Ash Wednesday, 2021: Choosing Lent

 

Lectionary: Joel 2:1-2,12-17;  Psalm 103 or 103:8-14;  2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad – In the name of God who is Trintiy in unity. Amen. 

Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent – my favorite liturgical season. On this day, no matter how terrible the present times may seem, we ring the church bells (as it were) and call everyone together to pray and listen for God’s call to us to return with all our hearts.

We mark the sign of the cross of Christ on our foreheads with the dust of ashes – the traditional symbol of repentance and humility before God. This is the first act of sanctifying ourselves, the outward sign that says we are ready to step out of the center of our own attention and mindfully, voluntarily, and humbly turn our attention to God.

Lent is not a time for us to wallow in the misery of our wretchedness as hopeless sinners and we don’t fast in order to suffer, or as punishment for sin. We fast to allow ourselves to experience emptiness. In the deep, dark center of ourselves, we willingly choose to make space for something new, something nourishing and life-giving that God will supply. That is what our Lenten journey is about.

The gift of practicing a holy Lent is that when we stop and make time to get honest about God we remember that God is full of compassion, slow to anger, forgives us, and cares for us deeply, intimately, with a love that knows no bounds. Our creator knows our frailties and knows we’ll sin, yet God remains steadfast in redeeming us from death, even crowning us with mercy and loving-kindness.

The hard part of Lent, the part that gets most of the attention, is the part where we make time to get honest about ourselves. Every one of us will find ourselves, at times, lacking the will to be compassionate especially when it involves some amount of sacrifice on our part. There are (or will be) times in our lives when our anger erupts quickly, while forgiveness comes slowly – if at all. And we can be, at times, so preoccupied with ourselves that we become blind to the fact that all around us, our family, friends, and neighbors, known and unknown to us, are suffering.

Sometimes, our preoccupation with ourselves takes the form of addiction – and we can be addicted to many things. Some addictions are familiar: food, alcohol, or drugs. Others are more insidious, like addiction to being in control, being the center of attention, self-criticism, or pessimism.

The word “Lent” actually means spring. Lent is a time when new life is being formed, and the one forming that new life is the same one who forms all life: God.

The temptation we face is thinking that we need to choose what to do or stop doing for Lent. This would be that addiction to control I mentioned. So, rather than deciding what we need to give up or add in, maybe we can approach Lent humbly and let Lent happen in us.

Pierre Teillhard deChardin, a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who died in 1955, once said: “Let us leave the surface and without leaving the world, plunge into God.” This approach fits our gospel reading which cautions us against practicing our piety for others to see. Without leaving the world, we can practice a holy Lent by immersing ourselves fully into God.

That doesn’t mean we do nothing. In fact, the hard work of Lent is emptying ourselves of all that already fills us, including the need to be full and satisfied. But emptiness scares us – the nothingness of it feels kind of like death, so we tend to avoid it.

That’s why Lent is different. Knowing that by our baptism we have entered into Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have no fear of death, not even the little ones - like the death of a habit, or the death of an idea we hold about God, ourselves, our neighbors, or even (gasp) our church.

Teillhard says that death is about communion with God. He says, “…when the painful comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great, unknown forces that have formed me; in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you …who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself… Teach me to treat my death as an act of communion… For you bring new life out of every form of death.”

The traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are tested and reliable ways to enter humbly into this season. Prayer brings us into the presence of God where, if we’re quiet, we will hear God speak to us, guiding us to new ideas, new habits, new life. Fasting reminds us of our mortality and human limitations. When we remember how real and compelling hunger is, we are moved to do something to relieve it –even if it means making a bit of a sacrifice. Alsmgiving is one way we can do something to relieve suffering – offering a special financial gift toward the ministries of our church.

One final word about this: if you are diabetic, on medication, or for some other reason you can’t fast from food – don’t. There are so many other things we can fast from like self-focus, resentment, or estrangement.

Our Lenten practices aren’t about success or failure. We don’t score points for praying, fasting, or giving alms, and we don’t get demerits for not doing those things.

Remember, we don’t do Lent, we choose it. We choose to plunge into God who is waiting to form new life in us. God bless us all as we practice a holy Lent. Amen.

Epiphany Last, 21-B: Strengthened and changed

 Lectionary: 2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9 

 En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad. Int he name of God, who is Trinity in unity. Amen. 

As Christians we are, I hope, dedicated to a life-long journey of formation to strengthen our spiritual muscles, as it were, to continually grow and mature in our faith. Most of us have spent a lifetime already learning and saying prayers, hearing the stories in our Scriptures, and wrestling with what they mean for us today. 

