“The Stoning of Stephen” by Annibale Carracci (1603-04) (Click on the image to read St. Stephen's biography.)
“Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.… [yet] they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.… then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”(from Acts 6:8-7:2a, 51c-60)
Luke 2:11
“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10)
The Blessed Virgin Mary on December 23
Or, as The Message puts it:
“I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.”
In our first lesson today we hear the story of Samson, at least the story of Samson’s beginning. And, thanks to the benefit of a first-rate theological education—or maybe just Sunday School—we know that Samson was a tragic hero of the Old Testament. We don’t know that today, though. Today Samson was all promise.
And oh, what promise he was! Before he was even born, before he was even conceived, his mother-to-be, a woman who previously had had no children, was visited by an angel of the lord, one who told her that she would conceive and bear a son … (Does this story sound strangely familiar to you?) This angel told this woman that she would conceive and bear a son, one who would begin to free his people from the hand of the Philistines.
Do you know what joy this would have brought Samson’s parents, living as they did in a culture where family and lineage was everything? They would have a child, an heir. Do you know what joy this would have brought Samson’s people, the tribe of Dan, living as they did between two pressing and oppressing Philistine cities? “There goes Samson,” they might say, “he is going to free us from the enemy. We don’t know that they said this, of course, but it makes one wonder about that word “begin,” doesn’t it?
We know that something might not be quite right. For this we have Samson’s name, which as we know is important in telling us something vital about his character. Samson means “sun,” not as in “child of his parents,” but as in “that bright celestial orb up in the sky, the one that gives light and life to all the world.” Samson was “Mr. Sun.”
Did you know that the Philistines worshiped Baal, God of the Sun? If this were a movie, we would be hearing doom-music right about now. But we don’t know how this story will turn out, not today. Today Samson is all promise. And oh, what promise he was!
Our scripture lesson tells us that as he grew God blessed Samson. Scripture doesn’t tell us how, at least in today’s lesson.
Perhaps God gave Samson great beauty, the ability to play the lyre and the harp, and made his a great warrior, able to lead his people to victory in battle. That would take care of the Philistines. ……. We just don’t know, not today.
Perhaps God gave Samson great wisdom, able to judge his people justly and to negotiate greatly advantageous political and military treaties. That would take care of the Philistines. ……. We just don’t know, not today.
No? Perhaps God put so much of himself into Samson that Samson was uniquely able to do the will of God our Father in heaven, Hallowed-Be-His-Name. That would take care of, well, everything! ……. I see your heads shaking “no” now. We just don’t know, not today.
Oh, all right then. Perhaps God just gave Samson superhuman strength, whatever good That would do him in ministry. We just don’t know, not today, but we do know this, and it’s become one of my mantras in seminary: God provides every single thing needed to do what God has created us to do. God provides every single thing needed to do what God calls us to do.
This brings me to the last part, and it’s my favorite. The lesson says that “God began to stir within Samson.” Who here doesn’t know what that is like? Aren’t we, like Samson, all promise, whether we are working on a degree, helping others to get a new degree, or just retiring to an island off the coast of Seattle?
Will we be tragic, heroic, neither, or both? We just don’t know, do we, not today? But we do know this, in just six days from today, Mr. Sun himself will be born into the world for roughly the 2,011th time, the Alef and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the one who Was and Is and who Will come again, Jesus the Christ, the author of promise. And all that we have to do is to use whatever gifts that God has given us, to do whatever it is that God is stirring us to do; all that we have to do is to bear witness.
Adult Forum on Stephen Hawking's "The Grand Design", by Jo Belser
Location: Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Dunn Loring, VA
Text: Luke 1:26-38
4 Advent, Year B
The prophet Mary
Today, on my last Sunday with you as a seminarian, I am going to “come out” to you, to reveal my secret identity to you. I am a prophet.
If I were to ask you to name a modern prophet, chances are you wouldn’t think of Jo Belser. NO, chances are you would think of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mother Theresa, or the Most Rev. Desmond Tutu. And rightly so; these are people in our time who God asked to bear God’s message into our world—messages that the whole world recognized as being from God.
Isn’t that what a prophet is, someone whom God has chosen to deliver a message to the world? Prophets embody God in the process, take God’s Word into their being and deliver that Word into our reality.
