2 Advent

 

December 5, 2004

Matthew 3:1-12

Let us pray.

Praise and honor to you, living God, for John the Baptist,

and for all those voices crying in the wilderness

who prepare your way.

May we listen when a prophet speaks your word, and obey.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

 

In this morning’s Gospel, we are faced with the formidable figure of John the Baptist. The impression we get from Matthew is of someone we probably wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. He comes across to us through the ages as a man crazed. Certainly it would be difficult for any of us to take the words of a man like this seriously. Especially when he’s saying things like, “prepare, for the Kingdom of heaven draws near” “the axe is being laid to the root of the trees” and “the chaff will be burned in an unquenchable fire. “

 

Somehow, in the way John the Baptist proclaims it, this is not so much hopeful as frightening. It is a message that startles us and jolts us at our very core.

 

But this is the true message of Advent. Like John the Baptist and those who eagerly awaited the Messiah, this time of waiting was almost painful.

 

When we look at it from that perspective, we see that maybe John isn’t being quite as difficult and windy as we initially thought. Rather his message is one of almost excruciating expectation.

 

If you notice in the Prayer Book, the Latin heading for Psalm 40 is Exptans Expectavi. Used within the context of that particular psalm, it can be translated as “I waited and waited for you, O God.”

 

That phrase really suits, in many ways, everything we experience in this season. Like John, we are waiting and waiting for our God to come to us, to appear to us as one of us.

 

Recently I’ve been reading two very fascinating books. One, by an Australian writer, James Cowan, is entitled Desert Father: A Journey in the Wilderness with Saint Anthony. It is story of Anthony of Egypt, one of the first of the desert fathers. The other is a book    called The Forgotten Desert Mothers. Both of these books are about those early Christians who tended to take the words we heard this morning from the Baptist as literally as they could.

 

These desert mothers and fathers have a lot to teach us. Like, us, they lived in an age of uncertainty. Many had suffered dearly during the persecutions against Christians.

 

Others had previously been pagans who lived lives of excess.

 

It was a time when nothing in the world seemed too stable. Governments gave way to stronger governments. Differing religions battled each other for what each perceived to be “the truth.” And so too did many Christians.  

 

It sounds familiar doesn’t it?

 

In the face of all of this uncertainty, these men and women heard the call of the Baptist. “Prepare, for the kingdom of heaven draws near.”

 

In response they did something we might find unusual. We, as modern Christians, are taught that we must not only live out our faith, but also, in some way, must proclaim our faith to those around us.

 

We take seriously the command to go out into the world and proclaim what we believe.

 

Certainly that is what we will do this morning when we recite the creed. It is what we do when we go out to feed the hungry or to tend the sick. We do it when we reach out to others in the name of Christ.

 

These early Christians, however, did the exact opposite. They retreated from society and went off to the desert, in this case usually the deserts of Egypt and Palestine.

 

Oftentimes, coming from wealthy homes and positions of authority, they sold it all, gave the money to the poor and went off to live alone.

 

And we’re not talking about a few individuals here. We’re talking about people leaving in droves.

 

The deserts were literally populated with men and women who tried to leave it all behind. More often than not, they formed loosely-organized communities, usually around a church, in which they lived and prayed alone for most of the time, only coming together to pray the Psalms or celebrate Eucharist.

 

Their lives in the desert weren’t, as you can imagine, comfortable lives by any means.  Some walled themselves up in abandoned tombs. Others lived in caves. One went so far as to crawl stop a tall pillar and live there for years on end, exposed to the elements.

 

Even then they couldn’t completely escape what they left behind.

 

Many of the stories tell of these poor souls being tormented by demons and temptations. It’s not hard to imagine that, yes, alone in a dark tomb or cave, one would be forced to face all the darkest recesses of one’s soul.

 

Part of the process of separating one’s self from the world involved finally wrestling with all those issues one carries into the desert.

 

Few of us in this day and age would view this kind of existence as the ideal Christian life. In fact, most of would probably look on it as a sort of insanity.

