul is writing to the followers of Jesus in Rome, although he has never met them. They are struggling with the requirements to form a community of Christ- followers, with those of Abrahamic heritage arguing about whether gentile converts should have to follow Jewish law before admittance to the community—including becoming circumcised, which was also mentioned in the verses omitted in our reading from Genesis. Paul makes a case that, as Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law, and underlying this is the idea that Abraham was the father of nations, plural, that anyone who shares the faith Abraham had in God is therefore a child of Abraham’s promise, through faith alone. In other words, one follows God by faith, not by bloodline --or painful surgical procedures on tender bits of one’s anatomy. Ouch.

In our gospel, Jesus is talking about what it means to be a true disciple and follower of Jesus as the son of God. And it is here that we must remember that each gospel was written for a specific community at a particular time and place. The Markan community was undergoing great persecution and suffering—so these verse that we might draw back from were written to comfort the listeners, to remind them that their suffering was in allegiance with someone who died out of love for them and for the entire world on the cross. The cross, which had been a symbol of shame, is now a symbol of the victory and power of love in action—self-giving love, that seeks to draw all creation into community, bound by self-giving love.

And here we are, two thousand years later. The name we choose to bear as followers of Jesus, is “Christians.” And it is a name that lays a lot of obligations on us—the first of which is to be guided by love, always. Love that is willing to seek another’s good even at our own expense, just as Jesus exemplified in every moment of his ministry.

Sure, we live in a time when, in our context, following Jesus generally is not going to expose us to a torturous death—although that IS certainly true in other parts of the world, even today, and we should never, ever minimize or forget that.

But following Jesus—not just using his name to hammer other people, but instead living open-heartedly according to his precious gospel—certainly will set us at odds with the culture in which we live. And the way Jesus’s name is used by too many people today is 100% in opposition to Jesus’s message. 

Tragically, some people use the name of "Christian" as a weapon against others and to make themselves feel superior, members in a rarified club. And they use the name of Jesus as a club against anyone they consider “less-than.” They use the name of Jesus as an excuse to contemptuously deny the humanity of those they believe don’t measure up—the very poor, outcast, and oppressed with whom Jesus spent most of his time standing in solidarity. And so, they risk tarnishing the holy name and true gospel of Jesus in the public sphere. They forget that taking on the name “Christian” is about serving others, especially those the world around us despises-- rather than serving yourself.

The core of discipleship, of bearing the name of Jesus with integrity, is self-giving compassion and generosity, Jesus reminds us continually, especially in this season of Lent. Tragically, that certainly is not something in line with our own culture, where self-indulgence is raised up as a virtue. It is at this point especially that Jesus makes it quite clear that the gospel is certainly counter-cultural throughout the ages. And it is still counter-cultural now, surrounded by the myth of “rugged individualism,” in which any need for someone else is portrayed in the public American ethos as a failure.

But that is exactly the kind of life we are challenged to lose and lay down if we want to bear the name of Jesus faithfully and call ourselves “Christians.”

It is that life of selfishness and disdain for others that Jesus encourages us to lay down and lose. Losing that life is the only way to open yourself to living in harmony with Jesus and following him as God’s beloved children. Peter is rebuked for thinking in a worldly way, wanting a warrior Messiah. But that is NOT God’s way.

So, we too are asked to look at the life the world encourages us to lead critically. We are currently in a crisis of loneliness and isolation that has NOTHING to do with COVID but everything to do with the myth that our families and communities can survive when greed and contempt for others are worshiped are embraced to rule over us as gods. Suicide rates, addiction, and violence plague our every step in every community, regardless of wealth or zip code. Antisocial behaviors have been normalized and even applauded and laughed about. Cruelty is sport.

It is THIS life Jesus urges us to lay down and lose in order to have life in him and bear his name as Christians faithfully. We gain so much more than we lose!

The cross in Jesus’s time was something shameful, yet for us now it is a sign of faith and hope. The cross has been so transformed by the power of the self-giving love it represents that we now wear it around our necks, hand it over or behind our altars, and regularly make the sign of the cross over ourselves as we are blessed or absolved.

When I became an Episcopalian, I embraced the habit of genuflection, because it reminded me every time I did it that Christ has asked us, as Christians, to take up our cross—a cross of love, service to others, and community—and follow him, as our gospel recounts today. It is a reminder to me that the Holy Trinity is ever near. And it is a sign, as much as the name of Christian, that binds us all together in one family, one community, one faith—all centered on self-giving love in action for others. The cross and what it stands for is NEVER to be used to divide us.

During every Eucharistic prayer, as part of our Catholic, meaning universal, identity, we are all encouraged to make the sign of the cross over ourselves as the Holy Spirit is called down to consecrate US as well as the bread and the wine—to remember that the cross is a sign of the victory of love and the generosity of God to us in feeding us around this altar a meal which makes us one body sharing one name and one ministry, one obligation to each other—the name of Jesus, the sweetest name in the world.

So today, I challenge you and myself, to take up your cross of love and bear it with joy, right now. Realize the gift of renouncing the suffering wrought by the world’s values. Lay down that life with joy, and take up the life of love, faith, and hope in the name of God. Let us commit ourselves, starting this Lent, to follow Jesus in truth, bearing his glorious name in word, but more importantly in deed, as we all seek to be a blessing to the world around us.

Preached at the 505 on February 24 and at the 10:30 Eucharist on February 25 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church- Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Psalm 22:22-30

Romans 4:13-25

Mark 8:31-38

Amen.