 The skill we use for that is what I call “listening behind the words.” There are the words in our prayers, and the greater truth behind those words given to us by “the Spirit [who] intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (Ro 8:26) There are the stories in our Scriptures and the eternal truth behind those stories that enable us to connect the divine intention to our lives today.

In Mark’s version of the Transfiguration story, Jesus leads his Executive Committee - Peter, James, and John - away from the others. They go up to a high mountain – Bible-speak for a place where God is encountered.

Suddenly, Jesus begins to shine with a light so bright his clothes dazzle and there was a brilliant aura emanating from him. These are traditional symbols for transcendence - the greatness of God, that surpasses all things created. Mark is telling us that what happened on that mountain was an experience that goes beyond the limits of all possible knowledge and experience - an eternal truth about God.

Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appear and they are chatting with Jesus. The two most powerful prophets in Jewish history, Biblical heroes who were long dead and gone, are suddenly not dead or gone. They're right here and Peter, James, and John watch as their ancient heroes chat with their beloved rabbi. In this is revealed the eternal truth that death is not the end for us, but the gateway to eternal life.

Then Peter, God bless Peter, offers to build a shrine to mark this amazing moment. Peter takes some grief for his suggestion, but it wasn’t so out there. People make shrines all the time to leave a visual marker of an important event - like the crosses we see on roadsides that mark where someone died in a car accident, or grottos to Mother Mary in places like Lourdes, Guadalupe, and Fatima. It helps some people to go to a place where heaven met earth and pray there.

Then, Mark tells us, they are overshadowed by a cloud. A cloud is Bible-speak for the Spirit of God, as when Moses was given the stone tablets on Mt. Sinai. And these disciples were overshadowed by the Spirit of God just as Mary was when she conceived the Son of God in her womb, but what they conceive is a transforming truth – one that will take a little time to come to maturity in them. Seeing Jesus glow in that unearthly light and hearing the voice from heaven claim him as Son and Beloved, the disciples now were beginning to understand what they hadn't understood before. They were becoming aware that all of their preconceived notions about Jesus, including their grand expectations of him as Messiah, suddenly seemed so limited, so small, so untrue.

Then, in an instant, the world around them returns to the one they knew and could comprehend. Jesus wasn't glowing anymore. Moses and Elijah were gone. The cloud of God's powerful presence has vanished, and it’s just them again on the mountain, alone.

As they begin their journey down the mountain, the disciples are still in that groggy state of mind that happens when your brain is trying to make sense of something it can't. We can almost hear their unspoken thoughts: What just happened? Was it a dream? It couldn't have been a dream… can you even have a group dream? Wait till we tell the others! As if he can hear their thoughts, Jesus warns his Executive Committee to tell no one until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Did they connect the dots that Jesus, who dazzled only moments ago, is actually the Messiah of God, and said that he will die and rise again? Did we?

The three disciples' journey down the mountain marks the beginning of their journey to new lives as the truth conceived in them begins to take root and grow. The remainder of Mark’s gospel shows us how their new understanding is nourished and expanded by their teacher, Jesus, with lessons on forgiveness, the kingdom of heaven and who belongs to it, healing as a sign of the generosity and accessibility of God's grace, and their call to become servant leaders of this new way of being in the world.

It's a long journey for them. They constantly come up against the limits of their habits and thinking, and Jesus patiently guides them beyond those limits again and again.

On this the last Sunday after the Epiphany, we begin our liturgical journey down the mountain and into the wilderness of Lent. There we set aside time to discover and confront the limits of our habits and thinking and invite Jesus to guide us beyond those limits into a new way of being in the world.

If we are to be “strengthened to bear our cross, and… changed into [Jesus’] likeness from glory to glory, then we must invite Jesus to guide us, to change us and how we live in the world as it is right now… a world where millions of people have insufficient access to safe food, water, housing, and medical care… a world where people are disenfranchised or killed because of the color of their skin or their gender or gender-fluidity… a world where people can get fired from their jobs because they are gay or trans… a world where the “haves” can ignore the needs of the “have-nots” and enforce laws and practices to maintain the status quo they have carefully engineered to keep them on top.

Thankfully, our liturgical calendar offers us the perfect opportunity to be guided in just this way. We call it Lent.