 

But at the time, in that place, people began to see this as the ideal. People, I imagine, were tired of the day-to-day grind of working, slaving, fending for themselves in a sometimes unfriendly society. They felt distant from God and they were not able to find God in the society in which they lived.

 

The idea of going off and being alone with God was very appealing.

 

Of course, even this seemingly simple and pure way of living was soon tarnished by another form excess.

 

Some of the people who went off to live in the desert were simply mentally unsound to begin with. Others went insane after years of living alone in a tomb or a cave.

 

They abused their bodies, sometimes to the point of death, by whipping themselves, by chaining themselves to walls, by not taking care of themselves physically, or simply starving themselves to a point close to death.

 

Some even went so far as castrating themselves for the kingdom of heaven.

 

But despite these abuses, the message of the desert mothers and fathers to us is still a valid one.

 

The whole reason they went off like they did was to shed everything that separated them from their waiting for God.

 

They sought to make their very lives a living Advent.

 

They were waiting expectantly and anxiously for Christ. And by mortifying themselves, by chastising their bodies and fasting, they would be prepared for his coming again.

 

Although I hope no one here is called to a life quite that extreme, I think their message speaks to us clearly in these days before Christmas.

 

We should find ways to prepare for the Incarnate God’s coming to us.

 

We should shed some of those things that separate ourselves from God.

 

We should find our own deserts in our lives—those places in which we can go off alone and be with God.

 

A place in which we can wait for God longingly.

 

In Cowan’s book, Desert Father, he relates an interesting story—one I never heard before—about how the early desert monastics used ostrich eggs in their worship.

 

In some of the churches that they built, they hung ostrich eggs from the ceiling as a “symbol of spiritual dedication.”

 

Father Hansel, a visitor to one of the monasteries, wrote later about this practice:

 

When it intends to hatch its egg, the ostrich sits not upon them, as other birds, but the male and female hatches them with their eye only; and only when either of them needs to seek for food, he gives notice to the other by crying; and the other continues to look upon the eggs, till it returns…for if they did but look off for a moment, the eggs will spoil and rot. [1]

 

Whether this is scientifically true or not, this is a perfect illustration of what we, as Christians, are doing during this Advent season and, really, during all of our spiritual lives.

 

Like these ostriches, which gaze almost agonizingly for the hatching of the egg, so too should we be waiting, with held breath, for the realm of heaven to break upon us.

 

So, yes, John’s message in the wilderness is a frightening one at times.

 

But it is also a message of hope and longing. It is a message meant to wake us from our slumbering complacency. His is a voice calling us to sit up and take notice.

 

The kingdom of heaven is near. In fact it’s nearer than we can probably ever hope or imagine.

 

So, be prepared. Watch. Wait.

 

For this anticipation—this expectant longing of ours—is merely a pathway on which the Christ Child can to us as one of us.

 

 

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[1] Cowan, James. Desert Father: A Journey in the Wilderness with Saint Anthony. 2004. Shambala; Boston. p. 106.

St. Mary the Virgin

 

Sunday, August 15, 2004

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Fargo, ND

The Rev. Jamie Parsley

 

Luke 1.46-55

 

Let us pray. God of love,

through your most Holy Spirit,

Mary the Jewish girl conceived your Son;

may his beauty, his humanity,

his all-transforming grace be born in us,

and may we never despise the strange and stirring gentleness

of your almighty power;

in your mercy, we pray. Amen.

 

Good morning. It’s pleasure to be back here again at St. Mark’s. For those who don’t know me, my name is Father Jamie Parsley. I am a priest in the Episcopal Church and I am currently serving as an Assistant Priest at Gethsemane Cathedral here in Fargo. Occasionally, I fill in for Pastor Mark and I enjoy doing it each time.

 

 

Today, as you probably have guessed, we celebrate the feast of Mary the mother of Jesus.

 

Now this is one of those feast days that makes a lot of us non-Roman Catholics a little nervous.