Overturning the Ninevites: Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Once upon a time, long ago, the word of Yahweh came and whispered in a sleeping prophet’s ear. “Get up, Jonah, and go north to your enemy, to their great city Nineveh, and call them to repent, for I see their evil ways.”

The words shook the prophet awake—and he fled from God’s word as far as he could in the other direction. Go to the enemy’s great city? Never! So he went down to the port city of Joppa and booked passage on a boat heading toward the eastern limits of the sea.

Jonah went below-decks, lay down, and went to sleep as the ship set sail for deep waters, because sailing was not a favorite thing for Hebrews to do, since the sea symbolized the home of chaos, tempests, undercurrents, and death. Jonah figured he could just wake up when it was all over, and they were on dry land again.

But God was not about to be thwarted. So no sooner had the ship reached deep water but a mighty storm brewed up at God’s command. And the ship started to lie heavy in the waves that swamped over the side. In desperation, the sailors and even the merchants who were passengers started throwing everything overboard that they could, even cargo they hoped to sell; each praying to any small-g god they could think of that might help: storm gods, sea gods, wind gods. Nothing worked.

So, the captain started counting heads and noticed that that wild-haired holy man was missing. As the ship bucked and rolled under his feet, he went into the hold and found Jonah back in a corner, sleeping like a rock despite the turmoil. The captain shook Jonah awake. “Are you drunk? Get up! Pray to your god, whoever he is, that we can be saved, because this ship is coming apart!” The captain’s words made Jonah uneasy, even somewhat guilty. Jonah had a feeling he knew what was going on.

Once Jonah got on deck, he saw that the others were terrified. Nothing was working, and when nothing works, people often fall back on superstition and magic to try to help. So they decided to draw straws to see who was responsible for this terrible storm. Even before Jonah took his turn he knew what he would see when he chose.

Sure enough, when everyone opened their fists, Jonah’s fingers clutched the short straw, and his ship-mates turned on him with faces contorted by fear: “What did you DO to bring this on all of us?” And he told them he had run away rather than obey God’s command. His words turned their hearts to stone. “What can we do?” the other men cried. And the wind howled louder, and the boat sank even lower, and one of the masts broke off with a loud crack and swept over their heads.

Jonah next words astonished them. “Toss me over the side,” Jonah said, resignedly. Now, some considered for a moment—they knew gods who demanded human sacrifice. But most of them were afraid to curse themselves further by putting his blood on their hands. So they hesitated—and a huge wave nearly knocked the boat over. As soon as it righted itself, they moved with one accord, and with a prayer for forgiveness to the prophet’s God, they plopped Jonah over the side.

The sea instantly stilled, and the remaining sail filled with wind, and the boat darted away. The last sight the sailors saw was an enormous fish, big as a mountain, its mouth swallowing Jonah whole, and then the green flash of a tail as it swooped under the waves. The sailors shivered, touched their amulets, and immediately added Yahweh’s name to their prayer lists.

For three nights and three days, Jonah sat stewing—literally stewing-- in the bouillabaisse of half-digested seafood platters and slime and gastric juices in the belly of that fish. It was dark, cold, smelly, and painful. Jonah was stubborn—three days and nights worth of stubborn—but, eventually, he gave up.

He finally prayed a lament psalm to God, admitting his guilt, as the cold and stench of that fish’s innards pickled his very soul. He threw himself on the mercy of Yahweh, and swore a grudging vow of obedience. And—BAM. Immediately the fish tacked sharply and rose to the surface of the waves, spitting him out onto dry land at God’s silent command.

The coating of slime and fish barf Jonah wore as he rested on the sand did nothing to dim the sound of the voice of God speaking to him again. “Get up, and go north to your enemy, to their great city Nineveh, and call them to repent, for I see their evil ways.” And without a word, Jonah pushed himself up and stalked off, stiff-legged, to Nineveh. A deal’s a deal.

He arrived days later, covered in crusty dried slime—he wouldn’t give Yahweh or Nineveh the satisfaction of a fresh-smelling prophet. And what a contrast he made: the city itself was dazzling, one of the biggest in the world, so big it took three days to walk across, they say. It was the center of the Assyrian Empire, which owned --and oppressed-- just about everything at one time or another. Including Israel. So Jonah decided he would do as he was told—but he wasn’t going to get spiffed up for the occasion.

So into the city he marched. Looking and smelling like a human garbage dump, he thundered out his eight-word sermon in the streets as the people skidded to a stop at the sight (and probably smell) of him and gaped: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!” he thundered, and man, he couldn’t WAIT to see that happen.

There was a pause. Then bedlam broke out. People were wailing. Children were calling for their mamas. Dogs stopped chasing cats and dropped to a halt before them, and the cats didn’t even slash them. They heard the warning, and they BELIEVED. They tore their clothes. They declared a fast. They prayed to God—yes, even to this God of this pipsqueak people they had crushed to dust long ago.

Never has a prophet had such success with such a piece of prophecy and performance art. The king himself heard about it—second-hand, mind you—but even that second-hand prophecy scared the bejabbers out of him, and that king instantly sat down in the ash heap in rags and poured ashes over his head. He even ordered the animals of the kingdom to fast and wear sackcloth as a sign of mourning—and they DID. Chickens... in sackcloth—pigs... fasting. And God was appeased by their repentance, and had mercy, and turned aside from destroying them.

And, in the center of the pandemonium, there stood Jonah. Here he was, the most successful prophet ever—he’d just set a world record for prophecy that would have made Moses and Elijah WEEP tears of jealousy.

