Blog of the Good Shepherd

Reverence for the Holy One

2012-01-29T18:06:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Kevin Smith film Dogma. Perhaps it's not safe to say this in church, certainly not from the pulpit, but it's one of my favorite comedies, not least because Smith cast George Carlin in the role of Cardinal Glick. Now Carlin may be the most famous graduate of the Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, but he is certainly not the most likely spokesperson from the Roman Catholic Church, or, for that matter, any Christian church.

In the film, Cardinal Glick is heading up something called the "Catholicism Wow" campaign. "Catholicism Wow" is a parody of those faddish efforts to appear relevant and hip that a certain type of Church official promotes, but which never quite seem to hit the mark. Carlin plays the good cardinal as kind of a sleazy advertising exec who is pitching a new logo. Glick intends to replace the crucifix with something he calls the "Buddy Christ," a smiling, winking, pointing Jesus, giving a huge thumbs up to humanity. This, apparently, is the kind of upbeat rebranding that will bring the kids back to Church-- one that will finally succeed after many others have failed.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Carlin says as the press conference begins, Now we all know how the majority and the media in this country view the Catholic church. They think of us as a passé, archaic institution. People find the Bible obtuse... even hokey. Now in an effort to disprove all that the church has appointed this year as a time of renewal... both of faith and of style. For example, the crucifix. While it has been a time honored symbol of our faith, Holy Mother Church has decided to retire this highly recognizable, yet wholly depressing image of our Lord crucified. Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies... He came to help us out. He was a booster. And it is with that take on our Lord in mind that we've come up with a new, more inspiring sigil. So it is with great pleasure that I present you with the first of many revamps the "Catholicism WOW " campaign will unveil over the next year. I give you... The Buddy Christ. Now that's not the sanctioned term we're using for the symbol, just something we've been kicking around the office, but look at it. Doesn't it... pop?

Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Buddy Christ, I have a small one with me today for you to examine after the liturgy. I'll leave it to your judgment, brothers and sisters, whether it "pops" or not, but that's kind of beside the point, isn't it? While Jesus is certainly our friend, he is not our buddy. He certainly knew how to laugh--and, if we can believe the Gospels, he was often found at the center of feasting and celebration--but he was never simply our smiling, winking pal.

And, I think that's what's at stake in a much misunderstood verse from today's Psalm. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Fear, in this context, does not mean the kind of cowering subservience that an abused slave might show a violent master. It has to do with reverence for the Holy One. When we come face to face with the living God, as we do in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are in the presence of the Savior and Judge of all people and nations. We are confronted with a mercy and goodness that intimately concerns us--with a light that exposes the deepest truth of who we are, then loves us and makes us whole.

The key to interpreting the verse is found in the rest of the Psalm, which concerns the great and marvelous works of the Lord--works of faithfulness and justice, works of redemption. By these works, God has established an everlasting covenant with Israel. By these works, our Lord has invited even us Gentile sinners to feast with him in God's Kingdom.

I don't say this to disparage Dogma or the kind of irreverent humor we find there. It is after all one of my favorite movies. I think that part of what makes the film so funny is that it comes from a place of respect for the things of the Faith--matters like the love, mercy, justice so central to the biblical witness. If Smith's humor risks offending the pious, it has nothing to do with the deeper blasphemy that uses religion to oppress human beings. He has a taste for the divine that enables him to satirize the foibles and sins of the Church in a way that points us to truth. Something that is sadly lacking from George Carlin's own published reflections on religion.

The reason the Buddy Christ image is so funny is that it fails--epically--to capture what the Christian Faith is all about. I'm fairly certain that Kevin Smith knows it, whether he considers himself a believer or not.

The crucifix and the One who bleeds and dies there for lost and suffering humanity is worthy of our reverence and holy fear. He is always relevant to the struggles of ordinary people who live with grief, injustice, and pain. He is always relevant as we try to find our way in the midst of uncertainty and pervasive anxiety.

And I am convinced that way forward in mission and ministry lies not in slick salesmanship and embrace of the latest fad--but in believing the Gospel and striving to live it out.

For the victory of Christ Crucified over all that enslaves us--over every demonic power that corrupts and destroys the children of God--is what the Church is called to preach and live before a watching world.

He is the foundation of a faith that never fails.

No matter what the economy does.

No matter what wounds us and compromises our freedom.

No matter where we're from or who our family is.

No matter what suffering or grief life may bring our way.

Jesus Christ provides a hope and love that changes everything.

Truly, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Holy and awesome is his Name.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ:: Making Room

2011-12-25T17:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight, brothers and sisters, we journey to Bethlehem to see the newborn king.

We are eager to hail the birth of the Savior, poor and in a manger.

And so, we come to the City of David.

We come to behold. We come to worship and adore.

We hurry to the stable.

And we kneel in the straw at the feet of the Child.

For it is here, in a lowly, borrowed place, among the sights and smells of the barnyard, that the light of mercy dawns for lost and fallen humanity.

It is here that we who have walked in darkness see the Great Light.

And it is here, in the place of last resort, that the Son of God pitches his tent to occupy the world.

We live in what Thomas Merton called "the time of no room." We have no room to rest, no room for each other, and no room for God.

This week, as I've been thinking and praying about what to say to you tonight, I've been meditating on the poverty of the Christ child in such a time. It all began with a statistic that Lynn Graham shared with me. It was so startling that I had to check, and it's absolutely true. The statistic is this: in 2010, one in 45 children in the United States was homeless. That's 1.6 million kids in America alone. No telling how many that means worldwide.

That's a jarring, sobering fact, to say the least. And there are predictable consequences for these children--for their physical and emotional health, and for the violence they suffer. We don't need to delve too deeply into that tonight, except to say this: "How is the birth of Jesus Good News for these children?" And how does that point to the Good News that Christmas brings to us all? For the birth of this Child, poor and in a manger, is indeed Good News and a source of hope for the whole human family.

As I've reflected on what it means for there to be "no room" for the Christ child, I've found myself drawn, over and over, to Las Posadas, the nine day pilgrimage and festival celebrated on the nights leading up to Christmas, especially in Mexico, Guatemala, and the Southwestern United States. Imagine, if you will, a candlelit procession from house to house, singing in Spanish, with the Holy Family leading a throng of pilgrims--and Mary seated on a burro. At each house, they stop and sing to the "innkeepers" inside, asking for shelter and a place to spend the night. And the innkeepers, for their part, sing words of rejection. Again and again, there is no room, until at long last the pilgrims arrive at the place appointed for the celebration, where they are invited in--to kneel at the manger and pray.

In his book, A God of Incredible Surprises: Jesus of Galilee, Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, former rector of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in San Antonio, reflects on the significance of Las Posadas.

The house that receives the pilgrims from Galilee, he writes, is filled with joy, since it is in the reception of the homeless that God comes into our lives. For those who have often been refused services, whether in restaurants, motels, public places, and [yes] even churches, this is a very significant ritual, for it reenacts ritually the reality of our lives and allows us to celebrate what we know well in our hearts but the ones who refuse us ignore: that we are not trash or contaminated problems to be kept out, but, like all human beings,[we are] blessings to be enjoyed.

Seen in this light, Las Posadas helps dramatize a dimension of the Christmas story that connects directly with the lives of struggling people everywhere.

That comes as no surprise. This popular devotion was created by the Franciscan friars, among others, in the New World. And it has its roots in the ministry of St. Francis with lepers and the new urban poor of his day. In fact, Francis invented the nativity scene--he was the first--and he did it to show people the poverty of Jesus, who was born in a stable. For, in the midst of the vast social divisions of thirteenth-century Assisi, Francis had rediscovered something central to the Christmas story--that Christ is found, first and foremost, among the poor and the lowly, his brothers and sisters.

Christmas is an invitation to all of us, in the midst of a cold winter and our growing isolation from each other, to rejoin the human family. For the birth of the Christ opens our hearts, as nothing else can, to make room for our fellow human beings. Jesus makes us want to be generous and merciful and just with our neighbors. His presence among us invites us to open our hearts, our homes, and our lives to each other.

Jesus Christ is like a fragile, winter rose. He is a bit of color and warm flesh against the stark, white backdrop of our mid-western winter. Behold his precarious beauty as he nurses at his mother's breast.

The Lord of Hosts, this tiny baby: God-with-us.

He is the bread of angels and the life-blood of a new creation, He binds us together as one People, around a common table.

Brothers and sisters, on this Christmas Eve, I tell you that this Child, Jesus, is our true joy.

He is our hope, our life, and our faith.

He is the Great Light that shines in the darkness.

He is the One whom darkness can never overcome.

And he makes room for all those who find no welcome elsewhere.

He makes room for all of us.

For Jesus does not give the way the world gives.

He gives bread to all who hunger.

He IS the Bread, which comes down from heaven, to give life to the world.

And this night--this most holy night--he comes down from heaven and presses himself into our open, outstretched hands.

He is the Prince of Peace.

He is Christ, the Lord.

Let every heart--every heart in this room--every heart prepare him room.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent: Grace, Freedom, and Revolution

2011-12-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

Last week, brothers and sisters, we talked a bit about John the Baptist,

the witness, herald, and forerunner of Jesus.

I noted that John disappears into his testimony,

just as a priest disappears into the mass,

just as each one of us disappears into his or her own unique vocation from God.

Today, on this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we see the same thing happening with Mary.

Her whole being is taken up into her “Yes” to God.

She gives herself over to her vocation as the God-bearer.

Full of grace, she allows the Word to become flesh.

It’s no wonder Francis of Assisi called her the Virgin-made-Church.

The story begins in obscurity.

Mary is a young peasant girl, in a backwater province of Rome.

Her people have long been subject to this or that Empire:

Babylon, Persia, and Egypt, to name a few.

The Romans are only the latest in a long, long line of conquerors.

And yet, for all their poverty and subjugation, the Jews remember a proud history.

After all, they are the children of Israel and the People of God.

They are redeemed slaves, chosen for freedom.

To them belongs the covenant.

To them belongs the dangerous memory of a liberator God.

To them, God sent his servants the prophets.

Mary is the humble daughter of a royal priesthood,

and she is waiting for the sure and certain promises of God.

At the end of a long famine of prophecy, she is starving for the Word.

And then one day, finally, the angel Gabriel appears to her.

But how?

How does this happen?

Does it happen in a flash with a voice of thunder?

