1 Advent

 

1 Advent

November 27, 2005

Gethsemane Cathedral

 Matthew 13.24-37

 In case you haven’t noticed, it is the first Sunday of Advent.

 

We have the beautiful blue frontal on the altar. We clergy get to wear the beautiful blue vestments given by the late Ellen Thompson in memory of her husband Charles several years ago.

 

It is a time in which we, as the Church, turn our attention, just like the rest of the world, toward Christmas.

 

But we need to be clear: it is not Christmas yet for us Christians.

 

As many of you know, I am an Oblate—or an associate –at Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota—a Benedictine monastery. At Blue Cloud, the Christmas tree and the Christmas decorations don’t go up until Christmas eve, when Christmas officially starts.

 

For now, we are in this almost limbo-like season of Advent.

 

All the major Church feast days—namely Christmas and Easter—are preceded by a time of preparation.

 

Before Easter comes, we go through the season of Lent—a time for us to collect our thoughts, prepare spiritually for the glorious mystery of the Resurrection.

 

Advent of course is similar. We go through Advent as a way of preparing, spiritually,  for Christmas.

 

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Advent is as much of a penitential time—a time in which we should spend time fasting and thinking about our shortcomings—as Lent is.

 

In this way, I think the Church year reflects our own lives in many ways.

 

In our lives, we go through periods of fasting and feasting.

 

We have our lean times and we have our prosperous times.

 

There is a balance to our lives in the world and there is a balance, as well, to our church lives.

 

We will feast—as we do on Christmas and on Easter—but first we must fast, as we do during Advent and Lent.

 

Do you ever notice how, when you know you’re going out to eat with friends at a nice restaurant, you cut back on your food during the day?

 

You maybe eat a little less at breakfast and only a very light lunch. You avoid snacking between meals, just so you can truly enjoy the supper that night.

 

That is what Advent is like.

 

We know this joyous event is coming, but to truly enjoy it, we need to hold back a bit now.

 

Advent then is also a time of deep anticipation.

 

And in that way, I think is represents our own spiritual lives in a way other times of the church year don’t.

 

We are, after all, a people anticipating something.

 

If we weren’t, none of us would be here this morning.

 

More importantly, we are a people living in the dark and gloom of life.

 

In a sense, that is what Advent is as well.

 

It is the recognition of the darkness we all collectively live in without Christ.

 

But we are anticipating something more—we are all looking forward into the gloom and what do we see there?

 

We see the first rays of the dawn.

 

We see the first glow of what awaits us, there, just ahead of us.

 

That light that is about to burst into our lives is, of course, Christ.

 

For the Jews before Jesus’ time, waiting like we are, for the Messiah, they had specific ideas of what this messiah would do.

 

Oppressed as they were by a foreign government—the Romans—with an even more foreign religion—paganism—, they expected someone like themselves to come to them and take up a sword.

 

This Messiah would drive away these foreign influences and allow them, as a people, to rise up and gain their rightful place.

 

But God doesn’t work according to human plans.

 

The light that came to them—and to us—was no solider.

 

The Light that came to us was a baby—a child who was destined to suffer, just as we suffer to some extent, and to die, as we all must die.

 

In the gospel for today, Jesus warns us—“you do not know when the time will come.”

 

We don’t know when God is going to come to us.

 

But we can take comfort today in one thing: as frightening as our times may be, as terrible as life may seem some times and as uncertain as our future may be, what Advent shows us more than anything is this: we already know the end of the story.

 

We might not know what awaits us tomorrow or next week. We might not know what setbacks or rewards will come to us in the weeks to come, but in the long run, we know how our story ends.

 

God as Christ has come to us as one of us and with a voice like our voice, Christ has told us that we might not know when it will happen, but the end will be a good ending.

 

God has promised that in the end, there will be joy and happiness and peace.

 

The key word in today’s gospel is a simple one—“Watch!”

 

To watch means more than just to look around us.

 

It means to be attentive. It means, we must pay attention.

 

There is a story I read once in book about St. Anthony of Egypt, a monk in the early Church.

 

In the book,  the author 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.”

 

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, Jesus’ message to us to wait is a very important of our spiritual lives.

 

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.

 

Christ our friend—our brother—our companion on the way—has come to us and is leading us forward.

 

Christ—the dazzling Light—is burning away the fogs of our day-to-day living and is showing us a way through the darkness that sometimes seems to encroach upon us.

 

Our job is simple really. Like those ostriches, we simply need to watch. In our case, we need to look anxiously for that light and, when it comes, we need to be prepared to share it with others.

 

This is the true message of Advent.

