Actions speak louder than words

Here's my sermon from yesterday.  You can listen here - or read below----

Posts are going to be behind this week - sorry.  I'm just behind already.

I heard a story this week about a guy, let's call him Jason, right here in town, who got a phone call at home one evening. On the other line was a person who lived next door to one of Jason's rental properties. Seems someone had broken into his vacant rental house a block or so from where he lived. He hung up, called the cops, grabbed his pistol, and met the would-be robber on the front porch. As the robber tried to continue on his way out, Jason suggested as kindly as one can with a loaded gun, that he should probably not move. The robber responded by saying, “Did I break into your house? I didn't mean to break into your house, I meant to break into another one.” Obviously neither Jason, nor the police took much solace in the man's story. Actions, it seems, always speak louder than words.

That's the theme of the story Jesus tells the elders and chief priests in this morning's gospel lesson. In case you missed it, which you most likely did since the lectionary skips the details of it all, as our long summer season of Pentecost comes to an end, we join Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem during the final week of Jesus' life. In between the portion of chapter twenty we heard last week and today's lesson, Matthew's gospel tells the stories of the mother of James and John asking Jesus for choice spots at the dinner table for her sons. Chapter twenty-one begins with the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday which brings Jesus into the Temple Court where he turns the tables of the moneychangers and heals the blind and the lame. Monday finds Jesus cursing the fig tree for not bearing fruit and promising his disciples that if they have faith they can tell the mountain to jump into the sea.

AND THEN, we get to our lesson for today. Jesus is back in the Temple after yesterday's tirade. If you look carefully, you can still see the glimmer of a piece of change or two, strewn across the Temple floor, as the men who make their living selling sacrificial animals try to put their businesses back together. The collective breath exits the room as Jesus walks through the door, and order to eliminate any further problems before they start, the elders and chief priests meet Jesus near the Temple gate.

“By whose authority do you do these things? By whose authority did you mess up our well established system? By whose authority are you causing a raucous? Who gave you such authority?” They know that the only valid answer is “from God.” They know that only the anointed one of God could justifiably act like Jesus acted. They also know that if he answers that way, they’ve got him, dead to rights, for blasphemy and treason.

Jesus knows that too. Jesus knows that the trap has been set; it’s been there a long, long time. He can see the writing on the wall, but the time isn’t right. It’s only Monday, there is still a lot to accomplish before it all comes crashing in on him. And so, as a good Rabbi, he answers their question with a question. The long running game of oneupsmanship continues as Jesus looks at the group standing before him and pulls something of a Willy Wonka, “I’ll tell you where my authority comes from... but first, answer me just one, simple question. Where did John the Baptist get his authority? Was if from heaven? Or was it merely of human origin?”

And with that, the hunted-one escapes to fight for at least another day. Matthew spells out for us the catch-twenty-two. If they say that John’s Baptism was from God, then they admit that they didn’t catch on to what God was doing at the time. If they say it was merely human, they risk a mob scene as the vast majority of Jerusalem had heard John, been baptized by him, and believed his message of repentance and the kingdom. Collectively, they look at their sandals, shuffle their feet, and answer in a mealy-mouthed chorus, “we don’t know.”

Jesus won’t be answering their question, at least not directly, but if answering a question with a question was Jesus' favorite activity on earth, then telling a parable must have been a close second. “Tell me what you think about this. A certain man had two sons. He went to the older boy and said, ‘Go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘Nope, not gonna do it,’ but later changed his mind and went to work. Knowing only his elder son’s rejection, the man went to his younger son, ‘Boy, you go and work in the vineyard.’ This son answered, ‘Yes, lord, I’ll go.’ But he didn’t go. Which one did the will of his Father?”

The obvious answer, of course, is the first son because actions speak louder than words. And that’s the answer the religious leaders give, and Jesus seems to tell them they’re right when he responds, “Truly I tell you, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do.” But honestly, this has bothered me all week. Maybe I expect too much from people, but it seems to me that neither son did the will of his father. One son disrespected his father in saying “no,” but felt guilty enough or sorry enough or whatever enough to put down his xbox controller and go to work. The other son heaped politeness upon his dad, calling him “kyrie” (sir or lord), but then goes right back to staring at the new facebook layout trying figure out if he likes it or not, never giving a second thought to his dad’s request for him to work. Both boys ruined their credibility by disrespecting their father. Both boys fell short of the ideal Jesus sets forth in the Sermon on the Mount, “let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Anything else,” Jesus says, “is of the devil.” The one who did the will of his Father is the one who says yes, follows through, and does it.

John the Baptist said yes to God and followed through.

Jesus said yes to God and followed through.

These men had the authority that comes from authentically living into the will of the Father. It brought them both to early ends, but that seems to be what happens in this world when your “yes” is yes and your “no” is no and your goal in life is to seek after the Kingdom.

Going to work in the vineyard is hard. It’s hot, dirty, back-breaking work. And it is the ultimate privilege to be called. This conversation that Matthew lets us overhear is between Jesus and the religious leadership of his time, but the call to work in the vineyard is not exclusively the purview of guys and gals who wear collars and get paychecks from churches. By virtue of your baptism, you too are employees of the Kingdom pursuant to all rights, privileges, and obligations thereof.

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

The answer, in case you’ve forgotten, is “I will, with God’s help.” Roughly translated, that means “Yes Lord, I’ll work with you.” Many of us have answered “yes” to these questions more times than we can remember. Most of us are actively doing that work on an ongoing basis. All of us, from time to time, fall short, get distracted, or otherwise shirk our duties. But the LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness, and despite our shortcomings, he allows prostitutes, tax collectors, priests, sinner, saints, and all the rest into his Kingdom. Let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no. But when you fall short, remember that actions speak louder than words. Repent, return to the Lord, and get back to work. The vineyard, and the Father are waiting. Amen.

The Lord is full of compassion... and we are not.

Here is the unedited text of today's sermon. The audio will be up tomorrow. The text is Matthew 18:21-35 and my life experience in the 10 years since 9/11. The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... So began our reading of a selected portion of Psalm 103. Truth be told, the Lectionary allows the option to read all of Psalm 103 on the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, but it seems to me, that on this day, we should echo the prayer of David by giving particular attention to this ancient creedal statement, The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness. And we should probably rightly finish it by adding, “and we are not.” The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... and we are not. Which is, for many of us, why gathering for worship on this particular day, this 11th of September, 2011 is so very different than just about every Sunday we have experienced. We join with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, and whatever else, united not by creed or color, but by universal memory, we all mark this day as a somber anniversary when two-thousand-nine-hundred-seventy-seven men, women and children senselessly lost their lives and more than six-thousand others were injured. If you are anything like me, you come today with a myriad of mixed emotions, which is why, I believe, our mantra for today should be, “The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... and we are not.” September 11th, 2001 fell on a Tuesday, and by the weekend, for most of us, life had at least found its way back to some semblance of routine. On Friday night, as was my custom, I joined my work buddies in the basement of the Travelodge to drink some beer while terrible karaoke singers ruined good songs. We were all a bit dazed, still in many ways in shock at the events of the week, but as is the case after tragedies, life, though changed forever, goes on. I remember this evening more vividly than most, not because the singing was any better or any worse than usual, but because of an impromptu speech given by the Karaoke Jockey. With words unfit for the pulpit, he turned his emotions into a very graphic description of what he would do to Osama Bin Laden should he ever run across him on the streets of Lancaster or the caves of Aghanistan. I remember feeling icky, to use a technical term, profoundly icky. I want to think I felt that way because, even thought I was a 21 year-old who spent too much time at the bar and not enough time in church, I could recognize the dignity of every human being, and the thought of one human being feeling such hatred and anger toward another made me uncomfortable to the point of feeling icky, but I'm afraid I felt icky because, in a lot of ways, I understood what the guy on stage was feeling, and I didn't like those emotions in me. The LORD is full of compassion, and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness... and we are not. On the 26th of May, 2009, Lt. Col. Mark Stratton, very much a child of this parish, died with two others, from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated as their Humvee traveled the well worn road outside of Bagram Airfiled in Eastern Afghanistan. Mark was serving as the commander of a Provincial Reconstruction Team helping to rebuild the war torn region, and was, in many ways serving to ensure and protect the freedom of the Afghani people more so than his own country. To think that people tasked to build a school that would help bring children up from the depths of poverty would be the target of such an attack is hard to stomach. This community gathered, filling this nave beyond capacity to remember and give thanks for Mark's service. Today as we mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we also remember the five-thousand-seven-hundred-ninety-six American lives that have been cut short and forty-one-thosuand-two-hundred-twenty-one others forever altered by injury in the ongoing war on terror. No matter our political affiliation, we all grieve these numbers, especially the multitudes who, like Mark, were killed not on the field of war, but in the honest attempt to offer a better life to those who had nothing to do with the geo-political machinations that lead to 9/11 and the war on terror. The LORD is full of compassion, and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... and we are not. On the 2nd of May 2011, mastermind of 9/11 and leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was killed in an well orchestrated strike on his family compound by a skilled team of Navy Seals and CIA operatives. As news spread, massive celebrations spontaneously erupted around the country. As the pictures of those celebrations filled our 24 hour news cycle, many looked arrogantly and begrudgingly down their noses at the joy, and I was, once again, feeling profoundly icky. On one hand, I gave thanks that a seed of hatred and violence had been eradicated from the earth. On the other hand, I grieved that another one of God's created children, broken and sinful as he was, had found a violent end. One one hand I felt like celebration was the wrong response, and on the other, I thought smug self-righteousness wasn't any better. The LORD is full of compassion, and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... and we are not. BUT... But God calls us to strive after compassion, mercy, and kindness no matter how hard it may be to attain them. Perhaps by chance, but more likely by Providence, the universal theme running through today's lessons is the one topic we really don't want to talk about today: forgiveness. After Jesus taught his disciples the art of reconciliation that we heard last week, Peter, probably acting as spokesman again, walked up to Jesus, stretched the very limits of his imagination and asked, “If a brother or sister sins against me, how many times should I forgive them? As many many as... seven times?” Peter is beginning to figure out that Jesus works on a much larger scale than the rest of the world. Earlier in their time together, Peter would have said something like, “Should I forgive someone two or three times?” Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I might forgive you. Fool me three times, and forgiveness is just a crazy pipe dream. But by now, Peter has expanded his thinking, how about seven times? Jesus, however, is thinking even bigger than that. Even if you get burned seventy-seven times or seventy times seven times – forgive, forgive, forgive. “Forgive beyond your ability to keep track,1” and then forgive some more. Conceptually, this sounds fine and good, but with a nod to C.S. Lewis, “everybody agrees in principle that forgiveness is a mostly lovely idea and this agreement continues right up until that moment when you have an actual person in front of you whom you must forgive—then suddenly caveats, nuances, and provisos start to fill the air.”2 Forgiveness is hard because forgiveness is a life changing endeavor. To hold onto a grudge is to yoke yourself to another person. To forgive them not only frees them from that bondage, but it removes the weight from your own shoulders as well, and most of us don't know what it feels like to stand up straight, free from the bonds of animosity. Be it a husband, or a wife, a child, or a parent, the Republicans, or the Democrats, Al Qaeda, or Timothy McVeigh, the inability to forgive another, whether they deserve it or not, whether they ask for it or not, is detrimental to your health: spiritually, emotionally, and even physically.3 Jesus never tells Peter that forgiving someone four-hundred-ninety times is going to be easy. Seven times is hard enough. The reality that we all know, is that forgiveness is difficult and messy and awkward and sometimes sad, but it is always a requirement. On the 2nd of October, 2006 a man named Charles Roberts backed his pick-up truck up to the entrance of a one-room Amish school house in West Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Based on the elaborate materials found at the scene, his plans were grotesquely sinister. His sloppiness allowed the police to respond quickly, but in then end, five young girls were dead and five more critically wounded before he turned his gun on himself. As early as that afternoon, a grandfather of one of the dead little girls was quoted by CNN warning others against hating Roberts, saying, “we must not think evil of this man.” Another man reiterated the point, “I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”4 And reach out they did, as community leaders met with his family, attended his funeral, and one Amish leader even held Robert's sobbing father in his arms for an hour. As one unnamed Amish man told CNN, “The acid of hate destroys the container that holds it.” Our culture is not rooted in forgiveness the way it is for the Amish. They have their own areas of brokenness, just like us, but I add the story of the Amish 9/11 to our own corporate memory to prove my point, “The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and of great kindness... and we are not... but with God's help we can be.” May we always remember. May we strive to forgive. May we seek to be set free. All for the glory of him though whom all thing are being brought to their perfection, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Aidan of Lidnisfarne

