Prayer 3292: For the Feast of Candlemas

(Feast of the Presentation of Jesus- Luke 2:22-40)

Most Blessed Savior,
may we praise you in the temple and in the streets,
extolling your many blessings boldly
and witnessing to your abiding loving-kindness
in all we do and say this day.

Make us strong in your wisdom, O God;
let us grow in heart and mind,
sinking deep roots
into the verdant ground of your commandments
loving You and our neighbors
as You love us.
May our own countenance
shine forth with the Light of God's Wisdom,
and with the radiance of your Incarnate Word.

At eventide, let us depart in peace,
having served you humbly, atiently, and with charity,
having looked with eyes of love upon the world,
and knowing that we have seen the Savior
in each face we have encountered.

Keep us all this good day,
and bring us to our rest in safety and assurance,
and pour out your blessing
on those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Believing in God's Belief in Us: Speaking to the Soul, January 27, 2022

 Jeremiah 1:4-10

Jeremiah, known sometimes as “the weeping prophet,” is believed to have written both Jeremiah and Lamentations. Jeremiah was twenty years-old when God called him. At first Jeremiah believes that he is not up to the responsibility, but God insists that he is the right person. Jeremiah recounts his call story to bolster the legitimacy of his call in the eyes of those around him—that he did not seek out this position, but God insisted. God planned this for Jeremiah since before his birth (just as with Jesus).

God gives Jeremiah the unpleasant task of warning the people about the destruction of Jerusalem—and worse, to make clear that this destruction will happen because the people turned their backs on God. Jeremiah became quite skilled in doom-forecasting. So much so that the term “jeremiad” refers to a long prophetic work which warns about the imminent destruction of society. Cataclysm, holocaust, the end of the world as we know it–those are heavy subjects for one so young to speak about with authority. No wonder Jeremiah feels the need to establish his bona-fides.

Jeremiah’s self-doubt contrasts with the self-assurance of Jesus that we find in the fourth chapter of Luke, to be read this Sunday. Jesus speaks with authority, unlike Jeremiah with his self-doubt and hiding behind his young age.

Yet even Jeremiah understood that people need a glimmer of hope. That’s why even the book of his prophecies includes the section known as the “Little Book of Consolations,” which makes a decided turn from doom-saying to looking for the hope that shines out even in the darkest night.

This gets back to the idea of God’s purpose for human life: not fear, not dread, but the assurance that God has loved us and known us from before we were even aware of that love and tenderness. That love is the source of the wondrous hymn of hope “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” derived from the third chapter of Lamentations—a reading often chosen at funerals because of the certainty with which Jeremiah lays claim to the mercy upon mercy we receive from God.

Most of us no longer believe that bad things happen to us as a punishment from God. God values us as we are—and too often we find that idea the unbelievable one. How often do we fail to believe in ourselves? How often do we fail to believe that God is calling us? This speaks of a personal relationship with God that so many of us long for. Jesus will be the fulfillment of the prophecies recorded here, just as he claimed last week. Seizing ahold of the reality of God’s love for us, as daunting as that can seem, brings all that we have been promised by God into focus, and allows us to see ourselves as we really are: beloved by God.

How can we apply this lesson to ourselves? There have been plenty of times in most lives when we felt that we just couldn’t do something, or faced an obstacle or a sorrow that was overwhelming. There have been times I have felt this– and in the midst of prayer, I feel a calm descend upon me. God promises us that we will be strengthened for whatever challenges we need to face, even at the end of our lives. God has faith is us—how can we fail to reflect that faith in ourselves, and to be beacons of hope to a world that desperately cries out for hope?

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 27, 2022.

The Tenderness of the Creator: Speaking to the Soul, January 6, 2022

Isaiah 43:1-7

It seems like the idea of God as the Creator is too often seen as somehow remote, or bloodless. I don’t know if people have that idea that because God is so powerful that God can just basically snap God’s fingers and – poof!—a new thing is created, but with a certain emotional reserve between Creator and Created. Maybe it’s just hard to imagine, much less accept, the particularity of God’s love for each of us.