Was Jonah happy? NO HE WAS NOT. He looked around, felt the cool breeze of forgiveness and reconciliation blow through those pagan, enemy streets, and-- he SEETHED. He KNEW IT. He knew God, being God, would have mercy on these jerks—and he wanted to see some smiting instead. He wanted to see the place wiped from the map! Whose God was God, anyway? The Ninevites had made his people’s lives miserable for generations. And now they got off, Scot-free? How were the folks back home going to treat him now that he had saved their enemies???

“Oh my GOD, God!!!” he muttered furiously. “Of COURSE you are a God of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive! But this is too much! I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!”

And in a silky, what to Jonah was a frustratingly calm voice, Yahweh replied, “You good and angry, Jonah?” And Jonah actually felt something snap in his head.

Grinding his teeth in impotent rage, Jonah stalked off again on his stiff legs, until he could get outside the city walls. He built himself a shelter, and sat there glaring at the city to see what would happen. Maybe they’d screw up and return to evil—seemed likely, with their track record.

But nope. That repentance seemed real. So just like when he was in that fish’s belly, Jonah stewed, while the sun beat down and he squinted toward Nineveh’s shiny, palatial walls with revulsion. And God caused a beautiful thick vine to grow up and it lent its shade to shield his head, but Jonah was having none of it. "Nice try, God,” he thought, but part of him had to admit that that shade sure was nice.

The next day, God sent a worm, who ate that plant straight across the stem like a buzzsaw. And just as Jonah was coming to grips with that, a red-hot wind blew out of the desert, hotter than an oven, and Jonah keeled right over in a faint. When he came to, he grabbed the sticky hair on both sides of his head and yanked handfuls out in fury like a deranged Elmer Fudd. “And now the vine? REALLY?? I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!” Jonah shrieked at God.

And again came what sounded to Jonah like a silky, frustratingly calm voice from God, leaning in over his shoulder like the butler on Downton Abbey, murmuring, “You good and angry about that vine, Jonah?”

“You bet I am, God!” Jonah snarled. “Angry enough to die.”

“Why are you angry, Jonah?” God asked, as smooth as butter, reasonably, and everyone knows the most infuriating thing when you’re furious is to be met with someone reasonable. “You didn’t do anything for that vine—I put it there out of mercy. It was here for a day and gone in a day. You should be glad it was there at all. But even when it’s gone, what’s it to you?”

“You promised Nineveh would be overturned, God!” shouted Jonah. “And now they’re better than ever!”

Jonah thought he heard a small chuckle. “Why, they ARE overturned, Jonah,” replied God. “They overturned their hearts, and they overturned their evil ways. You did it!”

Jonah stared up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. “Really, God? That’s your loophole?? A play on words? A PUN??? JEEZ! This is why I tried to run away in the first place!” And Jonah was speechless, and a little ashamed, because he was lying. He certainly didn’t know God’s plan at the start, and now he felt like a total fool, and traitor, too, helping the enemies of his own people like that.

God’s voice got softer. “You yourself said it, my son. I AM God, slow to anger, abounding in mercy—unlike you, that’s for sure. And that’s lucky for you, too, dear Jonah. And I will have mercy on whom I choose—you don’t get to decide, especially since right now YOU seem to be lacking in mercy, compassion, and loving-kindness.”

The voice grew more tender. “I am God. You are my messenger, and you know I love you and have mercy on you. And right now I also have mercy on Nineveh, and its 120,000 people and thousands of animals.”

And there the story ends.

_________________________

Now, there are a quite a few interesting lessons here. When I first told you this story three years ago, this parish was in a state of hurt and bewilderment, torn between sorrow and anger. And I decided to tell you this story again because right now our country is in the same place. The lessons of this story need repeating again, I think.

I think about what it has to say to us about how to move forward in our national life and in any relationship which has experienced a huge rupture—one that has hopefully awakened us to the very real danger the politics of division plays in hurting and wounding very real people. There’s a lot of talk about unity right now—but not so much talk about accountability and repentance. Jonah’s story IS about repentance before God. What enrages Jonah is that Nineveh’s repentance before God leaves unsettled the score between Nineveh and Israel—Nineveh as oppressor, Israel as victim—unsettled. Jonah knows that Israel has suffered at Nineveh’s hands—and he wants vengeance.

That’s where we are stuck, right now too. Asking forgiveness of God, and asking forgiveness and reconciling with those whom you have hurt in our human relationships as part of that same sinfulness and selfishness are two very necessary parts of the same thing.

Jonah helpfully models for us exactly what God is NOT: vindictive, retributive, discriminatory—much of what we have seen on display for far too long in our country. We’ve seen the Ninevites take us over—and it’s time for us to wake from the nightmare and say no. No to hurting others as long as we justify it by our own rights without talking about responsibility. No to violence. No to hatred.

Sometimes our own hard-heartedness and stubbornness puts us in the belly of the whale. Even when Jonah grudgingly did as he was asked, he still tried to impose a theology of vengeance and retribution upon God. Even though he could quote scripture identifying God’s essential characteristics as being gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and eager to forgive, in practice he thought that only applied to his own people. A theology of vengeance and division that has ruled our life as a nation for FAR too long.

But God IS the God of second chances—especially for those that have been misled by the lies of the powerful who take pride in their robbery, to quote our psalm. Instead, Jesus becomes incarnate to show us that we are capable of following the path of God in our everyday lives: through Christ, God invites us to seek justice, reconciliation and healing, and not twist those calls in the name of the power of violence and oppression. The Ninevites are now CALLED to embrace God’s values. They cannot continue sowing violence and oppression as they did before.