 

As hectic as this season is going to get, as you’re feeling overwhelmed by all sensory overload we’ll all be experiencing through this season, remember that one word Jesus says to us.

 

Watch.

 

Take time, be silent and just watch.

 

For this anticipation—this expectant and patient watching f ours—is merely a pathway on which the Christ Child can come among us as one of us.

 

July 27, 2005

 

July 27, 2005

 

 

There is a beautiful little analogy in tonight’s Gospel—one of the best we can take form this somewhat strange little story.

 

The disciples, in the boat, are pushing against the wind. They are struggling forward, so caught up in their struggles.

 

Jesus is alone on the shore.

 

As the disciples move forward against the wind, Jesus walks out to them. There’s an interesting little passage here: “He meant to walk on by.”

 

If he meant to walk on by, what was the purpose in his coming out on the lake?

 

The disciples called to him and he calmed the wind—and therefore their struggling.

 

Whenever we encounter a story like this that, at first glance, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, the one redeeming quality is making the story out own story.

 

Most of us probably find ourselves relating to those disciples in the boat.

 

How often in our lives have we found ourselves straining against the wind, so to speak?

 

How often have we felt as though we are struggling against the forces that be, trying to hold us back?

 

What do we do in those times? How do we feel?

 

Well, certainly we feel sometimes as though God is passing us by as well.

 

God is there, we know, but doesn’t it seem sometimes like God is “out there” somewhere—not here beside us—or even here within us.

 

God sometimes seems “out there” somewhere, about to pass us by without noticing us.

 

It’s a terrible feeling to think of God not thinking of us—of being so close and yet so far and still not giving us a second thought.

 

This despair only makes the struggle against the wind so much more difficult.

 

But then, all we have to do is call out.

 

Even over the chaos and the roar of the wind, somehow our voices—feeble with tiredness as they may be—find their way to God’s ear.

 

And what does God do?

 

God turns and looks at us.

 

God’s attentions are turned in our direction. We know, suddenly, that we are, in fact, important to God and we might feel a bit embarrassed by the fact that we despaired in the first place.

 

All we had to all along was call out and we could’ve avoided all the difficulties we just went though.

 

But there is something even more wonderful about this story and how it relates to us.

 

Not only do we find God turning to us and looking at us.

 

But, like Jesus, in this story, God comes to us.

 

And as God comes to us, God stills the wind we are struggling against.

 

With God’s p[presence comes the calm.

 

 

 

 

Wednesday of 4 Easter

 April 20, 2005

Chapel of the Resurrection

Gethsemane Cathedral Fargo

Luke 6.27-38

As some of you might know, I’ve been writing a book. IN fact, I just finished it. The book is entitled, In the Bleak Winter: A Priest and Poet Faces his Cancer.

 As some of you know, I was diagnosed with cancer a little over three years ago and this book is a response, in a sense, to my illness.

 I don’t usually inflict my writing on anyone who doesn’t ask for it, but I have shared bits and pieces of the book in these Wednesday sermons and so today’s no different.

 There’s a chapter in the book that, in many ways, responds to this gospel reading we heard from Luke.

 So, I’m just going to read you a bit from this chapter.

 

 If there is one thing both poets and priests need it is thick skin. Poets need this protective skin simply dealing with critics of their work. A poet should, to some extent, put their very soul into their work and because they do, any criticism of that work tends to cuts them to their core. This, however, is the stark reality of being a poet. Every poet worth their weight needs to face the critics with a certain inner strength if they are ever going to persevere. They need to be able to take the criticisms and still somehow find the strength to get up the next morning, sit down at the desk and start writing again—no matter if one feels like it or not. I learned this lesson fairly early in my writing career and was able to develop and hone this guard.

Not everyone, of course, has however been able to take on this thick skin. When I was in graduate school, I was amazed when, in poetry workshops in which dismantling and critiquing a poem becomes a razor-precise procedure, I saw more than one poet break down in tears or lash out in anger at those critiquing his or her poem. Once, a young woman threw her cup of (thankfully lukewarm) coffee at the offending critic and stomped out of the room screaming a string of obscenities.

            Likewise, a priest must simply face the fact in his or her career that some people simply are not going to like them. I once heard at a conference on pastoral ministry that the average pastor should expect 25% of their congregation to dislike them. Of that 25%, the pastor should be aware that 10% will downright hate them. I don’t know how accurate these figures are, but it is a fact of life as a priest that not everyone is going to like that sermon you preached last Sunday or that someone is going to find fault with your demeanor at the altar or someone just can’t stand how you sing. More often than not, there will always be one person who will be out to get you because you didn’t make a visit to the hospital to visit someone’s mother.

