Prayer 4038

Holy One,

the curtains of night have parted,
and the birds are singing the sun into wakefulness.

May the dawn of understanding and charity
break over all creation,
and may all join hands in compassion and kinship.

May our hearts beat in tune with each other
in reverence before our God.

May we drink deep from the well of wisdom,
that we may align our lives with your divine will.
May our hands be skilled in building bridges, not walls;
may our souls embrace you holy commandments
that we may love truth and walk with integrity/
May we dedicate our lives
for the sake of the reconciliation of the world
with your holy purpose, O God.

Led by the Spirit,
may we pace our hand in your, Lord Christ,
trusting in your abundant grace,
and asking your blessing upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 4027: For Christian Unity

Creating God,
we rise beneath your spangled heavens,
the filigree of stars and constellations designed in your wisdom,
and we center ourselves in your love.

You weave together all that is
and charge and entrust us with serving and tending
this delicate, bountiful planet;
you knit together all peoples in one common tapestry;
the art of your creation fills us with wonder and awe.
You laid out a path of integrity and reconciliation
in the footprints of the Savior you send
to live among us and draw us closer to You.

All the works of your hand testify to your glory:
may the gravity and force of your Spirit
move over the deeps of our hearts
that we may stirred up to live by your precept of compassion.

May all who commit themselves to the Way of Jesus
live in amity and charity with each other,
and with all who seek to live lives worthy of You.

Gather into the vault of your mercy and compassion
all those who cry out to You, O Most High,
and give your angels charge
over those for whom we pray this day.

Amen.

Likes and Loves: Sermon for Trinity Sunday, year A, 2023

A pilot and a priest have died and are waiting in line outside the gates of Heaven for entry. When they reach the front of the line, St. Peter beckons the pilot forth.

"Who are you, so I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?" he asks.

"I am Steven Armstrong of Houston, Texas." St. Peter consults his list.

"Ah, Captain Armstrong! You were an airline pilot for Southwest Airlines for 32 years. Take these silk robes and this staff of gold; you may enter the Kingdom."

St. Peter then beckons the next person in line forth—the priest. He repeats the same question again: "Who are you, so I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?"

The priest straightens out. "I am the Reverend Denise Ford of Stanford, Connecticut," she replies. "Episcopal priest for the past 32 years."

"Reverend Ford," St. Peter says as he flips through his list. "Pastor of the Trinity Church for the last 12 years, honest, supportive, kind, diligent in study and always willing to help. Ah, yes. Take these wool robes and this wooden staff and enter the Kingdom," St. Peter says. The priest shrugs and accepts them before entering.

Later, she finds St. Peter out fishing by a crystalline stream. "Sir, I'm just curious, but the man who stood in front of me outside the gates of Heaven was just a pilot, but he got silk robes and a gold staff. I preached and spoke the word of the Lord for most of my life, but I received these wool robes and this wooden staff. What gives?”

St. Peter turns to the priest. "Well, Mother, up here, we go by results. While you preached and gave your sermons, people slept.

"While he flew, and especially during landings, people prayed and called out to Jesus unceasingly."


Welcome to Trinity Sunday. It’s a day so dreaded for preaching that the Rev. Shug and I flipped a coin and I lost. I am hoping that I will neither bore you, put you to sleep, nor make you scream in terror over the next few minutes. It’s a pretty low bar, you might think. But Trinity Sunday is a day dedicated to a concept that is so famously difficult to preach about that seminarians are warned that no matter what they do, they might either bore their audience, put them to sleep, or commit heresy. All choices one normally would like to avoid.

So why do it? Even better, why have to do it every single year????

This is a question I also ask myself every year.

We start with understanding that the basic definition of the Trinity is that there are three “persons” within, but one God, and all three persons as equal.

But just putting it into words, which are finite in meaning on their surface means there are many ways we end up limiting God when we try to talk about God. For instance, I made a distinct choice there not to use the pronoun “him” just there, because God is beyond gender. God has no need for gender. Our *language* does, though, but if we constantly default to speaking of God as male, or female, we prioritize certain expectations about how God operates over others.

Some people claim that the Trinity doesn't even show up in the Hebrew scriptures. Untrue. But sometimes subtle. For instance, where was the Trinity in our creation story? You might discern it right there where God referred to "us" making God in "our" image. Some claim that the story in Genesis about three visitors who came to Abraham under the oaks of Mamre were actually the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's the basis for the painting on the cover of our bulletin at this service, by the way. When Jesus is baptized, the Son goes down into the water, the Father's voice rings out, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove.