And God calls all of us too- to engage in not just asking forgiveness but in evaluating where we have supported policies that have hurt very real people because it was easy or profitable, or because we were told that they deserved to suffer. If the Ninevites repentance is real, they can no longer live by oppression, division, hatred, and war.

The lessons we learn from Jonah carry over into the message we hear from Jesus, who also preaches mercy, grace, and healing in a world devoid of it far too often—much like our own world today. A world in which we have to take responsibility for change that brings hope and compassion to all. A world in which far too many people suffer want, neglect, and poverty as we will be reminded in our prayers of the people in a few moments. We will be called to consider working to heal the economic divisions that cause very real suffering in our country and around the world.

I hear a call in this story a reminder that the work of God’s forgiveness doesn’t let us off the hook. To receive a gift is one thing. To be worthy of the gift is another. In order for us as a nation to really embrace the way to reconciliation, which is deeper and more meaningful than mere unity we have to be willing to assume responsibility for the harm done when our opponents are instead recast by our leaders as our enemies and beneath any need for respect. Such dehumanization violates our call as children of God to honor the dignity and worth of EVERY person.

Made in the image of God, we too are called to be both individuals and communities of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive. We are also called to account and to restore where we have damaged others in our blindness or selfishness. In terms of our current crisis, both economic, pandemic and political, we are reminded that we are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.

We are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.

May we begin this work—today. Honestly. Humbly. Remembering we all owe our lives to God—and to each other, regardless of differences.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online service from St. Martin's  Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, January 24, 2021.

Readings:

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Psalm 62:6-14

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

 Mark 1:14-20

Prayer 2918- Prayer for an Inauguration

God of All Nations,
we ask your blessing
on all the peoples
as we seek to live in unity,
amity, 

equality,
and good-will with each other.

Holy One,
may we ever deepen the bonds of honor,
our ties of kinship,
our thirst for wisdom,
our devotion to integrity and truth.
Make us, O Great Creator,
a people who stand for freedom
tempered by responsibility;
who stand for independence
tempered by love for neighbor;
and who protect the least among us
that we be resolved to the cause of love and community.

Help us form a more perfect union,
establish justice,
ensure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty
for all, now and in the future,
by carrying the light of truth and loving-kindness
that You, O God,
have planted within us.

May we ever give you thanks,
O Shepherd of Our Souls,
and seek your guidance
as we seek the good road of faith, reason, and peace.
Send out your blessing, O God,
on all who call upon your name,
and grant your comfort and relief
to all for whom we pray.


Amen.

Tearing Back the Heavens: Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord

As I began to ponder these readings at the start of 2021 and the start of this week, there were two things that my mind associated with these passages. One was Call the Midwife, the wonderful British series on Netflix that my husband and I have become absolutely besotted with during the COVID19 pandemic. The other is a book that I began reading last week called The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, a series of essays edited by Anglican priest/scientist John Polkinghorne.

The former is a touching bit of entertainment. The latter is a work that combines theology and science in attempting to make sense of God’s ongoing work of creation in history. But they both share one common viewpoint: there is no new life without cost.

In Call the Midwife, young mothers in the postwar East End of London labor—usually with the assistance of midwives’ encouragement as their only pain relief, to bring their babies into the world—a world that is filled often with poverty and misery as well as the strength of the human spirit. As I learned when I became a mother, even with all the advantages of modern medicine, there is a real reason why they call childbirth “labor.” And as I learned in the years afterward, all of parenting should rightly be called “labor,” too. The labor that brings life new life into being is not simply a static moment in time, nor does it occur without pain and suffering as well as joy and love. All is bound up together, and is ongoing.

In The Work of Love, and in the work of W. H. Vanstone, whose writing inspired the essays within, multiple writers attempt to illuminate the ways in which science and theology shape our understanding of a God who is ever-creating, ever engaged with the world that was and is and is to come. As organisms evolve, their evolution cannot be explained by natural laws or selection alone, for, as anyone who ever watched the movie Jurassic Park knows, randomness is also shot through all creation, and some may attribute that randomness to God.

Science aligns with scripture in revealing to us a dynamic picture of a world involved in continuous and incessant change. Creation—the creation of new life—is not limited to a single moment in time, but is ongoing—as our friends in New Zealand insist in their prayer to God who IS CREATING the heavens and the Earth. God's action as Creator is both past and present as well as future: it is continuous. The scientific perspective of a cosmos, and in particular that of the biological world, as developing continuously in time. So it is in nature, and so it is within us, God IS creating ever anew within us, and asking us to be partners in that creation is one of God’s greatest compliments to us.

And any time there is change, any time there is transformation, there can also be resistance. Thus I and all of us were brought up short by the events of Wednesday in our nation’s capitol. We witnessed the forces of resistance to change, specifically the forces who cling to notions of superiority based on race and privilege, abandon their claims to lawfulness and order and instead engage in destruction, violence, and subversion.

I went from contemplating the beauty of the opening words of Genesis to seeing the ugliest impulses generated in our political life play out before my horrified eyes. Unbidden, the opening words of Psalm 130 echoed through my head and heart as I watched the chaos in our national capitol unfold: “Out of the depths have I called to You O Lord: Lord hear my voice!”