On Ash Wednesday this week, we will embody our awareness of “the shortness and uncertainty of human life” by marking our foreheads with ash in the shape of the cross of Christ, and we’ll begin an intentional journey toward truth and transformation in holiness and righteousness, boldness and compassion, in the manner of Jesus, whom we proclaim as Lord. 

May it be so for each of us and for all of us. Amen.

5 Epiphany, 2021-B: All things to all people

 Lectionary: Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39 

En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad. (In the name of God who is Trinity in Unity) Amen.

Long ago and far away, I spent a year as a hospital chaplain on the oncology-hematology unit of a regional hospital deep in the heart of the Bible belt in south GA. All of my cancer patients died and my sickle cell patients returned regularly with painful recurrences of their disease. 

These people needed God to be bigger and more powerful than the diseases destroying their bodies. They needed the God described in Isaiah who is “great in strength [and] mighty in power.” As insignificant and undeserving as they often said they felt, they needed to believe that God cared about them and would, as Isaiah said, “give power to the faint and strengthen the powerless.”

During a typical hospital visit, I would spend a great deal of time listening. I often heard them say they feared God - not because God was so great but because they were upset with God for not caring enough to cure them. Then they felt guilty, which made them afraid that God might be mad at them for being angry. It’s a terrible spiral.

As their chaplain, I had to trust that my prayer would unite us to God, as Julian of Norwich said it would. It also meant putting aside my way of being a child of God and entering their way. For example, when family or friends were present, I would listen as they talked or prayed together.

I made note of the words and phrases they used – especially the ones they repeated. I would listen for the song of their prayers, that is, the way they used their voices. I learned the cadence and language of their prayers so that when I spoke the good news to them they could hear and understand it. I also noticed their posture so I could mirror it.

For the Pentecostal patients, I learned to pray as a Pentecostal: “Thank you, Jesus. We just thank you Jesus that we can come to you right now and give you praise. We call upon you, Lord, in the name of Jesus to lift the burdens of our hearts. Here is your child, Father God. Take him home now – home to glory-land. Thank you, Jesus. Glory halleluiah!”

For the Jewish patients, I prayed like a Jew: “Hear, O Adonai, and answer the prayers of your faithful servants. Look upon the suffering of this your righteous one and be merciful to her. Protect her with the strength of your right arm, for you are steadfast in love and mighty in power, and to you we give thanks and sing our praise forever.”

To the wounded Christians, I prayed as one also wounded: “Holy God, you are gracious and full of compassion. Hear our prayers for this beloved child of yours. Hold him close in the warm embrace of your healing love. Smile upon him and comfort him in body, mind, and spirit.”

Praying like this was meaningful for them and didn’t feel the least bit hypocritical to me. Was it hypocritical of God to become Incarnate – to become like us – so that we could understand and believe? By seeking to serve in this way, I came to realize that there is within me the free and fiery heart of a Pentecostal, the deep and faithful heart of a Jew, and the cautious but hopeful heart of the wounded ones.

My purpose, as a witness of Christ’s love, was not to analyze their theology or teach them mine. All I had to do was let God show me the connection between them and me, then be willing to be connected. Religious laws and theological perspectives become so beside the point in the face of the Love that connects us - especially in times of suffering or at death.

When Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he violated religious law. Jewish men were not to touch women who were not their family, and worse yet, this healing happened on the Sabbath. But for Jesus, compassion overruled the law – and it was the first of many times he would model such behavior.

Jesus proclaimed the good news to all regardless of the divisions imposed by culture – divisions like class or race or gender or nationality. We who carry on the ministry of proclaiming the good news must be willing, as Jesus was, to go to the people who need to hear the message of salvation, and like St. Paul teaches, give it to them in ways they can understand so that they can receive it.

Elizabethan English, which is found in the King James Bible and in the Rite I services in our Prayer Book, is the language of a past world, and it isn’t very useful when talking to “yutes” in ‘the hood.’ It is, however, the deep spiritual language of many over the age of 50 and a growing number of Millenials, so it continues to have value.

Then there is the “The Hip Hop Prayer Book” a translation of our Prayer Book by my good friend and colleague The Rev. Timothy Holder, or “Poppa T” as he is known. I admit - I was not always a fan of rap or hip hop and I had lots of valid reasons for putting up a wall against that kind of music - but that was my sin. God had a connection to make and I was refusing to be connected.