 

My very Lutheran grandmother, who, as many of you know, was a member of this church many years ago, would be somewhat upset I imagine to know that I am in this pulpit this morning preaching about, of all people, the Virgin Mary.

 

Let’s face it, when most of us non-Roman Catholics think of Mary, we think of how the Catholics honor her.

 

Visions of plaster statues in backyards, or on dashboards of cars or on the side altars of Catholic churches no doubt go through our minds.

 

After all, as my grandmother would say, they “worship” Mary.

 

Most Roman Catholics I know deny that they worship Mary, though they certainly do not deny that they honor her greatly and place a quite a bit of importance in her intercession.

 

But I think that stigma of Roman Catholics having the market cornered on the Virgin Mary is still very much a reality in the Christian church.

 

The fact is, all of us who are Christians should honor her and should remember at times how important she is to our faith in Christ.

 

It is a good thing to honor Mary and who she is.

 

And certainly it’s nothing new in the church as a whole.

The honor paid to Mary goes back to the earliest days of the Church.

In fact, it goes back even further.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear Mary say, "From this time forth, all generations shall call me blessed."

Certainly that prophecy she made on that very momentous day when the Angel came to her and told her she would bear the Son of God has come true.

Mary is by the far the most honored saint in the Christian Church.

But who was Mary?

Well, when we meet Mary, she is a simple Jewish girl. It’s believed that she was about fourteen when she became pregnant and bore Jesus, which, at that time and in that place, would not have been by any means unusual.

Outside of that, not a whole lot is known  about her life.

We know for certain of the words she spoke to the angel Gabriel, to her kinswoman, Elizabeth, when she visited her not long before she gave birth. But outside of the words we heard this morning, there isn’t a whole lot we know she said.

The only other instance in which her words are recorded are at the wedding feast at Cana, when she instructs the servants there, regarding Jesus, to do “whatever he says to you.”

But the story of Mary becomes very interesting in the years following the Gospels. It is here that we see the fulfilling of her prophecy. It is here that we find that she truly does become blessed for all generations.

If we don’t believe that, then let’s take a look at the Creed which we will recite together later this morning.

Besides Jesus, there are only two other people mentioned in it.

The first is Pontius Pilate.

The other is Mary. It specifically says, he was “born of the virgin Mary."

That’s an important phrase.

On one hand, what this phrase says to us is that Jesus was really a human being. He was born of a woman, just like all of us were born of a woman.

He did not simply come down out of heaven like an angel, or like the gods of the Romans or Greeks.

He was born, like any other human being.

On the other hand, the phrase tells us that although he was born like us of a woman, unlike us he wasn’t born in ordinary way. He was born of a virgin. This virgin birth puts a whole new light on who Jesus was and who he claimed to be.

He was like us. He was a human being, like us. But he also was not like us, because he was at the same time God.

So, we can see how important Mary’s role is in our own views of what we believe.

Without her, Jesus would not have been able to come to us. She literally bore Jesus to us.

The Greeks call Mary the Theotokos, or God-bearer. And she really is.

If we believe Jesus was God, then she did, in a very real sense of the word, bear God.

Through her, God came to us in the person of Jesus.

She was the Mother of God, as hard as it might be to wrap our minds around that phrase.

Now most of us here can agree with those statements.

But what about the role Mary has in the Roman Catholic Church.

Although she may have only said a few words in the Gospels, we all hear sorties from time to time about visions some people have of the Virgin Mary, usually bearing some sort of message to the world.

Some of you might remember on old classic movie with Jennifer Jones called The Song of Bernadette, which is of course based on actual event in France of a young girl, Bernadette, who saw and spoke with the Virgin Mary in the 1840s.

The Virgin Mary who appears to Bernadatte did not look a lot like the Virgin Mary we heard proclaiming God’s goodness this morning in the Gospel.

The Virgin who appears to Bernadette in that film is no poor Jewish girl.

She is a beautiful, glowing celestial figure who performed, and some say continues to perform, miracles.

