A Love Story: Speaking to the Soul, April 6, 2023

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

A table.
A robe.
A towel.
A basin.

Water.
A cup of wine.
A loaf of bread.

Blessing. Thanksgiving. Service. Love.

These are the images that flash before us tonight as we gather for the Maundy Thursday service.

Can you picture yourself in that room? Can you see the dust from the triumphant march through the crowded festal streets of Jerusalem still clinging to the disciples’ feet, as we remembered on Palm Sunday?

As the disciples lean back after their meal, they can probably still hear echoes of the crowd’s “Hosannas!” ricocheting off the stone walls around Jerusalem. And now they have shared a meal with their teacher, their brother, their Messiah. The disciples are gathered around a table where everyone is loved. Where every one is loved.

Tonight is the night for a love story.

The first sentence that jumps out to me is this one: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Jesus is getting ready to leave his disciples—and he wants to show them what true love is.

There is just one lesson left to impart. There is just one commandment left to give. The lesson is service. The commandment is love.

Love is thanksgiving. Love is sacrifice. Love sometimes includes heartbreak. On this night we will dwell between the two poles of our existence- the agony of loss and the call of love.

A few years ago I was sitting in class with Dr. Clint McCann, who is a renowned scholar of the psalms. We were discussing psalms of lamentation, especially the ones that are quoted in the Passion narrative this week. Dr. McCann noted that the gospel writers could not understand the story of Jesus during Holy Week without the lamentation psalms, psalms in which the psalmist asks for help when feeling abandoned, and laments being turned upon even by his closest friends.

Yet Dr. McCann also pointed out that every one of those lamentation psalms quoted in the story of Jesus’s passion turns to praise at the end. And that’s often how it is in our lives, too. Our lives are shot through with both sorrow and joy.

As we turn toward the cross, may we never forget: it is love that remains at the end.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on April 6, 2023

Empty: Speaking to the Soul, March 30, 2023

 Philippians 2:5-11

Empty of all privilege and power, 
empty of all vanity and puffed up pride 
he arrives not as a great warrior 
astride a mighty war horse. 

Nobodies herald him, 
the collaborators yawn and snicker 
the authorities wave their hands dismissively 
-- for now. 

Empty 
not like the chamber of a gun,
not like a fainthearted suitor pleading his case
not like the scroll of years in a crosscut of a tree,
   rippling concentrically, 
         adamantly, 
                if finitely.
Not like the would-be tyrant’s vise-like grin.

Empty like a ledger wiped clean, 
power ceded so that love is seeded and sown;
empty like cedar branches holding the morning light 
already eons old.

Lord, make us empty 
the way petals unfurl like a fist unclenched 
the way a heart, unburdened, embraces hope 
so that we may stand in solidarity 
   with the least of the least 
   out of love with the stranger 
shedding all that holds us back 
   from embracing the dream of God for all
borne aloft on a rood of love.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 30, 2023.

Watching, Waiting, Hoping: Sermon for Lent 5A

When I was about twelve, we went to San Diego, and my Mom took me to a beach in La Jolla that was a perfect little crescent moon. I had brought a mask along because I loved to look for shells as I swam, since the beach was usually picked over by the hundreds of people who had been there before me. And so the beach where we were was shallow, until it suddenly plunged to about ten feet deep, and that’s where the shells were, down past that plunge. So down I would go, and when I would find a treasure, I would swim back to shore and deposit it on my beach blanket. By the way, this was also about the time that my lifelong bitterness about men’s clothing having pockets when the corresponding attire for women had none was reinforced. It’s an injustice, I tell you!

But I digress. Anyway, back then, I also was really good at holding my breath—just like I am still holding my breath about those pockets. So at one point I was down scrounging along the bottom for shells, and I happened to look up, and noticed the waves rolling over me way over my head. I kind of sat and floated there for a while, watching those waves roll, seemingly inside-out, the play of light and shadow, all the different subtle shades of blue and gray spinning overhead. When I swam back to the surface, I saw my parents standing with a mixture of dread and fury on the beach. I guess I had stayed down there too long. They kept motioning for me to come back to shore, but I am no dummy and so I tried to give them some time to cool off before I got within spanking distance. They had been calling my name while I was down there, but I couldn’t hear them so far underwater. All I could hear was the rolling of the waves overhead—that and my own heartbeat.

The image of the waves rolling over your head is not always an image of comfort, I have to admit. For the ancient Israelites, who were a desert people and NOT a sea-faring people, the ocean was the place of chaos, disorder, danger-- the home of monsters like the Leviathan and that whale that gobbled Jonah up. The apostle Paul claimed to have been shipwrecked more than once during his missionary travels because he knew that would send a shiver down the spines of his audience, and prove how MUCH he had suffered in carrying the gospel all around on that treacherous, salty menace known as the Mediterranean Sea.

A few months after that experience at the beach, I first attended an Episcopal church. One of the things I first noticed when I began attending an Episcopal Church was the Book of Common Prayer. Even though there were Bibles right next to them in the pews (this being Oklahoma, after all, where “Bible Belt” is not just a phrase but a stating of the obvious), a goodly portion of the BCP was taken up with the inclusion of the entire psalter. It drove home to me the beautiful realization that the Psalter is the Prayer Book within the Prayer Book. And so this began a years-long fascination with the Psalter that continued today.

It is amazing what you see if you sit down and look at how the psalms are arranged. When you sit down and read the psalms in the psalter, you notice that often there are pairings within its pages. Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 go together, for instance, likewise Psalm 22 and 23, and also with Psalm 130 with Psalm 131.

Psalm 130 starts with a cry of distress and fear, but reminds us of this precious truth: mercy is part of the fabric of God. Ultimately, both this psalm and our gospel passage are about hearing: Does God hear us? And do we hear God?

Psalm 130 is a cry for help. And so I want you to imagine Martha and Mary praying that psalm as their brother falls ill, and as they send word to their treasured friend, Jesus. They are waiting like watchmen for the morning, certainly. And I believe they prayed this psalm knowing that God hears us and redeems us from death, from the breakers of death and suffering that roll over our heads especially in times of crisis and despair. But we have to be willing to wait, even while we are holding our breath as the waves seem to be crashing over us.

Tom Petty WAS right. The waiting is the hardest part.

That’s why this word is repeated four times at the center of this psalm.

Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.

