Lent 2, Year B
March 8, 2009
It’s late at night; my best friend and I have been staring up at the stars for three hours, sitting on the back porch of a comfortable house in a rural suburb of Boston. The stars have emerged from the dusk into a brilliant spray of diamonds glittering against the black sky. For hours we’ve been watching the sky and talking nonstop; and now it’s around midnight and we’ve fallen into silence.
We sit for some time like that, enjoying what only the best of friends can achieve, which is silence between them.
After a while, I hear my friend let out a long sigh, and then I realize that he is weeping.
He turns to me, despair on his face, and says, “I’m dying inside.”
My friend had been living a life that many of us would envy. I certainly envied it, anyway, though I tried not to show it. He had an impressive job, a beautiful home, a lovely girlfriend of six years whom everyone knew he would marry. He was the wunderkind of his company, a brilliant and rising star in the corporate world: and he was dying inside.
He was like a man who hadn’t stopped growing and his clothes, which used to fit him fine, were now too small.
Over the course of the next year, my friend did what we do when we’re desperately unhappy: he got into therapy. And for a while this only made things worse – because it only made him more aware of his problem. His clothes just felt tighter and tighter.
Then he went to a monastery on a retreat. And again he found himself looking up at the stars and weeping. But this time he also had a prayer: “Help me,” he said. “I can’t do this without you.”
And he felt something shift. Deep down inside, something changed. Later, when he told me about it, he said he felt like he was standing in front of a threshold, and all this time – for years, really – he thought he had to walk through it alone, and he had no idea what was on the other side, and the prospect was completely terrifying.
And then, that night, it felt as if there was a hand reaching out toward him from the other side of the threshold; and he felt a sense of peace and certainty come over him; and he knew at that moment that when he crossed over to the other side, he would not be alone; that, in fact, his long loneliness would be over; and that he would be fine.
It’s a dangerous and beautiful thing, to look up at those stars.
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Jesus said that.
Lao Tsu said it with different words, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
All of us have thresholds we must cross; all of us have moments when we have to let go of what we are, in order to become what we might be. Some of us are facing the final threshold. Others among us are just getting started. Some among us have found their peace with this crossing; they have seen the hand reaching out; and they know, deep down inside them, that when the time comes, they will be fine.
Others among us are not so sure; they have some more praying to do, and more talking with trusted friends to do, and more star-gazing to do.
We are not alone. As Paul said, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.”
Abram and Sarai think they know exactly who they are; they are desert people, wandering Arameans; they have scraped together a living out of the sand and sun for almost a hundred years; they are reaching the end of their lives and they are not unhappy.
And then, while Abram is looking up at the stars, an entirely new future opens up.
Sometimes this star-gazing can be surprising.
13 years ago, long before I even heard about the Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa, I found myself on a pilgrimage to Assisi. It was one of those threshold times in my life and I knew it. My ministry up to that point had gone well enough, but I was restless, and I needed new direction.
And so it was that on a bright sunny day I walked up a hill to the Basilica of St. Claire, and planted myself in front of the cross of San Damiano and began to pray. This of course, was the same cross that St. Francis had prayed before when he, as a young man, was at a threshold time of his life; when God spoke to him through the cross and said, “Francis, rebuild my church.”
I found myself praying for my vocation as a priest; I thought about this beautiful, historic institution we call the Episcopal Church; I thought about how it was losing members, like a patient whose bleeding wouldn’t stop; like the woman in the gospel story who comes to Jesus and asks for her bleeding to stop.
I felt my deep love for our church welling up within me. I thought about all the young people I knew, who had no interest in going to church, and I felt sadness for them, for what they were missing; and I felt a great sadness for the church, for what the church was missing by not having their creativity and fresh energy.
I must have been there about two hours, just sitting before the cross, and breathing, and praying, and feeling all these feelings; and it took that long for the words to come to me, and when they did, they felt like the hand reaching to me from the other side: “Matthew, rebuild my church.”
When I got home from Italy there was a message for me: I had been called as the chaplain at the University of Michigan. I had been called to represent the Episcopal Church to our lost generation of young people.
When I came to that job I brought those words and that passion with me. The campus ministry I inherited had given up on reaching the students on campus. There, at one of the largest universities in the country, in the middle of a place teeming with young people, the Episcopal Church stood empty and impotent, completely confused and stuck and unable to even imagine what kind of a ministry might succeed with the students there.
Within two years we were one of the largest and most active campus ministries in the Episcopal Church.
Seven years passed, and I interviewed for this job, and I spoke about my moment in Assisi, and about my passion for young people, and heads nodded, and the call was made. So I carried that sense of calling here.
But I made a mistake along the way. I thought I could just re-create my experience in Ann Arbor; I didn’t take enough time to figure out how my passion met your passion; how my sense of calling fit with your sense of calling.
And along the way, I never paused to wonder whether, in this particular place, with this particular ministry at Church of the Incarnation in Santa Rosa, God might have a different word for me. When I traveled across the country to be with you, I knew that God was calling me here. And I thought I knew how that calling might become real in the world. I busily applied myself to the Sanctuary Project, which morphed into CenterPoint, and in retrospect this felt a little like forcing the parish's foot into a shoe two sizes too small, or maybe, to use a more apt analogy inspired by the story of Abraham and Sarah, it felt a little like Sarah trying to have a child through a in-vitro fertilization. Meanwhile, this parish, at the tender age of 137 years of age, woke up one day to find itself pregnant the natural way, and gave birth to a beautiful new child, the Numina Center for Spirituality and the Arts.
And Sarah laughed.
The fact that Numina’s birth came so easily and so naturally is a testament to its fit with Incarnation. Going to the Rilke poetry reading last Saturday was so deeply satisfying; to see this sanctuary filled with lovers of poetry and the spiritual journey. What a thing.
And to be fair, there is a little bit of CenterPoint’s genes in Numina; the Friday night Taize service that Kayleen and Robin are doing is really a continuation and adaptation of our work with CenterPoint. This is a good thing.
And so now we stand at another threshold. What is God calling us to next? In five weeks I will begin my sabbatical with a trip to Utah and Arizona, where I'll be camping in the desert. For three weeks I will be living simply, hiking in the canyons and ravines, and spending my nights alone, staring up at the stars. I will be asking some questions: what's next for us? Where is God calling us to now? And I pray that you, too, as a congregation, will be spending some time with the stars.
We are in this together; we are on a journey of discovery and of blessing. We are not alone; there is God; there is Spirit; there is Jesus, reaching out to us. We will hear God’s voice; we will see that helping hand reaching across the threshold; and we will say, together, Amen.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Temptation
I read this story rather than preach a sermon on the First Sunday of Lent, 2009. The image of Jesus at the pinnacle of the Temple with the devil, tempting him to jump, had been on my mind for a few days. I wanted to approach that particular temptation from a fresh perspective. I wrote this on Saturday, February 28.
“The Temptation”
Mrs. Sanders watched as the pretty little girl, all of three years old, marched across the hospital waiting room and hit the Mexican boy squarely on the back of his head. The boy, no bigger than the girl, turned with a face full of outrage and wonder. He looked at the girl, and then looked up at Mrs. Sanders, as if she, somehow, was responsible. Then he let out a scream of admirable pitch and considerable force.
Mrs. Sanders instinctively moved to cover her ears, but then lowered her hands. She did not want to appear impolite. But Good God how she hated these waiting rooms. The families were so randomly thrown together; there was never enough room to ignore one another like decent human beings; and always there were the unruly children, more often than not speaking incomprehensible languages, and everyone worrying themselves sick over matters beyond their control.
She looked away from the boy, unable to bear witness to the chaos any further. She had her own problems.
She had been shopping at the Safeway when the call came in on her cell phone. It was Mildred, at the church. Why is Mildred calling, she wondered; she hardly knew the woman, though they were friendly enough, exchanging pleasantries at coffee hour every Sunday.
And then, before another word was spoken, she knew.
Mildred said, “I know how close you are to Christine”
Christine was as close to a daughter as Mrs. Sanders ever had. They had met at church, after Christine had left her drug-dealing creep of a husband and gone into rehab. She was a lovely girl who knew, way before her time, what it was like to lose everything and start over. Of course, she wasn’t perfect; she had relapsed once or twice; but she had held on to the same job now for three years and was twenty-three months clean and sober. They looked after one another’s cats; and every Sunday after the 8 o’clock service they went out for breakfast.
Over the cell phone, Mildred was trying to get the words out. “Some kind of accident on 101,” she said.
“Where is she?”
“I thought you would want to know ...”
“Where IS SHE?!” Mrs. Sanders shouted into the phone.
As she drove to the hospital she had a one-word prayer: “NO.” As in, Oh no you don’t, oh no you don’t, don’t you even dare, not on my watch, not this time, no sir-ee. No! No no NO!
The stupid elevator was too slow. She took the stairs and when she got to the ICU they wouldn’t even let her in. “Only immediate family, I’m sorry,” said the nurse, with what sounded like fake concern.
“She doesn’t have any family,” said Mrs. Sanders, in a desperate lie.
“Well, the rules are very strict,” the nurse said.
“But I’m her best friend!”
“Sorry.”
So Mrs. Sanders entered the waiting room and began her wait.