"The Prophet", by Miiki Ahvenjärvi
Usually God co-opts our mouths when we are asked to participate in any divine God-bearing scheme, at least at first it is our mouths, but I’ve noticed that our feet and hands are often pressed into service, as well, into service in aid of the mouth that bears God’s Word into our world.
There are a whole series of books about prophets in the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos… and the list goes on. These were people who God called to deliver an important message to those around them—usually to people in power—to bear God’s Word into their world.
Who the prophet is often can be an important component of the message that God has to share. I am thinking here of the great prophet, Dr. King. The message of non-violent racial reconciliation—the God’s message of God’s transforming love for everyone, Black or White, simply would not have been as effective if it had come from, say, a Northern White man instead of a Black preacher.
In human terms, “The messenger IS the message.” This concept doesn’t seem to apply in God’s call of humans to be prophets, though. God seems to always pick the most unlikely candidates to bear his Word. In this way God ensures that we understand that the message could not possibly have come from the message-bearer, that it is God’s message being heard.
Despite their individual differences, there is one characteristic that all prophets share. Ultimately they say “yes” to God. Most of them do NOT say “yes” to God right away, though.
Moses, from Dennis Ratner's sculpture, "The Tablets of the Law"; click on image to visit the Ratner Museum
Moses was one of the greatest prophets of all time. As we heard just a few weeks ago, at first Moses said “Here I am” to God when he saw God in a Burning Bush. But then God told Moses that he had “seen the misery of his people” and had decided to “come down to rescue them …” Moses had no objection to God’s plan until he found out what God envisioned his role to be. All that God wanted Moses to do was to visit the supreme ruler of Egypt and ask him politely, in the name of I_AM, to free a whole bunch of his slaves.
Moses argued that he “lacked eloquence” and that someone else should be sent instead. To put it bluntly, Moses stuttered. VERY roughly translated, what happened next is that God rebuked Moses for presuming to lecture the One-Who-Made-the-Mouth on who was qualified to speak and not to speak. Only then did Moses agree to become God’s prophet. No, Moses didn’t say “yes” to God right away.
The teenaged prophet Jeremiah also did not say “yes” to God’s call right away. He said that he didn’t know how to speak and he was too young to be a prophet. Listen to what God said to Jeremiah:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.… Do not say, ‘I am a child. Go now to those to whom I send you and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to protect you—it is Yahweh who speaks! (Jeremiah 1:4-9)
"The Annunciation" 1898 painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner
Are you ready for one more prophet? Unlike the other prophets whom I have mentioned, this one said “yes” to God fairly quickly. In our gospel lesson today the teenager Mary gets a visit from an angel of the Lord, an angel who explained God’s plan.
And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
Is that a great plan, or what? Mary is to be the mother of the Messiah. There surely is no message from God borne in our world that will ever be greater than this! God, come in the form of a human-yet-divine baby, come to set his people free from sin and death.
Art from Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Cincinnati, Ohio
There’s just one catch, and Mary names it right away. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” This sounds like Moses and Jeremiah all over again. The Angel of the Lord did not answer Mary as God answered Moses, though. If so, the angel would have rebuked Mary for presuming to dispute with the One-Who-Made-the-Human-Reproductive-System on who could and who could not have a baby and how that baby might be conceived.
So Mary was a virgin, and God asked her to be a prophet, to bear his Word into our world. Her response marked her as a prophet. Do you remember what Mary said? She said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be done according to your word.”
This is the Fourth Sunday of Advent. On this day next week we will witness anew, for the roughly 2,011th time, the fruit of Mary’s prophecy; Jesus will be borne into our world, God-come-to-be-One-with-us because he has heard the cries of his people and has come to set us free, FOREVER. Jesus will be born into our world in an improbable way, the child of a teenaged virgin from a town that wasn’t even on the map. Jesus will be born into our world in a MOST improbable way, delivered by the prophet Mary, who allowed her whole being to be used to bear God’s message of love to us.
At the beginning of this sermon I told you that I am a prophet. I make no special claim about ME when I tell you that I am a prophet. The message that God has asked me to share in this world, in this diocese, and in this parish, is that God loves ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE unconditionally; there are NO exceptions. God loves absolutely everyone, and God sent his Word into the world as a result. That Word is Christ Jesus, come to set his people free. This Word cannot be contained and given to only the righteous, because “There is no one who is righteous, not even one…”[1] EXCEPT for the One who will be born anew next Sunday.
