Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2: 1-20
En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en Unidad. Amen.
I'm cruising on the river of life, happy to trust the flow, enjoying the ride as I live into a new season of life and ministry as the Priest in Charge at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves, MO. I am also co-founder of the Partnership for Renewal, a church vitality nonprofit. You are most welcome to visit my blog anytime and enjoy the ride with me. Peace.
Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2: 1-20
En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en Unidad. Amen.
Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2: 1-20
En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en Unidad. Amen.
Lectionary: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
En el nombre del Dios que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen.
The Third Sunday of Advent is known as Rose or Gaudete Sunday, hence the pink vestments. It’s one of my great joys that while the church pushed women out for centuries, it kept pink as a liturgical color. So, now we get to see the girl color, recognize the value of the feminine and associate it with joy! Pink means something different for us than it did for them - but I’ll bet the church fathers didn’t see that coming!
The word 'gaudete' comes from the Latin and while we translate it as “rejoice,” it literally means 'to welcome and to be filled with joy.' On this Sunday, we make an intentional choice to welcome the joy God is waiting to give us – joy that anticipates the redeeming love of God; joy that trusts that nothing is impossible with God.
We rejoice that we have been redeemed by the forgiveness of our sins, so anticipating our promised reconciliation, we commit during Advent, to honestly discover where we have gone astray in our lives, our faith community, and our world. We can’t repent, that is, change our minds or our direction, if we don’t know where we’ve sinned.
A great tool for this is the Rite of Reconciliation of a Penitent, what some call “Confession” as an Advent practice. I’m happy to talk about this with anyone who wants to know more about it or make an appointment.
So, let’s talk about sin for a minute. When people come to me to “confess” their sins, they often tell me what they’ve done that is wrong. That isn’t the sin, I tell them. That’s the evidence of sin.
Sin is separation where there should be relationship, disruption where there should be union, and opposition where there should be harmony and it happens deep within us, in our hearts. Sin disrupts our relationships with God, one another, and ourselves. The evidence of our sin is the behavior that results from that disruption, behavior that is self-centered, harmful, or disrespectful.
In our Rite of Reconciliation, we look deeply within and see where this disruption has happened, and where the reconciliation Jesus promised us needs to happen again, remembering that it is by the power of God’s bountiful grace and mercy that we are restored. The words of absolution, spoken out loud, initiate that restoration, and it’s a powerful experience.Sin is part of our lives, and sometimes, when we allow ourselves, we realize just how messed up things are. For instance, how do we faithfully and justly deal with the racism, sexism, homophobia, and other sins built into our systems? I was chatting with a deacon friend recently who does this work and she tells me that finding an unhoused person shelter for the night right now can be a frustrating endeavor – and she knows the system! Imagine how impossible it must be for someone without a knowledgeable advocate!
Our Collect today reminds us that sometimes we need a hero; someone who has the power to make things different… better; to restore justice where there is none. Sometimes we just need to know there is power out there that can set right what has gone wrong.
Zephaniah talks about God as a “warrior who gives victory” but let’s not overlook how that victory is described. Speaking through the prophet God promises to rejoice over us with gladness, to renew us in God’s love, and to exult over us with singing. God promises to redeem disaster, deal with our oppressors, save the lame, gather the outcast, and change our shame to praise. This is what victory looks like, and it is truly cause to rejoice.
Paul affirms this in his letter to the Philippians saying, rejoice because “the Lord is near.” We don’t need to worry about anything. Pray and give thanks, he says, because we are assured that all will be well, and our assurance feels like peace – peace in our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. Peace that makes no sense, because it is a peace that trusts completely in God, whose power of abundant grace and mercy leads us to the victory Zephaniah described.
So, today, we welcome God’s joy and let it fill us to overflowing whereupon it will spill into the world.