Did I spell that right? Anyway, here's my homily for his feast today. “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” This is one of those statements that most of us wish Jesus had never said, the classic catch 22, damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you listen to the world, and follow the American dream, if you seek success, luxury, material happiness, if you strive to be first, if you get everything you wish for on earth, you will only end up last in the kingdom of God. If, instead, you seek after the kingdom, giving up material luxuries to help the poor, risk being used to help the needy, endanger your relationships to love the unlovable, if you seek after God by giving up everything and becoming last in this world, well, then, you will be first in the Kingdom of God. It would be a whole lot nicer if we could be first both ways, right? First here, first there... shouldn't it work that way? Jesus says, you can't have it both ways, and Aidan of Lindisfarne, whom the Church remembers today, learned that the hard way. Christianity first made its way to northern England in 627 with the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria, but after his death in 632 a vicious pagan uprising threatened to squelch the Gospel for good. Eventually, Edwin's nephew, Oswald became king and summoned from his place of exile, the island Monestary of Iona, a missionary named Corman, who failed miserably in his attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons of northern England. Bishop Corman, note that key title, returned to Iona complaining that the Northumbrians were a savage, stubborn, and unteachable people. Here's where the story gets fun, or at least where the story gets real human: a story that could have taken place anywhere at any time in human history. The young upstart, Aidan, suggested to the good bishop that “perhaps he was too harsh with them, and they might have responded better to a gentler approach.” Needless to say, Aidan found himself on the first ferry off Iona with instructions to convert Northumbria. The first shall be last. But the story doesn't end there, as I believe, it doesn't in Jesus' classic conundrum. Aidan, an Irishman who spoke no English, now on a hopeless mission to convert the English speaking Northumbrans, would, by the grace of God find his way back from last and least, to a saint remembered fifteen hundred years later. So successful was his mission, that it has been suggested that Aidan be named the Patron Saint of all England. His approach was simple, be a human being and talk to people. Aidan would walk from village to village, politely conversing with whoever he met along the way and slowly bringing forth in them an interest in what made him tick: his faith in the resurrected Jesus. It is said that King Oswald, who often acted as interpreter for Aidan, gave him a horse so that he wouldn't have to walk, but Aidan promptly gave it to a beggar. Aidan patiently walked along side people, he talked to them on their own level, and turned the tide of Northumbria toward faith in the risen Christ. Often, I make the mistake of reading Jesus' words without any human quality to them. They become like fortune cookie slogans, useful only on face value. But this well known saying of Jesus, that the last will be first and the first will be last, I'm starting to think of it more like shampoo instructions: wash, rinse, repeat. The first will be last, the last will be first, and when the first become last, they're next in line to be first, and vice verse. As I'm keen to say, it isn't just about the next life, but this stuff makes sense here and now too. In the end, however, whether you are first or last or somewhere in between, we can glean some good advice from the life of dear Aidan, just be real, be a fellow human being on the journey of life, listen to people and you'll impact more for the gospel than any big-tooth-smiling-thousand-dollar-suit-wearing-fancy-story-telling-tv-preacher could ever dream of. The first will be last and the last will be first, and thanks be to God the cycle continues. Amen.

Who's the Co-Pilot Here?

You can listen to my interpretation of the text below by clicking here.