The ancient Greeks had a different idea. The offspring of Titans, Prometheus, is often credited, by the poets Sappho, Ovid, the playwright Aeschylus, Aesop, and others, with creating many of the living things on Earth—but especially humans-- as a master craftsman. He is credited with giving humans the fire of creativity as well as literal fire, and being punished by Zeus for it. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams, in her song “This Earth,” describes Prometheus as loving mortals and caring for them protectively—much like we see in this reading from Isaiah 43. She imagines Prometheus musing,

“I love this land of mortal men
They wake to know the fire again
The things we make, the things we feel,
Armored plates and molten steel
All of these inventions of the earth, the earth... this earth.”(1)

Thinking of the relationship between Creator and Created as a sterile transaction, less intimate than calling God “Father,” overlooks passages such as we see here in our reading from what is known to scholars as 2nd Isaiah. The prophet recounts the devotion and tenderness of God most touchingly here at the end of the pericope:

Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, "Give them up,"
and to the south, "Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth--
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."

In Isaiah 64 as well as Jeremiah 18, the prophets make the solicitousness and loving-kindness of God even more explicit in the metaphor of God as a potter, hands intimately shaping human beings. The touch of a hand is an undeniably personal image, and when that hand moves tenderly, like a caress, we know that we are loved, even without words. I wonder what it would do to us in our relationship with each other, especially in the situation we face right now, if we could take that belovedness for both ourselves and each other seriously.

As we remember the events of the past two years, and of a year ago, when a wave of rage was directed at our institutions and our representatives, the idea of love binding the creation to the creator puts into sharp focus how much our estrangement from God and each other costs us.

We are called by our Creator in love, and we are called by our Creator to love. Having faith in that love is our great challenge—to believe that love is that powerful, that foundational.

The Wise Men stepped out in faith searching for what was already theirs. They, like all of us, were seekers after what was already woven into their bones: the love of God.

Faith is not a box on a checklist. The point of faith is not primarily knowledge or mastery. The point of faith is relationship—to be specific, to accept the unimaginable truth that God loves us fiercely, tenderly, protectively, intimately as our Creator. It’s a relationship that burns with warmth, devotion, a longing for closeness from Creator toward the beloved Creation. This Sunday we will be reminded that we are forgiven, as hard as that is to accept at times; and more, that we are beloved, despite all our wayward tendencies. What an Epiphany that would be!

Attributions:

Dar Williams, "This Earth," from the album In the Time of the Gods, 2012.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 6, 2022.

Two Prophets, Two Songs, One Revolution: Sermon for Advent 4C

The domesticity of this scene is striking. Women are the main characters, the bold actors, the righteous proclaimers of truths their menfolk either greeted with silence or shied away from, or both. As soon as Mary offers her assent to God via God’s heavenly messenger, Gabriel, she sprints to her kinswoman Elizabeth’s house.

Both of these women are bearing children whose very coming into existence could be fuel for gossip and scandal. Elizabeth’s pregnancy stands out because she has been childless so long that she undoubtedly had been written off as forgotten by God and forgotten by a society that prized a woman’s fertility as her main contribution. Mary’s pregnancy, once it becomes obvious, puts her at the risk of losing the only thing she had as a poor peasant girl, and that was her good name—even though that also was more the property of her father than a possession she herself could benefit from.

Elizabeth also has embraced a future that includes raising up a prophetic rebel who will sneer at the powerful and taunt the complacent with the vision of restored divine justice that makes a mockery of preference and privilege for those who deck themselves in finery and claim the best places and the softest garments.

And Mary herself? She is often portrayed in art as a twenty-something, fair-haired, cool and collected like Grace Kelly. Yet the truth is undoubtedly less comfortable. She is probably in her middle teens. She is poor, ragged, uneducated, powerless by society’s standards.

But Mary’s family is left unmentioned probably because they didn’t bear mentioning, day laborers from peasant stock living from hand to hand—the reason why Jesus’s prayer later asks God to provide the daily bread. She was betrothed to a probably much older man. This arrangement was made by her father, probably and decreed by a society that saw this alignment of circumstances as optimal by maximizing a bride’s child-bearing years with a man’s ability to be established and support a family. Her yes to that probably didn’t exist. She was probably told what would happen after her father and Joseph concluded negotiations.

But then along comes the messenger of God before her, which is the first stunning development in her role in this drama.