Does it happen, perhaps, in radiant beauty that dazzles her mind?

Or does it happen instead in the still, small voice within?

We don’t know and never will. The Scriptures are silent. All they tell us is that he came.

Greetings, highly favored one, he says, and Mary is perplexed and afraid.

Fear not, he says, yet his glad tidings only deepen her fears.

Fear not? she asks. Really?

Pregnant? she asks. Me?

How can this be, since I know not a man?

And then comes Gabriel’s answer:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the

child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

And Mary responds with the Yes that defines her whole being.

She consents to be the Mother of God—and of every living thing.

Here I am. Let it be unto me according to thy Word.

Deep within her womb, hidden from view, Mary knows the coming of Christ.

In the grace of her Son, she embraces the promises of God for the whole human family.

Here I am, she says, Let it be.

The lynchpin of the Annunciation story is the mystery of grace and freedom.

The two come together in Mary.

For, in the power of the Spirit, she is at once an overflowing vessel of divine grace and her very own self.

She is given herself in receiving the Word.

She becomes herself by giving him flesh.

She shows that when we depend on God, we lose nothing and gain everything.

That, by losing our life, we find it.

By accepting her calling from God, Mary makes possible the very life of Christ.

She offers him up, like a priest at the altar, for the life of the world.

God makes the Kingdom hang by the thread of her choice--

her free choice to say yes to grace, yes to Jesus, yes to God.

For, when grace and freedom meet in Mary, the Word becomes flesh,

and Mother Church sings joyful songs of revolution.

The Spirit falls on Mary, and her tongue is set loose for prophecy.

In the power of the Spirit of love and justice,

the very same Spirit that rests on her Son,

Mary speaks of God and God’s Kingdom.

For God is present here,

in the fruit of her womb, Jesus.

And, where God is present,

the proud are scattered,

the mighty cast down,

and the lowly lifted up.

Where God is present,

the hungry are fed,

and the rich are sent empty away.

And this Gospel has spread from the backstreets to the great cities and capitals of Empire.

It has been proclaimed to all people, everywhere.

It has been preached from one end of the earth to the other.

It is Good News for our inner cities.

It is Good News for our burned out, post-industrial towns.

It is Good News for our rural places--

For our abused, forgotten, exploited places

For the mined, drilled, and scorched land of Appalachia

And the people who call this land our home.

It is Good News wherever people are lonely, or desperate, or grieving, or hurting, or afraid.

For the Mighty God has come to us.

He has shown us the strength of his arm

In this humble peasant girl, and her subversive song of freedom.

For God is with us

in this girl who gives herself over to a word of hope--

That God has remembered his promise of mercy,

That his arm is strong, and his Name is holy.

And so, with Mary, and all the saints, we lay claim to this promise.

We remember, we sing out, and we rejoice.

We give ourselves over to God’s purpose, God’s will, God’s Kingdom

And we say, Yes!

Yes, Lord, Yes!

Let it be!

The Third Sunday of Advent: The Garments of Salvation

2011-12-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have noticed, I've received a precious gift from a friend. It came in the form of two silk chasubles made in England. First came the purple I wore last Sunday and now this rose colored one. Like the third candle on the Advent wreath, the vestments are rose to suggest our joy that Christ is near. Today, the third Sunday of Advent, is also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete because that's the first word of the traditional Latin introit for today's mass. It comes from Paul's Letter to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. It’s as if Mother Church, her womb filled with the Christ child, has begun to blush and glow in anticipation of his birth.

The gift of these beautiful vestments makes me think of my friend and former colleague, Don Armentrout. Some of you have heard me quote him before. Don is a Lutheran pastor who has devoted more than four decades of his life to the history of the Episcopal Church. He loves our church at least as much as his own, and he's been teaching our seminarians, living with our flaws, and praying with our Prayer Book since his early twenties. But, when he sees our clergy put on our fancy frocks, he can’t help himself. He shakes his head a little and says "A pretty priest is a happy priest."

But vestments mean more than that, don't they? The beauty of our worship is meant to invite us to share in the beauty of our God. As the Psalm says, we are to “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” Moreover, as a priest, when I vest for the liturgy of the day, I am symbolically divesting myself of all the imperfections that get in the way of Christ. Every detail of our liturgy is meant to suppress the individuality of the presiding priest and assisting ministers, so that nothing distracts us from the coming of Jesus in his mercy, grace, and truth.

The traditional prayers at the time of vesting suggest as much.

When the priest puts on the white garment called the alb, for example, he or she prays:

CLEANSE me, O Lord, and purify my heart, that, being made white in the Blood of the Lamb, I may attain everlasting joy.

Later when placing the stole around the neck, he or she says:

GIVE me again, O Lord, the stole of immortality, which I lost by the transgression of my first parents, and although I am unworthy to come unto Thy Holy Sacrament, grant that I may attain everlasting felicity.

And finally, when putting on the chasuble:

LORD, who hast said, My yoke is easy, and My burden is light, grant that I may so bear it, as to attain Thy grace. Amen.

For me, praying such prayers is a way to get centered and grounded in Christ and to remember what our worship is all about. It reminds me of something Thomas Merton wrote in The Sign of Jonas, where he speaks of the "poverty of the priest" who "disappears into the mass." The point of the chasuble, like that of every beautiful object and stylized gesture of the liturgy, is that it's not about us but about the Lord. The Holy Eucharist is about being taken up into Christ's one great offering of himself, so that he may dwell in us and we in him. A priest is vested for the same reason he or she is ordained--to show forth Christ in the midst of the People and to carry them all to God in prayer. The vestments match the altar cloths and other hangings in the Church, because the whole ministry of a priest is an extension of the mysteries of the Altar.

It's important to see, however, that the foundational image here is that of the baptism we share. As the Apostle teaches, baptism is where we put off the old humanity and put on the new. In the baptismal font, we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. In baptism, we are clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ, as we die to sin and live to God. Becoming a Christian means discovering, again and again, our absolute poverty and dependence on God. It means putting on a garment that can only come as a gift. It means making our very lives a witness to Jesus and his grace. As Christian people, we are called to rejoice and live in gratitude, since all we are comes as a gift from God.

And so, like Merton’s priest, we disappear into the mass. For we are living stones, built by grace into God’s Temple. And we give ourselves over, body and soul, to the Spirit-filled action that unites us in Christ. With the bread and wine, we are taken, blessed, broken, and given for the life of the world. And we are sent as witnesses. Jesus sends us in all our brokenness and humanity. He sends us to be his Body in the world.

That brings us to the Gospel. We are not that different from the Baptist, you and me. We are not that different, because we are called to be witnesses. The difference between John and us is how consistently he points away from himself. Again and again, he confesses and does not deny. I am not the Christ, he says. I am not Elijah. I am not the Prophet. I am only a voice crying in the wilderness, a witness who points out the Way.

The whole being of John is defined by this pointing. He points away from himself and toward Christ. He knows he is sent by Another. He is sent for testimony. He is like a mirror--only useful when he reflects his Lord. He is like the moon, who gives us all light, but only the reflected light of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.

John disappears into his testimony. Just as Merton's priest disappears into the mass. Just as each one of us disappears into his or her own unique calling from God. For when we lose our life, we find it. As we depend more completely on God, we become more fully ourselves. We come, more and more, to reflect the light of Christ. We do so for all those neighbors who long for a word of grace and forgiveness, of promise and hope, of justice and love. We do so in our families, neighborhoods, churches, and schools. We do so in the workplace, in the marketplace, and in the public square. We do so because this is who God called us and sent us to be--witnesses of the one true Light.

What a sacred calling! How truly right and a good and joyful thing! And so, in the grace of our baptism and of this Holy Communion, we live out the words of the prophet:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.

The First Sunday of Advent: Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

2011-11-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

It's not too gentle an image, is it?

“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down."

It reminds me of the Ash Wednesday reading from the prophet Joel, "Rend your hearts and not your garments." As in Joel, there is a tearing here. But, in this case, it’s not so much a human act of grief or penance as a divine act of crossing the great divide--of spanning the infinite distance between Creator and creature, made that much greater when we are lost and fallen, as well as mortal and frail.

When Christ the Lord comes among us, truly the nations will tremble and the mountains shake.

If we did not already walk in darkness and the shadow of death, this image would consume us with terror.

And yet, for us, it is a word of hope. As we enter the season of Advent, we sense that we stand on the brink of something wonderful. For the One who is to come will arrive not in power, but in great humility.

The longing of the nations will be filled not in a storm but a whisper.

As silently the Word sinks into earth and sea and flesh to find a home. Ready or not, he comes. He fills all things, pervades all things, with a subtle yet profound power more intimate than our inmost selves.

And his Gift--his holy gift--poured out on all flesh gives us "grace to cast away the works of darkness." As depth touches depth and heart speaks to heart in the transformative union of Love.

We see its signs all around us, if we have eyes to see.

We hear the still, small voice within.

And we sense the first fleeting movements of grace.

But still we are bound.

Still we are bound.

By our own choice. Through our own fault. In thought and word and deed.

By a multitude of sins of a thousand generations

Pressed upon us, willing or no, by our families and co-workers and fellow human beings.

Every community we belong to entices, elicits, and seduces us into sin.

We are conscripted into its army. We give our loyalty to its captain. We buy into its warped stories and twisted values.

Corrupting and effacing the dim, distant shadow of the Image of God

In Whom we were (and still are) made.

Until at long last we cry out:

Savior of the nations, come!

O come, Emmanuel, come!

The Spirit within cries, come!

And the longing of our hearts cries, come!

Come, restore us, Lord God of hosts.

Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

At first, the light burns and blinds us.

So accustomed are we to walking in darkness.

We feel the scabs tearing off the old, old wounds.

And the well worn ruts of our histories burst,

like old wineskins,

no longer able to contain the flood of grace

That gushes so freely from the Father's bosom.

As the Word empties himself

To take on the form of a slave.

As in the poem about the Magi, we sense this is birth

But also death--our death.

And that we are no longer at ease here

in the old dispensation.

And yet, without this death, there is no life.

For God's face is hidden from us

We have given ourselves over to iniquity

And we are lost, frightened, and alone.

Perhaps most alone when we are together,

in this cold kingdom of death.

Yet somewhere deep within

Lurks a half-remembered promise of God,

A smoldering ember of the Spirit

That unquenchable fire of divine Charity

Lit within us by the Gospel

Brought to light in sacred waters

Wherein we were washed and healed,

Driven out into the desert,

And made Christ's very own.