As I watched the forces of chaos, conspiracy, and division rampage through the halls of democracy, all I could think of was the depth of the waters into which our nation was treading. But sometimes profound shocks can lead to a shaking off of the willingness to accept the banal, everyday evils that creep and infiltrate into our moral framework.

Deep waters, which in Genesis are the canvas upon which creation springs forth, became a murky symbol of loss of control and danger. From my TV screen, I heard person after person, on both sides of the aisle as the events of the day spiraled more and more out of control, protest that “this is not who we are.”

But we can’t fool ourselves. When violence, intimidation and murder are elicited from a mob this easily, we must face the uncomfortable truth that, yes, somewhere within us, this IS who we are.

But it is NOT who we are called to be.

In our gospel reading, Jesus leads us by example into the waters of baptism to give us the courage and endurance to strain toward who we are called to be. In Christ, we are called to be one people, united by our common heritage as being beloved children of God. The waters of baptism are the waters of creation, of new life that is centered in hope, faith, and embracing the miracle of the panoply of life all around us. The waters of creation from which we all spring, the waters of baptism which are the gates to eternal life for which we all thirst, call us to resistance against the anarchy, intimidation, and mob rule that swirled violently around us, and continues to threaten unless confronted.

Repeatedly in so short a passage as we see in our gospel today, border after border, barrier after barrier will be ruptured, but ruptured not in the name of violence and oppression, but in the name of LOVE and true justice. The Jordan River itself is the boundary between the wilderness and the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. It is on that border, that marginal space, that John the Baptist stands, enticing the people to repent and be baptized.

What’s fascinating to not here is that our reading today takes place beginning a mere four verses into Mark’s gospel. Jesus here is a cipher—John gets the more thorough treatment: we hear him described by how he dresses and what he does. What he says gets described, even if not quoted directly. Jesus gets no description at all. Jesus is silent. What Jesus sees is described, but that is only possible if someone else saw it too.

If Mark were a journalist, he wouldn’t be a very good one. If Mark were a cameraman for an NFL game, he would be fired, because his camera is on the tight end, dutifully blocking away on the end of the offensive line, instead of the quarterback, and the quarterback has just decided to keep the ball and call his own number.

So, if we are to learn anything about the incident, we have to focus on that tell-tale line: “He saw the heavens torn apart.” In the Jewish depiction of the world, the heavens weren’t just a place of fluffy clouds. The heavens set a cap on the universe. The barrier between heaven and earth was there for the protection of humanity, for the establishment of order.

In the Jewish scriptures, when the heavens were torn apart, as in Isaiah 64, it was so that God could come down-- and mixed into the hope for this was a healthy dose of fear. The Jewish cosmology perceived the sky as a dome that held back flood waters and the armies of heaven, when they were stirred. Tearing open that dome would destroy the order and categorical purity of the universe. Similarly, this was also akin to the curtain in the Temple that set apart the holy of holies to be torn in two, for it was said that to enter through the curtain was to enter back into the first day of creation—a place outside of time and space, before the universe itself was formed (taking us back to our first reading). This, of course, is related as happening after Jesus’s death on the cross.

For the heavens to be torn open, God would be tearing the roof off the universe for the purpose of coming down—a prospect that reorders the barricades of power in the human world as much as in heaven. And so what then traverses the gap in the dome?

The Holy Spirit. It “descends like a dove upon Jesus,” we are told. Those of us who are familiar with doves have seen their heavy bodies descend onto the lip of a birdbath or upon a branch—it’s like watching a heavy cargo helicopter touch down. But the Greek here doesn’t say the dove alights on Jesus—it implies that the Holy Spirit ENTERS into Jesus.

Thus we are reminded that the Incarnation represents a rupture, a breaking through of God’s power and glory and power into our walled off little reality. Here is the subversive heart of Christianity. The incarnation is not about order. The incarnation is about reordering, and about opening ourselves to the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit in all its power and unpredictability. The in-breaking of God destabilizes all our attempts to hold God at a distance, to control God to fit our own needs, to make God our wish-fulfilling servant rather than the other way around.

God’s in-breaking into the human experience as represented here today by Jesus's baptism reminds us that God's justice destabilizes notions of human justice and order. Jesus submits to baptism in the Jordan not because he needs to confess his sins but so that he can align fully in sympathy for and alongside us, frail fragile human beings who do need to confess our sins and repent.

Jesus’s ministry on earth is ever oriented away from pacification of evil or tamping down our proper response to injustice and oppression. No, far from it—Jesus comes to set the captives free, to proclaim liberty and favor tot the oppressed, to heal those suffering in body or spirit rather than casting them out or claiming that they deserve their fate as some sort of punishment. Jesus is a Man for Others. Jesus becomes flesh to show us how to orient our priorities toward the Other in our midst too—to really perceive their suffering, to respond with compassion and empathy, and to work for God’s justice to be implanted on earth. God's justice emerges as a call or a demand for responsibility to the Other.

For we are called as Christians to follow Jesus into the waters of baptism, and to ourselves be opened to the power of the Holy Spirit within our own lives. It’s an amazing journey parents commit their children to when they are baptized, and not to be taken lightly. It will require the remainder of our lives to be shaped by, and it’s one that lays out for us the requirements for living a fully human, fully God-directed life—a life of integrity. A life of resistance to evil. A life described in our baptismal covenant as requiring faith, a commitment to learning and intellectual rigor, a determination that the good of community and the protection of the vulnerable within that community is the greatest obligation of the command to love God.