But even artists struggle with to depict the Trinity. They often show the Holy Spirit as fire, or a dove. When I was younger I saw a medieval painting that showed one figure with three faces overlapping-- there were four eyes because the faces overlapped and three noses anti was truly the stuff of nightmares. Thank God a pope declared that one a heresy itself. Yuck.

Last night I used two different artistic representations in the bulletin for the 505. The first one depicted God as three male figures. The Holy Spirit was shown as a young African man in the foreground. The Son was depicted as an 8-year-old Middle-eastern boy. And the Father was depicted as an elderly Australian Aboriginal man. It’s a beautiful painting by a Welsh artist who deliberately depicts Biblical images as diverse races.

Then elsewhere in the bulletin I used an icon by Kelly Lattimore that updates the famous 14th century Russian icon of the Trinity as three angels sitting around a table that is on the cover of our bulletin today. Many people today love the original icon because it is actually ambiguous as to whether the characters are male or female—as it should be but is pretty much impossible to do, especially in art. Mr. Lattimore goes one step further and, like the painting I just mentioned, has his figures be recognizably from different continents—one is possibly Latin American, one is Asian, and one is African. He also depicts them as more obviously feminine.

As time has gone on, I have become persuaded that those of us in Lectionary-based churches are challenged each year on the Sunday after Pentecost to address the Trinity because it keeps us humble. It reminds us of the limitations of our ability to express great mysteries, whether in words or image or music. It reminds us that God is a great mystery—the greatest mystery of all—and yet also a mystery that at various times reveals Godself to us in our times of greatest need and greatest wonders and joys.

Language, for instance, contains notions of gender. In French and Spanish and German, nouns can be male, female, or neuter. English makes the neutral option kind of “less-than” and privileges a binary way of thinking about gender--one that is frankly not helpful to reflect the realist of gender expression in all of life. And that limitation has fueled the culture wars over people’s personal pronouns right now. Even though no one is aiming their pronouns, or living their lives, for God’s sake, *at” anyone else.

Especially as we enter Pride Month, that understanding right there might go a long way to cooling down the hatred we have been seeing lately directed at our LGBTQ kindred.

What I find fascinating is that people who resist giving people the dignity of being the final arbiter of who they are also espouse a Christianity that does not see God as Trinity—as three persons but one God, and all three persons as equal. They often privilege Jesus, since he was born a human male, or God, since God was often referred to as “Father.” The Holy Spirit is often waaaaaay too squishy to deal with for these folks, usually. I mean, hey, even artists usually depict the Holy Spirit as a bird or as fire rather than in a figural way. Language-wise, however, the words used 99% of the time for the Holy Spirit in both Greek and Hebrew are female. The words for “breath” and “spirit” are female in those original Biblical languages. So then, we are called to consider that the Trinity, mystery that it is, is also a powerful reminder to us that God is NOT gendered, either.

Further, by extension, we are being shown that God’s image is fully present in ALL people-- regardless of what gender—or no gender-- they claim. Thinking about the Trinity as containing a variety of genders or none at all also has deep implications for how we understand human beings. So NOW we might be getting an idea of why this yearly discussion might be useful, after all, for the world in which we live.

And so, we are stuck with using analogies to describe God. Even “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”—or, if you are old school “Holy Ghost—are imperfect analogies. So we use that formula, but also perhaps consider others, acknowledging all are imperfect. Alternatives include:

There’s “Abba, Christ, Paraclete,” for the Greek-minded.
Source, Word, and Spirit.
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-Giver, from the New Zealand Prayer Book.
Wisdom of God, Love of God, Grace of God, from a common blessing.
Majesty, Word, Spirit.
Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier
The Lover, the Beloved, and Love Overflowing (from St. Augustine)

We struggle as we use a variety of ways to talk about what God is “like.” That’s fine—except analogical thinking is in short supply nowadays. It’s not being encouraged in our schools or in a public sphere. Too many people believe that things have to be black or white, up or down, right or wrong. And it’s okay to think that way—if you are a child. As we get older, though, most of us begin to observe that life doesn’t come at us in two options, just like ice cream doesn’t come in just two flavors. As long as we remember that whatever we think God is “like”—whether that’s a three leaf clover or a raindrop or three heavenly beings seated around a table, that God is still MORE yet, besides. God is like…. And off we go, metaphors and similes coming fast and furious. And yet God is so much more besides.

As I mentioned last week, we returned the Creed to our liturgy last week, after the Great Fifty Day Feast of Easter ended. This was a deliberate choice. The Creed came about to try to describe the Trinity, and how it worked, so it’s good to hear it again with new ears. I hope you do. Because if you DO hear it anew, and actually examine what is in the Creed. You will notice that there are a BUNCH of analogies in it to try to describe the three Persons of the Trinity and yet maintain their full equality: "God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in being..." Think of that again: to recognize the differences among each person of the Trinity, and yet to honor them as equal. Perhaps practicing this with God would help us practice this with each other.

