12/19/2011 Senior Sermon at VTS

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 2,011^th 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.

12/18/2011 sermon: The prophet Mary

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 2,011^th 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?

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[1] Romans 3:10 (NRSV)

10/23/2011 sermon: Loving our Neighbor

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.”

9/25/2011 sermon: The Peace of God

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?

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[1] McKenzie, Alyce M. Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons. 1st ed. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.

7/31/2011 sermon: Jesus draws a crowd

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, VA
Text: Matthew 14:13-21
7Pentecost, Proper 13, Year A

Jesus draws a crowd

Photograph by Aquila, who owns the rights thereto. Used under limited license. Click the photo to visit Aquila’s Flikr account.

The great thing about tonight’s Gospel lesson is that it tells us everything we need to know about who Jesus was in his own day, and who Jesus IS for us in our age. What tonight’s Gospel lesson tells us is that Jesus is the one who TEACHES us how to be who God created us to be, who LOVES, HEALS, and FEEDS us along this journey that we call life. And above all, tonight’s lesson shows us that Jesus draws a crowd.

Yet curiously for a story about huge crowd of people, the lesson begins with Jesus getting into a boat and going on sabbatical. At least Jesus TRIED to take a sabbatical, a time apart from his ministry to be alone with God. Matthew does not say WHY Jesus needed a time-out,–a hiatus, a sabbatical, an interim period—but you will notice in the scripture reading that Jesus went to a “deserted place by himself.”

We know from elsewhere in the gospels that on other occasions Jesus went alone to the desert to pray. Perhaps Jesus needed some alone-time for concentrated prayer, and alone-time was not something that Jesus was able to get in large measure. One of the many things that the gospel writers all agree about is that Jesus was thronged with crowds of people everywhere he went. The crowds just loved to be near Jesus, and from this we can imagine just how charismatic and caring Jesus was. Crowds came, and Jesus loved them. Crowds came, and Jesus taught them—and they even marveled at Jesus’ understanding of the scriptures. Crowds came to Jesus, and he healed them.

So Jesus was almost always around people. Yet the crowds of people who followed him did not seem to drain him. Quite the opposite: Jesus was predominantly moved to compassion by the crowd, as he is in tonight’s lesson. Sometimes the huge numbers of people surrounding Jesus presented logistical challenges. Remember in Mark’s gospel when there were so many people that Jesus ended up with a hole in his roof, a hole that some people cut to get their paralyzed friend near enough to Jesus so that he would be healed? So, too, in Matthew’s gospel there were vast multitudes that caused logistical problems. Earlier in Matthew there were so many people around Jesus that he sat in a boat off the shore of Lake Galilee to teach the crowd the very parables that we have been hearing about this summer. Everywhere he went—except to the desert—Jesus drew a crowd.

I am telling you about the crowds because it definitely was not like Jesus to need a sabbatical from the people who sought him out. So what is going on here in tonight’s gospel lesson? Here are a few possibilities. First, Herod had just killed John-the-Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and colleague in ministry, his friend. Perhaps Jesus was afraid. We don’t like to think of Jesus as having a flicker of fear about his fate, but if we acknowledge Jesus’ humanity as well as his divinity he MIGHT have been afraid.

Perhaps Jesus was contemplating and praying about what John’s death would mean in terms of a change of direction for his ministry. It is clear that Jesus’ work DID take on new directions in relation to what was happening to John-the-Baptist. For instance, after John had been arrested Jesus began to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and he called some fishermen to be his disciples. Perhaps Jesus just needed some alone-time with God after John was killed, time to ask God, “What should I do NOW?” AND “Are you SURE that this is what you want me to do?”

Whatever caused Jesus to return to the desert, away from his disciples and the crowd, he emerged from his sabbatical with a new agenda. And what did he find when he returned from the desert? Verse 14 tells us that he “saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.” So Jesus’ new agenda was a lot like his old one: LOVE THEM, TEACH THEM, HEAL THEM. But this time Jesus went one step further than he had ever gone before: He also FED THEM, not just with spiritual food, but with physical food as well.

