Sermon February 14 2010
Most of you have heard, by now, the sad news of MLS’s death on Friday morning. It goes without saying that this has been a heart wrenching time for J and J and all of ML’s family and friends; that time of dreadful grace; when our gratitude and our love pours out with our tears and our hugs.
The funeral is scheduled for Tues Feb 23, 11:30
I am very sorry to have to report that another tragedy broke into our community on the same day that ML died: HC’s younger sister R died, quite unexpectedly. She had gone off to work on Friday morning, didn’t feel well, went back home to Sebastopol and went to bed, and apparently did not wake up. The shock to Heather and her family is of course most severe; she was still a young woman in her 40’s; the cause has not yet been determined.
I spent some time with H yesterday; her family was on its way, she is surrounded by good friends and the love of this community. Our blessings and prayers go out to her.
So here we are, appropriately enough, approaching Lent, with Ash Wed coming this Wednesday. It feels to me like we've entered that territory already.
It was, of course, on Ash Wed two years ago that ML received her diagnosis. I will never forget the sight of her, coming in through the side chapel just as we were finishing up the imposition of ashes. She kind of rushed in; DW was with her as she has been every step of the way since. She knelt at the altar rail and looked up at me with a knowing in her eyes that was deep and wild. Then she closed her eyes and I imposed those ashes on her forehead, saying those grave words, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return,” And I thought, “Never have those words been more unnecessary.”
Last Friday, on the morning ML died, I drove down to join the 8 o’clock morning prayer group here gathered around the altar. Everyone there, of course, knew ML well and long and the fresh news of her death hung in the air like smoke.
When we got to the psalm appointed for the day, these were the words we read:
O Lord, my god, my Savior, by day and night I cry to you. Let my prayer enter into your presence; incline your ear to my lamentation. For I am full of trouble; my life is at the brink of the grave.
This psalm, Psalm 88, is a song of despair and mortality; the psalmist goes on at length about the finality of death: he speaks about the depths of the Pit, the dark places, the abyss. God feels very far away in this psalm, and the trials of life feel like punishment: “Your anger weighs upon me heavily, and all your great waves overwhelm me.”
This is also a psalm of questions, not answers:
“Why have you rejected me? Why have you hidden your face from me?” “Do you work wonders for the dead? Will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?”
Some of the questions seem almost sarcastic, or ironic. “Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave?... Will your wonders be known in the dark?”
This, indeed, is a song sung at the brink of the grave.
Sometimes, when our lives feel full of trouble and loneliness, reading psalms like this can be a comfort. It’s comforting to know that we are not the only ones who feel this way. But if we are looking for answers to our bitter questions, psalms like this might not be the best place to go.
It’s like our church in that way. If we’re looking for facile clichés and easy answers, the Episcopal Church is not necessarily a good fit. We are not a church that tends toward strident, simplistic proclamations; we do not pretend that the howling depths of our grief can be answered by a cheerful verse of Scripture quoted out of context.
So many churches seem so determined to run from the ambiguous and, at times, frightening questions; they fill their music with cheerful tunes of praise as if the purpose of a church is to collude with its parishioners in a magnificent denial of death.
Not so the Episcopal Church. But oh, don’t get me wrong: we find our answers, eventually; and then when we find them, we continue to test them; and modify them; and test them some more against our reason, against our Scripture; against the great traditions of our church. When times are good, like everyone else we might forget them, but when the Ash Wednesdays of our life roll around and we find ourselves once again standing at the brink of the grave, the answers we find are solid.
Today, as we do every Sunday just before Lent begins, we hear the story of Jesus on the mountaintop with his favorite disciples; suddenly he is bathed in an unearthly light; and those two figures appear, Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets.
And what do you suppose they are talking about, up there on the mountain top?
Not about the weather, that’s for sure; nor are they singing God’s praises at that moment, as we might expect them to be doing.
No, they are talking about death. Jesus’ death, to be precise.
In the fullness of the glory of the transfiguration, on the top of the mountain with beams of light shooting out like the sun from the face of Jesus, Jesus is talking to these heavenly beings about his death.
Which, of course, his disciples have no interest in hearing about. In fact, they practically slept through the entire experience.
Just eight days earlier, in this same chapter of Luke’s Gospel (ch. 9), Jesus performs the miracle of the loaves and fishes – this amazing miracle, which had come on the heels of the spectacular mission of the twelve, when they went out into the countryside healing the sick and casting out demons. They had just returned from this great success; the air was alive with excitement; the disciples were just beside themselves, giddy with all this new life bursting out all over, the Kingdom of God literally blooming before their eyes in the name of Jesus – and what does Jesus talk to them about?
He sits them down and tells them, plainly, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed....” (Luke 9:22)
Well, talk about a buzz-kill. You can almost hear them wondering, “What is it about this guy – why does he have to talk about death? This is all about life! Healings! Miracles!”
Why do you suppose it is that Jesus himself brings us to the brink of the grave? At his moment of full glory he takes us there – to the cross. Why?
I think it’s so we might finally see what lies beyond the cross.
So we might finally see the truth of what this is; and who we are.
That we are not only made of dust and ashes; we are made of light. If we are dust at all, it is stardust. The grave cannot contain us. We are alive - always and for all time.
Time and again Jesus keeps taking us there. At the height of his glory Jesus shows us his death - so that in the face of our death we will see his glory.
So we will finally get it. So we will see the grave for what it is – a mere hole in the ground that cannot contain us - and so we will see ourselves for what we are.
How else could he make us see, it? You can hear them on the mountaintop, Moses and Elijah, mulling that question over to Jerusalem, and reaching a decision. You will go to Jerusalem. You will stand at the brink of the grave. You will be lifted in weakness and humility high up on the cross and die for all the world to see: so that on the third day, you will be raised in blinding light for all the world to see.
And we, who are witnesses to that glory, are transformed by it.
Just as Moses was transformed by the sight of God on the mountaintop; and his face shone with this uncreated light so that he had to put a veil over his face when he went among his people.
Just as Paul was transformed by this light, but unlike Moses, refused to put a veil on his face; but instead encouraged all of us to bear witness to this light. So that in this 2nd letter to the Corinthians that we read today, way before the gospels were written, Paul writes:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)
We know this light. We are witnesses to this light. We have seen the face of God. As John’s gospel says, we have seen the light and we testify to the light; and we have become children of this light. We see it in each other; and we are transformed by it.
You know, this congregation is not just some random collection of aging Santa Rosans, complaining to one another about our wrinkles and our wilting bodies. We see past all that! Because we see that light - there, in our eyes; like a light shining with the force of creation itself.
It is the light of Christ, transfigured on the mountaintop; it is the light of Christ, bursting from the grave. Proclaiming to all the world what we know most deeply in our bones: that we are made of this light.
That is why we can talk about death without flinching; because we have seen death defeated.
And so we stand at the brink of Lent; we stand at the brink of the grave; and with one voice we sing alleluia. We join our voices with ages past; with countless generations who have testified to this light; we are connected to them beyond time and space, joining with them and singing alleluia!
Somebody say it with me: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Monday, February 15, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Pray for Haiti
The stories coming out of Haiti are horrific. Many have had no water going on 3 days. This will be one of the worst disasters of our generation. Pray that water and medical aid can get there very soon.
Episcopal Relief and Development has set-up a fund for emergency relief. You can be assured that your donation will go directly to Haiti relief through this charity. Go to https://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php
Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy. Grant this, Father, for the love of your Son, who for our sake became poor, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p.826)
Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP p.816)
Episcopal Relief and Development has set-up a fund for emergency relief. You can be assured that your donation will go directly to Haiti relief through this charity. Go to https://www.er-d.org/donate-select.php
Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy. Grant this, Father, for the love of your Son, who for our sake became poor, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p.826)
Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP p.816)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
First Sunday after Epiphany
January 10, 2010
So here we are. We’ve celebrated our 12 days of Christmas; Epiphany is in the past; the Three Kings have come and have left their gifts behind; the special Oreo Rice Krispie Treats that my son’s girlfriend made for me are all consumed; and so I suppose it is time for us now to face facts and admit that the holidays are over.
You will notice, however, that the Christmas tree in Farlander Hall is still standing. Well, it just so happens that Eric, our Sexton, has been on vacation since the first of the year; and he’s the only one who knows how to take the tree down so I guess, logically speaking, as long as the Christmas tree is standing Christmastide cannot be over. We’re just going to have to continue celebrating Christmas until he returns.
That would make today the 17th day of Christmas – which is fine by me. There’s no need to be in any rush about this.
I hate to see the holidays go; I’ve always been attached to them – maybe it’s because I was conceived sometime around the beginning of Advent.
I’d like to think this accounts for my cheerful demeanor and my affection for champagne.
Five months after I was born, my sister Rebecca was conceived. Legend attributes this event to a very persuasive box of chocolates delivered to my mother’s bedside on Valentine’s Day. I think this explains why my sister, as an adult, spent a year in Paris learning how to make chocolate cakes.
Rebecca was the fifth and final child for my parents. God bless my mom, they had five children in 6 years. In other words, they were Roman Catholics…. Catholics, that is, until Rebecca came along.