Wouldn’t that be great?

To recognize that despite all the diversity of the way God touches our lives, that ultimately that diversity is still all part of ONE God. That diversity in unity is a strength. A blessing. A gift for living our own lives with each other.

Just as the Trinity is intimately bound up in each other to ultimately be One, so were we created by God. As we begin Pride month, Trinity Sunday calls us to remember that love is the most powerful force in the universe, and we should always stand for MORE love, not less. Or consider that the Rev. Shug and I are wearing our orange stoles to symbolize our hope to work to end gun violence. If we truly took seriously our invitation into the Trinity’s divine dance of love as children of God, would this madness even be possible?

Sure, some might scoff. Not everybody will do it. But how would it change the world if those of us here and those all around who profess to follow Christ would take the power of that Trinitarian love and mutual support seriously?

What would that be like? Isn’t it worth it to try?

St. Patrick was a missionary to the Irish, and we will hear part of one of his poems to the Trinity in one of our songs today. One of the ways he is depicted in icons is holding a shamrock, which he used to try to explain the Holy Trinity to the Celts in Ireland (which is also a heresy if you stop there, but hey, you have to start somewhere….) He was so good at this that the Celts place the idea of the Trinity at the center of their spirituality. And so perhaps we can learn something from them.

In Celtic Christianity, the concept of the Trinity reminds us that the heart of God is about relationship. It’s not about like—it’s about love. It’s about friendship. It’s about community. It’s about those three persons in the Trinity bound together in love, dancing around each other, taking turns stepping forward or stepping back so that different aspects are revealed about God as is right or necessary. That the heart of God is love, and that we, as God’s children, are drawn into that love. That, if we are made in God’s image, just as the three persons in the Trinity depend upon each other and rely upon each, so too we are called to give up our ridiculous notions of isolation and stubborn pride and realize and even celebrate how much we are made for each other. To love each other. To affirm each other. To see our differences as strengths, not as something that separates us, or worse, calls us to attack each other. 

The Trinity models for us what it is like to love and understand each other at the deepest level. As the great proponent of Celtic spirituality John O’Donohue wrote about the love at the center of the Trinity, and our relationship with that One God:

In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul. This recognition is described in a beautiful line from Pablo Neruda: “You are like nobody since I love you.” This art of love discloses the special and sacred identity of the other person. Love is the only light that can truly read the secret signature of the other person’s individuality and soul. Love alone is literate in the world of origin; it can decipher identity and destiny.

…The Christian concept of God as Trinity is the most sublime articulation of otherness and intimacy, an eternal interflow of friendship. This perspective discloses the beautiful fulfillment of our immortal longing in the words of Jesus, who said, Behold, I call you friends. Jesus, as the son of God, is the first Other in the universe; he is the prism of all difference. He is the secret [soul friend] of every individual. In friendship with him, we enter the tender beauty and affection of the Trinity. In the embrace of this eternal friendship, we dare to be free. (4)

Remembering that we are all beloved of God, all marvelously and wonderfully made by God, made for love in all its true, generous expressions, may we give thanks for being invited into the beautiful mystery of the Trinity, who invites us into the dance of life, or creation, and of celebrating difference and diversity.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on Saturday June 3 and the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on June 4 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Psalm 8

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16-20

Citations:

1) Holy Trinity icon by Andrei Rublev, ca 1425. 

2) "Christ with Three Faces" image of the Trinity by the Netherlandish school ca 1500. 

3) Kelly Lattimore's icon of the Holy Trinity (used by permission-- all rights reserved). 

4) St. Patrick icon with a shamrock.

5) John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, pp. 14-15, kindle version.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Speaking to the Soul, November 3, 2022

This Sunday many of us will celebrate the transferred Feast of All Saints, officially observed on November 1, combined with the Feast of All Souls, which falls on November 2. We will remember those we have lost and gone to be with the saints, yet whose lives continue to touch ours.

The gospel reading is Luke 6:20-31, when Jesus sits down on a plain to teach the crowds, and we receive one of the two versions of the Beatitudes in the gospels.
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Luke’s version reminds us to love our enemies, to do good to those who wish us ill, and be generous to all who ask regardless of what we might think of them.

I give special thanks this year for this gospel, heading into next week. So many of us are anxious because of the election on Tuesday. We have already heard people, long before voting began, anticipating the worst and vowing to resist violently by turning against their political opponents. Violent political rhetoric has intensified.