What, then, do we make of this Gospel reading? The first thing John the Baptist says is, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come?” It feels kind of like Scriptural whiplash, doesn’t it? But it does make sense and it is good news.John’s essential message was: change the way you’re thinking, believing, and acting because the Messiah is coming – and it won’t be like what you think. In fact, as it turned out, Jesus’ Messiahship wasn’t what John the Baptist thought either. Jesus didn’t bring salvation just to his own people, but to all people for all time, and he brought it by the forgiveness of sins, that is, Jesus restores relationships that have been separated, unity where there is division, and harmony where there is discord.
John the Baptist knew that he was chosen by God to herald the coming of the long-awaited Messiah. He knew that God’s people needed to repent because the Messiah was bringing the Spirit’s renewing fire, but even he didn’t know how radically different God’s plan was going to be from his own expectations. None of us does – something to keep in mind as we journey together through this Advent into the next chapter of our life as a faith community.
Thomas Merton once said: “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope…” and I would add – with joy!
On this Gaudete Sunday, we welcome all that God is waiting to give, knowing that God’s plan for us and for the whole world is a plan of love, full of bountiful grace and mercy - and that we have been chosen by God to proclaim that Good News to the world.How can we be anything else but filled with joy? Gaudete! Rejoice!
Amen.
(Image of John the Baptist, by El Greco)
Lectionary: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
Lectionary: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8
Our Collect today is one of my favorites because it speaks of a fully embodied reception of the grace offered to us in Scripture. We pray that we will listen with the ears of an open spirit, to read with the full
power of our intellect, to mark the preeminence of our Holy Writ, and – here’s my favorite part – to inwardly digest them.“Hope is a state of mind notdictated by what appearsto be: a promiseWe look beyondfear. And begin to trustwhat we do not yet see.We listenfor though we prepareand planand strive to organize, Lovewill take us ina new direction, a re-birthbeyond our comprehension.In prayerful surrenderwe can be trueto who we areand trust and continueand becometruly ourselves.” © Valori M. Sherer, 2009. All rights reserved
Lectionary:Job 42:1-6, 10-17; Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22); Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52
Lectionary: Job 38:1-7, (34-41); Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
How well do we listen? So often when we have conversations, we can tell the person we’re talking to isn’t listening as much as preparing their response or formulating their next point. You can see it on their face. They’re looking at you, but not really listening.
Lectionary: Job 23:1-9; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31
En el nombre del Dios, que es trinidad en unidad. Amen.
I had a friend who once told me that they were wealthy because God trusted them above others to manage the wealth they were given. Not everyone was wealthy, they said, because not everyone could be trusted in that way.
I’ll never forget that conversation because of the look on their face and the tone of their voice. They were kindly but patronizingly informing me that I wasn’t rich because I wasn’t among those whom God could trust in that way.
I remember feeling so sad as I looked at the face of this person, whom I loved dearly, recognizing that they were completely clueless of their hubris. Their implicit insult hurt me, but not nearly as much as the lost-ness of their soul did.
Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart once said, in order for the graciousness of God to be upon us, we must detach from all else and turn our attention to God. Granted, that’s hard to do.We live in a world that constantly tells us what we should want: to be happy, beautiful, successful, and adored. We live in a world where “true love” is found buffet-style on reality TV, where body plastic has become the norm, where prized positions are won by the most manipulative and deceitful, and where personal value is calculated by the number of followers one has on social media or the heftiness of one’s bank account.
The message is: more is better. More stuff. More clout. More blessing. It’s an addiction in its truest form, and it isn’t so different for the rich man in today’s gospel story.
A faithful believer, the rich man asks an honest question of Jesus – how can I be sure I will inherit eternal life? Jesus answers like a rabbi would: ‘You know the commandments… don’t murder or commit adultery… don’t steal or bear false witness… don’t defraud… and honor your father and mother.'
Isn’t that an interesting group of six of the ten commandments Jesus chose to highlight? So, who can tell me… what number was the “thou shalt not defraud” commandment?
It wasn’t. Jesus interpreted the 10th commandment, “thou shalt not covet” for this rich man, who probably didn’t want much of what his neighbors had.