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I find bumper sticker theology to be a fascinating area of study. Somehow, in the space of twelve inches by three inches, hopefully in a font size big enough to be read by the car behind, whole systematic theologies can be spelled out. Take, for example, a few of my favorites, “Warning: In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned.” Obviously, this is a dispensationalist Christian, who expects Jesus' second coming to not only be soon, but also to involve the immediate whisking away to heaven of all believers. Another classic reads, “If it ain't King James, it ain't the Bible.” Assuming the owner of the vehicle isn't being cleverly ironic, this is a grammatically challenged biblical literalist who understands the only true English version of the Scriptures to be the beautiful, if difficult to understand, prose or the 1611 King James Version. One of the best theological bumper stickers ever made is actually a response to one of the worst. The original bumper sticker read, “God is my co-pilot.” Some wise person, upon seeing all the flaws contained in such a statement, printed another set of stickers that read, “If God is your co-pilot, swap seats!” I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure this bumper sticker is directed at St. Peter.
Things are looking great for Jesus and his disciples during their visit to Philip's newly updated Ceasarville. They have paused for a bit to regroup after a series of storms, miracles, and a few run ins with the religious and political powers that be. Last week we heard Jesus trying to get a feel from his disciples of the popular opinion, “who do people say the Son of Man is?” Then, in that great turning point moment, we heard Simon Peter declare without question that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the Son of the living God. The passage ended with Jesus sternly warning his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. Did anyone wonder about that? I did. Why keep important news quiet? Why not tell the whole world? The disciples had an idea of why they had to keep things quiet, it was the wrong idea, but that didn't much matter at the time. The best way to enter Jerusalem and overthrow the Roman occupiers would be through the element of surprise. Keep the news quiet until an army is gathered, then BAM, strike down the Romans and their sympathizers in the Sanhedrin: the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. Remove them from power before they even know what them. A brilliant military strategy, but a terrible understanding of the way in which God works, for Jesus, you see, had other reasons why things should be hush hush.
“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hand of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Let's be honest, none of them heard anything beyond “be killed.” To a man, their brains began to swim with anxiety, misunderstanding, and, most likely anger. And so Peter, as spokesman, takes Jesus aside to explain to him the error of his ways, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” This way Jesus is describing is messy. It is unseemly. It is not the way things are supposed to work out for the anointed one of God and his disciples, and so Peter, as spokesman, as favored son, as the Rock, politely tells Jesus, “why don't you let me drive, clearly you don't have the directions quite right.”
In a lot of ways, I'm a lot like Peter. First and foremost, I'm a terrible passenger, literally and figuratively. As sad as this statement may be, two of my worst nightmares are sitting in the passenger seat for a trip lasting any longer than 30 minutes and sitting in a meeting where the person in charge is running without an agenda. I hate that feeling of being out of control. I hate not knowing the path ahead. My friend Ashley was recently accepted into the discernment process to become an Episcopal priest. Before his last interview, the Bishop suggested I help him flesh out a piece of his story that seemed to be lacking and that the Commission on Ministry would want to hear. As I prepared for our meeting, I recently had the opportunity to read through some of my old discernment process papers and quickly realized just how terrible a passenger I really am. In my letters to my rector, my bishop, the Commission and even in my seminary choices, I tried over and over and over again to steal the reigns away from God and take the road that seemed easier, faster, and smoother, and every time, by way of some very human organization God told me, in no uncertain terms, that he knew the directions just fine, and he'd be driving.
“Get behind me Satan! Peter the Rock, you are a stumbling block to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” In a matter of a few seconds, Jesus finds himself being swept from the room he shared with his disciples in Ceasarea Philipi to the wilderness of his temptation. All of a sudden Satan is back to tempt him. Turn this rock into bread, worship me, throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple, raise up an army and take over Jerusalem – you don't have to suffer, you don't have to die, there is always another way. Jesus has had his identity challenged by the Pharisees, the Sadducees and a Canaanite woman, his world has been spinning out of control for some time, and now, in his moment of weakness, Satan returns to tempt him yet again. In five short verses Peter the bedrock of the Church has become Peter the stumbling block of Jesus as he tries to wrestle control away from him, but Jesus is prepared, he knows the directions, he has his mind set on the things of God.
One of the hardest parts about being a disciple is the whole following piece. The rugged individualism of 21st century America predestines us to be leaders, if only of ourselves, and so we find it hard to follow, to sit right seat, and to trust someone else's set of directions. As Peter's encounter with Jesus shows us, our own path, as beautiful and simple as it may seems, is the way of destruction. The way of Jesus, on the other hand, is hard and dusty and fraught with danger, but it is the way of life.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Jesus lays out before his disciples the way of life: set your mind on divine things, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow.
If, as I suggested in a sermon several years ago, the Great Commandments of loving God and loving neighbor are impossibly simple, then this lifestyle of denying oneself and taking up one's cross is simply impossible. Denying ourselves the privilege of taking the driver's seat is hard enough, but to bear our own cross, the feel the weight of our own torture device, to know the pain of the splinters digging into our shoulders – that is just too much to bear. Fortunately, no one uses crucifixion as an execution technique these days. Thankfully we can't really understand the powerful image Jesus is raising in his disciple's minds. But, unfortunately, the act of taking up one's cross has become so trivialized, that we've lost all concept of the life, the way, Jesus is describing here.
If you were with us for our evening service on Ash Wednesday this year, you heard a little bit of what it means, and doesn't mean, to take up your cross. Your chronic back ache is not a cross to bear. Your pain in the neck mother-in-law is not your cross to bear. Your tough work schedule is not your cross to bear. A cross is only a cross when you make the choice to carry it on behalf of someone else. Jesus chose the cross, he chose to die so that he might raise all of creation to new life. He chose to take your sin and mine with him so that everyone might come within the reach of his saving embrace. As Keith's friend, Max Lucado says, “He chose nails.” Through the power of Christ living within you, you too can make that choice. You can choose to live a life of self-giving love. You can choose to live a life focusing solely on the will of God. You can choose to live a life that stands up for the outcast and oppressed, the widow and the orphan, the poor and the alien. It may seem simply impossible, but by the grace of God, you too can move yourself out of the way, and gain the life that God had in mind for you from the very beginning.
The battle over who's driving never seems to end. Standing by a charcoal fire, late on a Thursday night in Jerusalem, Peter will three times deny Jesus in a fruitless effort to save his own life. Jesus will take Peter's life back for the kingdom around a different charcoal fire on the shores of Lake Galilee. I continue to struggle with my control issues, wanting God to fit into my plans rather than the other way round. We all struggle to live fully into our identity as children of God, but God, ever faithful, ever merciful, continues to point to the map and say “Trust me, I know a better way.” Is God your co-pilot? Because if he is, you are surely in the wrong seat. Amen.

Proper 15a - Homily

In many ways we use the Psalms in the same way the ancient Israelites did, and in many ways we don't. For starters, the Psalms were sung, but as far as I know, there is no extant music for us, modern day worshipers to follow. The Psalms were used during worship to lift up the prayers of the gather community. They echoed the words of David as they cried out in lament, asked for forgiveness, or praised God for his loving kindness. If we take seriously that we are praying the Psalms during worship instead of reading them, or hearing them be read to us, then we too take part in that ancient practice of joining with King David to call upon the Lord.
Today's Psalm, number 67, we join with David in doing something we rarely do as a community of faith: we ask God for his blessing. Sure, Keith or I pronounce God's blessing at the end of each service, but most of the time, when we come before the Lord, we ask for everything but his blessing. I tend to think of God's blessing being the stuff of prosperity preachers – God wants you to be rich, so send me ten-grand and I will be – but Rolf Jacobson from Luther Seminary really got me thinking this week in his reflection on this Psalm. You might want to open your prayer book to page 675 again as we walk through this poem, verse by verse.
The Psalm begins at the end of the traditional worship service. The blessing of Aaron from the book of Numbers gets tweaked by the Psalmist, and opens this liturgy of blessing by asking God simply to bless his people. “May God be merciful to us an bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us.” The poet then goes on to deal with the crux of God's blessing – something you've heard me say a lot over the years – we are blessed to be a blessing to others. This blessing for which Israel is asking, isn't just for them, but it is to fulfill the promise of God to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 12, “You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” After the Exodus, God reiterates his promise, “You will be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (19.6) “And what did the priest do in ancient Israel? Channel the divine blessing upon the people. Israel was the conduit through which God's blessing flowed to all the earth. When God blessed Israel, God blessed all of creation.
“Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide all the nations upon the earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.” Three times the Psalmist uses the word all – all the peoples, all the nations, all the peoples. God's blessing was not, is not, reserved just for a few, but is the free gift of all. It is given to us so that we might give it away.
And blessed we have been. The Psalmist won't let the congregation get away with only asking for future blessing, but instead reminds them, and us, that we have already been blessed. “The earth has brought forth her increase” and here I agree with Jacobson (and almost every other translator) over our Prayer Book Psalter, “God, our God, has blessed us.” As we read stories of children starving to death in Africa or the poverty rate in America increasing, it might be hard to see where the earth is bringing forth her increase, but if we look around, there are plenty of places to find God's blessing in our world, this very day: low humidity, sun shine, health, loving friends and family, the list goes on and on. It is helpful, as we ask God to bless us, to remember that he has and is blessing us already. It runs through my mind time I celebrate that I've already announced that God will bless you for ever more, but I also know it is always helpful to have that constant reminder.
The Psalm ends by asking God, once again, to bless us so that the ends of the earth might be blessed, “May God give us his blessing, and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of him.” We have been blessed to bless others. We are being blessed to bless others. We ask God to continue to bless us so that we might be a blessing to others. Pour it out upon us Father, make us overflow with blessing, to the honor and glory of your name. Amen.

Proper 15A Sermon

I forgot to post this on Monday, sorry. I entitled this sermon "Jesus called her a dog - the moment that changed everything." You can listen to it here. Or, read on.