God’s Word spills out and around and through every single thing that God has made. Being a prophet is not about the messenger, it’s about the message. And hasn’t God given each of us a message to bear into our world?
What message has God asked you to share with the world, and what body parts are you going to use to share that message?
[1] Romans 3:10 (NRSV)
Location: Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Dunn Loring, VA
Text: Matthew 22:34-36
Proper 25, RCL, Year A
Loving our Neighbor
I learned in my Old Testament class at seminary that the Judaism of Jesus’ day had 613 laws to be known and obeyed. The purpose of these laws is to tell us what we have to do to be in right-relationship with God. Some 248 of these laws are things that people should DO, such as “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” The remaining 365 laws are things that we shouldn’t do, such as “Don’t kill,” and “Don’t covet.” And if all of those laws weren’t enough, there were many different interpretations of each law. Just knowing all the laws and the interpretations was a full-time job for the Pharisees, a group of religious leader—temple lawyers!—in the Judaism of Jesus’ day.
The Pharisees were truly righteous folks. Many of them scrupulously kept ALL of God’s laws. According to the gospels the Pharisees were serious about keeping all the laws. They fasted twice a week and gave tithes—a minimum of ten percent—of all that they possessed to God. Would that we had a few more Pharisees in our parish.
We hear in today’s gospel lesson that the Pharisees asked Jesus a trick question—“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The answer in Jesus’ day would not have been as obvious as it is to us today. Jesus did not have the benefit that we have, of Jesus’ summary of all God’s laws, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now I know what you might be thinking. I suspect that you are thinking, “Of course Jesus could find the unifying principles among all these laws. Jesus was God, the maker and knower of all things. Of course Jesus could do this.” If that’s what you are thinking, you’re right! But, I assert, it doesn’t take a divinity to find a unifying principle among the laws of God; what it takes is a master practitioner, someone who lives the laws, and lives them with love.
There’s an often-told story you may have heard about some blind men trying to describe an elephant. They each focus on the parts that they can feel, describing the trunk and legs and so on, missing the “big picture” of the whole elephant. In today’s gospel lesson we get a graphic illustration of Jesus’ ability to see into the heart of things, to find the big picture, to recognize the elephant, so to speak. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Make no mistake about the situation described in today’s Gospel lesson; Jesus’ summary of the law aptly names the elephant in the room: “Do we love God?” If so, how do we show that we love God? “Do we love our neighbor?” If so, how do we live loving our neighbor? “Do we even love ourselves?” If so, how do we share our love for ourselves with others?
I love my neighbors. They are just like me and they love me back.
Jesus’ teaching challenges this kind of thinking, of course. I am sure that you all have begun critiquing the concept, “My neighbors are those who are just like me, and those who love me back.” Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s gospel graphically tells us who our neighbor is: Our neighbor is whoever God puts in our lives.
Sometimes the people whom God puts into our lives aren’t a bit like us. This gives us the opportunity to rejoice in the abundant diversity of God’s creation, and to stretch ourselves as we learn unconditional love. Young and old. Male and female. Rich and poor. Highly educated in school and highly educated by life alone. Black and White. Oriental and Caucasian. Gay and straight. Employed and unemployed. Latino and Anglo. Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu and… Other. Denominational and non-denominational. Those at one end of these dualities, and all in between. All beloved Children of God. Who has God put into your life to love?
Sometimes the people whom God puts into our personal lives and who challenge us the most are members of our own family. They are the ones who sometimes ask the most of us, and who teach us how to be in relationship without writing anyone off. Who in your family challenges you the most, and how do you show your love for them?
Sometimes the people whom God puts into our lives live far away and come to us by proxy. There is a great example of that right here in our parish. We are involved in a mission in Tanzania, thanks to the call that God has given to Henry and Priscilla Ziegler to serve in a medical ministry there. Who has someone in your life called you to consider your neighbor?
Sometimes the people whom God puts into the presence of our church community live very near us and knock at our door, so to speak. There is a great example of that right here. We are involved in a ministry that prepares and serves meals each month at a local shelter, and God has given us the Yi and Pugh families to teach us to stretch our concept of neighbor in that direction. Each winter we stretch ourselves even more when we open our church building as a shelter for a week. Then we give of ourselves individually and corporately, and in the process discover that the people in need whom we serve are very much like us. Which of your neighbors have you fed with your love?
