1 Christmas

Dec. 28, 2008

John 1.1-18

“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.

Another way to translate the word “logos” is to say “essence.” It is the very essence of what it conveys. In that sense, the “Word” of God brings us the very essence of God. In the Logos of God, we find 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, the sense of God. When we hear his words, we are not hearing the words of some brilliant prophet. We are hearing the words of God—words that contain the knowledge and essence of that 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 St. 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.

Whenever we are motivated by the misery around us—when we pray for those who need our prayers, when we reach out to those who need us 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.

St John the Divine

December 27, 2008

John 21.19b-24

I had never really considered St. John much before reading Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent book, Encountering the Mystery. In it, Bartholomew devotes a section titled “Saint John the Divine: Source of Theology.” After reading it, my devotion to St. John has increased greatly.

Patriarch Bartholomew writes in this section: “…the hermeneutical tradition of the Church considers the moment when St. John reclined upon the breast of our Lord Jesus Christ during the Last Supper as the starting point of the theological journey. It is from this event that the gift of theology is derived and drawn, as if from a life-giving spring and source.”

This one simple action—this beautiful act of love and affection—is, as Patriarch Bartholomew maintains, the beginning of all theology, of all deep and meaningful spiritual longing.

Ever since I read this passage from Encountering the Mystery, I have found myself returning again and again to the Gospel of St. John—a Gospel I admit I have struggled with over the years. But now, after reading the Patriarch’s book, I have come away with a new appreciation for this Gospel, about which Bartholomew writes: “It is no wonder that the Gospel of John is the central evangelical text of the Orthodox Church.” He goes on to highlight the Gospel’s “emphasis on light and resurrection together with its theological eloquence and poetic expressiveness.” I have also found myself returning again and again to that passage in today’s reading from St. John’s Gospel:

“Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper…”

The beauty of this action of St. John’s is that it is an action we ourselves should be imitating. St Bonaventure said, “There [in that moment] our Lord fed [St. John] on the mysteries of his Divine wisdom, abundantly, uniquely, wholesomely, profitably.” We, like St. John, should also be fed abundantly, uniquely, wholesomely, and profitably. We should find our consolation, our joy, our absolutely gladness in that place, reclining alongside Jesus. And more than just reclining. We too should find ourselves in that place of complete trust. We too should lay our heads—full of our sorrows, our troubles, our pains, our angers—we should lay our muddled heads against the breast of Jesus that contains his sacred and love-filled Heart.

There, in that place so near to the source of his love and affection, we should find our shelter, our refreshment, the place we have longed to be spiritually and actually.

St. John truly is the model saint. Like him, we too should strive to be the one Jesus loves. That love should be the only goal in our lives.

St. Stephen

December 26, 2008

Acts 6. 8-7:2a, 51c-60

It is a pleasure to be able to celebrate the feast of St. Stephen at St. Stephen’s Church. It’s important, I think for churches to celebrate their patronal feasts. In the Orthodox and Roman traditions of the Church, the patron saint of a church is viewed as more than just namesake. They are seen as special guardians of that congregation. And so, it is especially wonderful to celebrate a saint like St. Stephen, who is our guardian and who is, no doubt,, present among us, with that whole communion of saints.

St. Stephen, of course, was the proto-martyr of the Church—the first one to die for his open proclamation of Christ. St. Stephen was also the first one to pray to Jesus outside of the Gospels. He also is considered the first deacon in the church. St. Stephen was the first to do many things. So, appropriately, is this church, that has been the first to do many things, named after St. Stephen.

As you might know, I teach theology at the University of Mary’s Fargo campus. I have so many students come to me who have been hurt by the Church. I have many students who are frustrated with the Church. And more often than not, their relationship with God has suffered for it. More often than not, I am amazed and surprised to find that many of these people have never differentiated their thoughts between religion and spirituality. When I explain the difference—that difference between religion and the Church—a human-run organization—and spirituality—that relationship between you and God—I see a transformation come over people. For many of them, they gave up on God when they gave up on religion. Hopefully, they are able, at some point, to see that just because they gave up on religion, it does not mean they have to give up on God.

When I talk about spirituality I am talking about the “true religion” that we prayed for last Sunday in our collect. So what this true religion? Well, I can tell what true religion is not. True religion is not what is going on the Church right now. There is so much anger and frustration in the Episcopal Church right now. Much of that anger is justified. But, people are condemning each other, bashing each other and demeaning each other in the name of the Church as we speak. People—because of their differences—are not acting like they love each other.

On the other hand, I see the Episcopal Church as making a real solid effort at true religion. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here in the Church. One aspect of this church that I have always loved is the belief—and the fact— that there is room here for everyone in this church—no matter who they are. I love the fact that churches like St. Stephen’s continue to be primes examples of the Church in our midst by following the Via Media—the middle ground.