A priest friend of mine once told me that a parishioner came up to her one Sunday morning after Mass and said they hated everything about that service, but what they disliked about it most was her grating voice and how it sounded in her microphone. My friend was devastated by this comment and confessed to me that part of her never wanted to step foot in front of those people ever again. 

            Neither of these vocations—poetry writing and the priesthood—are popularity contests and anyone who thinks they are is setting themselves up for a major fall. In both areas, one deals with similar levels of pettiness, backbiting and downright meanness. 

            Being keenly aware of this in my own live, I have long prided myself on the callused skin I developed in these areas of my life. As a poet, harsh critiques of my work have very rarely devastated me, even if on occasion the offending critic was a personal friend.

            Having been a poet for years prepared me well, in many ways, for the criticisms of being a priest. When it came to the Church, I was able to easily shrug off the bitterness or coldness I sometimes received from parishioners who, for whatever reasons, simply did not like me.

I also made a point of never letting church politics get in the way of personal friendships. Often a friend and I might disagree on some situation within the Church structure—and sometimes we might disagree vehemently and vocally in a public arena. However I had no problem having a drink with that same person afterward in the hotel bar, laughing with them as if nothing happened. One parishioner I knew was shocked once on going to a Diocesan Convention in which a controversial motion had been put forward. At one point during the proceedings, one delegate and a priest debated the issue with a passion that made some fellow delegates cringe. This parishioner was shocked later to find this same delegate coming up to the priest afterward and asking her if she could baptize his baby in the near future.

            Having bragged here in writing about my callousness to criticism, I will admit there have been times my defenses have failed me and failed me miserably. One of the first times my thick skin failed me was following an argument I had with a friend I cared for deeply. Immediately after our dispute, I went away thinking it had been just another tussle in our long and trusted relationship and that, after a few days of cooling off, we would simply call each other on the phone, clear the air and simply resume our friendship as before, never mentioning the argument again. Certainly I knew this person as well as I knew anyone, after all. In fact, I probably knew him better than I knew myself at times for that matter—or so I thought. A few days later I was devastated  when I received a four page single-spaced letter from him, filled with a vehemence and an anger that literally knocked the breath from me. I sat in the  car that afternoon after picking up the mail, literally shaking with shock after  opening the letter and reading the first sentence. It was the kind of letter that took me hours to read. I could only read a sentence or two at a time before I had to set it aside, try to adjust to the feeling of unreality I was experiencing, catch my breath and continue on. To say the least, it was a long and tortuous experience.

            In the letter, my friend—a person I had been confident up to that very moment cared for me almost as much as I cared for him—lashed out at me with such anger I thought I was going to break into pieces. Because he knew me so well, he was able to use particularly sensitive facts about my life and our relationship to drive home the pain being inflicting on me. Even now, after almost nine years, thinking about that letter hurts me deeply.

            At the time, his letter sent me into a tailspin. It literally knocked me flat. I went around in a sort of blank-eyed daze for days afterward. Any pretense of a thick skin quickly evaporated in the wake of that letter.

            Why, you might ask, would I react as I did to a letter? Partly it was because I had never had anyone I even remotely cared for lash out at me in quite that way before. This friend was one of the few people I had allowed to get that close to me, and to have them feel anger toward me was excruciating. I had let down the usual defensive guards I raised with friends. I had opened myself up in this friendship as I never had in a platonic friendship before.

If it was someone I didn’t care for—if it was someone I felt even a little bit for—I would’ve either shrugged it off or fired off an equaly hurtful letter. But not so in this case. I could not write a similar letter back because I simply did not feel any anger toward him for it. This was how he felt. I accepted that and, in return, all I could feel was hurt and shocked.

In the weeks that followed, I found myself taking to heart the words of Psalm 55. Even to this day when I pray that psalm, I am reminded in a very unique way of that difficult time in my life.

 

            For had it been an adversary who taunted me,

            then I could have borne it;

                        or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me,

                        then I could have hidden from him.

 

            But it was you, a man after my own heart,

                        my companion, my own familiar friend.

           

 

Rather than lash out at my friend, I did what I knew better than to do—I turned it all inward on myself. Maybe he was right, I thought. Maybe I truly did fail in our friendship as he accused.  After all, he should know, shouldn’t he? How could I have been so thoughtless to destroy this friendship that meant so much to me? Maybe I had been too possessive, too dependent, too needy. Certainly I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that kind of a relationship. It was difficult and it was draining and as a result of it, the relationship could eventually erupt from the pent-up frustrations and anger.