[It is always wonderful to stand in the center aisle, surrounded by cute, impressionable children while reading Matthew's account of Jesus calling a women, begging for his aid, a dog.] This is a tough lesson, easily top five toughest in the Gospels mixed in with Jesus turning the tables in the Temple, Jesus cursing the fig tree, and perhaps a few others. It shocks us to hear Jesus act this way. He begins by ignoring the woman's cries – the only time he ignores a cry for help – and then goes so far as to call her a slur, an epithet, a DOG! It offends us, and it should, but as Paul said to Timothy, “all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Tim 3:16). I'll come back to Paul's useful words to Timothy, but first, a classic Steve Pankey extended metaphor.
After vestry on Monday evening, Cassie and I loaded up the baby and the car to meet some friends way over on Florida's Atlantic coast. We arrived Tuesday evening, and by the time Wednesday afternoon rolled around, everybody was ready for relaxation. Eliza took a four hour nap (as did our friend Josh) and I sat down with the History Channel's special presentation on the wreck of the Britannic three miles off Greece's Kea Island in 1916. The Britannic was the younger sister of perhaps the greatest ship wreck in recorded history, the Titanic. Built after Titanic sunk, Britannic was fitted with several upgrades meant to keep her from joining her older sister in Davey Jones' Locker. All of her upgrades were for not, however, as she sank in what the History Channel called a record time for a ship of her size, a mere 55 minutes. The History Channel had sponsored a team of elite divers, charged with the task of finding out why Britannic sunk so quickly. An ironically long 55 minutes later, it was time for “The Dive.” On the second to last day, a team of divers was finally set to wind their way through the generator room to find out if a key door was open or shut. I watched as they entered the crack in her hull, made their way down the narrow corridor, through the craw space next to boiler number 5, only to find the lead diver's progress thwarted by a wheel barrow wedged in the middle of his path. The show went to commercial showing only cloud of silt and hearing only the radio transmission, “Topside to Dive Team One.... Topside to Dive Team One.”
Finally, the divers responded, “abort” and after four hours of decompression compressed into 10 seconds they arrived on the top disappointed, but safe. Luckily, there was still a day of diving left so they could try the longer route past boiler number 3. Except, the Greek antiquities observer on board says they've violated their permits, and there will be no last day of diving. The show ends with the team, regathered several months later, talking about how much they accomplished in finding that wheel barrow, but honestly, I find it a hallow victory for the hour of my life I invested in their program.
Finding a wheel barrow is not what I had in mind when I started the journey to Britannic. I wanted to know if her double skin filled with water. I wanted to see that door, still opened, spelling her demise. I wanted definitive answers in return for the lazy hour I spent on the couch, but all I got were more questions. As the team leader stared, amazed at the first-ever, 3D rendering of the boiler room, as he stared at another piece of his life work coming into focus, all I saw was a wheel barrow, but he saw the bigger picture.
That, finally, is what this story from Matthew's Gospel is like. If we see the bigger picture, if we recognize that all, A-L-L, all of scripture is inspired by God, then we can understand that this seemingly innocuous healing story, this silly example of Jesus' sometimes dirty humanity, this side note of a pericope has something to teach us. What we find in this story, shocking and ugly as it may be, is a turning point in salvation history, and one for which we, Gentile Christians should be exceedingly grateful.
Matthew describes the woman who seeks Jesus' attention as a Canaanite Woman, but Canaanite was an ethnicity that no longer existed by the time of Jesus. Sure, Joshua had left some folks behind after being ordered to enter the land of Canaan, and kill every man woman and child (a top five Old Testament doozy for those of you who are into such things), but they had become so mixed with other races and cultures that Canaanites proper no longer existed in first century Palestine. Matthew chooses not to follow Mark in calling her Syro-Phonecian and in doing so, he evokes in the minds of his hearers the whole range of salvation history – From the First Adam to the Second Adam, the Re-Creator of all things, Jesus of Nazareth. This woman stands as a caricature of everything Israel believed. They, as God's chosen people, were in, and the Gentiles – of all sorts – including Canaanite women, and you and me, were out.
Jesus, as a first-century Jewish Rabbi was ingrained in that culture, in that teaching, in that understanding of the Kingdom, and so, true to who he is and what he came to do, he's focused on the lost sheep of Israel – the Pharisees among many others – who were so lost in the rules, who wasted so much time washing their hands, feet, pots, and pans, who focused on themselves more than others and more than God. He had a lot of work to do to get their attention.
And the Canaanite woman had a lot of work to do to get his. “Have mercy on me! Lord! Son of David! Have mercy on me! Kyrie Elison. Kryie! Elison!” She shouts and cries and shouts some more, until, exasperated, the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Shut her up! Send her away! Apolyson!” But she is undaunted, until she gets what she wants, until her daughter is healed of her demon, she will not leave, she will not be quiet, she will not be ignored. “Kryie Elison! Have mercy on me, Lord!”
As if he hadn't heard her at all, Jesus only responds to his disciples, “I was sent for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Suddenly, she sees her way in, as she rushes up to him, and takes on the traditional posture of worship, down on her knees, begging, pleading, worshiping, and hoping that Jesus will hear her cry and be merciful. His response, is filled with thousands of years of hurt feelings, theological squabble, and all out warfare. “It isn't fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” The woman, still undeterred, has heard it all before. She's been called worse, but worse people, for sure. “Yep, dog, that's me, but even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master's table.”
And in an instant, in the bigger picture, everything changes. The walls of Jericho come tumbling down, and everyone – even this Canaanite woman, emblematic of every stereotype, ignorance, and hatred that ever separated any person from another – everyone comes within the reach of God's saving embrace.
“Woman, great is your faith,” is all Jesus can muster, “let it be done for you as you wish.” Her persistence pays off, thanks be to God, and even the Son of God has an Epiphany. In God's Kingdom there is no box, no in or out, just love, grace, and mercy, and that, my friends, changes everything. The Canaanite Woman trusted in that truth, but do we, do I, do you? Do we trust enough to know we've been forgiven? Do we realize that we are loved? Do we accept the grace that we don't deserve, confident in the Master's love?
During the dust bowl of the early 1930s, a preacher scheduled a special prayer service to pray for rain. The church was packed with people from far and wide as the preacher stepped into the pulpit. He scanned the assembled congregation, and told everyone, “Y'all can head on home. This service is over.” The people protested, “But we've not prayed for rain!” “Won't do a lick of good,” the preacher replied, “ain't none of you brought your umbrella!”
The Canaanite Woman brought her umbrella. She believed, fully and surely, despite hundreds of years of history to the contrary, that Jesus would heal her daughter, and because of her great faith, in the great scheme of things, the gates of Kingdom of God were flung wide to include you, me, and every Canaanite Woman in history.
Can you see the bigger picture?
Is it coming into focus?
Have you brought your umbrella?
Do you believe in what God can do?
I do. I believe God has a role for each one of us as the story unfolds. I believe that God has equipped each of you specially for the tasks he has prepared for you. I'm praying for big things. I'm praying for walls to crumble. I'm praying for small things to forever alter the bigger picture. I've got my umbrella. Do you?

Proper 13A - a sermon for Parish Staffs

For the last, I don't know how long, I've thought there was a prayer, attributed to Martin Luther hanging behind my desk. When I went to look at it in preparation for this homily, however, I realized it was gone, and I have no idea where it went or how long it has been missing. After I read this prayer, you'll understand how coincidental that all is.
Lord God, You have placed me in your church. You know how unsuitable I am. Were it not for your guidance I would long since have brought everything to destruction. I wish to give my heart and mouth to your service. I desire to teach your people, and long to be taught your work. Use me as your workman dear Lord. Do not forsake me; for if I am alone I shall bring it all to naught. Amen.
Over in the office, we are in the throws of fall planning. Liturgy, Sunday school, EYC, five15, lifelong Christian formation, special events – I feel like it is the first week of a seminary semester all over again. The list of things to do seems so long and the list of available time seems so short, and I can't even keep a printout of a prayer from disappearing off my bulletin board.
O God, you know how unsuitable I am. And while my brain won't believe it, I know in my heart of hearts that it really isn't all about me. The programs, the music, the liturgy, God will provide. But in the meantime, my blood pressure is through the roof. Thankfully, God hears the prayers of his people and does not leave us alone, to bring it all to naught. He hears our cry, “Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church...” and he put it on the hearts of the Revised Common Lectionary Committee to appoint these lessons for Proper 13a. They were tailor suited for church staffs stressed at the prospect of another program year speeding down the pike because they are all about God's abundant provision.
In Isaiah, we hear of God's gift being offered to everyone: “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” Even the unfaithful, even *gasp* the nations that don't know the LORD are invited to come and find sustenance in God.
In the Psalm, we listen in as David sings praises to the Lord. “The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness. The LORD is loving to everyone and his compassion over all his works.”
Matthew's telling of the feeding of the 5000 is THE PERFECT LESSON for this time of year. The disciples, with whom I can readily associate, feel like they are running out of time and there just isn't enough to go around. It is getting late, and all we've got is five loaves and two fish, what on earth are we going to do Jesus?
What on earth? Well nothing of earth can help this situation. Left to your own devices, yes it would all come to an end, but in the Kingdom of God, where abundance is the name of the game, there is plenty of time and plenty of food and all will eat and be satisfied.
I often comment that most of my sermons are written for me, but today that is more true than ever. You might not be planning a program year, but all of us know what it is like to feel like there is not enough time, energy, money, food, whatever to go around. We all find ourselves at that point where our rope has run out, but God is so good. His mercy IS everlasting. His love IS for everyone. And thankfully, when our rope ends, God's is there waiting for us to grab hold. There is more than enough in God's economy: more than enough time, talent, money, space, whatever. We just have to invite him in, let go of our own stuff, and grab a hold of God.
O Lord, you open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature. Help us to see your abundance and to be thankful. Amen.

Joining in on God's Miracle of Abundance

My Sunday sermon can be heard here - or read on!