This is NOT the American way, nor is it the way of people of faith. But such talk 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 already announced their decision to split by the time Lincoln addressed the nation in his first words as president. In his First Inaugural Address, he appealed to calm, to reason, and to 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 a great and terrible cost. Unity is yet harder to come by, even now, although it is never too late to turn aside from division to embrace hope.

Consider the list of blessings from Luke. 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 you WILL BE…). 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.

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, to work for the common good, guided by the better angels of our nature.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul, November 3, 2022.

The Witness of Intention: Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21B)

Our readings today have stories of enemies, jealousies, and rivalry coming through them. There are some harsh images in the harsh for such a beautiful day. But certainly relatable in the fractured, divided time in which we live.

In the first part of our gospel, the apostles see someone not affiliated with Jesus nonetheless doing the deeds that Jesus promised his disciples they could do—casting out demons and healing people of their suffering. This is not a story of a magician (code word for pagan) performing magic that was. In competition with the Jesus movement. No—it clearly states that this person was acting in Jesus’s name.

Debie Thomas talks about the fact that what the disciples are complaining about is that, to them, proper procedure is not being followed-- and God knows Episcopalians in particular are allll about procedure sometimes. The disciples here are all standing around saying “Who is dis guy???” and feeling that he or she is stealing their thunder. They have completely lost sight of the fact that this person, acting in Jesus’s name, is doing Jesus’s work, and is bringing about hope and healing where previously none existed. She puts the issue this way: rather than not being a known follower of Jesus, they are complaining that he is not following THEM and placing himself under their supervision.(1)

Jesus's answer to them is the phrase that jumps out to me as being important to hear right now: Whoever is not against us is for us.

In 2021, we just memorialized the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York, Virginia across the river from Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, probably on the way to DC had the passengers and remaining crew not risen up and interfered. A somber anniversary, one reminding us of a day that changed us in so many ways, some good, and some bad.

One of the things I remember from those somber days come to me in flashes: the relief I felt when my dear friend’s daughter who had been in Manhattan on a business trip finally arrived home days later. The sacrifices of first responders. The rapt attention of students as we processed what had happened in the days and weeks that followed. The concerts. The anxiety and even tears of kids whose parents or siblings were in the National Guard or Reserve, and who got their orders for Afghanistan. The long lines to donate blood. The concerts to support the families who had lost loved ones.

But one of my memories that touched me deeply was the prayer service held on September 23 in Yankee Stadium for the missing and the dead. Representatives from the Jewish, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and various Protestant leaders, as well as famous musicians, joined together to pray and remember. It was a beautiful coming together, a defiant declaration of kinship and love in action in response to the attempt to divide and destroy.

However, one of the ministers who took part in that truly interfaith prayer service was later censured by his denomination. They saw praying with non-Christians as akin to fully approving what they called “paganism”—itself a provocative word. In the end, their arguments ran along the lines of “By praying with Muslims, you prayed to the Muslim (small- g) god.” Their claim was that the Muslim god is different.

Yet here is the first reality we have to consider: different languages by definition use different words. In Arabic, the name Allah simply means “God.” Christians who live in places where Arabic is the language also pray to “Allah.” But secondly, do we really want to claim there is more than one God—all in contention with each other? Or do we not proclaim each and every time we worship liturgically, that there is ONE God, revealed for Christians through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, true, but one God and Creator of all that is?

To my mind, the objection against praying with anyone who doesn’t believe EXACTLY what you do is, really, as we would say back home, “There ain’t no such thing.” There’s a famous saying—wherever you have two Episcopalians in a room, you have five opinions.” We belong to a branch of the Jesus movement that embraces that ambiguity and openness to matters of practice. We consider intention to be a vital consideration in judging the rightness of an action. And that’s what we hear in our gospel today.

Note the complete details of the situation: someone is performing deeds of healing who has not been previously seen following Jesus. And yet listen carefully to the words used to describe those healing actions: they are being performed “in Jesus’s name.” Whoever they are doesn’t matter—the reason they are doing these things DOES. They are healing and restoring for the glory of God, and God’s dream of healing, reconciliation, restoration, relief, compassion. For the restoration of people to community. For shalom: peace, wholeness, being at ease. As testimony to Jesus’s teaching and witness and example. Whether they’ve completed all the classwork or joined the right clubs doesn’t change the love behind their actions in the least—it might even make it MORE praiseworthy.