The next stunning developments come the minute the angel opens its mouth: First, the angel calls her “favored one,” and from everything she has probably experienced until this time in her life, that probably had not been an adjective she would have used to describe her circumstances. However, in the Greek, there is a pun here: the root for the word “greetings” also means “grace” or “favor.” And it states that right then she is perplexed. The angel points out the previously childless Elizabeth’s good fortune—and that her pregnancy is well advanced. The miracle part is made explicit—this has all been God’s doing. That’s good salesmanship, there, for the next step.

Then the angel puts before a proposal, and contrary to what some people still claim today, God never forces us to obedience or belief, not even through fear or threat of smiting or awe or might. There is ALWAYS a choice—that’s what having the free will as part of our inheritance from God is all about. So Mary gets a choice.

That means we can’t take for granted the cost of that choice. Her yes comes with staggering potential for her own destruction. Unmarried, but engaged to another man, her pregnancy will condemn her in the eyes of the world—and if it is known that the child is not Joseph’s, death by stoning. She could be thrown out by her parents, denounced by Joseph, and killed.

But there is one thing she DOES have in abundance—and that is trust. So she assents—and the scene makes her sound meek and mild like the carol says. “Let it be with me according to what you say,” she says, with eyes lowered, we think. Yet what if her reply is also asserting that her only master is God, not any of the other people who might think they control her destiny as a teenaged Jewish peasant girl in occupied Roman territory. Perhaps not so meek, after all.

The angel leaves, and she hotfoots it to her kinswoman Elizabeth’s house. And as Elizabeth sees her approaching, her child leaps inside her so hard it takes her breath away.

Elizabeth at this moment becomes not just the mother of a prophet, but a prophet herself: she knows Mary’s news even before a word is spoken. Elizabeth bursts into a brief song of triumph, speaking with awe about her younger relative that already shows the reversal in their hierarchical status. Elizabeth’s song has traditionally been mixed together with the words of Gabriel to Mary to create the opening to what is known to our Roman Catholic kindred as the “Ave Maria:”

“Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you,”
the angel intones, and Elizabeth expands and makes specific the observation:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”

Two things arise here: first, Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah may be a priest, but his silencing has caused a reversal, for this is a priestly blessing if ever there was one. Elizabeth finishes her thought with saying WHY she knows Mary is blessed, even before Mary has had the chance to tell her story. And then she blesses her kinswoman with a blessing that lies underneath the text of the Hail Mary: “Blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by God.”

Mary is blessed and favored and filled with grace by her trust in God. Because trust is really what belief as a theological term means. It doesn’t mean simply intellectual assent. It means being able to lean in and upon the promises of God. That promise called grace—the idea, as Nadia Bolz-Weber says, that God has said yes to us first, always.

Elizabeth continues in astonishment and prophecy, for both she and her unborn child know that the Mother of God, and the savior she will bear, have drawn near, bringing also nearer the kingdom of God.

Two women, so different in age and status in life, are nonetheless bound together by their willingness to cling to God’s promises, both astonished and joyful at the changes that will present themselves in their lives. Both are willing to have their lives be completely upended and transfigured by faith that God’s promises will be fulfilled within them. They are transformed by anticipation of a re-ordering of justice based on trust in the tandem qualities of God’s strength and mercy in both their own lives and in the life of their community.

Mary responds to Elizabeth’s song with one of her own, and it is a song of Joy, yes—but more importantly of power and of revolution. And so we are reminded, again, what cannot be repeated enough, and that the Rev. Shug has been exploring with parishioners during our Sunday adult forum on spirituals the last several weeks: Singing is not just an act of joy. Singing itself is often an act of resistance.

The victory songs we hear in our readings today predict a re-ordering of life from human injustice to God’s justice, the approaching triumphant flourishing of shalom foretold in prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Deborah. And the important part for us, the challenging and yet also good news for us is this: WE are the agents of that revolution. Wanna change the world? Pray, sing—then ACT.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God calls us to serve as slaves to the causes of justice and peace that was woven into the very fabric of creation itself, yet derailed by humanity’s omnipresent arrogance and willfulness. As the outbursts of joy coming from Elizabeth and Mary at their greeting make clear, the approaching Spirit calls us back to the beginning. As God sang creation into being, so too the response elicited by new life and new creation experienced by Elizabeth and Mary is a powerful exclamation of anticipation, hope, and fulfillment. These are hopes that we ourselves cling to in the times in which we struggle against despair and strife in our own lives, and in our own communities.