As the calendar prepares to roll over to August, September is already looming large. Back in May, the Bishop reminded his clergy that the tenth anniversary of September 11th will fall on a Sunday. My preaching resources, twitter feed, and facebook news are already teeming with resources on how to handle that delicate day. Because of the constant reminders, I've relived September 11th dozens of times over the past few months, and will certainly do so again in the coming weeks. Like many in my generation, September 11th is a defining moment and I remember the day vividly. Hearing the first reports of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers on the radio as I drove to class. Standing in front of the hastily wired TV in the Student Union with others, slack-jawed as the details unfolded. Cassie calling me as the University of Pittsburgh dental school closed after flight 93 crashed less than 90 miles away. Staring at CNN.com in my office at the all but shut down for the day RR Donnelley plant. Finding my parents at St. Thomas Church and giving them huge hugs because, as I said to them, “today is a day that you just want to see your parents.” We all handle bad news differently. Some reach out to others. Some get to work on mindless tasks. Jesus, as we will see, sought out a deserted place.
Chapter 14 of Matthew's Gospel should be subtitled “A tale of two dinners.” The first, which we skip in the RCL, is a dinner of great opulence served in the comfortable setting of Herod Anitpas' palace in honor of his birthday. Out of sight, but not out of mind, sitting in the basement dungeon was John the Baptist who had arrived there for getting in the way of ugly family drama. Herod had taken his brother's wife as his own and John stood up and said, “No! This is unlawful.” Now Herod, at the urging of said wife, Herodias, wanted to put John to death, but he feared what the people might do to him, and so, John sat in prison awaiting his fate while Herod and his friends got plastered upstairs. Herod got so snockered and found his step-daughter's dance routine so pleasing that he offered to grant her whatever she might ask. And so, the young girl, at the prompting of her mother, asked for the head of John on a platter. Which she got.
Which brings us to dinner number two, and our Gospel text for this morning. When Jesus heard the news of John's death, he hopped in a boat and sought out a deserted place. We all handle bad news differently, but no matter our actions, most us, in tough times, try to God. When life doesn't make sense most of us find ourselves most hungry for God. That's what I did as I sought out contact with loved ones on September 11th. In their words and hugs they were God to me. That's what others do when they got lost in the millions of details, they seek God in the mundane – a place where he is easily found. Jesus sought to fulfill his hunger for God by getting out into the wilderness, in the peace and quiet. He needed some time to talk to His Father and sort it all out. He needed to hear, probably for the millionth time, that God's plan is good and perfect even though people are often flawed and terrible. He just needed some space, but the crowd was hungry too. They had a lifetime of bad news to process, and their way of handling it was to seek out Jesus. The crowd needed him, and so as soon as they heard that he had taken off, they began to search for him. Like paparazzi looking for the perfect picture, they sought him out from every surrounding town, until they found him, still in his boat, just offshore.
Jesus returns to shore, after a break that I can only guess wasn't nearly long enough, some how ready, willing, and able to reach out with compassion to the crowd swarming around him. The way Matthew tells the story, the miracles begin almost immediately, “Jesus went ashore, he saw and great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.” Jesus came back from his brief respite ready to share God's gift of compassion and he did so with vigor, but let's be honest. You didn't come here today to hear about Jesus healing some folks. As you flipped through the bulletin before the service started and you glanced at the Gospel lesson, most of you thought, “Oh good, The Feeding of the 5000, I love that story.” It is The Miracle of Jesus. It even has its own action figure play set.
As the last of the sick came forward to be healed and evening approached, the disciples, weary from a long day, approached Jesus with a problem. “This place, where you tried to escape, is deserted, and the hour is growing late, we should send everybody back to the towns so that they can hit the drive-thru or pick up some take out before everything closes.” Jesus, as usual, has other plans. Here, in the wilderness, in the place where God fed the Israelites manna from heaven, where Elijah was nourished by ravens, where Elisha fed a hundred men with twenty loves of bread, where John the Baptist set up shop, and where Jesus was tempted for by the devil to turn stones into bread, in that very wilderness, Jesus is going to perform one of his most powerful miracles. He's going to feed these five thousand men and every last woman and child there too. Just as he healed the sick, Jesus could have miraculously placed a happy meal, cooked their way, right away, in every persons hand, but this miracle of sharing is one to be shared. He looks at his disciples and says, “There is no need to send them away, you are going to give them something to eat.”
“Us?” They reply, bewildered, “Us? No way. Impossible. We've got nothing but five loaves and two fish.”
“Bring 'em here,” Jesus responds. Then, in language that should be very familiar to Episcopalians he took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread back to his disciples who distributed it to the throng of tired and hungry people. They ate until they were filled, and then the disciples went back around, collecting twelve large baskets full of left-overs.
The Gospel writers rarely give us glimpses into what is going on behind the scenes with Jesus. We hear about his sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. We hear about his anger in the Temple courts when he turns the tables. We see him weep for his friend Lazarus, but most of the time all we get to know about Jesus is what is on the surface. In its proper context, however, this story of the feeding of the 5000 shows us Jesus in all of his human vulnerability. From the midst of his own mourning, fear and uncertainty – from one of the Son of God's most human experiences – we find Jesus reaching out with supernatural compassion. As the story opens, we find Jesus in the same position as the crowd: lost, sick, and wandering. I imagine him looking out from that boat and feeling the same way the disciples did when they looked in their picnic basket. “There are thousands of people who need me, and I barely have enough energy to keep myself going. From a lifetime of experience, however, Jesus knows, beyond the shadow of a doubt “that wherever there is plenty of God, there will be plenty of everything else.”1 There was plenty of God in that otherwise desolate place and there was plenty of compassion in Jesus. There was plenty of God in the crowd and there was plenty of bread and fish to go around.
Maybe you've come here this morning feeling run down. Maybe you are looking for a place to hide. Maybe you are hungry or thirsty or tired or scared. In a few moments, Keith will step behind this altar and take what little bit we have to off and ask God to bless it, break it, and share it with everyone. There is plenty of God in the bread and wine we share at this table and there is plenty of grace to go around, plenty of healing, plenty of restoration.
We all handle bad news differently, but in his Son, God with us, the Father invites us to share that pain, that sorrow, that fear, that anxiety with him. He invites us to receive his compassion and mercy. He offers us the bread of life that sustains us beyond overflowing. But then, like the dumbfounded disciples, he expects us to pick up a basket and go forth to share the abundance. God's gifts are not ours to keep. They are only given in order to sustain us so that we can continue passing them along. So come, you who are weary and burdened, receive the sustenance of God and go forth renewed for his service. Take your part in God's miracle of abundance. Amen.

God keeps his promises - a homily

Here's my homily from yesterday's noon Eucharist.

Over the past six months, I have watched the Veggie Tales version of the Jonah story more times than a good parent would care to admit. I have learned a lot from the adventures of the poor asparagus names Jonah: his escape to Tarshesh, his time in the belly of a big fish, and the repentance of the people of Nineveh. One thing of which I am certain, the life of a prophet is never dull. Hosea was called by God to marry a prostitute who would cheat on him so that he could experience the pain God felt as Israel worshiped idols. Ezekiel was told to lay on his left side for 390 days while God laid the iniquity of Israel upon him. Isaiah walked around naked for three years to show Isreal's enemies the shame that was to come upon them. Prophets spoke words of correction and rebuke to people of all strata – from peasants to kings – individuals and whole nations. They found themselves, unsurprisingly, in all sorts of jams and in need of the very God who sent them into the storm for safety. My spiritual director in seminary told me she thought I had the gift of prophecy, and I've been scared to death that she was right ever since. Being a prophet is a life of unease, at best.
There are moments, however, when being a prophet is a pretty sweet gig, and not just on the other side of the River Styx. There are scores of stories in Scripture where, when all the prophecy and rebuke is over, when wars have come and gone, when people have been killed, exiled, and humiliated, when God gives the prophet a word of restoration – a promise that even in the midst of the worst possible situation, God promises goodness for his people. We get a piece of that in the Isaiah lesson.
Chapter fifty-five ends what is called Second Isaiah, the portion of the book that takes place during the Babylonian Exile, and this word is desperately needed. Their time in exile has been almost too much to bear. Their beloved holy city of Jerusalem was destroyed, families were torn apart, houses burnt to the ground, and their country leveled. Jeremiah and a group were left in Israel while others were taken by force to Babylon where they could no longer follow the rules of their religion. Their God, who resided in the Temple Court, was no where to be found. Hope is almost lost, when the man who warned them all of this would happen, offers a new word, one filled with hope.
His word of rain and snow comes to a people, not unlike us, who know the dangers of parched ground. They've seen crops fail, fires rage, and livelihoods lost. They know what it is to hope for rain to come and refresh the earth, and, Isaiah says, that is exactly what God's word is like. His word comes, and renews the face of the earth. People who see nothing but sadness, will have their hopeful vision restored. People who in the midst of death and mourning, long for a glimpse of life, will have their lives renewed. God will pour out his word of hope upon his people and they will rise up with joy and singing. The restoration will be so joyous, so spirited, so lively that even the very mountains and hill will sing and rejoice. The words of condemnation, the thorns and the briers, will be transformed into luscious green myrtles and cypress trees. Where Babylon scorched the earth, God's word will bring forth fresh life.
Today marks the middle of our ninth real week of summer. We've had 0.05 inches of rain in July, 2.17 inches of rain in June, and 0.11 inches in May – putting us nearly 8 inches behind for these 9 weeks. We watched 1000 acres of Gulf State Park burn as we smelled smoke for more than a week. We've been stuck in traffic on 59, long lines at the grocery store, and found slivers of sand on crowded beaches. We've got 13 weeks until hurricane season ends. And we can't even begin to understand how desperate the Isrealites in Babylon felt, but there is still hope for us in the words of Isaiah,
God keeps his promises, and he promises to restore his whole creation. No matter how dry, how frustrating, how messy, how fearful the earth becomes, God promises to restore it and us in due time. He's done it before. He's given Jonah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Isaiah good news to share, and been true to their word. May God continue to prove faithful to his word as we seek to faithfully serve him, even in the midst of dry times. Amen.

The Prodigal Sower - an impractical sermon

You can listen to this here - or read it below.