After a little while the priest came by, clutching his red leather book and looking harried. He kissed Mrs. Sanders on the cheek and told her to pray and then hurried into the ICU. He was in there a pretty long time. When he came back he held her hands in his. It looked like he might have been crying.
“They don’t know a lot,” he said. “She doesn’t look good. Time will tell. All we can do is pray.”
Around midnight, one of the nurses brought Mrs. Sanders a hospital blanket and a pillow. They had given up telling her to go home and get some rest. The room was empty now; the horrid fluorescents were turned off. An ordinary lamp on the other side of the room gave out a weak yellow glow.
She dozed for a time.
For some reason that she would never be able to explain, she wasn’t surprised when she opened her eyes and saw the visitor, seated across from her. He was studying her face.
There was no doubt in her mind who he was. Her grandmother had talked about visions and things beyond explaining that she never had reason to doubt.
He looked just as she had imagined: an intelligent brow, large eyes, a kind face. His hair wasn’t really all that long.
“Gloria,” he said. “I’ve always loved that name.”
Mrs. Sanders sat up. “What’s happened to Christine?” she said.
The visitor didn’t speak.
“Please! Tell me.”
He seemed to be waiting for something.
Mrs. Sanders met his gaze. In the silence, a heat rose up in her. “You have to save her,” she said. Still, he did not answer. She was trembling now. “She’s young,” she said. “You can save her!”
Finally, the visitor spoke. “You love her so much.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And you want her to be the exception,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You want a miracle. You want a suspension of the laws of physics and chemistry. You want the laws of nature to be put on hold. Everyone and everything else lives and dies by these laws; but you want Christine to be the Exception.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, gently.
Mrs. Sanders glared at him; she bunched her hands into fists. She thought she might hit him.
Finally, he said, “Let me show you something.”
Suddenly there was a brilliant, hot light; they were outdoors; the heat was nearly overwhelming. They were high up in the air; she saw thousands of buildings below them; they could see for miles in every direction. Mrs. Sanders thought they were flying but then she felt something hard under her feet and realized they were standing on top of a tower, looking down.
Someone else was with them, standing next to the visitor. He was short and thin and smelled bad. His head was bald and he looked miserable, like a soldier losing a battle. He was talking to the visitor; he had a high, raspy voice.
He said, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. After all, Scripture says that the angels will bear you up."
The visitor replied, “Do you mean, the laws of gravity would not apply to me?”
“Yes, that’s right” said the little man, eagerly. “You would be the Exception.”
The visitor considered the ugly little man for a moment. Then a smile crept over his face.
“Little man, did you think I came into this world to escape gravity? Did you think I came so that I might be rescued from this earth?” The strangest, most intense expression came over his face – Mrs. Sanders couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or cry. He bent down; for the longest time nobody spoke, but she could feel it: something indescribable was happening.
Finally the visitor let out a long sigh; he picked up a stone he stood, then tossed the stone. All of them watched the elegant arc of its fall. Mrs. Sanders remembered a geometry class, when the teacher effortlessly drew a perfect curve across the chalkboard.
“Look, what beauty,” he said. “You don’t get the beauty without it falling.”
In the ICU, Christine lay beneath a tangle of tubes and cords.
She was motionless, but for the steady rise and fall of her chest. The ventilator and its tape covered most of her face.
The priest had been there earlier. He had whispered prayers into her ear, and sung some psalms, and anointed her with some oil. She had fallen asleep in the middle of it all, a psalm dancing around inside her.
When she woke, the priest was gone. She didn’t know how much time had passed. It felt like night.
She closed her eyes, and the psalm came back to her. She saw herself, with long dark hair and a white dress, dancing, swirling, laughing and singing in a strange language.
Before she opened her eyes, she felt the visitor come into the room. She did not show any fear.
She recognized him by his perfect teeth. She had always imagined he would have teeth like this, straight and gleaming white.
His breath was close. It smelled like honey.
You know who I am, he said.
She nodded.
You know what time it is, he said.
She shut her eyes, looking for the dancing woman... and instead, found herself in a desert; all around was a vast wasteland of rock and sun. She was sitting under a canopy of palm branches. It was perfectly quiet. She felt very still, as if she had been meditating.
He was there.
He was wearing something loose-fitting, made out of linen. His hair was dark and shiny, and not all that long. He smiled at her.
George Clooney would envy those teeth, she thought.
I gave him those teeth, he said.
She laughed.
And then she was gone.
At the cemetery, with the sun pouring down, Christine’s remains were lowered into the ground. Mrs. Sanders waited while the people walked away. She stood alone at the edge of the grave for a while. Then she tossed her rose into the dark earth. She watched the curve of its arc as it fell, and gave thanks.
“The Temptation”
Mrs. Sanders watched as the pretty little girl, all of three years old, marched across the hospital waiting room and hit the Mexican boy squarely on the back of his head. The boy, no bigger than the girl, turned with a face full of outrage and wonder. He looked at the girl, and then looked up at Mrs. Sanders, as if she, somehow, was responsible. Then he let out a scream of admirable pitch and considerable force.
Mrs. Sanders instinctively moved to cover her ears, but then lowered her hands. She did not want to appear impolite. But Good God how she hated these waiting rooms. The families were so randomly thrown together; there was never enough room to ignore one another like decent human beings; and always there were the unruly children, more often than not speaking incomprehensible languages, and everyone worrying themselves sick over matters beyond their control.
She looked away from the boy, unable to bear witness to the chaos any further. She had her own problems.
She had been shopping at the Safeway when the call came in on her cell phone. It was Mildred, at the church. Why is Mildred calling, she wondered; she hardly knew the woman, though they were friendly enough, exchanging pleasantries at coffee hour every Sunday.
And then, before another word was spoken, she knew.
Mildred said, “I know how close you are to Christine”
Christine was as close to a daughter as Mrs. Sanders ever had. They had met at church, after Christine had left her drug-dealing creep of a husband and gone into rehab. She was a lovely girl who knew, way before her time, what it was like to lose everything and start over. Of course, she wasn’t perfect; she had relapsed once or twice; but she had held on to the same job now for three years and was twenty-three months clean and sober. They looked after one another’s cats; and every Sunday after the 8 o’clock service they went out for breakfast.
Over the cell phone, Mildred was trying to get the words out. “Some kind of accident on 101,” she said.
“Where is she?”
“I thought you would want to know ...”
“Where IS SHE?!” Mrs. Sanders shouted into the phone.
As she drove to the hospital she had a one-word prayer: “NO.” As in, Oh no you don’t, oh no you don’t, don’t you even dare, not on my watch, not this time, no sir-ee. No! No no NO!
The stupid elevator was too slow. She took the stairs and when she got to the ICU they wouldn’t even let her in. “Only immediate family, I’m sorry,” said the nurse, with what sounded like fake concern.
“She doesn’t have any family,” said Mrs. Sanders, in a desperate lie.
“Well, the rules are very strict,” the nurse said.
“But I’m her best friend!”
“Sorry.”
So Mrs. Sanders entered the waiting room and began her wait.
After a little while the priest came by, clutching his red leather book and looking harried. He kissed Mrs. Sanders on the cheek and told her to pray and then hurried into the ICU. He was in there a pretty long time. When he came back he held her hands in his. It looked like he might have been crying.
“They don’t know a lot,” he said. “She doesn’t look good. Time will tell. All we can do is pray.”
Around midnight, one of the nurses brought Mrs. Sanders a hospital blanket and a pillow. They had given up telling her to go home and get some rest. The room was empty now; the horrid fluorescents were turned off. An ordinary lamp on the other side of the room gave out a weak yellow glow.
She dozed for a time.
For some reason that she would never be able to explain, she wasn’t surprised when she opened her eyes and saw the visitor, seated across from her. He was studying her face.
There was no doubt in her mind who he was. Her grandmother had talked about visions and things beyond explaining that she never had reason to doubt.
He looked just as she had imagined: an intelligent brow, large eyes, a kind face. His hair wasn’t really all that long.
“Gloria,” he said. “I’ve always loved that name.”
Mrs. Sanders sat up. “What’s happened to Christine?” she said.
The visitor didn’t speak.
“Please! Tell me.”
He seemed to be waiting for something.
Mrs. Sanders met his gaze. In the silence, a heat rose up in her. “You have to save her,” she said. Still, he did not answer. She was trembling now. “She’s young,” she said. “You can save her!”
Finally, the visitor spoke. “You love her so much.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And you want her to be the exception,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You want a miracle. You want a suspension of the laws of physics and chemistry. You want the laws of nature to be put on hold. Everyone and everything else lives and dies by these laws; but you want Christine to be the Exception.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, gently.
Mrs. Sanders glared at him; she bunched her hands into fists. She thought she might hit him.
Finally, he said, “Let me show you something.”
Suddenly there was a brilliant, hot light; they were outdoors; the heat was nearly overwhelming. They were high up in the air; she saw thousands of buildings below them; they could see for miles in every direction. Mrs. Sanders thought they were flying but then she felt something hard under her feet and realized they were standing on top of a tower, looking down.
Someone else was with them, standing next to the visitor. He was short and thin and smelled bad. His head was bald and he looked miserable, like a soldier losing a battle. He was talking to the visitor; he had a high, raspy voice.