This all led to another reason I was so upset by the letter: I had been clueless up to that point how my friend really felt for me. I had assumed to some extent that he cared for me at least somewhat as much as I did for him. But what came across in this letter was an anger that had been brewing for some time, possibly even years. It was something akin to hatred—hatred of me and hatred of everything I was. I didn’t know how to react or process a feeling like hatred, and certainly not from a friend.

Henri Nouwen had a similar experience with a friend, which he chronicled in his amazing book, The Inner Voice of Love. This book is one I have read and re-read over and over again and each time I do, I am moved to tears by it. It has been a book that continues to speak to me on many levels. The dissolving of  Nouwen’s  friendship in question  precipitated a complete emotional breakdown for him. Only after he had recovered was he able to put the whole situation in perspective. Only then was he able to look at it in all honesty. For him,

“this deeply satisfying friendship became the road to my anguish, because soon I discovered that the enormous space that had been opened for me could not be filled by the one who had opened it…and when the friendship finally had to be interrupted, I fell apart. I felt abandoned, rejected and betrayed. Indeed, the extremes touched each other.”

 

For days after my friend’s letter arrived, I went around in shock. I didn’t know how to react to it. Being angry was pointless. Besides, there was simply no anger there. I simply felt hurt in a way I never had before. I felt torn apart from the inside out. I literally ached.

In fact, the long-range effects of the letter stayed with me, in some shape or form, for years afterward. Although my friend and I eventually reconciled and were able to rebuild our friendship, the fact remained that it would never be the same way it was before. In the years that followed, I found myself reevaluating every important friendship in my life. No longer could I assume that those whom I loved, loved me in return anymore. No longer could I be assured of how anyone felt for me. I also became more careful of how I acted around people. Was I being too pretentious, too full of myself, too prying in my friends’ lives? Was I manipulating them without even knowing it?

Although I have come to realize that my friend wrote the letter in a deep anger—an anger that eventually passed—the damage had been done in an irreparable way. I often use the word wounded to describe what I felt in the shadow of that letter. I was wounded in a deep place. That wound would and could be opened easily in the ensuing years.

When the poet Audre Lourde died of cancer in 1992, her oncologist spoke at a memorial gathering for her. He said, “cancer is caused from a deep wound.”

We’ve all heard stories about how it is believed that some people who are diagnosed with cancer have been suffering from wounds deep within. A good friend of my mother was one of those people I came to know intimately. About five years before her diagnosis, her only daughter was shot and killed by her husband who then committed suicide. After my diagnosis, which followed her’s by about a year, we often talked about what it was like to have cancer and conjectured about what caused it.

“I have no doubt that the day Emily died, the cancer started,” she said. “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the cancer started growing from that moment on.”

Certainly she believed this was the cause of her cancer until the moment she died two years later.

Now I, in no way, believe that my cancer was caused from the wound of that letter or from any other psychological wound. The only reason I bring it up in this context is simply to state that that I do believe my cancer, however, did open the wound that already existed, unhealed, within me, as well as others like it in a way I never thought possible.

The night before surgery, as I laid in bed, I felt these wound bleed anew within me in a unique way.  The thick protective layer I was once so proud of was long gone by this point. Instead, I laid there, exposed to every fear, every pain, every unhealed wound.

That night, I thought of my friend, who I still cared so deeply for, as well as my parents and so many other people I cared for, and I thought about all the times I had hurt them or let them down. I thought about the parishioners over the years who had never really liked me, all the variety of critics who had trashed my work over the years, and those who betrayed me or made concentrated efforts to hurt me. Because the termination of my job was still so fresh in my mind, I thought of the betrayal by people I trusted and respected, of people who were, by vow and vocation, required to look out for me and who did not. I thought of the woman of the Vestry of the last church I served who bragged—proudly proclaimed, in fact—to a mutual friend that her’s was the deciding vote on whether to lay me off or not and how, without a second thought, she voted against me. I thought of the warden who was rumored to have given the final sentence to my job by saying, “Just get rid of him, then.” I thought of those cold shoulders and the even colder silences I received from people over the years. I thought of the shaky relationships I had with my half-siblings and of all those former friends who simply passed out of my life quietly, without another single word or gesture.

I laid there in the dark, bleeding in a way I never had before. I gave into all the self-pitying and pain that had been festering under the surface through all of those years of bragging about my supposedly impenetrable outer armor.

It was then that I cried for the first time since cancer had reared its ugly demonic head. I laid there, heaving with pain, the burning tears pouring from my eyes in a way I never remembered them coming before.

Strangely, through the long ordeal of that night, I never once felt alone. I remembered what I had been taught about those past pains—about what I told others over the years who were in similar situations. In a sense, I found myself pastoring myself. 