When I was in seminary, some body of the Church decided to survey Episcopal Parishes on what they most desired from the then thirteen Episcopal seminaries. One question asked something to the effect of “What is the most important attribute for a priest?” The overwhelming majority said “relevant, practical biblical preaching.” I remember hearing that and thinking, “of course, and that is exactly what I will do. I'll preach relevant, practical, biblical sermons.” And for the most part, I feel like I do. I've heard, and I understand that I could be more practical. I could spell out for you exactly how to live your lives, what activities to partake in, what charities to give to, what prayers to say and what scriptures to read. Instead, I think of a sermon like a coloring book. I draw the lines, giving you a general idea of the picture on the page, your job is to take your crayons and bring the page to life. It is an arrangement that for the most part works out well, but there is a problem with relevant, practical biblical preaching. The problem is that sometimes the Bible is ridiculously impractical. Today's Gospel lesson is no exception.
The crowd following Jesus continues to swell. It has become so large, in fact, that Jesus is forced to push out from shore in order to teach to the whole group. Jesus knows, however, that many of them are there for the wrong reasons. Many, if not most, of those following him (including his disciples) are convinced that Jesus' is the military leader who will bring them freedom from the oppressive Romans. They are eagerly and impatiently waiting for Jesus to give them their marching orders, when he pushes the boat out from shore and launches into this third teaching discourse. His language is veiled in the ancient art of parables, probably because there are spies in the crowd. His cousin, John the Baptist is already in prison. Jesus scans the crowd, sees their hearts, and knows that his message must be on point. The Sea was surrounded by fields, so there is a good chance that as Jesus scanned his audience, he saw a farmer planting seed for the new season. “You see that farmer over there sowing seed? Let me tell you about The Farmer,” and he launched into this first kingdom parable about seed that fell on four very different types of ground: the path, where birds ate it up, rocky ground where the fresh sprouts were scorched, thorny soil that choked out the new growth, and good soil that produced a crop in record abundance: a hundred, sixty, or third fold.
The practical preacher would now say something like, “be good soil and give to the building fund.”1 He would then follow up with various ways in which you could tend the soil of your heart to make the Gospel message flourish in your life. The practical preacher can do this, even if it feels a lot like a to-do list for getting yourself into heaven, the dreaded works righteousness, because of the allegorical explanation, attributed to Jesus, that follows right after. The path is like a hard heart that can not hear the Word and so the devil snatches it away. The rocky ground is like a heart eager to join up, but ill prepared for the trials of discipleship, so when the going gets tough, the rocky heart runs away. The thorny ground is a heart too focused on the worries of the world and seeking after wealth, too preoccupied to produce any fruit. The good soil is a fertile heart that hears, understands, and lives the Word producing yields of ridiculous proportions. The Practical Preacher gets to look at her congregation and say, “All you have to do is listen and understand, cut out the worry and the money grubbing, and you'll be good soil.” But I don't buy it. Parables weren't meant to be understood at face value, they were supposed to disturb the hearer and make them think. They were supposed to have many sides, to be looked at from many angles, and to bounce around in the hearers mind for days on end until, when it finally seems to make sense, the process starts over again. So, despite the fact that most Episcopalians surveyed want this sermon to be relevant and practical, I have to agree with Barbara Brown Taylor who asks, “What if this story is not about us at all but about the sower? What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns, but about the extravagance of a sower who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon...” What if this parable is totally impractical for our lives except where it opens our eyes to the fact that God is reckless in his love for us? And if that's the case, well then maybe it isn't impractical at all. Surely we can make this more relevant, with just a few easy twenty-first century changes. Let's hear the parable again.
“The Farmer, having hooked up his planter to the back of his John Deere tractor, started out of the barn. He put the machine in gear, turned on his four way flashers, and flipped on the PTO setting the blades of the planter spinning and seed flying about. He slowly made his way down the long gravel driveway, turned right onto County Road 97 and began the two mile journey to his southern fields. Seeds bounced off the asphalt roadway, some fell into the ditch, some pinged off the windshields of cars attempting to pass. When he finally arrived at the south forty, he cut across the weedy, thorny right of way, seed still flying, and then began the slow, methodical process of seeding the well groomed, fertilized, lush field.”2
No farmer in their right mind would be that reckless with seed. Not in first century Palestine and not in the cut throat twenty-first century American agricultural industry. Seed is just too expensive to throw it away in the barn, on the driveway, along the road, and in the right-of-way. No farmer would be so prodigal in their flinging of seed, but God is. God, the creator of all things, seen and unseen, in heaven and on earth can afford to be “confident that there will be enough seed to go around.3” He sees into our hearts and even though he sees barns with treasure stored up for ourselves, gravel driveways parched from lack of living water, roadways paved over and over and over again by doubt and cynicism, and the thorns of fear, addiction, pride, and greed – he keeps throwing seed, again and again and again. He lavishes his good seed not just on the good soil, but on every heart that he has made.
Our modern day parable finishes up like this, “Several months later, when the harvest was finally ready to come in, the farmer started up his combine, turned right onto County Road 97, made the two mile drive to the southern forty and reaped a harvest that was in some spots 100 fold, in others 60, and still others 30. He who has ears, let him hear. She who has ears, let her hear.” The harvest is so plentiful that even with all that wasted seed, there is more than enough to go around. More than enough to fill the barns of every neighbor to the point of overflowing. More than enough grace for every man, woman, and child ever created.
For the practical preacher, this a story of seed falling on four soils. Good Protestant work ethic combined with the “I can do anything” American ethos wants to tell us that we can choose what type of soil we are. The bad news is, you can't. You have no more choice about the soil of your heart than the soil of the earth does about whether it is paved, built upon, left fallow, or tended to with care and craft. And truth be told, none of us, if we were to be really honest with ourselves, would find only one type of soil in our hearts. All of us, carry all four types of soil within us. It would be wise, of course, to do our best to remove what thorns we can, to water what dry ground we find, to give up worrying about wealth, and generally to keep the soil of our hearts in good order, but we all know that is easier said than done. Ultimately, it is only by the grace of God that any real change takes place. In the meantime, the good news for us today is that this is this a completely impractical story of our God, The Prodigal Sower, who will keep flinging seed in your direction, from now, until the end of time. Which, for those of you, who, like me, still struggle with sin everyday, is actually quite practical indeed. Amen.

Sermon on Proper 9A

You can listen here, or read below.

I don't understand my own actions - office equipment edition

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” With these words, Paul speaks a universal truth beyond something any preacher could dream to muster. He speaks the truth about himself, about the rest of the Apostles, about the early Church, and about you and me. Sometimes, we all do the very things we hate. Sometimes, I don't do what I want to do. Sometimes, I don't understand my own actions.
Take this week as an example. As the only one in the office this week, I had the distinct pleasure of being not just the Associate Rector while the big wheel was out of town, but I also had the dreaded task of filling in for the parish secretary. Keith being gone is one thing, but Karla leaving means at least a dozen extra items on my weekly to-do list. And that dozen multiplied at about 10:30 on Wednesday morning when the copier went down. Error Code C7300. So, I turned the machine off, per the instructions on the machine's screen, let it cool down and tried again. Ten copies later, Error Code C7300. And so, I bit the bullet and called our service contractor. “No problem,” they said, “we'll get someone out there shortly.” “Sounds good,” I responded, and twenty-nine hours later, a technician finally arrived.
“I don't know these machines very well,” is how the interaction between the tech and me began, and somehow things went downhill from there. Seems our friendly neighborhood copier service was bought out by a mega-office-soluitons company, and this nice man was from the big boys regional office because all of the techs from the old company were out servicing other machines. They assumed, I suppose, that I would be glad for the prompt and courteous service. A dubious assumption on their part. Anyway, the tech thought the C7300 code was a toner code, but t make sure he called on the the guys who was too busy to come out and see me. He was right, and thanks be to God, we actually had extra toner. With his phone tucked between his shoulder and his head, the nice man proceeded to fumble through figuring out how to removed the old toner cartridge, finding the power switch, and asking the guy on the other end if he had to shake the new cartridge.
Somewhere in there, I cam to realize that prompt courteous service, while nice (and in not actually a reality in this particular case) would be a whole lot more effective if it were simply knowledgeable service. Anyway, he made a few copies, instructed me to call the office to order more toner and headed off to his next service call at a place, quote “he'd never heard of before.”
I went back to attempting to print today's bulletin, when ten or so copies in... you guessed it... Error Code C7300. And here's where this rubber on this long, rambling story, hits the road. Here's where I did what I didn't want to do, the very thing I hate. Here's where the parts of my personality that I can't understand come to the fore. I called up the help desk again, calmly explained to them that the nice man they had sent clearly didn't have a clue what he was doing, and then sat behind Karla's desk a stewed over his incompetence for what felt like an hour.
“O God, you have taught us to keep your commandments by loving you and our neighbor...” That's the way our Prayer for Today begins. We know, O Lord, that we can live up to everything you expect of us if we could just love you and love our neighbor. It is that simple. The yoke is so easy. The burden is so light. And yet. And yet, over and over and over again I fail to love God and I fail at loving my neighbor and I find myself, metaphorically, sitting at Karla's desk, stewing in my own contempt over something that in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter at all. It is in those moments that Paul's rhetorical question in verse twenty-four come to a head in my life, “who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Our prayer continues, “give us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection...” Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” The burdens we carry are as different as each one of us. Grief, guilt, illness, fear, depression, contempt, anxiety, stress, addiction – the list goes on and on. The world continuously ties new weights upon our shoulders until we can barely stand under the strain, and then, we heap some more upon ourselves, just for good measure. We are told, even in Scripture, that suffering produces endurance, but most of the time, this sort of suffering only leads to broken relationships between us and God and us and our neighbors.
Jesus can take those self-imposed and world-imposed burdens from our shoulders. He longs to replace them with the easy yoke of his Gospel, if only we would let him. I know I want rest for my soul, but instead, for reasons I can't understand, I choose instead to sit at a desk and fume over some poor copier repair guy who got dropped into an unfortunate situation. I honestly don't understand my own actions.
What about you? What burdens have you heaped upon yourself? What loads have you allowed the world, your work, your family, your church to place upon your shoulders? What are you yoked to that is pulling you away from God and toward fear, contempt, guilt and sin? In Follow the Word this morning, the children are making mobile, just like this one. At the top is a cartoon Jesus, hand extended. He's carrying a barbell, a boulder, and an anchor. He's carrying a lot of weight, to be sure, but he words written next to him are all the weight we need to worry about. “Jesus carries my burdens for me.” No matter how much junk you've heaped upon yourself, Jesus is strong enough to carry it for you. Just hand it over to him. Lift it up one more time so that he can take it away. As Paul says, in response to his own rhetorical question, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Handing your weighty garbage over to Jesus doesn't mean it will all go away and life will be all hunky-dorry. There will still be stresses, struggles, and trials. What handing them over does mean, however, is that you won't have to go through it alone. You'll have the God of all Creation, the Son of Redemption, and the Spirit of Sanctification there to help. And, perhaps just as importantly, you'll have the community of the faithful there to walk wit you as well. Sure, we can't necessarily help carry anything for you, since we've all got our own loads to bear, but we can surely walk alongside, encouraging, praying, and being a friend and neighbor in the meantime.
Now to be sure, when you hand it all over to God today, new stuff will come down the pike tomorrow. Perhaps an adaptation of today's Collect might be fruitful as a prayer for when your feet his the floor in the morning. Almighty God, thank you for the gift of another day. Thank you for the promise of an easy yoke and light burdens. Grant us the grace of your Spirit, O God, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart (without any of the garbage there to get in the way). Grant us the grace of your Spirit, that we may be united to one another in pure affection (loving one another even in the midst of the messes we create). Grant us the grace of your Spirit to hand it over, to lift it up, to give it away so that we might find rest for our souls and serve you worthily to the honor and glory of your name. Amen.