In many ways, St. Stephen’s is a microcosm of the ideal aspects of the larger Church. St. Stephen’s has always been the place that finds room for the liberals in the Church I love. Here too though there is room as well for the conservatives in the Church. And, of course, there is certainly plenty of room in this place for the moderates.

Anglo-Catholic people such as myself, as well as broad church and evangelical Episcopalians have been welcomed here as well, not to mention those who might not be certain what they believe about God or Jesus. And, of course, there has been room here for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people.

For me, St. Stephen’s personifies in many ways, that sense of true religion. The Church should be like a dinner to which everyone is invited. And St. Stephen’s has always been the place that knows this one blunt fact: The only thing there is no room for in true religion is for those who cannot love each other.

St. Stephen’s is a place very much like a family. We don’t always choose the people God has brought into our lives, but we always—ALWAYS—have to love them.

So what is true religion? True religion begins and ends with love. We must love one another as God loves us. True religion begins with the realization that, first and foremost, God loves each and every one of us. When we can look at that person who drives us crazy and see in that person, someone God loves wholly and completely, then our relationship with that person changes. We too are compelled to love that person as well. Love is the beginning and end of true religion.

Certainly, St. Stephen’s has always been a place of love. Love has never been a stranger here. Love has been offered not only on this altar, but among the pews and in the undercroft and in the entryway and in the parking lot. Love has went out from here into all the world. We who are gathered here have been touched in one way or the other by the love that has emanated from these people. We are the fortunate ones—the ones who have been transformed and changed by this love. We are the lucky ones who have—through our experiences at St. Stephen’s—been able to get a glimpse of true religion.

But our job now is not to cherish it and hold it close to our hearts. Our job now is to turn around and to share this love with others. Our job is take this love and reflect it for every one to see.
So, in a very real sense, we, at St. Stephen’s, are doing what that first St. Stephen did. We have set the standard. We have journeyed out at time into uncharted territory. And most importantly, we have, by our love, by our compassion, been a reflection of what the Church—capital C—is capable of.

May God—that source of all love, that author and giver of all good things—continue to bless us with love and goodness. May we flourish and grow. And may we continue to venture bravely forward in all that we continue to do here among us and throughout the world.
Amen.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve
December 24, 2008

Luke 2.1-20

Most of us, throughout our lives, find ourselves clinging to life’s little pleasures. Occasionally, something fills us with such joy and happiness, that we find ourselves savoring that moment, clinging to it, hoping it will never end. They don’t happen often. We can’t make those moments happen by own concentrated will. Even more often, we don’t ask for them. They just happen when they’re meant to happen and sometimes they come upon us as a wonderful surprise.

Now, having said this, I’m going to admit something to you that will come as no surprise I’m sure. I really am a church geek. I love being in church. I always have. And the best times to be in church were always Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

One of life’s pleasures for me has always been Christmas Eve. And more specifically a Christmas Eve Mass. Some of my most pleasant memories are of this night and the liturgies I’ve attended on this night. Another of life’s small pleasures is Christmas morning. I especially enjoy going to church on Christmas morning. The world seems to pristine, so new. And one of my greatest pleasures as a priest, is to celebrate the Eucharist with you on this evening that is, in its purest sense, holy. And tomorrow morning I am looking forward to going to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and con-celebrating the Eucharist with the people of St. Mark’s.

I also understand the tendency we all have of getting caught up in society’s celebration of Christmas. It’s easy to find ourselves getting a bit hypnotized by the glitz and glamour we see about us. I admit I enjoy some of those sparkly Christmas displays. I occasionally enjoy a good Christmas commercial on TV. In fact, the other day, I was watching a show of classic commercials and one came on that instantly put me back into my childhood Christmases. I’m sure you’ll remember it too. It begins with the Ink Spots are singing “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire” Two very attractive people are in a very modern (by 1980s standards), sparsely decorated office overlooking the Transamerica Building in San Francisco. The man introduces himself as “Charles,” the woman as “Catherine.” Charles ask Catherine: “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” “No,” Catherine says. “What is it?” The shadow of a Leer jet flies across the Transamerica building. Then announcer then comes on and says: “Share the fantasy. Chanel no. 5”

For some reason, that commercial was synonymous with Christmas for me as a child. Yet it had nothing at all to do with Christmas. There wasn’t a Christmas tree in sight. Nothing about it spoke of Christmas. And yet, for me, it WAS Christmas. And I remember the joy I felt the first time I bought my mother a bottle of Chanel No. 5. So, yes, I understand how easy it is to fall to the temptations of what the world tells us is Christmas.

But what I think happens to most of us who enjoy those light and airy aspects of Christmas is that we often get so caught up in them, we start finding ourselves led astray into a kind of frivolousness about Christmas. We find ourselves led off into a place where Christmas becomes fluffy and saccharine and cartoonish. Christmas becomes a kind of billboard. The other day I was looking through a wonderful book called Atomic Kitchen. It was book of ads and billboards from the 1950s and early 1960s, advertising kitchen appliances. The ads from this time, as some of you might remember, portrayed a pristine world. It was a world in which the perfect family lived in the perfect home, with perfect meals being prepared in color-coordinated appliances. It was a world without troubles, without fear, without despair, or uncertainty. It was a world that, ultimately, did not reflect its time accurately. Rather, it reflected some impossible ideal that no one could attain.

