Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 23

3 Lent

 

March 20, 2022

 

Luke 13.1-9

 

+ I know this is hard to believe, but we are rapidly—very rapidly—approaching the middle point of the season of Lent.

 

Didn’t Lent just start?

 

For some of us, that might be a reason to rejoice.

 

For those for whom this season gets a bit heavy, that is why we have our Lataere Sunday next Sunday, with our rose vestments.

 

We get a little half-way break for Lent.

 

For me, I actually don’t mind this season, despite what I said last week.

 

It gives me the opportunity to slow down a bit, to ponder, to make a concentrated effort to do some very specific spiritual things.

 

I’ve been sharing with you that I’ve been going through some deep, spiritual deconstruction in my life.

 

And I have to say, this Season of Lent has been very conducive to my making spiritual headway.

 

For me, I’ve been burning off quite a bit of the spiritual “fluff” in my life.

 

More importantly, I’ve been working hard to get to the real core of my faith---a place I feel I have moved away from.

 

I’ll talk about this more as we go through Lent.

 

But this season is also a time for true repentance.

 

Now, I know.

 

That’s such a “church word.”

 Repent.

 

I mean, it’s not a word we use in our day-to-day lives.

 

It doesn’t come up in our lunch conversations.

 

Well, maybe in mine.

 

But probably not in yours.

 

But Jesus seems pretty clear on this one,

 

In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say some very stern words to us:

 

“…unless you repent, you will all perish [just as those poor unfortunates whose blood was mingled with sacrifices and on whom the tower of Siloam fell].”

 

Not pleasant talk.

 

It’s uncomfortable.

 

When we hear words like “repent” we definitely find ourselves heading into an uncomfortable area.

 

We find ourselves exploring the territory of self-abasement.

 

We find some people lamenting and beating their breasts or throwing ashes in the air over all of this repentance talk.

 

We have been taught for a large extent that what we are dealing with in all of this talk of repentance is that somehow God is angry and is going to punish us for all the wrongs we did and that is why we must repent—repent, of course, meaning turn around.

 

And at first glance in our Gospel reading that’s exactly what we might be thinking.

 

God is angry and we must repent—we must turn away from what is making God so angry.

 

There is a great meme going around Facebook that I love:

 

It shows the division between religion and the gospel.

 

Religion states: I messed up. God is angry.

 

The Gospel however states: I messed up. Call Dad.

 

That’s it.

 

If we look a bit closer and if we really let this Gospel reading settle in, we find that we might be able to use this idea of repentance in a more constructive and positive way.

 

In our Gospel reading, we find Jesus essentially saying to us that we are not going to bear fruit if we have cemented ourselves into our stubborn way of seeing and believing.

 

And that’s important!

 

A stubborn way of seeing and believing.

 

The kingdom that Jesus is constantly preaching about is not only this magical place in the next world.

 

If that’s all we believe about the Kingdom, then we are not really hearing the scriptures.

 

And belief like that lets us off the hook.

 

Essentially then, all we have to do is work on getting in our magical sky-kingdom in the sky.

 

But Jesus, again and again, talks about the kingdom not just there, but here too.

 

It’s fluid.

 

And our job as followers of Jesus is to make this Kingdom a reality NOW.

 

Right now.

 

It is our job to allow the Kingdom into come into our midst, to give us a glimpse of what awaits us.

 

And the only way that happens, as we have heard again and again, is when we can love God, love others and love ourselves.

 

And I would add as well another aspect to that.

 

When we do—when we love God, love  ourselves, love each other, love the stranger—it is then we bear fruit.

 

It is then wthat we see the Kingdom of God right here, right now.

 

When we don’t love—and it is hard to love when we are stuck in all that negative stuff like being angry or stubborn or resentful—then we are essentially the fig tree that bears no fruit.

 

And it’s important to see that this love needs to be spread equally.

 

It is love for God, love for our neighbor, love for the stranger and love for ourselves.

 

We are not bearing full fruit when we are only doing two of the three.

 

The love becomes lopsided.

 

If we love only God and ourselves, but not our neighbors, then we are in danger of becoming fanatical.

 

And we are seeing A LOT of that right now in our world.

 

If we love God and love others only and not ourselves, we become self-abasing.

 

But if we strive to do all of it—if we strive to love fully and completely—then we find ourselves being freed by that love.

 

And it is freeing.

 

When we talk of our stubbornness, when talking of closing ourselves off in anger and frustration, we imagine that cementing feeling—that confinement.

 

But when we speak of love, we imagine that cement is being broken.

 

We find ourselves freed from our confinement.

 

We allow ourselves to grow and flourish.

 

That’s the point Jesus is making to us in our Gospel reading today.

 

And that is why repentance is so essential for our spiritual growth, for the health of our Christian community and for the furthering of the Kingdom in our midst.

 

Repentance in this sense means turning away from our self-destructive, stubborn behavior.

 

The Kingdom will not come into our midst when we refuse to love.

 

The kingdom cannot be furthered by us or by anyone when we feel no love for God, when we feel no love for others and when we feel no love for ourselves.

 

Repentance in this sense means to turn around—to turn away from our self-destructive behavior.

 

Repentance in this sense means that we must turn around and start to love, freely and openly.  

 

Repentance in this sense means that by repenting—by turning around—we truly are furthering the Kingdom in our midst.

 

There’s also another aspect to the analogy Jesus uses in today’s Gospel reading.

 

If you notice, for three years the tree didn’t bear fruit and so the man who planted the tree thought it was a lost cause.

 

But the gardener protests.

 

He gives the tree a bit of tender loving care and what happens? The tree begins flourishing.

 

What I love about that is the fact that it says to us that none of us are lost causes.

 

We all go through times in our lives when we feel as though we are bearing no fruit at all.

 

We feel as though we are truly “wasting the soil” in which we live.

 

We feel as though we are helpless and useless and that sometimes it feels as though the pains and frustrations of our lives have won out.

 

We have been cemented into our negative feelings and emotions.

 

The pains and frustrations of this life have stifled in us any sense of new life and growth.

 

But that little dose of TLC was able to bring that seemingly barren tree to new life.

 

A little bit of love and care can do wonders.

 

It can change things.

 

It can change us. It can change others.

 

It can give life where it was thought there was no possibility of life before.

 

It can renew and it can revitalize.

 

At this time of year, we are probably made most aware of this.

 

Certainly ,when we look around at our seemingly dead and barren landscape, with mud and dirty snow everywhere, we might think that nothing beautiful or wonderful can come from all this mud.

 

And in this season of Lent, when we are faced with all this language of seeking mercy, on recalling our failings and shortcomings and sins, in this stripped-bare church season, it is hard to imagine that Easter is just a few weeks away.

 

But, in a sense, that is what repentance feelings like.

 

Repentance is that time of renewal and revitalization that comes from the barren moments in our lives.

 

Repenting truly does help us to not only bear fruit, but to flourish.

 

Repenting and realizing how essential and important love of God, love of our neighbors, love of the stranger, love of self are in our lives  truly does allow us to blossom in the way that God wants us to flourish.

 

So, as we journey together through this season of Lent, toward the Cross, and beyond it to the Resurrection, let us do so with our hearts truly freed.

 

Let us do so with a true, freeing and healthy love in our hearts, having turned away from those things that are ultimately self-destructive

 

And let the love we feel be the guide for our actions.

 

Through all of this, let us bring about the Kingdom of God into our midst slowly, but surely.

 

Let the Kingdom come forth in our lives as blossoming fruit.

 

And when it does, it is then that will truly flourish.

 

2 Lent

 

March 13, 2022

 

Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Luke 13.31-35

 

+ I read a fascinating article just recently in Christianity Today.

 

Some of you might have read it as well.

 

It is an article about Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.

 

And it was timely not only for the events that were taking place, but also because, in the days after the invasion, I heard from many of you and others came to me and ask about what to do with their anger and frustration over these events.

 

One person—one of our proxy members—asked bluntly and honestly: “Is it wrong for me to pray for Putin’s death?”

 

It’s an important question.

 

And it’s one that makes my pacifist blood turn cold.

 

Within a few hours of that query from this person and before I could answer, I happened to see this Christianity Today article floating around Facebook.

 

The article is entitled:

 

Go Ahead. Pray for Putin’s Demise.

The imprecatory psalms give us permission to push boldly against evil.

TISH HARRISON WARREN|

 

Warren writes from a sense of helplessness many of us are experiencing right now.

 

We are dealing with a sense of real helplessness in the face of this oppression and blatant violence.

 

We are watching with wringing hands as an invading army is killing innocent people.

 

And we simply don’t know what to do.

 

Well, Warren says, she actually did do something.

 

She began praying

 

“Each morning,” she wrote, “I’m praying Psalm 7:14–16 with Vladimir Putin in mind: “Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends” (ESV).”

 

Psalm 7 is one of the so-called imprecatory psalms

 

She writes, “An imprecation is a curse. The imprecatory psalms are those that call down destruction, calamity, and God’s judgment on enemies … I am often uncomfortable with the violence and self-assured righteousness found in these kinds of psalms.”