What we hear in all our readings is the power of God’s voice, and the reminder of what amazing things can happen when we listen to God’s voice directed back at us. Jesus weeps at Lazarus’s grave, just as surely as God weeps alongside us when we despair or feel the waves breaking over our heads. God sees us loves each of us individually enough to speak words to us of forgiveness, of presence, of a new, better restored life to us—if only we will listen, and have faith. God’s voice is the power of resurrection in our own lives, calling us out of the tomb of hopelessness and fear.

The psalter reflects this same assurance. Take a look. Turn in your Books of Common Prayer to Psalm 131 later and see. Psalm 131 comes from a place of calm and security—the psalmist even goes so far as to envision themselves as a child upon its mother’s breast—one of the most obviously maternal images for God in the entire Bible. Where Psalm 130 begins with a cry as the waters rise over our heads, even by verse 3 we are reminded of the forgiveness that is intrinsic to God’s relationship with us and God’s self-disclosure to us.

If you consider the two psalms together, you will notice that Psalm 130 begins with the author’s own personal experience of anxiety and plea to God, followed by a reminder to himself of God’s justice and compassion, even though the word “feared” is used at the end of v. 3. In v. 4, the psalmist has moved to hope through verse 5. You can hear with wistful longing when the psalmist speaks of “my soul waits upon the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

The idea of “waiting upon the Lord” is one that I think especially resonates in this time of pandemic, anxiety, and fear. In Psalms for a Pilgrim People, Anglican priest Jim Cotter, whose work also was included in the beautiful New Zealand Prayer Book, rendered the psalms in verse. Psalm 130 was entitled “Watching and Waiting:”

Dare I enter the dark?

Empty, exhausted, and ravaged,
in the depths of despair I writhe.
Anguished and afflicted, terribly alone,
I trudge a bleak wasteland, devoid of all love.

In the echoing abyss I call out:
no God of Compassion hears my voice.
Yet still I pray, Open your heart,
for my tears well up within me.

If you keep account of all that drags me down,
there is no way I can ever stand firm.
Paralyzed and powerless, I topple over,
bound by the evil I hate.

But with you is forgiveness and grace,
there is nothing I can give - it seems like a death.
The power of your love is so awesome:
I am terrified by your freeing embrace.

Drawn from the murky deeps by a fishhook,
I shout to the air that will kill me:
must I leave behind all that I cherish
before I can truly breathe free?

Suspended between one world and the next,
I waited for you, my God.
Apprehension and hope struggled within me,
I waited, I longed for your word.

As a watchman waits for the morning,
through the darkest and coldest of nights,
more even than the watchman who peers through the gloom,
I hope for the dawn, I yearn for the light.

You will fulfill your promise to bring me alive,
overflowing with generous love.
You will free me from the grip of evil,
O God of mercy and compassion.

Touching and healing the whole of my being,
you are a God whose reach has no limit.
All that has been lost will one day be found:
the communion of the rescued will rejoice in your name. (1) 

This psalm, which begins “out of the depths,” is also ironically what is called “a psalm of ascents.” These were chanted by pilgrims as they climbed the steps to the Temple in Jerusalem. And fittingly, the movement starts from a low place and ends on a high place. We *may* be in the deep, with the water over our heads, but God is near, hears us, forgives us because God treasures each of us, and accompanies us.

The structure of the psalm is much like a liturgy: v. 1 is the invocation, vv. 2-3 are a confession and absolution. It is at verse 2 that we are reminded that God watches us, including “taking note of what is done amiss.” The absolution in v. 3 ends with the unfortunate choice of the word “feared” used in its original sense that we have completely lost. “Feared” in this context originally meant evoking a feeling of respect and awe. In vv. 4-5 we center ourselves in the presence of God, as in the heart of the liturgy—if we are really paying attention, if we are here not just to check off a box but to worship and praise. A watchman looks for morning because his shift on the fortifications is then done, the danger that lurks in the night is now driven back by the light of day, and the watchman anticipates home and bed after a job well done. In vv. 6-7, we too turn for home—not as individuals, but as a community that has just shared communion and reminded ourselves of our bonds with one another and with Christ. We leave, assured of God’s care for each of us and presence alongside us, offering us renewed and restored life sustained by faith.

Three things reside “with” Yahweh: forgiveness (v. 3), steadfast love (chesed, translated here as “plenteous redemption” in v. 7), and the power of redemption, also in v. 7. Redemption is a word we seem to skim over and take for granted in our worship and in our understanding of God’s forgiveness, so it bears emphasizing: to be redeemed is to be reclaimed, ransomed, restored to wholeness and home. It is to be a captive who has been freed from captivity—in this case, the captivity to sin to which we all are prone when left to our own desires and devices. These three qualities that dwell with God demand an ethical response from us, as we acknowledge and give abundant thanks for God’s redemption and restoration of us to new life.

First, we give thanks when we truly worship with our hearts and allow that worship to transform how we live in the world. That is what we are here for in the first place, after all. Second we share that gift of forgiveness and reconciliation with those we encounter rather than judging them, condemning them, or targeting them. I am convinced that right there is a word that needs to be preached to those struggling for power and control in our common life together outside these walls. As the writer Anne Lamott famously remarked, you can be pretty certain you have created God in your own image when God hates all the same people you do.

God not only hears us, God calls us to be honest that here are times when the waves crashing over our heads are waves of our own fashioning, as we fall subject to the temptation of sin—when we act hatefully toward marginalized groups in our society—or just remain silent as the powerful in the world perpetuate injustice and hatred in our names. So God calls us to listen for God’s voice of resurrection and redemption in our own lives—to listen, and to be formed and shaped by the ethic of abundant love, abundant life, and abundant grace that we ourselves receive.

When we hear that voice of forgiveness of resurrection, we can then feel the power of God’s loving call to us in everything we do, and we can then embrace the pure joy of Psalm 131. I share again Jim Cotter’s beautiful interpretation of Psalm 131, which he entitled “Calm and Contentment:”

Dear God, my heart is not proud,
nor are my eyes haughty.
I do not busy myself in great matters,
nor in what is beyond me.

I am glad I depend upon my neighbour,
I make no great claims of my own;
Sealed off by myself I would never know gifts,
never know the bonding of trust.

I have calmed in quiet and my whole being,
I am like a child contented at the mother's breast,
in the stillness I look into the eyes of my lover,
I am absorbed in the task of the moment.

It is like the silence of an evening in spring,
made intense by the bleat of a lamb.
It is like the waves of the sea come to rest,
no more than a whisper in the caress of the shore.