So while I like to say I’m a cradle Episcopalian, technically speaking I started out as a Roman Catholic, having been baptized by a Catholic priest. I’m sure if I had had a say in the matter, I would have wriggled out of his grip and crawled on my hands and knees to the Episcopal Church down the street, but the priest had hands like iron.
It wasn’t until a few months later that my parents saw things my way. It was the middle of summer in a sweltering church; my mother, five months pregnant with Rebecca, fighting morning sickness, sleep deprived, bone weary, juggling me in her lap and trying to keep the three other children quiet and entertained, listened while a celibate Catholic priest preached a sermon on the evils of birth control.
Legend has it that in the middle of the sermon the baby in my mother’s womb kicked her so hard she took it as a sign from God. We very politely marched out of the church and became faithful Episcopalians the very next Sunday.
So I stand here today, a priest in the Episcopal Church, thanks to a box of chocolates and a poorly timed sermon on birth control. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Most of us were baptized as infants or young children. When the priest poured the water over our heads and uttered the ancient formula of baptism, we didn’t have much say in the matter. I have baptized many babies who were wiggling and screaming in protest – but they never stopped me from doing my job. I have hands of iron...
Jesus, on the other hand, chose to be baptized as an adult. He knew exactly what he was doing – and he knew exactly what he would be facing after his baptism.
I wonder if he had any secret regrets, as he rose up from out of that river soaking wet and thought about the future he was facing. I wonder if he wanted to go back to the time before baptism – kind of like how I want to go back to Christmastide; or like a man who has just gotten a tattoo he wasn’t sure about. Did he hear the words of commitment coming out of his mouth and think, “Is it too late? Can I take it back?”
Or did the very act of baptism give him the courage to face his destiny?
The ritual of baptism involves the giving of a name; and more than that, it involves being called by name by God, into covenant with God.
The prophet Isaiah speaks in the name of God: “O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
The writer Lawrence Wood talks about how God finds very special ways to call us by name. He tells the story of a doctor he knew, who fought all his life against the idea of a personal God:
He sought refuge instead in music; Bach particularly appealed to him because of the mathematical precision of the fugues. Meanwhile, his life was falling apart. His first wife left him; he started drinking too much. One day as he was driving, he pounded the steering wheel with his open palms and cried out, “God, if you’re really there, you’re going t have to say something! And you know what kind of man I am! … You’re going to have to talk my language!” Just then on the radio came, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” My friend sobbed, and laughed at what an idiotic but wonderful word this was to him.
[The Christian Century, “The Living Word,” Dec. 26, 2006]
And it wasn’t even a classical music station. The next song was “The Girl from Ipanema”! He doesn’t say why – maybe his wife was from Brazil, I don’t know, but somehow that sealed the deal for the doctor. God had spoken his particular language. The Word of God had become so custom-made at that moment that it was if God had called him by name.
It’s a powerful thing to be called by name. We’re in the 2rd grade, in the middle of a busy classroom surrounded by 30 other chattering children. The teacher calls our name. Something happens to us; our attention goes up; the room becomes clarified; our hand goes up; we say, “Here I am.”
For Jesus, his baptism had a similar effect; called by name, his world is clarified; everything else falls away; he stands, and says, “Yes. Here I am.”
Being called by name can have another kind of effect. We’re in a lecture hall in graduate school with 75 other students. The famously cranky professor is known to randomly choose students from the class list to answer notoriously difficult questions. You have deliberately placed yourself in the back of the lecture hall hoping this protect you; you have spent the entire semester hunched over your desk trying to look as small as possible.
And then you are called by name. “Matthew Lawrence! Please explain to us the origins of the Categorical Imperative!”
This is why we also associate baptism with repentance. Sometimes, in the name of a presence so awesome and vast as God, or even just somebody like a college professor who thinks he's God, the calling of our name is enough to make us feel unworthy of the attention.
The Methodist bishop Peter Storey points out that most of us have at least two names: our given name, and our family name. Our given name is what makes us unique: “Hey, Matt, how you doin’?” “Well, George, I’m doin’ just fine.”
Our given name is our own – we can do whatever we want with it. We can shorten it, take a nickname, whatever we want. Our family name, on the other hand, is not flexible; because it associates us with our people. Our family name does not belong to us – it belongs to the family. Through it, we represent our ancestors; our tribe. If our family name appears in the newspaper, we hope it doesn’t bring shame on the family name.
The family name, in other words, carries with it a set of responsibilities; obligations; sometimes even a life-long vocation.
This week I was privileged to serve at the Memorial Service of Betty Grove’s husband, Al, or C.A., as he was known. He was a third generation Santa Rosan, as were many of the people who came to remember him. The service was a Who’s Who of Santa Rosa’s most established families, including even the third generation of the Daniels family, who buried him.
I noticed that Al’s given name was not fixed – some people referred to him as Al, some as C.A. – it didn’t seem to matter (although nobody referred to him as Clarence Albert). But to everyone in that room, his family name - Grove - meant something special. Everyone in that room knew what the name Grove meant to Santa Rosa’s agricultural community; the name is important. It stands for something; it gives those who are lucky enough to bear the name something to live up to and be worthy of.
In our baptism, we are given the name Christian; for us perhaps the most worthy family name of all. To take on this name, Christian, carries certain responsibilities, certain obligations - to the God who calls us by name; and to the Christians ancestors who have gone before us. Those obligations and responsibilities are summarized for us in the Baptismal Covenant.
In a few moments, you will be invited to stand and affirm your commitment to this Covenant. In that re-affirmation, we’re invited to go back to those first moments of baptism. But of course there’s a big difference. We’re grown-ups now. You are not a baby wriggling against a priest with iron hands. You don’t need to affirm these words; nobody is making you. So think about it carefully. If you don't mean it, I suggest you not say it.
And this morning, as you come up for Communion, you will have an opportunity to dip your hand into the baptismal water, and make the sign of the cross over yourself, and remember these commitments as you receive the Eucharist. Again, this is an invitation, not a commandment.
If you choose to make this re-affirmation, I suggest you pray with me on this: May God, who has given us the will to do these things, give us the strength and the love and the courage to achieve them, also.
AMEN.
The Baptismal Covenant (pp.304-5, Book of Common Prayer)
Do you believe in God the Father?
I believe in God, the Father almighty,creator of heaven and earth.
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God's help.
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
I will, with God's help.
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
I will, with God's help.
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
I will, with God's help.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God's help.
January 10, 2010
So here we are. We’ve celebrated our 12 days of Christmas; Epiphany is in the past; the Three Kings have come and have left their gifts behind; the special Oreo Rice Krispie Treats that my son’s girlfriend made for me are all consumed; and so I suppose it is time for us now to face facts and admit that the holidays are over.
You will notice, however, that the Christmas tree in Farlander Hall is still standing. Well, it just so happens that Eric, our Sexton, has been on vacation since the first of the year; and he’s the only one who knows how to take the tree down so I guess, logically speaking, as long as the Christmas tree is standing Christmastide cannot be over. We’re just going to have to continue celebrating Christmas until he returns.
That would make today the 17th day of Christmas – which is fine by me. There’s no need to be in any rush about this.
I hate to see the holidays go; I’ve always been attached to them – maybe it’s because I was conceived sometime around the beginning of Advent.
I’d like to think this accounts for my cheerful demeanor and my affection for champagne.
Five months after I was born, my sister Rebecca was conceived. Legend attributes this event to a very persuasive box of chocolates delivered to my mother’s bedside on Valentine’s Day. I think this explains why my sister, as an adult, spent a year in Paris learning how to make chocolate cakes.
Rebecca was the fifth and final child for my parents. God bless my mom, they had five children in 6 years. In other words, they were Roman Catholics…. Catholics, that is, until Rebecca came along.
So while I like to say I’m a cradle Episcopalian, technically speaking I started out as a Roman Catholic, having been baptized by a Catholic priest. I’m sure if I had had a say in the matter, I would have wriggled out of his grip and crawled on my hands and knees to the Episcopal Church down the street, but the priest had hands like iron.
It wasn’t until a few months later that my parents saw things my way. It was the middle of summer in a sweltering church; my mother, five months pregnant with Rebecca, fighting morning sickness, sleep deprived, bone weary, juggling me in her lap and trying to keep the three other children quiet and entertained, listened while a celibate Catholic priest preached a sermon on the evils of birth control.
Legend has it that in the middle of the sermon the baby in my mother’s womb kicked her so hard she took it as a sign from God. We very politely marched out of the church and became faithful Episcopalians the very next Sunday.
So I stand here today, a priest in the Episcopal Church, thanks to a box of chocolates and a poorly timed sermon on birth control. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Most of us were baptized as infants or young children. When the priest poured the water over our heads and uttered the ancient formula of baptism, we didn’t have much say in the matter. I have baptized many babies who were wiggling and screaming in protest – but they never stopped me from doing my job. I have hands of iron...
Jesus, on the other hand, chose to be baptized as an adult. He knew exactly what he was doing – and he knew exactly what he would be facing after his baptism.