 

“These psalms express our outrage about injustice unleashed on others, and they call on God to do something about it.

“I strongly tend toward Christian nonviolence and pacifism. But I recognize that in the past, there have been times when calls to peace have been based in a naïve understanding of human evil.”

Which is where many of us are as well in these dark, violent days.

 

“The imprecatory psalms name evil. They remind us that those who have great power are able to destroy the lives of the weak with seeming impunity. This is the world we live in. We cannot simply hold hands, sing “Kumbaya,” and hope for the best. Our hearts call out for judgment against…wickedness… We need words to express our indignation at this evil.

“Those of us who long for lasting peace cannot base that hope on an idea that people are inherently good and therefore unworthy of true judgment. Instead, we find our hope in the belief that God is at work in the world, and [God] is as real—more real—than evil.

 

“We hope that God will enact true and ultimate judgment… Very often in the imprecatory psalms, we are asking that people’s evil actions would ricochet back on themselves. We are not praying that violence begets more violence or that evil starts a cycle of vengeance or retaliation. But we are praying that people would be destroyed by their own schemes …

 

Or, in my own understanding of all of this, I who truly believe that the chickens always come home to roost, simply pray that God will simply bring those chickens home to roost sooner than later.

 

And that in some real way, it will truly matter.

 

Warren ends her article in this way:

 

“If you’re like me and you gravitate to the seemingly more compassionate, less violent parts of Scripture, these kinds of prayers can be jarring. But we who are privileged, who live far from war and violence, risk failing to take evil and brutality seriously enough.

“I still pray, daily and earnestly, for Putin’s repentance. I pray that Russian soldiers would

lay down their arms and defy their leaders. But this is the moment to take up imprecatory prayers as well. This is a moment when I’m trusting in God’s mercy but also in [God]’s righteous, loving, and protective rage.”

We have to recognize the fact that there is violence in this world.

 

Some of us here have been victims of actual violence in our own lives.

 

And to be on the receiving end of violence is a horrible thing.

 

Violence can be expressed in multiple ways, not just in physical ways but also through intimidation, bullying and downright terror.

 

There’s no getting around violence in our lives.

 

We see it in the news.

 

And we are most certainly seeing it in Ukraine right now.

 

Some of us grew up with violence in our lives.

 

Many of you have heard the stories I tell on a regular basis of those teenagers my siblings who grew up with in West Fargo in the late 1970s were brutally and horrifically murdered.

 

Also a story I don’t share very often is the story from around that same time of a dearly beloved friend of my family who was murdered by her husband in New Mexico in 1978.

 

As a young child, those events scarred me.

 

They affected me.

 

And I have grown up, even here in this seemingly protected part of the country, knowing full-well that violence happens, and it happens more often than not to people who never deserved that violence.

 

Even today, in our scriptures readings, we get some violent images.

 

First, let’s take a look at the reading from Genesis.

 

In it, we find God making a covenant with Abram (soon to be called Abraham).

 

God commands Abram to sacrifice these different animals, to cut them in half and to separate them.

 

Violent and strange, yes.

 

But the really strange part of the reading is the smoking fire pot and the flaming torch passing between the pieces.

 

If we don’t know the back story—if we don’t understand the meaning of the cut up animals—then the story makes little sense.

 

It’s just another gruesome, violent story from the Hebrew scriptures.

 

But if we examine what covenant is all about, then the story starts taking on a new meaning.

 

Covenant of course is not a word we hear used often anymore.

 

In fact, none of us use it except when talking about religious things.

 

But a covenant is very important in the scriptures.

 

A covenant is a binding agreement.

 

And when one enters into a covenant with God, essentially that bound agreement is truly bound.

 

In the days of Abram, when one made a covenant with someone, it was common practice for that person entering the agreement to cut up an animals and then to stand in the middle of the cut-up pieces.

 

Essentially what they were saying by doing so was: “let this happen to me if I break our covenant.”

 

Let this violence come upon me if I break what we have sworn.

 

What we find happening in our reading this morning is that it is not Abram standing in the midst of those cut-up animals.

 

Rather it is God.

 

God is saying to Abram: “my word is good. If this relationship between the two of us I breaks down it is not I who breaks the covenant.”

 

Then, we come to our Gospel reading.

 

Here too, we find a sense of impending violence.

 The Pharisees ominously come to tell Jesus that he is in danger from Herod.

 

This is real danger.

 

Life-threatening danger.

 

And how does Jesus respond to this danger and impending violence?

 

He is not concerned at all over Herod or even the danger that he himself is in.

 

His concern is for Jerusalem—for the city which, no doubt, was in sight as he was speaking.

 

A city that in a couple of decades will be destroyed and its inhabitants killed.

 

His concern is for the city he is about to enter and in which he knows he will meet his death.

 

His violent death. 

 

As he does so, Jesus does something at this moment that really is amazing.

 

He laments.

 

He uses words similar to those found in the imprecatory psalms.

 

He uses poetry.

 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

 

It is beautiful.

 

And it is powerful.

 

It’s incredible poetry.

 

Psalms like this are important.

 

It is important to be honest with our selves before God about our feelings of anger, of justice, or fear.

 

And these psalms often give voice in a way we, polite nice Christian people that we are, often can’t.

 

It’s sometimes all right to complain.

 

It’s sometimes all right to wish bad things on bad people.

 

Lamenting is one of those things we don’t like to think about as Christians.

 

After all, it is a form of complaining.

 

And we don’t like to complain.

 

In this part of the country, we find people who might face bitter winters and harsh summers, might make their way through floods and droughts and pandemics and rising gas prices, but who don’t ever complain much.

 

We, for the most part, shrug our shoulders and soldier on.

 

And when it comes to our relationship with God, we certainly never think about complaining to God.

 

But the fact is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually despair occasionally.

 

Even if we might not actually say it, we sometimes secretly do find ourselves crying out in despair, saying, if to no one else than ourselves, the words from our psalm today:

 

“Deliver me not into the hands of my adversaries.”

 

Let me tell you—that has often been my prayer.

 

I have people who don’t like me. I have enemies.

 

“Deliver me not in the hands of those who hate me.”

 

It’s good, honest language and it’s good to be honest about those negatives feelings we feel occasionally.

 

It’s a strange moment when, as we examine our scriptures readings for today, and we ask ourselves: who do I relate to the most from our scriptures, that we find ourselves relating more to the cut-up animals than anyone else.

 

Let me tell you, those people in Ukraine today can relate to those cut-up animals.

 

It’s hard to be in such a place.

 

It’s hard to realize: people out there hate me, or don’t like me, or want to do me real violence.

 

So, what do we do in those moments?

 

Well, most of us just simply close up.

 

We put up a wall and we swallow that fear and maybe that anger and we let it fester inside us.

 

For the most part, we tend to deny it.

 

But what about those feelings in relationship to God?

 

Well, again, we probably don’t recognize our fear or our anger or our pain before God nor do we bring them before God.

 

And that is where Jesus, in today’s Gospels, and those imprecatory Psalms come in.

 

It is in those moments when we don’t bring our fear, our anger and our frustration before God, that we need those verses like the one Tish Warren writes about.

 

When we look at what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel and what the psalmist is saying today’s Psalm, we realize that, for them, it was natural to bring everything before God.

 

It didn’t matter what it was.

 

Certainly, Jesus, in his honesty before God, wished bad things for Herod.

 

And I think this is the best lesson we can learn from our Gospel reading today.

 

Jesus is letting us see his fear and his sadness.

 

Jesus is letting us see the fear he has in knowing that he, in a sense, has become the sacrifice that must be cut in two as part of the covenant God has made with us.

 

He is letting us see him for what he is about to be, a victim of violence.

 

In fact, Jesus lays it all out before God and us.

 

He wails and complains and lays himself bare before God. 

 

He is blatantly honest in his lamenting.

 

The fact is: sometimes we do fear and despair.

 

Sometimes we do want to pray to God,

 

“Hide not your face from me…”

 

Sometimes we do want to pray for the death of a dictator or a despot.

 

It is in those sometimes awful moments, that it is completely all right to complain to God.

 

It is all right to vent and open ourselves completely to God.

 

Because, the important thing here is not howwe are praying or even what we are praying for.

 

It is important that, even in our fear, in our pain, in our despair, in our horror at the gruesomeness and violence we find in this world, that we come to God.

 

We come before God as an imperfect person, full of insecurities, exposed and vulnerable.

 

Take what it is hurting you and bothering you and release it.

 

Let it out before God. Be honest with God.

 

Because God knows.

 

God stood in the midst of those cut-up animals.

 

God has stood in the midst of that violence.

 

Because, as I say again and again, just because you pray for it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. 

God is not Santa Claus.

 

In this case, it’s not the outcome that’s important.

 

It’s the actual praying that’s important.

 

And what we might sometimes find in those moments of complaining and ranting is that the words coming out of our mouths are not ugly, bitter words at all.

 

But sometimes the words coming out of our mouths in those moments of despair are beautiful poetry.

 

Sometimes, even in those moments, God takes our fear-filled words and turns them into diamonds in our mouths.

 

See what we find in this morning’s Psalm.