He said, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. After all, Scripture says that the angels will bear you up."
The visitor replied, “Do you mean, the laws of gravity would not apply to me?”
“Yes, that’s right” said the little man, eagerly. “You would be the Exception.”
The visitor considered the ugly little man for a moment. Then a smile crept over his face.
“Little man, did you think I came into this world to escape gravity? Did you think I came so that I might be rescued from this earth?” The strangest, most intense expression came over his face – Mrs. Sanders couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or cry. He bent down; for the longest time nobody spoke, but she could feel it: something indescribable was happening.
Finally the visitor let out a long sigh; he picked up a stone he stood, then tossed the stone. All of them watched the elegant arc of its fall. Mrs. Sanders remembered a geometry class, when the teacher effortlessly drew a perfect curve across the chalkboard.
“Look, what beauty,” he said. “You don’t get the beauty without it falling.”
In the ICU, Christine lay beneath a tangle of tubes and cords.
She was motionless, but for the steady rise and fall of her chest. The ventilator and its tape covered most of her face.
The priest had been there earlier. He had whispered prayers into her ear, and sung some psalms, and anointed her with some oil. She had fallen asleep in the middle of it all, a psalm dancing around inside her.
When she woke, the priest was gone. She didn’t know how much time had passed. It felt like night.
She closed her eyes, and the psalm came back to her. She saw herself, with long dark hair and a white dress, dancing, swirling, laughing and singing in a strange language.
Before she opened her eyes, she felt the visitor come into the room. She did not show any fear.
She recognized him by his perfect teeth. She had always imagined he would have teeth like this, straight and gleaming white.
His breath was close. It smelled like honey.
You know who I am, he said.
She nodded.
You know what time it is, he said.
She shut her eyes, looking for the dancing woman... and instead, found herself in a desert; all around was a vast wasteland of rock and sun. She was sitting under a canopy of palm branches. It was perfectly quiet. She felt very still, as if she had been meditating.
He was there.
He was wearing something loose-fitting, made out of linen. His hair was dark and shiny, and not all that long. He smiled at her.
George Clooney would envy those teeth, she thought.
I gave him those teeth, he said.
She laughed.
And then she was gone.
At the cemetery, with the sun pouring down, Christine’s remains were lowered into the ground. Mrs. Sanders waited while the people walked away. She stood alone at the edge of the grave for a while. Then she tossed her rose into the dark earth. She watched the curve of its arc as it fell, and gave thanks.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sermon: Transfiguration Sunday
February 22, 2009
Years ago, when our son was still a baby, Rose and I lived on the campus of Wellesley College, the women’s school near Boston. Rose was the House Mom for a residence hall on campus, and for five years we enjoyed the privilege of living on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country.
Now some of you might remember that in Boston they actually have seasons; and so it was that in the Fall, on the night before classes, as the chill of the Fall begins to descend over the campus, the women of the college have a ritual. They build for themselves an enormous bonfire on a beach, and as the sun sinks below the horizon they light it, so that as the darkness of the night spreads and deepens, the bonfire grows higher and higher, the flames reaching 30 feet in the air.
And then, when the darkness is at its deepest and the bonfire is at its brightest and the sparks are rising to the stars, the women all hold hands and sing songs and shout cheers. The voices of the women roll over the waters and echo back to shore, turning wishes into hopes into dreams.
This ritual is very important; because a few months later, in the middle of winter, the students will be in the middle of their textbooks and papers and exams; the warm excitement of the new term will be a distant memory; the long winter chill will have sunk into their bones, and it is then that they will reflect on the blazing splendor of that bonfire, and find, through the power of their memories, that that bonfire warms them still.
For every chill we have, we do well to store away a corresponding bonfire of memory.
It is with a similar earnest remembering that the disciples of the early church told and retold the story we heard this morning, of Christ’s blazing transfiguration at the mountaintop. In those early days of the church, it certainly did not seem that the cause of Christ was faring well. The disciples were being hunted down and murdered, the established synagogues and temples had driven them out as heretics, and the very identity of the church was threatened with schism. On those long, dark nights, when the followers of Christ huddled together in attics and caves, hiding from the soldiers and the informers, they told this story in whispers, about how Jesus took Peter and James and John to the top of a mountain to pray, and about how, before their eyes, Jesus became transfigured by a brilliant light, and his clothes became dazzling and his face shone like the sun, and Moses and Elijah appeared beside him. Moses, signifying the fulfillment of the law, and Elijah, signifying the fulfillment of the prophecies, both standing in blinding light with Jesus, the Messiah, who had come at last in glory to defeat the powers of darkness and death. And they would remember how a bright cloud descended, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to Him!”
During the dark times that were to come, the disciples told and retold that story, and by so doing, they kept the dazzling light of that hour shining in their hearts.
And so Peter, many years later, wrote to his brothers and sisters about this same event:
"We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain... You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
People do not tend to build bonfires during the day. Bonfires are made for the night. And so is the church – built to be a blazing light in the darkness. Without darkness, there is no need for a church. And so it is not surprising, during this era since World War II, this extended time of unprecedented prosperity and optimism, that the church has declined in membership and attendance. The church is not built for times of comfort and ease. Remember the burst of church attendance after 9/11. Recall the Great Depression, during which time donations were almost double per capita than they are now.
A few years ago, while energy prices were going through the roof and the government was looking for ways to conserve energy, the following news item was circulated:
The DOE (Department of Energy) is cracking down on [the excessive use] of energy.... Because of this, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off until further notice.
the UnNews (uncyclopedia.wikia.com)
For many of us, as our economy heads south, our hope in the future has been under serious threat. Politicians do not succeed with campaigns of hope during times of optimism and prosperity. What would be the point? But in the dark times, that bright message of hope burns bright; we look again for bonfires against the darkness.
Yesterday it was fitting that we celebrated the life of Mary Rose Manhard, on the eve of Transfiguration Sunday. Her adopted daughter, Jan, brought the red hat that she used to wear all the time; and together we remembered her bright spirit, even in the face of her own illness and increasing years. That bright hat said it all about her spirit; she was another light in the darkness.
We would do well to be attentive to the Light as to a lamp in the darkness.
The wisdom of the Church is this, that it is not afraid of the darkness; that in fact it encourages us to face into our darkness, confident that the light of Christ will see us through. What is your darkness? Addiction? Or illness? The fear of death? Perhaps you struggle with hopelessness and despair; loneliness or depression; poverty of spirit or poverty of the material kind. Maybe you are struggling with anxiety about the future; or you are stressed to the breaking point, juggling children and aging parents and financial insecurity.
This is the place to bring that darkness. Christians are not afraid of the dark. We have been here before; we were built for these times. Ours is the universal journey of the human spirit at its healthiest, as we turn to the light and allow ourselves to be warmed by it. We are not alone in this darkness. Blazing like a giant bonfire in our midst is the light of Christ.
The great sages and saints, from Moses and Elijah who joined Jesus on that mountaintop, to the Christian mystics, to the Buddha and Ramakrishna, have been trying to tell us about this light. They have tried to use words, only to see their words fail.
Paul knew all about that darkness and that light; riding on his horse on a mission of death, he was blinded by a light of love and forgiveness and healing. Years later, in the face of mounting persecution and confusion, that light was still burning when he wrote these words of advice to the church in Corinth:
For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4:6)
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and writer, was standing at the corner of 4th and Walnut in downtown Louisville in 1958 when he found himself seized by the sudden joyful realization that he was united to every other person; that nothing separated them, one from another; and he felt overwhelmed by this magnificent love for every human being. As he wrote about this later, he said, “if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Words go only so far. There’s a Zen saying: It is better to see the face than to hear the name. For us, that face is the face of Jesus, blazing like the sun. We don’t experience that light by talking about it; we experience that light by holding hands and stepping together into the darkness.
That’s what Lent is for.
Beginning this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we will be intentionally walking into the sweet darkness of Lent. This is not a time of self-flagellation; this is a time of honest self-reflection.
This is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it is perfectly okay. We have been this way before. We know the way through. We follow the light, which does shine at the end of the tunnel; the uncreated light of Christ.
Amen.
February 22, 2009
Years ago, when our son was still a baby, Rose and I lived on the campus of Wellesley College, the women’s school near Boston. Rose was the House Mom for a residence hall on campus, and for five years we enjoyed the privilege of living on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country.
Now some of you might remember that in Boston they actually have seasons; and so it was that in the Fall, on the night before classes, as the chill of the Fall begins to descend over the campus, the women of the college have a ritual. They build for themselves an enormous bonfire on a beach, and as the sun sinks below the horizon they light it, so that as the darkness of the night spreads and deepens, the bonfire grows higher and higher, the flames reaching 30 feet in the air.
And then, when the darkness is at its deepest and the bonfire is at its brightest and the sparks are rising to the stars, the women all hold hands and sing songs and shout cheers. The voices of the women roll over the waters and echo back to shore, turning wishes into hopes into dreams.
This ritual is very important; because a few months later, in the middle of winter, the students will be in the middle of their textbooks and papers and exams; the warm excitement of the new term will be a distant memory; the long winter chill will have sunk into their bones, and it is then that they will reflect on the blazing splendor of that bonfire, and find, through the power of their memories, that that bonfire warms them still.