I wonder if he had any secret regrets, as he rose up from out of that river soaking wet and thought about the future he was facing. I wonder if he wanted to go back to the time before baptism – kind of like how I want to go back to Christmastide; or like a man who has just gotten a tattoo he wasn’t sure about. Did he hear the words of commitment coming out of his mouth and think, “Is it too late? Can I take it back?”
Or did the very act of baptism give him the courage to face his destiny?
The ritual of baptism involves the giving of a name; and more than that, it involves being called by name by God, into covenant with God.
The prophet Isaiah speaks in the name of God: “O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
The writer Lawrence Wood talks about how God finds very special ways to call us by name. He tells the story of a doctor he knew, who fought all his life against the idea of a personal God:
He sought refuge instead in music; Bach particularly appealed to him because of the mathematical precision of the fugues. Meanwhile, his life was falling apart. His first wife left him; he started drinking too much. One day as he was driving, he pounded the steering wheel with his open palms and cried out, “God, if you’re really there, you’re going t have to say something! And you know what kind of man I am! … You’re going to have to talk my language!” Just then on the radio came, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” My friend sobbed, and laughed at what an idiotic but wonderful word this was to him.
[The Christian Century, “The Living Word,” Dec. 26, 2006]
And it wasn’t even a classical music station. The next song was “The Girl from Ipanema”! He doesn’t say why – maybe his wife was from Brazil, I don’t know, but somehow that sealed the deal for the doctor. God had spoken his particular language. The Word of God had become so custom-made at that moment that it was if God had called him by name.
It’s a powerful thing to be called by name. We’re in the 2rd grade, in the middle of a busy classroom surrounded by 30 other chattering children. The teacher calls our name. Something happens to us; our attention goes up; the room becomes clarified; our hand goes up; we say, “Here I am.”
For Jesus, his baptism had a similar effect; called by name, his world is clarified; everything else falls away; he stands, and says, “Yes. Here I am.”
Being called by name can have another kind of effect. We’re in a lecture hall in graduate school with 75 other students. The famously cranky professor is known to randomly choose students from the class list to answer notoriously difficult questions. You have deliberately placed yourself in the back of the lecture hall hoping this protect you; you have spent the entire semester hunched over your desk trying to look as small as possible.
And then you are called by name. “Matthew Lawrence! Please explain to us the origins of the Categorical Imperative!”
This is why we also associate baptism with repentance. Sometimes, in the name of a presence so awesome and vast as God, or even just somebody like a college professor who thinks he's God, the calling of our name is enough to make us feel unworthy of the attention.
The Methodist bishop Peter Storey points out that most of us have at least two names: our given name, and our family name. Our given name is what makes us unique: “Hey, Matt, how you doin’?” “Well, George, I’m doin’ just fine.”
Our given name is our own – we can do whatever we want with it. We can shorten it, take a nickname, whatever we want. Our family name, on the other hand, is not flexible; because it associates us with our people. Our family name does not belong to us – it belongs to the family. Through it, we represent our ancestors; our tribe. If our family name appears in the newspaper, we hope it doesn’t bring shame on the family name.
The family name, in other words, carries with it a set of responsibilities; obligations; sometimes even a life-long vocation.
This week I was privileged to serve at the Memorial Service of Betty Grove’s husband, Al, or C.A., as he was known. He was a third generation Santa Rosan, as were many of the people who came to remember him. The service was a Who’s Who of Santa Rosa’s most established families, including even the third generation of the Daniels family, who buried him.
I noticed that Al’s given name was not fixed – some people referred to him as Al, some as C.A. – it didn’t seem to matter (although nobody referred to him as Clarence Albert). But to everyone in that room, his family name - Grove - meant something special. Everyone in that room knew what the name Grove meant to Santa Rosa’s agricultural community; the name is important. It stands for something; it gives those who are lucky enough to bear the name something to live up to and be worthy of.
In our baptism, we are given the name Christian; for us perhaps the most worthy family name of all. To take on this name, Christian, carries certain responsibilities, certain obligations - to the God who calls us by name; and to the Christians ancestors who have gone before us. Those obligations and responsibilities are summarized for us in the Baptismal Covenant.
In a few moments, you will be invited to stand and affirm your commitment to this Covenant. In that re-affirmation, we’re invited to go back to those first moments of baptism. But of course there’s a big difference. We’re grown-ups now. You are not a baby wriggling against a priest with iron hands. You don’t need to affirm these words; nobody is making you. So think about it carefully. If you don't mean it, I suggest you not say it.
And this morning, as you come up for Communion, you will have an opportunity to dip your hand into the baptismal water, and make the sign of the cross over yourself, and remember these commitments as you receive the Eucharist. Again, this is an invitation, not a commandment.
If you choose to make this re-affirmation, I suggest you pray with me on this: May God, who has given us the will to do these things, give us the strength and the love and the courage to achieve them, also.
AMEN.
The Baptismal Covenant (pp.304-5, Book of Common Prayer)
Do you believe in God the Father?
I believe in God, the Father almighty,creator of heaven and earth.
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God's help.
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
I will, with God's help.
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
I will, with God's help.
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
I will, with God's help.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God's help.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
On Flicking Your BIC: Christmas Eve Sermon
In Chicago, in the summer time every year, the city hosts a Blues Festival. Thousands of people turn out for this festival; they gather in Grant Park and listen to some of the all time great blues musicians in the world. People like Coco Taylor, BB King, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells....
Now this is a festival for the blues; a festival of sorrows, if you will; because the blues were invented to help people deal with the pain in their lives. In other words, this is not the kind of crowd that stands up and flicks their lighters and holds them aloft during the concert, is what I’m saying.
So about a hundred years ago, or more precisely some time back in the mid-80s, Rose and I were at the Blues Festival and we were sitting behind this young teen-aged boy; he was all alone at the concert; and by the looks of him – all freshly scrubbed and carefully dressed - we knew he was from the suburbs. But it was clear that he had been to a rock concert before, because half way through the performance he got out his BIC lighter and flicked it and held it up in the air.
And this young man did not appear discouraged when no one else flicked their BICs. For the entire remainder of the concert, he kept at it, holding up that lighter and looking over his shoulder with a hopeful look on his face, waiting for that magical moment when the entire crowd of thousands would be waving their lighters and swaying side to side, inspired by his example.
And as the night wore on, the look on his face grew only more and more determined; he didn’t give up – not until the very end, when the final chord was struck. And as the applause died down my heart went out to him, that lonely hero of hope; that brave soldier, shining his light against the darkness, come what may and no matter how silly he seemed to a jaded and cynical world of blues.
Since those days, the world has only grown more full of the blues; it seems to me that the world needs that young man now more than ever.
But some days, if you look hard enough, you can see that little BIC lighter out there. When the nights are darkest, the stars are their most brilliant.
It was in the middle of one of the darkest moments of Israel’s history that the prophet Isaiah caught sight of that light - but it wasn’t a little flickering BIC that he was describing when he said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”
The year was 735 BC; the kingdom of Judah was facing annihilation by Assyria – the greatest power in the known world. What hope could they have? The prophet Isaiah saw the look on the king’s face; he saw that the king was without hope and that he was more aware of his weakness than of his strength. And so Isaiah spoke these words to help King Ahaz get things in perspective. Don’t forget, Isaiah was saying, that the Lord your God is a great God; don’t forget the promises that he made to us. Keep your hope alive, Isaiah was saying. Assyria is nothing compared to the kingdom promised to us under the house of David.
But the king didn’t listen to Isaiah, and instead basically gave away his kingdom to the Assyrians.
Isaiah must have felt a little like the young man at the blues festival, looking out over a sea of darkness: am I the only one around here who is willing to hope?
When the nights are darkest, the stars are their most brilliant. I imagine it was a dark night, indeed, in that little town of Bethlehem so many years ago, when the star appeared from the East. The people of Israel were desperately poor, living under a brutal army occupation. Torture and terrorism were commonplace; and hope was in very short supply. And yet, in that darkness, the star appeared.
On the night of September 11, 2001, I was among a few religious leaders invited to address a crowd of over 12,000 students who had come to the center of campus to pray. Somehow, there were enough candles for everyone – the Catholics brought them. Where they got their hands on 12,000 candles I will never know. And while we prayed for peace on that very dark night, the candles were lit – at the front of the crowd, first, and then spreading toward the back until it looked like a vast galaxy of stars.
If you were alive then you might remember the pit in your stomach; the sense of panic just beneath the surface; the fear and the grief and the uncertainty. But as those candles were lit; when we took in the sight of just how much light can be thrown against the night when people decide that it is time to hope – well, it was a sight to see.
But toward the end of the prayer vigil we ran into a slight problem; we hadn’t quite thought through a fitting way to end it; as the last prayer was spoken there was a moment of uncertainty; the crowd started to shift their feet; no one wanted to leave. And that’s when a priest among us on the stage took a step toward the crowd, and in the silence and the confusion, lifted his candle high above his head.
I don’t believe I will ever see anything more beautiful than the sight of all 12,000 of those candles lifted up. It was, to me, as if an angel appeared over a sea of shepherds, and said, “Take heart. Do not be afraid.”
There are days when I read the newspaper and my memory of that voice seems very distant indeed.
Just yesterday there was a crowd of Muslim pilgrims in Iraq, reverently marching to a holy shrine in Karbala. They endured five separate bomb attacks; 47 pilgrims were injured; five were killed.