It is seeking to serve Christ in all persons, especially those the world despises, and that we might be prone to despise ourselves. It is about understanding that when people riot in the name of “law and order,” what they are really trying to impose is peace without justice, a peace founded on injustice and the denial of rights to others in the name of protecting their own rights. What they are trying to impose is oppression and tyranny. It is a mockery of true justice, a demand for control that merely seeks to overpower and terrify rather than enlighten.

This is not a gospel passage for the faint-hearted. But neither are the times in which we live. Jesus is transformed by his experience in the Jordan to immediately get up and do battle with evil, for here is what the next 2 verses after our gospel reading say: And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now is not the time to embrace the powerful ongoing creation within us that began at our baptism. Now is the time to reject the demagoguery that seeks to conquer the power of the people through division in favor of remembering the shared sacrifice, integrity, justice and compassion that is the foundation of virtue, generosity, and decency.

Perhaps we can begin to instead embrace the transformative power of God to aid us and to enact creation within us in becoming a beloved community, guided by values of shared burdens, shared dreams, and shared sacrifice for the common good. The Spirit is calling us to reclaim our humanity—in the name of Jesus to stand for right, integrity and honor. Creation and its drive for life over the forces of death is washing over us anew. Let us wade into the waters of a new creation, and labor for a new birth of freedom and justice in our communities.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online worship service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, in time of COVID19 restrictions.

Readings:

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

Prayer 2871: A Litany for Wisdom and Unity

God of Abundant Grace,
your love is the foundation for the world,
and we stand in wonder and gratitude before You
joining the song of all creation in praising You.

We are clay in your hand, O Merciful One:
mold us and shape us into worthy vessels
that we may bear your light
into the darkest recesses of our common life,
and may work for the support and healing of all.
When we see a chance to repair the wounds in society,
or prevent the suffering of the vulnerable,
let us reach out eager hands to each other in love.

When we forget that You have called us
to love of friend and enemy,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we harden our hearts
against the suffering and exploitation of others,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we confuse hearing what we want to hear
with hearing what is right and good,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.
When we seek our own profit
while discounting the workers' right to bread and home,
reorient our hearts, Lord Christ.

Spirit of Hope, set us to work with joy
as we enter the fields of the Lord,
and help us seize every opportunity
to admit our wrongs rather than persevere in contempt.
Beloved Savior, bend near,
and press the kiss of your blessing
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Speaking to the Soul for November 5, 2020

This last Sunday the gospel we heard, leading us into Election Day, was Matthew 5:1-12, when Jesus sits down on a mountain to teach the crowds, and we receive one of the two versions of the Beatitudes in the gospels.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

I am grateful for this gospel being stretched over us like a canopy this week. Many of us are anxious for an extra reason in the next few days: the election on Tuesday. We have all heard people, even before voting began, anticipating their idea of the worst and vowing to resist violently and to turn on their political opponents.

This is NOT the American way, nor is it the way of people of faith. But it does have precedent in American history.

In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president in a fractious election that featured the vote split among four candidates. After the electoral college met in December of 1860, states began attempting to secede from the Union, even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Seven states had announced their decision to part by the time Lincoln addressed the nation in his first words as president. In his First Inaugural address, he appealed to calm, reason, and affection, to shared history and values. Lincoln closed with this plea:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

In the end, Union prevailed, albeit at great and terrible cost, but unity remains harder to come by, even now. Yet it is never too late to turn aside from the forces of division, and embrace hope.

Look back over that list of eight blessings from Matthew. Each of them refers to better angels of our nature. Each of these blessings begins in the present (Blessed ARE…) and points to the future (for they WILL BE…), except for the first and the eighth statements, which say that the poor in spirit—the downcast, the anxious, in other words-- and those who are persecuted are blessed “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Is. Present tense. And so too, our political lives are rooted in the present, but should look forward in hope to a better future for all.

And yet, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, preached in a perfectly named sermon entitled “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” we are confronted with this powerful stone of truth: "True peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.” We cannot have peace if it is founded upon silence in the face of injustice and the suffering of others in the sake of profit. That is the way of the world—that world that Jesus calls us to work together to overturn in the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes remind us that those who are especially blessed of God are not the high and mighty ones, but those who are on the side of those the world esteems little: the poor, the weak, the suffering, the innocent, the peacemakers, and those who persevere in discipleship even when they stand at risk of unjustly losing all the things the world values. The Beatitudes are addressed to the Church, those who proclaim that they are disciples of Jesus. Those who are blessed are those who look beyond themselves.

No matter what the results on Tuesday are, however long it takes to resolve, I pray for us all to be bold witnesses and peacemakers who stand for justice, unity, and respecting the dignity and worth of every person.




This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on November 5, 2020. It is adapted from my weekly rector's reflection at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on October 30, 2020.

Prayer, day 2838: For an Election

Most Holy God,
whose house is founded on justice,
peace,
and abiding faithfulness,
we raise our hearts to You this day.

We humbly confess our sins:
our lack of kindness and humility,
and the injuries we have inflicted on others
and against You.

Open our hearts to receive your Spirit, Almighty One,
to remake us as joyful disciples of your Law of Love.
Help us dedicate ourselves
to building rather than destroying,
loving rather than fearing.
Let us remember that
we ARE Christ's body in the world,
and work for reconciliation,
mercy,
healing,
and justice for all.

All creation rests within your loving hand,
O Creator and Redeemer:
increase our faith
a mustard seed at a time.
Bless us with loving, hopeful hearts
and compassionate spirits, we pray.

Gather within your mercy
all those whom we now name in our prayers.