The silence and stillness lift the woodsmoke of prayer,
a song of quiet gratitude wafting it high.
Aware of descendants an ancestors with us,
we join the soft chorus of praise. (2)

Listen carefully. We are those dry bones, being restored to new hope and new life at just the word of God being spoken over us. We ARE Lazarus, beloved so much that Jesus weeps over us, drawing us forward in response to the loving call to us from the grave of our own fears and prejudices.

God’s dream for us is resurrection, redemption, and abundant life. All these things are there for us. All we have to do is listen. Listen, and come forth out of the tomb, our of the depths.

Preached at the 505 on March 25 and at the 10:30 Eucharist on March 26, 2023 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Psalm 130

Romans 8:6-11

John 11:1-45

Citations:

1 and 2) Jim Cotter, Psalms for a Pilgrim People, kindle edition.

Lazarus Unbound: Speaking to the Soul March 23, 2023

John 11:1-45

To the sound of distant weeping I exited:
“Eleazar, Eleazar,” my sisters cried
but the keen came as if from the bottom of a well,
recessing like a long, slow tide; fevered rasp
of buzzing insects in the sick room;
and my scroll was torn in half with what I thought
was finality.

All was still. I rose and spun
and I cooled like a stone skipped into a river
pain and broken body shrugged off, a spent husk:

At this point of the page I resume:
I had shed this tomb of a body and rolled back the stone.
In golden sunlight, walking under a canopy
of lupine-blue sky, hands at waist facing forward, fingers open
as bobbing seas of wildflowers
- anemones and poppies, rockrose, Aaron’s rod-
weave their stems around my wrists,
and I absorb the honeyed petrichor of a desert in bloom,
murmuration of sparrows from a wadi nearby

swallows swooping from the tops of locust trees.
The difference between a field and a wasteland is in the flowers.
All was rest. All was God. All was peace.

A kaleidoscope of colors and I am jerked back
by the voice of love, insistent.
From the depths he called me to rising with a voice tear-choked.
Then the longed-for renewal of breath back into a body
now stretched like a new wineskin across my soul.
I am a somnambulist, stumbling pale in my shroud
toward an aperture so bright all was white beyond,
heart pounding like a child’s eager fist at a door.



--Leslie Barnes Scoopmire, March 22, 2023


This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 23, 2023.

Scripture Reference: John 11:1-45, Lent 5A

Image: Jose Luis Castrillo, The Resurrection of Lazarus

Refreshment: Speaking to the Soul, March 9, 2023

John4: 5-42

Lenten violet and white papel picado flutter overhead,
the bougainvillea blooms sprawl
over the crisp white tablecloths,
altars beneath the warming Oaxacan sun.

Come, be refreshed. Offer up your cup
from stall to stall, a feast amidst fast
for stranger or friend, all receive refreshment:
Agua frescas, jamaica, tamarindo, chilacoyata, horchatas,
tejate brimming from clay bowls
on the Dia de la Samaritana.
The Pacific air is redolent and vibrant
with chocolate, sugar,
sunlight and music.

Remembering the heat of another noonday sun,
in Samaria, scorned for its mongrel faith,
sprawled between the boundaries
of Jerusalem’s industrialized religion
and Galilee with its olives and figs,
crocus and anemone,
cyclamen nodding from rocky crevices.
His face was turned toward home.

He did not seek more contention
or midnight visitors brimming
with questions. He sought
a shortcut. The route
should have been along seashore or river bank,
but God so loved the world,
and the world begins
within the hostilities in Samaria,
beyond boundaries of belief,
or the scorn of gender
or judgment and prejudice.

Photina sought to retrieve her water
when the gossiping tongues remained at home,
the heat of the sun less bitter,
her footsteps slowing as she took in
the shimmering shape of the dusty traveler
seated despite the noonday heat.
Only her need overcame her wariness. But
despite all differences,
he did not judge her but loved her,
stripping away all the rumors that clung to her,
and seeing a disciple instead.

Through her refreshed perception
she was emboldened to witness;
by calling her to tend his humanity--
his weariness, his thirst, his hunger,
and seeing hers--
the disillusionment, the contempt she bore
even among her kindred, the
burden of abandonment and scorn
but also the strength of mind and heart to dare.
His words provoke and promise,
testimony received and boldly proclaimed
to her and to us.

Nicodemus saw he was from God,
but Photina saw he was Savior.

Come, be refreshed.
Let down your bucket within your heart
to receive the living water of joy,
faith and hope--
a wellspring of witness.

Come be refreshed and restored,
stranger or friend,
by the love that was always within you
from the Maker’s handiwork
and seal upon your soul.

It is only those who have need of Jesus
who hear the hope of the invitation,
who receive the offered cup of fresh water
of God’s kingdom.


Note: the Oaxacan festival of the Dia de la Samaritana will be March 17 this year.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 9, 2023.

Where the Wind Blows: Speaking to the Soul March 2, 2023

Abraham, back when 

he was just two syllable Abram
heard the voice of God
from within his soul
speak so convincingly that even
as his molars still
rattled from the conversation,
he packed up
wife and cattle and nephew
and headed to an unknown land.
In doing so
he left behind
all he had ever known.

I am a good man,
admired, respected,
a leader.
So through the anonymity
of dark-veiled streets
I went, seeking answers,
overflowing with questions.

I started with oil:
Rabbi, we know
that you were sent by God.
He blinked up.

And to be fair,
I did barge in
in the middle of the night.

There were signs.
But I wanted answers.
Instead I got riddles.
And he left me here.

To be brave enough
to let go of our “certainties”
—which are often just opinions
wrapped up in fear
and cynicism.
“The wind blows
where it chooses.”
And I hear leaves
rattling down the narrow alleys

I took my questions to Jesus.
The answer took me
someplace unexpected.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on March 2, 2023.

Being Human, Being Humble: Sermon for 1 Lent A

The first thing I notice when I read these passages every three years on the first Sunday of Lent is a comforting reminder that seems especially appropriate for our current age: even snakes and the devil can quote scripture at you and make it seem persuasive. That’s something that we can really hold on to in this time, as we see religion being used as an excuse for hatred, division, and greed run amok in our common lives together. I think that insight lying right under our noses this week can provide a lot of clarity.

But when I look deeper, there is a question that underlies the readings we heard today, and it is a question as old as time. From the birth of philosophy, one of the ultimate questions is “what does it mean to be human?” Regarding unique human characteristics that separate us from other animals, and from the rest of creation. What makes humans unique? It certainly isn’t strength, or speed, or agility—other creatures have us beat on all of those fronts. And the answers have been varied.