 

After all that complaining, we find the Psalmist able to sing,

 

“O tarry and await the LORD’s pleasure;

be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord.”

 

See. Diamonds. 

 

So, when we pray these psalms together and when we come across those scriptures full of violence that might take us by alarm, or when we may want bad things to happen to Vladimir Putin, recognize in them what they truly are—honest prayers before God.

 

Let us follow the example of Jesus, who even in the face of violence and death, was still able to open his heart and his soul in song and poetry.

 

More importantly, let us, as Jesus himself did over and over again in his life,  pray those psalms when we are afraid or angry or frustrated.

 

Let the Psalms help us to release our own anger to the God who loves us and knows us more completely than anyone else.

 In the shattered, cut-open pieces of our lives, God, as a bright light, passes back and forth.

 

I can tell you from first-hand experience that even in that “deep and terrifying darkness” God appears to us as a light.

 

All we have to do is recognize God in that midst of that darkness.

 

And in doing so, all we can sometimes do is open our mouths and let the poems within us sing out to our God.

 

 

 

Jack Kerouac at 100

 

1 Lent

 March 6, 2022

 

Luke 4.1-13

 

+ So, here we are in Lent.

 

Strange, bizarre Lent.

 

And it really is strange and bizarre.

 

There is nothing quite like Lent.

 

It’s so different than the rest of the Church year, for me anyway.

 

Because, what we’re forced to do in Lent is do something I don’t like doing sometimes.

 

I don’t like talking about fasting or confession or giving up something for Lent.

 

I don’t like preaching about sin.

 

No, what Lent forces me to do that I don’t really want to do is: look in the mirror.

 

And not just look—but really look—honestly, bluntly—in the spiritual mirror.

 

That is not fun to do.

 

It is not a pleasant experience to look at ourselves honestly and bluntly in the mirror.

 

It is not fun to confront ourselves.

 

It’s probably easier for most of us to confront the Devil—however we might view this personification of evil—in our own lives.

 

But, if you notice in our Gospel reading for today, that three-fold commandment of Jesus is all about looking in the mirror and confronting ourselves.

 

We find Jesus repudiating the Devil’s temptations with some strongly worded quotes from Scripture:

 

“One does not live by bread alone”

 

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only [God]”

 

and

 

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

 

When we look at them, these commandments are really all about us.

 

About me—the ego.

 

That’s an issue for all of us.

 

The Devil becomes this almost peripheral character in our reading, if you notice.

 

He’s kind of like a whispering shadow at the edge of the story.

 

The main characters of this story are, of course, Jesus. And us.

 

So, in our Gospel reading, we hear first that we do not live by bread alone.

 

Looking in that spiritual mirror, looking at ourselves, we find that, yes, honestly, we’ve had too much bread—too many carbs—too much of everything.

 

This season of Lent is the prime time for us to look long and hard at our eating practices.

 

For the most people, we simply eat without giving a second thought to what we’re eating or why we’re eating it.

 

And this goes for drinking too. 

 

Certainly we have doctors who tell us that this is one of the leading causes of a good many of our health problems in this country.

 

Nutrition. Food. And too much food. And too much bad food.

 

No, this is not going to be a vegan sermon. There’s bad vegan food too.

 

When we realize how high the rate of obesity and related illnesses are, we know that food really is a major factor in our lives.

 

When we look at issues like obesity and eating disorders and alcoholism and all kinds of addictions, we realize that there is often a psychological reason for our abuse of food or alcohol.

 

We do eat and drink for comfort.

 

We do eat physically or partake of other things thinking that it will sustain us emotionally.

 

We put food or drink into that place in which God should suffice.

 

A time of fasting is a time for us to break that habit and to nudge ourselves into realizing that what should be sustaining us spiritually is the spiritual food—that bread of angels—we receive from God.

 

Then, we hear “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only [God].”

 

Here again is a major temptation for us.

 

Let’s face it, for us: the world revolves around us.

 

Around me.

 

And one of the sources of our greatest unhappiness is when we realize others don’t feel that way.

 

We want people to notice us, to like us.

 

We want to be needed and valuable.

 

Ideally, we would like to have people fall at our feet and adore us.

 

We have all thought about what it would be like to be noticed—truly noticed—when we enter a room, like a movie star at the Oscar’s.

 

OK. Maybe that’s a bit extreme.

 

But, just think about it for a moment.

 

Look at how we feel when we send an email—and there’s no response.

 

Or when we post something meaningful on Facebook—and we only a get a few likes.

 

I hate that!

 

I want lots of likes for the things I post. 

 

But, it’s not about others.

 

That’s all about me and my ego.

 

And I’m the only one angry or frustrated at the end of it all.

 

And I put myself in this position.

 

Yes, I might be mad at others, but it’s ultimately MY fault for feeling this way.

 

We are all susceptible to self-centeredness, to that charming belief that the world revolves me—the individual.

 

That, we believe, will make us truly happy.

 

If we can be fully accepted, fully loved and appreciated.

 

But Jesus again nudges us away from that strange form of self-idolatry and reminds us that there is actually someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts better than we do.

 

We are truly loved, truly accepted, truly appreciated—by God.

 

And we shouldn’t worry about the rest.

 

Rather than falling to the self-delusion of believing our world revolve around ourselves, we must center our lives squarely and surely on God.

 

Finally, we are warned not to put the Lord our God to the test.

 

We’ve all done this as well.

 

We have railed at God and shaken our fists at God and bargained with God.

 

We have promised things to God we have no intention of truly keeping.

 

We have all said to God, “If you do this for me, I promise I will [insert promise here].”

 

Again, like all the previous temptations, this one also revolves around self-centeredness and selfishness.

 

This one involves us controlling God, making God do what we want God to do.

 

This one involves us treating God like a magic genie or a wishing pond.

 

I’ve done this.

 

I’ve been here.

 

I’ve shaken that fist at God and railed loudly at God.

 

The realization we must take away from this final temptation is that, yes, God always answers our prayers.

 

But the answer is not always what we want.

 

Sometimes, it’s yes.

 

Sometimes it’s no.

 

Sometimes it’s not yet.

 

All three of those are answers to prayer.

 

But what we fail to realize in all of this is that those moments in which God does grant us the answer to prayer in the way we wanted, it is only purely out of God’s goodness and God’s care for the larger outcome.

 

It has nothing to do what we do.

 

We cannot manipulate God and make God do what we want.

 

None of us are in the position to do that.

 

And if we had a God that could do that—that could be so easily manipulated--I’m not certain I would truly want to serve that God.

 

These are the temptations we should be pondering during this Lenten season.

 

When I said earlier that these confessions of Jesus are the basis for our understanding of Lent, they really are.

 

Each of these statements by Jesus are essentially jumping off points for us as we ponder our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves during this season.

 

What Jesus experienced in that desert, we too experience this Lent—and at many other times in our lives.

 

The confrontation with the Devil in the desert, is often a confrontation with ourselves in the mirror.

 

It is a confrontation with that difficult and dark side of ourselves—that gossipy, self-centered, controlling, manipulative person we sometimes are.

 

These ego-centric behaviors really don’t promote our egos.

 

They actually hurt our egos in the long-run.

 

Yes, we might have full stomachs, Yes, we might be loved and appreciated and accepted, yes, we would have a fairy-godmother-god who grants all our wishes—but we would not ultimately be very happy.

 

We would still want more and more.

 

But, in our core of cores—in our very spirits—we would still be incomplete and unfulfilled.

 

But I also don’t want to just brush the Devil off here.

 

Our Gospel reading today is important for one other aspect of Lent that is uncomfortable.

 

It is confronting the Devil.

 

We are also called to confront the devil during this Lenten season.

 

Now, I’m not talking about the little red horned creature with the forked tail.

 

I am talking about the ways in which the “Devil” confronts us.

 

We are confronted by the Devil when others bully us and push us around and abuse us and hurt us.

 

We all have had them.

 

Bullies.

 

Mean-spirited people who truly want to do us harm.

 

Sometimes they are strangers.

 

Sometimes they are the “Karens” and “Kevins” in the parking lot or the retauarnt.

 

Sometimes they are spouses, or family members.

 

Sometimes they are “friends.”

 

Sometimes they are bosses.

 

Sometimes they are clergy.

 

And sometimes they are Bishops.

 

Sometimes it is the despotic President of a country who invades another country for their ego trip.

 

And sometimes it is not just the Devil, but those who have allowed the Devil to do the Devil’s work—those complacent followers of these people who have allowed evil to go on and persist. 

 

Or to call the Devil a “genius” (as one of our former Presidents did just recently)

 

When we are confronted by the Devil, we must resist.

 

We must stand up and say no.

 

And we must expose the Devil’s antics.

 

The last thing we should do is simply roll over and present our tummies to the Devil like obedient puppies.

 

When we do that—when we roll over, when we come crawling back after being abused and mistreated, attempting a one-sided reconciliation—we are only giving more power to the Devil.

 

It is our job as Christians, as followers of Jesus, to resist the Devil again and again and again, whenever we confront evil in this world and in our lives.