Amen.

What Do You Expect?: Sermon for the Feast of All Saints, 2020

One of the benefits of having parents who were older than your friends’ parents is that you then have relatives who are mostly older that your friends’ relatives. My dad’s parents were born in the last decade of 19th century, for instance. Seriously. 130 years ago. My Mom’s dad was the baby of 17 children. We spent lots of time in my childhood in the backseat of a car, unbuckled, driving hours to visit the dozens of great-aunts and-uncles and second cousins so old we called them aunts and uncles too. With no idea of how crazy it seems now, we’d spread out on a mattress in the back of a truck camper or station wagon, going to this relatives’ house or that one, all over the prairie west of Oklahoma.

Then when we got to wherever we were going, we would be around really old people. But I looked at it as people who has SEEN and EXPERIENCED things. I would listen to the stories of their lives and learn about my family’s history. One of my great-grandfathers on my Dad’s side, for instance, was the meanest so and so in seven counties on both sides of the Red River. He was a moonshiner who terrorized his family (it wasn’t explained like that but I read between the lines). He married a Native American woman, but refused to register the children on the tribal rolls because then they would have been excluded from schools for white children. Now, anyone in the county could see that these kids were half Native. But they went to the white kids’ schools because everybody was too afraid of their father to challenge this. This was one of the few benefits that accrued to his descendants from his meanness, but it was not an insubstantial one.

Sometimes, the older folks would actually talk to us kids rather than send us out to play. I remember I was helping one of my great-aunts make a blackberry cobbler one time in her tiny kitchen in the part of the clapboard house that had dated from territory times. It was about a million degrees in that kitchen, but she had cool sweet lemonade and the Cardinals game on a tiny radio, and so that helped overcome a lot of my resistance at being forced into the women’s sphere of life while the men sat in the breezeway and played dominoes and smoked. 

She told me all kinds of stories while we worked, but one statement buried within one of them has stuck with me until this day: “Well, what do you expect? Because the lower you set your expectations, the more likely it is that they will be fulfilled, but leave you dissatisfied.”

I don’t know why that moment struck me so vividly. But it has stayed with me for decades now, and has been one of the most encouraging mantras of my life.

Expectations can shape your perception of the world, for the good, or for the bad. Looking back over my life, I see how my aunt’s wisdom has played out again and again. If you expect something to fail, you make it that much harder for it to succeed, and you even may take steps, consciously or unconsciously, to enable that failure. If you expect something to succeed, you will invest of yourself to help make that thing succeed, and you will be more likely to persevere to make that success a reality.

Look at how the post-war American public school system was proclaimed a failure twice in the 20th century. The first time was during the Cold War, when the Soviets were supposedly beating us technologically. But at that time, we decided we expected better. The answer then, in the 1950s, was to pour federal money into the schools to improve them, and also to desegregate them. And our schooling system, from kindergarten to college level, even with its rampant inequalities, became the envy of the world.

The second time our schools were declared failures was in the 1980s. But this time, the answer was to siphon funding away from schools—and for forty years we have slashed state and local tax support for our schools. We also resisted fully implementing desegregated schools when we realized that it would mean desegregating our neighborhoods, and you can still see this at work here in St. Louis. Those with means began setting up a partially-privately funded tier of schools, and siphoned even more money and support away. We let criticism become expectation. And now our schools are struggling and gasping for air, even as we pile more demands upon them. And the states who have most slashed funding to schools have seen their populations and economies dwindle.

I am certain NONE of us expected 2020 to be the rollercoaster it has become. And we had some expectations shattered yesterday, didn’t we? We expected to have a little celebration, but, then Bill and I learned that our daughter had tested positive for COVID19, and that exposed us, potentially. We made the decision to postpone our Celebration of New Ministry out of caution and love for each other. But rather than be disappointed, instead, we can just adjust ourselves back to anticipation. Yesterday, also, I expected then to be leading this service from church—and yet for the sake of all whom I love, here we are back in the Church of My Basement, surrounded by my own wall of saints and icons, until we finish our fourteen days of quarantine.

Our gospel today is about expectations. Actually, our gospel almost EVERY day is about expectations.

In today’s gospel, we hear the first part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount—the most famous part, probably: the Beatitudes. What we may not hear are the expectations that Jesus is challenging in each one of the eight statements he makes. Yet he names groups of people, starting with those who struggle with the disappointments of this world, the poor in spirit, the ones who struggle against hopes being dashed, with instead being the recipients of God’s abundance and generosity. Each of these blessings begins in the present (Blessed ARE…) and points to the future (for they WILL BE…), except for the first and the eighth statements, which say that the poor in spirit and those who are persecuted are blessed “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Is. Present tense. The kingdom of heaven is inbreaking right now. Those who expect it can see it, and work for it, even in the midst of a pandemic. For it is during times of crisis that we humans can shake off our isolation and worship of self, a selfishness which only leads to feeling more vulnerable. We can instead remember that united we stand, and divided we most certainly will fall.

Especially as we deal with expectations at war with fear and division this week as we await, finally, Election Day, with a mixture of relief and dread, we need this reminder. So too, our political lives are rooted in the present, but should look forward in hope to a better future for all. Politics is about how we live with each other—partisanship is the disagreement about the basis of our common life. But our life together is political in best sense. As Christians, we are called first and foremost be a people of faith, hope, and love. We need to be people whose expectations are grounded in abundance. Yes—we actually NEED this, in order to sustain ourselves in the times of struggle.