To this promise we cling

As we claim it and cry out

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.

Show us the light of your countenance.

Give us grace, Almighty God, to cast away the works of darkness.

The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost: Wounded By God

2011-08-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fr. Bill's sermon from the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost is now up at the Episcopal Cafe. Check it out here.

Trinity Sunday: Divine Community

2011-06-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

In today's Epistle, we hear some very familiar words--words we often use as a benediction at Morning or Evening Prayer: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all."'

This is one of the oldest Trinitarian formulas in the New Testament. It's not yet the fully developed doctrine of the Nicene Creed, but it is one of the seeds that grew into that doctrine over the first four centuries. It has a triadic form, as Paul invokes three coordinate realities over the Church at Corinth, namely the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Over time, the Church reflected on what it meant to participate in this grace, this love, and this communion, and it concluded that to experience any one of these realities is to be caught up in all three at once--indeed, it is to stand within the relationships that forever exist within the Godhead. For Christians, God is not an isolated individual, but a kind of community. The Holy Trinity is a living reality of love, into which we are invited. Every perfection must exist within God, and so the fullness of the Father necessarily spills out in the Son and the Spirit, so as to express perfect equality, mutuality, and love.

And the Church, as the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit, is meant to be an icon of this fertile, superabundant goodness and love. The Church exists as God's embodied and definitive offer of grace to the world. We exist to continue the work of Jesus. Anointed by the same Spirit that rested on him, we go, we baptize, and we teach. We serve, we struggle, and we heal, becoming a sign and witness to a new form of community that anticipates God's coming Kingdom.

It's for this reason that Paul exhorts the Corinthian Church to "greet one another with a Holy Kiss." The kiss is a sign of peace. It means that we intend to lay aside all envy, greed, and violence, the sinful distortions of relationship that prevail in the present age. The kiss of peace is a visible and outward sign of what God is doing among us.

In our liturgy, this custom survives in the passing of the peace. This symbolic action, which in the medieval Church was reduced to a brief embrace between the priest and the deacon but is now shared by everyone, points us to the mystery of Holy Communion. In the Eucharist, people from every family, language, people, and nation are drawn together into a single Body. We lay aside differences of status, as well as hurts and wrongs--anything that might divide us from one another, in order to offer the Great Thanksgiving as a united People.

There's a reason why the peace follows the confession and absolution. Having confessed our sins against God and our neighbor, we commit ourselves to live as forgiven and reconciled people--to live out the implications of the resurrection in our lives. The passing of the peace is a sign of our intention to forgive as we have been forgiven, to put behind us anything that might estrange us from each other before going to the altar of God.

In Rite One, we sometimes hear the following invitation to confession, which highlights the meaning of the peace:

Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways: Draw near with faith, and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.

The real work lies not in the symbolic exchange of peace, but in living it out seven days a week.

The passing of the peace commits us to showing mercy, doing justice, and seeking forgiveness with our neighbors. We put this into practice in our homes, workplaces, and schools. In every Eucharist, we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, to do God's holy work in the world.

The Holy Trinity, ultimately, is not about a mathematical error. We are not being asked to assent to the proposition that "three equals one." We are instead being invited to discover that relationship is more fundamental than isolation, and that equality, difference, and perfect unity are both God's will for us and the very nature of GOD.

When we are baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we come to share in the grace, love, and communion of the living God, which go out from God and return to God, in a never ending exchange of gifts.

The Archbishop of Canterbury once put it this way, in something that I sent to the parish earlier this week.

The Trinity is never an object (or a trio of objects!) at a safe distance. Knowing the Trinity is being involved in this circling movement: drawn by the Son towards the Father, drawn into the Father's breathing out of the Spirit so that the Son's life may be again made real in the world. It is where contemplation and action become inseparable.

Today, on Trinity Sunday, we call attention to the roots of our common life, prayer, and discipleship within this eternal "circling movement" of the Godhead. And so my brothers and sisters, what Paul to the Corinthians, I also say to you:

Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

The Second Sunday of Easter: A Living Hope

2011-05-26T07:11:00.001-07:00

Fr. Bill's sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter is found here at the Episcopal Cafe.

Easter Day: Rising in him

2011-04-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

One of the most powerful images of resurrection in pop culture comes from Bruce Springsteen. Recently, there has been a growing conversation about religious themes in his work. Even in the mid-1980's, however, he received an admiring letter from Walker Percy, the great Roman Catholic novelist, which discussed their mutual love for Flannery O'Connor and asked him about his spiritual journey.

In that letter, Percy, who'd just read an article about Springsteen in the Jesuit magazine America, told a story about a time when O'Connor sat in a seminar with a bunch of ex-Catholics. One of them, "thinking to be generous toward the Church," said that "some of the Church rituals, like the Eucharist, are good symbols." O'Connor replied: "Well, I say, if it's only a symbol, to hell with it."

That's not a bad criterion, I suppose, for the use of any symbol by any artist: is it only a symbol, or does it point beyond itself to reality? That holds for the beautiful symbols that surround us in our worship, including the flowers. It's equally true of our music. It is all so beautiful and joyful, but does it point beyond itself to a larger reality?

Now, the song I have in mind is the title track from Springsteen's 2002 album, "The Rising," which has to do with the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 the previous year. In that song, we see Springsteen retelling the story from the perspective of a working class, Catholic firefighter, whose spirit of self-sacrifice is more often praised than followed.

This man leaves wife and children behind and climbs into the dark and lethal cloud in order to save others. We are to imagine him climbing the stairs, floor after floor, facing certain death with a real sense of loss but also a holy joy:

Can't see nothin' in front of me, he says,
Can't see nothing behind. I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

In case there's any doubt this man is carrying the cross of Jesus, he goes on to state it openly. He says he is "wearing the cross of my calling." And so, in the chorus, when he invites us again and again to "come on up for the rising," we begin to suspect that more is at work than climbing a set of stairs. There follow images of communion, sacrifice, and bodies transfigured in the glorious light of the fire:

Spirits above and behind me,
Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright
May their precious blood forever bind me
Lord as I stand before your fiery light

Then, in the next stanza, he sings of Mary in the Garden. Is she Magdalene? Is she the Blessed Virgin? Or is she a dying vision of his wife? Perhaps she is all three at once.

The song closes with what could be described as a hymn to the sky awash in darkness and glory, death and resurrection, recalling apocalyptic themes long associated with both the crucifixion and the second coming of Christ:

Sky of blackness and sorrow
Sky of love, sky of tears
Sky of glory and sadness
Sky of mercy, sky of fear
Sky of memory and shadow
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

The memory and trauma of 9-11 still haunts us. As a society, we seem unable to exorcise its ghosts. Guantanamo remains open for business. We see grandmothers and small children strip searched at our airports. The holes in the Manhattan skyline remain. As do pervasive fear and bloody wars. The economic losses still ripple and reverberate from sea to shining sea. And, too often hidden from view, the families continue to grieve. Families that lost father or brother, mother or sister, lover or friend.

We'd better hope that resurrection is more than just a symbol. We'd better hope that sacrifice and shed blood--laying down one's life for one's friends--finds its true meaning in communion with a God of love. We'd better hope that Jesus lives, bringing forgiveness to sinners, freedom to captives, and life to the dead.

Mary Magdalene came to know this in her bones that first Easter morning, when she went to the garden tomb. That day, she became the apostle to the apostles, the first to see the risen Lord and bring the Good News of his resurrection to the others. On the foundation of her testimony, that same Gospel has been preached throughout the world. And countless people have found their lives changed. Societies have been changed by the wonderful Good News of the resurrection.

But that particular morning did not start off well for Mary, did it? They had taken Jesus away. He had been beaten, mocked, and killed. It certainly weighed heavy upon her--Mary who loved Jesus not just as a disciple but as a friend--perhaps even as a woman. She felt the ache of trauma and loss. The one she loved had been killed before her very eyes.

Then, when she arrived at the tomb in the early morning darkness, his body was gone. Someone had stolen it. Even the small comfort of caring for his body was denied her. No wonder she began to weep.

When the stranger came, supposing him to be the gardener, she asked him where he had laid the body. "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." But then the stranger called her by name, and she saw him for who he was. "Mary," Jesus said to her, and she turned to embrace him--ALIVE. And immediately her heart burned within her and she was caught up in the overwhelming joy.

For nothing--no, not the soldiers, not the jeering crowds, not the wood, the nails, the spear. Not our sin, our grief, our shame. Not illness. Not violence. Not memory. Neither fear nor loss. Nothing past nor present nor yet to come. Nothing whatsoever can hold down the Lord of life, who suffered and died and rose again.

Jesus is that living Lord. He is the one who comes to us and calls us each by name. He is the one whose love triumphs over death. He is the true Paschal lamb--the victim and host of this life-giving feast. May his sacred body and precious blood bind us together as one--and cause us to rise in him.

Easter Vigil: His love has made it easy.

2011-04-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

As we begin the celebration of the first Eucharist of Easter, we do so with the ringing of bells and songs and shouts of freedom that have been suppressed throughout our Lenten pilgrimage.

This always reminds me of an Easter sequence that's often sung with Alleluias and the joyful ringing of bells. Translated into English, it goes like this: The stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the tomb. Whom do you seek, woman, the living among the dead? Do not weep, Mary, the Lord is risen.

The ringing of bells in Easter season also calls to mind a powerful meditation from Thomas Merton on the meaning of Church bells:

Bells are meant to remind us that God alone is good, that we belong to Him, that we are not living for this world. They break in upon our cares in order to remind us that all things pass away and that our preoccupations are not important. They speak to us of our freedom, which responsibilities and transient cares make us forget.

They are the voice of our alliance with the God of heaven. They call us to peace with Him within ourselves...The bells say: we have spoken for centuries from the towers of great churches. We have spoken to the saints your fathers, in their land. We called them, as we call you, to sanctity.

What is the word with which we called them? We did not merely say, "Be good, come to church." We did not merely say "Keep the commandments" but above all, "CHRIST IS RISEN. CHRIST IS RISEN!" And we said: "Come with us. God is good. Salvation is not hard. His love has made it easy!"

For Merton, bells speak to us of God's mercy. Salvation is as easy as Jesus standing alive in the midst of his disciples. As easy as his body pressed into our eager, outstretched hands.