Reason, some proclaimed—and then we learned that dolphins, ants, and chimpanzees problem-solve and use tools. Language, others proclaimed—and then were learned about whale song and Koko the gorilla learning sign language. Memory, others suggested—and then we hear stories of elephants grieving their deceased kin, even years afterward, and loyal dogs returning to their family home after years of being lost thousands of miles away. Some claim that only humans have souls—but that takes us down another rabbit hole again, since you can’t prove the existence of a soul in ANYTHING.

Some people try to deny the humanity in others for their own benefit. In the 15th century, the Church debated whether indigenous people had souls, and were therefore human (they decided yes, but also decided that converting them justified treating them as disposable, so long as their souls were saved). At about the same time, slavery was brought to the Western hemisphere with a claim that those enslaved were less than human—about 3/5 of one. In the 20th century, Nazis famously denied the humanity of Jews, using a German term for them that translates to “beneath human.” Some people even today deny the humanity of immigrants, or of people merely suspected of crimes, much less of actual convicted criminals, and use that denial of these “othered” groups as fully human to justify denying them their rights to life, liberty, and property in one guise or another.

Rather than ever thinking we have the right to deny the humanity of others, we would do better to work on living into the humanity placed within ourselves. What does it mean to be a human? What experiences do our mammal bodies all share? We are born, we breathe, and almost immediately we get confused or scared at all the sensations short-circuiting our newly-minted minds. We cry out, we move clumsily, we seek nourishment and warmth and security. We seek companionship, love, and nurture. We listen for the familiar voices of our parents, for the people who teach us and guide us.

Along the way of growing up, which is a journey we all must take, we will encounter marvels and misadventures, times of play and times of trial. All of these experiences combine together to form us as young people. But it is the MEANING we make of our experiences—the narratives that we understand as running like a river through our lives and tying all that we have seen and learned and experienced together that makes us truly human. It is the stories we tell—the spark of imagination that ties us to being made in the image of the One who Created the Universe—that is one of the things that truly makes us human.

We hear two well-known stories in our readings today about the quest to understand what being human looks like. We hear two famous stories of the temptation. From the earliest collected scripture we hear of Adam and Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden—and falling to that temptation. In our gospel passage, Jesus has just been baptized in the river Jordan. He was begun a new phase in his life. He is going to begin his ministry. And like all great religious leaders in scripture, he has to be centered in his heart, his mind, his body. Therefore he heads out into the wilderness, where he practices mastery over his mind and body with 40 days of fasting and tempting, seeking clarity, a vision to guide his ministry. Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus will emerge triumphant over temptation.

Episcopal bishop and Choctaw elder the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston describes Jesus’s experience in the wilderness as a traditional indigenous vision quest. The purpose of the vision quest was to receive a vision, and that vision was meant to be a blessing for one’s community. The quest would end with a vision that the seeker would bring back home for the help of his or her people. It would end with a narrative or insight that would provide guidance and benefit for all. In Indigenous wisdom, being human meant being willing to sacrifice for the well-being of those in your community, and to put wisdom and contemplation first in seeking a way through a challenge.

But being human is also being fallible. We can use our stories to tell truths about ourselves—or to justify wrongs we have done. Anyone who has ever raised a middle schooler has experienced that. Our readings this week seem to be pointing us toward consideration of one thing that humans definitely are really good at—and that is the subject of justifying ourselves when we serve our own interests at the expense of others.

We seem to always get off track, beloveds, when we overlook the fallibility part, and deny the responsibility part of being human in favor of the argument from exceptionalism that confers more rights on whoever we define as “us” versus whoever we define as “them.” When we define being human as something that makes us exceptional, that’s a dangerous endeavor, because it inevitably leads us to trying to justify selfishness and injustice. When we decide that we can depend more upon our own resources than trusting in God, that’s where we go wrong. Every time.

The story of Adam and Eve is at the beginning of scripture for a reason, after all. This story begins with the reminder that God had given Adam and Eve everything they needed for survival—and yet they were driven to try to take something that God said was not meant for them. I love the fact that the ancient people who first told the stories in the Torah start right out with admitting that when it comes to temptation, we humans have almost never met one we didn’t like. It’s like that great saying, “Opportunity may only knock once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.”

The temptation of Adam and Eve—and Jesus-- started out with a discussion of food, there through God’s providence—but it’s really about seeking power to free us from dependence upon God. It’s about being humble. Likewise, in the first two temptations Jesus faces after those 40 days in the wilderness, the devil tries to get Jesus to turn his back on God’s providence, and use his power for himself. The first two temptations try to play up to what in anyone else would be human vanity— “Hey! You’re God’s son! The rules don’t apply to you, and what can it hurt?” The first two try to lead Jesus from obedience to God by setting himself up over God. The third temptation drops all pretense and nakedly reveals the agenda: “Abandon God, worship me, and I will give you the world, since it’s mine.” He’s lying, of course. The world doesn’t belong to Satan—unless we hand him the keys. Ultimately, what Satan tries to tempt Jesus to do is to abandon his humanity—the point of his incarnation in the first place-- and exploit his power as the Son of God to rely upon himself over God.

And that, my friends, right there, might be the greatest temptation facing humanity in our time. We have convinced ourselves we do not need God—well, maybe to get ourselves out of hell, but after that God can just become a convenient proxy for our own worst impulses. We have convinced ourselves that we do not need to live by God’s word, or honor God’s creation upon which we depend, or limit indulging ourselves in any way, even if that hurts or endangers others or this planet. We have forgotten to be humble before God, and each other.

What we see here in looking at the parallels between our Genesis reading and the temptation of Jesus here is that the “original” sin has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with not trusting God to guide us in ways that maximize our own flourishing—being arrogant and humble enough to believe that we can do whatever we want, regardless of whom that might hurt. It’s about not trusting God’s urging for our lives to be ones of compassion, empathy, and humility in which we work for the common good. It has to do with putting the trust and faith that we should have in God in ourselves and our own judgment—even as we know that our judgment is often tainted by fear, anxiety, and feelings of scarcity.

One of the blessings of Lent is that it is a time to address our fears and free ourselves from them, by realizing that no matter what we are going through, God has gone through it. too, especially in the passion and execution of Jesus at the hands of the evil humans can create and justify when they believe themselves the ultimate authority on Earth. A time like right now.