I see that at Holy Cross we are trying (and often succeeding) at loving our neighbor as ourselves. That is the way of faithfulness, the doing of the Great Commandment. However, being a member of a church that has many Great Commandment ministries is only a start. Funding such ministries is the next step, but the step that really counts is becoming personally involved in living a life of love.
“If we love God, we will love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. If we love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves, we will love God.” If this sounds like circular reasoning, it is. No matter where we break into this circle of love, one step leads to another and back again. Love is all connected, of a single piece. Love is of God and love *is* God.
Sometimes I think that we humans devise religious laws to disguise what we know to be true in our hearts: Having a relationship with God is not so much about what we believe, but how we act.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Location: Holy CrossEpiscopal Church, Dunn Loring, VA
Text: Philippians 2:1-13
15Pentecost, Proper 21, Year A
The Peace of God
Let’s imagine that Saint Paul came to Dunn Loring and opened a drug store. Perhaps this store would be right out here on Gallows Road. Perhaps Paul would call his store the Peace of God Pharmacy. After all, the Peace of God IS a potent restorer of physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The Peace of God works something like a drug by restoring and maintaining our health.
I began to speculate about just such an event—Saint Paul coming to Dunn Loring and opening a Peace of God drug store—when I remembered a sermon that Alyce McKenzie had shared in her book, Novel Preaching.[1] In that sermon Saint Paul opened a restaurant that served only one entrée, the “Peace of God.” I can’t see Paul as a chef, though, or such a restaurant playing out here in Dunn Loring the way it did in Alyce’s home town. Still, we take our inspirations however God gives them to us, so imagine Saint Paul’s Peace of God Pharmacy right here in Dunn Loring.
I can see Paul’s pharmacy now. Paul would have a whole lot of the “Peace of God” to give away, because Paul would not sell Peace of God. Paul would have enough Peace of God to give to each and every one of the eight-thousand-three-hundred-and-fifty-one residents of Dunn Loring. And Paul would have an infinite supply left over for the folks in Vienna, and Arlington, and Fairfax, and even Woodbridge and Washington, DC, who might also want the Peace of God. Yes, the Peace of God would be abundant and absolutely free. But perhaps Paul would sell the things that go with the Peace of God, the things that make the Peace of God active in our lives. I can see it now.
Can you see Paul’s pharmacy? It’s in a big building right out here on Gallows Road. Paul would have taken out a full-page ad in BOTH The Washington Post AND the Washington Times. “The Peace of God,” the ad would say, and “FREE” in a large-font headline, followed by the fine print, “Some activation required.” Well, not activation, exactly, but we can do things which limit the effectiveness of the Peace of God—much like the disbelief in Jesus in his hometown limited his ability to do works of power there. So I will talk about the Peace of God as if it requires “some activation.”
Now suppose—since we are imagining—that Paul has other cities to visit to distribute the Peace of God, so he hires you to be his Dunn Loring agent and to distribute the absolutely free Peace of God—and to sell as much of the activating agent as possible. The activating agent comes in three easy-to-use variations: compassion, sympathy, and generosity.
At this very moment it is the evening before the Peace of God Pharmacy is scheduled to open. You are at work, checking on everything: the incredibly abundant supply of the Peace of God, and the aisles and aisles of compassion, sympathy, and generosity. Every last detail has been tended to. You straighten a display when you hear a big commotion coming from outside the store. It sounds like voices, so you peek outside to check, and sure enough, there are a lot of people out there. Many of them have blankets or a sleeping bag, and they are arguing loudly, jostling for position, trying to be the first in line for tomorrow’s grand opening. Because things seem to be getting ugly, you decide to intervene. You grab a large supply of Peace of God and a handful of compassion, sympathy, and generosity, and step outside.
“What’s the problem?” you ask the crowd. But as the words come out of your mouth you realize that you know who these people are. “Donald Trump!” you exclaim before you can stop yourself. “Yes,” the famous entrepreneur preens, “I’m here for the free Peace of God, but I don’t need the activating agent. I myself can make the Peace of God work. But these other people are getting in my way.”