In November, 88 Iraqi civilians died at the hands of terrorists. The good news is that this is the lowest number of civilians killed since the invasion in 2003.
In Mosul, Christian churches have been bombed six times during the past month. Three people have been killed so far, including a baby.
It’s enough to make you forget the voice of that angel, speaking words of peace.
And so tonight, when I hold my candle against the darkness, I will be praying for the victims of warfare and terrorism, wherever they may be, whatever their creed.
Tonight, when you hold your candle against the darkness, what will you be praying for?
Closer to home, we have our own challenges. Many of us are reminded, every Christmas, of what we have lost. We can’t stop thinking about Christmases past, when times were better: when we were healthier, when our beloved families were still intact; when our loved ones were still counted as among the living.
When I raise my candle tonight, I will be praying with my brother, who on the other side of the earth is praying that this will not be his last Christmas. I will be thinking of my Mom, and all the ways she made Christmas so special; and I will be thinking of our beloved Bernese Mountain Dog, who died last Christmas.
Tonight, when you hold your candle against the darkness, what will you be praying for?
Many of us have lost jobs, some of us have lost our homes; some of us are struggling against addiction or depression. Tonight, when I raise my candle against the darkness, I will pray for my loved ones’ economic relief.
What will you be praying for?
Let your prayers be heard tonight; this of all nights – because Christ comes to a homeless couple living in a barn – to give us hope even in the face of poverty; Christ comes to us in fullness and light, to heal us even in the midst of our illness. Christ comes to us in wartime, to teach us how to find peace even in a world of violence and desperation.
Let your prayers be heard tonight - of all nights.
Sometimes I wonder about that young man, that hero of hope who held his BIC lighter up at the concert. I wonder if he ever found the courage to flick his BIC ever again.
Sometimes, when things haven’t gone our way, we will decide never to hope again. We might think we are alone in a vast sea of cynical people, all of them battling the blues, and we might decide just to join them; give up on hope; not embarrass ourselves again. But maybe what it means is that we’ve been flicking our BICs in the wrong place; maybe instead of a blues festival, we might try flicking our BICs somewhere else – like maybe in a church. Maybe it wouldn’t feel so different if we surrounded by people who have learned to pray rather than to complain.
Maybe that is what brought you here tonight. Led by your own star to this sacred place; surrounded on all sides by other heroes of hope.
Tonight, when you lift your candle, you can trust you are not alone. So let that hope that is within you, that uncreated flame of God that burns inside you, raise you up. Join your voice with angels and archangels; proclaim the goodness of God; and rejoice that here, in this place, Christ our savior is born.
AMEN.
Note: at the end of the worship service, the lights went out and we all lit our candles while singing "Silent Night." At the end of the hymn, I stood at the altar and silently raised my candle. Gradually, everyone else did also. It was a gorgeous thing to see.
Now this is a festival for the blues; a festival of sorrows, if you will; because the blues were invented to help people deal with the pain in their lives. In other words, this is not the kind of crowd that stands up and flicks their lighters and holds them aloft during the concert, is what I’m saying.
So about a hundred years ago, or more precisely some time back in the mid-80s, Rose and I were at the Blues Festival and we were sitting behind this young teen-aged boy; he was all alone at the concert; and by the looks of him – all freshly scrubbed and carefully dressed - we knew he was from the suburbs. But it was clear that he had been to a rock concert before, because half way through the performance he got out his BIC lighter and flicked it and held it up in the air.
And this young man did not appear discouraged when no one else flicked their BICs. For the entire remainder of the concert, he kept at it, holding up that lighter and looking over his shoulder with a hopeful look on his face, waiting for that magical moment when the entire crowd of thousands would be waving their lighters and swaying side to side, inspired by his example.
And as the night wore on, the look on his face grew only more and more determined; he didn’t give up – not until the very end, when the final chord was struck. And as the applause died down my heart went out to him, that lonely hero of hope; that brave soldier, shining his light against the darkness, come what may and no matter how silly he seemed to a jaded and cynical world of blues.
Since those days, the world has only grown more full of the blues; it seems to me that the world needs that young man now more than ever.
But some days, if you look hard enough, you can see that little BIC lighter out there. When the nights are darkest, the stars are their most brilliant.
It was in the middle of one of the darkest moments of Israel’s history that the prophet Isaiah caught sight of that light - but it wasn’t a little flickering BIC that he was describing when he said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”
The year was 735 BC; the kingdom of Judah was facing annihilation by Assyria – the greatest power in the known world. What hope could they have? The prophet Isaiah saw the look on the king’s face; he saw that the king was without hope and that he was more aware of his weakness than of his strength. And so Isaiah spoke these words to help King Ahaz get things in perspective. Don’t forget, Isaiah was saying, that the Lord your God is a great God; don’t forget the promises that he made to us. Keep your hope alive, Isaiah was saying. Assyria is nothing compared to the kingdom promised to us under the house of David.
But the king didn’t listen to Isaiah, and instead basically gave away his kingdom to the Assyrians.
Isaiah must have felt a little like the young man at the blues festival, looking out over a sea of darkness: am I the only one around here who is willing to hope?
When the nights are darkest, the stars are their most brilliant. I imagine it was a dark night, indeed, in that little town of Bethlehem so many years ago, when the star appeared from the East. The people of Israel were desperately poor, living under a brutal army occupation. Torture and terrorism were commonplace; and hope was in very short supply. And yet, in that darkness, the star appeared.
On the night of September 11, 2001, I was among a few religious leaders invited to address a crowd of over 12,000 students who had come to the center of campus to pray. Somehow, there were enough candles for everyone – the Catholics brought them. Where they got their hands on 12,000 candles I will never know. And while we prayed for peace on that very dark night, the candles were lit – at the front of the crowd, first, and then spreading toward the back until it looked like a vast galaxy of stars.
If you were alive then you might remember the pit in your stomach; the sense of panic just beneath the surface; the fear and the grief and the uncertainty. But as those candles were lit; when we took in the sight of just how much light can be thrown against the night when people decide that it is time to hope – well, it was a sight to see.
But toward the end of the prayer vigil we ran into a slight problem; we hadn’t quite thought through a fitting way to end it; as the last prayer was spoken there was a moment of uncertainty; the crowd started to shift their feet; no one wanted to leave. And that’s when a priest among us on the stage took a step toward the crowd, and in the silence and the confusion, lifted his candle high above his head.
I don’t believe I will ever see anything more beautiful than the sight of all 12,000 of those candles lifted up. It was, to me, as if an angel appeared over a sea of shepherds, and said, “Take heart. Do not be afraid.”
There are days when I read the newspaper and my memory of that voice seems very distant indeed.
Just yesterday there was a crowd of Muslim pilgrims in Iraq, reverently marching to a holy shrine in Karbala. They endured five separate bomb attacks; 47 pilgrims were injured; five were killed.
In November, 88 Iraqi civilians died at the hands of terrorists. The good news is that this is the lowest number of civilians killed since the invasion in 2003.
In Mosul, Christian churches have been bombed six times during the past month. Three people have been killed so far, including a baby.
It’s enough to make you forget the voice of that angel, speaking words of peace.
And so tonight, when I hold my candle against the darkness, I will be praying for the victims of warfare and terrorism, wherever they may be, whatever their creed.
Tonight, when you hold your candle against the darkness, what will you be praying for?
Closer to home, we have our own challenges. Many of us are reminded, every Christmas, of what we have lost. We can’t stop thinking about Christmases past, when times were better: when we were healthier, when our beloved families were still intact; when our loved ones were still counted as among the living.
When I raise my candle tonight, I will be praying with my brother, who on the other side of the earth is praying that this will not be his last Christmas. I will be thinking of my Mom, and all the ways she made Christmas so special; and I will be thinking of our beloved Bernese Mountain Dog, who died last Christmas.
Tonight, when you hold your candle against the darkness, what will you be praying for?
Many of us have lost jobs, some of us have lost our homes; some of us are struggling against addiction or depression. Tonight, when I raise my candle against the darkness, I will pray for my loved ones’ economic relief.
What will you be praying for?
Let your prayers be heard tonight; this of all nights – because Christ comes to a homeless couple living in a barn – to give us hope even in the face of poverty; Christ comes to us in fullness and light, to heal us even in the midst of our illness. Christ comes to us in wartime, to teach us how to find peace even in a world of violence and desperation.
Let your prayers be heard tonight - of all nights.
Sometimes I wonder about that young man, that hero of hope who held his BIC lighter up at the concert. I wonder if he ever found the courage to flick his BIC ever again.
Sometimes, when things haven’t gone our way, we will decide never to hope again. We might think we are alone in a vast sea of cynical people, all of them battling the blues, and we might decide just to join them; give up on hope; not embarrass ourselves again. But maybe what it means is that we’ve been flicking our BICs in the wrong place; maybe instead of a blues festival, we might try flicking our BICs somewhere else – like maybe in a church. Maybe it wouldn’t feel so different if we surrounded by people who have learned to pray rather than to complain.
Maybe that is what brought you here tonight. Led by your own star to this sacred place; surrounded on all sides by other heroes of hope.