That, I think, is what we experience in the secular understanding of Christmas time. The glitz and the glamour of the consumer-driven Christmas can be visually stunning. It can capture our imagination with its blinking lights and its bright wrapping, or, as in the case of the Chanel No. 5 commercial, it can do it without any bright lights and wrapping. But ultimately it promises something that it can’t deliver. It promises a joy and a happiness it really doesn’t have. It has gloss. It has glitter. It has a soft, fuzzy glow. But it doesn’t have real joy.

The Christmas we celebrate here tonight, in this church, is a Christmas of real joy. But it is a joy of great seriousness as well. It is a joy that humbles us and quiets us. It is a joy filled with a Light that makes all the glittery, splashy images around us pale in comparison. The Christmas we celebrate here is not a frivolous one. It is not a light, airy Christmas. Yes, it has a baby. Yes, it has angels and a bright shining star. But these are not bubblegum images. A birth of a baby in that time and in that place was a scary and uncertain event. Angels were not chubby little cherubs rolling about in mad abandon in some cloud-filled other-place. They were terrifying creatures—messengers of a God of Might and Wonder. And stars were often seen as omens—as something that could either bring great hope or great terror to the world.

The event we celebrate tonight is THE event in which God breaks through to us. And whenever God beaks through, it is not some gentle nudge. It is an event that jars us, provokes us and changes us. For people sitting in deep darkness, that glaring Light that breaks through into their lives is not the most pleasant thing in the world. It is blinding and painful. And what it exposes is sobering.

That is what Jesus does to us. That is what we are commemorating tonight. We are commemorating a “break through” from God—an experience with God that leaves us different people than we were before that encounter. What we experience is a Christmas that promises us something tangible. It promises us, and delivers, a real joy. The joy we feel tonight, the joy we feel at this Child’s birth, as the appearance of these angels, of that bright star, of that Light that breaks through into the darkness of our lives, is a joy that promises us something.

It is a teaser of what awaits us. It is a glimpse into the life we will have one day. It is a perfect joy that promises a perfect life. But just because it is a joyful event, does not mean that it isn’t a serious event. What we celebrate is serious. It is an event that causes us to rise up in a joyful happiness, while, at the same time, driving us to our knees in adoration. It is an event that should cause us not just to return home to our brightly wrapped presents, but it should also send us out into the world to make it, in some small way, a reflection of this life-changing joy that has come into our lives.

Throughout Advent I have been reading Advent of the Heart by Alfred Delp, a young German Jesuit priest who was killed by the Nazis on February 2, 1945. This is one of those books that has moved me to my very soul. All through Advent I found myself reading it again and again. My copy of the book is almost falling apart, I’ve read it that much. In the book, there is wonderful Advent play Delp wrote for children about ten years before his death. It ended with a monologue that captures perfectly a Christian understand of what Christmas truly is.

Delp wrote at the end of his play: “That is Christmas—that a hand from above reached into our lives and touches our hearts. That is Christmas, not the other things. My friends, believe it, we have to suffer a lot and hang on. Only then is it Christmas.

“Christmas is a not a sweet fairytale for little children—for happy nurseries…Christmas is serious—so serious—that [people] gladly—die for it. —Tell everyone—many things have to change—first—here—inside…

“Christmas means that God—touches us, —that [God]—grasps our hands—and lays them—on—[God’s]—heart. —That God comes—to us—and sets us free. —Tell everyone—the other isn’t Christmas, —only this—is—Christmas, —that—God—is—with—us.”

Tonight, is one of those moments in which true joy and gladness have come upon us. Cling to this moment. Savor it. Hold it close. Pray that it will not end. And let this joy you feel tonight be the strength that holds you up when you need to be held.

Tonight, God has touched us. God has grasped our hands. Our hands have been laid on God’s heart. This feeling we are feeling right now is the true joy that descends upon us when we realize God has come to us in our collective darkness as a Light that will never darken.

O Emmanuel

Isaiah 7:14

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

We go through our lives walking, side-by-side, with those we love and cherish. We go, though, not seeing their faces, not seeing at all. Together, side-by-side, we stumble forward, blindly grasping at each other.

Until he finds us! He! The One who comes to us as one one us. He comes to us with a Face like our face, with skin like our skin and blood like our blood. He comes and we realize how truly we had never seen before.

When he comes to us, we see as we have never seen before. We see him as we long to see him. And, in seeing him, we see ourselves and each other, even as we race, side-by-side, toward him in that gorious, light-filled moment which will never end.