‘But I’ve kept these commandments from my youth,’ the rich man tells Jesus. I’ve lived a righteous life. You can see how blessed I am.
Jesus looks deeply, lovingly at this man and says to him. ‘Detach from your stuff – from the symbols of your happiness, the evidence of your blessing. Empty yourself and your life of all that distracts and separates you from true relationship with God and your neighbor, including your poor neighbor. Then come and follow me.’Mark tells us that the man was shocked by what Jesus said, and that “he went away grieving” because he had a lot of stuff from which to detach.
It doesn’t say the man didn’t eventually do it, only that he left deeply saddened and distressed by what God had asked of him. I think most of us have this same kind of response when we get real about what God is asking from us… partly because God’s desire for us is so radically different from what the world teaches us to desire for ourselves; and partly because it’s just plain hard to detach.
After his encounter with the rich man, Jesus turns to his disciples and helps them detach from an inherited belief that distracts them from true relationship with God and neighbor: the notion that wealth is a blessing that indicates God’s approval and poverty is evidence of God’s disapproval. In fact, Jesus says, it’s harder, not easier, for a person with wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
This totally unhinges the disciples, who wonder… ‘if one whose life is clearly blessed by God can’t enter the kingdom of God…’ “Then who can?”
Peter responds like the rich man did. ‘But Jesus, we’ve done that. We’ve left our homes and our families to follow you. What else do we need to do?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jesus assures them, ‘you’ll be rewarded for your faithfulness, in this life and eternally. But remember, it is God’s way, God’s will that is at work here so what God asks of you, and the reward you receive, may not be anything like what you’re expecting.
To conclude the story I began with at the beginning of this sermon: this couple lost all of their wealth during the Great Recession of 2008. They lost their jobs and their home. They had to share one car and one cell phone. It took some time, but the experience eventually freed them from the notion that they were especially blessed, enabling them to enter humbly into true relationships with others, and I would guess, with God too.
We, too, can unlearn what separates us from God and one another and live differently.
Whenever Jesus encountered a poor person, a hurting person, a hated person, he entered into real relationship with them – and in that relationship, they found healing and wholeness. We can, we must, do the same if we are to call ourselves followers of Jesus.
It’s a risky proposition in real life. When we see a beggar at a traffic light, do we roll up our windows and look away or hand them a dollar and a smile? When the Afghan refugees come to Webster Groves will we fear and resent them, or enter into real relationship with them?The poor need money, of course. They need clothes, housing, food, a place to shower and go to the bathroom. But they also need to be in real relationship with people.
Being poor isolates people. Jesus told us there would be poor among us always, so our goal isn’t to eradicate poverty but to transform our relationship with the poor, to tear down the barriers that isolate them and welcome them into our community, into real relationship.
The result of that may be the eradication of poverty. Who knows? God knows.
In order to do that, however, we must also transform our relationship with the wealthy. Jesus showed us how to do that, by loving them the way Jesus loved the rich man in our gospel story.
It is only in God, for whom nothing is impossible, that this can happen. We can’t do it, but we can take the opportunities God presents us and make space for God to do through us what the world says is impossible.
I close with the blessing used at the consecration of our bishop:
May God bless us with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that we may seek truth boldly and love deep within our hearts.
May God bless us with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that we may work tirelessly for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless us with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we really can make a difference in this world so that we are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done. And the blessing of God the Almighty, the grace of Christ the Son, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us and among us, now and always. Amen.
Note: This blessing was written by Benedictine nun, Sister Ruth Marlene Fox, in 1985. I adapted it from the second person (you) to the third person (we/us).
Lectionary: Job 1:1; 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16
It is comforting and exciting that our readings from Scripture today are so relevant to our current climate of deep political divisions, the continuing presence of the pandemic, and the co-opting of the word “Christianity,” its meaning and embodiment, by voices that seek to control people rather than to trust God.
Lectionary: Lectionary: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22; Psalm 124: James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50