A similar vision is present in the paschal homily of St. John Chrysostom, which is customarily read in Eastern Orthodox Churches on this most holy night. Chrysostom describes the Easter feast in terms borrowed from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, all of whom (contrary to strict justice) receive the same wage for different amounts of work. After rehearsing the rewards that await those who have labored throughout the day, including those who have skated in at the last possible minute, Chrysostom goes on to allude to the Prodigal Son:

Wherefore, let all of you enter into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honor the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; let all of you feast sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go away hungry.

What, we might ask, is the source of this wide open mercy? What is responsible for this lavish abundance? It is Christ, who suffered and died. Who suffered and died, and rose again. He is the lamb that God provides. He is the One who feeds us with his own flesh. He is the One who nurses us with his very own blood. Thus, Mother Church, singing to God on this blessed night, confesses that "To redeem a slave, you gave a Son."

In ancient icons of the resurrection, Christ is shown standing on the broken gates of hell, leading Adam and Eve--and, with them, the whole human race--into paradise.

Salvation is indeed easy--for us but not for him. Jesus goes before us to lead the way. He fought the fight. He won the battle. And his body bears the scars.

But, by the agony of his passion, a new creation is born. By the rolling away of the stone, a new day dawns. The world is now ablaze with his new fire. And, in its light, love triumphs over fear, goodness over evil, life over death. For he has flung wide the gates of paradise. And nothing—no, not even death itself—can shut him in or hold him down.

That brings us back to Chrysostom, who concludes his homily as follows:

O Death, where is your sting?
O Hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead person remains in the grave.
For Christ, being raised from the dead,
Has become the first-fruits of those who sleep.

To him be glory and dominion
For ever and ever.

Amen.

Good Friday: God's Strange and Awful Work

2011-04-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why they call this particular Friday "good"? Well, no one knows for sure, but one theory is that it was originally called "God's Friday." And, whether or not that's true, it points us to something important: today, of all days, belongs to God.

Today, we enter God's church in silence and kneel before God's altar stripped for sacrifice. Our opening acclamation "Blessed be our God" stands in stark contrast with the joyous invocation of Trinity and Kingdom with which we ordinarily begin our public worship.

Although in some places it is customary to share communion from the reserved sacrament on Good Friday, it is worth noting that we never celebrate the Eucharist today. This is the one day of the year in which the usual means of grace are denied us, so that stripped of our defenses, we can draw near to the crucified Savior in a different way. On Good Friday, we learn once more, in that phrase of Jerome's popularized by the early Franciscans, nakedly to follow a naked Christ.

Today, signs and figures give way to reality, as we enter into the real presence experienced as absence, terror, and traumatic loss. For today, before our very eyes, Christ is torn limb from limb and nailed to the cross. Today, Jesus breathes his last and dies.

We could skip this day and move straight to Easter. Many do, for various reasons. It would also be possible to get stuck here--to wallow in suffering and lose ourselves in melodrama or a pornographic spectacle of violence. In so doing, we would betray the inner unity of the one, indivisible mystery--the dying and rising of the Lord. On Good Friday--God's Friday--we open ourselves to suffering and death as an essential--if disturbing--element in God's saving work.

But why?

Kenneth Leech, a priest in the Church of England who served for decades in a poor East London neighborhood, was a pioneer in ministry with drug-addicted youth. In his book We Preach Christ Crucified, written in the 1990's and based on his sermons for Holy Week, he says we need to be able to speak to "darkness and despair." We need a ministry "which has understood and confronted this profound darkness of Christ's dying and rising":

Much Christian pastoral activity, he writes, seems to have as its aim the protection of people from any encounter with this darkness. Religion is offered as a place of refuge. Within the classical mystical tradition, a major part of the work of spiritual direction consists in helping people to move out of their false securities to the point of disintegration and entry into the dark night, and guiding them through the subsequent upheaval and turmoil. Yet this is a far cry from the aim and practice of conventional religion which offers a safe neutrality in the face of chaos and horror. Much of the religion which has flourished in recent years in the "Christian" west is of this neutral type. It offers inner and often corporate security and warmth. It is a religion of comfort and reassurance. It offers no vision, no challenge, no striving toward the new.

But, as important as this is, it is not just a matter of confronting the profound darkness within our own souls. For Christians, our interior life is always bound up with loving our neighbor. It is here perhaps, in the effort to live out the social implications of our faith, that we most need challenge and striving toward new life. Moving to a North American context, Leech cites the Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall, who speaks to the social meaning of Good Friday:

Until such a mutilated, sorrowful, forsaken Christ can be met in the churches of suburbia, he writes, there will be no facing up to the mutilation, sorrow, and forsakenness that this continent and its European satellites visit upon millions of the poor, including our own poor. Nor will there be any confrontation with the sickness within the soul of this society which causes it to seek the enemy outside its own soul.

In other words, the crucifixion of Christ ought to pierce the veil of our denial as a society and bring us face to face with the truth of persons whose suffering forms the foundations of our entire way of life. When Christ stands before Pilate, he exposes the hidden violence that infects all our relationships and brings the powers of this world to judgment. When Christ is lifted high upon the cross, he casts these powers out and draws all people to himself.

In a few moments, we will bring a large, wooden cross into the church. As we do, we will sing anthems to the cross and the One who died there.

The note these anthems sound concerns joy in the victory of Christ. For, in his death, his Easter victory has already begun. And here, as the faithful 'round the world gather to watch and pray, a glorious battle is being waged on our behalf.

When the cross has been placed on the chancel steps, those who wish will come forward for devotions. Some will kneel quietly and pray. Others will embrace or kiss the cross. I invite all of us to participate, especially if it makes us uncomfortable.

For we need to remember Jesus and the price his victory cost him. We need also to remember the darkness and despair in our own lives. And we need to remember the poor and the oppressed in their millions.

We need to remember, perhaps to break down and weep. We need to move out of our false securities and into the passion of Christ.

As we draw near to the poor, naked, and forsaken Christ, may we hand this day over to God--and ourselves to his strange and awful work.

For it is here, in the midst of darkness, suffering, and death, that a new creation is born.

Maundy Thursday: Letting Christ Serve Us

2011-04-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

I'm told that, when he performs an episcopal visitation, the Archbishop of York refuses to sit on the bishop's chair but instead invites twelve local schoolchildren to sit there while he washes their feet. Now, in many English churches, the chair looks a bit like a throne. The bishop's chair we have here at Good Shepherd is similar, though as you saw when Bishop Tom was here, he adopted the more ancient practice and sat where the presider usually sits. That place, above all is the bishop's chair. Anyone else who sits there is sitting in for him or her and, ultimately, for the Lord, the true host of the Eucharistic feast.

In the case of Archbishop John, this gesture of humility may have something to do with the fact that he is from Uganda and narrowly escaped martyrdom under Idi Amin. But whatever his reasons for making it, it recalls tonight's Gospel, with its fundamental reversal of the role of Lord and servant. If the Creator and Redeemer of all can stoop to wash the feet of sinners, so too surely can a peer of the realm and the second most senior bishop in the Church of England. In Christ, there is no distinction of persons. We are called to be simple people, servants and friends of God.

This reminder of martyrdom, the ultimate act of service in witness to the Lord of love, is especially relevant tonight. The foot washing scene in John's Gospel is meant to be an extended commentary on the meaning of the cross. Among other things, the cross is the supreme example of love. For us and for our salvation, the Lord of the universe takes on the form of a slave. The Holy One takes the place of sinners; the Blessed One undergoes suffering; the Immortal One tastes death. And all of it, because he loves his disciples to the end.

Some of us rebel against being washed. Perhaps like Peter we put up a fight. Or maybe being served in this way just makes us uncomfortable. William Temple notes that, while "divine humility shows itself in rendering service," our humility "begins with the readiness to receive it." We must allow the Lord to serve us, because we are not strong enough to save ourselves.

Only in the strength of the divine gift are we able to offer true service to others. Only in the strength of the divine gift are we able to participate in Christ, his community, and his mission. So much of what we do for each other, often in hidden and unconscious ways, isn't really humble at all. It is intended as a kind of noblesse oblige or a subtle effort to put others in our debt. In this way, our service no longer flows from love but becomes tinged with resentment, perhaps even with malice.

If this is not clear enough from the foot washing and the institution of the Eucharist, which we celebrate tonight, it will become abundantly clear tomorrow as we gather at the foot of the cross. At the heart of the Christian faith lies a gift we can only receive. This is why we kneel with outstretched hands. It is why we consume the broken body and shed blood of the Lord. Our humility begins here, in letting him serve us. It begins with his suffering and death poured out for us. We love him, because he first loved us.

Some of you have heard me quote before from John Chrysostom's moving homily on the thirteenth chapter of John. I will cite it again tonight, because it points us to the meaning of Maundy Thursday for our life together. Rather than focusing on Peter, Chrysostom observes that Christ washed the feet of Judas:

Where now are those who spit on their fellow servants? Where now are those who demand honors for themselves? Christ washed the feet of the man who was sacrilegious, a traitor, and a thief. And he did so close to the time of his betrayal…and he let this man eat from his table.

Imagine what that must have been like for Judas, as he struggled with his conscience, as he fought within himself about the decision he was about to make. As we have our feet washed this evening, may we remember--each one of us--the many ways in which we have betrayed our friends, our God, and ourselves.

As we come to our Lord's abundant table, without pretense or defenses, may we find the gift that makes us whole. And may we allow that gift to transform us--from betrayers into beloved guests and from servants into friends.

The Fourth Sunday in Lent: Light in Dark Places

2011-04-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

Some of you have probably heard me quote lyrics from the Indigo Girls. As you may know, the they are a duo of activist singer-songwriters who were very popular when I was in college and are still recording today. They've been especially active in movements for peace and environmental justice, women's and LGBT equality, and the rights and concerns of indigenous peoples. What is often not known is that Emily Saliers, one of the group's two members, is the daughter of Don Saliers, a United Methodist Pastor who until recently was the William R. Cannon Professor of Theology and Christian Worship at Emory University. Several years ago, Don and Emily wrote a book together on "music as a spiritual practice" and gave a joint presentation about it at the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Atlanta.