For every chill we have, we do well to store away a corresponding bonfire of memory.
It is with a similar earnest remembering that the disciples of the early church told and retold the story we heard this morning, of Christ’s blazing transfiguration at the mountaintop. In those early days of the church, it certainly did not seem that the cause of Christ was faring well. The disciples were being hunted down and murdered, the established synagogues and temples had driven them out as heretics, and the very identity of the church was threatened with schism. On those long, dark nights, when the followers of Christ huddled together in attics and caves, hiding from the soldiers and the informers, they told this story in whispers, about how Jesus took Peter and James and John to the top of a mountain to pray, and about how, before their eyes, Jesus became transfigured by a brilliant light, and his clothes became dazzling and his face shone like the sun, and Moses and Elijah appeared beside him. Moses, signifying the fulfillment of the law, and Elijah, signifying the fulfillment of the prophecies, both standing in blinding light with Jesus, the Messiah, who had come at last in glory to defeat the powers of darkness and death. And they would remember how a bright cloud descended, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to Him!”
During the dark times that were to come, the disciples told and retold that story, and by so doing, they kept the dazzling light of that hour shining in their hearts.
And so Peter, many years later, wrote to his brothers and sisters about this same event:
"We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain... You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
People do not tend to build bonfires during the day. Bonfires are made for the night. And so is the church – built to be a blazing light in the darkness. Without darkness, there is no need for a church. And so it is not surprising, during this era since World War II, this extended time of unprecedented prosperity and optimism, that the church has declined in membership and attendance. The church is not built for times of comfort and ease. Remember the burst of church attendance after 9/11. Recall the Great Depression, during which time donations were almost double per capita than they are now.
A few years ago, while energy prices were going through the roof and the government was looking for ways to conserve energy, the following news item was circulated:
The DOE (Department of Energy) is cracking down on [the excessive use] of energy.... Because of this, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off until further notice.
the UnNews (uncyclopedia.wikia.com)
For many of us, as our economy heads south, our hope in the future has been under serious threat. Politicians do not succeed with campaigns of hope during times of optimism and prosperity. What would be the point? But in the dark times, that bright message of hope burns bright; we look again for bonfires against the darkness.
Yesterday it was fitting that we celebrated the life of Mary Rose Manhard, on the eve of Transfiguration Sunday. Her adopted daughter, Jan, brought the red hat that she used to wear all the time; and together we remembered her bright spirit, even in the face of her own illness and increasing years. That bright hat said it all about her spirit; she was another light in the darkness.
We would do well to be attentive to the Light as to a lamp in the darkness.
The wisdom of the Church is this, that it is not afraid of the darkness; that in fact it encourages us to face into our darkness, confident that the light of Christ will see us through. What is your darkness? Addiction? Or illness? The fear of death? Perhaps you struggle with hopelessness and despair; loneliness or depression; poverty of spirit or poverty of the material kind. Maybe you are struggling with anxiety about the future; or you are stressed to the breaking point, juggling children and aging parents and financial insecurity.
This is the place to bring that darkness. Christians are not afraid of the dark. We have been here before; we were built for these times. Ours is the universal journey of the human spirit at its healthiest, as we turn to the light and allow ourselves to be warmed by it. We are not alone in this darkness. Blazing like a giant bonfire in our midst is the light of Christ.
The great sages and saints, from Moses and Elijah who joined Jesus on that mountaintop, to the Christian mystics, to the Buddha and Ramakrishna, have been trying to tell us about this light. They have tried to use words, only to see their words fail.
Paul knew all about that darkness and that light; riding on his horse on a mission of death, he was blinded by a light of love and forgiveness and healing. Years later, in the face of mounting persecution and confusion, that light was still burning when he wrote these words of advice to the church in Corinth:
For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4:6)
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and writer, was standing at the corner of 4th and Walnut in downtown Louisville in 1958 when he found himself seized by the sudden joyful realization that he was united to every other person; that nothing separated them, one from another; and he felt overwhelmed by this magnificent love for every human being. As he wrote about this later, he said, “if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Words go only so far. There’s a Zen saying: It is better to see the face than to hear the name. For us, that face is the face of Jesus, blazing like the sun. We don’t experience that light by talking about it; we experience that light by holding hands and stepping together into the darkness.
That’s what Lent is for.
Beginning this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we will be intentionally walking into the sweet darkness of Lent. This is not a time of self-flagellation; this is a time of honest self-reflection.
This is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it is perfectly okay. We have been this way before. We know the way through. We follow the light, which does shine at the end of the tunnel; the uncreated light of Christ.
Amen.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Victory for the Episcopal Church
The Supreme Court of California has just issued its opinion, granting ownership of disputed church property to the Episcopal Church. The court's opinion can be found here - scroll down to the lower half of the page to find the opinion.
California Supreme Court Opinions
This is a major victory for those of us who believe that you can't build a church for years under the name "Episcopal Church", using the Episcopal Church's prayer book, hymnal, doctrines, canons, constitution, leadership, Diocesan services and history, and then decide to keep the building and assets when you don't like a decision that the church has made. If I own a McDonald's franchise, and the corporation makes a decision I don't like, I don't get to just change my sign to read "McDonald's West", continue to serve the same food, wear the same uniforms, keep the building and the assets, and discontinue payments to the corporation. The restaurant would not have been able to build its business without that franchise identification. They can't reap the benefits of that identification while disowning the identity itself.
But that's my reasoning, not the court's. The court's decision is simpler: the church's property is held in trust by the Diocese and the national Episcopal Church; that is established in both national and diocesan canons. There's just no way around that ownership.
This will have enormous consequences for our neighbors in Petaluma. A few years ago, St. John's Episcopal Church in Petaluma voted to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California and join a conservative Anglican diocese in a distant country. They renamed themselves "St. John's Anglican Church" and kept control of the property, forcing the Diocese to sue to keep the building and its assets. Those who did not agree with this decision and maintained their identity as Episcopalians had to worship elsewhere - first in a gymnasium, and then in rented space at a friendly local Lutheran church. Now they can return home to their beloved church building. Presumably this will happen very soon, and the litigation will be over.
3 cheers for the Supreme Court and the rule of law!
California Supreme Court Opinions
This is a major victory for those of us who believe that you can't build a church for years under the name "Episcopal Church", using the Episcopal Church's prayer book, hymnal, doctrines, canons, constitution, leadership, Diocesan services and history, and then decide to keep the building and assets when you don't like a decision that the church has made. If I own a McDonald's franchise, and the corporation makes a decision I don't like, I don't get to just change my sign to read "McDonald's West", continue to serve the same food, wear the same uniforms, keep the building and the assets, and discontinue payments to the corporation. The restaurant would not have been able to build its business without that franchise identification. They can't reap the benefits of that identification while disowning the identity itself.
But that's my reasoning, not the court's. The court's decision is simpler: the church's property is held in trust by the Diocese and the national Episcopal Church; that is established in both national and diocesan canons. There's just no way around that ownership.
This will have enormous consequences for our neighbors in Petaluma. A few years ago, St. John's Episcopal Church in Petaluma voted to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Northern California and join a conservative Anglican diocese in a distant country. They renamed themselves "St. John's Anglican Church" and kept control of the property, forcing the Diocese to sue to keep the building and its assets. Those who did not agree with this decision and maintained their identity as Episcopalians had to worship elsewhere - first in a gymnasium, and then in rented space at a friendly local Lutheran church. Now they can return home to their beloved church building. Presumably this will happen very soon, and the litigation will be over.
3 cheers for the Supreme Court and the rule of law!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Showing Up for Christmas
Good evening, and Merry Christmas!
I love that wonderful Christmas song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," especially this verse:
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more. -Ralph Blane
So here we are.
Once again we have made it to this place; some of us haven’t seen one another in a year or more; family and friends together again. Like the shepherds, we hear the invitation as if from angels, and we make our journey to this sacred place, to witness, once again, the birth of God in our lives.
We come here, despite the fact that so many of us have perfectly good reasons not to be here.
In fact – I mean, there’s no reason why we can’t be honest about this – I bet there is more than one person here tonight that thought, I’m going to skip going to church this Christmas.
Maybe you’ve lost a loved one recently. It’s a very painful thing to be in church on that first Christmas without mom or dad or another loved one. Sometimes when we’re in grief, our happiest memories can just be too painful to bear, and so we avoid things like church that might trigger those bittersweet memories.
Bless you for being here, anyway.
Maybe you have been laid off from work, or had some other kind of bad news, and you’re mad at God; and you thought for a moment that you might skip church just to punish God. And then you realized that probably wouldn’t work and so you came.
Bless you for coming.
Or maybe you’ve just been feeling less and less connected to church, maybe the whole idea of church just seems increasingly strange to you and you wondered why should you go; but then you had a change of heart; or someone talked you into it; or you came out of habit anyway, and here you are.
And bless you for coming, too.
Whatever the reasons – and I’m sure there are a hundred other reasons not to go to church – here you are. Bless you.
Sometimes we do things for reasons we ourselves simply do not understand. But it doesn’t matter now.
Like the wise men, who followed a golden light.
Like the shepherds, who spoke to the angels.
You are here. And so is God.