But this time—this Lenten season especially—is a gift given to us, to confront our fears and overcome them. A theme for sermons during Lent this year could be “Fearless.” Jesus fearlessly faces his time in the wilderness because he has been led by the Spirit into the wilderness as God’s beloved Son, for the express purpose of being tested. Jesus is fearless and bold in the face of the devil’s temptation because he knows who he is, and he knows that God is with him. His ultimate trust in God means that he can’t be tested away from his faith or his obedience to the will of the Father. He is secure within the love of God. We are tempted to sin when we are afraid— afraid that we are alone in the world, despite all the promises of God that God is always with us.

If Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness is a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he is and how he will live out his calling, then consider carefully what the Son of God chooses: deprivation over ease. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he can reach for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reaches instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.

We often describe Lent as a journey, as a time of testing. May it be so: a time for us to purify ourselves and clarify our minds, to be reminded that we are called into community with each other for the blessing of the world. A time to humbly remember that what makes us human is NOT our independent streak, but our ability to trust in God and care for each other.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on February 25 and at the 10:30 Holy Eucharist on February 26, 2023 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Citations:

Steven Charleston, The Four Vision Quests of Jesus, pp. 22-25.

Marked By Love: Speaking to the Soul February 23, 2023

Ashes to tie us to dust,
the alleged poverty of too brief time on Earth,
but instead proclaims our kinship
with the flaring symphony of stars overhead,

The fragrant oil graves the ash upon each forehead,
and answers the ash’s challenge
with a proclamation of being chosen and beloved,
entrusted as heirs of God’s promised lovingkindness.

Then the cross,
the shape of love that never gives up,
drawn into the tender and wide open embrace
of the One, who proclaims with generous grace
that Love
always
wins.

Emptiness isn’t poverty,
but the ability to make room for something better,
hallowing and honoring us
by reminding us of our unity
with all of creation borne tenderly by God.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on February 23, 2023.

Transfigured Sight: Sermon for the Last Sunday after Epiphany A

When I was 17 years old, my mother and I went to Europe for two weeks after my high school graduation, spending our time mostly in the UK and Germany. This was travel done completely on the cheap: because Dad worked as a mechanic for American Airlines, we could fly standby, and if we were lucky enough to get a seat, we could get to Europe for about 150 bucks each. We went to London first, rented the cheapest car available, and stayed in the cheapest hotels available—sometimes even sleeping in the car to make our money go further or eating these weird British sandwiches that have butter and ham-- together. And ironically, we got there just in time for the birth of Prince William—in fact, I was standing in front of Buckingham Palace when the announcement was made—right behind a band of 70- and 80-year-old ladies drunk from drinking champagne all night and singing countless rounds of “Rule Brittannia.”

Mom was all about the genealogy—and since most of her people came from Scotland, she wanted to get up there as soon as possible. I however, being a history nerd, wanted to at least visit the British Museum. I wanted to see the Elgin marbles, the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo burial treasures, and mummies. So since this was technically “my trip,” she relented and I blazed through the British Museum in a precious afternoon while she, frankly, waited impatiently for us to go to Scotland by train that evening. And I got to see all of those amazing things-- and then some.

But then, there was a traveling exhibit there of modern art from the Museum of Modern Art. Mom wanted nothing to do with it, but I paid the extra fee and went in. I wandered around for a while, looking at works by Salvador Dali, Picasso, Rene Magritte, Frida Kahlo, and on and on. I paused at a painting by Joan Miro, a surrealist artist from Catalan in Spain. I don’t know if you are familiar with his works, but they often consist of a bunch of tiny objects scattered around the space of the painting or print.

Now, when I was a kid, I had a weak eye, and even had to go to therapy for it, so I have a tendency to this day of cocking my head to one side to move my stronger eye closer to something I really want to see. I was standing there trying my darnedest to understand anything about this piece of art when I heard a unique voice over my shoulder ask me “Do you like this work?” And I thought, somebody is pulling my damn’ leg, because that sounds like Vincent Price, the actor in horror classics such as The House of Wax and The Pit and the Pendulum. I decided I was either lightheaded from lack of food or the ham and butter sandwiches-- or the victim of some prankster.

Imagine my shock when I turned to face the voice, and it WAS Vincent Price. No kidding. I tried to keep my jaw from dropping and said something like, ‘Well, yes sir, Mr. Price, I am not sure if I like it, because I do NOT understand it.” He then smiled kindly and said, “Would you like to know more about it?” and I stammered yes before he changed his mind. He then told me he had studied English and art history at Yale after growing up in St. Louis, and was an art collector. He then generously spent the next 30 minutes or so taking me thorough the high points of the exhibit, explaining great works of art to me in that incredible voice. So there I was having a surreal moment in a surrealist art exhibit with the man who a year later would perform a rap for Michael Jackson on his Thriller album. It was incredible.

In those few minutes, Vincent Price tried to help me learn how to see modern art, and appreciate it. And after a mere 30 minutes of his kindness, I DID begin to see things I had never seen before in great works of art. Now, the things he taught me to see had always been there—but until I knew what to look for, they passed outside of my comprehension.

That’s the way it is about vision. You can look at things without really seeing them—and in fact that is the most common reaction we have to the wave of visual stimulation that floods into our brains throughout a single day. Most of it flows by unnoticed. It’s the only way we could survive, from an evolutionary perspective.

But that also means we risk missing entire worlds as we skim over the surface of our daily lives. We have to consciously stop and look below the surface to really see and understand anything important. And that’s especially hard in these days, isn’t it? We are increasingly distracted, increasingly hurried, increasingly overstimulated. We have convinced ourselves that we stand above nature rather than seeing that we are not only PART of nature, but dependent upon the natural world for our very survival. We fail to see the escalating patterns of natural disasters, especially droughts and wildfires and climbing temperatures and the very real part we play in making those things worse.

We see so much violence and cruelty even in our chosen forms of entertainment in movies and video games that we cease to see these things as real and present horrors that we are actually called to work against. 

At the same time, there are forces at loose among us that are actively trying to prevent our seeing and knowing things—especially racism, sexism, and hatred of anyone different from us that permeates every single aspect of our common lives together. We see leaders attempt to dehumanize the oppressed, the poor, the unhoused so that we don’t really see them as human being, much less souls beloved by God to whom we, as Christians are called to have not just love, but an obligation to stand alongside them. Sometimes there is so much suffering that it all blurs together—like the now daily litany of mass-shooting events in the United States.

And perhaps it all boils down to this one particular failure to see: the failure to see the image and imprint of God in everyone and every thing around us. And especially right now, the attempt to blind ourselves and our children from seeing others as equally valuable, and specifically the attempt to prevent our young people from developing the skill and faculty of empathy in their dealings with those around them. This is perhaps the greatest danger we now face in this cultural moment. If you don’t SEE other people’s challenges, much less their beauty, and if you refuse to learn about other people’s struggles, as well as their triumphs, you don’t really SEE them as fellow human beings. It’s just that simple.