 

It is our job to stand up and say “No!” to the Anti-Christ—to that personification of anything that is truly anti-Jesus in this world.

 

This is also a very important part of our Lenten journey—and our journey in following Jesus.

 

At some point during Lent, our job is to stop gazing in the mirror—to stop gazing longingly at ourselves— and to turn toward God.

 

Our job is to recognize this God who does truly grant us everything we really need and want, just maybe not in the way WE think those things should be given to us. 

 

It is for that realization that we should be thankful during this season of Lent.

 

So, let us, when we emerge from the desert with Jesus, do so re-focused—not on ourselves, but on the God who truly does provide us with everything we need in this life, and the life to come.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy and loving God, be with us in the deserts of our lives. Send your angels to us in times of need. Feed us with what we need and nourish us with your bread. And help us to in turn be angels to those who need them, and feed those who hunger. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

 

 

Ash Wednesday

 

March 2, 2022

 

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6.1-6,16-21

+ Of course, I came back from vacation yesterday.

 

For the most part I gotta say my vacation was a bust.

 

I wasn’t able to travel anywhere.

 

This was the first time in fourteen years that I wasn’t able to go to Florida, which is always one of the major highlights of my year.

 

The weather here was miserable.

 

Every time I tried to get away, there was a blizzard or bad weather.

 

It was not fun.

 

But it did give me an opportunity to watch lots of movie and read lots of books.

 

I did some quite a few of the Oscar-nominated films.

 

And I read some incredible books.

 

One of the books I read was a amazing book recommended to me by my cousin Renaye called Burial Rites, about the last execution in Iceland in 1830, telling the story of the poor young woman who was beheaded.

 

I highly recommend that book.

 

Another book I read was an amazing book called The Art of Disruption: Improvisation and the Book of Common Prayer by Fr. Paul Fromberg.

 

Fr. Paul, as some of you may know, is the Rector of one of my dream parishes in the Episcopal Church—St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

 

St. Gregory of Nyssa is a very progressive, very cutting-edge, unique, Anglo-Byzantine parish.

 

It is filled with icons and incense and murals and amazing unique liturgies.

 

In fact, if you are following Lent Madness this year, or any year, you will see those dancing saints on the cover.

 

That illustration comes from the interior of St. Gregory of Nyssa.

 

The book was a no holds barred book.

 

It takes a look at new ways of doing our Episcopal worship,

 

And it definitely takes a hard look at what Fr. Paul thinks may be failings in our Episcopal liturgy.

 

One of those areas is in this liturgy. This Ash Wednesday liturgy.

 

Paul Fromberg writes this in his book:

 

“The Ash Wednesday service in the Book of Common Prayer needs to be hacked in order to unleash its full potential.”

 

Fr. Paul goes on to reference our Gospel reading for today, this scripture in which we hear Jesus say emphatically:

 

"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

"…whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

 

Fromberg writes: “The reading is quite clear about what we are to do when we fast: act as if what we’re doing is no big deal. But the prayer book instructs us to do exactly the opposite. Instead of clean faces, we mar them with ash. Instead of private penitence, we recite a list of generic sins that sound like a list of fraternity demerits.  It’s quite jumbled and respectable.”

 

And, I’m going to add, it’s true.

 

If you’re on social media like I’m social media, let me tell you: people are doing the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying to us in tonight’s Gospel.

 

I saw one photo after another on Facebook of people showing off the ashen crosses on their foreheads.

 

And I certainly have done it as well.

 

Now, to be clear, most of us to do it not to “show off” at all.

 

We do it to do exactly what this liturgy tells us to do:

 

We do it to remind ourselves and others that we are sinners, that we are mortal, that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

 

And so I’m not calling anyone out about this, nor do I think Paul Fromberg is either.

 

Rather, it’s just a matter of looking at the heart of our liturgy and what we do on this day.

 

Because, as Fromberg goes on, we have to remember one important thing on Ash Wednesday. He writes:

 

“…through the lens of hope, we can see something about the Ash Wednesday service that is easily forgotten in our socially neurotic culture: even without our penance, God forgives us.”

 

I’m going to repeat that because it is definitely something we need to hear today:

 

“Even without our penance, God forgives us.”

 

And it’s true.

 

You or I don’t get to control God and God’s forgiveness of us.

 

And that is hard for many of us to accept.

 

But it is a good Lenten realization!

 

Fromberg goes on:

 

“Every act of penance we take on is infused with hope, not just God’s forgiveness, but of new connection with God and all of God’s beloved children.”

 

And here comes the truly radical part of all of this. He says,

“An important hack of the prayer book is to turn the penitential formula around: instead of saying ‘I must be forgiven before I can do anything else,’ recognize that we are forgiven already and ask, ‘what shall I do with my forgiveness?’”

 

And that is our challenge tonight and throughout this season of Lent:

 

What shall I do with my forgiveness?

 

I am already forgiven.

 

You and I were already forgiven tonight before we ever entered this building.

 

This God who loves us so fully and completely has already forgiven us.

 

Because God knows us.

 

God knows us better than we know ourselves.

 

We are already forgiven.

 

And that is our challenge.

 

And not just recognizing that in ourselves, but to share that reality with others.

 

Paul Fromberg adds this:

 

“The hard work is to believe what God has done for us is real. God’s love and God’s forgiveness are big interuptions in our lives. When we might be perfectly happy to walk around with ashes on our foreheads, feeling worthless and guilty and ashamed, God just isn’t impressed.”

 

God is not impressed by our self-loathing and self-hatred.

 

God is not impressed at how bad we treat ourselves our abuse ourselves.

 

God has never required us to beat ourselves to make right the wrongs we have done in this life.

 

Fromberg then goes on to talk about how he hacked the Book of Common Prayer liturgy at St. Gregory of Nyssa.

 

At St. Gregory’s, each person is invited to turn to the person next to them and say: “Forgive me a sinner.” The other person in response says, “God forgives you, forgive me a sinner.”

 

Now, we’re not going to do that tonight in this liturgy.

 

But it’s important that this is essentially what we are called to do not just on Ash Wednesday but every day of our Christian journey of following Jesus.

 

This is what Lent’s all about.

 

Yes, we fail.

 

Yes, we mess up.

 

Yes, we really fail terribly.

 

Yes, something we do not love God as we should.

 

Or not at all.

 

And sometimes we do not love others as we long to be loved.

 

We mistreat people.

 

We say terrible things about people behind their backs.

 

We fail to see in other people—even those people who drive us nuts—that God is present within that person, that God truly, deeply loves that person just as much as God truly, deeply loves us.

 

We fail—and we fail miserably.

 

And we need to recognize that fact in our life.

 

We need to acknowledge that.

 

And we need to strive—no, we need to work hard—at not doing those things again.

 

And we need to understand that we will be struggling in this way until we breathe our last on this earth.

 

But we also need to remember what have heard tonight.

 

When we do those things, we are already forgiven.

 

Now, I want to stress this: that does not give us carte blanche.

 

That does not mean we do whatever.

 

Rather, knowing that we are forgiven already by our God, we should go forward not wanting to mess up again.

 

And it also means that when fail, we need to acknowledge our failure, before God and before each other.

 

Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading for tonight, do not make a show of any of this.

 

But go aside quietly, and acknowledge your failure before your God who knows you and who loves you, and try to make right the wrongs you have done, as someone already forgiven.

 

By doing so, it is then that we truly become loved Children of our loving God in this world.

 

It is then that we live in love.

 

It is that we do truly something with our forgiveness.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy and loving God, you are not impressed with our outward signs of penitence and repentance. You are not impressed when we make a show of our efforts of making right what we have done. Help us to do something with the fact that you have forgiven us before we even thought to ask for your forgiveness. Help us to live as truly forgiven people in this world. And help us to forgive others as you have forgiven us.   In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

Annette Morrow and Mark Hitterdal Nuptial Mass

February 26, 2022

+ It is an understatement to say that I am honored to officiate at this service today.

Both  Annette and Mark are two people I consider close and very dear friends.

I am very grateful for their friendship in my life.

And nothing gives me more delight than to see close and dear friends celebrate the love they have for each other.

Today is a glorious day.

It really is.

What we celebrate today is love, yes.

The love between Annette and Mark and the love we have for them.

But we celebrate so much more today as well.

We celebrate the fact that this marriage is a shining example of resurrection, of the dawn that comes after the darkest night.

Now, I warned them both about what I would preach today, because this is my standard Nuptial homily.

In fact, a few weeks ago, I even foreshadowed this homily in one of my Sunday morning sermons.

Of course, that Sunday I also said that the last person you would ever imagine to stand up and preach a sermon about how romantic, marital love is a grace from God is from a celibate, asexual priest.

But sometimes you need someone like us to give a perspective on love and marriage that those who actually do it and live don’t have.

But, I believe it.

And I preach it because it’s true.

And it never loses its truth.

Rather, it becomes truer to each couple I preach it about.

And let me tell you, it is very true to Annette and Mark today.

My standard wedding homily is this:

Marriage is one of the best examples of grace that I have seen.

Now, my definition of grace is this: it is a gift from God we receive that we did not ask for nor necessarily deserve.