Tonight, when you lift your candle, you can trust you are not alone. So let that hope that is within you, that uncreated flame of God that burns inside you, raise you up. Join your voice with angels and archangels; proclaim the goodness of God; and rejoice that here, in this place, Christ our savior is born.
AMEN.
Note: at the end of the worship service, the lights went out and we all lit our candles while singing "Silent Night." At the end of the hymn, I stood at the altar and silently raised my candle. Gradually, everyone else did also. It was a gorgeous thing to see.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Gospel Truth - Hard Truth
Advent 3, 2009
In my sermon two weeks ago, I talked about all the themes of repentance and coming apocalypse that are contained in the readings for Advent; after the service one of our members said, “You know, I never noticed that before. And to be honest, I just ignore all that stuff anyway.”
I suddenly got a vision of John the Baptist 2,000 years ago; it’s a clear, sunny day in a village in Galilee and he arrives in the town square and starts fulminating with this sermon we hear this morning. A group of shoppers gathers around him and listens politely while he wades in on them: “You brood of vipers, the wrath to come, the winnowing hook, the ax laid at the roots…”
When he’s done there’s a moment of silence; the crowd blinks, someone says, “Eh,” and everyone walks away.
“Who was that guy,” someone says? “Eh, who knows? Some guy, talking crazy…”
In other words, what I’m getting at is that we tend to hear the sermons we want to hear; we tend to believe what we’ve decided to believe ahead of time. When someone comes along with an inconvenient truth – some fact or bit of evidence that doesn’t fit with what we already have decided to believe, we will simply not notice it – literally in many cases. Social psychologists call this “confirmation bias.”
We all do this – no one’s immune. The other day our deacon, Pamela, told me that [name of delicious candy withheld] – which happens to be one of my favorite foods – have, of all the candies, the highest quantities of insect parts inside them. She even told me the story of how, on two successive occasions, she bit into one and found – well, I don’t want to spoil your breakfast, but it’s like the old joke: what’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Half a worm...
Now, I have no reason to think she made that story up… but on the other hand, you know what? “Eh!” I’m not giving up my favorite food.
We hear what we want to hear – and if we are unfortunate enough to be stuck in church while the preacher goes on a John-the-Baptist rant about broods of vipers and winnowing hooks, we’ll just wait him out and then say, “Eh.”
It’s a tricky thing, being a preacher – you hate the idea of people saying “Eh” while you’re preaching… you want people to actually hear the truth of God as it has been revealed to you… you know that it doesn’t do anyone any good to get all John-the-Baptist-y on your people because it’s only going to drive them away – but on the other hand there is this truth as you understand it; and you’ve made a sacred vow to represent that truth.
How much to challenge, how much to comfort – a tricky question. It’s especially tricky because we’ve learned a few things since the days of John the Baptist. We’ve learned, for example, that anger and shaming almost never helps a situation. Neither does fear. John the Baptist had no problem pointing his finger in anger, scaring them into listening, shaming them into repentance.
But even the gloomiest of the gloom-and-doom prophets tended to balance their messages with visions of sweetness and light; it’s as if they knew, intuitively, that anger and punishment only gets us so far. Even Zephaniah, as gloomy a prophet as ever there was, has this section that we read this morning (Zeph. 3:14-20), full of exultation and joy and the promise of a better tomorrow.
I think it’s this knowledge that anger and fear and shame only get us so far that leads some of us to dismiss the judgmental words of the prophets so quickly – maybe a little too quickly.
Some of us grew up in households dominated by an angry, punishing person. The image of John the Baptist yelling and ranting only serves to reignite the traumatic experiences of our childhood and we have no hesitation to dismiss it.
Of course. That makes perfect sense.
Except, of course, the truth is that whatever John the Baptist was angry about, it had nothing to do our childhood traumas. I wonder if for some of us a different response might be possible; I wonder what might happen if we were able to not get triggered by our own issues and consider whatever it was that John the Baptist was really angry about. Maybe we would discover that it was something that we, too, were angry about – and rightly so. And this then would invite us to explore our own issues with anger.
Most of us have anger issues of one kind or another. The anger of the prophets might just alienate and frighten us. But there is such a thing as healthy anger, isn’t there – when it is expressed appropriately and safely? Of course, we are Episcopalians – we are, if nothing else, polite unto death. But there is such a thing as righteous anger, like the anger of the prophets.
I don’t mind saying I get angry. I get angry over the way our immigrants are treated; I get angry when people I love can’t get basic health care; I get angry at the millions of dollars the drug companies are spending to keep it that way. I get angry that no one seems to get angry anymore.
Maybe you have your own righteous anger. I hope you do. The Bible is clear: anger at injustice is no sin; righteous anger is a blessing.
And Jesus, also, is clear: shame and fear are never helpful.
When Jesus comes across the mob about to stone the adulteress – this is the ultimate act of shaming, isn’t it? - he says, “Those without sin: cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)
He doesn’t shame anyone; not even the people with the rocks in their hands. Instead he points to the fact that we all sin; we all are in need of repentance.
I knew a man back in Boston – a good man, a member of this big prestigious church I was going to at the time. He lived in a nice house in a wealthy suburb outside Boston; but he had a shameful secret, which was that he grew up in a violent home. He was physically abused often by his angry and shaming father; and as an adult, to his enormous grief and shame, he found himself hurting his wife.
Then one day his priest – a mentor of mine – got a call from this man’s wife. So he paid them a visit. This priest was a gentle man. He didn’t threaten and he didn’t scold. He made sure that the wife was safe; and then he made sure the man understood three things: first, that his secret was out; second, that there was no need for shame; and third, that help was available.
Somehow that priest told the truth in a way that the man could hear; and on that day three things happened: he confessed his sins and asked for forgiveness; he moved out so he would no longer be a threat to his wife; and he started getting some help.
This was the good news gospel truth for that man and his wife: that they were not alone – everyone is imperfect and there is no shame in admitting that, no matter how nice your house is – and that there was a way out. They did not need to be trapped in their cycles of anger, shame, and loathing. They were blessed.
Sometimes the good news is hard news. But this is the good news of Jesus Christ: that no matter how much shame we feel, we are blessed. No matter how loathsome we think we are, we are loved. In our deepest failings and our worst sins, we are forgiven.
This is what gives us the courage to face our failings. That’s all that God asks of us: that we take a breath, and confess the truth of our lives, ask for help, and accept the help that is offered. God takes care of the rest.
This is the Good News: it is what inspires Paul to say these words of joy:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.
AMEN.
In my sermon two weeks ago, I talked about all the themes of repentance and coming apocalypse that are contained in the readings for Advent; after the service one of our members said, “You know, I never noticed that before. And to be honest, I just ignore all that stuff anyway.”
I suddenly got a vision of John the Baptist 2,000 years ago; it’s a clear, sunny day in a village in Galilee and he arrives in the town square and starts fulminating with this sermon we hear this morning. A group of shoppers gathers around him and listens politely while he wades in on them: “You brood of vipers, the wrath to come, the winnowing hook, the ax laid at the roots…”
When he’s done there’s a moment of silence; the crowd blinks, someone says, “Eh,” and everyone walks away.
“Who was that guy,” someone says? “Eh, who knows? Some guy, talking crazy…”
In other words, what I’m getting at is that we tend to hear the sermons we want to hear; we tend to believe what we’ve decided to believe ahead of time. When someone comes along with an inconvenient truth – some fact or bit of evidence that doesn’t fit with what we already have decided to believe, we will simply not notice it – literally in many cases. Social psychologists call this “confirmation bias.”
We all do this – no one’s immune. The other day our deacon, Pamela, told me that [name of delicious candy withheld] – which happens to be one of my favorite foods – have, of all the candies, the highest quantities of insect parts inside them. She even told me the story of how, on two successive occasions, she bit into one and found – well, I don’t want to spoil your breakfast, but it’s like the old joke: what’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Half a worm...
Now, I have no reason to think she made that story up… but on the other hand, you know what? “Eh!” I’m not giving up my favorite food.
We hear what we want to hear – and if we are unfortunate enough to be stuck in church while the preacher goes on a John-the-Baptist rant about broods of vipers and winnowing hooks, we’ll just wait him out and then say, “Eh.”
It’s a tricky thing, being a preacher – you hate the idea of people saying “Eh” while you’re preaching… you want people to actually hear the truth of God as it has been revealed to you… you know that it doesn’t do anyone any good to get all John-the-Baptist-y on your people because it’s only going to drive them away – but on the other hand there is this truth as you understand it; and you’ve made a sacred vow to represent that truth.
How much to challenge, how much to comfort – a tricky question. It’s especially tricky because we’ve learned a few things since the days of John the Baptist. We’ve learned, for example, that anger and shaming almost never helps a situation. Neither does fear. John the Baptist had no problem pointing his finger in anger, scaring them into listening, shaming them into repentance.
But even the gloomiest of the gloom-and-doom prophets tended to balance their messages with visions of sweetness and light; it’s as if they knew, intuitively, that anger and punishment only gets us so far. Even Zephaniah, as gloomy a prophet as ever there was, has this section that we read this morning (Zeph. 3:14-20), full of exultation and joy and the promise of a better tomorrow.