I have often wondered about the point of this miracle. Why did Jesus feed the crowd with loaves and fishes? He loved them. He taught them. He healed them. Now he served them dinner! Scholars tell us that Jesus’ feeding of the crowd was a foretaste of the Eucharist. I think that this is so, but giving us a preview of the Eucharist could not have been the entire reason. By this feeding-miracle Jesus revealed plainly who he was—for all who had faith to understand and eyes to see. So, too, we have this story today of the “feeding of the five thousand” to tell us exactly who Jesus is, for all who have faith to understand and ears to hear. Jesus is the one who has the power of God to do all things, who teaches us how to be fully who we are created to be, who has compassion when we fall short, and who loves, heals, and feeds us along this journey we call life.

To know this information is one thing, to apply it to our lives is quite another. Jesus went to the desert, presumably to pray, after John-the-Baptist had left them. He might have been afraid, he might have sought new direction in his ministry. How is Jesus’ time apart like our interim period at St. Andrew’s? Our Vestry is working on a new mission statement, one that will set in print and on our lips whatever new direction in ministry we feel God telling us to pursue. And, like Jesus’ new direction after he emerged from the desert, presumably our mission statement will be a lot like our old one, perhaps with a new dimension or two.

Will our new mission statement draw a crowd, like Jesus’ did? I believe so because Jesus is so charismatic that crowds are always drawn to him, even to this day, to the extent that we let who Jesus is be seen in all that we are and in all that we do.

7/27/2011 sermon: Unity

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, VA
Text:   John 17:20-26
William Reed Huntington

Unity

Photograph of William Reed Huntington, from the Website of Grace Church, New York City, which owns the rights thereto

Today we remember William Reed Huntington, a late 19^th century priest in the Episcopal Church. Huntington did not die for his faith; he is not a saint because he was a martyr. However, he DID serve over 40 years as a deputy to General Convention, and he’s credited with helping the Episcopal Church weather a particularly difficult time in its history as it produced and adopted a “new” prayer book 1892.

The issue of Huntington’s day was what “kind” of Episcopalian to be. Should we all be High Church,  with incense, a lot of pageantry and ritual, and a belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? This was the newest expression of Anglicanism at the time, brought to America from England by the Oxford Movement. OR should we all remain Low Church, emphasizing a personal relationship with God rather than the sacramental aspects of our common worship? As I reflected on the challenges that faced the Episcopal Church in Huntington’s day, I was reminded that we have managed to find something to fight over pretty much throughout the history of the church. (Jew/Gentile; slave/free; left-handed/right-handed; male/female… the list goes on, doesn’t it?)

Huntington’s gift was that he preached and taught reconciliation and unity. He firmly believed that God wanted us to be one, united in and through Christ, so that the whole world might be reconciled to God through us.[1] To this end Huntington wrote what became the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which the whole Anglican Communion adopted. This document gives us a four-point way to define Anglican identity, rather than letting the WAY WE WORSHIP define our identity: First, Huntington said, the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation. Thus the Bible is our “standard of faith.” Second, the creeds, particularly the Apostles and the Nicene Creeds, are a sufficient statement of the Christian faith. Third, there are but two sacraments, baptism and Holy Eucharist (the remaining five held as sacraments by the Roman Catholic Church we call “sacramental acts”). Finally, the historic episcopate, as locally adapted, is central to our understanding of our faith. In these four ideas we find  the basis for our shared ethos as Anglicans—not in our style of worship, but in our shared understanding of these four things.

The reason that this quadrilateral statement was necessary was that the church was being torn apart by what eventually became a schism, led by a few ambitious priests and some retired bishops. The Reformed Episcopal Church broke away from the Episcopal Church due to what it perceived as the “excessive ritualism” being adopted as the High Church movement reached America. It’s sometimes helpful, I find, in the midst of our own church schisms today to look back on those of the past. Somehow, with the perspective of time, the controversies of the past do not look quite so ultimately important as they do when we are in the middle of them.