Now, one of my favorite artists is Tupac Shakur, a rapper who died at the young age of 25. I commend to you his video, Ghetto Gospel. Here’s a bit of Tupac’s message. St. Paul couldn’t have said it better: 

there's no need for you to fear me 

if you take the time to hear me, 

maybe you can learn to cheer me 

it aint about black or white, cuz we're human 

I hope we see the light before its ruined 

my ghetto gospel                                         (Source: Tupac Shakur, Ghetto Gospel.)

The beauty of our Episcopal tradition is that we can pray in Elizabethan English, preach about a rapper, and chant our Gloria – all in the same service. We are and we can be, as St. Paul says, all things to all people, as we proclaim the good news that the all-mighty God who is great in power, who stretches out the heavens, is also a tender, compassionate God who notices the suffering, lifts up the lowly, and renews their strength - because we all matter to God. 

 Like Tupac, “I [too] hope we see the light…” and speak it out there to all who need to hear it. Amen.

4 Epiphany 21-B: Prophets among us

 Lectionary: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28 

En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen.

I once had a bishop who said that we all are prophets - and he wasn’t talking just to the clergy. I’ve pondered that for many years and I agree with him. I think we all will have a prophetic word to share at some point, even if it isn’t our life-long vocation.

In our Old Testament reading today, we heard Moses say that we should heed the prophet God will raise up from among our own people. But how do we know a true prophet from a false prophet?

We know it when we hear it. The truth of God reaches beyond our heads into our very souls; and we heed it because God’s Word is life-giving, because that Word, Jesus, lives in us… speaks through us… disrupts through us… heals through us… and loves through us.

In our Gospel reading, when the divine speaks through a faithful human vessel it is astounding, authoritative, and scary. Jesus’ teaching at the synagogue offers the congregation a fuller, deeper understanding of their Scripture that connects their hearts to their heads in a powerful unity.

They recognize the Truth (with a capital T), and it rattles them. They weren’t expecting it. They were expecting the same old, same old. But upon hearing Jesus, a man in the congregation voices a familiar fear: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?

I need to mention here that I don’t think this man was mentally ill, or demon possessed the way so many discuss this story. I say that partly because, according to their law, if the man been demon possessed he’d have been deemed ritually unclean and barred from entry into the synagogue.

It’s a real possibility that he didn’t know he was demon possessed until he heard the divine voice of Jesus. Or he knew but was able to fit in with the community without being noticed because they had bought in to the lies the demon represented: like racism, classism, or sexism.

Given what the Greek actually says there, that he was a man “in” an unclean spirit, not a man “with” an unclean spirit, I think he was probably a faithful member of that community who was astute enough to comprehend that what Jesus was teaching would upend his familiar world…so he was unwilling to accept it and closed himself to Jesus and his teaching.

I think his astute comprehension, together with his unwillingness to let go traditions and structures that served him - even if they didn’t serve others - was the unclean spirit in him which feared that his community would be destroyed.

And he was right - they would be.

If everyone is going to be brought to equality of respect, dignity, and opportunity, the structures that privilege some over others must be dismantled and reimagined. There’s a bit of good news in that for us though - reimagining is something we’ve gotten good at over the last year, amIright?

As we set about reimagining in our time, we’re wise to remember God’s penchant for choosing the unlikeliest human vessels through whom to speak prophetically, like the 22-year old “skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,” Amanda Gorman, who knocked us all over with the feather of her prophetic words at the inauguration last week.

When Ms. Gorman said, “And the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always justice” we recognized the Truth in her words and it rattled us too. Change is upon us. Some of what we love, structures that comfort us (but not others) will be dismantled. It feels like death, and in a way, it is - the death of injustice. 

As Christians, we know that death is the gateway to new life, so unlike the man in the synagogue, we don’t fear or resist the truth we hear from the prophetic voices among us. Society does but we don’t, which is why we need to lead the way.

The pandemic has shaken us loose from clinging to certain familiar structures we never would have thought we could survive without… like worshipping without our Prayer Books or Hymnals, or in our buildings! But we have survived and we will survive whatever else comes.

Like the man in the synagogue, we are astute enough to notice that our familiar world is being upended by the truth spoken by the holy ones of God. This upending has a purpose. When God acts it is always to redeem - which is especially important to remember when it’s our favorite structures being dismantled, because 

 “…the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always justice.” 

 So we let them go, our favorite, comforting structures, trusting that the becoming - the new life God is creating - is one of justice for all, not just for some.

We have seen the face of hate and heard its voice in ways we cannot deny or dismiss lately, and it’s ugly. But we are beautiful. All creation is beautiful because God made all of it, and all of us, and declared it all very good.