I think it’s this knowledge that anger and fear and shame only get us so far that leads some of us to dismiss the judgmental words of the prophets so quickly – maybe a little too quickly.
Some of us grew up in households dominated by an angry, punishing person. The image of John the Baptist yelling and ranting only serves to reignite the traumatic experiences of our childhood and we have no hesitation to dismiss it.
Of course. That makes perfect sense.
Except, of course, the truth is that whatever John the Baptist was angry about, it had nothing to do our childhood traumas. I wonder if for some of us a different response might be possible; I wonder what might happen if we were able to not get triggered by our own issues and consider whatever it was that John the Baptist was really angry about. Maybe we would discover that it was something that we, too, were angry about – and rightly so. And this then would invite us to explore our own issues with anger.
Most of us have anger issues of one kind or another. The anger of the prophets might just alienate and frighten us. But there is such a thing as healthy anger, isn’t there – when it is expressed appropriately and safely? Of course, we are Episcopalians – we are, if nothing else, polite unto death. But there is such a thing as righteous anger, like the anger of the prophets.
I don’t mind saying I get angry. I get angry over the way our immigrants are treated; I get angry when people I love can’t get basic health care; I get angry at the millions of dollars the drug companies are spending to keep it that way. I get angry that no one seems to get angry anymore.
Maybe you have your own righteous anger. I hope you do. The Bible is clear: anger at injustice is no sin; righteous anger is a blessing.
And Jesus, also, is clear: shame and fear are never helpful.
When Jesus comes across the mob about to stone the adulteress – this is the ultimate act of shaming, isn’t it? - he says, “Those without sin: cast the first stone.” (John 8:7)
He doesn’t shame anyone; not even the people with the rocks in their hands. Instead he points to the fact that we all sin; we all are in need of repentance.
I knew a man back in Boston – a good man, a member of this big prestigious church I was going to at the time. He lived in a nice house in a wealthy suburb outside Boston; but he had a shameful secret, which was that he grew up in a violent home. He was physically abused often by his angry and shaming father; and as an adult, to his enormous grief and shame, he found himself hurting his wife.
Then one day his priest – a mentor of mine – got a call from this man’s wife. So he paid them a visit. This priest was a gentle man. He didn’t threaten and he didn’t scold. He made sure that the wife was safe; and then he made sure the man understood three things: first, that his secret was out; second, that there was no need for shame; and third, that help was available.
Somehow that priest told the truth in a way that the man could hear; and on that day three things happened: he confessed his sins and asked for forgiveness; he moved out so he would no longer be a threat to his wife; and he started getting some help.
This was the good news gospel truth for that man and his wife: that they were not alone – everyone is imperfect and there is no shame in admitting that, no matter how nice your house is – and that there was a way out. They did not need to be trapped in their cycles of anger, shame, and loathing. They were blessed.
Sometimes the good news is hard news. But this is the good news of Jesus Christ: that no matter how much shame we feel, we are blessed. No matter how loathsome we think we are, we are loved. In our deepest failings and our worst sins, we are forgiven.
This is what gives us the courage to face our failings. That’s all that God asks of us: that we take a breath, and confess the truth of our lives, ask for help, and accept the help that is offered. God takes care of the rest.
This is the Good News: it is what inspires Paul to say these words of joy:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.
AMEN.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Hope in a cynical age
Sermon: Advent 2 (Year C)
December 6, 2009
Last Friday, David Brooks in the New York Times wrote about the difference between how Democrats felt during the presidential campaign and how they feel now. He said "Many Democrats are nostalgic for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign - for the passion, the clarity, the bliss-to-be-alive fervor. They argue that these things are missing in a cautious and emotionless White House."
Well, I don't know what Democrats Mr. Brooks has been talking to, but his remark got me thinking about hope and disillusionment; and about John the Baptist.
Some of us have experienced the ups and downs of hope and disillusionment more than once in our lives. In the 1960’s, baby boomers like me experienced an almost eschatological hope – a hope so strong and so widely shared that it seemed to be driving history and leading us to a kind of ultimate fulfillment – and then we all experienced deep disappointment when the ideals of that time didn’t materialize.
It’s no secret that I was a child of the sixties – and I literally mean “child.” In February, 1964, I was 7 years old and my life was permanently changed when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. From then on, my siblings and I spent hours strumming tennis rackets and listening to Beatles records.
The summer before I turned into an official teenager I saw a news report about Woodstock on the CBS Evening News and I thought that this really was the dawning of a New Age - that the entire world was about to break out into a giant festival of peace and love. It seemed that this force for goodness was so massive, so irresistible, that soon we would all be singing our way back to the Garden.
Four years later I was somewhere north of here, hitchhiking along a country road looking for a commune I had heard about. A guy with long hair – a hippy, I thought, and therefore completely trustworthy - stopped to give me a ride. I'll never forget my confusion when it turned out the guy was a complete jerk –ill tempered, cynical, and inclined toward not very nice criminal behavior.
How can this be, I thought. He's a hippy ... But he's mean! How is this possible? It took me a while to make sense of this: that anyone could grow his hair long.
Disillusionment. Whether it came in the form of Martin Luther King’s assassination, or Altamont, or just some trash-talking creep with long hair, disillusionment is as much a part of the 1960s experience as was the Age of Aquarius. And yet, we don’t talk as much about it. By the time 1980 rolled around and the former yippee Jerry Rubin was found working on Wall Street, the heady days of Woodstock seemed like a hopelessly naïve, and sadly distant, dream.
In our readings for this morning you might have noticed the Canticle which took the place of the psalm. This is the famous Canticle 16, the Song of Zechariah – John the Baptist’s father. And it is as exquisite an expression of Woodstock idealism that we will ever hear in the Bible.
Remember the context of this event. It has been 500 years since there last was a prophet in the land of Israel – 500 years since the spirit of God raised up a leader who could convincingly speak for God with words of power and truth. The land of Israel has been occupied for far longer than that – a nearly unbroken chain of disasters as army after army occupied the land - Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and now the Romans – who are just about breaking the back of the people.
But now, stories of a coming divine intervention are being told again – subversive stories, whispered at the risk of being arrested for sedition. As in days of old, the people are beginning to hope again. This Canticle, sung with glee by John the Baptist’s father Zechariah at the time of his birth - is a song of hope – an outpouring of hope after 500 years of despair:
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; He has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David…. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our enemies, Free to worship him without fear…”
And with hope comes resistance against the Romans – mostly rag-tag groups of guerilla warriors who wage hit and run operations against the foreigners.
Most of these guerillas were religious zealots, inspired by the prophecies of old and ready to believe again that God would bring a new covenant to his people along with a Messiah to restore the fortunes of Zion by chasing out the oppressors. The guerilla warriors got their ideas from groups like the Essenes, those spiritual athletes who famously preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The core of the Essene community was based in remote parts of the desert, far from where the Romans could find them; they were the original desert monastics, spending their days in study and prayer and fasting and rituals, including a ritual with water that may have been where John the Baptist got his idea. They may not have been warriors themselves, but their preaching throughout the land of Judea certainly inspired the warriors, who were desperate for something to hope for; eager to believe in a Messiah who would overthrow the Empire.
Scholars believe it is highly possible that John the Baptist came out of these one of these communities.
We have an extremely rare, independent historical record of John the Baptist, written by the historian Josephus, who himself led an uprising in Gallilee. As a prisoner of the Romans he was an eyewitness to the final destruction of the Temple in AD 70.
According to Josephus, John the Baptist was extremely popular and successful as a preacher; so popular, in fact, that Herod worried he would lead an uprising. So Herod had John the Baptist arrested and killed.
Little did Herod know – that once that hope was unleashed, it could not be crushed so easily.
Hope is a dangerous thing. It can make us wildly naïve; it can inspire us to do stupid things; it can set people up for profound disappointment. And it can inspire a people to do things they never before thought was possible; it can change the course of history.
These days, it feels to me that hope is the most important thing in the world. And something of a rare commodity. It is so important for us to believe that we can meet all the challenges that confront us. Hope is so instrumental in our ability to turn the corner on all of our challenges: the economy, the environment, health care, you name it. And there are so many voices of fear and doom trying so hard to drag us down to a place of disillusionment and cynicism.
And for those of us who have been deeply disappointed by big hopes in the past, it is easy for us to give a little too much credence to the voices of fear and cynicism. But positive change never comes about from cynicism.
If it is true that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, it is also true that hope is our only hope. It need not be a naïve hope; there is such a thing as a realistic hope. Once we get in the practice of hoping, and in the practice of being disappointed, we can actually learn from our hoping, and we achieve what Reinhold Niebuhr would have called a realistic hope.
We are a religion of hope. For all of these centuries, we have been telling stories of hope. And when our hope is fixated on a very particular end, often times we’ll be disappointed. But hope is not about the particular thing we think we’re moving toward; no, hope is far deeper than that; hope is the very life of our soul; hope is this engine within us that is fed by a living God; hope gives us the capacity to stand up, look to the future, and address the challenges that are coming our way with a positive and fearless energy. That’s what hope is.