This attempt to blind us to the reality of the suffering around us has very real consequences for us as a nation—it is intended to divide us and keep us at each other’s throats. But it also has a very severe spiritual component, especially for those of us who call ourselves Christian. Jesus ALWAYS took the side of expanding our understanding. He was a teacher who repeatedly encouraged deeper insight into our call to live together in community as part of our very nature and as part of our worship of God. Jesus, especially as God’s son, accepted incarnation into human flesh so that he could open our eyes to truly see what living a life that honored God was like. And a large part of helping us see what that life looked like was helping us see each other as filled with the divine spark, each and every one of us.

Jesus did not draw his three friends up on that mountaintop so he could perform magic tricks. Instead he revealed to them who he really was. They knew him as a very human friend and teacher, who ate, slept, walked, travelled and lived with them. But up on that mountaintop, just for a moment, Jesus pulls aside the vesture of him humanity and shows them that at the same time he is also God. Now, we call this incident “the transfiguration,” and we focus on how Jesus’s appearance has changed. And there are so many sensory details: the blinding light, the appearance of the greatest law-giver in Moses and the greatest prophet in Elijah, each of whom also had their own holy experience with God on a mountaintop and were changed by it.

But who was really transfigured here? Let me suggest that the real impact of this story, especially as we prepare to enter the season of Lent, is that Jesus challenged his followers then and right now, to see themselves and each other in a deeper way. WE are the ones who are called to be transfigured and transformed by really SEEING who we are, and understanding the beauty and the duty of the implications of that reality. The actual people who were intended to be most transformed by this event were those who saw it—Peter and John and James, and by listening to the story, you and me. Six days after Peter first dares to say it out loud, Jesus affirms that he is, indeed, the son of God, both human and divine. But he also reminds us that we all have that divinity within us. Jesus becomes human to show us how to live as children of God. Jesus comes to us to show us how to truly SEE the divine fire within each and every one of us, and within all of creation. Once we see that holiness within us and around us, we can begin to respond with reverence and empowerment to confront the sins, sorrows, and evils of this world, and root them out as contrary to God’s loving call to us to walk in God’s ways, which is the true object of the Christian life.

The ability to see, and understand what is being shown, is vital to our lives as both humans and as disciples. Because Jesus came to the world not simply so that each of us can save our souls from hell. That’s a transaction, and Jesus was never transactional. He was not for sale. Grace and forgiveness and mercy are given to us in every moment of our lives. Stop and really SEE that. And then, with the newly awakened eyes of our hearts and souls, let us go out and act upon sharing that vision with the world, and acting accordingly.

AMEN.

Preached at the 505 and the 10:30 services of Holy Eucharist on the weekend of February 18-19, 2023, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

• Exodus 24:12-18
• 2 Peter 1:16-21
• Matthew 17:1-9
• Psalm 2

Transfiguration at Dawn: Speaking to the Soul, February 16, 2023

Exodus 24:12-18
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9


Something called the sleeper to wakefulness
to stand outside in the hour before dawn;
large flecks of snow arrowing out of the inky sky
looming suddenly, then swerving past.
They shush the interior chatter: “Be still.”
And as the unclad trees glow from within
the snow twines about like maypole ribbons

to communicate the wisdom each flake has drawn into itself
before vanishing when earth is met.
The creation light within each trunk
transfigures scrub oak to holy sentinels:
that light breathing in tree and stone and witness.

And the warmth of God’s pleasure stirs within the firs.

What is the origin of this light?
The forest switched on like Christmas trees,
vividly living against the night,

and the dark, silken, stars beyond a veil of cloud overhead.

They say when Moses was pulled up the holy mountain,
each cell vibrating and dancing like iron shavings over a magnet,
God’s glory rested upon the peak like wildfire cloud, and
he alighted face alit, God’s glow clinging to him like a shout. And when Jesus
took James, John, and Peter atop another, no less holy, prominence,
that fire, and that sacred love, came down,
and settled within and burst beyond that familiar, beloved body.
Jesus glowed like a sun, the true morning star
that guides weary wanderers home.
The air sizzled with God’s love,
stripping his friends of words but filling them with wonder.

The mountain can provide both a vista
and a frank reminder of the valleys that lie among us:
Jesus’s glory bursts forth from him,
twining around his friends and dazzling their hearts,
but the light has been there all the time.
God’s spark with our heart likewise stirs,

and the holy atoms dance.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on February 16, 2023.

Prayer 3654: A Prayer for Valentine's Day based on Michael 6:8

Love divine,
we praise You for the beauty of this new day:
alleluias rise with the song of the morning birds.

You have called us into covenant with You;
like a compassionate shepherd, You call us back
when we stray from your paths.
Let us seek only to do what is good and loving
in service to You,
for your mercy and love pours down like rain.

Let us do justice to those we we encounter:
open our eyes to those who are oppressed,
and our hearts and resources to those whom we see suffering.
For we are all one, bound together by your love that births us.

Let us love mercy, and extend it to friend and foe.
Let us act in kindness and empathy
as we claim to be your children,
that the world might know
that You are the God of compassion and healing,
as Your Son exemplified.
For we are all one. bound together by you love that sustains us.

Let us walk humbly with You and with each other,
remembering and giving thanks for your grace
poured out upon us so that we might share it with all.
For we are all one, bound together by your love
that forgives and guides us.

Incline your ear to our prayers for those we name,
O Most Merciful God,
as we bear them up in tenderness as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 3650 (Tenth Anniversary Prayer)

Beloved Creator, Amazing Grace,

who holds us tenderly

like sparrows in Your hand:
we turn into your embrace today,
joining with creation singing your praise.

The music of the spheres rings out
from highest heaven to the slumbering earth
as we rejoice in the song of your abundant love:
your mercy is the ground which bears us up
as we seek to walk in your ways.
Strengthen us in faithfulness
as we reflect your light within us.

Keep watch, O Shepherd of Our Souls,
that we may not stray from your side,
and grant us compassion
as we seek out the lost and hurting.
May the brush of angels' wings
dry the tears of the suffering and those who mourn,
and the tenderness of the Almighty
rest upon those we now name.

Amen.