Saints Peter and Paul

Usually, when we gather on Wednesday to celebrate a feast day, it is somebody most of us, myself included, have never heard of. Today, however, we celebrate two of Christianity's three most famous men. Jesus, the obvious pick for number one, is celebrated everyday, of course, but today we remember the lives of Saints Peter and Paul, numbers two and three (and the order probably flips depending on who you talk to.
Paul, a well-educated Pharisee and Roman citizen was late to come to the party. As we all know, his conversion happened only after he was a persecutor of the Church. Peter, an uneducated fisherman from Galilee was with Jesus almost from the beginning. As the Church began to form after the Day of Pentecost, Peter and Paul had several well documented spats over the inclusion of Gentiles in the Way. Paul writes several times of his need to rebuke Peter who continually called for Jewish exclusiveness, or, to use my favorite seminary term, Judaizing, the need to follow Jewish law in order to be a follower of Jesus.
It might be one of the best lessons for the modern church that we remember both Peter and Paul on the same day. Despite their disagreements that touched to the core of what they believed, their common faith in Jesus as the Messiah led them to work together for the glory of God. Their belief led them both to Rome where both were martyred during the persecutions of Emporer Nero in 64AD. Paul was granted the right of a Roman citizen and beheaded while Peter was crucified upside down.
In the year 96, Thirty-two years after the deaths of Peter and Paul, Pope Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians says, ““Let us come to those who have most recently proved champions; let us take up the noble examples of our own generation. Because of jealousy and envy the greatest and most upright pillars of the Church were persecuted and competed unto death. Let us bring before our eyes the good apostles—Peter, who because of unrighteous jealousy endured not one or two, but numerous trials, and so bore a martyr’s witness and went to the glorious place that he deserved. Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the reward of endurance; seven times he was imprisoned, he was exiled, he was stoned, he was a preacher in both east and west, and won renown for his faith, teaching uprightness to the whole world, and reaching the farthest limit of the west, and bearing a martyr’s witness before the rulers, he passed out of the world and was taken up into the holy place, having proved a very great example of endurance.”
I could go on for hours with the history of these great two saints, but I'll spare you the details and instead focus for a moment on the example they left for those of us who two-thousand years later are still doing are best to follow the Way of Jesus. The first comes from Paul's second letter to Timothy. Writing from prison in Rome, his death not far away, Paul calls on young Timothy to take on the mantle of a teacher, leading new believers along the pathway of righteousness. And while it seems like this letter might be intended for pastors, I think these words apply to us all, “proclaim the message, be persistent, convince, rebuke, and encourage... and carry out your ministry fully.” As Paul talked about elsewhere, each of us has been given gifts of the Spirit, and in faithfulness we should exercise them for the good of the Kingdom.
The second example comes from the mouth of Jesus himself, after the resurrection, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus gives Peter his marching orders: “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.” Much ink has been spilled to decode what Jesus is saying here, but it seems simple enough to me: If you love Jesus, take care of one another, serve one another.
In the two thousand years since Peter and Paul were martyred, we've done a lot to make Christianity complicated, but when it comes down to it, the lessons we learn from these great Fathers in the faith are sufficient: love God, love neighbor, and use the gifts God has given you. Now, go and do likewise. Amen.

On being a good steward of hope

You can listen to this sermon here. Or read the unedited text below.

Good morning! It is so great to be back here with you this morning. The folks at St. Stephen's in Brewton were gracious hosts, but there truly is “no place like home.” This morning we gather on the thirty-sixth day of Easter as we continue our 50 Days of Stewardship: searching for ways in which to live as a people of the resurrection. So far we've looked at Stewardship of Money, Stewardship of Service, the lack of stewardship in debt, and Stewardship of Power.
This week, I have the distinct pleasure of combining two of our least favorite topics into one uncomfortable package: Stewardship and Evangelism. I call this the Stewardship of Hope, and it is nowhere more present than in today's lesson from First Peter. Peter writes to a church spread far and wide by persecution – a church afraid – a church in hiding. He writes to a Church that finds itself as a minority within a minority – a church without much cultural significance - a church struggling to find its voice. His advice is as needed today as it was two-thousand years ago, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”
There are two pieces of this admonition that make it difficult for most Christians to live into: the being ready part and the gentleness and reverence part. I'll readily admit that the being ready part is the hardest for me. I realized very early on that my life as an ordained person would be a life filled with awkward conversations. Just over a week after I was ordained a deacon, Cassie and I began our two day journey down here. We left Alexandria on Sunday morning, set to spend the night just outside of Spartanburg, South Carolina. We arrived at our hotel at about 5pm, got the cats settled in, and set out in search of a beer and a bite to eat. The only place within walking distance was a little hole in the wall called the Rendezvous. It was a private club, seems you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in South Carolina outside of certain city limits. We applied for membership and paid out one dollar lifetime dues, and sat down for fried cheese sticks, chicken fingers, and a bucket of miller lite, when the man next to us, who had certainly been there quite a while, began to talk with us.
As these sorts of conversations go, we quickly arrived on the “how'd you get here?” topic. Cassie and I explained that we were on our way to Foley, Alabama hoping to meet our moving truck in the next couple of days. “What takes you to South Alabama?” He asked. “Well,” I responded nervously, “I've been hired as the assistant minister at an Episcopal Church down there.”
Over the past four years, I've noticed that there are mainly two ways the conversation can go from there. The first is for the conversation to come to a grinding halt. The other party responds with something like, “Oh, wow. Umm... good for you.” And then spins around on their barstool or zones out at the 1976 Sugar Bowl replay happening on ESPN Classic. That's not how this conversation played itself out. Instead, we went through door number two, the “I'm lapsed, but generally a good person, and let me tell you why” path. Depending on how long someone has been at the bar before we meet, this path can be short and sweet or very long and very painful. A week into my life as an ordained minister, this particular journey felt very, very long. I was ill-equipped. I wasn't ready. And so that man, a fellow lifetime member of the Rendezvous, never heard about the hope that is within me. He just got some hems and haws and ring spinning.
The Apostle Paul is the king of being ready. He was so ready to share his hope that he didn't even wait for folks to come to him, he hit the town running. This morning we heard a portion of the story about his time in Athens. He finds himself there, waiting to be joined by Timothy and Silas because his previous attempts at sharing his hope got him run out of Thessalonica and Berea. While waiting for his companions, Paul did what he always did and found his way to the Synagogue where, as a guest teacher, he was invited to share with the congregation. He told them the Good News about Jesus and he resurrection, and after a cool response, he took his message to the marketplace where he ran into the stoics and the epicureans who thought he was nuts. They, in turn, took him to Mars Hill where he was invited to speak before the Areopagus, basically the city council, where he gave the stirring sermon we heard read this morning.
Three years ago this weekend, I joined Cassie, Doug, her dad, Paul, his friend, a Presbyterian minister, Bart Campolo, a Christian missioner, John, an insurance executive and Christian philanthropist, and John's brother, who I don't know very well because he always has to leave before the race is over, at the Indianapolis 500. I'm sure I've mentioned this particular race before, it was full of sermon illustrations. As we approached the track, at the historic corner of 16th and Georgetown, we were grated by the familiar sound of men holding placards, shouting through bull-horns, “Repent! God hates sinners. Repent or be damned!” This is always an interesting moment for our particular group, as it seems as though the assumption is “if you go to The 500, you are an enemy of Christ.” A title which doesn't really fit anyone in our group, but one that helps prove my other point this morning.
The second way in which we fail to live up to Peter's call to evangelism is that we lack gentleness and reverence.” The men shouting through megaphones are, unfortunately, not the only one's who lack the necessary tact to share the Good News. The media has been full of stories in recent months of Christians who have failed to live into gentleness and reverence. The Westboro Baptist Church people protesting military funerals, the preacher in Florida who burnt the Koran, the kindergartner in Hokes Bluff whose yearbook message said he wanted to “beat up all those BAD MUSLIMS.” Too often, we fail to share our hope with gentleness and reverence. Too often, we forget the commandments of Jesus to love God and love one another.
In this morning's Gospel lesson, Jesus promises his disciples another Advocate who will be with them, with us forever. This Advocate, the Holy Spirit, cannot be received by the world because the world does not see him or know him. As disciples of the risen Jesus, we have been given this Advocate. The Holy Spirit abides in us, leads us, carries us. Those who believe, those who are engaged in an active, ongoing relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, are engaged in the work of God by way of the Holy Spirit. When we find ourselves in those places where words cease, when fear overwhelms, God's promise is that the Holy Spirit will give us words to say. Too often, however, when we find ourselves in a place of fear, put on the spot to share our faith, instead of trusting in the Spirit and speaking in love, we react emotionally and defensively and the hope we share comes with anger and contempt, rather than gentleness and reverence.
As Paul stood before the Aeropagus, he was disturbed to the point of anger, but his words weren't arrogant or rude, but loving and hope-filled. “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, `To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things....” Paul quoted their own poets, “In Him we live and move an have our being” and shared with them the hope of resurrection from the dead. And he did it all in love, with gentleness, and reverence.
Are you ready? What is the hope inside of you? Is it that you'll get to heaven when you die? Is it that before you get there, God will use you to bring heaven to earth? Can you articulate that hope without getting defensive or angry? Can you share the Good News in love, with gentleness and reverence?
Over the course of my thrity-one years, I have not been the best steward of hope. I've kept the message bottled up. I've been afraid and uncomfortable. I've been argumentative and scornful. But God continues to work on me, as I'm certain he does you as well. He gives us his Spirit, our Advocate, who walks alongside us. Who, when we'll listen, will give us the words we need to speak.
O God, help us to always be ready to make our defense to anyone who demands from us an accounting for the hope that is in us; and help us to do it with gentleness and reverence, all for the glory of your name, by the indwelling of your Spirit, and through the grace of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