O Rex Gentium

Isaiah 9.5

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

How we bristle at authority. How we rebel. How we fight the powers that be and hunker down into our own independence. In our rebellion, we have hardend our hearts. We have allowed ourselves to freeze up from within. We have allowed the stifling coldness of our hearts to harden us through to our very core.

Jesus, the King, the Ruler of us all, comes not as a despot or tyrant. He comes knowing us better than we know us. He comes, breaking the frost of our rebellion not with a weapon or his royal staff, but with his cross and with the warmth of his Presnece and the gentleness of his embrace.

St. Thomas

December 22, 2008 (transferred)
The Chapel of the Resurrection
Gethsemane Cathedral, Fargo

John 20.24-29

I am fascinated by the stories of the Apostles. What I enjoy probably more are the stories of what happened to them after the Gospels. Some of these stories are so magical, so legendary, I just shake my head at times.

St. Thomas’ story is similar. Of course, we all know the story of Thomas, how he doubted the resurrected Jesus until he was able to place his fingers in the wounds of Jesus. But I really enjoy the stories of what happened to Thomas after the Resurrection.

The story goes that in those days when the apostles spread across the world—Sts. Peter and Paul went off to Greece and Rome, St. John went to Asia Minor and eventually to Cyprus, St. Mark went to Egypt—St. Thomas went even farther east, it is believed. He went to India. There’s a wonderful story in a text attributed to Joseph of Arimathea that when the Virgin Mary was dying, all the apostles expect Thomas were miraculous transported to Jerusalem to be with her in her last moments on this earth. Thomas, however, was granted the greatest gift of all. He transported from India to her tomb and was the only apostle to witness her assumption to heaven. There’s is a beautiful icon of this event, with the Virgin ascending to heaven supported by an angel, and Thomas beneath. They are joined by what appears to be a red ribbon. This ribbon was thee Virgin’s girdle. In a strange reversal of the Gospel story, the other apostles refuse to believe Thomas’ story of the Virgin’s assumption until they saw her girdle.

One of the modern results of Thomas’ time in India is, of course, the Mar Thoma Church. The Mar Thomas Church claims to have been founded by Thomas. It defines it self in this way: it is "Apostolic in origin Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character.”

Coming out of the Jacobite Church of Malabar (Malankara Church), the Mar Thoma Church was reformed from several theological disputes in the 18th and 19th century by reforms from the Anglican Church. As a result, the Anglican Church has been in full communion with the Mar Thomas Church since 1929. And the Episcopal Church has been in full communion with the Mar Thomas Church since 1979.

The Mar Thomas Church is unique among churches because of its blending of Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Reformed or Protestant) traditions. A recent article from the Office of Ecumenical Relations in the Episcopal church states: “The Mar Thoma Church refers to the Apostle Thomas as its founder and has been historically situated mainly on the southwestern coast of India in what today is the State of Kerala. Presently, the Mar Thoma Church has about one million members, and the number of its members and parishes in North America has been growing. The church combines ancient tradition and the Eastern Syriac language of worship with renewal, as witnessed in the Reformation or Purification movement of the mid-19th century.”

So, the spirit and the fruits of St. Thomas continue to grow and flourish in the Church. And this is the message for us on this feast of St. Thomas. In fact the message of all the apostles to us is a great one. The message of apostles like doubting Thomas is that, like them, we are human too. We will fail and stumble and fall on our Christian journey, just as they did. Like Thomas, we will doubt. Like him, we will be obstinate. We will demand proof at times and without proof, we will question and we will doubt. But, like them, we will also succeed, despite the set-backs. Because, as they no doubt realized, it was not about them at all. It was about what Christ was doing through them that mattered. Christ managed to work through and to succeed through them despite their human failings.

And the same is true of us as well. Despite our human failings, despite our obstinate natures and our doubting ways, Christ still managed to use us. Despite us, the Light of Christ still manages to shine through us. So, as it showed through St. Thomas, let the Light of Christ also show through you. Do not let your doubts, your failings, your trip-ups along the way be shades to that Light. Rather let that Light burn away your failings. And allow yourself to disappear into and become one with that Light.

O Oriens

Isaiah 9.1

O Oriens,
splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.


In that unending night of despair, we imagine the morning will never dawn. In that long, cold, star-less night, when even the moon has fled to some far recess, we can’t even begin to imagine what the sun was like at noon the day before or how joyful the dawn felt.

But Jesus, the Morning Star, appears to us, at first, as a pinprick of Light. There, in the darkest part the night—in that seemingly fathomless void—a spark shines. And when it does not flicker out and die—when, in fact, is grows more bold, more powerful, more brilliant, we find ourselves rising. We are lifted toward it, without thinking. We move instinctively toward that Light that grows in the darkness of a night that we, only a moment before, thought would never end. And as we do, we find joy growing stronger and stronger by each excited heartbeat within us.