Choosing Life by Grace: Speaking to the Soul, February 9, 2023

Deuteronomy 30:15-20



For the first 14 years of my teaching career, I taught 7th graders in middle school. I honestly loved much of it—even the dreaded “advisement” or “homeroom” class. One year, our teacher cohort designed some modules that taught logic and ethics, and those modules generated some of the best discussions I ever had outside of a reading class with that age of students.

I still remember this discussion we once after one of the kids asked whether, if you were forced to choose only one, you would rather be really kind or really intelligent. It was a great discussion—one that lasted most of the week.

I was surprised that—by a wide margin-- most of my students chose being really kind over having “high intelligence.” The consensus eventually was that you can overcome having high academic aptitude by hard work, but there was no shortcut to kindness.

One of my students put it this way: If one life is all we get, then we should live it in a way that our consciences are clean, and we have the comfort of knowing we are trying to be good people who don’t try to hurt anyone. Even if other people who are jerks seem to get away with murder, the fact is that there is almost always a lot of hurt behind their meanness, and that’s the real waste of a life. Without knowing it, she was describing the embodiment of grace.

This was from a twelve-year-old. And some people think middle schoolers are incapable of anything but emotional neediness. So wrong.

In our reading from Deuteronomy this Sunday, Moses is making plain the importance of choices and understanding the consequences of our decisions to this Israelites. Here, Moses reminds the Israelites that they have entered a covenantal relationship with God, and that entails blessings for obedience, but curses for faithlessness.

The choice before all of us, as Deuteronomy dramatically puts it, is that between death and life. This can be interpreted in a variety of ways. In the hands of preachers of my youth, this was part of what was known as “retribution theology,” where sin led inevitably to hell after death. Our relationship with God was based on a simple sort of justice: do good- receive heaven; do bad-receive hell. Then there would inevitably lead to a long list of “don’ts”—don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t swear, don’t wear slacks (for the ladies), don’t read Catcher in the Rye, don’t watch The Life of Brian—all would lead to damnation. Punishment awaited the slightest misstep. Yet misstep we did. The problem is that this system is simple, and God is not simple. This system has no place for grace. None of us are perfect. Yet, through grace, God loves us anyway.

As mature persons of faith, we are invited into the reality that being a faithful person is worthwhile even if hard times befall you, because being a faithful person who lives a compassionate, open-hearted life is not just a reward but a life-giving gift. Choosing life means this: love God, walk in God’s ways, observe God’s commandments. And always, always be kind.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on February 9, 2023.

Good Intentions: Sermon for 5th Sunday after Epiphany A (And Scouting Sunday)

One of my all-time favorite movies is Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, a spoof on the horror movie genre of the 30s and 40s, the era of Lon Cheney and Bela Lugosi. Brooks takes the granddaddy of all horror stories to poke fun at, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, strips it of everything but the idea of the struggle between monster and creator, and gets down to work, aided by a brilliant cast that includes Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Madeleine Kahn, and Peter Boyle.

One of the scenes depicts young Viktor Frankenstein, who has become convinced that his grandfather's work reanimating dead bodies is actually possible, being led by his assistant Igor into the local cemetery to get a suitable body for his experiment. They've decided on someone very, very large, to make regenerating the nerves easier. Just their luck, a local criminal has been hanged who's nearly seven feet tall. So they sneak into the cemetery, and begin to dig up the body. With ominous music, the coffin is shown rising up from the depths. Deep in a hole they have dug around the coffin, both Viktor and his assistant Igor appear, and spit out mouthfuls of dirt, fully aware of how disgusting their situation is.

“What a filthy job!” Viktor says to Igor, as they are 5 feet deep in the hole.

“Could be worse,” says Igor, sunnily.

“HOW?” pouts Viktor.

“Could be raining,” Igor replies,-- and just then lightning flashes across the sky. Viktor and Igor look at each other, and five seconds later an absolute deluge arrives. Viktor looks sourly at Igor, who put on a brave face and blinks rapidly as they immediately get soaked to the skin. (1)

I imagine a few of our Scouting families have experienced the same thing on some of their outdoor adventures. Even when everything has gone wrong at a campsite, just remember—it could be worse—it could be raining.

You know, attitude, perspective, and a sense of proportion really are everything in life. To quote another great childhood movie hero of mine, Mary Poppins, drudge work really IS better when you are singing a song as you go along, a spoon full of sugar does make the medicine go down in the most delightful way.

Our readings today are all centered on instruction for life, on having the correct attitudes in doing what we do. Each of the communities being addressed in each reading is in turmoil or transition of some kind, which can create the worst kind of stress. Jesus is in the middle of his first big series of lessons in Matthew’s gospel, the Sermon on the Mount. He is taking a group of people who have been following him around looking for miracles and trying to change their perception of themselves. When he talks about his listeners being salt, light, and a city on a hill, he is telling them that rather than waiting for miracles to be performed in front of them by Jesus, that they themselves ARE the miracles that can change the world, if they allow God’s vision of human flourishing to root in their hearts and change their own understanding of responsibility. In his teaching, Jesus is forming them from a ragtag set of individuals into a COMMUNITY that works for the benefits of the world—just like Scouting.

The members of the church in Corinth that Paul is talking to are split into factions based on wealth, power, and claims of holiness, and this division prevents them from growing in faith. How many of us have experienced that kind of division? Maybe a better question would be: when have we NOT experienced that kind of division? But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The people being addressed by the prophet Isaiah have returned from exile under the protection of the Persian Empire, and have rebuilt their temple. And yet, their return to worship has not led them to a deeper spirituality. Instead, everything has become performative—about making a show and making worship all about themselves, rather than about God and allowing God to reshape their lives. They think they’re in charge, and that they can manipulate God by doing the right rituals the right way, but without their heart in it. Worship has become a hypocritical way of showing off, a piece of performance, rather than an act that shapes their outer lives.

In each case, the people are being urged to reorient their attitudes from merely going through the motions selfishly, but instead being true believers who put their principles into action, to be people of abundance, to become a community of the faithful who work to bring about empathy, justice and shalom into a world that desperately needs it—to shift from an inward, consumerist focus to an outward looking, unified force for good, even if that requires naming the part they play in the systems of injustice that surround them, if only by their silence.

The reading from Isaiah 59 questions empty observance of ritual without allowing true repentance to take root in our hearts. This passage addresses the problem of empty worship—worship that makes the worshiper feel good, or that makes the worshiper look good in the eyes of his or her neighbors, but ultimately is an empty gesture because it does not lead to a conversion of the heart and the soul.