From the earliest years of the Church of England’s separation from the Roman church, its great theologians held to a doctrine called “adiaphora.” It comes from the Greek word meaning “indifferent.” It doesn’t mean that one is indifferent to matters of theology, but suggests that in worship practices that are essential versus those that are not. If you visit parishes within our diocese, you will see a wide variety of ways to worship on Sunday: some use incense, and some do not. Some only pray in Elizabethan language, and some use a much more modern vernacular. Some have loads of glorious artwork, like we do, and some have a plain brick building and plain white walls. Even within a parish, you will see some people genuflecting and others not; some people dressed to the nines and others coming as they are. All matters of preference, not commandment. But you will always see people seeking to understand how to walk in the path of Jesus.

It is intention that matters, and intention that witnesses to the glory of God. When those religious leaders of a wide variety of faiths gathered in those dark days twenty years ago, their intention was not to put forward some sort of competition to see whose practices were the greatest, much less the “only.” They were insisting that people of all backgrounds were lost on that terrible day, and that people of all backgrounds could join together in laying their devastation and also their resilient faith on the line together. That as members of the only race that matters— the human race-- the wounds of one person affect us all. The death of one person affects us all. What better way to deny the goals of those terrorists to destroy us and to divide us than to come together faithfully and deny their attempt to use death as a tool by re-committing ourselves to life, to decency, to the respect and dignity of every person—including those who pray, and even vote, differently than we do?

That last phrase might sound familiar to you, especially today. It is one of the eight questions we answer in our baptismal covenant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

And indeed, those questions we affirm each time we renew this Covenant, from the first time or for the hundredth time, describe what truly is important in matters of our religious or spiritual life. Continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers means Living a life of commitment to others and to your own development: it means committing ourselves as individuals to being part of a worshiping community that you may continue to grow deeper in your life of faith. Persevering in resisting evil means it is NOT better to apologize than to ask permission, it means listening to your conscience and being guided by it to avoid hurting others and having to make amends later. Proclaiming by word and example the good news of Jesus means realizing that all that those who call themselves Christian say and do is a testimony to the world of who Jesus is. It means that everything we do, we do in Jesus’s name—including the times we do things we ought not to do. Nothing makes Jesus look as bad to a world deeply unfamiliar with Jesus’s radical love and acceptance more than seeing his followers openly behaving as if they have no intention of embodying his values, either. When the Church violates Jesus’s example, we can’t be surprised that the world turns away in disbelief. Seeking and serving Christ in all persons means being among those who challenge us, who reject us, who are different from us, and yet seeing Christ’s face shining out from their faces, calling us to embrace him through embracing them.

Jesus’s gospel is radical BECAUSE it challenges the life to which we are accustomed. Jesus’s gospel is radical because its power in centered in being a person for others, and not for ourselves; in giving, rather than taking; in seeing the interconnectedness of all life in God’s good creation rather than fighting against everyone else as a competitor and enemy for scarce resources and privileges. Jesus calls us to transformation of our transactional natures. And that is absolutely counter-cultural. The fact is, if you are not confounded at least ten times a day as you attempt to live this life of following Jesus, you are not paying attention. We live in a world where our leaders have proclaimed in times of crisis, “Whoever is not with us is against us,” and there are times when that is true—like when we are silent in the face of violence and oppression. When we proclaim, as one religious leader did recently, that of course we are against sexual abuse committed by ministers, but not if it destroys our denomination to openly investigate that abuse. (2) This axiom is useful when applied to harmful behavior. Jesus is looking at good works in his comment, though. 

When Christians are more interested in claiming they belong to an exclusive club than in engaging in the hard work of loving people, you get alienation of the world from God’s dream of fellowship and amity among people. Mahatma Gandhi, who was no slouch when it came to standing up for the powerless and living a spiritual life with intention, once was asked by a missionary what would help bring more Indians to embrace Christianity. He suggested that Christians, from missionaries to political leaders, begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Consider that for a moment. If you think that is not practical, then admit to yourself that Jesus will never be the solution until Christians stop being part of the problem.

When someone is accomplishing the reconciling and loving work that Jesus embodied, whether they have all the right credentials or not, they are advancing Jesus’s life and mission in the world. That’s what we commit to do today—and every day. As we celebrate the welcoming of our newest Christian today, sweet little Clementine, we stand around her and promise to teach her how to live like Jesus. 

And the way we best do that is by doing it ourselves, knowing that she is learning by watching us. 

What a gift.

Preached at the 10:30 service, held in limited number in person for a baptism, and broadcast online at 10:30 am on September 26, 2021 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124 
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

Citations:

1) Debie Thomas, “Hosts, Not Bouncers,” at Journey with Jesus, 19 September 2021.

2) See the comments by Joe Knott, member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, paraphrased in this article.

All for One: Speaking to the Soul for July 29, 2021

When I was a kid, one of the musicals that made a deep impression on me was West Side Story. A modern version of Romeo and Juliet, its beautiful music by the brilliant Leonard Bernstein spoke deeply to me.