IV Advent

Dec. 21, 2008

Luke 1.26-38

Well, here we are. The last Sunday of Advent. The big Day—Christmas—is now almost agonizingly close. On the surface level, we hopefully, are as prepared as we can be. Presents are hopefully bought (I still have a few to buy). Cards have been sent. Menus have been prepared.

But spiritually, where are we? This time of Advent was a time for us to prepare ourselves spiritually for this glorious event. Has it been worthwhile? Are we prepared spiritually for this day?

The truly honest answer to that question can only be another question: are we ever truly prepared? Or maybe even more honest would be the question: what exactly are we preparing ourselves for? The answer to the first question finds its answer in the second question. What are we preparing ourselves for? What do we believe about this day that is about to dawn upon us? Do we believe it is just another holiday full of trinkets and caroling? Or do we believe that this Day is an awesome Day—a Day in which, truly God draws near to us. Probably the most meaningful way to examine our beliefs of this day is to examine what we believe about that auspicious doctrine Christians believe in called the Incarnation.

Now before you begin to groan inwardly (or outwardly) about another one of those big , overwhelming Church words, bear with me. Usually, whenever I teach a religion class, I begin with the Incarnation. And when I bring it up, I always get a collective blank look. The Incarnation immediately illicits a reaction similar to what most of us react to when we hear about algebra or calculus. It seems beyond us. The Incarnation does seem like a strange, difficult thing for us to wrap our minds around. But I then usually break the word down.

In-carn-ation.

Let’s start out with some simple Latin. Carne means? Meat, or flesh. Think carnivore. Meat eater. Carnival, the celebration before Ash Wednesday, means “farewell to the flesh.” It means, giving up meat for Lent, but it also reminds us that we all must say farewell to our own flesh one day. So carne means flesh. Incarnation means, In the flesh. And when we apply it to theology, it means that God has come to us in the flesh.

That is what we are hearing about in today’s Gospel reading with the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary and that is what we are celebrating this coming week in the birth of Jesus. In the Gospel reading, we are looking back roughly nine months from now. We are looking back to that moment when the Divine took flesh, when God became human at Mary’s “yes” to the Angel.

Incarnation—God made flesh—is at the heart of what we as Christians believe. It is the defining belief among us. It is what makes us different than our Jewish brothers and sisters. Yes, we believe in the same God. But we believe that this same God has taken on human flesh and come among us. It is what makes us different than our Muslim brothers and sisters. Again, we believe in the same God. Yes, they revere Jesus as a great prophet and Mary as a truly holy servant of God, but they cannot quite accept the fact that God has become flesh in the person of Jesus.

We, as Christians, do believe this. We profess it every week in our Creed. We celebrate it in our scripture reading. And we partake of this belief in a very tangible way at the altar when we share Holy Communion with each other. Everything we do as Christians proclaims the fact we believe that, in Jesus, God has come among us.

The fact is, most of us probably haven’t given the Incarnation a whole lot of thought. Even the early Christians struggled with this belief and defined it in various ways. For us, though, as Episcopalians, we do believe in this remarkable fact. And we celebrate it at every opportunity we can.

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate it—here at the altar. Our Eucharist is a remembrance of the fact that, yes, he did have a human body. He had a body like our bodies and blood like our blood. But he was also more than us. He also encompassed everything we longed for and hoped in. He was—and is—God.

When we look at the history of the relationship between God and humanity, it has been a difficult one at best. As we’ve seen in scripture, over and over again, whether it was in the Garden of Eden, with the Israelites wandering the Wilderness, through years of exile and repatriation, God seemingly is always trying to break through to us , and we have been consistently resisting it. But in Jesus, we find the ultimate breaking through.

God speaking through oracles and prophets, through pillars of cloud by day and pillars of fire by night, through burning bushes, donkeys, and even pagan kings, just didn’t work. Finally, God took on human flesh and dwelled among us as one of us, speaking to us as one of us. And although many of us are still resisting it, those of us who recognize it and see it, realize that God has truly broken through to us.

There is a wonderful tradition of prayer in the Christian Church that I have always loved. It is called “the Angelus” Traditionally, the so-called “Angelus bell” would ring three times a day, usually once in morning, once at noon and once in evening. People would stop at the sound of the bell and would pray the Angelus. No doubt you’ve sent the very famous painting called “The Angelus” by Jean-Francois Millet of the farmers pausing in the midst of their field work to bow their heads in prayer.

The Angelus consists of three Hail Mary’s—the prayer based, yet again, on our Gospel reading from today—interspersed with vesicles from our Gospel reading today. It begins with:
V. The angel of the Lord announced unto Mary.R. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.R. Be it unto me according to your Word.
V. And the Word was made flesh.R. And dwelt among us.
Then it ends with a wonderful collect that summarizes the Incarnation for us:
Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that as we have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel to the Virgin Mary, so by his cross and passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection; through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Angelus is, in a sense, a theological microcosm of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is certainly mystery. It is beyond our understanding and our rational thought that God could come and become flesh.