In my prayers that night, there was no pleading, no bargaining. I simply offered that deafening shocked silence inside me to God. It was all I could do. It was all I was capable of doing. Inside, I was in a pain I had not felt for years.  I did with that pain the only thing I could do—I offered it to God. I lifted it up and placed it in that calm silence that lay before God’s all-encompassing presence. It was then I realized something: here I was, a priest, lying awake the night before my surgery—in an anguish I had only felt a few times before in my life, doing the only thing I could do—what I as a priest was trained to do. I offered what I had to God.

            How many times in my past had others come to me in very similar situations, asking for prayers for lumps on breasts or mysterious fevers, asking me to pray that it would all would turn out fine, that all would be well for them, if it’s Your will, O God.

            But when it came to my own Growth, when it came to my own anguish, I couldn’t pray for it to be taken away. I could only acknowledge it and accept it and offer it to God in much the same way I had accepted and offered to God the pain over my friendship.

            In offering all my fears—all the still bleeding wounds—to God, I felt a certain level of relief. I was releasing them to some extent—at least temporarily. I felt the pains subside and a comfortable numbness settle on me. It wasn’t relief. It wasn’t healing. It wasn’t a miraculous change of heart. It was simply a reprieve. It was a kind of “eye of the storm.” 

            It was that reprieve that eventually helped me to sleep that night. It cushioned me in a way that I unconsciously needed. I went into that sleep, knowing full well that when I would awaken the next morning, I would be facing this difficult surgery and that this deceptively calm “eye” would have passed away.

 

 

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

I Epiphany

 

Baptism of Our Lord

Jan. 9, 2005

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Fargo

 Is. 42.1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10.34-43, Matthew 3.13-17

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy Spirit, as you drove Jesus into the wilderness, when John baptized him and the heavens opened, drive us also to wrestle and reflect so that we may fulfill and live out our baptism, and live your life of victory. In Christ, we pray. Amen.

 

Yesterday was a very special day for me in my relationship with St. Stephen’s.

 

It was ten years ago yesterday that I attended my very first Episcopal service—it just so happened that I do so here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Some of you have heard this story many times, but it is an important story for me.

 

At the time, as you may know, I was a somewhat of an agnostic. I was searching and floundering for some spiritual grounding for my life because of the huge void I felt.

 

After trying the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church and several other churches, including the Unitarians and the Quakers, a Lutheran pastor friend of mine suggested I try the Episcopalians.

 

My friend thought it would be ideal for me—with my poetry background and my love for the liturgy.

 

I went that morning expecting to be disappointed once again, just as I had been disappointed with all the other churches I had attended.

 

What happened to me that morning, however, was better than I ever expected.

 

I was enraptured by the beautiful hymns. I loved using The Book of Common Prayer. I was really impressed that there was a woman priest. But more importantly, I felt what I could only describe as Christ’s real presence here and, especially, in the Eucharist that morning.

 

I came away from that experienced spiritually recharged and, I think, spiritually changed.

 

And it was that experience that has carried me this far.

 

Did I ever imagine that morning, when I came here, that ten years later I would be not only an Episcopalian, but an Episcopal priest of all things? Certainly not!

 

But here I am!

 

I often think about what would have happened if I had not attended Eucharist that morning.

 

What if I had slept in (as I was fond of doing on Sunday mornings in those days—I have come a long way since then, let me tell you!).

 

But when I look at what that day meant to me, I realize it was important to me in much the same way as my baptism is important to me, as my confirmation was important to me, as my ordination to diaconate and the priesthood were important to me.

 

The reason is because God acted in my life that morning.

 

God led me here and from here, helped me find my home in the Episcopal Church.

 

God helped me to find a place and a group of people who would help me fill that gaping void in my life that was fueled by my disturbing agnosticism.

 

Part of the reason for the agnosticism I developed in my late teens and early twenties stemmed from seeing a legalistic, close-minded religion among some of my relatives while I was growing up.

 

When I was a kid, my aunt, who was a member of the First Assemblies of God, would give out terrible little cartoon tracts, little booklets put out by an evangelist by the name of Jack Chick.

 

Jack Chick was the perfect example of a Christian hatemonger. He hated everyone who didn’t accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior.

 

Everyone was going to hell except those who had made one simple confession of faith.

 

All one had to do to gain heaven and glorious eternity, according to Jack Chick, was make this simple statement:

 

I accept you, O Jesus, as my personal Lord and Savior.

 

The rest of us, who didn’t make this statement, were in deep trouble.

 

Catholics, for example, were going to hell because they were being led astray by the Pope, whom Jack Chick saw as the Antichrist on earth.