How often do we grope and grasp for some reassurance of God’s presence in our lives, and struggle to hold on to hope when the anxieties and pressures of life seem to crush in upon us? The life-giving presence of the Spirit as manifested in the visitation between Mary and Elizabeth reminds us that God’s power breaks loose in the most unexpected times and ways. In response to the in-breaking of God’s Spirit into these women’s lives, they are given a vision of a new triumph of peace; structures of injustice and weapons of war have been shattered; the hungry are satisfied and at peace; the oppressed are lifted up and exalted, while the oppressors are humbled and crumbled. In times of struggle, hopefulness itself is an act of rebellion and resistance. Those who have been empty, without hope, have been, and will be, filled.

Mary shows us the pattern for our own journey of faith. Mary responds with trust and power, but never surrender. With a crown of stars swirling around her head, she responds:

Let it be for me as you have said. And let me play my part in turning the world upside down, in resisting the powers of oppression and inhumanity.

Preached at the 505 on December 18 and at the 10:30 Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

• Micah 5:2-5a
• Hebrews 10:5-10
• Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
• Canticle 15 (or 3)

Of Justice and Joy: Speaking to the Soul, December 9, 2021

Zephaniah 3:14-20

The season of Advent could be subtitled, “the season of the prophets.” On Advent 1 in year C, we read the selection from Jeremiah 33 predicting that a sprig will sprout from the stump of Jesse. A new king will be born from David’s line, given that Jesse was David’s father. On Advent 2, we read from either Baruch or Malachi. This third Sunday, we read the Song of Joy from the prophet Zephaniah. Then there is John the Baptist, with his “voice [as] one crying out in the wilderness,” pointing to the coming Messiah.

As we hear new warnings about the omicron variant and tension in the Ukraine, it feels as though this time of fear and anxiety may never end. Fear can be so debilitating, asa both God and the prophets know. Think of that oft-repeated admonition in scripture, “Do not fear,” spoken 55 times (NRSV), and, “Do not be afraid,” spoken 67 times. Note v. 16: “Do not fear,” spoken to Jerusalem. This passage was written during a time of oppression, death, destruction, and corruption. This is not simply talking about adding to our comfort, but calling its listeners from a very real valley of the shadow of death into life in God’s kingdom.

The book of Zephaniah, which provides the first reading this coming Sunday, was believed to have been written sometime before 640 BC, when King Josiah, who was the last great king of Israel, and the “finder” of the book of Deuteronomy, ascended to the throne. However, Zephaniah makes clear that in the years before Josiah, the people of Jerusalem are awash in corruption and oppression. The Book of Zephaniah focuses on a future day of judgment, although for us in the throes of Advent, the orientation is toward future salvation.

This section is subtitled, “A Song of Joy.” It follows a long series of warnings and threats of judgment and proclaims that now is time for a word of hope. The prophet has just expressed the expectation of God drawing all nations together and unifying them. Now, God will save a holy remnant. Echoing language in Psalm 23, the last part of v. 13, “Then they will pasture and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.” All of this is to say promise that God is in the midst of us through the Incarnation of God’s Son, whose birth we await, that justice and peace may reign on the earth. A reminder we all need, especially now as the shadows lengthen both literally and figuratively—and a reminder that is reinforced and expanded in the First Song of Isaiah which is our canticle.

Even though most of us stand in a position of privilege and power relative not only to the people to whom Zephaniah was speaking, but relative to the vast majority of the world population, we can rejoice that God’s promise is for all of us—for all nations and all peoples. Combined with John’s proclamation that we hear in today’s Gospel, it is also a reminder to us to never stand on the side of the oppressor, even passively; do not just pray for those who are the victims of fear, terror, and depression, but to work alongside them and stand with them through our actions, not just our words or our prayers. We hear again, as we do repeatedly throughout scripture, that we never stand alone, and that at times of crisis our part is to not stand aside but stand for justice. Then truly the dawn from on high may break upon us.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on December 9, 2021. 