It is a gift we cannot give ourselves.

We cannot control grace.

We cannot manipulate it or make it do what we want it to do.

Grace just happens.

God grants grace in its own time.

In its own place.

And we must simply be open to it, and be thankful for it, and just… let it happen in our lives.

And be very, very thankful to God when it does.

Annette. Mark. What we celebrate today is truly a grace.

 I am so thankful for this grace you have been given by God.

I mean, look at this:

And here you both are!

And it’s amazing!

Here you are today!

And it’s all good.

And it’s all beautiful.

You both deserve today.

You both deserve this love, being surrounding by people who love you, living into this grace from God in your life.

You deserve the best in your lives.

That is what we celebrate today.

That is what we are joyful for today.

I’m not promising that the future is going to be hunky dory and sweet all the time.

You both know that it isn’t always going to be like that.

I’m not promising that all the dark clouds have passed away for good.

But right now, right here, none of that matters.

There are no dark clouds here.

There are only blue skies and a future filled with hope and joy.

I am so happy, Mark and Annette, for this day.

I am so thankful to God that you have found each other again.

I am so happy for you and for all that you have and will have.

It really is wonderful!

So, with that…I think it’s time to get you both married.

 

 

 

 

4 Epiphany

 

January 30, 2022

 

Jeremiah 1.4-10, Luke 4.21-30

 

+ Today, of course, is our Annual Meeting.

 

It is the day when we reflect upon the past year in our parish and to look ahead to a new year.

 

It is a time to take assessment and to prepare for how we are going to minister together in the coming year of 2022. Hopefully this will truly be our posy-pandemic year.

 

Although it’s easy to get caught up in the managerial and financial aspects of the Annual Meeting (both very important things), I think it’s also important that we look long and hard at such other equally important things such as our service to others and our further growth into God’s kingdom.

 

This Sunday is a good time for us to ask ourselves: what are we doing to proclaim the goodness of God’s Kingdom in our midst?

 

That word—proclamation—is an important one for us on this Annual Meeting Sunday.

 

In a sense, it is truly what we are called to do as a congregation and as followers of Jesus.

 

We are called to proclaim.

 

We—all of us-not, just me or Deacon John or the licensed lay preacher here at St. Stephen’s, or the Wardens or the Vestry—are all called to proclaim, by word, yes, but also by action, by example.  

 

Our reading today from Jeremiah is one of those readings that I think really grasps us and makes us sit up and take notice.

 

When I was going through the process to become a priest, this was a passage I—and most everyone else I knew at that time who were also going through the daunting ordination process—found great comfort in.

 

Certainly, the task of preaching is daunting.

Every week, getting up and sharing something compelling is not always easy.

 

To find new insight and new understanding to our scriptures takes work.

 

There are those weeks when I look at, ponder, struggle and wrestle with the scriptures assigned for the coming Sunday and can find almost nothing from which to glean some nugget to expand upon, much less to actually proclaim.

 

Or, there are those moments when I am faced with the even more daunting task of preaching something knowing full well that the congregation might not want to hear.

 

And that has certainly happened in my own life.  

 

As you all know, I am now teaching at Concordia College where I serve as Poet in Residence,  which I love.

 

And I think they like me too.

 

I have been asked to teach again in the Fall.

 

So, I guess I’m doing something right.

 I certainly am enjoying Concordia.

 

I am finding myself somewhat immersed in campus life.

 

Certainly one of things I like to do each week is attend the Tuesday morning chapel service.

 

The first time I attended a few weeks ago, I suddenly remembered a time, many years ago, not long after I was ordained to the Priesthood, when I preached at a service there.

 

The service, way back in maybe early 2005, was held at 10:00 on a Wednesday evening.

 

The Centrum was filled to the rafters with students.

 

They filled the floor, the balconies and the choir.

 

It was quite impressive to hear all those Lutheran students belt out those Lutheran hymns.

 

I got up to preach and very quickly realize half-way through my sermon that I just wasn’t connecting with them.

 

That’s a real issue with people who preach on a regular basis.

 

You can just tell when you’re connecting and when you’re not.

 

That Wednesday night—it was the Wednesday of the Week for Christian Unity—I placed before the students the question: what if?

 

What if, when we all died, everyone got to go to heaven?

 

Yes, I know it’s Universalism and yes, I know it’s a hard thing for many people to hear about in their faith lives.

 

Now, to be clear, I wasn’t telling anyone what to believe one way or the other on this issue.

 

I was simply placing it before them as a possibility and to see where it led in one’s own personal spiritual outlook and, more important, how it changed one’s perspective on proclaiming the Gospel of Christ abd how this truly was Good News.

 

How would we proclaim the Gospel to people if we knew everyone was going to heaven—if no one was ultimately lost, if no one was ultimately cast for all eternity in some metaphysical hell?

 

I wasn’t saying that was the way it was, I was just asking: what if?

 

I was a baby Universalist back then who has certainly grown into a very loud and proud Universalist now.

 

And you have heard me preach on this many, many times.

 

If you want to read two GREAT books on this issue, please read if Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person  by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, a book that influenced much of what I said at Concordia back then and Christ Undefeated by Kevin Giles which has inspired me more recently.

 

Both are amazing books!

 

But, for any of you know me, you know where I stand on this.

 

I truly believe that Christ is not truly victorious if there is anyone left in hell.

 

This is not a new way of thinking.

 

This not some New Age way of believing.

 

This actually has a long history, and is even viewed as being very orthodox.

 

Many early Church Fathers and Mothers preached a form of Universalism. 

 

And my belief is that if there is anyone in a metaphysical hell, the Christ that I know, the Christ I believe in, the Christ I serve, the Christ I love with all my being will no doubt descend into the very depths of that hell and will grasp whoever is there and will lead them out.

 

This is the gist of the sermon I preach every year on Holy Saturday morning.

 

And I believe this with every ounce of my being.

 

Well, this is what I essentially preached that cold January night in 2005.

 

And that night, that sermon fell on the cobbled stone floor of the Concordia Centrum like a lead balloon.

 

At Communion, students actually crossed over in the other line so they did not have to receive Communion from me.

 

After the service, a line of students were waiting for me outside the vesting room, with their programs full of notes.

 

Each wanted either to debate me on my points or to point out to me where I went wrong in my message.

 

“How could you even believe in such a ridiculous heresy such as universalism?” they asked me. “So…you think even Hitler gets to go to heaven?”

 

Now, having been raised Lutheran and always feeling for the most part at home among Lutherans, I remember thinking at that moment: “Wow, the prophet sometimes is never accepted in his hometown.”

 

I felt as though I was about as distant from Lutheranism at that moment as I could be.

 

Later, I heard through the “grapevine” (I always seem to on the grapevine somewhere) that I would never be asked back again to preach at Concordia.

 

Although I shrugged it off at time, I felt a certain amount of bitterness about it.

 

And I carried that around with me for some time.

 

But just last week as I was discussing it with a friend of mine at Concordia I was asked, “if you could go back, would you do it differently?”

 

I said, without even thinking, “absolutely not.”

 

I still believe everything I preached that night.

 

And I still think that it is a message that needs to be preached.

 

For me, that sermon about universalism is the real “Good News” of Jesus and the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed in this world.

 

Well, here I am, all these years later, being asked to help plan chapel service at Concordia.

 

Those chickens sometimes come home to roost. In a good way.

 

And I think this is the lesson for all of us.

 

Not all of us are called to be preachers.

 

Not all of us have a gift for getting up and speaking.

 

Or some preach only sermons that are fluff—that only speak to people about what we think they would like to hear, rather than what we feel they need to hear.

 

Because sometimes doing so gets your blackballed and ostracized and snubbed.

 

We at St. Stephen’s certainly know this for the stances we have made in the past. 

 

But the fact is that sometimes—sometimes—God truly does reach out to us and touch our mouths and we find the words to say—even in a situation we know we might not readily accept.

 

That’s what the preacher does every time she or he gets up to preach.

 

And that’s what all of us as ministers of God are called to do on occasion.

 

We are all called to proclaim.

 

The fact is, proclamation may come as good news to some and horribly bad news to others.

 

Proclamation may wash over us like a soothing wind or it may shake us up and upset us terribly.

 

That’s what makes proclamation frightening for the herald of that proclamation.

 

But that’s what all of us as followers of Jesus are essentially called to do.

 

We are all consecrated to be prophets to some extent.

 

And sometimes what we preach and proclaim is just not heard, or falls of deaf ears, or is simply rejected.

 

In our Gospel reading for today, we find that Jesus’ proclamation of who he is and what he came to do was rejected as well.

 

In fact, people were so hostile to the message, they were ready to kill him.

 

Sometimes that’s exactly what proclamation involves as well.

 

Sometimes, our vocation—our calling—as followers of Jesus is to proclaim who we are and what we are called to do to people who are hostile to that message.

 

Let’s face it, it is not easy proclaiming to some people in this world the message of love of God and love of each other.

 

People, for various reasons, do not want to hear that message.

 

People are threatened when they are called to respect them, to treat as equals those with whom they share this world, much less love them.