We are made in the image of the God of love who, as Dame Julian of Norwich once said prophetically, “did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted'. But… did say, 'You shall not be overcome.' God wants us to heed these words [Julian said] so that we shall always be strong in trust, both in sorrow and in joy.”

We may not all be brilliant poets, but we all are vessels of God’s spirit and speakers of God’s prophetic words. To be strong in trust and faithful prophets, we must be willing to surrender to God - utterly and completely, to move ourselves out of the way and give God’s Spirit free, unrestrained movement within and through us, practicing what I call the John the Baptist method: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn 3:30)

Later this afternoon we will gather for Calvary’s Annual Parish Meeting. Every one of us, of every age, race, rank, and station is a human vessel of the Divine, a prophetic voice through whom God lives, speaks, disrupts, heals, and loves our community and our world.

So, come and celebrate as we enjoy time in community - the best way we can right now - on Zoom. Come and listen because God will speak.

There are prophets among our own people at Calvary, Columbia - and they are us. See y’all at 1:00!

*The icon of Julian of Norwich was written by Ann Davidson of Michigan.

2 Epiphany, 2021-B: Our greening

Lectionary: 1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20); Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51             

En el nombre del Dios: que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen. 

Epiphany is the only season on our liturgical calendar where the color changes mid-stream: from white to green. As with all things liturgical in the Episcopal church, that’s intentional and the reason is: we are shifting our collective focus from the revelation of the heavenly light of Christ to its earthly implementation.

In our Collect, we pray that we may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory. Why do we want that? 

If our answer has anything to do with our own benefit, like getting to heaven or being judged a good child of God, we’ve missed the mark. The answer in our Collect isn’t very satisfying to me either because while knowing, worshiping, and obeying Jesus are wonderful outcomes, they were not his goals.

Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve. He said that very explicitly. (Mt 20:28) He came to connect us to God and one another in a way that would lead to new life in complete and perfect unity with God, one another, and all creation.

It may not come as a surprise to you after the last couple of weeks, that we aren’t there yet. But take heart.

Sometimes the reconciling love of God acts first to disrupt and dismantle systems and structures we have built, structures by which we have gone astray. We tend to resist this kind of divine correction, but our story from the Old Testament today, shows us that a faithful person, even one who has gone astray, can return to faithfulness and concede to rather than resist the will of God - even when that means being held personally accountable for the wrongs done and losing the honor of former days.

Let’s begin with a little context. You may remember that the boy, Samuel, is the son of Hannah, the barren woman who prayed to God for a son, the ancestor who inspired Mary’s Magnificat. In thanksgiving for her son, Samuel, Hannah dedicated him to God giving him over to the care of Eli, the chief priest, to raise in the temple.

In our story today, Samuel hears a voice calling his name in the middle of the night, so he runs to Eli assuming he called him, but Eli hasn’t called him and sends him back to bed. After a few times, Eli realizes it is God calling to Samuel and tells him to answer “Speak Lord for your servant is listening” the next time he hears the voice.

Good advice from an experienced priest.

The next time he hears the voice call his name, Samuel responds the way Eli told him to, and God imparts a terrible truth to him, one he might rather not know, and one is afraid to share with Eli. Samuel lays in bed till morning and it’s probably a safe bet that he didn’t sleep much.

How scary it must have been to hear God speak so forcefully about punishing Eli and his line for their iniquity, which, by the way, was no secret to anyone at that time. The abuses of Eli’s sons were widely known but the system that enabled them was deeply embedded in Jewish tradition and Eli’s privilege as a Judge within that system meant could have - and should have - interceded, but he didn’t.

Eli knows God has spoken to Samuel and coerces Samuel to tell him what God said. So, Samuel does, even though he will likely lose not only his home and his temple community, but also the man who was like a father to him.

Eli’s surprising response was: “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him.”

Eli had to know this was coming. He was an experienced and deeply faithful priest and judge. He knew the sins being committing and that one day he would be held accountable for not intervening. As we say in our Confession, forgive us for what we have done, and what we have left undone.

So when the moment of accountability arrived, Eli didn’t justify himself or his choices, or try to weasel out, or declare an alternative truth. Instead, he acquiesced, restoring his faithfulness to God and to his role as priest and judge.

Eli continued serving God whom he loved, in the temple for many years - until the Philistines attacked the temple. As the story goes, Eli, who was 98 years old by then, was so shocked when heard the Philistines had stolen the ark of the covenant, which he was charged to guard and tend, that he fell off of his chair, broke his neck, and died. His sons were also killed in the battle. It was the end of the family and household of Eli.