When Jesus will Return

My sermon from Sunday at St. Stephen's Church, Brewton, AL

Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with you this morning. I bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters in Christ in Foley. They also send their regrets that their patron saint, Saint Paul held coats and looked on approvingly while your patron saint, Saint Stephen was stoned to death becoming the first to follow in Christ's footsteps and die at the hands of his persecutors. We hope there are no hard feelings.
I'm actually quite relieved to even be here this morning. I don't know if you heard, but the world was supposed to come to an end in a series of massive earthquakes yesterday. An eighty-nine year old, former Civil Engineer turned Christian radio preacher named Harold Camping thought he had stumbled upon a truth that even Jesus himself had missed: the exact date and time of the Second Coming of Christ. I tried really hard all week to avoid the press that Camping was getting. To be quite honest, it grieved me that honest to goodness news organizations like CNN and The Washington Post would even bother to pick up the story. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. The media seems all too excited to jump on a story that makes Christians look silly. I was also sad for the folks who follow this radio prophet, especially the children whose faith might be irreparably broken by the fact that Jesus didn't return at eight pm Pacific Time on May twenty-first, Twenty-eleven. I was avoiding all the hoopla out of silent protest for the scores of ways this man and his math made my life's vocation harder.
But on Thursday morning I caved. I followed the link on CNN.com to an interview with Mr. Camping in which he declared that he knew “absolutely, without any shadow of a doubt that May twenty-one will be the day.” I read with sadness the stories of people who gave away everything they had, walked away from jobs and family and friends to drive RVs around the county declaring the end of the world. And assuming that Camping isn't lining his wallet, a generous assumption, considering his family radio group is worth over one hundred million dollars, I prayed that God would somehow redeem the mess that one well meaning follower was managing to make. And then I went back to work, looking over the scriptures for today, asking God what he wanted me to share with the good people of Saint Stephen's in Brewton on the day after the world was supposed to end, and I realized, as if in a flash of lightning, when the world would actually end. Well not really end, what I came to understand is when Jesus would actually return. or perhaps better said, when Jesus will return again.
The funny thing about the Great Fifty Days of Easter is that we very quickly run out of resurrection stories. On Easter Day we get the empty tomb. On Easter Two we hear about the upper room on Easter Evening. Easter Three we met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. And then, by Easter Four we were back in pre-crucifixion days listening to Jesus interact with his disciples. This morning we are back on Maundy Thursday in John's Gospel. Jesus and his disciples are in the upper room, the Last Supper has been served, feet have been washed, Judas has left to finish the deal that will cost Jesus his life, and Jesus has predicted Peter's denial. The mood in the room is so heavy with grief that even now we can taste the sadness, and yet Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and Trust in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions, and I'm going to prepare a place for you. I'll be back to get you, but in the meantime, you know where I'll be.” Jesus will spend the next four chapters, roughly twenty percent of John's Gospel, helping his disciples understand how to live as a people “left behind.”
Good old Thomas isn't having it. He speaks up as the rest of the group stands in bewilderment, “What do you mean we know where you are going? We don't have clue? How can we know how to go somewhere when we don't know where it is?” He wants seven habits, ten commandments, or twelve steps. He needs Google Maps to tell him to swim the Atlantic Ocean to get to England. Thomas wants a date and a time to meet Jesus. But Jesus doesn't offer concrete details. Jesus is soon headed off to be at the right hand of the Father. He'll be the firstborn of the dead. He'll be in that great by and by. And not even his disciples can join him there just yet. Their job is still on earth.
Jesus dangles heaven in front of his disciples, and then proceeds to tell them that the journey is the more important part for now. That's so hard for us humans to handle. That's why Harold Camping got all sorts of press this week. We don't really want to die, and we certainly don't want the world to end, but if there was a way to have heaven right now without the perceived bad stuff, we'd take it in a heartbeat. My friend Scott from Michigan puts it this way, “If you tell your child that tomorrow you're getting in the car and heading to Orlando to spend some time at Disneyworld, the kid will have a mighty tough time enjoying the trip along the way. Suddenly, she will want to be there yesterday. It would be a foolish parent who would dangle Disneyworld in front of a kid as the final destination but who then also told the child, 'But now, Janey, we're going to take our time getting there. There is a neat museum in Ohio where President Rutherford B. Hayes was born which I want to visit first as well as an excellent fabric store in Kentucky where your mother will be picking up quilting supplies. And then...' And then nothing, as far as Janey is concerned! You can't get to Orlando fast enough from her point of view. Everything else along the way is either just a delay or flat out a waste of time.”
That's where Philip is. “Just show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” In a culture where you couldn't even say the name of God, lest you would die, seeing him would be instant death. Not even Moses got to see God face to face, he had to hide the the cleft of a mountain while God passed by. Philip wants to jump to the end, but Jesus asks his disciples to wait. He's got to leave them behind for now, but in doing so, he is giving them a gift.
“You'll do greater works than what I've done because I'm going to the Father.” In essence, Jesus says, “With me out of the way, you're going to be God Incarnate on earth. You'll be his hands, feet, mouths, and ears. You'll do the work of declaring the Kingdom of God, bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and letting the oppressed go free. To put it bluntly, as the note in my HarperCollins Study Bible does, “Believers are Jesus' successors and Jesus 'returns' through their work.” Jesus returns through the work of those who trust in him. Jesus returns through you and through me.
Jesus Christ did return yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before that. Jesus will return today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Jesus returned several weeks ago when this parish called to reach out to a former member after the tornadoes, sparking a vibrant relationship between Brewton, Trussville, and Cullman. Jesus returns in the chaos of tornado debris and in hospital rooms. In pulpits and around dinner tables. In search committees and Youth Sundays. Everywhere his commandment of love is lived out in word and deed, Jesus returns to earth incarnate in his bride, the Church.
This morning we gather as a people left behind. Maybe the Rapture did happen last night. Maybe it didn't. There was about 30 minutes on my way up 31 this morning that I thought maybe it had, but still, we are still a people left behind in the same way Jesus' disciples were left behind. He is still with the Father, preparing a place for us, and he is still the way, the truth and the life. Do not let your hearts be troubled, there is trouble enough to go around. Instead, trust God and trust Jesus and keep up the good work. Keep reaching out to those in need. Keep visiting the sick and infirm. Keep sharing the good news that the Kingdom of God is available to everyone. Keep raising your children in the knowledge and love of the Lord.
Jesus Christ is coming back: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It doesn't mean the world is going to end, but I does mean that heaven is coming to earth, if only for a moment, in the faithful work of a faithful disciple. May God bless you as you take part in that work. May he make you his very hands a feet. May he show you the need and give you the means to address it. And may you do it all in the love commanded us by his Son, who is the way, the truth and the life. Amen.