 

For example he blamed Catholics even for the Assassinations of Abraham Lincoln (he said that was John Wilkes Booth was a Jesuit priest—I guess he never knew that Booth was in fact an Episcopalian).

 

Protestants that belonged to churches other than “Bible-believing,” “Holy spirit-inspired” churches were going to hell because they were being led stray by liberal Bible Scholars who polluted the scriptures with false interpretations.

 

The only interpretation to follow, Jack Chick said, was the KJV and none other. It truly was the inspired and unerring Word of God.

 

He also believed that there were Satanists everywhere, seeking to destroy true Christians. They were in our schools, they were in our seminaries, they were even in the White House.

 

But for the most part, these awful little books would tell the story of some person or another who led a destitute life but who had died without accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

 

Of course, they ended up in hell—usually pictured as a cavernous place full of fire and disgusting devils.

 

The moral of these stories revolved around the main character crying out in anguish:  “If only I had accepted Jesus as my Personal Lord and Savior, I wouldn’t be here.”

 

At the time, as a teenager, these stories made sense to me.

 

It was simple. Christ should turn his back on those who didn’t accept him.

 

And there should be a place where we had to pay for the wrongs we did.

 

We simply can’t sin and expect not to pay for it in some way, right?

 

But as I grew older, as I became an Episcopalian and grew into my relationship with Christ and as I started to look long and hard at everything I had believed (and didn’t believe) up to that point, I realized there was one thing Jack Chick and all those people who believed that way missed.

 

It was one simple little word: Grace.

 

A few weeks ago, Liz recommended a wonderful book to me that really moved me to my core.

 

The book was If Grace Is True, by two Quaker pastors, Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland.

 

That book gave voice to almost everything I believed in my heart.

 

It was also very radical. It gave voice to something akin to Universalism, but at the same time, the book made a lot of sense.

 

As an Episcopalian, it was very easy for me to take what they wrote to heart and to reinterpret it from an Anglican perspective. 

 

The heart of this Anglican belief, lies in our Baptismal service, which echoes, in many ways, what happened to Jesus in today’s Gospel.

 

This story in the Gospel is a difficult one in some ways to understand.

 

In Jesus’ times, baptism was seen as a form of purification.

 

One went for baptism as a rite of purification to make right one’s relationship with God.

 

The problem with this morning’s Gospel is that Jesus, who we are taught was without sin, comes forward to be baptized.

 

What Jesus does by coming forward for baptism, is make this simple rite of purification something much more.

 

It becomes a sacrament and not a rite.

 

It becomes a conduit of God’s presence.

 

 

At our baptisms we (or our parents and sponsors in our stead) affirmed that we are children of God. And, in some ways even more spectacular, we were anointed with oil.

 

After we were baptized, the priest made a comment to us that is really the most important words that could ever be spoken to us.

 

As he or she anointed us with oil, the priest said, “You are sealed as Christ’s own forever.”

 

This is the statement we carry with us wherever we go.

 

It is branded into our hearts and into our souls.

 

It is this belief that motivates us and compels us to live out our Christian faith.

 

We are Christ’s own. Forever.

 

Nothing will break this covenant.

 

Nothing CAN break this covenant.

 

We can’t retract it.

 

We can’t wash it away. Even our own unbelief in this statement can’t undo what was done.

 

Why? It is this one fact—grace—that makes all the difference in the world.

 

It is what makes the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation.

 

Jack Chick and those who believe like him are very quick to say that there is an eternal hell. And if you’re not right with God, they say, that’s exactly where you’re going.

 

The fault in this message is simple: none of us are right with God.

 

As long as we are on this side of the veil, so to speak, we fall short of what God wants for us.

 

We have all sinned and we will all sin again. That’s the fact.

 

But that’s where grace comes in. That’s where the full reality of being Christ’s own forever becomes a real fact.

 

Christ is the trump card.

 

Christ set us free.

 

There is one simple little fact that so many Christians seem to overlook. And this is the biggest realization for me as a Christian:

 

Just because one doesn’t accept Christ doesn’t mean that Christ doesn’t accept us.

 

Christ accepts us.

 

Plain and simple.

 

This is the message of our baptisms. We are Christ’s own forever.

 

Even if we turn our backs on Christ. Even if we do everything in our limited powers to separate ourselves from Christ, the fact of the matter is that nothing can separate from Christ.

 

Christ accepts every single person here this morning—no matter what you believe, or don’t believe, no matter if Christ is some abstract concept to you or a close, personal friend.

 

That’s right, I did say “personal.”

 

Yes, it’s wonderful and beautiful to have a personal relationship with Christ.