Samuel then became the Judge - the last one for Israel. As such, he anointed Saul and later David as Kings of Israel. It was King David through whom God established a path to peace and prosperity for the people of God.

Jesus descended from the line of David and as the Messiah, it was hoped he would bring peace and prosperity to Israel the way his ancestor, King David, had done. But God had a different plan, a bigger plan. By coming to us in the person of Jesus, the path to new life God opened was not just for the people of Israel, but for the whole world.

This bigger plan is what Jesus is beginning to reveal in our Gospel story. In his conversation with Nathanael Jesus demonstrates a little divine knowledge and Nathanael flushes with excitement: You are the Son of God, the King of Israel! But Nathanael is speaking about the expected Davidic King.

“Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” Just wait and you’ll see greater things, Jesus replies. Then he uses images of angels ascending and descending - such rich symbolism - calling to mind the stories of the patriarch, Jacob, and his ladder, the book of Daniel, and Jesus’ own baptism where heaven and earth were opened to each other in real-time and experience.

In each case, the systems enabling the desolations of the current age were disrupted and God established a new pathway, a divine pathway leading to new life. In each case, the new pathway took years to be established.

Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a prophet who radiated the true light; and who, like other biblical prophets, was imperfect and faithful. Dr. King’s message of the value and dignity of every human being threatened the status quo, so they killed him almost 53 years ago now. They may have stopped him, but God was not stopped. The pathway God established through Dr. King is still an open channel and God is still flowing through it establishing a new path of life for us.

The systems enabling the desolations in our time are being revealed to us in an undeniable way lately. Many among us who could have - and should have- stopped the abuses in our systems didn’t.

The moment of our accountability and divine correction is upon us. How will we respond?

We can begin by looking to Eli and Samuel. When the divine correction began for them, Eli and Samuel didn’t stop loving one another. They didn’t demonize or exile the other. They stayed faithful to their relationship with God and one another so that in God’s time, the new path was forged through their cooperative obedience.

This isn’t easy. How do we prepare ourselves to walk through our moment of accountability and systems disruption without demonizing or exiling the “other side”?

This is exactly what this green portion of our season of Epiphany offers us. Having been illumined by the Word and Sacraments, we now open ourselves to what Hildegard of Bingen called “viriditas” - the greening power of the Divine - an invigorating, healing power that flows from God into us and through us into the world, connecting us, and leading us to the new life God is preparing for us.

Hildegard’s principle of connectedness can be understood in this homey example: when a person eats a

healing plant or herb like chamomile for sleep, or ginger for stomach upset we are connected in a very real way to another part of God’s creation and a pathway is established for the healing power of God to flow through our connectedness. It is important then, to keep ourselves nourished in body and spirit so that our connections to God, others, and creation remain open channels for the flow of Divine love.

Nourishment of our bodies - the rich and poor bodies among us - requires that all of us have access to food that is nutrient-rich and affordable. Nourishment of our souls requires the continual practice of prayer and service: gathering online for Sunday worship and weekday Daily Offices, practicing private meditation, supporting Calvary’s Blessing Box, Loaves and Fishes, or participating in dismantling racism in our diocese - all of these are pathways of connection, channels through which the healing power of God flows.  

Whatever chaos happens as our current systems are disrupted and divinely corrected, we know that the redeeming love of God in Christ connects us and leads us to new life. Let’s keep our channels open and watch for the greater things. Amen.

1 Epiphany, 2021-B: Struck by grace again

 Lectionary:  Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen. 

This is such a powerful story - the Baptism of Jesus. In Mark’s version, as Jesus comes up out of the water, he hears a voice from heaven speaking to him saying, YOU are my beloved and with you I am well pleased. Mark doesn’t tell us that anyone else heard the voice. 

In Matthew and Luke, everyone at the river heard the voice from heaven who addressed them all saying, THIS is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased, and Luke adds that the voice said, “listen to him.” 

This may cause us to wonder, which is the true account? My answer would be, they all are. Like most things human, there are various ways to experience and describe the same event. Each gospel writer faithfully described this event their way and because of their diverse perceptions, we are richer as a people in how we encounter God through the story.

In my years as a priest, I’ve had many people ask me why Jesus was baptized at all. Why would the one who was without sin need to be baptized by John who was offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin?

The answer is found in how we understand sin. Theologian Paul Tillich says that before sin is an act, it's a state… a state of separation from God, from self, and from others. Jesus’ choice to be baptized demonstrated the first act of reconciliation, of uniting what had been separated, and it would define his ministry of reconciling the whole world to God.