My favorite song from that musical was “One Hand, One Heart.” It is sung in a scene where the two star-crossed lovers, Tony and Maria, pretend to have a wedding, since they believe a real one is impossible due to their different backgrounds. Despite themselves, despite belonging to groups who hate each other, Tony and Maria are drawn together, and able to see beyond the labels that try to keep them as enemies. They pretend to make their vows, then together they sing these simple lines, first in harmony, and then in unison:

Make of our lives one life,
Day after day, one life.
Now it begins, now we start
One hand, one heart…”

The beginning of the letter to the Ephesians starts with a magnificent description of God as the one who “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” The letter then goes on to detail how God’s love for us, especially as revealed through God’s Son Jesus, has brought together a tremendous diversity of people in the Church, people who normally would not cross the very strict sets of hierarchies and boundaries in the Mediterranean world: slaves and free persons. Jews and Greeks. Male and Female.

In this Sunday’s reading from Ephesians 4: 1-16, we once again hear the word “one” repeated, seven times over:

one body,
one Spirit,
one hope,
one Lord,
one faith,
one baptism,
one God who encompasses all that exists, from sub-atomic particles to galaxies.

All things are one, brought together by God’s love. Our reading today begins by turning to how we respond to such an outstanding gift of love.

It strikes me anew every time I read the line about being chosen by God before time. Because much of the Christian thought that seems to dominate these days, that we see even in commercials on TV, starts from the other direction—it emphasizes that our relationship with God starts with our personal decision.

How would it change us if, instead of thinking that we have chosen God, to start from the conviction that God has chosen us, from even before the time we were born?

As Christ in the world, we are called to embody the love of God, which rests not on vengeance or fear, but on grace and abundant mercy for all who will open their hearts to the hope that is Christ. The life of the Christian individual and the Christian community is ultimately intended to reflect the life of Christ, because we are one in Christ for the world, called to work for true peace, which can only be founded on true justice, which is an outgrowth of true love for each other through grace which admits no exceptions. Through the true bread of Jesus, we come to know who we really are: bearers of God’s love into the world.

To act before God as God sees us: As beautiful. As beloved.
To act in the world as what we are: the Body of Christ.
One in Spirit. All for one.
What grace this is!

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul for July 29, 2021.

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

Known, Called, and Transformed: Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Even when I was a kid, I read anything I could get my hands on. Given that my parents were older when they had me, and therefore my grandparents were older when I came along, and also that we didn’t have much money so most of our books were second-hand, that meant I did a lot of reading that usually was more common among older generations of kids. My step-grandmother handed me a battered Hardy Boys book she’d found at a garage sale, probably to get me to stop bugging her during one visit. And it was during reading that book that I learned that one could make one’s own radio from what was called a crystal radio set. This intrigued me. And so, since I was also a big fan of Radio Shack, because they gave you a free 9 volt battery each month, I discovered that they still sold those kits, even in the 1970s.

So I saved up my lawnmowing money and my babysitting money one summer, and for once, rather than buying books with my cash, I bought a crystal radio kit. This was a bare basics model, but when I was done, I had a functional AM radio with a solitary earpiece as well as a speaker, and I had learned a little about circuits and coils and all kinds of stuff. I could listen to the radio at night without my parents being any the wiser. I especially loved listening to Cardinals games, when the reach of KMOX made it all the way to Tulsa at night.

In making that radio, I learned a little bit about how radios worked at their most basic level. Making helped lead to understanding.

Perhaps that’s why our psalm today particularly resonates with me. Our psalm expands upon the idea we’ve heard throughout Epiphany of being known intimately by God who is our Mother, Father, and Creator. Psalm 139 reminds us that God’s knowledge of us is complete, even as we cannot possibly presume to know God in the same way.

Sadly, some of the most beautiful and humbling verses of this psalm are among those omitted today, and I think they make a vital point, so I want to include them here:

6 Where can I go then from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
7 If I climb up to heaven, you were there;
   If I make the grave my bed, you were there also.
8 If I take the wings of the morning
   And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9 Even there your hand will lead me
   And your right hand hold me fast.
10 If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,
   And the lights around the turn to night,”
11 Darkness is not dark to you;
   The night is as bright as the day;
   Darkness and light to you are both alike.