 

But the fact is, Christ isn’t the personal savior to any one of us. He saves all of us, equally.

 

That is grace.

 

That is how much God loves us.

 

Now, I’m not being naïve or fluffy here. 

 

I have known despicable people in my life. I have been hurt by some of these people and I have seen others hurt by these people.

 

The world is full of people who are awful and terrible. It always has been. In our day, we have people like Scott Peterson.

 

And not just in our own time either. Look back sixty years, Look at the horrible people that controlled large parts of the world then, such as Hitler and Stalin.

 

Sometimes, those awful people aren’t “out there” at all.

 

Sometimes the most awful and terrible person we know is the one staring back in the mirror.

 

But the fact is, that even when we can’t love them or ourselves, when we can’t do anything else but feel anger and hatred toward them, Christ does love them. Christ has accepted them, just as Christ accepts each of us.

 

Not even their crimes can separate them from Christ’s love. Nothing can separate us from Christ’s love and from Christ’s promise to eternal life.

 

It’s a hard concept for those us who were taught otherwise.

 

It was a hard concept for me to accept.

 

But I do believe it. I believe it because of the personal relationship I have with Christ.

 

The Christ I have come to know and to love and to serve is simply that full of love.

 

So, do I believe we’re all going to heaven when we die?

 

Yes. I do.

 

Why? Because, the love of Christ is just that big. It is just that wonderful and just that all-encompassing. It is just that powerful.

 

If one person is in some metaphysical, eternal hell, then the love of Christ has failed. Something has, in fact, come between that person and Christ.

 

I do not believe that hell or Satan or sin or anything else is big enough to separate us even in a small way from Christ. Not even we, ourselves, can turn our backs on Christ because wherever we turn, Christ is there for us.

 

When I look back at that first Sunday I attended Eucharist in this church, I realize, now with ten years perspective, that I truly was and am Christ’s own forever.

 

It was a beautiful reminder of what was given to me at my baptism, a bond with Christ that can never be broken no matter what I do.

 

If I ever needed proof of that fact, I need only to remind myself of the spiritual reawakening I experienced on that cold January morning in 1995.

 

So, when you are struggling, spiritually, or emotionally, or if you are struggling in your personal relationships, remember the relationship that was formed at your baptism.

 

Remember the fact that you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that you are, and always will be, Christ’s own forever.

 

 

 

 

2 Christmas

 

Jan. 2, 2005

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Fargo, ND

 

Let us pray.

 Heavenly Father, tender and compassionate, create in us, your family, love so true and deep that in this broken world we may be a sign of unity. In Christ, we pray. Amen.

 “In the beginning…”

 

These are the first words of today’s Gospel reading. And they are appropriate ones if ever there were any.

 

This reading from John is really in effect an echoing of the creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis.

 

Both begin the same way, with the same words—in the beginning—and both tell of God’s working in our midst.

 

In effect, they’re the same story, told from two very different perspectives.

 

In Genesis, we hear the story of God creating the earth and eventually the creation of humankind.

 

In John, we hear the story of how God existed at all times and that with God, there existed God’s Word.

 

Now we’ve heard this passage from John so many times that it’s become quite familiar.  It is just as familiar, in many ways, as the creation stories in Genesis or the story of Noah’s ark or any of those familiar stories we know so well from scripture.

 

But the difference between those stories and what we heard this morning is that they were stories in a very real sense.

 

They were basic narratives that are easy to relate to and easy to re-tell over and over again.

 

What we hear at the beginning of John’s Gospel is different because it is, in fact, a hymn. Or at least, a portion of a hymn.

 

It is a hymn explaining the Word and what the Word is and does.

 

The hymn was, like the rest of the New Testament, originally written in Greek.

 

In Greek, the word for “Word” is “Logos.”

 

That word—Logos—means more than just a sound that comes out of our mouths.

 

It means knowledge.

 

We still use the word in this way. We find it such words at zoology—which means, roughly, “words concerning animals” or more correctly “knowledge concerning animals”

—psychology—words or knowledge concerning the mind

—biology—words and knowledge concerning life

and so on.

 

So, what we’re encountering in this Hymn is more than just a word. It is knowledge. But even knowledge doesn’t quite convey what this hymn is trying to say. I think the more correct word would be Wisdom.

 

The Word—the Logos—of God is the Wisdom of God.  

 

What is John talking about here? John is talking about Christ, of course. Christ is the Logos—the Word of God, the knowledge of God. When we hear his words, we are not hearing the words of some brilliant prophet.

 

We are hearing the words of God.

 

Did you ever wonder why, in some copies of the King James version of the Bible, the words of Jesus were in red?