I would say that hope is the presence of the Holy Spirit within us; it is that which has, over the centuries, given our particular religion its momentum and force; and in this season of Advent it is a particularly compelling thing for us to focus on.
So during this season of Advent, I invite us into a deeper exploration of the sources of our hope; so that as life’s ultimate disappointments come our way, we have the strength and the courage to meet them head on, with joy and with trust.
Somebody say, AMEN.
December 6, 2009
Last Friday, David Brooks in the New York Times wrote about the difference between how Democrats felt during the presidential campaign and how they feel now. He said "Many Democrats are nostalgic for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign - for the passion, the clarity, the bliss-to-be-alive fervor. They argue that these things are missing in a cautious and emotionless White House."
Well, I don't know what Democrats Mr. Brooks has been talking to, but his remark got me thinking about hope and disillusionment; and about John the Baptist.
Some of us have experienced the ups and downs of hope and disillusionment more than once in our lives. In the 1960’s, baby boomers like me experienced an almost eschatological hope – a hope so strong and so widely shared that it seemed to be driving history and leading us to a kind of ultimate fulfillment – and then we all experienced deep disappointment when the ideals of that time didn’t materialize.
It’s no secret that I was a child of the sixties – and I literally mean “child.” In February, 1964, I was 7 years old and my life was permanently changed when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. From then on, my siblings and I spent hours strumming tennis rackets and listening to Beatles records.
The summer before I turned into an official teenager I saw a news report about Woodstock on the CBS Evening News and I thought that this really was the dawning of a New Age - that the entire world was about to break out into a giant festival of peace and love. It seemed that this force for goodness was so massive, so irresistible, that soon we would all be singing our way back to the Garden.
Four years later I was somewhere north of here, hitchhiking along a country road looking for a commune I had heard about. A guy with long hair – a hippy, I thought, and therefore completely trustworthy - stopped to give me a ride. I'll never forget my confusion when it turned out the guy was a complete jerk –ill tempered, cynical, and inclined toward not very nice criminal behavior.
How can this be, I thought. He's a hippy ... But he's mean! How is this possible? It took me a while to make sense of this: that anyone could grow his hair long.
Disillusionment. Whether it came in the form of Martin Luther King’s assassination, or Altamont, or just some trash-talking creep with long hair, disillusionment is as much a part of the 1960s experience as was the Age of Aquarius. And yet, we don’t talk as much about it. By the time 1980 rolled around and the former yippee Jerry Rubin was found working on Wall Street, the heady days of Woodstock seemed like a hopelessly naïve, and sadly distant, dream.
In our readings for this morning you might have noticed the Canticle which took the place of the psalm. This is the famous Canticle 16, the Song of Zechariah – John the Baptist’s father. And it is as exquisite an expression of Woodstock idealism that we will ever hear in the Bible.
Remember the context of this event. It has been 500 years since there last was a prophet in the land of Israel – 500 years since the spirit of God raised up a leader who could convincingly speak for God with words of power and truth. The land of Israel has been occupied for far longer than that – a nearly unbroken chain of disasters as army after army occupied the land - Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and now the Romans – who are just about breaking the back of the people.
But now, stories of a coming divine intervention are being told again – subversive stories, whispered at the risk of being arrested for sedition. As in days of old, the people are beginning to hope again. This Canticle, sung with glee by John the Baptist’s father Zechariah at the time of his birth - is a song of hope – an outpouring of hope after 500 years of despair:
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; He has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David…. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham, to set us free from the hands of our enemies, Free to worship him without fear…”
And with hope comes resistance against the Romans – mostly rag-tag groups of guerilla warriors who wage hit and run operations against the foreigners.
Most of these guerillas were religious zealots, inspired by the prophecies of old and ready to believe again that God would bring a new covenant to his people along with a Messiah to restore the fortunes of Zion by chasing out the oppressors. The guerilla warriors got their ideas from groups like the Essenes, those spiritual athletes who famously preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The core of the Essene community was based in remote parts of the desert, far from where the Romans could find them; they were the original desert monastics, spending their days in study and prayer and fasting and rituals, including a ritual with water that may have been where John the Baptist got his idea. They may not have been warriors themselves, but their preaching throughout the land of Judea certainly inspired the warriors, who were desperate for something to hope for; eager to believe in a Messiah who would overthrow the Empire.
Scholars believe it is highly possible that John the Baptist came out of these one of these communities.
We have an extremely rare, independent historical record of John the Baptist, written by the historian Josephus, who himself led an uprising in Gallilee. As a prisoner of the Romans he was an eyewitness to the final destruction of the Temple in AD 70.
According to Josephus, John the Baptist was extremely popular and successful as a preacher; so popular, in fact, that Herod worried he would lead an uprising. So Herod had John the Baptist arrested and killed.
Little did Herod know – that once that hope was unleashed, it could not be crushed so easily.
Hope is a dangerous thing. It can make us wildly naïve; it can inspire us to do stupid things; it can set people up for profound disappointment. And it can inspire a people to do things they never before thought was possible; it can change the course of history.
These days, it feels to me that hope is the most important thing in the world. And something of a rare commodity. It is so important for us to believe that we can meet all the challenges that confront us. Hope is so instrumental in our ability to turn the corner on all of our challenges: the economy, the environment, health care, you name it. And there are so many voices of fear and doom trying so hard to drag us down to a place of disillusionment and cynicism.
And for those of us who have been deeply disappointed by big hopes in the past, it is easy for us to give a little too much credence to the voices of fear and cynicism. But positive change never comes about from cynicism.
If it is true that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, it is also true that hope is our only hope. It need not be a naïve hope; there is such a thing as a realistic hope. Once we get in the practice of hoping, and in the practice of being disappointed, we can actually learn from our hoping, and we achieve what Reinhold Niebuhr would have called a realistic hope.
We are a religion of hope. For all of these centuries, we have been telling stories of hope. And when our hope is fixated on a very particular end, often times we’ll be disappointed. But hope is not about the particular thing we think we’re moving toward; no, hope is far deeper than that; hope is the very life of our soul; hope is this engine within us that is fed by a living God; hope gives us the capacity to stand up, look to the future, and address the challenges that are coming our way with a positive and fearless energy. That’s what hope is.
I would say that hope is the presence of the Holy Spirit within us; it is that which has, over the centuries, given our particular religion its momentum and force; and in this season of Advent it is a particularly compelling thing for us to focus on.
So during this season of Advent, I invite us into a deeper exploration of the sources of our hope; so that as life’s ultimate disappointments come our way, we have the strength and the courage to meet them head on, with joy and with trust.
Somebody say, AMEN.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Getting Beyond the Santa Claus God
Sermon Nov.29, 2009
Last week I was at one of our local establishments on 4th St. with my friend, the Buddhist Unitarian pastor. I was quite pleased to find beers on sale there that are named after Christian theological concepts: Redemption, Salvation, Consecration Temptation, even Perdition.
I said to my friend, “Aha! This proves that my religion is better than yours! My religion is so great, they named their best beers after our central concepts.”
He replied, “No, this proves the opposite - that my religion is better.”
“How’s that? Nothing of your religion is represented here.”
“Exactly.” he said. “It’s a Zen thing.”
So anyway I was happy to learn there was plenty of Redemption on hand and that it was reasonably priced. Hoping he’d take the hint, I bought my Unitarian Buddhist friend a pint of Perdition. He drank it down with alarming equanimity.
So this is the first Sunday of Advent – the season that teaches us all about the discipline of spiritual waiting. Henri Nouwen called it “active waiting” – the kind of waiting that involves paying attention, especially to what is changing in us, to what is being born, and to what is becoming possible.
This is the kind of waiting that pregnant women know so well. During Advent, this sanctuary becomes a kind of womb; we pay attention to the terrifying mystery of all that is changing within us and around us. We sense that there’s something big happening. God is looming somewhere – or is he lurking? We dare to trust the possibility that as terrifying as life may seem, God is in the change.
In the Bible readings during Advent, there’s a lot of talk about apocalypse – like our reading from Luke this morning.
I hope it isn’t absolutely necessary for me to say this, but I suppose it is important that periodically I remind us that Episcopalians do not tend to think of the apocalypse as a real historical event that is going to happen on some date certain. Not that there’s anything wrong with believing that, of course, and there are perfectly faithful Episcopalians who do hold that belief. But it’s safe to say that for most of us, the apocalypse makes more sense as a metaphor for how we experience God breaking through.
This morning we hear the story of Jesus telling his disciples about the day of apocalypse:
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21:26)
Most of us know something about “fear and foreboding.” Cancer diagnoses, financial catastrophes, teenagers – we all have had our own little apocalypses, our moments of divine catastrophe, when the veil is lifted; those moments that find us on our knees, begging for a miracle, asking “Where is God in this?”
And sometimes we get an answer: Wait.
And then, in a prayer, in a dream, out of the corner of our eye, we sense it coming. There’s ozone in the air; a flash of lightning on the horizon. We sense the possibility that there might be blessing in what we were sure could only be catastrophe. On that day, Jesus says, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28)
And just to be clear now, I’m not talking about beer anymore.
I’m talking about active waiting.