Most of us shrug our shoulders and either choose to believe or disbelieve a story like Bernadette’s.

But the fact remains that Mary needs to be honored by all of us who call ourselves Christians.

So, what do Lutherans believe about the Virgin Mary?

Well, here’s what one very prominent Lutheran said about Mary:

"men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her 'Theotokos'. No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God."

 

Do you know who made that comment?

 

That’s right. Martin Luther.

 

I think a lot of good Lutherans would be shocked to know that many of the early founders of the Lutheran church had a deep affection for Mary.

 

For example, in Article XXII of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Lutherans testify that

blessed Mary prays for the church

 

Now listen to that.

 

blessed Mary prays for the church.

 

That’s a present tense verb. She prays. Right now.

 

Those Lutherans truly believed that Mary was in heaven at that particular moment praying for the church.

 

The Apology goes on to state that Mary

 

is worthy of the highest honors

and desires

to have her example considered and followed

 

So, the founders of the Lutheran Church held her in high esteem.

 

They commended her as example.  

Certainly, Lutherans and Roman Catholics will never agree on everything regarding Mary.

There will never be statues of Mary in Lutheran churches and I don’t think praying the Rosary will become a popular pastime among Lutherans in the near future.

But I think that reclaiming Mary’s role in the life of our salvation will become more and more of a part of all Christians, not just Roman Catholics.

After all, she is, without a doubt, a vital person in our Church and in who we are as Christians.

Mary continues to speak to us, not in supernatural visions, but in her words recorded in scripture.

Remember what Mary said at the Wedding in Cana. Those words are just as clear to us today. She is still saying to us,  "Listen to my Son. Do what He tells you."

This is the heart of Mary’s continued role in the church.

She is the example.

Just as Mary said “Yes” to the angel when he brought her his good news, we too can say yes to God and, in saying yes, we can bear God within us, as she did.

Like Mary we can be bearers of God to the world, to those who need God and long for God.

We too can carry Christ into the world and let him be known through us.

As Jesus found in her his first earthly dwelling-place so, following Mary’s example, he can continue to dwell on earth within each and every one of us as well.

 Amen.

 

Opening of the Charis Center’s Science and Faith Symposium

 

Concordia College Chapel

Monday July 26, 2004

The Rev. Jamie Parsley

 

 Revelation 21.1-6

 

Let us pray.

 Holy God of the beginning and of the end; God complete and yet persistently being conceived and born again; be the light that burns away the clouds that shroud you—the clouds of frustration and anger, the clouds of unbelief and false piety. You are, in this holy moment, both gauzy and burning with light. Lord Christ, come forth and make your presence known everywhere. Amen.

  

These words we just prayed together were adapted from a prayer written of one my personal heroes, a French Jesuit priest and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

 

The reason I chose that prayer this morning is because I find it difficult to hear the scripture reading from the book of Revelation we just heard without thinking of Teilhard.

 

My attraction to Teilhard is one that has puzzled me over the years.

 

Oftentimes I have had to ask myself: why am I so drawn to this man?  

 

Certainly I’m no scientist and have never made any claim to be.

 

In fact, many of his scientific concepts are simply lost on me.

 

I am a poet and a priest, not a scientist.

 

But I think it is those two parts of myself—the poet and the priest—that are drawn to Teilhard because he too was a poet and a priest.

 

In the reading from Revelation, we hear Christ say,

 

I am the Alpha and the Omega.

 

Talk about poetic language.

 

Teilhard understood this concept in ways few others have.

 

This concept of Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, is at the very heart of everything Teilhard believed.

 

Teilhard was, by all standards, a dualistic Christian, as we all should be, to some extent.

 

Yes, on one hand he was a priest—whose personal piety was deep and profound. Teilhard—seen in his day as the rebel anti-Thomist priest known for his unorthodox writing which edged on heresy, had a deep and abiding devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and prayed the Rosary every day of his adult life.