But at the same time, for those of us who have faith in God, we can just easily ask the question: why not? Why couldn’t God do just this? Why couldn’t God come among us and dwell with us as one of us. Certainly this is the reality we face Wednesday night and Thursday. For those of us who have been preparing ourselves spiritually for this day, this is what we are forced to examine and face. Our faith might not be quite at that point hat we believe all of it. But what our faith does tell us is that, whatever happens on that day, it is God breaking through to us in some wonderful and mysterious way. And all we have to do is not be stubborn or close-minded and cold-hearted. Rather, all we have to do is be open to that breaking through to us.

The Word was made flesh. And dwelt among us. Our response to that word should be the words of Mary when this incredible mystery descended upon her.

Let it be with me according to your word.

God has broken through to us. Let us meet God at that point of breakthrough rejoicing. And let us come away from that breaking through to us with God’s word being proclaimed in our own voice.

O Clavis David

Isaiah 22:22

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Darkness is our prison. It is the jail we scape to in our fear, in our anxiety, in our frustration. In that dark place, we find temporary relief. We find ourselves holding onto our blemishes, our warts, out imperfections. We clutch them close in the dank lightless place we call shelter. And in that place, we convince ourselves that our inperfections don’t exist.

Jesus, the Key, opens the door to our prison. We find, as we grope toward the door way, we do so reluctantly. Our prison has become the closest place to home we know. It has become as familiar to us as our own bodies.

Jesus, the Key, destroys that prison as soon as we exit it. He tears open the doors, pulling it from its hinges. He dismantled the walls, the floors, every last stone. The doorway through which we walked into the Light is truly the gateway to compelte and glorious freedom, And in that place of freedom, we discover that what we once were ashamed of, has, in this Light been made perfect and beautiful.

O Radix Jesse

Isaiah 11.1, 10

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.


O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.


“Plants are the center and source of life,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomoew wrote. “Plants are the wisest of teachers, the best models. Their roots dig deep, while their reach is high.”

We, too, are rooted deeply into our humanity. We are who we are through our roots. Still, rooted as we are to our humanity and this earth beneath us, we also reach high. We also strain, in our rootedness, toward the Goal of our existence.

Jesus, rooted in humanity and still encompassing everything from above, nourishes us from both below and above. We, unworthy of it, find ourselves fulfilled by this life-giving Presence we longed for, but didn’t ask for; hoped in, but couldn’t find the words to speak with our own lips.

O Adonai

Isaiah 11:4-5; 33:22

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

Fire burned and did not consume the bush. From that fire, Adonai spoke to Moses and called him by his name. In that place where bush, fire and Adonai met, even the ground beneath Moses became too holy for his feet.

In Jesus, our humanity, fire and Adonai once again meet. From that confluence, Adonai still calls to us by name and speaks to to us with a voice more familiar than our own. And when we turn toward this calling, we know without being told that the very ground of our lives has become more sacred than we have ever even imagined.

O Sapientia

Isaiah 11:2-3; 28:29


O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.


We live in an intellectual half-light. Not a complete darkness, but a perptual dusk of sorts. We have a vague awarenss. For the most part, however, wisdom eludes us. We have moments of brilliant clarity. We have precious moments in which everything falls perfectly into place. Thosee moments are, sadly, for the most part, few and far between.

In Jesus, our Wisdom, we find wisdom with no elusiveness. In Jesus our Wisdom is the sun-like wisdom that burns away the dusk, the midnight and the pre-dawn of our ignorance. Jesus, our Wisdom, truly comes to us where are are—in the half-light of our intellegence—and teaches us. He teaches us by not only the Word that comes from his mouth, but by the example of his Presence among us.

III Advent

December 14, 2008

Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11; Canticle 3; 1 Thes. 5.16-24


Today is Gaudete Sunday. This is probably my favorite Sunday in one of my favorite liturgical seasons. Traditionally, on Gaudete Sunday, we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath. This pink candle is a sign to us that the shift has happened. Now there are more candles lit than are unlit. The light has won out and the darkness is not an eternal darkens.

Gaudete means “rejoice” and we should do just that on this Sunday. We should rejoice in the light that is winning out. We should rejoice in the fact that darkness has no lasting power over us.
This Sunday sets a tone different than the one we’ve had so-far in Advent. We find that word—rejoice—throughout our scriptural readings today. It is the theme of the day. It is the emotion that permeates everything we hear in the Liturgy of the Word on this Sunday.

In our reading from the Hebrew Bible, in Isaiah, we hear

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God;
In our Epistle, we find even Paul rejoicing. “Rejoice always,” he writes to the church at Thessalonika .

And in our canticle, we find that beautiful song of joy, the Magnificat—Mary’s rapturous song of rejoicing.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

This emotion of joy is something we oftentimes take for granted. Let’s face it, joy doesn’t happen often enough in our lives. It is a rare occurrence for the most part. And maybe it should be. It is certainly not something we want to take for granted. When joy comes to us, we want to let it flow through us. We want it to guide us and overwhelm us. But we often don’t think about how essential joy is to us.