Our children learn the discipline of active waiting very well during Advent - because there is no event more actively waited upon than Christmas. Our children are living in keen anticipation, counting every day ‘til he comes “in a cloud (well, okay, in a sleigh) with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27)
When I was a child during Advent the first thing I would do every morning was go to my Advent Calendar and peel off the little door for the day. Inside there would be a little chocolate surprise – this is why I love Belgian chocolate so much - and there would be a little picture and a Bible saying, and then, stepping back, you could take in the whole calendar and see the progress you were making toward the day of his coming.
And for four solid weeks we would be singing that song of Active Waiting: "Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not shout I'm telling you why...."
Thanks to Santa Claus, Advent and Christmas has become a little religion unto itself, complete with its own sacred scriptures, scrupulous rituals, moral codes, and pantheon of deities (Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, all those elves and reindeer).
In fact, I think that if Santa Claus didn't exist, we would definitely have to invent him. Now, I know some people complain that Santa Claus has become more important to our children than Jesus – and I agree that’s troubling. But on the other hand, any religious cult that inspires a 5-year old to make his bed is not all bad.
But at some point we grow up and find other reasons for making our beds. In my case, it’s my marriage - which I wish to preserve.
I heard Karen Armstrong the other day, talking about her new book called The Case for God. She said that Christianity’s problem is that so many people learned about God around the same time they learned about Santa Claus. When we’re children, God is just the big Santa Claus in the sky; and then we grow up, our ideas about Santa mature, but our ideas about God don’t.
I think she’s absolutely right; I see this all the time: as long as our lives are going well and we’re getting our little gifts under the tree, we think God likes us and we like God. And then one day we wake up and we’ve got a lump in our breast and it feels like a lump of coal in our stocking. And we say “Hey! What’s the deal! I’ve been good! Where are my gifts?” And when we don’t get a satisfying answer we blame our Santa Claus God, and we blame our religion for having lied to us.
This is perfectly normal. The truth is that we all cling to the god of our childhood as long as we possibly can; we can spend our entire lives listening to grown up sermons and reading the gospels, the pages of which are packed with stories of a grown-up God, and we will nonetheless continue to believe in a Santa Claus god until we have our little apocalypse, and we are forced to find a God that is appropriate for grown-ups.
Most of us are here because this is where we’ve found that grown-up God.
Many of you have been asking about my brother, who has been enduring his own little apocalypse recently in the form of some rather aggressive brain tumors. I want to thank you again for all the prayers and cards and inquiries about him. Just to give you an update, he survived the surgery well, which removed one tumor; there’s another one that they couldn’t operate on; thankfully it hasn’t grown since he began chemo and radiation treatments. But we were sorry to learn that two more lesions showed up in the last brain scan.
This is my brother’s apocalypse; and because we are connected to him by our love, it is ours as well. By our love, we all share in one another’s apocalypses; and collectively, globally, through hundreds and millions of individual apocalypses shared in love, the great cosmic revealing occurs. The entirety of human experience stands before God as if on the plains of Megido; the trumpet sounds; the veil lifts; we hold hands and lift our heads; and our God bears down upon us like the seven horsemen. Our illusions disintegrate; and what we find on the other side depends on our ability to express our love; hold fast to one another and to the blessings we find here, and to trust.
And so we stand with all of humanity: we raise our heads; we pay attention to the good; we honor our relationships; we find our redemption.
By so doing, our post-apocalyptic God – suitable for grown-ups - is born.
Last week I was at one of our local establishments on 4th St. with my friend, the Buddhist Unitarian pastor. I was quite pleased to find beers on sale there that are named after Christian theological concepts: Redemption, Salvation, Consecration Temptation, even Perdition.
I said to my friend, “Aha! This proves that my religion is better than yours! My religion is so great, they named their best beers after our central concepts.”
He replied, “No, this proves the opposite - that my religion is better.”
“How’s that? Nothing of your religion is represented here.”
“Exactly.” he said. “It’s a Zen thing.”
So anyway I was happy to learn there was plenty of Redemption on hand and that it was reasonably priced. Hoping he’d take the hint, I bought my Unitarian Buddhist friend a pint of Perdition. He drank it down with alarming equanimity.
So this is the first Sunday of Advent – the season that teaches us all about the discipline of spiritual waiting. Henri Nouwen called it “active waiting” – the kind of waiting that involves paying attention, especially to what is changing in us, to what is being born, and to what is becoming possible.
This is the kind of waiting that pregnant women know so well. During Advent, this sanctuary becomes a kind of womb; we pay attention to the terrifying mystery of all that is changing within us and around us. We sense that there’s something big happening. God is looming somewhere – or is he lurking? We dare to trust the possibility that as terrifying as life may seem, God is in the change.
In the Bible readings during Advent, there’s a lot of talk about apocalypse – like our reading from Luke this morning.
I hope it isn’t absolutely necessary for me to say this, but I suppose it is important that periodically I remind us that Episcopalians do not tend to think of the apocalypse as a real historical event that is going to happen on some date certain. Not that there’s anything wrong with believing that, of course, and there are perfectly faithful Episcopalians who do hold that belief. But it’s safe to say that for most of us, the apocalypse makes more sense as a metaphor for how we experience God breaking through.
This morning we hear the story of Jesus telling his disciples about the day of apocalypse:
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21:26)
Most of us know something about “fear and foreboding.” Cancer diagnoses, financial catastrophes, teenagers – we all have had our own little apocalypses, our moments of divine catastrophe, when the veil is lifted; those moments that find us on our knees, begging for a miracle, asking “Where is God in this?”
And sometimes we get an answer: Wait.
And then, in a prayer, in a dream, out of the corner of our eye, we sense it coming. There’s ozone in the air; a flash of lightning on the horizon. We sense the possibility that there might be blessing in what we were sure could only be catastrophe. On that day, Jesus says, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28)
And just to be clear now, I’m not talking about beer anymore.
I’m talking about active waiting.
Our children learn the discipline of active waiting very well during Advent - because there is no event more actively waited upon than Christmas. Our children are living in keen anticipation, counting every day ‘til he comes “in a cloud (well, okay, in a sleigh) with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27)
When I was a child during Advent the first thing I would do every morning was go to my Advent Calendar and peel off the little door for the day. Inside there would be a little chocolate surprise – this is why I love Belgian chocolate so much - and there would be a little picture and a Bible saying, and then, stepping back, you could take in the whole calendar and see the progress you were making toward the day of his coming.
And for four solid weeks we would be singing that song of Active Waiting: "Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not shout I'm telling you why...."
Thanks to Santa Claus, Advent and Christmas has become a little religion unto itself, complete with its own sacred scriptures, scrupulous rituals, moral codes, and pantheon of deities (Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, all those elves and reindeer).
In fact, I think that if Santa Claus didn't exist, we would definitely have to invent him. Now, I know some people complain that Santa Claus has become more important to our children than Jesus – and I agree that’s troubling. But on the other hand, any religious cult that inspires a 5-year old to make his bed is not all bad.
But at some point we grow up and find other reasons for making our beds. In my case, it’s my marriage - which I wish to preserve.
I heard Karen Armstrong the other day, talking about her new book called The Case for God. She said that Christianity’s problem is that so many people learned about God around the same time they learned about Santa Claus. When we’re children, God is just the big Santa Claus in the sky; and then we grow up, our ideas about Santa mature, but our ideas about God don’t.
I think she’s absolutely right; I see this all the time: as long as our lives are going well and we’re getting our little gifts under the tree, we think God likes us and we like God. And then one day we wake up and we’ve got a lump in our breast and it feels like a lump of coal in our stocking. And we say “Hey! What’s the deal! I’ve been good! Where are my gifts?” And when we don’t get a satisfying answer we blame our Santa Claus God, and we blame our religion for having lied to us.
This is perfectly normal. The truth is that we all cling to the god of our childhood as long as we possibly can; we can spend our entire lives listening to grown up sermons and reading the gospels, the pages of which are packed with stories of a grown-up God, and we will nonetheless continue to believe in a Santa Claus god until we have our little apocalypse, and we are forced to find a God that is appropriate for grown-ups.
Most of us are here because this is where we’ve found that grown-up God.
Many of you have been asking about my brother, who has been enduring his own little apocalypse recently in the form of some rather aggressive brain tumors. I want to thank you again for all the prayers and cards and inquiries about him. Just to give you an update, he survived the surgery well, which removed one tumor; there’s another one that they couldn’t operate on; thankfully it hasn’t grown since he began chemo and radiation treatments. But we were sorry to learn that two more lesions showed up in the last brain scan.
This is my brother’s apocalypse; and because we are connected to him by our love, it is ours as well. By our love, we all share in one another’s apocalypses; and collectively, globally, through hundreds and millions of individual apocalypses shared in love, the great cosmic revealing occurs. The entirety of human experience stands before God as if on the plains of Megido; the trumpet sounds; the veil lifts; we hold hands and lift our heads; and our God bears down upon us like the seven horsemen. Our illusions disintegrate; and what we find on the other side depends on our ability to express our love; hold fast to one another and to the blessings we find here, and to trust.
And so we stand with all of humanity: we raise our heads; we pay attention to the good; we honor our relationships; we find our redemption.
By so doing, our post-apocalyptic God – suitable for grown-ups - is born.
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