There was a time in my life, almost 30 years ago now, when I had given up on church altogether. I had dropped out of seminary; I didn’t believe in God anymore, I thought the church was dying, and nothing could ever bring me back. Then my girlfriend (and future wife) said if I wanted to marry her I had to marry her in a church, and so she dragged me off to one, and I went there determined to not believe any of it, and I discovered something very important. God didn’t really care what I believed. God was simply waiting for me to show up.
I knew a guy once who became very angry with God because God had refused to give him what he desperately wanted. He had been praying for his wife, who had cancer, that she might be healed. And she didn’t get better. She died. And that was it for my friend.
Of course his heart was broken. At first he blamed God for it. And then he just stopped believing in God altogether. And of course, who could blame him? Because he thought if God exists, then God wouldn’t have let his wife die.
It took years for him to get a new thought about this. It happened when a friend of his dragged him back to church. And he realized that maybe it wasn’t God’s plan that his wife suffered and died; maybe God had been as broken up about it as he was; and that while he had given up on God, God had not given up on him. And so he spent the sum total of about one microsecond to open himself to the idea that God might still be alive; and everything changed.
These things might just be words to you; just vague ideas; sometimes none of this makes any sense at all until our hearts are broken open and everything falls apart. And then we have a choice: we can either just stay broken; or we can try to put the pieces back together again without God’s help – which is kind of like trying to fight an infection without the help of antibiotics – or we can take a moment to be here – really be here; and see what a difference it makes.
I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get with my faith; and if I’m not showing up on a fairly regular basis, I forget pretty quickly what it’s all about.
The other day I was standing in the middle of the women’s lingerie section at Macy’s, trying to decide whether the gift of a red satin Wonderbra for my wife was an appropriate expression of Wonder at our savior’s birth, when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a person’s voice speak my name directly into my ear.
It turned out to be an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in couple of years; he found it highly amusing that the color of my face now matched the color of the item that I was not hiding behind my back, and while he waited for me to recover my composure he asked me if I was going deaf. It turned out that he had been calling my name from across the room, but that I had been completely oblivious to him until he actually tapped me on the shoulder and spoke directly into my ear.
I told him that, as far as I knew, my ears were fine, it was just that, you know, I had been absorbed in this deep theological question.
But later, while I was driving home, I realized that he must have felt the way God felt, calling our names again and again, and getting no response, and thinking we must be going deaf. And then God got this great idea. He sent someone down; someone to cross the infinite distance between us, and tap us on the shoulder, and speak our name.
God is here, even now, calling our names, hovering in our shadows, waiting for us to turn, and recognize him.
In our loneliness, he is waiting to comfort us. In our despair, he gives us hope. In our pain, he offers solace. In our violence, he teaches peace. In our guilt, when we keep going over and over in our minds things we wish we had done differently, he forgives our sins and helps us to realize that all things are being made new, every moment.
Our savior is born, and we are born, anew.
Yesterday, I told that story to a friend of mine who is a pastor, and she said it reminded her of the time when she was rector of a parish like this one, and she was always terribly busy during the Christmas season and didn’t have any time to see her friends, until one day a friend stopped her and said, “How can I tell you I love, you, if you don’t have time to listen to me?” And she thought, that’s God, speaking to me.
And that made me think of the person I knew in college, who spoke very bitterly about how she didn’t have any friends, and I tried to very gently suggest to her that maybe she would have more friends if she listened more, and talked less.
How can God talk to us, if we won’t listen? How can we come to know his boundless love, if we won’t get to know him? How can we be expected to even notice the angels, much less understand what they are saying, if we never pause long enough to look up at the stars, and listen for the angelic voice?
What kind of people will we become, if we don’t take the time to let God into our lives?
The poet Walter Bowie wrote,
They whose eyes are in the dust
Will never see a star.
They who came to Bethlehem
And only dross have sought
Will take away alone with them
The emptiness they brought.
“They whose eyes are in the dust / Will never see a star.” I suggest that we take a moment, on this holy night, to bring ourselves to that shepherd’s field. The sheep have settled down for the night; it is still, and calm, and bright; a galaxy of stars lights the darkness.
We are showing up.
We are listening for the angel.
We are witnesses of God’s birth.
Come, Heavenly Child, and on this place
Shed the sweet halo of thy grace.
Anna Hempstead Branch.
Amen. And Merry Christmas!
I love that wonderful Christmas song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," especially this verse:
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more. -Ralph Blane
So here we are.
Once again we have made it to this place; some of us haven’t seen one another in a year or more; family and friends together again. Like the shepherds, we hear the invitation as if from angels, and we make our journey to this sacred place, to witness, once again, the birth of God in our lives.
We come here, despite the fact that so many of us have perfectly good reasons not to be here.
In fact – I mean, there’s no reason why we can’t be honest about this – I bet there is more than one person here tonight that thought, I’m going to skip going to church this Christmas.
Maybe you’ve lost a loved one recently. It’s a very painful thing to be in church on that first Christmas without mom or dad or another loved one. Sometimes when we’re in grief, our happiest memories can just be too painful to bear, and so we avoid things like church that might trigger those bittersweet memories.
Bless you for being here, anyway.
Maybe you have been laid off from work, or had some other kind of bad news, and you’re mad at God; and you thought for a moment that you might skip church just to punish God. And then you realized that probably wouldn’t work and so you came.
Bless you for coming.
Or maybe you’ve just been feeling less and less connected to church, maybe the whole idea of church just seems increasingly strange to you and you wondered why should you go; but then you had a change of heart; or someone talked you into it; or you came out of habit anyway, and here you are.
And bless you for coming, too.
Whatever the reasons – and I’m sure there are a hundred other reasons not to go to church – here you are. Bless you.
Sometimes we do things for reasons we ourselves simply do not understand. But it doesn’t matter now.
Like the wise men, who followed a golden light.
Like the shepherds, who spoke to the angels.
You are here. And so is God.
There was a time in my life, almost 30 years ago now, when I had given up on church altogether. I had dropped out of seminary; I didn’t believe in God anymore, I thought the church was dying, and nothing could ever bring me back. Then my girlfriend (and future wife) said if I wanted to marry her I had to marry her in a church, and so she dragged me off to one, and I went there determined to not believe any of it, and I discovered something very important. God didn’t really care what I believed. God was simply waiting for me to show up.
I knew a guy once who became very angry with God because God had refused to give him what he desperately wanted. He had been praying for his wife, who had cancer, that she might be healed. And she didn’t get better. She died. And that was it for my friend.
Of course his heart was broken. At first he blamed God for it. And then he just stopped believing in God altogether. And of course, who could blame him? Because he thought if God exists, then God wouldn’t have let his wife die.
It took years for him to get a new thought about this. It happened when a friend of his dragged him back to church. And he realized that maybe it wasn’t God’s plan that his wife suffered and died; maybe God had been as broken up about it as he was; and that while he had given up on God, God had not given up on him. And so he spent the sum total of about one microsecond to open himself to the idea that God might still be alive; and everything changed.
These things might just be words to you; just vague ideas; sometimes none of this makes any sense at all until our hearts are broken open and everything falls apart. And then we have a choice: we can either just stay broken; or we can try to put the pieces back together again without God’s help – which is kind of like trying to fight an infection without the help of antibiotics – or we can take a moment to be here – really be here; and see what a difference it makes.
I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get with my faith; and if I’m not showing up on a fairly regular basis, I forget pretty quickly what it’s all about.
The other day I was standing in the middle of the women’s lingerie section at Macy’s, trying to decide whether the gift of a red satin Wonderbra for my wife was an appropriate expression of Wonder at our savior’s birth, when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a person’s voice speak my name directly into my ear.
It turned out to be an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in couple of years; he found it highly amusing that the color of my face now matched the color of the item that I was not hiding behind my back, and while he waited for me to recover my composure he asked me if I was going deaf. It turned out that he had been calling my name from across the room, but that I had been completely oblivious to him until he actually tapped me on the shoulder and spoke directly into my ear.
I told him that, as far as I knew, my ears were fine, it was just that, you know, I had been absorbed in this deep theological question.
But later, while I was driving home, I realized that he must have felt the way God felt, calling our names again and again, and getting no response, and thinking we must be going deaf. And then God got this great idea. He sent someone down; someone to cross the infinite distance between us, and tap us on the shoulder, and speak our name.
God is here, even now, calling our names, hovering in our shadows, waiting for us to turn, and recognize him.
In our loneliness, he is waiting to comfort us. In our despair, he gives us hope. In our pain, he offers solace. In our violence, he teaches peace. In our guilt, when we keep going over and over in our minds things we wish we had done differently, he forgives our sins and helps us to realize that all things are being made new, every moment.
Our savior is born, and we are born, anew.
Yesterday, I told that story to a friend of mine who is a pastor, and she said it reminded her of the time when she was rector of a parish like this one, and she was always terribly busy during the Christmas season and didn’t have any time to see her friends, until one day a friend stopped her and said, “How can I tell you I love, you, if you don’t have time to listen to me?” And she thought, that’s God, speaking to me.
And that made me think of the person I knew in college, who spoke very bitterly about how she didn’t have any friends, and I tried to very gently suggest to her that maybe she would have more friends if she listened more, and talked less.