Joy is essential to all of us as Christians. It is one of those marks that make us who we are as Christians. If we look closely at the lives of the saints, they are the ones who show us the way forward. And they are the ones who are marked with joy. They are the ones who have let joy come upon them and transform them. They are the ones who, even in sometimes overwhelming and frightening times, when overcome by darkness and despair, have still let joy come to them and be present in them.

You often hear me commend The Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. In Lesser Feasts and Fasts, we commemorate our saints in the Episcopal Church—those people who have shown themselves to us as examples of positive Christian living. What a lot of people who enjoy Lesser Feasts and Fasts don’t realize is that there are actual criteria for people to be included in the calendar of saints in the Episcopal Church and thus, to be included in Lesser Feasts and Fasts. These guidelines are actually included in the very back of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. For a person to be considered as a “saint” in the Episcopal Church, they must have a heroic faith, love, goodness of life, service to other for Christ’s sake, devotion, Recognition by the faithful and historical perspective. They also must have “joyousness”

The guidelines go on to say: “As faith is incomplete without love, so does love involve ‘rejoicing in the Spirit’—whether in the midst of extraordinary trials, or in the midst of the ordinary rounds of daily life. A Christian may not fail in the works of love, but still lack the joy of it—thereby falling short of true Christian sanctity. Such joy, however, is as much a discipline of life as an emotion. It need not lie on the surface of a person’s life, but may run deeply and be discerned by others only gradually.” (p. 487 Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2006)

I love that definition of joy. I want to repeat two parts of this definition:

First, “Such joy… is as much a discipline of life as an emotion.” Joy is a discipline It is a discipline that we must cultivate. And sometimes, cultivating joy in the midst of overwhelming sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression can seems overwhelming and impossible. That’s why it is a discipline. When things like sorrow or pain or loneliness or depression descend upon—and they descend upon us all—we need to cling to joy. We need to search deep within us for that joy that we have as Christians. That joy comes when we put our pains into perspective. That joy comes when we recognize that these dark moments that happen in our lives are not eternal. They will not last forever.

That, I think, is where we sometimes fail. When we are in the midst of those negative emotions in our lives, we often feel as though they will never end. We often feel as though we will always be lonely, we always be sad, we will always mourn.

But as Christians, we can’t allow ourselves to be boxed in in such a way. As Christians, we are forced, again and again, to look at the larger picture. We are forced to see that joy is always there, just beyond our grasp, awaiting us. Joy is there when we realize that in the midst of our darkness, there is always light just beyond our reach.

Second, “[Joy] need not lie on the surface of a person’s life, but may run deeply and be discerned by others only gradually.”

Abbot Philip Lawrence, OSB, the Abbot of Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, shares a wonderful reflection of a young Vietnamese monk who recently died at the monastery at age 38. Abbot Philip writes, “My memories of [Brother John Dat] in the week before I left for Italy are all memories of joy and gladness. Brother John…seemed to have in that week some inner experience of happiness and it just sort of shone out of him. For an abbot to have a monk die is like losing a son in many ways. For the community it is like losing a brother. Such losses bring us always before the face of God. Such losses ask our hearts: Do you believe in the resurrection of Christ? If Christ has risen from the dead, then our brother has risen with him now. And Christ has risen and our brother will rise with Him and we can rejoice even when our hearts are sad at his sudden loss.”

That image of Brother John’s joy and gladness as being an inner experience that shined out of him is exactly the kind of true joy that is being commended to us in the guidelines for saints in The Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. Joy doesn’t mean walking around smiling all the time. It doesn’t mean that we have force ourselves to be happy at all times in the face of every bad thing. If we do that, we become nothing more than a programmed robot or a trained puppy. True joy comes bubbling up from within us. It comes from a deep place and it permeates our whole being, no matter what else is going on in our lives or in the world around us.

In the Magnificat, our canticle for today, we find Mary singing this glorious song. Those words: “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” sums up in such beautiful language this kind of joy that runs deep. It is a joy that comes from deep within our very essence—from that place of our true selves. And it is a joy that allows us to say with humble confidence (and not arrogance): let life throw at us what it will. Even in the face of everything terrible or sad, I will rejoice.

Advent is, essentially, a penitential season. It is a season in which we acknowledge, honestly, that we have failed. It is a time for us to recognize that we are slugging through the muck of our lives—a muck we are, at least in part, responsible for. But Advent is also a time for us to be able to rejoice even in the midst of that muck. It is a time for us realize that we will not be in that muck for ever. The muck doesn’t win out. The joy we carry deep within us wins out.

So, as we gather together this morning, and as we leave here this morning, let us remember the joy we feel at seeing this pink candle lit. We have made it this far. The tide has shifted. The light is winning out. The dawn is about to break upon our long dark night.