 

On the other hand he was a scientist—the paleontogist trained in secular instructions, who was on the team that found the remains of the renown Peking Man. One of my favorite stories of Teilard is how, as a boy, he would collect pieces of iron so that he could take them out and adore them like a  “God of iron.” One day however he threw himself on the ground when he discovered a spot of rust on one of the pieces and cried at the “unreliability of a physical world of which he was a part…”[1]

 

In Teilhard we find a wonderful webbing of these two aspects that could very easily conflict with each other. And they have conflicted with each other.

 

Christians are still struggling with this whole concept of evolution.

 

There are still Christians in the world who have not been able to wed the holy in their life with the scientific.

 

Teilhard, however, was one of those few people who could not only do so effectively, but could, in the process, do something extraordinary.

 

In Teilhard, when his spirituality and his scientific thinking came together, poetry was born.

 

Teilhard saw the history of our natural world as a gradual unfolding. Inanimate matter evolved into living matter.

 

Simple life-forms evolved into more complex forms.

 

The epitome was human consciousness—or more precisely the spirit.

 

So, where was creation headed, Teilhard wondered?

 

The end point was a place in which matter and spirit converged. He called this point the Omega point.

 

As priest, who believed wholeheartedly in the Incarnation, this seemed to fall perfectly into the realm of the possible.

 

Teilhard defined the Incarnation as the “passing of God through matter.”

 

There alone we see it. The priest and the scientist coming together and making something we can grasp, something we can wrap our minds around.

 

God passing through matter.

 

God becoming matter and making matter holy.

 

Teilhard was able to see our existence in relation to God from a very unique perspective.

 

God was not just the distant creator of all matter, off in some metaphysical or supernatural heaven.

 

God came among matter and became matter.

 

This convergence of God and matter was Christ and in Christ we saw in a superbly perfect way this coming together of the two.

 

His perspective of in other areas was unique as well.

 

For example, he objected to the term “post-Christian.”

 

We are not living in a post-Christian time, Teilhard said. “Trans-Christian would be a better term.”

 

And evil, for Teilhard, was not “catastrophic—or the fruit of some cosmic accident—but the inevitable side effect of the process of the cosmos unifying into God.”

 

When I first read all of this I was overwhelmed and stunned.

 

It all seemed too much for me even begin to comprehend.

 

At the same time, however, it spoke to a place deep within me, the same place I find scripture speaking to me and moving me.

 

I can relate to Teilhard because I see in him what I want for myself as a Christian.

 

I strive to be, like him, a spiritual seeker—one who strives to find God—one who longs for the reality and presence of God in my life.

 

I strive also to be a bit of the scientist as well—the one who observes creation around me, but is not only to content to be awed and amazed by it. I want to know it and I want to partake of it as fully as I can. I want to understand it.

 

I want to echo Teilhard when he said “Less and less do I see a difference between [scientific] research and adoration.”

 

I want to be a poet who can bring these two sometimes divergent parts together in my life into an exquisite harmony.

 

The one part can cast light on the other and when it can’t, that’s when poetry can take over.

 

This is the message of Teilhard de Chardin for me and, I think, for all of us.

 

Only when we take his concepts and apply them to our lives do they truly matter.

 

Teilhard’s “big picture” of creation can help us to put our own existence in this created world and in our relationship with God into perspective as well.

 

This humble priest and scientist and poet is a guide.

 

He point the way forward not only to our collective omega point—that goal we as humans are moving toward—but toward our own individual omega points.

 

And this perspective is very much in keeping with what we heard earlier in Revelation.

 

In St. John’s vision we see very clearly that Omega point.

 

“The home of God is among mortals.”

 

Matter and spirit converge and a new earth is formed.

 

Isn’t this really the goal?

 

Isn’t this what we as Christians are working toward?

 

The Omega point is that place in which the so-called “kingdom” comes—it is the time and the place in which we will be fulfilled and made beautifully and perfectly whole.

 

“The day will come,” Teilhard said,” when the, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will have discovered fire.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Teilhard. Mary & Ellen Lukas. p. 24.