How can God talk to us, if we won’t listen? How can we come to know his boundless love, if we won’t get to know him? How can we be expected to even notice the angels, much less understand what they are saying, if we never pause long enough to look up at the stars, and listen for the angelic voice?
What kind of people will we become, if we don’t take the time to let God into our lives?
The poet Walter Bowie wrote,
They whose eyes are in the dust
Will never see a star.
They who came to Bethlehem
And only dross have sought
Will take away alone with them
The emptiness they brought.
“They whose eyes are in the dust / Will never see a star.” I suggest that we take a moment, on this holy night, to bring ourselves to that shepherd’s field. The sheep have settled down for the night; it is still, and calm, and bright; a galaxy of stars lights the darkness.
We are showing up.
We are listening for the angel.
We are witnesses of God’s birth.
Come, Heavenly Child, and on this place
Shed the sweet halo of thy grace.
Anna Hempstead Branch.
Amen. And Merry Christmas!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Sermon about the New Chasuble
The Sermon about the New Chasuble
November 30, 2008
Church of the Incarnation
Santa Rosa, CA
The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Over the years, members of this generous congregation have made contributions to our Memorial Fund in memory of loved ones who have died. The Memorial Fund is one of our restricted funds – it is never used for salaries or programs, but rather to purchase items that will make a lasting contribution to the beauty and dignity of our worship. Chalices, instruments, stained glass windows – things that will endure. And so today we unveil our brand new Advent chasuble.
For many years, we have wished we had liturgical vestments for Advent that featured Mary’s color, which is blue, rather than the penitential color purple. We get enough purple during Lent, don’t you think?
Blue is the color of hope, and expectation, and prayerful waiting. It’s the color of Mary. You see here on my shoulder there is a rose - also a symbol of Mary (without thorns) and also appropriate for Santa Rosa (which, of course, is named after Saint Rose of Lima, the patron saint of Latin America). Plus, with the white background, we can also use this chasuble for weddings, and maybe even Christmas and Easter.
But you might ask, with all this economic recession, is this really the right time to buy a new chasuble? And the answer is, absolutely! It’s times like this when the world needs a new chasuble.
The world does not need a church that ducks its head and runs into a cave every time someone says it looks like rain. The world needs a church that will step out and proclaim a vision of hope when the rest of the world is caught up in a spiral of doom and gloom. And that’s what this chasuble is – a symbol of hope against a doom and gloom world.
It is the purpose of this sermon to prove this point.
Now, I can understand why there would be some confusion on this matter – after all, with readings like the ones we have today, some people might say that it’s the Christians who are full of doom and gloom, not the rest of the world. A casual reader of Isaiah might think that Isaiah is trembling before an angry God, who seems ready to punish his people:
“Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever.” (Is. 64: 1-9)
And isn’t it Jesus in Mark’s gospel who is predicting all kinds of apocalyptic calamity:
But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. (Mark 13: 24-37)
How could this be anything but a doom and gloom gospel?
Isn’t it really the Christians – well, and maybe the ancient Jews – who are always imagining something terrible about to happen?
Well, I really wish I had time to give the first of several lectures on the apocalyptic imagination of Biblical times, but just to cut to the chase I’d like you to imagine that you are living in Israel in the time that Isaiah’s words were first uttered – this would have been some time within recent memory of 587 B.C.
The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar has just swept through your country. Imagine an overwhelming army of the same kind of people who terrorized Mumbai this week – imagine an army of hundreds of thousands of people like that, invading our country, burning down every major city, destroying the White House and Capitol and National Cathedral, publicly executing our president, and then rounding up all the country’s best doctors, lawyers, teachers, musicians, artists, scientists and clergy and marching them off to slave labor camps in their country.
That's what Isaiah had just lived through when these words were written down. He had seen all of this happen.
I invite you to imagine what his conversation with God was like at that point. Well, actually, you don’t have to imagine it because it is recorded right here in your worship bulletins.
And this is what is spectacular about what Isaiah says. And this is why this became sacred text. Because rising up from the depths of his soul, in the midst of just about the worst desolating sacrilege one could ever witness, Isaiah proclaims a vision of hope.
Now, there’s no doubt his faith in God has been shaken – he has been searching for a reason for why God would have allowed this to happen. And the problem is that he can only understand it as punishment for their sins – that’s the only vocabulary he has to understand this – but he also says in verse 5: “we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.”
In other words, if God would only reveal himself more fully, we would have a clearer road map and we would live in greater harmony with God; so the solution to this whole mess is that God should reveal himself more clearly. And that’s where we get this apocalyptic yearning:
"O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence - as when fire kindles brushwood!"
This is the quality of heart and faith that makes Isaiah’s words sacred to us – because in the midst of the most horrifying devastation, when the worst possible thing has happened, Isaiah still proclaims hope and faith in God and in a community that lives in harmony with God. Even when the world is run amok by violent hordes of Babylonian warriors in their brass boots, still we have hope in a God who will redeem us; still we believe in a community of laws and order; still we believe in the possibility of a peace that passes all understanding; a peace established by God’s revelation of himself to us.
And that is what apocalypse is all about. It is a lifting of the veil, literally; it is the bright day when God is no longer hidden, when God’s purpose is made plain, and when all of God’s children can finally see it for themselves, and live their lives in harmony.
Of course, Isaiah - and later Jesus under Roman rule - imagined this to be a cataclysmic event; and of course, who can blame them if they imagined some kind of deeply satisfying retribution upon those who had just desecrated and destroyed the Holy Temple. But it is that courage to imagine God at all – and not only imagine God, but imagine a world living in harmony – that makes everything else about us and our faith possible.
You know, when we’re surrounded by people who think it's the end of the world because they can't afford a $4 cup of coffee, or when we can't get away from people who complain and find the negative side to every story, or when we are trapped in a room with people who are always thinking that the worst is about to happen if it isn't happening already,
- we are the ones who say no, it’s God's reign that is about to happen if it isn't happening already.
These last few weeks, we’ve seen how so much of our economy runs on faith - panic sets in over consumer confidence and economic forecasts and assessments that are little more than a mixture astrology and reading tea leaves - our world economy is completely a matter of collective faith.
It really is as if we are all like a flock of birds, every individual turning instantly with the rest of the flock, caught up in massive waves directed by nothing in particular except news, radio, TV – they create a world that has no reality and yet decides whether or not thousands of people have jobs or not.
But we are Christians; and we have a voice too. We have something to say to the world. We have something to show the world.
When other children are lost in a meaningless competition for superiority in sports or in school, we are the ones who celebrate their achievements, but also carry an alternative imagination of a world under the reign of God. We are the ones to say there's more to life than jumping onto a treadmill of relentless competition. There's a place where you can go – it’s called a church – where you will be loved just for being yourself.
When our friends get cancer and the prognosis is not good we are not the ones who reinforce despair and death – no, we are there to hold your hand, and look into your eyes and speak a deeper truth, which is that we'll get through this together, and we will pray for healing ‘til the cows come home -- and that healing power is real.
Which gets us back to the chasuble. Because of course, here at the Church of the Incarnation we have our own gloom and doom forecasts - we face our own economic challenges as a community that can be scary. But we are here to say this is a spiritual challenge and nothing but a spiritual challenge. It’s up to us whether we choose to respond with fear or with faith. Are we living in the empire of low expectations or will we rise to the challenge of hope? Will we retreat from the world and join in the voices of gloom or will we proclaim the gospel with love and confidence in ourselves and in this parish and the value of our enterprise?
A few weeks ago Warren Buffet reminded us that when everyone else is selling, that's when you should be buying. I don’t know whether he’s a Christian but I do know he’s a man of faith.
When the plague came to Europe and everyone was in a panic, it was a handful of nuns and priests who taught the world about love and courage, ministering to the sick despite the fear of death all around them.
When food becomes scarce, we are the ones who open soup kitchens and food pantries – we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years – like our mission in Monte Rio and like the Living Room here at our church. We are the ones to show the world how to pool our resources to create abundance, and community out of scarcity and competition.
So gloom and doom doesn’t scare us. We don’t rattle. We are the proclaimers of hope. We are gospel people.
And this is why we have a new chasuble. Because in times of sackcloth and ashes, or even in times just of rumors of sackcloth and ashes, the world needs a new chasuble.
Somebody say, AMEN.
November 30, 2008
Church of the Incarnation
Santa Rosa, CA
The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Over the years, members of this generous congregation have made contributions to our Memorial Fund in memory of loved ones who have died. The Memorial Fund is one of our restricted funds – it is never used for salaries or programs, but rather to purchase items that will make a lasting contribution to the beauty and dignity of our worship. Chalices, instruments, stained glass windows – things that will endure. And so today we unveil our brand new Advent chasuble.
For many years, we have wished we had liturgical vestments for Advent that featured Mary’s color, which is blue, rather than the penitential color purple. We get enough purple during Lent, don’t you think?
Blue is the color of hope, and expectation, and prayerful waiting. It’s the color of Mary. You see here on my shoulder there is a rose - also a symbol of Mary (without thorns) and also appropriate for Santa Rosa (which, of course, is named after Saint Rose of Lima, the patron saint of Latin America). Plus, with the white background, we can also use this chasuble for weddings, and maybe even Christmas and Easter.