Before you can reply Lisa Nowak interrupts. Lisa was a senior Navy officer and astronaut who was so upset that her one-time boyfriend had begun dating someone else that she drove cross-country to pepper-spray her rival. Lisa, as it turns out, wants the Peace of God, also. “I don’t want these other people to have what I have,” she says, “they might use the Peace of God up.”
As you wonder whether Lisa understands that the Peace of God is absolutely free and available in unlimited supply, Aaron Titus begins to argue with Lisa. Perhaps you remember Aaron. He is a local man who got a robocall, an automated telephone call, from his son’s school at 4:30 one winter morning telling him what had long been evident the night before, that he could sleep in because school would be closed that day. Aaron was so pleased with the hour of the call that he hired a firm to make robocalls to each member of the school board the following morning at 4:30 AM. As Aaron verbally spews on Lisa you marvel at just how much vengeance Aaron seems to carry around with him. Vengeance seems to be heavier than compassion, sympathy, and generosity.
As you listen to the loudest voices in the gathered crowd, you discover that Charlie Sheen wants to activate the Peace of God with lack of control. Albert Haynesworth wants to activate the Peace of God with anger. And Alexander Reading wants to use perfectionism. Alexander was a top orthopedic surgeon in England until he committed a minor error during an operation and literally couldn’t live with himself as a result.
It turns out that no one in the crowd wants to buy the activating agent; they are just there for the Peace of God. You extricate yourself from the situation by telling the group that you will check with the owner and then get back to them. Then you go inside and dial 1-800-call-Paul.
The apostle Paul, of course, tells you that he isn’t the owner—Christ Jesus is. And Paul tells you to read the letter he wrote to the church in Philippi, the letter from which today’s Epistle reading is taken. The church in Philippi was one that Paul himself had founded. Paul loved the Philippians, and the Philippians loved him. Much like the people at Holy Cross, the people who were part of the church at Philippi were true Christians, generous in giving to others, and actively living lives as disciples of Christ-Jesus. And yet, news had come to Paul that some of the people in Philippi were fighting among each other.
Paul’s response was to write the people of Philippi a letter reminding them to activate the Peace of God in their dealings with each other. Paul said that the Philippians should do this for two reasons. First, he wanted his joy in them to be complete. But more importantly, Paul wanted the Philippians to activate the Peace of God in their lives to follow the example that Jesus has given us.
Paul reminded the Philippians that, being God-made-human, Jesus could have rightfully claimed an honored place in this world. Instead, Jesus “emptied himself” of his claim to power—the very thing he was tested about in his third temptation in the wilderness. Ridding himself of any claim to power, he “became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
Paul said this much more eloquently, so eloquently scholars believe that in verses five through eleven Paul was quoting the very first creed of the early Christian church. These verses might even have been one of the earliest Christian hymns.
So what does Paul’s letter to his beloved and only slightly imperfect Philippians have to do with us today at Holy Cross? First, the Good News of Paul’s letter is as directly applicable to us today as it was to the Philippians in Paul’s day. The Peace of God, which as you will recall “passes all understanding,” is still totally free. The Peace of God is still activated by compassion, sympathy, and generosity, but instead of costing money, these Christ-like traits cost us only giving up our egotism, jealousy, vengeance, lack of control, anger, paranoia, perfectionism, and the like. We don’t even have to give up these traits by ourselves, because Jesus will help us if we ask him to. Jesus might even help us if we neglect to ask him, but the process usually takes longer.
“BUT WAIT,” you might be thinking, “WE are not the church in Philippi. WE are not fighting among ourselves. True! If we all are fighting among ourselves I assure you that you have hidden it very well. Good on you; the mind of Christ must be among the people in this parish.
I wonder, though, what have we done to give our unlimited supply of the Peace of God away? We have ample compassion, we have amply sympathy, and we have ample generosity. Are we hoarding these things for use only within these walls? We spring into action whenever a stranger crosses our threshold and we share our compassion, sympathy, and generosity through our outreach ministries. But what do we do to let the eight-thousand-three-hundred-and-fifty-one residents of Dunn Loring know why we do these ministries, and that Holy Cross is a Peace of God storehouse, a Peace of God depot right here on Gallows Road. Right here in their midst?
[1] McKenzie, Alyce M. Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons. 1st ed. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
