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.