But you might ask, with all this economic recession, is this really the right time to buy a new chasuble? And the answer is, absolutely! It’s times like this when the world needs a new chasuble.
The world does not need a church that ducks its head and runs into a cave every time someone says it looks like rain. The world needs a church that will step out and proclaim a vision of hope when the rest of the world is caught up in a spiral of doom and gloom. And that’s what this chasuble is – a symbol of hope against a doom and gloom world.
It is the purpose of this sermon to prove this point.
Now, I can understand why there would be some confusion on this matter – after all, with readings like the ones we have today, some people might say that it’s the Christians who are full of doom and gloom, not the rest of the world. A casual reader of Isaiah might think that Isaiah is trembling before an angry God, who seems ready to punish his people:
“Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever.” (Is. 64: 1-9)
And isn’t it Jesus in Mark’s gospel who is predicting all kinds of apocalyptic calamity:
But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. (Mark 13: 24-37)
How could this be anything but a doom and gloom gospel?
Isn’t it really the Christians – well, and maybe the ancient Jews – who are always imagining something terrible about to happen?
Well, I really wish I had time to give the first of several lectures on the apocalyptic imagination of Biblical times, but just to cut to the chase I’d like you to imagine that you are living in Israel in the time that Isaiah’s words were first uttered – this would have been some time within recent memory of 587 B.C.
The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar has just swept through your country. Imagine an overwhelming army of the same kind of people who terrorized Mumbai this week – imagine an army of hundreds of thousands of people like that, invading our country, burning down every major city, destroying the White House and Capitol and National Cathedral, publicly executing our president, and then rounding up all the country’s best doctors, lawyers, teachers, musicians, artists, scientists and clergy and marching them off to slave labor camps in their country.
That's what Isaiah had just lived through when these words were written down. He had seen all of this happen.
I invite you to imagine what his conversation with God was like at that point. Well, actually, you don’t have to imagine it because it is recorded right here in your worship bulletins.
And this is what is spectacular about what Isaiah says. And this is why this became sacred text. Because rising up from the depths of his soul, in the midst of just about the worst desolating sacrilege one could ever witness, Isaiah proclaims a vision of hope.
Now, there’s no doubt his faith in God has been shaken – he has been searching for a reason for why God would have allowed this to happen. And the problem is that he can only understand it as punishment for their sins – that’s the only vocabulary he has to understand this – but he also says in verse 5: “we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.”
In other words, if God would only reveal himself more fully, we would have a clearer road map and we would live in greater harmony with God; so the solution to this whole mess is that God should reveal himself more clearly. And that’s where we get this apocalyptic yearning:
"O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence - as when fire kindles brushwood!"
This is the quality of heart and faith that makes Isaiah’s words sacred to us – because in the midst of the most horrifying devastation, when the worst possible thing has happened, Isaiah still proclaims hope and faith in God and in a community that lives in harmony with God. Even when the world is run amok by violent hordes of Babylonian warriors in their brass boots, still we have hope in a God who will redeem us; still we believe in a community of laws and order; still we believe in the possibility of a peace that passes all understanding; a peace established by God’s revelation of himself to us.
And that is what apocalypse is all about. It is a lifting of the veil, literally; it is the bright day when God is no longer hidden, when God’s purpose is made plain, and when all of God’s children can finally see it for themselves, and live their lives in harmony.
Of course, Isaiah - and later Jesus under Roman rule - imagined this to be a cataclysmic event; and of course, who can blame them if they imagined some kind of deeply satisfying retribution upon those who had just desecrated and destroyed the Holy Temple. But it is that courage to imagine God at all – and not only imagine God, but imagine a world living in harmony – that makes everything else about us and our faith possible.
You know, when we’re surrounded by people who think it's the end of the world because they can't afford a $4 cup of coffee, or when we can't get away from people who complain and find the negative side to every story, or when we are trapped in a room with people who are always thinking that the worst is about to happen if it isn't happening already,
- we are the ones who say no, it’s God's reign that is about to happen if it isn't happening already.
These last few weeks, we’ve seen how so much of our economy runs on faith - panic sets in over consumer confidence and economic forecasts and assessments that are little more than a mixture astrology and reading tea leaves - our world economy is completely a matter of collective faith.
It really is as if we are all like a flock of birds, every individual turning instantly with the rest of the flock, caught up in massive waves directed by nothing in particular except news, radio, TV – they create a world that has no reality and yet decides whether or not thousands of people have jobs or not.
But we are Christians; and we have a voice too. We have something to say to the world. We have something to show the world.
When other children are lost in a meaningless competition for superiority in sports or in school, we are the ones who celebrate their achievements, but also carry an alternative imagination of a world under the reign of God. We are the ones to say there's more to life than jumping onto a treadmill of relentless competition. There's a place where you can go – it’s called a church – where you will be loved just for being yourself.
When our friends get cancer and the prognosis is not good we are not the ones who reinforce despair and death – no, we are there to hold your hand, and look into your eyes and speak a deeper truth, which is that we'll get through this together, and we will pray for healing ‘til the cows come home -- and that healing power is real.
Which gets us back to the chasuble. Because of course, here at the Church of the Incarnation we have our own gloom and doom forecasts - we face our own economic challenges as a community that can be scary. But we are here to say this is a spiritual challenge and nothing but a spiritual challenge. It’s up to us whether we choose to respond with fear or with faith. Are we living in the empire of low expectations or will we rise to the challenge of hope? Will we retreat from the world and join in the voices of gloom or will we proclaim the gospel with love and confidence in ourselves and in this parish and the value of our enterprise?
A few weeks ago Warren Buffet reminded us that when everyone else is selling, that's when you should be buying. I don’t know whether he’s a Christian but I do know he’s a man of faith.
When the plague came to Europe and everyone was in a panic, it was a handful of nuns and priests who taught the world about love and courage, ministering to the sick despite the fear of death all around them.
When food becomes scarce, we are the ones who open soup kitchens and food pantries – we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years – like our mission in Monte Rio and like the Living Room here at our church. We are the ones to show the world how to pool our resources to create abundance, and community out of scarcity and competition.
So gloom and doom doesn’t scare us. We don’t rattle. We are the proclaimers of hope. We are gospel people.
And this is why we have a new chasuble. Because in times of sackcloth and ashes, or even in times just of rumors of sackcloth and ashes, the world needs a new chasuble.
Somebody say, AMEN.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Wisdom vs. the Scoffers
This morning we are treated to a rare reading from the Wisdom of Solomon – a book from the Apocrypha that is part of what is called the Wisdom Literature of the Bible. Other books of the Bible that are included in the Wisdom literature are the booksof Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Ecclesiasticus. And one could also argue that the Gospels are themselves part of the Wisdom Literature, in that the teachings of Jesus and the person of Jesus both represent this tradition.
It’s too bad we don’t have more readings from these books of the Bible, because of all the books of the Bible, the Wisdom literature is probably the most compatible with the world view of the modern Episcopalian. In the Wisdom literature, the Creation is celebrated and human experience is honored; God takes on a female aspect and delights in humanity; and sin is defined not as the priests defined it in other parts of the Bible - as a violation of the Purity Code - but instead as simple ignorance and a general stubbornness.
In the first chapter of Proverbs, Wisdom, who is a female form of the Godhead,
"cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice...
How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?"
I don’t know about you, but those are questions I have asked often - especially during this long election season, when it seemed we were in an endless season of scoffing, I asked that question: “How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?”
But, of course the problem is that it’s hard to ask that question without sounding like a scoffer yourself. I mean, whether you are, say, a governor from Alaska scoffing at the liberal media, or a fake newsman on Comedy Central scoffing at a governor, either way there was a whole lot of scoffing going on. And if there’s anything that I look forward to now, it’s a time of less scoffing and more listening.
Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or a None-of-the-above, I’m sure we all can be proud of what our nation achieved on Tuesday night. Of course, as the parents of a bi-racial child who hopes to be president one day, Rose and I were deeply encouraged by the election results. Our son is just that much closer to the White House now.
Except, of course, it will no surprise that we were disappointed with the outcome on Proposition 8. I grieve for all of my friends who have just been informed by a majority of voters in California that some people are less equal then others. And I also grieve for how the debate was conducted. Whether you voted for Proposition 8 or against it, I think all of us would agree that the debate was dominated by a complete ignorance of the Bible.
It is incomprehensible to me that a Christian pastor, a man who claims to know the Bible, can stand before his congregation and say with a straight face that “the Bible defines traditional marriage as one man, one woman.”
Where, I would like to know, is that found in the Bible? All I know is that in 1 Kings, it says that Solomon had “seven hundred [wives who were] princesses and three hundred concubines.” I know that in Genesis, Chapter 16, it says that when Sarah was unable to conceive a child, Abraham took their slave, Hagar, as a wife. I know that in Jesus’ own time, the law was that if you were a married woman and your husband died, you were required to marry your husband’s brother, whether you liked it or not - whether he was married or not. I know that throughout the Bible, marriage as we understand it today is almost nowhere to be found; that women were considered a form of property, and that women had virtually none of what we in today’s society would recognize as basic human rights.
So for a Christian minister to stand up in front of God and all the world and proclaim the Bible as a model and standard for traditional marriage – well, either he hasn’t read his Bible, or he is willfully misleading his congregation. Which do you suppose it is?