In Second Corinthians Saint Paul says that God reconciled us to himself through Christ, not counting our trespasses against us, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation, so that we and others can be reconciled to God. Speaking strictly to myself now, albeit out loud and in your presence, I wonder: if I cannot be an ambassador of the message of reconciliation, how can I hope to share it with others who have not yet heard the Good News of God’s saving grace? If I cannot be an ambassador of the message of reconciliation, how can I hope to share it with you? How can I share it with anyone who holds a different view of Truth? How, then, will my efforts (as ambassador) close the gaps between God and me; God and humankind; you and me?

Our Gospel lesson today tells us why unity is important, and it’s not for the sake of numbers. The reason that we are to be reconciled is this: So that we may be one, as God the Father and God the Son are completely one, so that the world may know that God sent Jesus and that he loved us.

Risen Lord, you made yourself known to us in the breaking of the bread. And as your servant William Reed Huntington reminds us, make yourself known to us also in moments of reconciliation.

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[1] 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

7/24/2011 sermon: Be a weed-seed!

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, VA
Text: Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
Proper 12, Year A

Be a weed-seed!

A mustard plant, grown to full weed size; image by okolo, who owns the rights thereto

In tonight’s gospel lesson Jesus uses a series of short parables to tell us about the Kingdom of God. He tells us what the Kingdom of God is like, rather than what the Kingdom of God is.

• The Kingdom of God, Jesus says, is LIKE a mustard seed, a teeny tiny seed that grows into a big weed, a big weed that gives shelter to those who come and rest in it. From this we learn that the Kingdom of God starts out small—with only one person in it, one person named Jesus, who is God-made-flesh. And, weed-seed by weed-seed, the Kingdom grows and transforms our world into God’s vision of what his creation should be. You and I are fellow weed-seeds, seemingly insignificant by ourselves and unable to change anything, let alone the whole world. And yet, haven’t Jesus’ disciples been doing exactly that in every age since Jesus showed us how? We are God’s agents for transforming our broken selves and our broken world into the Kingdom of God,
• The Kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like yeast, something not previously associated with the holy. Do you remember? Holy bread was unleavened bread, bread which contained no yeast. Under the Old Law, yeast was thought of as something like a contaminant, something that made holy bread bad. In that way we are yeast. But here Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like yeast, something small that when combined with the holy bread, can create something vastly new and different than what existed before.

I’ll let you ponder the meaning of the rest of these “Kingdom of God” parables because I want to share the “so what.” Now that we know what the Kingdom of God is like, what difference does it make in our lives?

From the weed-seed and the unholy-yeast, we can start to see the Kingdom of God through Jesus’ eyes: one person can make a difference, when that person is aligned with and acting as an agent of God in our broken world. Obviously, the more that we weed-seeds act together to do God’s work in our world—the more that we yeast-bits act together—the more the Kingdom of God is created here on earth.

The great thing about St. Andrew’s is that our parish offers us many opportunities to be weed-seeds for God.

• Our teens returned today from a work-camp trip to West Virginia, where they joined other teens from churches of many denominations around the country, to build and repair houses for people who have no money.
• Right here in our own neighborhoods we collect and prepare food for helping-hands organizations, we teach English as a Second Language, build homes for families who need them, and we participate in many other such efforts, either as individuals or as part of a group from St. Andrew’s. In short, we do the work to build the Kingdom of God.

We are very busy weed-seeds. But the most important thing about all this Kingdom-of-God work is that we know why we do it, not just because we are good people doing good. The truth is more startling: We are weeds unless or until we begin doing God’s work in our world, helping to transform our world into the Kingdom of God and being ourselves transformed in the process.

I speak in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

7/17/2011 sermon: This is a thin place

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, VA
Text: Genesis 28:10-19a
Proper 11, Year A

This is a thin place

If you have ever visited the great Christian monastery at Iona in Scotland, you might have heard of the Celtic Christian belief that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, as a rule. At Iona—I am told—you will learn that there are “thin places,” places where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and we are able to glimpse the holy. Iona counts itself as a “thin place,” a place where people can come to have a close, personal encounter with God.