The Best Present is Being Present: Speaking to the Soul for December 2, 2021

One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump. Besides being one of Tom Hanks’ greatest acting roles, it’s a beautiful story of how a common man—no, a man who might have been considered a throw-away man, due to his intellectual and physical challenges—ends up being involved in extraordinary events in the last half of the 20th century. But more than that, to me, it’s about the power of love, integrity, and loyalty to transform people’s lives. It’s his loyalty and compassion that elevates him from a common man to an extraordinary one. In everything Forrest does, he is fully present and focused, including in love and friendship.

Our gospel for this coming Sunday has a completely different start from Forrest’s story. Our gospel for the second Sunday of Advent starts with an illustrious list of names—powerful men, who were wealthy, connected, whether they were Romans or of Jewish descent. Interrupting this recounting of Who’s Who in Ancient Palestine comes a nobody—John, son of Zechariah—and even the fact that he was Zechariah’s son was improbable, for John had been born to Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth when both were considered to be far too old to be having babies.

And when his father, Zechariah, is told by the archangel Gabriel that there will be a baby boy coming to his wife and himself, Zechariah just can’t believe it. And even though if you know anything about scripture, you know that that is often the reception that angels get when they start announcing improbable births, for some reason Zechariah’s skepticism rubs Gabriel the wrong way, and so Zechariah becomes mute for the duration of his wife’s improbable pregnancy.

Once the baby was born, there was a lot of talk about what his name would be. It seemed like all their neighbors had an opinion. But Gabriel had already told Zechariah to name the baby John, and Zechariah was NOT about to anger Gabriel twice, so he wrote on a tablet that the baby’s name was John, which is what Elizabeth his wife had been saying all along. The second this was made clear, Zechariah’s ability to speak was restored, and he wasted no time in using his restored voice to praise God loudly and fervently.

Just like we heard from Hannah a few weeks ago, in response to her own improbable gift of a son, Zechariah sings a song of praise and justice to the Lord. His song, called the Benedictus to this day, is a song of salvation and jubilation, recounting how God is working in the world at each moment to restore it, to repair it, to sanctify it. It extols the savior God has given us even before that savior is born. And then it predicts that this little baby son he has been blessed to have is going to be the one to prepare the way for that longed-for savior. The gospel further makes this point, naming John as

A voice crying out in the wilderness….
Preparing the way of the Lord, and making his paths straight,
Leveling out any obstacle, whether mountain or valley, that might stand between the Messiah and the broadcasting his message of salvation.

How does John plan to prepare the way for Jesus to save us?

By calling God’s people to repentance to turning around their focus and priorities, not half-heartedly, but decisively. What the ancient Greeks called “metanoia--” a decisive changing not just of the mind but of the heart, so that we experience reality in a different way.

Being present—being alert and awake to what is going on around us right now—I am convinced is one of the great lessons of Advent. In a time when our identity and sense of self-worth is wrapped far too tightly around what we do or who we know, Advent reminds us that simply BEING is perhaps even more important. And Forrest Gump is a great example of that, too. Furthermore, Forrest demonstrates the effect that fidelity—that old fashioned word that means more than simply keeping promises-- have as the bedrock foundation of a person’s life.

It is this kind of preparation that Advent calls us to make. Starting inside of ourselves. Making what is crooked straight, setting what is turbulent at peace, and turn our focus so that it rests outside ourselves. Changing our emphasis from doing Christianity to being Christians within the same flesh and bones that God sanctified by sending his Son to be one of us.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on December 2, 2021.

Image: Icon of John the Baptist from the British Museum.

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 2688: Inspired by Amos 5

O Creator of the Universe, 
Fashioner of the Pleiades and Orion, 
who formed us from the dust of stars and galaxies,
we turn to you in awe and wonder:
many and great are your works, O God.

Let justice roll down like a freshening river
 and righteousness rise within us
like an ever-flowing stream
that we may care for our neighbors in your Name. 

Turn our deep darkness into morning, O Savior,
and open our ears to the prophetic voices
that call us to repentance and renewal in love.