 

It is amazing that the message of the love of God and of one another is still such a radical message to this world.

 

It is amazing that there is still such resistance to this message.

 

And it is amazing that oftentimes many Christians—especially clergy and other church leaders—are incapable or frightened to proclaim that message to the world.

 

It just easier, I guess, to condemn.

 

It is easier to see things as an “us” and “them.” situation.

 

It is easier to imagine people who do not think or believe the way we do as “damned” or as “ignorant” or as “unenlightened.”

 

It is easier to stereotype or judge or to lash out at others.

 

It is easier to insist, in our own self-centeredness, that we get our way because our way is the only way—the one and right way.

 

It’s easier just preach fluff than to proclaim the radical, inclusive love of God for ALL people.

 

The message of Jesus says we must abandon this thinking.

 

All we have to do is proclaim that love of God, and to love others as we love ourselves and when we do our own agendas go fleeing from us.

 

That is important to keep this in mind as we gather today for our Annual Meeting.

 

It is a time for us to look ahead to see how we can proclaim that love as a parish and as individuals.

 

It is a time for to see how we use the resources and the blessings each of us has been given in our lives to proclaim God’s love and love of each other to the world, to be examples of that love.

 

To be, in a very real sense, conduits of that love both individually and collectively.

 

We have a lot to be grateful for here at St. Stephen’s.

 

There is an energy and a vitality here that most of us can feel and appreciate. The Holy Spirit is truly present! 

 

And most of us understand that we are really and truly making some major difference in the Church and in the world.  

 

God has reached out to us and has touched our mouths here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Let us proclaim that Gospel of love in our actions and in the words God puts in our mouths.

 

And as we do, let us look forward to our future together with joy and hope.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, you are present with us in this place and in this time. Your Presence among us is, at times, so powerful that we are amazed. Touch our mouths so that we can in turn go out and proclaim the Good News of your amazing, all-encompassing Love to those who need to hear your message. And give us strength to bear the consequences of that message. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. 

 

2 Epiphany

 January 16, 2022

 

Isaiah 62.1-5; John 2.1-11

 

+ So, if I was going to ask you to define for me what it means to be a Christian, what would you say?

How do you define someone being a Christian?

How do you define yourself as a Christian?

It’s a very important question when you think about it.

Because many of us might have very different answers.

Or maybe I should ask you this:

If it was proved—beyond a doubt—that the miracles of Jesus’ life never happened, would that change your faith?

If it was proven beyond a doubt that the virgin birth never happened, that he never walked on water or turned water into wine, or raised the dead, would you still call yourself a Christian?

Is your faith dependent upon these supernatural aspects we encounter in the Gospel.

Or is your faith as a Christian based on something else?

These are important questions to ask ourselves occasionally.

Last week I preached about deconstruction, and all that it entails.

It was a sermon that generated some discussion.

I had several people reach out to me to tell me they were in the same process of deconstructing their faith without even knowing there was a name for it.

Well, I’m going to continue on with this deconstruction discussion.

 

Because if we answer the question that I just asked along the lines of,

“one must believe that Jesus Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, co-equal with God, who was born of a virgin, who performed miracles, who raised himself from the dead,--and we must believe all of those things without question to be considered a Christian”

well, that might be a reason to start taking a good, hard look at deconstruction.

Because we can believe those things.

We can hold those beliefs close to us.

We believe that these things are true, even if they never historically never happened.

Those beliefs can be true for us and might be very important for us to helping us understand our faith.

But, those things do not define what it means to be a Christian.

There are many people who do not believe in those things, who don’t hold these things as factual, but who still call themselves Christian.

And I really hate to break this news to you:

Believing in those things will not “save” us in the end.

At least, not according to scripture.

And if it is proven none of those things happened (and no one will ever prove that to us, I am quick to add), will our faith as Christians is still intact?

It should.

Because our faith is based on loving God and loving others.

Our faith is based on following Jesus.

Our faith is based on living out what Jesus taught, not only on what he did (or may have done).

It is important for us to remember all of that that in our spiritual journey in this life.

Now, again, I’m not saying these miracles never happened.

And I’m certainly not saying that miracles don’t happen.

Trust me, they do.

I have experienced many miracles in this life.

As I’m sure many of you have as well.

AndI do believe that miracels like this actuall can happen.

After all, Jesus is the Messiah.

Jesus is the Son of God.

God worked and contirnues to work uniquely in the Person of Jesus.

And if anyone could do it, Jesus could.

Miracles like the one at Cana still speaks to us, here and now.

In our Gospel reading for today, we find one of those miracles for certain.

 

We find in our Gospel reading for today that there’s a problem at this wedding feast.

 

The good wine has run out and the wedding feast is about to crash quickly.

 

But Jesus turns water into wine and when he does, there is a renewed sense of joy and exultation.

 

That I think is the gist of this experience from our gospel reading.

 

It is not just some magic trick Jesus performs to wow people.

 

It is not some action he performs at the whim of his mother.

 

He performs this miracle and in doing so instills joy in those gathered there.

 

But more than that, by doing this he does what he always does when he performs a miracle.

 

He performs miracles not just for the benefit of those at the wedding.

 

It is for our benefit of us as well.

 

Because by performing this miracle, he is giving us a glimpse of what awaits us all.

 

If we look closely at the story and at some of the details contained in it, we will find clues of the deeper meaning behind his actions.

 

First of all, let’s look at those jars of water.

 

This is probably the one area we don’t give a lot of thought to.

 

But those jars are important.

 

They are not just regular jars of water.

 

They are jars of water for the purification rites that accompany eating in the Jewish tradition.

 

That’s important

 

This Jewish sense of purification is important still to us.

 

If we think purity isn’t important to us, we’re wrong.

 

Purity is important to us.

 

Cleanliness and purity are still a part of our lives.

 

So, those stone jars of water at the wedding feast are not just for thirst.

 

They are about uncleanliness.

 

Over and over again in the Gospels, if you notice, Jesus seems to have issues with these laws of purity.

 

Or rather, he has issues with people getting too caught up in the rituals of purity.

 

Those people who put too much emphasis on the laws, rather than spirit and heart of the law.

 

Just as Christian today sometimes put too much emphasis on the miracles and the dogmas of the Church rather on the real heart and spirit of those miracles and dogmas.

 

What we see him doing is deconstructing some traditional views on purity.

 

And what a way to do it!

 

He turns these waters of purity into wine.

 

And not just any wine.

 

But abundant fine wine that brings about a joy among those gathered. 

 

In a sense, what Jesus has done is he has taken the party up a notch.

 

What was already a good party is now an incredible party.

 

It’s a beautiful image and one that I think we can all relate to.

 

The best part of this view of the wedding at Cana is that Jesus is saying to us that, yes, there is joy here in the midst of us, but a greater joy awaits us.

 

A greater joy awaits us when the Kingdom of God breaks through into our midst.

 

When it does, it is very much like a wedding feast.

 

When it does, the waters of purification will be turned into the best-tasting wine because we will no longer have to worry about issues like purity.

 

In God’s Kingdom, there is no impurity, no sin, so racism, no homophobia or transphobia or sexism.

 

To some extent, the wedding at Cana is a foretaste of what we do every Sunday (and Wednesday) here at this altar.

 

It is a foretaste of the Holy Eucharist—the meal we share at this altar.

 

And the Jesus we encounter at this feast is not a sweet, obedient son, doing whatever his mother says, though I truly believe there is an almost playful attitude between Jesus and Mary in their exchange.  

 

Both Mary and Jesus know who he is and what he can do.

 

They know he is the Messiah.

 

They know that is he is this unique Son of the Most High God.

 

They know that because he is, he is able to do things most people cannot.

 

Now, to be fair to Mary, we must realize that at no point does she actually request anything from Jesus, if you notice.

 

All she does is state the obvious.

 

“There is no wine,” she says.

 

She then says to the servants, “Do whatever he asks.”

 

No one, if you notice, asks Jesus to perform this miracle.

 

And that is important too.

 

I will take this one step further.

 

I have a standard message at most of the weddings I do.

 

It’s adapted to each couple, but the message remains the same.

 

And the message carries within it my own understanding of how love and marriage works.

 

This coming from your celibate/asexual priest—your aromantic asexual priest nonetheless.

 

I say this at weddings.

 

Love and marriage are a grace from God.

 

But to truly understand that statement we have to understand what “grace” is in this context.

 

My definition of grace is this:

 

Grace is a gift we receive from God that we neither ask for nor even anticipated.

 

It is something God gives us out God’s own goodness.

 

Love and marriage are often—often, not always—signs of grace.

 

Oftentimes the right person comes into our lives at just the right time.

 

No matter how much we might want to control such situations, the fact is we cannot.

 

That person comes into our lives on God’s terms, not ours.

 

Often it happens when we least expect that person.

 

But when they do come into our lives, our lives change.

 

That is how grace works.

 

God’s grace changes our lives.

 

We can’t control God’s grace.

 

We can’t really even petition God and ask God for a particular grace.

 

Grace is just there because God chooses to grant us grace.

 

That’s how grace works.

 

It just happens on God’s own terms.