Also by his baptism Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, overtly invited God to enter his life. He was not coerced into his ministry just as we are not coerced into ours. It is always a choice we make freely.

Mark tells us that when Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were torn apart, and in the midst of that violent rupture the Spirit descended on Jesus softly, gently - the way a dove would. When the voice of the Spirit says to Jesus "You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased" Mark is using language that echoes what is written about the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, in the prophet, Isaiah where God says: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.” (42:1)

Jesus and his cohorts knew full well that there would be suffering in Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation. So do we – when we let ourselves. 

The baptism of Jesus and his reception of the divine Spirit into his human body, changed not only the direction of his life, but the direction of all life. That's what being baptized in the Holy Spirit does, and that’s why we don’t take it lightly. We, like Jesus, have been transformed by our baptism into beloved daughters and sons of God - for a purpose - God’s purpose. 

For Episcopalians, the sacrament of baptism is an outward sign, just as Jesus’ baptism was an outward sign, of the inward and spiritual grace of our union with God in Christ. (BCP, 858) We don't understand Baptism as a form of ecclesiastical fire insurance, that is, as a go-straight-to-heaven card for when we die.

In fact, it isn’t about what happens after our death at all. It’s about how we live.

When we baptize, we are intentionally entering into the death of Jesus Christ so that we might live in the power of his resurrection. (BCP, 306) That’s why we renew our baptismal vows several times each liturgical year, so whether we were baptized as a baby by our parents’ choice or later by our own choice, we make the choice to live according to our baptismal covenant every day for the rest of our lives.

For us, the sacrament of Baptism also marks the moment of our full initiation into Christ’s body, the church. It’s why Episcopalians don’t do private baptisms. Instead, we baptize as part of our Sunday worship, in the presence of all our parish kin, then we parade the newest member of our family up and down the center isle while everyone cheers and welcomes them.

The ministry Jesus claimed at his baptism was characterized by humility. hospitality, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Jesus broke bread with Gentiles and sinners, women, and others who were outcast in his culture. Boldly proclaiming a new revelation of God’s mercy and forgiveness, Jesus freed people from the bondage of their sins, or from the bondage of those who sinned against them, and expanded the boundaries of God’s kingdom to include the least and the lost, the outcast and disrespected, and the outsider.

Jesus’ baptism in Mark is the first of those moments Tillich describes as being "struck by grace," that moment when we realize that God loves us with an incomprehensible love and suddenly "…a light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying: 'You are accepted… accepted by that which is greater than you' …After such an experience [Tillich says]… everything is transformed."

Many of us were baptized as babies, so we don’t remember it. When we renew our Baptismal vows as we will today, we invite God into our bodies as Jesus did so that we can be struck by grace once again, further empowering us for our ministries.

Baptism transforms our relationships with God, with each other, and even with ourselves. Each time we renew our baptismal vows, we accept the call to be the suffering servants in our world today who commit to respect the dignity of every human being - even those we fear or despise, even those who desire to harm us or disrupt our peace.

We can count on being confronted by other “religious” people who will ridicule and condemn us for standing firm in the way of love while violence happens around us, calling us weak or apostate. They said the same about Jesus at his trial, and his faithfulness turned out to be anything but weak. Even as the violence directed at Jesus seemed to win, to destroy him, God redeemed it in a way no one could have seen coming.

The process is the same for us today. We stand firm in Jesus’ way of love, committed to living our baptismal vows every day, making space for the redeeming love of God to transform disaster, death, and despair into peace, new life, and hope.

I give thanks that, after the violent events in our nation’s capitol this week, our liturgical calendar offers us the baptism of Jesus to collect and occupy our thoughts. I’m also grateful that on this date, we typically renew our baptismal vows, which we will do right now as the part of the body of Christ known as Calvary Episcopal Church, in Columbia, MO.

Our hearts and bodies need what these words offer us. Let us pause, take a breath, and open ourselves to be struck by grace again today as we renew our Baptismal Covenant together.

Note: The Baptismal Covenant is found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 299. Choose "Holy Baptism" from the left-side menu.

Quotes above are taken from: Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1948), 154, 160, 161, 162.

Epiphany 2021-B: The cooperative reality of light and dark

 

Lectionary: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12 

En el nombre del Dios: que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen. 