A 1966 painting by Albert Houthuesen, who owns the rights thereto; click image to visit artist's site

If there are, indeed, thin places …(and I assert that there are, and that you are sitting in one right now)… then Jacob must have discovered such a place when he lay down to sleep on his journey toward Haran. Using a stone for a pillow, Jacob slept and dreamed an amazing dream. He saw something like a ladder, with angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth. And as Jacob stared in wonder at the angels, he became aware that the Lord was standing next to him—not ON the ladder but right there next to him.

Talk about a thin place!

Now when Jacob lay down he was not a likely candidate to encounter God, at least not a likely candidate by our standards. Perhaps you noticed in tonight’s lesson that Jacob was traveling all alone. This is because—as you might recall from last week—Jacob had just cheated his twin brother Esau out of his birthright and out of his father’s blessing—cheated Esau out of inheriting the Covenant that God made with their grandfather and with their father. Jacob apparently desired the blessing and the birthright a whole lot more than his Esau did. And hadn’t God told the twins’ mother before they were born that the “elder would serve the younger’? Jacob’s story affirms the saying, “God does not call those who are fit; he makes fit those he calls.”

We know that God had chosen Jacob over Esau before they were born, but Jacob and Esau apparently did not. And when Esau realized just what he had given away he was furious, so angry with Jacob that he wanted to kill his own twin brother. Things were so tense in the family that Jacob’s parents suggested that he go away for awhile and live with his mother’s brother. So, here is Jacob, running for his life. He has his desire and the blessing and the birthright, but he have much else at the moment.

I hope that each of you take as much comfort as I do in this story. Our tradition tells us that God is everywhere—that God is utterly accessible—and God is. If the Celts are right, at most God is ever only three feet away. But the reality is that we seem to perceive God more often when we are desperate and running for our lives. Perhaps that’s what it takes for us to take our eyes off the things of this life that blind us and make us unable to sense God standing right there with us, … right here with us all the time…. And at that moment the veil is lifted and the place where we are physically located becomes a thin place, a place where we perceive God.

It’s also very comforting to know that we don’t have to be perfect—we don’t have to be holy already—to experience a close encounter with God. God seeks us out and finds us where we are at: whether we are worshiping in church or sleeping on the ground with a stone for a pillow. God  lets us feel his presence; he makes himself known to us, even when we are literally at rock bottom, especially when we are at rock bottom. We don’t have to be brilliant or rich or young or old or powerful. We don’t have to be saint already. We don’t even have to be skinny. All it takes to have a close encounter with God is for us to notice that God is already … right here with us. … All it takes is for us to notice that there are angels coming and going from heaven and that God himself is at our side.

When God had finally gotten Jacob’s attention God told Jacob what God wanted him to know, what God wants you and I to know today. God said,
“I am the LORD, the God of Abraham-your-father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth,
and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…”
In this era of church downsizing and shrinking budgets, don’t let anybody tell you that our church or our parish is dying; are we not the inheritors of this promise?

When Jacob awoke he immediately decided that the place he was in was holy—that he was in a thin place. And do you remember Jacob’s reaction? He was afraid, and he said, … “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”…  Jacob turned his pillow on its side, poured oil upon it, and named the place Beth-El, a name which means “house of God.” This “house of God” is a place to which Jacob later returned upon instruction from God, making it his home and building an altar there, a temple to the Lord.

The main altar at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Burke, Virginia

I wonder: did the men and women from St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Springfield who founded St. Andrew’s 39 years ago on the First Sunday in Advent, 1972, look for a “thin place” in Burke in which to worship? We know that our founders came to this place bearing an altar. Yes, they brought an altar with them, one that founding member Lee Overston had made. This original altar doubled as a storage container during the week ready to be carried to whatever school the fledgling congregation would use on Sunday. This original altar, by the way, is still in use here today in the chapel; feel free to check it out on your way out of the service today. It is ingeniously made, and those who have worshiped at it attest that it is a thin place.