May we turn our backs on those 
who glorify hatred
and crush the defenseless beneath their knee;
may we live instead in charity and peace
founded on equality
as You have commanded us, O God of Compassion.
May we stand in solidarity against injustice,
against the exploitation of the vulnerable
and the trampling of the oppressed.

Make us abundant in grace, mercy, and unity,
living by your precepts, O Holy One,
watered by compassion and charity
like green olive trees in the courtyards of God.

May we worship You, Merciful God,
by living out our words or worship with action,
in lending aid for any in need or peril,
by offering You lives of integrity and righteous love.

May we live lives of grace and blessing.
by seeking good for the needy,
food for the hungry,
and shelter for the refugee.

Place your benevolent hand upon us
and anoint us with a Spirit of Truth, O Lord.
Grant your favor and peace
to those who call upon You
as we pray.

Amen.

A Resurrected Creation: Sermon for Proper 28C: The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

I stand before you today wearing a stole I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wear today. This orange stole was created to support Bishops Against Gun Violence, and I wear it today in mourning for the victims of yet another school shooting in Santa Clarita, California. I wear it in response to the murder of a mother and three of her four children in San Diego at the hands of her estranged husband -and a gun. 

I wear it in memory of all the “children born for calamity” that our passage from Isaiah brought to mind. As I was studying our scriptures in preparation for this sermon, that phrase hung heavy on my heart. 

It’s a problem all over the world—it’s true. On one of her latest albums, singer-songwriter Dar Williams wrote a song called “I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything,” which tells the story of a very young refugee boy who faces the constant possibility of being pressed into service as a child soldier, an illustration of a “child born for calamity” as Isaiah speaks about. Imagining herself in a refugee camp, she imagines seeing a little boy by himself: 

“Oh what have we here, he must be three or four, 
Shaken out of a boot on its way back to war 
And he’s not looking for a father or a mother, 
Just a seven-year-old brother, 
On this smudged line border camp of refugees, 
I am the one who will remember everything. 
I am the one who will remember everything. 

So where are we now, he must be five or six, 
Just running around, hungry kids, sharpened sticks. 
And he will grow with pain and fear and jealousy, 
Taken in by schools of zealotry, 
Who train orphans to make orphans evermore.
I am the one who will remember everything.” 

I was remembering this song, and hearing Dar sing it, and I was haunted by the knowledge of yet another school shooting-- the 30th school shooting this school year alone in America. Thirty. Then came the news of the massacre of that family in San Diego. It is this kind of thing that we long to see swept away in the new Jerusalem that Isaiah predicts where “never more will children be borne for calamity,” according to Isaiah’s sweeping vision of resurrection and renewal of all creation. 

In a world oriented to justice and peace, such as that described here at the end of Isaiah, these kinds of tragedies are unimaginable. In the new creation awaiting birth in our reading, such cruelty and abandonment of the innocent to the grist-mill of slaughter and abandonment would be unimaginable. We struggle under the weight of so many griefs, so many tragedies. And even worse than the tragedies themselves is the knowledge of so many of us refusing to attempt change, of too much shrugging of the shoulders and too many declarations of “That’s just the way the world is.” 

Isaiah 65 calls us to remembrance of our responsibility for the brokenness of the world—either through our selfish choices or through our easy acceptance of pain and suffering. Isaiah calls us to repentance—and then also to hope and resilience. 

The promise in Isaiah that God is setting creation aright should sound familiar—we hear it repeatedly throughout the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. The promise of creation, of the kingdom of God, is finally going to be fulfilled. This will be a time of peace, justice, and plenty. Jerusalem will be God’s city; in other words, the new Eden. The memories of war, violence, pain, and death will be wiped completely away. The laborers will enjoy the fruits of their labor, and blessings and mercy will be freely given to the people who inhabit on God’s holy mountain.

As we begin to close out the liturgical year, and approach the Feast of Christ the King next weekend, therefore, what could be better than to hear again these words from Easter Sunday, helping us to reframe our expectations of resurrection away from what happens to us after we die to what could happen to us right now if only we worked to bring the kingdom of God near? 