And the WORLD needs us to be those people too. If we don’t witness in our lives to God’s abundance and presence in the world, who will? That’s the expectation that shaped the influence of all the saints we remember today. They looked, and saw what was, but then lived into the expectation of God’s grace and abundance. They didn’t have to be perfect to do that. They just had to open themselves, even a tiny bit, to being channels of God’s grace.

The Beatitudes remind us that those who are especially blessed of God are not the high and mighty ones, but those who are on the side of those the world esteems little: the poor, the weak, the suffering, the innocent, the peacemakers, and those who persevere in discipleship even when they stand at risk of unjustly losing all the things the world values. The Beatitudes are addressed to the Church, to those who proclaim that they are disciples of Jesus. Those who are blessed are those who look beyond themselves.

The world, especially the economic and the partisan world, tries to shake this out of us, of course. That world wants to convince us that scarcity and poverty in spirit rules the day and haunts the night. And here we see it again—expect that you will never have enough, and you will never feel that you have enough, no matter how much you actually have. The more you hold back, the less generous you become—and that applies to stewardship and church budgets as well. Those who are blessed are those who see what could be, and work and give to make that a reality and be a part of that reality. Faithful hope is the price of admission. Those who are blessed are those whose expectations are grounded in knowing that hope can be a more powerful instrument than faithlessness in changing the world for the better.

The gospel is a long, narrative story of expectations being shattered when the reign of God breaks in. The peasant teenager named Mary didn’t expect to have that angel pop up in front of her and call her “Favored One.” Joseph didn’t expect to have to explain a pregnant fiancée. Those shepherds didn’t expect to see the heavens break open and see the constellations swirl in beat to a hallelujah chorus. The Magi expected that special baby to be in a palace, not a hovel. Nobody expected a great prophet to come out of Nazareth. Nobody expected a carpenter’s son to be a healer and teacher, much less a savior.

And the gospels themselves are located with one single plot of scripture, as my beloved teacher and Psalm scholar Clint McCann would remind us repeatedly in seminary. And that plot is the reality of God’s grace. Genesis chapters 1-9 are about God’s relationship with the world- as Genesis 9 reminds us, God covenants with humanity, every creature, and even with the earth itself God calls us to embody justice by showing us that justice is grounded not in retribution, but in forgiveness and mercy—grace again, and the prophets attest to this even as they rail against human faithlessness.(1) 

We are called to live our lives as Christians by taking seriously the hope and grace that is at the heart of God’s relationship with us. When we are transformed by this good news, this outpouring of blessing even upon those the world denigrates or overlooks, we move into the realm of the power of expectation—beyond the tension of what IS, to the assurance of what WILL BE.

What do you expect? What you expect becomes what you look for, and that then leads to what you see—or don’t see. As we remember the saints in our lives, let us decided, right now, today, to let those expectations lead us to the proclamation of the kingdom of God and the abundance of God’s dream for us, right here, right now.

Amen.


This sermon was preached at the 10:30 livestream worship from St. Martin's Episcopal Church during Coronatide on November 1, 2020, the Feast of All Saints.

Readings:

Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

Citations:

1) The Rev. Dr. J. Clint McCann, Jr., "The Hermeneutics of Grace: Discerning the Bible's Single Plot," in Interpretation, January, 2003, pp. 5-15.

Prayer 2828: Confession and Rededication

O Lord Our Peace,
we gather under the canopy of your blessing,
and breathe in your mercy,
for we rely surely upon your grace.

You brood over the verdant dark velvet of night,
O Fashioner of Light,
and bring forth all that is:
we offer you our hearts,
that you may remold and shape them
in tenderness and compassion.

Lord Jesus, Exalted Teacher,
Healer of the World,
bend near the places
where cruelty, anger, and contempt
mar our communities and our hearts.

May we hear your call
to renunciation and repentance
where we have numbed ourselves
to the tears of children,
to the groans of the hungry,
to the ill who must choose between shelter and care;
to the desperate flight of the refugee.

May we never twist your gospel
to support pain and suffering,
deception and exploitation
of the desperate.

May we choose instead
the walk in the broad path of integrity and hope.
Make us a people of compassion,
proclaiming your generous grace,
and extending the net of your mercy
beneath those who call out for aid,
that all may lift their hearts in praise, O God,
upheld by your sheltering hand,
especially those
whose names we lift before you.

Amen.

Prayer 2789: A Prayer for Hardened Hearts

Almighty God,
generous Creator,
we breathe in the sweet peace you offer,
and lift our hearts to you in intercession.

We humbly confess our wrongs,
and seek your help in converting our hearts
from stone to flesh.

Help us to remember
the spirit of love and reconciliation to which you call us,
and walk in your light and community in hope,
never condemning others to darkness.
You call us to be instruments of hope and mutual care,
following in the footsteps of Jesus,
living by compassion and grace.

Let us never twist your words, beloved Savior,
to support our our hatreds and prejudices.
Let us remember the mercy and forgiveness you offer,
and count the graces you have given us
as reminders that our words and actions are our testimony.

Lift us up
by the rising wave of your Spirit, O Blessed One,
and remind us to choose the road of compassion
as we seek to spread your gospel,
and to uproot the weeds of division that spring up within us.

Holy One, we depend wholly upon You;
may we be led by your wisdom into love and gentleness
and bless the world by our devotion to your Truth.

Grant the sweets of your mercy, Beloved Jesus,
to all those in any need,
and gather within your embrace
all those for whom we pray.

Amen.