One of the songs that Emily talked about that day was "Strange Fire," which deals with some biblical themes we ignore at our peril. The part that always gets me is the following:

Mercenaries of the shrine, who are you to speak for God?
With haughty eyes and lying tongues and hands that shed innocent blood.
Who delivered you the power to interpret Calvary?
You gamble away our freedom to gain your own authority.

What an indictment this is of what passes for religion among us. It is a good reminder to all of us, lay and clergy alike, who are called to represent God in word and deed.

This points us in the direction of some rather central themes in today's Gospel. For, in the presence of Jesus, the man born blind gets more than just his sight back. He gets his life back as he begins to break free of a religious system that asks the kind of question we see the disciples asking Jesus, namely "Who sinned, Rabbi, this man or his parents that he was born blind?"

The disciples should know better. After all, they are Jews. They know the story of Job, whose false comforters gave the very same kinds of explanation they now offer for the man's blindness. They have the testimony of Job, who refuses to curse God, even as he protests his innocence and cries out for justice from the ash heaps of history. Job, who in the end is brought to silence only by the hidden Wisdom who creates the world in love--the living God whose gratuitous, beneficent goodness defies the cruel, tit-for tat logic of our religious landscape, filled as it is with harsh monuments to our fear of the stranger and desire for control.

No, in the presence of the Son of God, the man gets his dignity back and is restored to human community. No longer is he an object of pity, a beggar by the side of the road. Now he is a person who can testify on his own behalf. "Ask him," his parents tell the Pharisees, "He is of age and will speak for himself."

But let's back up a bit. The initial answer of Jesus to his disciples would be troubling, if we took it to mean that God is somehow glorified by the man's suffering. That's not what's at stake. As we'll see next week with Lazarus, illness and suffering and even death are but the occasion of the manifestation of God's glory--a glory consummated on the Cross, where Jesus casts out the prince of darkness and offers himself up for life of the world. God is glorified, not by suffering itself, but by the victory of God's mercy and love in the midst of it.

The debate that breaks out among the Pharisees is a sign of our differing reactions to the light that exposes the sin and violence at the root of the earthly city and its religions. It is the chosen sin of self-justifying ideologies that counts as true blindness for Jesus. The Pharisees find themselves divided between those who accept the works of God for what they are and those who find fault with Jesus for breaking the Sabbath.

In the end, even the man's parents are frightened by the escalating recriminations and threat of expulsion from the synagogue. When the Pharisees ask them whether this is their son and whether he was born blind, they defer to their son's own testimony, partly out of fear. In the dialogue that ensues, the Pharisees try again and again to convince the man to speak against Jesus, but he steadfastly refuses. On the basis of his own experience, he has come to trust the One who opened his eyes. "One thing I know," he says. "I was blind, but now I see. If this man were not from God he could do nothing."

The reaction of the mercenaries of the shrine is as swift as it is predictable. They drive him out. Only his expulsion can secure their righteousness, their position, and their authority.

Needless to say, we're on dangerous ground here. The Gospel of John was written in the immediate aftermath of the expulsion of the Christians from the synagogue. And its treatment of the Jews is polemical in ways that might have been understandable when Christians were a persecuted minority but have led to further persecution ever since. After the Emperor Constantine, we began control the keys to the shrine ourselves and have needed to look more and more critically at our own use of power. One of the unsought blessings of a post-Christian age may be a return to the margins, where we Christians can rediscover our true home and voice.

As we prepare for Holy Week, however, a traditional time for anti-Jewish violence among us, we ought to underscore our history of complicity in oppressive violence, especially against our Jewish brothers and sisters. Even though it is now rejected by all responsible Christian bodies, the theory of a genetic guilt on the part of the Jews persists in its ugly and deadly power, amounting as it does to an evasion of the shared responsibility of the human race for all forms of sin and violence.

A religion centered around a tortured and crucified Savior ought to be able to come to a place of honesty about that. We ought also to be able to admit the Church's role in propping up other forms of injustice. In the clear light of the Gospel, we ought to be able to see those whom we ourselves exclude and oppress. We ought also to be able to see those nearest to us in a new light. We ought to be able to see our fellow parishioners, our co-workers, our family and friends in new ways. Whom do we hold at arm's length? Whom do we avoid or ignore? From whom do we withhold the passing of the peace? We must learn to seek these people out and turn to them for justice and mercy. For our salvation is bound up with theirs.

It is by exposing the works of darkness among us that we draw closer to Jesus, the light of the world. And it is when we pretend, contrary to all experience, that we see clearly or completely, that we risk staying in darkness and finding ourselves judged accordingly.

We are called to something better, brothers and sisters.

For once we walked in darkness, but now we are light in the Lord.

The Third Sunday in Lent: On Living Water

2011-03-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Today's Gospel is a lot like last week's, where Jesus has a very strange dialogue with Nicodemus. In that other Gospel, Jesus leads Nicodemus by the hand through a series of misunderstandings about what it might mean to be born again. It does not mean, as he supposes, crawling into our mother's womb to be born a second time. It means being reborn by water and the Spirit--a Spirit wild like the wind, which blows to and fro, wherever it wants us to go.

The Samaritan woman is also puzzled by Jesus. She is amazed, in the first place, that a Jew would ask her for any service, given the animosities between their two peoples. She also wonders why a strange man would speak to her in public. The story resonates with that of Jacob, who journeys east to his mother's kindred in search of a wife. He meets Rachel at a well and helps her water the sheep. Courtship was simpler in those days, though Rachel's father made it less so. Jacob ended up putting in fourteen years' hard labor for a pair of brides, where he was only looking for one.

As with Nicodemus, Jesus turns quickly to the Holy Spirit as he talks with the woman at the well. After he asks her for a drink, they strike up a conversation, and he brings up the subject of living water. If you knew the gift of God, he says, and who it is who is saying to you "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

Like Nicodemus, the woman misunderstands Jesus, asking him where his bucket is, since the well is deep and it doesn't look like he's come prepared. Only bit by bit is Jesus able to show her he isn't speaking about water that comes from a well, but rather such water that those who drink it will never thirst again.

A theological debate ensues about the proper place to worship. Jesus promises that the hour is coming when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The woman notes that when the Messiah comes he will show us all things. Jesus seizes the opportunity to reveal himself more fully to her. "I am he," he says, "the one who is speaking to you."

A bit more on Jesus and the Spirit in a second. But first I'd like to mention something William Temple observes about this story:

The way to call anyone into fellowship with us, he writes, is not to offer them service, which is liable to arouse the resistance of their pride, but to ask service from them. Of course the request must be prompted by a real need. The Lord was actually tired and thirsty when He said "Give me [a] drink," and drew the woman into conversation by asking for her help.

So social workers, Temple goes on to say, have found that they cannot bridge the gulf [posed] by education so long as they live in a style different from their neighbors. But all is changed when they adopt the manner of life familiar in the neighborhood and share in its needs.

This way of reading the story has a lot to teach us. Its lessons are not just for missionary work in far off places; we need to act like Jesus does with the Samaritan woman as we go about our ministries right here in Athens County.

If the Lord of the universe is willing to hunger and thirst in order to meet this woman where she is, how much more ought we be willing to share in the lives of our neighbors. The world is hungry for people who create community and share Good News, rather than standing aloof and apart in judgment. Part and parcel of any viable Christian ministry is coming alongside others as humble companions on a journey. We do so, knowing the Spirit Jesus gives us is the gift of God's own love--that the Lord and lifegiver now dwells within us, filling us with what the apostle Paul called the fruit of the Spirit, namely love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. For the Kingdom of God is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

No doubt, some of you have heard Gifford talk about the four "L's" of Kairos prison ministry. As prisoners encounter the life-changing love of Jesus through the ministry of the team, they are often inspired to BE the Church in prison. But all begins with the four "L's". Kairos team members are to "Listen, listen, love, love." Before we have anything to offer to another person, we begin by listening to his or her story. This is exactly what Jesus does with the Samaritan woman. Step by step he leads her deeper and deeper into faith, until at last she drops her water jar and rushes to evangelize her village. But it all begins with him asking questions and listening to her.

There is hunger, and there is thirst all around us. Much of it is material, and I would never deny our obligation to share what we have. But our deep thirst is always also for things of the Spirit. True community, true love, true joy--trust and hope in God--this is what we long for in the midst of our brokenness, anxiety, and grief.

As we make our journey into the desert and engage the disciplines of this holy season, may we become more aware of our thirst. May it deepen as we draw near to Jesus, who comes to us in our poverty, weakness, and need.

May we find in him the divine abundance, which quenches our thirst as it flows from his side, making glad the City of God. May Jesus show us the depth of his own thirst--not just for water in a dry land, but for lost and broken human beings.

For the hour is no longer coming. It is no longer something far away. It is here and now. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the hour of salvation. The Kingdom of God is at hand. And Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior and giver of the water of life.

We too are called, through his most generous gift, to turn our lives around. To journey out from the earthly city and into dry, desert places. To leave behind all that diminishes and oppresses us--and to discover the mercies of God.

In these desert places, may we drink deeply of the water he gives. May we bear fruit fit for the Kingdom--and worship GOD in spirit and truth.

The Second Sunday in Lent: The Faith of Abraham

2011-03-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation."

This is the faith of Abraham: to leave behind familiar places and people, to leave behind his own family, tribe, and nation, and to go to the land that God will show him. And what does God promise? To make of him a great nation.

Abraham's faith may make us wonder how we'll ever measure up. Few of us are willing to trust God like he did. And yet there are those moments when we need to lay it all on the line, when we need to walk by faith and not by sight, trusting beyond the limits of what our eyes can see.

Lately, I've been playing a lot of online poker. (Don't worry. I don't play for real money.) But, with people all over the world, I've been playing No Limit Texas Hold 'em. It's become quite the rage in recent years. If you have cable, you can watch people play for millions of dollars any given night.

Now, what I like about poker games of all kinds is the curious interaction between the betting and the cards one actually holds. In order to win any given hand, one doesn't need to have the best cards. Straight out bluffing is possible. In other cases, especially depending on what cards are showing and what order the players are betting in, one can simply make the price of staying in the game too steep for the other players, even if they're relatively certain they have better hands than you do. Of course, bluffing doesn't always work. Try to buy one too many pots, and someone's sure to call your bluff. Even a great hand can burn you, if one of your opponents happens to have a better one.