So our founders brought an altar with them to this place. Did they build THIS altar to the Lord here in this very spot because they had encountered God here, or because they had brought their “thin place” with them? Perhaps this question is like inquiring which came first, the chicken or the egg. Well over 700,000 people have attended worship here in this facility, so I suspect that if THIS altar wasn’t a thin place when St. Andrew’s was first built, surely it has become a thin place by now?

I submit to you that St. Andrew’s is … a gateway to heaven as surely as the ladder Jacob saw in his dream. … And at these altars both saints and scoundrels approach the Lord our God every week—and usually the saints and scoundrels are inhabiting the same physical body. God visiting Jacob as he lay sleeping should give each of us tremendous hope.

We—you and I—we each are inheritors of this promise that God gave to Jacob. Let me translate God’s promise into our language today. God says to us, “I am the Lord, the God of your ancestors and the God of all who shall inherit this promise. The land on which you sit right this minute I have given to you and to your offspring—BE THEY YOUR CHILDREN-BY-BLOOD OR HEIRS-BY-ADOPTION; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you through this interim period and beyond; I will never leave you or forsake you.”
“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

7/13/2011 sermon: Test all spirits

Location: St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Burke, VA
Text: Luke 14:27-33
Benedict of Nursia

Test all spirits

We know very little about Benedict of Nursia, whom we remember today. His claim to fame is that he is the “Father of Western Monasticism” because he was the first to popularize the practice of Christians living ascetic lives in communities set apart from the world.

Benedict lived in central Italy in the early sixth century, a time when the Roman Empire was in its death throes and war with invading barbarians was a way of life. Civilization was literally breaking down. Benedict greatly disapproved of the resulting immorality of his day. He withdrew to a cave in the countryside outside of Rome and spent his days as a hermit, praying and fasting. Every once in awhile another monk he knew would come by and lower food and water to him by rope.

Benedict’s devout life soon drew a number of other people to him, people who began to follow his example on how to live a Christian life. However, these original followers found his way of life too harsh, and they tried to poison him. Benedict forgave these monks and began again with other followers. This time he wrote what has become his very famous “Rule of Life,” a prescription for how to live life each day in a monastic community devoted to the ways of Christ.

Holy Women, Holy Men tells us that Benedict’s Rule had its followers spending about four hours a day in communal prayer, five hours in spiritual reading, six hours doing the physical work of the community, one hour eating, and eight hours sleeping. The monks would read all of the Psalms every week in the course of their worship. The many communities which have subsequently used Benedict’s Rule of Life have all found his prescription a well-balanced way to live an intentionally Christian life—if not the actually allocation of time in any given day, then the four-fold way of life spend in prayer, service to others, study, and Christian fellowship.

The question for us today is which piece of Benedict’s ample wisdom is calling for our attention. There are two aspects of the Rule of Life which I want to mention, and they are related. The first and most important is that the theme of love is deeply intertwined in the Rule. By living Benedict’s Rule of Life we come to see that the ultimate point of our life is love. We begin by learning to accept that we are beloved of God, loved beyond measure. And this boundless love that God has for each of us then allows us to love everyone else whom God has put into our lives.

The second aspect of Benedict’s Rule of Life that I invite our attention to today concerns his view of the proper response to those who seek entry into the Christian community. Today we make it a practice to be very accepting of all who come to be part of our communal life. We bend over backwards to welcome newcomers and hope that they will stay with us. Benedict, though, would caution us to be clear about whose needs we are meeting when we do so. Perhaps our unquestioning acceptance of all into our community—particularly leadership in the community—meets our own needs to get a job accomplished, or even our own need to express love for the other and to share all that God has so freely given to us. But on occasion this might not be the most loving response, if it feeds rather than alleviates the newcomer’s neediness.