 

Sometimes we might not even deserve it.

 

But God—in God’s goodness—just gives us this one right thing in our lives.

 

And all we can do, in the face of that grace, is say, “Thank you, God.”

 

That to me only cements the fact that what happens at Cana happens each time we gather together at this altar for the Eucharist.

 

Here too, at this altar, we see Jesus reflected in this wine.

 

And in each other!

 

Just like the wedding at Cana, this Eucharist we celebrate is a foretaste of that meal of which we will partake in the Kingdom.

 

In that meal, the words of the prophet Isaiah that we heard earlier this morning will be spoken to us as well:

 

“for the Lord [will delight] in you,

And your land shall be married.

For as a young man marries a young woman,

So shall your builder marry you.

And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

So shall your God rejoice over you.”

 

God rejoices over you!

 

In God, our truest and deepest joy will come springing forth.

 

So, as we come forward for Communion this morning, let us do so with that image of the wedding feast of Cana in our hearts and minds.

 

Let us look, and see the image of Jesus reflected in the Communion wine. And in one another.  

 

Let us know that what we experience today is not a magic trick.

 

We come forward to a miracle.

 

We come forward to a sign of God’s kingdom breaking through into our very midst.

 

We come forward to partake of an incredible grace.

 

And all we can do, in that holy moment, is say,

 

“Thank you, God!”

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, you delight in bestowing your grace upon us, and turning the water of our complacent ways into the wine of new understanding; help us to see the miracles your perform in our very midst in our everyday life, and when we do, help us to see with new eyes your Reality in this world; we ask this in Jesus’s name.

 

 

 

 

1 Epiphany/The Baptism of Jesus

 

January 9, 2022

Luke 3.15-17, 21-22

+ Our Gospel this morning begins with this fascinating statement:

 

“…the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts..”

 These people, who were about to witness the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, are filled with expectation, and questioning in their hearts.

 

I think most of us can relate to that.

 

We know what it’s like to be filled with expectation.

 

And certainly here at St. Stephen’s, we know a few things about questioning in our hearts.

 

In many ways, this is what we are dealing with as progressive Christians right now, in this strange time in which we live.

 

Here we are, living in (hopefully) the ending of a pandemic.

 

But even more so, we, as Christians, have just endured several years of political upheaval in our country.

 

And that political upheaval also involved many people claiming to be Christians, who have held high the name of Jesus in situations that we hopefully find offensive and terrible.

 

Of course this last Thursday was the first anniversary of the January 6 Insurrection—and it WAS an insurrection, it was an attempt to overthrow our government, and to undo the last election, and to overthrow democracy, there is no doubt about it.

 

Don’t call it a riot.

 

We are still dealing with the after-effects of that event.

 

And we will for many years to come.

 

This event is indelibly written into our history now.

 

But what offended me most—no, what truly angered me—as I watched in 2021, and as I re-watched the events last Thursday, was the overabundance of Christian placards at that Insurrection.

 

Did you notice them?

 

Jesus’ name was all over the place.

 

It was there as the windows were being broken.

 

It was there as the doors of the capitol were battered against and knocked down.

 

It was there as the senate chambers and our elected officials’ offices were ransacked.

 

It was there beside the noose on which they planned to hang to hang Vice-President Pence because he wouldn’t go along with their plans to undo the rightful
election.

 

For me I am more than offended to find the Name of Jesus being used in such a blasphemous way.

 

The people who were doing this felt justified to do what they did by their political leaders AND by their religious leaders.

 

And many of them were doing it (they felt) in the name of Jesus.

 They did it because they saw themselves as “Christians.”

 

Which leaves the rest of us Christians—the majority of us, I am quick to remind you—shocked and appalled and furious.

 

Is this what Christianity has been reduced to now?

 

How do we go on as Christians if this is what we are being reduced to?

 

And when you start thinking that was happened a year ago as some isolated incident that we should just get over, the fact is there are many, many Christians right now who simply can’t.

 

I am one of them.

 

There are ripple effects to everything.

 

There are consequences to actions.

 

And we will be dealing with the consequences of these actions for years to come.

 

Now, I will tell you, you will be hearing, if you haven’t already, about a new thing happened in Christianity right now called Deconstruction.

 Many Christians, in the wake of this blatant high jacking of our Christian faith by people who have made Christianity into a circus of hatred and violence, who have made Christianity into a force of American Nationalism and have formed an ugly white, spray-tanned, blond idol out of Jesus, are struggling with our faith.

 

How do we move on from this—this disgusting reduction of all we hold dear?

 

How do we go on as Christians when we have seen such ugliness and violence and racism in the name of our faith, in the name of Jesus, whom we love and follow, when we have seen our faith distorted and bastardized by these small-minded people who have allowed themselves to be deceived and brainwashed by conspiracy theories and talk show hosts?

 

How do we separate the Jesus we follow—that middle-eastern Jew who sided with the marginalized and discarded of this earth—from the white, Americanized Jesus behind whom are amassed these ugly, hate-filled people?

 

That is what many of us are struggling with.

 

And will be struggling with for a long time to come.

 

Many are just leaving.

 

Many are separating themselves from Christianity as a result.

 

I cannot tell you how many times I have people come to me and say, “I am embarrassed to call myself a Christian if this is what Christianity has become.”

 

I feel the same way.

 

But I will stay.

 

And I will do everything in my power ( as limited as it is) to reclaim the name Christian.

 

But in the process of stating, some of us are being forced to deconstruct our faith, so we can rebuild it again.

 

I will be talking a lot about deconstruction in the future.

 

It is certainly something, as some of you know, that I have been doing in my own faith life for the last several years.

 

I have been forced to question some things in my faith that I never thought of questioning before.

 

And, let me tell you, it is not a fun process.

 

It is often very painful.

 

It is often the equivalent of pulling a tooth or having surgery.

 

But sometimes we must do it if we want to continue on.

 

Sometimes we must do it is we want a real, living faith.

 

Because Deconstruction usually is followed by reconstruction.

 

And it also means that we are able to truly come to a belief in those things that really do sustain us.

 

One of the areas in my own personal deconstruction and reconstruction is baptism.

 

How appropriate to talk about this on the Sunday of Jesus’ own Baptism.

 

I seriously took a long, hard look at baptism.

 

And I came away with a deep conviction that something amazing and powerful happened to each of us in those waters of baptism.

 

BUT I also came to the conclusion that we MUST jettison our beliefs that baptism is somehow an initiation into things like Communion.

 

The official belief in the Episcopal Church is that all BAPTIZED people may receive Holy Communion.

 

My issue with that is that I think such a rule minimalizes not only Holy Communion but Baptism also.

 

WHO at the last supper was baptized?

I know of only One.

 

The One whom we encounter being baptized in today’s Gospel.

 

We know nothing about any of the others there being baptized.

 

But Jesus still fed them all.

 

Yes, even Judas, the one who would betray him.

 

This is one of those areas that we, as Christians, in our personal deconstruction/reconstruction, must grapple with.

 

And in doing so, we will find that our understanding and belief of both Baptism and Holy Communion have expanded and made even more real for us.

 

After all, we need to hold close to our hearts the first great example being set.

 

As Jesus comes out of those waters, as the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descends upon him, he hears the words from God:

 

“You are my Son, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

 

Here the standard is set.

 

Here the breakthrough has happened.

 

From now on, this is essentially what has been spoken to each of us at our own baptisms:

 

“You are my child, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

 

For most of us, we have no doubt taken for granted our baptisms.

 

We have viewed baptism as no more than a quaint christening service for babies—a kind of dedication ceremony.

 

Or worse yet, an initiation ceremony into the “club” of Christianity.

 

Baptism is much, much more than that.

 

As you hear me say again and again, baptism is THE defining moment in our lives as Christians.

 

Whether we remember the event or not, it was the moment when our lives changed.

 

It was the moment we became new.

 

It was, truly, our second birth.

 

When some Christians ask you, “Have you been born again?” you can tell them in no uncertain terms: “Oh, yes I have actually!”

 

You can, “I was reborn in the waters of life and marked as Christ’s own forever on the day of my baptism.”

 

But, what baptism cannot do is separate us from others.

 

It cannot put us into a camp of “us” versus “them.”

 

It cannot give us an excuse to exclude anyone from our church, or our table.

 

One of the biggest complaints I get from Episcopalians and Lutherans and others are the frustrations they have when they attend a Roman Catholic Mass and what they view as their restrictive view on the Eucharist.

 

Actually I have LOT of issues about it as well, as you have heard me say many times.

 

But what I really cringe at is when I hear anyone say, “I don’t care what they say about Communion. I am going to go up and receive anyway. I am a Christian. I believe what they believe. They can’t exclude me!”

 

I always say this in response:

 

Please don’t. Don’t disrespect them in their own house. But rather, sit back. Stay in your pew. And when you do, do this: Look around.

 

Look around at the others who also are not going up.

 

It is those people I feel closest in moments like that.

 

Because it is with them—the unbelievers, the ostracized, the excluded, those who aren’t “in,” yes, even the unbaptized—that Jesus is truly present.

 

You want real Holy Communion, is right there, right then.