There are ways to improve your odds, and good players consistently outperform poor ones. You can read the other players, analyze the odds and betting patterns, recognize familiar traps, etc. But in the end, it's a game of chance. You've got to risk--sometimes, risk everything--in order to succeed. Hold 'em rewards selective risk taking. If you are known to be someone who plays it safe, that makes it harder to call your bluff. On the other hand, being perceived as reckless may work to your advantage when your hand is truly strong. Great players can cultivate either impression and often change up their game midstream.

As with other poker games, money management is central. Tournaments are won as much by folding at the right times as they are by risking it all or making the difficult call. But the most conservative players can often be taken down by those who are less risk averse.

I suspect there are many life lessons to be learned from this. One can hardly imagine falling in love or starting a business without taking selective risks. Nor can one imagine the mission of the Church or any real progress in our spiritual lives.

To borrow a distinction from Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky, the Church today is facing a problem of adaptive rather than technical change. It's not so much that we need better technical solutions to known problems. It's that both Church and society are changing so rapidly and fundamentally we don't even know how to ask the right questions yet. Like it or not, we are being forced into the hard and often anxious work of discernment, which shakes us to our very foundations.

This is one reason why Bishop Breidenthal has consistently spoken of the need for spiritual formation and entrepreneurial leadership in our diocese. It may have once been possible to manage and preside over a secure community institution--to be what a friend of mine calls the "branch manager" for the local Episcopal franchise. But no one knows what the shape of the Church of the future will be. One thing is certain: congregations that survive will be willing to take risks for the Gospel, to reflect together on the implications of that Gospel for our common life, and to engage with transformative spiritual practices that will help us discern the movement of grace and get in on whatever God is doing in the world. Everything else may change; Christ and the Gospel do not.

In a sense, what our bishop's calling for is a return to our roots. We are being called to become missionaries, sent out into unknown. We are being called to deepen our practice of the Christian faith, so that we may share it with others. I wonder what that will mean for Good Shepherd. I wonder what that will mean for the Hocking Valley Deanery as we enter our second century of ministry in Southeastern Ohio. Perhaps we are being recalled to the faith of Abraham, who trusted in God and left the security of family and friends--and everything else he'd known--behind.

I also wonder what it might mean for each one of us as we face major life transitions: illness, death, marriage, divorce, birth, moving, changes in employment, and other forms of vocational discernment. These are the times when we take on significant risks, when we head out into uncharted territory with nothing to rely on but God and the people God has put in our lives. Lent is a perfect time to renew our trust in God's promises and pay attention to the voice of Holy Spirit, even as we feel the ground shift under our feet and grieve the fact that things may never be the same.

I'd like to close with some words from Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude, words I believe speak to the kind of radical trust that God is asking from us today:

Laziness and cowardice, he writes, are two of the greatest enemies of the spiritual life, and they are most dangerous of all, when they mask as "discretion." This illusion would not be so fatal if discretion itself were not one of the most important virtues of a spiritual [person]...

Discretion, Merton continues, tells us what God wants of us and what He does not want of us. In telling us this, it shows us our obligation to correspond with the inspirations of grace and to obey all the other indications of God's will. Laziness and cowardice put our own present comfort before the love of God. They fear the uncertainty of the future because they place no trust in God...Discretion flies from useless risk: but urges us on to take risks that faith and the grace of God demand of us...[S]ooner or later, if we follow Christ, we have to risk everything in order to gain everything. We have to gamble on the invisible and risk all that we can see and taste and feel.

If, as Merton suggests, faith involves a total risk, we might describe this as going "all in" for God. We can do this, because God has already gone all in for us. We can trust God like Abraham did and enter willingly into the divine darkness, because God has given us a Son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...

Today and every time we celebrate the Eucharist together, this same gift is given. Out of "the immensity [and abundance] of the divine love," God gives us his only Son. By our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, we unite "ourselves, our souls and bodies" to Christ's one offering of himself. And we are brought by the Lord's most generous gift ever more fully into his mystical body--suffering, dying, and rising for the life of the world. As we come to his table today, may we come with the faith of Abraham, trusting in what we cannot see.

The First Sunday in Lent: Christ and Adam

2011-03-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

I’d like to ask us to be still for a moment, to clear our minds and listen...........Listen again closely to the words of our sequence hymn. You may even want to open your hymnal back to page 140, in order to follow along. For John Donne’s profoundly moving meditation on his own sin is one of the treasures of Anglican devotional poetry.

The play on his last name, Donne, in the final line of each stanza is intentional. The painful memory of his sin provokes Donne to agonize about whether or not God “has done,” until the stirring confession of faith at the end. We could all profit by making this poem a subject for our prayer this holy season, as we struggle with sin and grieve its consequences in our lives. Here it is once more in its entirety:

Wilt thou forgive that sin, where I begunwhich is my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I did run, and do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin, by which I won others to sin, and made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun a year or two, but wallowed in a score? When thou hast done, thou has not done, for I have more. I have a sin of fear that when I’ve spun my last thread, I shall perish on the shore; swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore. And having done that, thou hast done, I fear no more.

In the first stanza, Donne moves from his sin, which he has chosen and which he owns as "my sin," though others have done it before, to a consideration of the divided loyalties that threaten his personal integrity, the fact that he does those very things that he deplores. Then, in the second stanza, he notes what is far worse, namely that he has become an occasion for others to sin--that he has "won others to sin, and made my sin their door."

We do this ourselves, whether through gossip, seduction, or underhanded efforts to secure power or financial advantage. We recruit allies for our sin and, in so doing, sin the more. The truth of Eve's involvement in the garden is not a misogynistic myth of woman as the gateway to hell, though some of us have compounded our sin by reading the story that way. The story is about sin entering the world through human community. Adam's effort to pass the buck to the woman, like Eve's effort to blame the snake, involves adding to his sin by evading personal responsibility.

The theme of divided loyalties comes up twice in the refrain. When God has Donne, God has not Donne. This seems an accurate assessment of our spiritual condition. It also rings true in light of today’s epistle, with its emphasis on Christ and Adam. For the Apostle Paul, writing in the fifth chapter of Romans, Christ and Adam are more than two individual people. As with Old Testament figures like Jacob, or Israel, the ancestor stands in for a whole community and a family of descendents. In each case, Christ and Adam, one person’s deeds implicate the whole human race for good or ill. The basic insight, often summed up in Martin Luther’s formula “at once justified and a sinner,” is that even when we are “in Christ” we continue to live out the implications of Adam’s sin. Again and again, the sin becomes our own, though it were done before. You’d think we'd try something original for a change!

And yet, beyond the tedium of it, sin is horrifying. When we pause to contemplate the intended and unintended consequences of our anger, our greed, our lust, our spiritual, physical, and emotional violence, we begin to realize how insidious and malignant a growth sin is. If we are at all spiritually aware, we begin to see how it separates us from God and each other. As we glimpse the abyss over which we hang suspended, Donne’s terror may become our own. Caught up in the dreadful tide of Adam's sin, we may fear our choices will leave us dead and stranded on the shore, with neither hope nor the possibility of redemption.

A few days ago, on Ash Wednesday, I noted that the whole of our Lenten pilgrimage is a kind of spiritual spring and that we make this journey with the light of Easter on the horizon. In a sense, the joy of Easter reaches back to meet us, even in our desert seasons of struggle, temptation, and failure. Today, on the first Sunday in Lent, we behold a very real anticipation of Christ's Easter victory in his struggle with Satan. One by one, Christ beats back the temptations of the devil, keeping faith with God where we have not.

That brings us back to the epistle. In it, Paul insists, with his gaze fixed firmly on the death and resurrection of the Lord, that the obedience of this one man, Christ, abounds for many. For just as, in Adam, all die, so too, in Christ, shall all be made alive. "Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all."

Our involvement with the sin of Adam, which we choose and make our very own, is part of what it means to be human. It is a tragic history, with deadly consequences. But it is not the last word about us. That word belongs to Christ, the Son of God, into whom we are baptized and in whom we become God's children.

It's to Christ that Donne turns at the end of his poem. Throughout our own Lenten journey, may we also turn to Christ and his mercy. May we come to know his perfect love, which casts out fear. May we put our trust in God's faithfulness, saying:

Swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son shall shine as he does now, and heretofore. And having done that, thou hast done, I fear no more.

Ash Wednesday: Bright Sadness and the Fulness of Joy

2011-03-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

Today, as we begin the season of Lent, I feel compelled to speak about joy. Honestly, I hope that seems a little odd. But on a recent retreat, I gave a meditation on joy, where I tried to stress that Christian joy is not something we can put off 'till Easter.

Indeed, as we journey with Christ into the desert, we discover the deep, abiding joy that is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The desert seasons of our lives are filled with temptation, risk, and vulnerability. But they are also where we come to know what a great saint once called "consolation without cause"--consolation, that is, with no cause save the Holy Spirit.

This direct grounding in the presence of the Spirit helps distinguish joy from mere happiness. Because joy springs from the Holy Spirit, one can be joyful in the midst of absence, loss, and suffering.

None of this is to deny the essential difference between our Lenten season of preparation and its consummation in the death and resurrection of the Lord. Lent is a time for self-examination and repentance. It's a time for fasting and sorrow for our many sins. It's a time for struggle--even failure. And yet the joy of Easter reaches back to meet us here. In one of the proper prefaces appointed for the season, the priest says to God "You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast." Even on Good Friday, as the Church gathers to pray, we sing:

We glory in your cross, O Lord,
and praise and glorify your holy resurrection;
for by virtue of your cross
joy has come to the whole world.

Back in 1963, a famous Russian Orthodox theologian came to this very city to speak to a meeting of the National Student Christian Federation. Those lectures, which concerned the sacraments, were later published under the title For the Life of the World. About six years later, that same priest, Alexander Schmemann, wrote another book called Great Lent: Journey to Pascha.

Pascha is the Greek word for Easter, or Passover. It refers primarily to the Great Vigil of Easter, the so-called "Feast of Feasts," which was restored in the Episcopal Church in 1979. Writing about Lent as a season of preparation, Fr. Schmemann observes the following:

...[E]ach year Lent and Easter are once again, the rediscovery and the recovery by us of what we were made through our own baptismal death and resurrection. A journey, a pilgrimage! Yet, as we begin to make the first step into the "bright sadness" of Lent, we see--far, far away--the destination. It is the joy of Easter; it is the entrance into the glory of the Kingdom. And it is this vision, the foretaste of Easter, that makes Lent's sadness bright and our lenten effort a "spiritual spring." The night may be dark and long, but all along the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon.