How important is it to put your heart into what you do? Or is it more important to simply follow the rules and checklists of our “to-do” lists? It depends upon what we are doing— if you’re paying your property taxes, no one really expects you to be filled with joy as you do your duty—unless, and I am not kidding here, you can envision your money going to making sure children go through the school day fed as well as educated, you can envision to smooth roads you travel upon as being paid for by those tax dollars, or you can imagine your taxes supporting the EMTs who just saved your neighbor’s life and got them to the hospital. Because guess what? That is EXACTLY what your taxes do—and more. 

Likewise, in worshipping God, attitude is everything and the value of worship is made visible not in whether you feel you were entertained, but in how you are then empowered to act for good in the world beyond these doors. Worship is not a series of actions. Worship IS an attitude, just as love is. Worship is made holy by holy intention.

Specifically, Isaiah points out that fasting is actually an easier sacrifice than addressing issues of systematic injustice and oppression—and we all know Isaiah is correct. That’s why systematic oppression and injustice continues even in communities where a vast majority of people claim to be people of faith. In the Talmud, which is a collection of commentary on Jewish scripture that has been collected over the centuries, the rabbis make it clear that how one acts in their regular lives is more important than how one worships.

Rabbi Elazar said: One who performs acts of charity is greater than one who sacrifices all types of offerings, as it is stated: “To perform charity and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than an offering” (Proverbs 21:3), including all types of offerings. And Rabbi Elazar said: Acts of kindness, assisting someone in need, are greater than charity, as it is stated: “Sow to yourselves according to charity, and reap according to kindness” (Hosea 10:12)…. And Rabbi Elazar said: Anyone who performs charity and justice is considered as though he filled the whole world in its entirety with kindness, as it is stated: “He loves charity and justice; the earth is full of the kindness of the Lord” (Psalms 33:5). (2)

And actually, as I was reading their commentary, I was reminded of the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, which seek to orient Scouts as to how to live their lives even outside of Scout meetings, and even when they have become adults.

Jesus spends a huge amount of his time reminding us of God’s abundance, of God’s generous love and gift of grace, probably because we live most of our lives being told to see everyone around us as competition for scarce resources, and see strangers as potential “takers of our stuff.” But if we see ourselves as salt, without which life is not possible, or light, without which vision isn’t possible, suddenly we understand that we are called to take what has already been given to us, which is a miracle in and of itself, and DO something with it for the sake of the worl, not just for our own benefit.

In Scouting, life principles are taught through learning new things, and changing Scouts’ perceptions of themselves, their roles in their communities, and even their roles in nature, right? For instance, when camping, there’s the principle of “Leave No Trace.” That is broken down in a variety of ways: pack it in, pack it out. Leave what you find. Stay on established paths for the sake of vegetation, especially if your group is large. Only make a fire as large as you need. Observe wildlife without disturbing it. And these rules you practice at, say, Philmont, will also do you good in the wilds of New York City—especially the bit about not disturbing the local wildlife. The point is being taught consideration and respect for your surroundings and the people in them, whether you are in a tent or not. They're also meant to shape your lifelong intentions to those of being caring, careful, and attentive to consequences.

Through Isaiah’s words, God continues offering practical advice for those who want to LIVE as children of God in word, name, and example. Ultimately God further clarifies the point of sacrifices: they are meant to give us the blessing of being holy, of being part of something larger than ourselves. Sacrifices are meant to give us the blessing of living without fear.

And what is the result of following these kinds of sacrifices—the kind that make the person doing these kinds of sacrifices holy, blameless, and even blessed in the sight of God and for the good of the world around us? Isaiah tells us that by being generous and openhearted in our own lives, God will pour out abundance within our hearts, making us joyful and even fearless in all we do in the name of God. Isaiah also promises that by offering our true fast to God, “Our lights will shine out for all to see.” Just as Jesus assures his followers in our gospel today.

In our daily lives, our religious lives, and in our Scouting lives, there certainly are times when our actions seem outwardly correct, but lack a conviction of the heart. This is also a common theme in scripture. Thus Isaiah reorients the term “fast” here in an unusual way—turning the concept of sacrifice on its head. Basically God is saying this: Don’t fast to me out of fear—offer your best to me and those around you out of love. Be fearless in giving to others. Be fearless in fighting wrong, even if it costs you. Don’t make a show of doing without if, after you end your fast, you continue to engage in activities that ignore the plight of the suffering, or even adds to that suffering.

Do you want to make a sacrifice that pleases me? God asks. Fight injustice and oppression. Feed the hungry and bring the poor into your home just as eagerly as you would an honored guest—which was a very serious obligation in the Mediterranean culture of that time. Clothe those who are naked. Help your family members rather than try to hide from those who need help. And do it all not out of fear, but out of love. Be fearless in living out of love, and your light will shine out for all to see.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on February 5, 2023 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

• Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]
• 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]
• Matthew 5:13-20
• Psalm 112:1-9, (10)

Citations:

1) Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein,-- video of the scene found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4VflOayBw 

2) Sukkah 49b, the William Davidson Talmud, found at https://www.sefaria.org/Sukkah.49b.13?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

3) "The Principles of 'Leave No Trace'" at Boy Scouts of America, https://www.scouting.org/programs/scouts-bsa/troop-resources/leave-no-trace/teaching-leave-no-trace/064-principles/

Salt and Faith: Speaking to the Soul, Feb. 2, 2023

“You are the salt of the earth… and the light of the world.” Matthew 5:13, 16


Reminder of the warm seas of our primordial wading ashore
in ages beyond words; or
the amniotic fluid that caressed and cushioned us
beneath our mother’s beating heart;
or the taste and trace of tears, whether joy or sorrow.
The sun may cause the vapor to rise, but the salt remains--
the water may ascend to heaven,
but the salt as God’s gift resolutely remains.
Our very blood carries the brackish proof
of its rootedness in our lives.
Lot’s wife became intimately aware of her salty heritage
when her backwards glance made her a pillar, and a warning.

The poets say Scipio beat his swords into plowshares at Carthage’s collapse
so that he could sow not seed but salt as a blight and a curse. Rome
later paid her soldiers in salt, the first “salary,” although
some take such tales “with a grain of salt.”

But it is precious.
It was required at each meal,
and offered on altars as a sign
of covenant faithfulness and steadfastness
a reminder of tenderness where destruction could just as well rule.
It can be eaten but is never fully consumed.
It preserves;
it saves;
it provides savor and delight.
Our faithfulness is designed to be as vital, as blessed to all we encounter.
Without flavor, it is nothing but bitter grit,
just as we are,
without faith.

This was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on February 2, 2023.