I don’t know. But the fact that these pastors got away with it – the fact that they were not hooted out of their pulpits - well, that just speaks to a profound ignorance on the part of Christians for their own Holy Scriptures.
Wisdom cries out in the street... How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
God forgive me for being such a scoffer.
I blame myself for not doing enough to address this state of affairs. Maybe we don’t teach enough about the Bible here in this church. Perhaps I should speak more often about what Biblical scholars have to say about the Scriptures we read in our services. Maybe I should talk more, for example, about the scholarship behind this morning’s gospel reading, which most objective scholars doubt ever came from the mouth of Jesus. As one group of scholars put it, this story lacks all of the traits that we associate with Jesus’ authentic teaching: it “lacks humor, exaggeration, and paradox, it is straightforward, unimaginative, and moralizing... its application is obvious... and in addition, the parable emphasizes the social boundaries” that Jesus himself challenged throughout his ministry. [The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus by Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar]
So what does this mean for us? I think it means that the reading of Scripture is not simple. That sometimes life gets complicated. That of course when we come to church and we kneel at this altar rail, we open ourselves to communion with God on the most elemental level – but that doesn’t mean we check our minds at the door. That the spiritual life that has integrity demands our best thinking and a critical reading of Scripture.
I heard a Unitarian pastor on the radio the other day (The Rev. Forest Church) who said that “our church does not give answers to unanswerable questions.” I loved that – and that’s the Episcopal Church too.
Maybe I, and other clergy, need to be more explicit in our teaching on the Bible; so that we can teach one another to be more discerning of Scripture - not just so that we have more educated congregations, but so that when people start representing the Bible in completely fictitious ways, there will be more of us who have the tools to argue the truth.
Well, if you are interested in deepening your understanding of our sacred Scriptures, I encourage you to consider joining one of the home Bible Study groups that are forming now in our church. You will hear more about them and other small groups next week, when Mitch Garcia will be preaching.
So getting back to Wisdom, this female aspect of the divine: she stands before us and begs us to come to her. In the book of Proverbs she pre-figures what Christians would later claim about Jesus Christ: she is the Hebrew version of Logos, this ordering principle of the universe; this aspect of creation that makes all knowledge possible. The author of John’s gospel clearly had meditated very deeply on this aspect of Wisdom when writing the prologue:
When he established the heavens, I was there,
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above... I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
Wisdom is presented in the book of Proverbs as the companion or the consort of God the Creator: her partnership with God the Father becomes what later Christian mystics would call the “marriage of the sacred masculine and the divine feminine.” As Jesus takes on these aspects of Wisdom, incarnate, this sacred marriage of the masculine and the feminine is revealed to the world in the form of a fully integrated human being.
Centuries later, Christian mystics like Hildegaard and Theresa and Meister Eckhart would proclaim their own visions of this divine marriage made manifest in Christ; and in the process they would reveal a sacred balance between the masculine and the feminine, both in how we represent the Godhead, and how we understand our own selves.
Perhaps it is time that we more fully embrace this Wisdom; perhaps it is time that we celebrate this divine aspect of the Godhead; maybe then, Christians will be less afraid of men who embrace their feminine side, and women who accept their masculine side.
This is the Wisdom of Scripture; this is the Wisdom of the ages, speaking to us. She is begging us to live a more balanced life – because “the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom of God.”
Somebody say.... AMEN.
It’s too bad we don’t have more readings from these books of the Bible, because of all the books of the Bible, the Wisdom literature is probably the most compatible with the world view of the modern Episcopalian. In the Wisdom literature, the Creation is celebrated and human experience is honored; God takes on a female aspect and delights in humanity; and sin is defined not as the priests defined it in other parts of the Bible - as a violation of the Purity Code - but instead as simple ignorance and a general stubbornness.
In the first chapter of Proverbs, Wisdom, who is a female form of the Godhead,
"cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice...
How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?"
I don’t know about you, but those are questions I have asked often - especially during this long election season, when it seemed we were in an endless season of scoffing, I asked that question: “How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?”
But, of course the problem is that it’s hard to ask that question without sounding like a scoffer yourself. I mean, whether you are, say, a governor from Alaska scoffing at the liberal media, or a fake newsman on Comedy Central scoffing at a governor, either way there was a whole lot of scoffing going on. And if there’s anything that I look forward to now, it’s a time of less scoffing and more listening.
Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or a None-of-the-above, I’m sure we all can be proud of what our nation achieved on Tuesday night. Of course, as the parents of a bi-racial child who hopes to be president one day, Rose and I were deeply encouraged by the election results. Our son is just that much closer to the White House now.
Except, of course, it will no surprise that we were disappointed with the outcome on Proposition 8. I grieve for all of my friends who have just been informed by a majority of voters in California that some people are less equal then others. And I also grieve for how the debate was conducted. Whether you voted for Proposition 8 or against it, I think all of us would agree that the debate was dominated by a complete ignorance of the Bible.
It is incomprehensible to me that a Christian pastor, a man who claims to know the Bible, can stand before his congregation and say with a straight face that “the Bible defines traditional marriage as one man, one woman.”
Where, I would like to know, is that found in the Bible? All I know is that in 1 Kings, it says that Solomon had “seven hundred [wives who were] princesses and three hundred concubines.” I know that in Genesis, Chapter 16, it says that when Sarah was unable to conceive a child, Abraham took their slave, Hagar, as a wife. I know that in Jesus’ own time, the law was that if you were a married woman and your husband died, you were required to marry your husband’s brother, whether you liked it or not - whether he was married or not. I know that throughout the Bible, marriage as we understand it today is almost nowhere to be found; that women were considered a form of property, and that women had virtually none of what we in today’s society would recognize as basic human rights.
So for a Christian minister to stand up in front of God and all the world and proclaim the Bible as a model and standard for traditional marriage – well, either he hasn’t read his Bible, or he is willfully misleading his congregation. Which do you suppose it is?
I don’t know. But the fact that these pastors got away with it – the fact that they were not hooted out of their pulpits - well, that just speaks to a profound ignorance on the part of Christians for their own Holy Scriptures.
Wisdom cries out in the street... How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
God forgive me for being such a scoffer.
I blame myself for not doing enough to address this state of affairs. Maybe we don’t teach enough about the Bible here in this church. Perhaps I should speak more often about what Biblical scholars have to say about the Scriptures we read in our services. Maybe I should talk more, for example, about the scholarship behind this morning’s gospel reading, which most objective scholars doubt ever came from the mouth of Jesus. As one group of scholars put it, this story lacks all of the traits that we associate with Jesus’ authentic teaching: it “lacks humor, exaggeration, and paradox, it is straightforward, unimaginative, and moralizing... its application is obvious... and in addition, the parable emphasizes the social boundaries” that Jesus himself challenged throughout his ministry. [The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus by Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar]
So what does this mean for us? I think it means that the reading of Scripture is not simple. That sometimes life gets complicated. That of course when we come to church and we kneel at this altar rail, we open ourselves to communion with God on the most elemental level – but that doesn’t mean we check our minds at the door. That the spiritual life that has integrity demands our best thinking and a critical reading of Scripture.
I heard a Unitarian pastor on the radio the other day (The Rev. Forest Church) who said that “our church does not give answers to unanswerable questions.” I loved that – and that’s the Episcopal Church too.
Maybe I, and other clergy, need to be more explicit in our teaching on the Bible; so that we can teach one another to be more discerning of Scripture - not just so that we have more educated congregations, but so that when people start representing the Bible in completely fictitious ways, there will be more of us who have the tools to argue the truth.
Well, if you are interested in deepening your understanding of our sacred Scriptures, I encourage you to consider joining one of the home Bible Study groups that are forming now in our church. You will hear more about them and other small groups next week, when Mitch Garcia will be preaching.
So getting back to Wisdom, this female aspect of the divine: she stands before us and begs us to come to her. In the book of Proverbs she pre-figures what Christians would later claim about Jesus Christ: she is the Hebrew version of Logos, this ordering principle of the universe; this aspect of creation that makes all knowledge possible. The author of John’s gospel clearly had meditated very deeply on this aspect of Wisdom when writing the prologue:
When he established the heavens, I was there,
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above... I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
Wisdom is presented in the book of Proverbs as the companion or the consort of God the Creator: her partnership with God the Father becomes what later Christian mystics would call the “marriage of the sacred masculine and the divine feminine.” As Jesus takes on these aspects of Wisdom, incarnate, this sacred marriage of the masculine and the feminine is revealed to the world in the form of a fully integrated human being.
Centuries later, Christian mystics like Hildegaard and Theresa and Meister Eckhart would proclaim their own visions of this divine marriage made manifest in Christ; and in the process they would reveal a sacred balance between the masculine and the feminine, both in how we represent the Godhead, and how we understand our own selves.
Perhaps it is time that we more fully embrace this Wisdom; perhaps it is time that we celebrate this divine aspect of the Godhead; maybe then, Christians will be less afraid of men who embrace their feminine side, and women who accept their masculine side.
This is the Wisdom of Scripture; this is the Wisdom of the ages, speaking to us. She is begging us to live a more balanced life – because “the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom of God.”
Somebody say.... AMEN.
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