Without the light of Easter on the horizon, today's liturgy would be unbearable. Who really likes to be reminded we will die? Who likes to confess our sin in all its ugly detail?

And yet we need to be reminded. We need to be awakened to our separation from God. We need to pay attention to the ways that we use and abuse each other and the good earth God has given us. We need to be confronted with our frustration, anger, envy, lust, and greed. And we need those disciplines that force us to do without the props we use most of the time to keep ourselves at arm's length from each other and from God. We need to turn away from the ways of sin and death and toward the abundant, risen life that's our heritage as God's children.

The fact that we are frail and mortal sinners is Good News. For those of us who know we're sinners can learn to rely wholly on the love of God. We can learn to seek the resounding, life-affirming "Yes" hidden in the divine "No." We can put our trust in the merciful goodness of the Lord, which endures forever on those who fear him. Because of the darkness and abject spiritual poverty of our lives (God knows we are but dust), God is leading us by the hand into a mysterious, radiant dawn. Like a pillar of fire, Christ leads us through the wilderness and into the promised land.

As the apostle Paul reminds us in the epistle, there's no time to waste. "Now is the acceptable time. Now is the hour of salvation." And so he says to us with great fervor, "We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

In a little while, I will impose on each person who comes forward a cross of ashes. And I will say to you some words that are pretty hard to hear: "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

As we hear these powerful words, let us think about the many burdens we carry with us day by day. Let us ponder those things that hold us back or weigh us down--everything that keeps us from true and perfect joy.

What would happen, I wonder, if we viewed the imposition of the cross as permission to hand these burdens over to Jesus. This cross is a tangible reminder of the baptism that seals and marks us as his very own.

The whole of Lent is a journey under the sign of the cross. It is a season of death--but also of hope and new life.

May the bright sadness of this spiritual spring bring us to the glory of the resurrection and the fulness of joy in the Kingdom of God.

The Last Sunday After the Epiphany: World Mission Sunday

2011-03-06T11:13:00.001-08:00

Several weeks ago, on the Sunday of our annual meeting, I spoke to you about the Great Light of Christ. Throughout this season of Epiphany, we have been hearing about that light, which is always breaking out in unexpected places, on the most surprising people.

On that day, I mentioned our bishop's sermon at diocesan convention in 2008, just as the full extent of the economic crisis began to be felt. Bishop Breidenthal told us we should be like trees in times of drought. He urged us to send our roots deeper into the rich soil of the Gospel--to become more fully rooted in Christ, so that we might spread our branches in love.

On this world mission Sunday, I'd like to take up some of those same themes. For, in times of hardship, it would be easy to turn inward and forget our profound need to be part of a worldwide community of Christians. World mission offers us priceless opportunities, through a mutual exchange of gifts, to deepen our communion with God and our fellow human beings.

World mission is at least as much about the roots as it is about the branches. Through world mission we renew our own life in Christ, as we encounter the vibrant, joyful faith of our brothers and sisters around the world. It is not primarily about bringing the Good News to people who have not heard it (most of the places we are called to go have already heard and received the Gospel)--though we are of course called to share the story of Jesus wherever we may go. It's not even about helping those less fortunate than ourselves--though there is profound material poverty in this world, and we are called to be ministers of God's justice and mercy.

World mission, like local mission, is about seeking the face of Christ where he has promised to be found. When we are sent in mission, we expect to find Christ in our neighbor. By our neighbor, God invites us into a universal communion of love. With our neighbor, we practice solidarity in suffering and work side by side to give birth to a better world. In our neighbor, both near and far, we encounter Christ in the flesh.

Today, brothers and sisters, we hear the Gospel of the Transfiguration. On the holy mountain, we see the light of Christ breaking out on the disciples in a whole new way. This Jesus, whom they thought they knew, is unveiled before them, confirming Peter's testimony that he is Son of the Living God. In anticipation of his resurrection, his face now shines with the light of glory. Even his clothing is transformed. And Moses and Elijah, the greatest witnesses of the Old Testament, flank Jesus, as if to say "Here is the one who fulfills both the law and the prophets." A bright cloud descends, and a voice from heaven echoes words spoken at Jesus' baptism: "This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him."

If we listen to Jesus, we will obey him. We will follow in his steps. And we will seek him out, wherever he wills to be found. In today's epistle, the apostle Peter, or someone writing in his name, looks back on the transfiguration and invites us "to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."

The transfiguration is a startling epiphany of how far we have to go in our walk with Jesus. It lays bare the gulf between our sinful humanity and his own. But this gulf is not an impassable one. If it were, the story would be bad news. This mystery points us to the very good news at the heart of our faith--that the living God, without ceasing to be God, has become one with us in our flesh.

The transfiguration invites us to pay attention to Jesus as the light of the world, so that we might be transformed more and more into his likeness--and the whole world might more clearly reflect his goodness. Like every self-manifestation of God, this one is about God crossing the gulf that divides us, a gulf that is real from our perspective but never from God's. Out of an abundant and merciful love for us, God crosses that divide.

Recently, one of you sent me an article about Christian spirituality. It contained a quotation from Karl Rahner, the great Jesuit theologian who helped open the Roman Catholic Church to the modern world in the sixties and seventies. Rahner says that "Christians of the future will be mystics or they will not be [at all]." The article defends the thesis that mysticism is not primarily about esoteric forms of union with God, but paying attention to the ways we all find the presence of God in everyday life.

And this precisely is what we should expect in a religion of the Incarnation. If the glory of the Lord has been revealed and all flesh now sees it together, we should expect God to be found not just in mountaintop experiences but everywhere. God is found also in the valleys, where the majority of us live our lives. And so, God is found in the workplace, at the dinner table, and in the fields. God is found in classrooms and dorm rooms--in libraries, offices, and labs. God is found in silence and in nature--but also in the noise and commotion of the public square. It is this kind of insight, grounded in the Incarnation and the sacraments of the Church, that caused William Temple, one of our greatest Archbishops of Canterbury, to proclaim that Christianity is the most materialistic of the world religions.

Christianity has a contemplative dimension--a mystical dimension if you will--and some of us are more oriented than others are to forms of practice that help us pay attention to the presence of God. But Christians, even the most cloistered ones, must always also give ourselves over to a this-worldly love. If the Christian of the future needs to be a mystic, so too does he or she need to be a servant and prophet.

At different times in our lives, we may favor one dimension of this vocation or another. Styles and temperaments may vary as well. But the call to pay attention to both roots and branches is universal. It follows rather directly from our Lord's summary of the Law:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Because we cannot see God, we often turn inward to find God. But God is also found in our neighbor, in whom we glimpse the radiant face of Christ.

The two great commandments come together in the Incarnation, where, in Christ, God becomes our neighbor. And so, we seek and serve him in our fellow human beings. For, in the end, we are saved together, or not at all. As Christians living in troubled times, we are called to live in hope--to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. And we never, ever do so alone. We do so in the company of brothers and sisters, both near and far away. We are called to walk TOGETHER with fellow pilgrims from every family, language, people, and nation--until at long last the day dawns, and Christ, the bright morning star, rises in our hearts.

3Epiphany: On the Great Light, and Sharing Hope in Hard Times

2011-01-24T04:20:00.000-08:00

I’ll never forget the first time I preached before an annual meeting at Good Shepherd. The Gospel lesson was Luke, chapter 4, in which Jesus preaches to his hometown synagogue and nearly gets killed in the process. His offence was observing that, in Scripture, it is those outside the fold who most actively welcome the Good News.

Today, I have nothing so provocative to share, but I do come to you in anxious and turbulent times, preaching on a Gospel that invites us to repentance and mission and an Epistle centered on the wisdom and the power of the cross. I come to you also at a time of impending state budget cuts, which will weigh heavily on the life of this University, the surrounding community, and all who call this county home.

Last week, I had this in mind as I spoke to you about the double-binds that sometimes place our working lives in tension with our Christian convictions. In addition to those most directly affected by the cuts, i.e. those who may lose their jobs, I am concerned for those who may be called upon to implement policies with which they don’t necessarily agree.

In times like these, our faithfulness or its lack can make a real difference for real people. In times like these, the People of God are called to hold up the light of Christ for others. For that great light has dawned on us. We, who once sat in the region and shadow of death, have seen it. Throughout the Scriptures, God’s light breaks out in unexpected places and shines on the most unlikely people. And so, here and now, Christ is calling us--even us--to be children of light, to reflect his glory wherever we go. For we have been called and sent into a world longing for Jesus, to people who need his mercy, his justice, and his love.

As we reflect together on what it means to be faithful in this time and place, I’m reminded of words I’ve quoted to you before. They were part of an amazing sermon Bishop Breidenthal preached at our diocesan convention in 2008, as we began to feel the full extent of the economic crisis. He started with the Book of Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See the home of God is among mortals….. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes…. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. For the first things have passed away”

These words, said our bishop, are so stately, so confident, so full of hope. Yet they clearly are addressed to Christians in a time of great distress, a time when our forbears longed for intimacy with God, and an end to violence, anxiety and grief. We are perhaps in such a time…We may not want this heaven and earth to pass away just yet, but we yearn for a global economy that benefits all of us locally, and for a natural order that is once again self-sustaining. We don’t want to escape from the world to God, but we do want to experience a world saturated with God’s presence. We don’t want to retreat from the world, but we want the world to be a safe place for our children and grandchildren to walk.

My sisters and brothers, our bishop continued, especially in hard times, the Gospel calls us to redoubled hope and great-hearted joy. We must be like trees that sink their roots down deeper into the soil in times of drought. Jesus is the ground that will never fail us, the source that fills us so completely that we can spread our branches out in witness to God’s trustworthiness and love.

The bishop's words proved prophetic. Two years later, at the 2010 convention, our diocese faced a $400,000 budget shortfall with no obvious solution. And yet, the delegates chose to embrace a path of discipleship and hope. We unanimously adopted a new mission statement for the diocese meant to claim our ministry as baptized people. Perhaps you’ve seen it. I put it at the top of every e-news. Here it is: “As Episcopalians in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, we commit to know the common story, proclaim our common faith, pray our common prayer, drink the common cup, and serve the common good. In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is our common ministry.”