I am convinced, beloveds, that it’s important to hear Isaiah’s words about what the kingdom of God looks like—and to be willing to open our hearts and our hopes to the idea that maybe we could try to bring the kingdom of God into being. Maybe? Let’s face it—trying it our way for the last 100,000 years has not worked so well. Perhaps we could actually try God’s way.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Our gospel talks about wars, and cruelties, and destruction. And although those words were written for a very specific context that Luke’s readers were themselves experiencing at that very moment, we only have to open our eyes to see much of the same going on in our world today. A world that humans have shaped, and for which humans must take responsibility. A world where too many proclaim almost gleefully that the church, that body called to bring the kingdom of God into being, is dying. A world where many seem even to be entertaining the idea that God, or God’s absence, is somehow responsible for that suffering and that dying, which is completely backwards.

It’s also exactly the same line of thinking that the people in Isaiah’s time entertained. The start of Isaiah 65 begins begins with a frank account of how far astray the people have wandered from remembering where their priorities and loyalties should lie. Like a betrayed loved one, God speaks in 65:1-3: 
 “I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, 
    to be found by those who did not seek me. 
I said, ‘Here I am, Here I am,’ 
    to a nation that did not call on my name. 
I held out my hands all day long 
   to a rebellious people, 
who walk in a way that is not good, 
   following their own devices; 
a people who provoke me 
   to my face continually…”

The mixture of frustration, heartbreak, and righteous anger in the face of rejection come through easily in these words. We get it exactly backward if we ignore the scriptural testimony that insists that every time we feel God’s absence, that we feel God’s abandonment, it is not through God’s actual leaving of us, but based on our wandering from God. 

That’s starkly stated at the beginning of Isaiah that sets the stage for our reading. The people were afraid that their religion was dying. And that’s similar to today’s situation too, I am convinced. That’s why I think I also get frustrated when I hear repeated, defeated proclamations—sometimes by leaders of the church!-- about “the dying of the church.” 

If the church is dying, we are called to see that the mission field lies before us, and that endless possibilities lie just outside our door to carry the gospel out into the hurting world! 

Hearken to this: We live a faith that proclaims death is NEVER the end! Rather than defeat, we are called to see the hope of resurrection! 

In Isaiah, God isn’t speaking about the end of religion so much as denouncing the end of faithlessness, and there’s an important difference in that. Yet after God lists the specific crimes of God’s people, nonetheless, God knows that there are some, few perhaps, who remain faithful, and for that faithful remnant God will continue faithful. It is then that this beautiful poem bursts forth about a new creation that is ongoing even as God’s listing of human faithlessness hangs over the scene. 

This capacity to forgive, forgive, forgive, to see beyond the worst things humans have ever done to the ongoing possibility of our redemption and repentance is one of the things that reminds us who are honest that were God is God, and we are not. Where humans carry grudges and vendettas and nurture injuries of long ago to our bosom as if they were some kind of boon companion, God always seeks us, always leaves open the door to repentance, reformation, and redemption. 

God makes it clear that what has brought this calamity of conquest and exile upon the people is their own faithlessness—their lack of care and concern for each other, certainly, but especially their lack of care for the oppressed and marginalized among the people. Worse, beyond the fact that they have abandoned principles of social justice, they have made a mockery of their religious practices—claiming to be faithful and holier than thou, but engaging in unclean practices and idolatry. 

 The word of warning from the prophet to the people regarding idolatry hits frighteningly close to home for us, too, in this time and time place, as we hear of yet another school shooting, another group of children killed, injured or traumatized upon the altar of gun worship, we cannot fail to understand that these words against idolatry speak to us right now, in a dozen different ways. 

Yet, all is not lost. To those who remain faithful, who see the scars and wounds being inflicted in society, God offers a word of comfort, consolation, and hope- even more of regeneration and resurrection- that word that is at the center of our faith as Christians. 

It is at this point that we see the beautiful vision of Isaiah 65:17-25. The Edenic vision laid before us in this joyful promise of ongoing creation and recreation, new life and resurrection is striking: long life, health, absence of strife, and utter contentment with abundant food and peace for all, and once again the kind of intimacy with God that is the subject of longing since the fall of humanity. Indeed, in this new Eden, the serpent is prevented from being able to do his dastardly work from the get-go, as it is already marginalized rather than given the freedom to live without the mark of its duplicitous ways already stamped upon it—in verse 25, it alone has dust as its food. 