These omitted verses make a valuable point about human nature. It is true that we often FEAR being known that much. Someone who knows us that intimately would know our faults, our pettiness, our dishonesty, our cowardice as well as our moments of courage, compassion, and wisdom. We want to manage our own PR. We want to selectively put on display only our best versions of ourselves—and sometimes don’t want to admit our failings even inwardly. We want to believe that we can bury our flaws and our faults, our sins and trespasses, so deep they can never be found. When we find out how deeply we are known by the One who loves us, our response may be to flee. It’s often that way. We feel the blessing of God’s presence with us, and know that God is “our portion and our cup.” We radiate with that blessing. And yet, the minute we think we have God all figured out, that’s when we get off track. Deep down, we think God is like us. We humans tend to judge others harshly, and we project that attitude on God as well, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite the doctrine of grace that makes our approach to God possible at all. Deep down, we think that God can only love the best versions of ourselves, because that is too often how we work in relation to others and their flaws.

Yet the second we think we can hide from God, we are lying to ourselves. God is with us always—not just in good times, and certainly not just in bad times. And God is not only with us, but God KNOWS us. Three times it is stated that God knows us intimately—and the knowledge of that simply boggles the mind of the psalmist. In the last part of the psalm that we read today, we are reminded that God not only knows us, but has made us, each and every one, which implies an even more intimate level of knowing.

We live in a time of great turmoil. And I am grateful for these words of this psalm at this time. I see this psalm being sent to us at this time as a true sign of God’s grace. God KNOWS us—and yet loves and treasures us anyway. Even when part of what makes us who we are includes our anger, our spite, our recklessness, and the very real damage we inflict upon others. Even then, when the thought of that love is overwhelming, and we just “know” in our hearts that we don’t deserve such love, that love nonetheless remains. God is with us throughout our fallible, messy lives. God’s love penetrates whatever veils we try to draw around our present or around our past. We sometimes pray, “God have mercy upon me, a sinner.” Yet, the promise is there within those words: God DOES have mercy on us, sinners as we all are, because we are known and loved with a fierce, unending love that is beyond our imagination.

We are all naked before God, like Adam and Eve in the garden. Yet God is with us, loving us, knowing us in all our victories as well as in our darkest, meanest actions. God is with us, loving us, from our first breath to our last. God’s hand is upon us, pressing upon us and at the same time bearing us up with a love that cannot be denied, not even by sin or by death.

Deep in our hearts, unless one is without a conscience, and there ARE people like that, we know the shortcomings of our own lives, the places where our nerve has failed when we could have chosen to do right but instead went along with the crowd.

That’s why most of us resist the idea that God knows us that deeply and completely, and yet STILL calls us to share as disciples in ministry to the world. Yet each of us who call ourselves Christians also must accept that we have been called to transformation of our lives and to discipleship—to carrying God’s good news out into the world. A world that as we have been seeing for the last many months, is groaning our in pain and distress.

We see Samuel called by God in our first reading, and we see Philip and Nathanael called by God in our gospel. When Philip tells Nathanael that Jesus is the one predicted by Moses and the prophets, but then he includes a contradictory detail—Philip adds that Jesus comes from Nazareth. This information actually works against Jesus, for none of the messianic prophecies claimed that the Messiah would come from Nazareth. No, the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem, as part of the House of David. But Nathanael is willing to go take a look.

Nathanael at first fails to understand who Jesus is, just as the boy Samuel misunderstood who was calling him and speaking to him. Yet Jesus tells Nathanael that he had “seen” Nathanael under a fig tree, and this causes Nathanael to believe that Jesus DOES have the special powers that the Messiah would have. Just as in our psalm, we have Jesus as the Son of God claiming to know a person intimately, even though he and Nathanael had never met.

Once again, we see God through Jesus reaching out to us and seeking us, knowing us even better than we know ourselves. God calls to us, but we can choose to respond or not. And Jesus could have said a lot of things about Nathanael—he could have shamed Nathanael for being a cynic, or for passively sitting under a fig tree. Instead, Jesus calls out the characteristic about Nathanael that Jesus most wants to bless, the quality of honesty and lack of deceit that we ALL need more of, especially after living through a century that has been marked by demagogues repeating dangerous, bloody lies until they become powerful weapons against reason, integrity and truth. Jesus calls Nathanael one who is without deceit, and Nathanael is transformed by this assessment to begin to live into it.

When God calls to us, we are changed. The call we hear is to a new identity with new possibilities, a new understanding of ourselves. That new understanding is predicated upon God’s knowledge of and love for us, asking us to open up our eyes to have an epiphany in our understanding of ourselves as well as of our understanding of God. When Jesus calls to us, we are really being called to see ourselves in a new light, in a new way.

We may feel unworthy of our calling to be disciples of Jesus—and we may use that excuse to confirm our natural inclination to keep our faith quiet rather than to share it. The problem is, that natural inclination then leads us to fail in our duty to be witnesses and workers rather than mere claimers of the privileged status of Christian, especially when that claim is used to claim superiority over others as we see too often today.