Happy Epiphany! There’s something hopeful about celebrating a season of revelation after being neck-deep in the darkness of COVID this past year. The recent development of a vaccine gives us hope of an eventual reinstatement of hugs, parties, dinners out, and in-person worship.

There’s a sense of relief, of excitement, and expectation in the season of Epiphany. The language in this season is all about light and darkness. Darkness, for most of us, is where monsters hide under our beds; where danger lurks in the shadows; where evil lies in wait, and where we are most vulnerable.

This concept of light as good and dark as bad, when applied to people, however, affirms all kinds of un-Christian behavior, and we’ve been doing it long enough now to call it tradition, rather than what it is: racism. With the revelations about the truth of our structural and institutional racism this last year, there’s been talk on church social media about not using the language of light and dark this season, but I think that would be a mistake.

Perhaps instead, we can recover and apply the inherent goodness and beauty of darkness. Then the startling, transforming truth of the light has a proper context.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the creation story says, “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…Then God spoke and there was light. And God separated the light from the darkness…and called the light Day and the darkness Night.” (Gen 1: 2-5) And you’ll remember later in that story, God called all that had been created not just good, but very good. That includes the darkness and the night.

It is by the design of God that a seed breaks its shell in the deep darkness of the soil and sprouts new life. It was in the darkness of the tomb that Jesus broke the power of death and gave us new life in him.

Darkness is the womb of God and in it, new life is created. It isn’t bad and we needn’t fear or avoid or judge it.

We need the darkness. We need to sleep, to rest and restore our bodies, and allow our minds to process the events of our lives in our dreams – where we also just might hear the voice of God if we open to the possibility.

So much of our culture: our music, literature, movies, even our churches, promote a binary perspective: rich-poor, black-white, good guy-bad-guy, saved-condemned. It’s a natural way for us to approach things. There’s a whole part of our brain whose function it is to do just that - to split everything into two categories. It helps us organize our world - what is safe and what isn’t, what is right and what is wrong, what is worthy of our attention and what isn’t.

The problem comes in when we judge - which Jesus said over and over again that we shouldn’t do when it comes to people. As believers, we also have a problem when rely on ourselves and our own judgment rather than on God’s.

Just for the fun of it, what if we could take sides in a light vs dark contest? What if we could put assign some to be on the light side, and others on the dark side? Then what if we judged those on the light side as good, and those on the dark side as bad? Literature and movies do this for us all the time, affirming the misguided habit of judging both by human measure.

It’s an easy step then, to justify killing all of those on the dark side because they are bad, right? Most religious wars, including our own Crusades, apply this faulty thinking.

So, what would happen if one side were to completely win? We all would be destroyed - literally and figuratively.

If the good light were to “win” and vanquish the bad darkness completely, our earth would overheat and burn. The unrelenting brightness would eventually blind us, and we’d lose our natural rhythms of sleep and wakefulness, which can lead to insanity and death. We need darkness, and we need to remember and embody how to love it and receive its treasure.

Thankfully, as we heard last week, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. (Jn 1:5) The light is not the enemy of the dark. The two work together to reveal the glory of God, for it is in the darkness that the light shines.

In our time, we rarely experience true darkness anymore. Nightlights softly illumine our hallways, bathrooms, and nurseries. They make it easy for us to get to the bathroom at night without stubbing our toes, but, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, they steal from us the “treasure of the night.” That treasure, she says, is God. (Source: Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor)

Like the people Isaiah was writing about, we too have been through a period of great trial and difficulty. And like the people of Israel, we have been delivered, but our deliverance has placed new obstacles before us, obstacles we have to work together to overcome.

Epiphany reminds us of the importance of the cooperative reality of light and dark, each being beautiful and important to life. It also reminds us that God can and does lead us to the middle of nowhere, just as the star-gazers were led to the child Jesus, so that new life can be revealed.

Life glorifies God. New life is always the work of God and God reveals it to those of us willing to travel into the darkness to find it.

As a church we can lead the way - fearlessly, expectantly - into any darkness because we know “the boundless riches of Christ,” and we can be the means by which others come to know that too. We can lead the way because we know that entering the darkness is entering the womb of God, where new life is being formed.

This will be important as we all find our way through the darkness of the -isms that were revealed about us in 2020 to the new life being formed for us by God in 2021.

Let us pray… God of all, let our church become your womb; a place of rest and spiritual refreshment for all souls; a place where new life is created in us and through us into your world; a place where we love and serve in your name. Renew us and make us whole; that we may arise, shine, and live in the glory of the light of your love. In Jesus’ holy name we pray. Amen.