Now, I’m not one for the magic of mission statements. Some folks seem to think that sitting around and writing them is a substitute for rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. As you’ll hear downstairs, I believe common ministry will fail if it becomes a slogan rather than a way of life. When they work, mission statements summarize our priorities, engage our imaginations, and focus our energies as a community. We must never allow them to become empty words rather than a sustained labor of love and ongoing project of conversion. If they are to serve the mission of the Church, they must draw us ever deeper into the life of Christ for the sake of the world he lived and died for.

That brings us back to the prophetic words of our bishop. In times like these, we must sink our roots deeper into the rich soil of the Gospel. We must draw our strength from Christ, the true vine. We do this by knowing the common story, drinking the common cup, and praying our common prayer. In other words, God is calling us to engage more fully with the ministry of Word and sacrament and with the daily rhythm of morning and evening prayer. One of the greatest gifts of the English Reformation happened when Archbishop Cranmer translated the liturgy into the language of the people, making its blessings available in English through the Book of Common Prayer. In this 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, we should note the parallel in the first widely-used translation of the Bible into English.

What would it mean if every member of Good Shepherd, alone or in small groups, made a commitment to read and meditate on the Word of God and to pray morning or evening prayer in some form or other on a regular basis? An amazingly high proportion of Good Shepherd parishioners are already involved in one monastic community or another, with a corresponding commitment to follow a rule of life that requires a regular pattern of study, prayer, and action.

What if we as a parish made a similar commitment, one tailored to our varying individual circumstances. What if we agreed to renew our commitment to frequent communion in the Body and Blood of Christ as the center of our life together. What if we made a commitment to learn how to share these gifts of Word, sacrament, and prayer with people of all ages, including children and youth? It's a dream I have, one I've often heard articulated by members of this parish, one that demands a parish-wide, lay driven effort if we are to pursue it effectively together.

So much for the roots. Now for the branches. I’ve no doubt that the people of this parish will continue to respond creatively and faithfully to what is happening in our community, both meeting immediate needs and working for structural change. In recent years, the outreach committee has focused especially on hunger.

The three largest outreach ministries in which Good Shepherd is involved are inspiring examples of common ministry at work. The first is the Athens Country Food Pantry, which was co-founded by Good Shepherd parishioners, and for which we still provide board members, volunteers, and a good deal of financial support. The second is the free Wednesday lunch. A student saw a need and started a free meal. At first it was a simple meal, not much more than sandwiches. When she left, others took up the work. Joanne Larson stepped in right away. As the demand grew, the work was spread out among the four teams we have today. These women and men now regularly serve lunch to more than 100 people--no ID's checked, no questions asked. Many Good Shepherd parishioners participate and provide leadership for this ministry. Some of the team members have no connection to the Episcopal Church or to any church, and yet they come and provide light and hope to people in need. They also experience and provide for others the gift of community in the context of a shared meal.

The Common Friars at the Good Earth Farm have a similar origin. A visionary named Paul, together with Sarah, his wife, came with experience working on organic produce and dairy farms, a deep faith, and a desire to help God feed the hungry. They found a piece of good land, and Paul looked for the owner's name on a tax map, and wrote him a letter. It just so happened that he had a vacant farmhouse and was willing to partner with them. And their numbers grew and grew. Now, hundreds of people have volunteered there. We celebrate a weekly Eucharist that averages 16 to 24 people, sometimes as many as 40. This is followed by a community meal, making the deep connection between altar and table, between the Holy Eucharist and all sacred meals, that is the heart of the emerging theology of the Common Friars.

Now there are other ministries at Good Shepherd, most of them initiated and carried out by the laity. And they provide hope for all kinds of people in need. From the prisoners at Hocking, to those who receive prayer shawls, to the participants in the benefit bank, to the families of children with special needs to whom we are just beginning to reach out, to a music ministry second to none, the list goes on. Along with many more unnamed efforts, these are powerful ways that we are letting our light shine in a world that needs the light and hope of the Gospel. That we have spread our branches so wide indicates how deep our roots already are. Imagine what we could do together if we sank these roots still deeper.

There is no earthly reason, save hard human labor and the generosity of God's People, why any of these efforts should succeed, but by God’s grace they do. Christian ministry is always an illustration of the strange, weak power of the cross. In the end, in good and times and bad, it is God's faithfulness that makes the difference. We are a simple people, with very human flaws, on whom the light of Christ has dawned. For all our weaknesses and challenges—and they are many—we are answering God’s call to conversion and discipleship, here and now, for we have seen the Great Light.

The Second Sunday After the Epiphany: Come and see

2011-01-16T12:53:00.000-08:00

Veni, Vidi, Vici—I came, I saw, I conquered. Three brief words Julius Caesar used to report a famous victory in Asia Minor. It reminds me of three other words, "just do it," an advertiser's slogan rooted in the same pagan quest for dominance. In Latin, Caesar's saying is a bit more elegant than in English: just three two-syllable words, all reporting actions recently completed by Caesar. Depending on which historian you read, Caesar either wrote these words in a letter to a friend or had them written on large signs, which he paraded in triumphal procession.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses two of the same three verbs. “Come and see,” he says to John’s disciples, and they do. The parallel is striking, both for what’s the same and what’s different. Unlike Caesar, the Lord Jesus does not report actions he has completed but instead invites others to come share his life. His words provide a gentle but urgent invitation that puts the ball in our court. And he expects a response, here and now.

By pointing Jesus out to his disciples, the Baptist has already roused their interest. And so, when they come to Jesus and ask where he's staying, he invites them to “come and see.” He does not, however, invite them to conquer. When Jesus calls us, he is asking us to follow him on the Way of the Cross. For here indeed is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

What then do we see when we come to Jesus? Among other things, we see a different kind of king. For the Lord Jesus rules the world not by force of arms but with humble, longsuffering love. His is not the conquering gaze of a Caesar, who sees and wants and takes. Rather, he invites us to look into his face--to return his gaze, to behold his beauty in its infinite depth, and to stay with him in the place where he dwells.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Chuck Mathewes, a friend of mine who teaches Christian ethics at the University of Virginia. The book is called A Theology of Public Life. Drawing on the thought of St. Augustine, Mathewes provides a compelling rationale for deep Christian engagement in public life. If I'm reading him rightly, he provides sound advice for Christians who accept the limitations of life in human society without making peace with injustice--who refuse, in other words, to succumb either to the apocalyptic temptation of sectarian withdrawal or to the despair of a so-called realism that settles for anything less than the Kingdom of God.

I'd like to quote from a section of the book entitled "enduring: an ascetical strategy":

We are not seeking, writes Mathewes, as perhaps in Stoicism, to extinguish our hopes, but rather just the opposite--to learn to endure their persistence and their irresolution. We must feel these hopes full force and not seek to satiate them with the false consolations of our consumer culture, to acknowledge that their satisfaction is deferred to a time beyond the ages of the prefab world, and to give that acknowledgment the weight it deserves.

Such a project, he continues--built on cultivating a sense of our own incompleteness, dissatisfactions, and even failures--may seem dissatisfying. But that dissatisfaction is part of what it aims to treat. We impatiently, apocalyptically expect solutions for our problems. But such "solutions" are generally snake oil. And as Franz Rosenzweig suggested Christianity is best understood as providing a structure to our passion and suffering, not a solution to it.

To endure our life in this way, is to be attentive and wakeful, patient and long-suffering, to refuse to let the world have the last word on what it means, and yet to refuse also to presume to know what the last word will be. It is to live in the world, without accepting its immanent self-presentation. It is to live eschatologically within the world--to live during the world.

I mention this on a Sunday, when we also hear from the prophet Isaiah about God's suffering servant. I do so also as we begin to work through Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, the great New Testament witness to the cross as the wisdom and power of God. In the cross, we find wisdom for whenever we meet with futility and frustration, again without refusing to engage or giving in to the despair that passes for realism.

Yesterday, I was at the Procter Camp and Conference Center. The brothers and sisters I was with were talking about grassroots theological reflection and how to foster it in our diocese. One of the things that came up was the need for serious conversation about where God may be found in the places we work. One of the people there was a clinical psychologist, and he was talking about the kinds of ethical quandaries and crises of faith he encounters with his clients as they seek to negotiate impossible double-binds. Where do we find guidance, rather than simply a scolding, when we can't seem to bring what we do for a living and our deepest convictions into sync?

Or to cite another example: on the radio the other day, I heard an interview with an author who argues that the transition away from our dependence on fossil fuels is comparable in scope to the break we once made--one that involved a brutal and bloody war--with an economy founded on human slavery. He believes that many of the same excuses are offered in both cases, in an attempt to stop a transition that is as inevitable as it is morally required, but for which even people of good will fail to see realistic alternatives, so blinded are we by a limited horizon and what we Christians call sin. And so we continue to harm God's creation, the poorest of our neighbors, and our children's future--with no clear end in sight.

In both these cases and many more, we bump into seemingly intractable problems. They multiply as we look around. They are local and global. They infest our families, our neighborhoods, and our churches. They are certainly proliferating in our nation, where regardless of which party is in power, our leaders seem unwilling or unable to address the problems that are killing us. Despite the noblest of intentions to the contrary, our politics becomes not so much the promotion of the general welfare and the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of partisan advantage and the selling of favors to the highest bidder. The urgency is real. And yet, because of our failure to reach a shared discernment of the good or to pursue it effectively when we do, evil seems too often to prevail.

In fact, as often as not, our very efforts to pursue the good as we see it can deepen the divide with our neighbor. Our human need for society, among God's greatest gifts to us, has become bound up with violence. And so, once again, we are tempted simply to withdraw into likeminded communities of the righteous, or even to repeat the primal crime of Cain, we who have ever since been caught up in the consequences.

In such a world as this, Jesus calls us to come and see. He calls us to come and see the hope of the world in his words and deeds; in his sacraments; and in the weak and broken community that bears his Name and finds its life in him. He calls us, with Andrew and Peter, and all the apostles, to see his light and respond to his goodness. He calls us with women and men in every generation, and with blessed Martin Luther King, whom we celebrate this week, to cultivate a militant patience and longsuffering love, to entrust the last word to God, and to work even now to welcome the love that is invading the present from the future. For “the arc of the moral universe is indeed long, but it bends toward justice.”

Let us come, then, brothers and sisters. Let us come and see and be conquered--by Christ crucified.

Let us wait patiently for the Lord. For he will stoop to us and hear our cry.

Let us turn to each other, as we place our trust in him.