This reading always comes around the observance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday on January 15. When we find our courage to urge others to “Come and see” failing, it is good that we are surrounded by, as the saying goes, “so great a cloud of witnesses” as the saints who have gone before us. Dr. King’s legacy was to not just invite but to challenge the white majority in this country to “come and see” a God who called all people of faith to demand justice and equality among all of God’s children by truly “seeing” that the historical system of laws and attitudes were meant to oppress, silence, and disenfranchise people of color. Dr. King invited all of us to come and see and follow a Jesus who made his home among the outcast, the oppressed, and the marginalized. Dr. King’s words from more than half a century ago confront the challenges we are facing in 2021 boldly and presciently:

“One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.”(1)

Coming and seeing is a start, but of itself is not enough. Proclaiming that you believe is not enough. Jesus calls his disciples not just to listen, but then to follow. To take a different path than they had planned. To upend their lives in the name of the outrageous truth about the power of love in a world in which oppression lies and tells us we are always alone and vulnerable.

God has searched us out and knows us—and loves us completely. Knowing us as we truly are, God calls us to a life of action and virtue as God’s children. I have seen you, God says. Now come, and see—and be transformed.

Come and be open to seeing—let us be brave enough to admit we need transformation in our personal and national lives. Come and see, and confess where we have closed our eyes to the damage of dishonesty about ourselves—and take hold of God’s call to see honestly our own faults and blindnesses about the struggles of others—and be transformed. Come and give thanks for God’s grace—for a God not of vengeance and violence, but a God that knows us and loves us as petty as we can be—and step out onto a new path in which we truly live by the creeds we claim, as kindred who live lives worthy of our calling as children of God in truth, in integrity, and in mutual love.

Amen.

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

Readings:

1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)

Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

John 1:43-51

Sources:

1) The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Love in Action," delivered April 3, 1960, published in Strength to Love, p. 31.

Being Who We Are Called to Be: Speaking to the Soul, January 7, 2021

Genesis 1:1-5

Mark 1:4-11

Yesterday was a day when we teetered on the brink of deep waters—waters that, if they were to close over our heads, threaten to overwhelm us and all that we hold dear. Since there has already been too much of that kind of loss during these last nine months of pandemic, the events many of us watched unfold yesterday felt almost too intense to be borne. I went from working on exegesis on the readings assigned for this Sunday on the baptism of Jesus, to being glued to my television and twitter for much of the afternoon. 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. Sometimes, though, 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.”

Such statements are more than just a bit of empty protest. When violence, intimidation and murder are elicited from a mob, we must face the uncomfortable truth that, yes, somewhere within us, this IS who we are. There is a size-able portion of our population that denies kinship with those who differ from them, who see difference as threat. The fact that this is done by people who also claim identity as Christian is a problem that affects all of us who profess to be disciples, because their very public identity becomes a net the watching world casts over all who proclaim the name of Jesus. The ties that bind become a snare that we strain against to escape.

But that admission is the necessary first step to repentance and redemption. We are too prone to lash out at perceived threats. Admitting that tendency can help us shed our old skin and embrace who we are called to be. And that is exactly the rebirth at the center of baptism— giving us the courage to let go of our instinctive defensiveness to embrace the new life we are called to in Christ.

In our gospel reading for Sunday, Jesus leads us by example into the waters of baptism to give us the courage and endurance to lean toward who we are called to be. In Christ, we are called to be one people, united by our common heritage as beloved children of God. The waters of baptism are 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 are born, the waters of baptism which are the gates to eternal life and for which we thirst, call us to resist the anarchy, intimidation, and mob rule swirling violently around us yesterday.

Where can we find solid footing for what today may bring? Perhaps these events can finally drive us to reject demagoguery 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 in becoming a beloved community, guided by values of shared burdens, shared dreams, and shared sacrifice for the common good.

Almighty God,
we boldly proclaim your Holy Name
and lift our hearts to You in praise.

Living Savior,
our brother in baptism,
our model for holy living,
we embrace you with all our might:
lead us and guide us as your beloveds.

May we make straight the way of the Lord
by all we can contribute as your witnesses,
and represent the gospel of love and inclusion
in all we say and do today.

Draw us to enter joyfully, O Lord,
into the discipleship to which you lovingly call us
through the waters of baptism and beyond.

Purify our wills to reflect your lovingkindness
and help us turn aside from all evil,
embracing instead the pure truth
that calls us to be advocates for others,
walking in integrity and bold ministry in the world.

Spirit of the Living God,
fall afresh on us and bless our common life and labors today,
and let the peace and comfort of God
rest like a dove upon all those for whom we pray.

Amen.