 

This is why. They were in red so that we pay special attention to what he was saying.

 

What came from his mouth, in a sense, came from the mouth of God on high. 

 

See how this is different than those other stories from scripture.  

 

It’s kind of heady stuff we’re dealing with here.

 

It’s not easy to grasp what’s being talked about and it’s not easy to explain to others.

 

However, this concept of the Word—or Logos—of God is really the heart of all Christian theology.

 

Now that sounds wonderful—at least to me. I’m a priest and I like theology. I like systematic thinking about God and Christ. I like examining words in Greek and exploring the full range of their meanings.

 

It’s what I do.

 

But for the rest of us, this passage is a difficult one to wrap our minds around.

 

“The Word was with God and the Word was God.”

 

Those are hard theological concepts—concepts that the Church as a whole has struggled with from almost the very beginning.

 

In the ancient Church, people fought hard to interpret what this meant exactly. Some felt that the Word—Christ—was similar to God, but was not equal to God. Certainly they did not feel that Christ was God.

 

Others truly believed that Christ the Word—the personified Wisdom of God—was God, plain and simple. Just as our words are part of us, just as what we know is a part of us, so is the Word and knowledge of God a part of God.

 

A lot of dirty deeds were done over this simple passage of scripture. People were banished, people were tortured, some were even killed.

 

But no matter what we might believe about Christ’s co-equality with God, this scripture does do a lot in helping us understand who and what Christ is.

 

Let’s take a look at what God is doing in this scripture.

 

God isn’t simply sitting on some throne in some far-off heavenly realm.

 

God is not sitting back and letting creation work itself out.

 

What this passage shows us, more than anything, is that God is busy.

 

God is at work in our lives—in the world around us.

 

God is moving.

 

God is doing something.

 

More than anything what this scripture is telling us is that God is reaching out to us. And not just one or two times in our history.

 

God has always been reaching out to us. From the first day of humankind to this moment, God is reaching out to us. God is calling out to us. He is talking with us and communicating with us.

 

This Word of God that we hear is Christ and Christ, as we learn in this passage, had always existed. Even before Christ came to us in the person of Jesus, Christ always was. And Christ always will be.

 

God, in Christ, is moving toward us, even in moments when it seems like God is distance and non-existent.

 

There’s an excellent book I read a few years ago called the Disappearance of God.

 

In it, the author explained that when we look at the Bible as a whole, we find God slowly disappearing from creation.

 

As the Old Testament progresses, God seems to be pulling back further and further from our lives.

 

God no longer speaks to his prophets as he did to Adam or Abraham or Moses.

 

There were fewer and fewer visions of pillars of fire.

 

There were fewer instance in which God worked miracles in the lives of his people. God no longer went out before the armies of the Israelites and fought their battles for them.

 

By the time we get to the New Testament, God seems to be gradually fading away from the lives of humans.

 

But then we come across the Gospel of John.

 

Here, in a sense, God’s presence is renewed.

 

God comes forward and becomes present among us in a way we could never possibly imagine.

 

God appears to us in the Gospels not cloaked behind pillars of fire or thunderstorms or wind. Instead, God appears before us, as one of us.

 

God’s word, God’s wisdom, became flesh just as we are flesh.

 

God’s voice was no longer a booming voice from the sky, demanding sacrifices.

 

God instead spoke to us as one of us. And this voice is a familiar one. We cannot only understand it, we can embrace it and make it a part of our lives.

 

And even after Christ dies and rises again from the tomb and ascends to heaven, the Word, in a very real sense, remains among us.

 

It continues on in the first followers, who wrote it down.

 

It continues on in what Jesus still says to us today.

 

It continues on in the Spirit of God that dwells within us  and that speaks in us in our lives.

 

The Word is among us.

 

It is spoken every time we carry out what Christ calls us to do.

 

The Word is spoken when we reach out to those in need.

 

Look at what happened a week ago today in Asia. When that tsunami crashed into the shores of those countries and devastated those people’s lives, we all responded.

 

We all reacted to it in some way.

 

We felt dismay. We felt shock and terror. We felt horror. And most importantly, we felt pity for those people.

 

Hopefully, we found ourselves praying for them. Hopefully we tried in some way to help them in their misery, in whatever limited way we could.

 

When we are motivated in such ways by the misery around us—when we pray for them, when we reach out to them in any small way we can—that is the Word speaking.

 

And more than that—that is the Word at work in the world.

 

So let the Word and Knowledge of God be in you and speak through you.

 

Be open to that wonderful reality in your lives.

 

Let your voice be the voice of the Word and Wisdom of God.

 

Let your lives be a loud and proud proclamation of that Word in the world around you.