This time, we won’t have the serpent to point the finger at, in other words. This time, God makes it clear that the first cause of bringing our common life together is our own commitment to justice, mercy, and real peace, which is always founded on equity and action, not merely the “lack of war.” Underlying all of this beautiful vision is the idea that we have a responsibility in bringing about this world. We hear the promise that infants will live to ripe old age—and are reminded that we are called by God as faithful people to love all children as much as we love our own as part of making that dream a reality. 

In other words, this new creation is dependent upon the transformation of our relationships, both with each other and with God. This resurrection is dependent upon our decision to put the love we are called to embody into action, in decisive and insistent ways. We are called to be a people of hope, a people who dream dreams, as we were reminded a couple of weeks ago—but also a people who act to make those dreams reality. Resurrection of creation does not happen unless we take what we profess on Saturday or Sunday and take it on the offensive—an offensive of love, mind you, but an offensive nonetheless-- throughout the week. 

There are three particular emphases in the description of a transformed heaven and earth in this reading: 1) rejoicing, both by the people and by God; 2) life itself is transformed so that all can flourish without one life being sacrificed for another; and 3)relationships themselves being transformed by virtue of the new life and community that will be formed as a result of God’s creating, energizing act. Indeed here, our relationship with God will be so transformed that “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.” 

The middle of our reading mentions that no more will one person enjoy the fruits of another person’s heritage. Leviticus 25 talks about the “Jubilee Year,” a year of rest and restoration that would occur every 49 years, kind of sabbath year of sabbath years. In that year, all bondservants would be freed, the land would be allowed to lie fallow and rest itself in its own sabbath, and any land that had been sold away from its owners would be restored so that no one would be deprived of their patrimony. 

Three major shifts will take place: God will take joy in this new work; justice, contentment, and peace will take the place of weeping, vulnerability, and injustice; and relationships and the order of nature will be transformed so that none must suffer or be deprived so that another may prosper. If we all understood that we are members of one community—the kingdom of God—we might not just be satisfied with a human calculus that divides our fellow human beings and children of God into circles of ”them” and “us”—which is unfortunately another way to say “losers” and “winners.” 

God is eternal. Love is eternal. How will we act in light of this knowledge? 

 Perhaps such a vision is exactly what we need, as more and more people talk about the “dying of the church,” as if that somehow lets all of us off the hook for living faithfully in this context. The joyful images of renewal Isaiah describes do not come without cost, without first a recession of faith and a loss of faithfulness. Isaiah 65 starts with a Dickensian admission that it really was the worst of times, and the best of times seems to be inconceivable. The first verses of that chapter detail a people who have lost their way in the darkness of their own willfulness. 

Yet after describing the waywardness of the people, Isaiah bursts forth with a vision of restoration so glorious that much of it is later recapitulated in the beautiful poem found in the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation. It is no coincidence that Isaiah 65 is a reading that we also hear on Easter Sunday in the lectionary. The language is immediate and filled with NOW: God proclaims “I AM creating… I am about to create!” Those who believe that God is dead—open your eyes and see what CAN be! 

It becomes as simple as this: are we a resurrection-shaped people, or not? Is it possible for us to drop our thin veneer of cynicism to take seriously the idea that resurrection is at the very center of our faith? Isaiah 65 calls us to reclaim our faith with not just boldness but with joy. Real joy. Real hope. Real energy. 

Beloveds, the world is feverishly a-thirst for the message we bear as Christians who proclaim the God who we encounter: a God who calls us to love, who calls us to proclaim a jubilee of redemption against the machinery of hopelessness that only serves the cause of the oppressor, who calls us to walk in integrity and unity in the face of division and fear. A God who calls us into partnership in this new heaven and new earth, who strengthens us to see that what can be has been here all along. We only need the faith and the will to never, ever give up. It's time to start working toward that resurrected creation. 

Amen.


Preached at the 505 on November 16 and at 8:00 and 10:30 am on November 17, 2019 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.


Readings:
Isaiah 65:17-25Canticle 9 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13Luke 21:5-19

Notes:
"I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything," from In the Time of Gods, by Dar Williams, 2012.