As shocking as it might be to us today, Benedict advised his monks to let newcomers knock on the door over and over again, and for those on the inside to be uncooperative for awhile as a way of testing the person seeking entry. He even had his monks heap a bit of abuse on the newcomers. (I hadn’t realized until just now how Benedictine our diocesan discernment process IS for those who are seeking Holy Orders!) Now I am not advocating that we abuse our newcomers. But for Benedict, this was a way of warding off those who might see the community as the easy answer to whatever their neediness was. “Beloved,” Benedict advised,” do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”

I wonder if it might not behoove us—if it might not be more loving, perhaps—to follow Benedict’s advice? First, are our lives ones of living and sharing God’s love? In other words, do we practice what we preach? And do we let our own need to be hospitable sometimes outweigh the community’s need to test the spirits of those who enter into the Christian way of life?

I ask these questions in the name of God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustain of Life and Love.

2/24/2011 sermon: Witness to the Resurrection

Location: Virginia Theological Seminary
Feast of St. Matthias

Witness to the Resurrection

If the Holy Spirit is both the inspiration behind the divine desire that we all may be one—and the author of all joy—then she must be extraordinarily pleased this morning. What we have here is a service of Morning Prayer using the Book of Common Worship from the Presbyterian Church, on an Episcopal seminary campus, where we are asked to remember and reflect upon the life of Saint Matthias, a Jewish man who became a martyr for Christ. I am delighted to be part of this enterprise!

Fun facts about St. Matthias, courtesy of Catholic.org

What we do on a saint’s day in any Christian tradition is to use that individual’s life as the lens through which we examine scripture, and as the lens through which we examine our own lives.

We only know two things for sure about Matthias’ life, though. Acts chapter one tells us that the apostles’ first order of business after Jesus ascended into heaven was to find a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Judas had betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide. Matthias was one of two nominees to become the Replacement Apostle, and both nominees had been selected based on this one qualification: they both had been with Jesus and the original twelve apostles ever since Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptizer. In other words, the only qualification for Judas’s replacement was that it be a disciple who had been a witness to all that had transpired, especially Jesus’ Resurrection. In modern sports parlance this would have made Matthias a member of the Apostles’ Farm Team. Second, Acts tells us that Matthias was selected “by lot,” saying in essence that God, not the apostles themselves, had chosen Matthias.

This is all that we know for sure about Matthias. Later Christian tradition tells us that he faithfully carried out his commission, preaching the Gospel of Christ Jesus and the Good News of salvation, eventually becoming a martyr for our faith.

Spiritually speaking, this is all that we need to know about Matthias, or about anyone else, for that matter. Matthias had met Jesus and had become a faithful follower of Jesus. God didn’t just call Matthias, God selected him for an important ministry, and Matthias faithfully carried out that ministry.

Those who speculate about such things for a living tell us that Matthias must have been totally unlike Judas Iscariot. They reason that the Twelve would have wanted to ensure that there were no repeat Judas performances. However, as our Old Testament lesson attests, when God selects someone for a ministry, God provides what is needed to carry out that ministry.

In our reading for today we hear Samuel asking God (and I paraphrase), “How can I [do what you ask of me]?” And we hear God responding, “I will show you what you shall do…” These are tremendously reassuring words for all of us, because God selects each and every one of us to an important ministry.

But, lest we get too comfortable, both of our scripture readings today contain reminders that not all who are called, not all who are chosen, are faithful to the ministry that God has given them. Saul disqualified himself from being king over Israel by forgetting who was king and who was God. Some of those in the early Johannine community disqualified themselves as Christ-followers by denying that Jesus is the Christ. And Judas Iscariot disqualified himself as an apostle by his betrayal of Jesus.

An icon for Saint Matthias from a window at Christ Lutheran Church, Cape Canaveral, Florida

In the end, what Matthias’ life can teach us is that we need to be ready to be given “other God-duties as assigned” by being faithful witnesses to Jesus’ Resurrection. Judas’ name has become synonymous with treachery. Perhaps as Christ-followers we should remember Matthias’ example as thoroughly as we remember Judas’, letting Matthias’ name become a metaphor for faithfulness.

I pray that we may each prove to be a Matthias.