 

And when we exclude from our own altar, we run the very real risk of losing the Presence of Christ in our midst.

 

THAT is the real power of baptism.

 

The paradoxical power of baptism is making us truly aware of how much we need to side with those who are not baptized, of those who are not “in,” of those who are excluded, or simply cannot allow themselves to be included.

 

In the waters of our baptism, we were reborn as children of our loving and caring God.

 

We became what was Jesus is.

 

We can, from the very moment of our baptism, trace our relation with God our Parent—the God who recognizes us and loves us and accepts us and embraces us.

 

BUT becoming what Jesus is means being where Jesus is in this world.

 

And Jesus, I have learned through my years of deconstruction/reconstruction, is in that paradoxical place on the fringes of our society AND our church.

 

The bond that is made at baptism is one that truly can never be broken.

 

That relationship that was formed with God in those waters is eternal.

 

In baptism, we truly see that we are God’s child.    

 

For ever.

 

We become God’s own Beloved.

 

God never denies us.

 

But we must accept the fact that there are some people who, for whatever reasons, just cannot make that commitment, who cannot see this amazing thing in those waters, but who are also children of God.

 

Who still desire Jesus in some way, whether they even know it or now.

 

Who still desire some Presence of Christ in this world, even if they might not even be aware that it is Christ they long for.

 

To deny them the Presence of Christ in the Bread and the Wine of the Holy Eucharist is cruel.

 

And it is blatantly unchristian.

More than that, it is diametrically opposed to what we as baptized Children of God are called to do in this world.

We have to fight to not become those Christians that are causing so many of us to deconstruct a faith we have held dear for so long.

We have to fight not to become those people who turn others away from Christ.

We as baptized Christians must fight hard to not become ugly stereotypes of what Christianity is right now in this country.

We, as loved children of a loving God, must work hard to not be manipulative, controlling, gossipy, backbiting, unloving people.

We must not hide behind the name of Jesus as we call for destruction and death on those who don’t follow out own deceptions.

We must not be what our critics accuse of us being.

We must love and respect each other equally.

Our baptism forces us out into the world to be a part of the world and, by doing so, to transform the world.

 

In a few moments, I will come through the nave and will sprinkle you with holy water.

 

As that water touches you, remember how God loves you and cherishes you.

 

And when you leave church, pay attention to the baptismal font in the narthex and the blessed water in it.

 

Touch that water, bless yourselves with it, and when you do, remember it as a reminder of that wonderful event in your life which marked you forever as God’s very own.

 

But let us not see this amazing event as some special, exclusive initiation.

 

Rather let us see it as a radical event in our lives that puts us in the company of those who are on the fringes of our life, our society and our church.

 

When we do, it is then that those words spoken to Jesus on the day of his baptism are spoken to us again and again.

 

“You are my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

 

Let us pray.

Loving God, we are so grateful for what you did for your Loved One Jesus in those waters in the Jordan River; we are thankful for what you did in the waters of our own baptism; help us to live a truly baptismal life of love, of acceptance, of inclusion, of radically embracing those who are excluded, of those who are on the fringes. Help us to be Jesus in this world to those who need Jesus. And especially help us who are struggling to rebuild our faith so that we can truly live a faith pleasing to you. In Jesus’s Name we pray. Amen.  

 

 

2 Christmas

 

January 2, 2022

Jeremiah 31.7-14; Luke 2:41-52

+ I’d like you to go back in time with me today.

 

We’re going back to a very different time.

 

We’re going back to the summer of 1983.

 

Yes, I know, on a bitterly cold day like today, going back to any summer in our thoughts is a pleasant diversion.

 

But, let’s go back to that summer in particular.

 

1983.

 

That summer I was thirteen years old. 

 

Thirteen is never a fun time for any of us to return to.

 

Or maybe it was.

 

But that summer was a decisive summer for me.

 

It was the summer I was called to the priesthood.

 

The date was actually May 31, 1983.

 

Now when I say “called,” I don’t mean any might booming voice from heaven called me.

 

Or any voice for that matter.

 

I always say it was a “nudging.”

 

And I think I’ve shared this with you before, but that “nudging” happened in a cemetery of all places.

 

I can even tell you exactly where in that cemetery I received the “nudge.”

 

I just knew that summer that I was going to be a priest one day and my whole life changed.

 

In this morning’s Gospel we encounter Jesus not as we would expect to encounter Jesus in this Christmas season—not as a baby or an infant.

 

Instead, we encounter Jesus as a twelve year old—not that far off in age then when I was called to the priesthood.

 

Jesus appears to us like a head-strong independent youth, going off and doing his own thing.

 

I can relate to that!

 

But unlike many twelve year old boys, who could go off and do much harm at that age, he goes off by himself and spends as much free time in the Temple.

 

I can relate to that too!

 

For Jesus, the Temple was not a strange or unusual place.

 

It was a place, we have seen throughout his life, that his parents returned to again and again.

 

Here he was dedicated and circumcised (which we commemorated yesterday on the Feast of the Holy Name)

 

Here they returned every year.

 

The temple was a place in which Jews of that time believes the very Presence of God dwelled.

 

In the Holy of Holies, the very heart of the temple, was the ark of the covenant.  

 

It’s very stones were sacred and holy to them.

 

It was heaven on earth for them.

 

Jesus would have been familiar with the Temple.

 

And more than that, he felt at home in the Temple.

 

When I was thirteen, I was, as I still am, very much a “church geek.”

 

I loved church. I thought it was a magical place—a different place than the rest of the world.

 

It was a great place for me to go to seek refuge, to escape, to be somewhere different.

 

I will also tell you something else about myself that you will no doubt find quite remarkable: I was a good teenager.

 

I was not rebellious in the ways many of my friends and colleagues were.

 

I didn’t drink.

 

I didn’t smoke.

 

I would never even have considered taking drugs of any sort.

 

I genuinely liked my parents.

 

But I was rebellious in my own way.

 

I guess I knew my parents well enough that I knew the one thing that could get their goat was not drinking or hanging out with hoodlums, but rather religion was an issue of contention.

 

My parents were good Lutherans and no one in their families or in our family ever questioned that or pushed the limits on that.

 

Sure, my siblings kind of drifted away from church after confirmation like everyone else seemed to do, but they always remained, at least nominally, Lutheran.

 

Imagine the chagrin they and my grandparents felt when, at thirteen, I announced that I wanted to be a Roman Catholic!

 

And a Catholic priest nonetheless.

 

It was simply not something that was done—certainly not by a teenage boy!

 

My friends were even shocked.

 

They thought it was weird. And they didn’t understand any of it.

 

My parents, like Mary and Joseph in today’s Gospel, no doubt were also astonished and had no idea what I was saying to them.

 

And this was my rebellion.

 

I devoted myself to being a Catholic with such determination that eventually there was nothing more they could say.

 

During that time in my life, this particular story from the Gospel of Luke  was a meaningful one to me.

 

I understood and related to the twelve-year-old Jesus in a way I couldn’t relate to other teenagers my own age.

 

Now, it’s natural that the teenage “church geek” should grow up to be a priest who also still loved to be in church any chance he can get.

 

But I am not recommending that to you.

 

What we, as Christians, need to do is recognize the fact that our Father’s house is some exclusive, conformist place.

 

Rather, our Father’s house is a place that oftentimes is at odds with the world around it.

 

It is place for all the rebels, all the rabble-rousers, all the people who exists out here on the fringes of society can come and find a home.

 

It is place where everyone rejected by society can feel at home and peace.

 

It is the place in which God dwells and it is there that we will find God.

 

It is there we, like the pre-teen Jesus, must always be.

 

For me, the Church has never been a place of conformity as so many other people have seen.

 

For me the Church has been sort of counter-cultural.

 

It has seemed to me to be a place that always is a bit at odds with the world. I recognized that when I was a teenager.

 

I realized early on that my greatest rebellion was not doing what all the other kids were doing.

 

My greatest rebellion was in a place that was truly going against the stream at times.

 

And this is what the Church should be.

 

The Church should never be the country club to the society.

 

It should never be the place where “we” get to gather in place different than “them.”

 

Rather the Church should be the place wherein “we” and “they” can come together and find our home.

 

We don’t need to be obnoxious in our rebellion.

 

We don’t need to shout and scream our rebellion.

 

Our rebellion sometimes is as simple as living life with a sense of personal integrity and purpose, with a sense of love and compassion for everyone who comes to us.

 

When we do that, the house of God stops being a church building only and starts being our very hearts, in which God dwells.

 

We become the house of God to others when we reach out in love and compassion to others and be there for them.

 

So, let us be the house of God.

 

Let each of us be the place in which God dwells, in which Jesus longs to be and makes every effort to return to again and again.

 

Let us be the house of God.

 

And when we are, those words of Jesus taking on greater meaning:

 

“Why do you search for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

 

And when we realize that, we will make a difference in our world.

 

Let us pray.  

 

Holy God, dwell with us. Inhabit out beings so that where we go, you will go with us. Let us be a place in which we carry you with us to those who need you, who long for you. And in doing so, may we always rejoice in your Presence with us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.