As you ponder this, as you meditate on this, as you take this with you in your hearts, pay special attention to the emotion this causes within you. Embrace that welling up of joy from deep within. And let it proclaim on your lips the words you, along the prophet Isaiah, long to say:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God;

The Conception of the B.V.M.

December 8, 2008

Luke. 1. 26

In the Anglo-Catholic tradition, today is the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Roman Catholic tradition, it is the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. For me personally—it’s my birthday.

I have always considered myself fortunate to celebrate my birthday on such a beautiful feast day of Our Lady. As I look back over my spiritual life—all the way back to when I was thirteen and first called to the Priesthood on the Feast of Visitation of the B.V.M.—I realize that Mary has been present with me every step of the way. There she was at every turn, at every trip-up, at every long stretch. Her presence in my life was, in my spiritual eye, always a purely blue, purely gentle and warm and maternal presence there on the fringes.

Throughout the hard times, throughout the set-backs and the spiritual stumblings, I more often than not sought refuge in that presence and took great consolation in it. And I also found great consolation in the fact that one did not have to be a Roman Catholic to have such a deep and abiding devotion to her.

As for the particulars of this feast—this feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary—I have always been ambivalent. I have tried to avoid getting into discussions about whether she was conceived without sin or not, whether she remained a virgin or not. Ultimately, talk of that sort seems so trashy and uncouth. But I have recently cherished something Beverly Donofrio (author of Riding in the Car with Boys) wrote in her wonderful memoir, Looking For Mary: Or, the Blessed Mother and Me. Donofrio writes:

Yes. The Church needed Mary to be a virgin…Her womb may have been a walled garden, but it was graced with fertile soil where something new and unexpected could grow; her abiding virginity was a sign that even the impossible is possible with God.

That’s what makes this feast day so wonderful for me. Maybe she wasn’t conceived without sin. Maybe she didn’t remain a virgin. Maybe even there was no virgin birth. But, I always love the “what if.” These issues of Mary’s virginity are chock-full of “what ifs.” What if she was all of those things? If she was—as she would be the first and quickest to remind us—it wasn’t Mary who did it. If she was all of those things, it was God who did it. It was God who made these wonderful things happen in her. And if God did it, then truly “the impossible is possible with God.” Isn’t that what we all believe anyway? Isn’t that what we all cling to and hope in? Isn’t that what makes our faith in God true faith?


There is a beautiful litany included in the Manual pilgrims to the shrine at Walsingham use. In that Litany, there is a beautiful prayer I return to again and again. I return to it again on this beautiful Feast day of Our Lady’s Conception—and my birthday.

“O Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life,
as you overshadowed Mary that she might be the Mother of Jesus our Savior
so work silently in my heart,
to form within me the fullness of his redeemed and redeeming humanity.
Give me his loving heart,
to burn with love for God and love for my neighbour;
give me a share of his joy and sorrow.
his weakness and his strength,
his labour for the world’s salvation.
May Mary, blessed among women,
Mother of our Saviour,
pray for me,
that Christ may be formed in me,
that I may live in union of heart and will
with Jesus Christ, her Son, our Lord and Saviour.

II Advent

December 7, 2008

Psalm 85. 1-2, 8-13

The writer on one of my favorite blogs—Joe Versus the Volcano—shares the following insight this past week:

“I remember,” he writes, “a....priest (who was more Catholic in his theology than most Catholic priests I’ve come across), saying that the Second Coming happens every time the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ on the altar and we receive Him in holy communion.”

I touched on this thinking a bit last week, but it’s always good to think about it again. No matter where your Eucharistic theology might lie—whether you believe wholeheartedly in the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist or that what we do is merely symbolic of his Body and Blood—the fact does remain that something very important happens here, at this altar every Sunday as we gather. We experience, in a very unique and wonderful way, the Presence of Christ when we gather together at this altar and share these common and very simple and vital gifts of bread and wine. No matter what you believe about how Jesus is present to us at this moment, he is present. He does come to us here and we do feel him present—in the bread, in the wine, in the presence of those who gather with us and who kneel beside us at the rail.

Now, I make no secret of my belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I truly believe that Jesus is present in a unique and beautiful way in the bread and the wine we share with each other. I also believe that Jesus is uniquely present even in the reserved sacrament we place here in the aumbry.

There is a reason we keep the sanctuary light lit before the aumbry. It reminds us that Jesus is present here in a special way. I love driving past St. Stephen’s at night and seeing the deep red glow of the sanctuary light shining through the windows. It is a very visible and meaningful reminder to me that Jesus is present here in a very real way. During Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when the Eucharist is removed from the aumbry and that sanctuary light is extinguished, it too reminds us of Jesus’ presence among us and the absence of that presence when we commemorate that time he spent in the tomb.

At the same time, having professed my belief in the Real Presence, I just as quick to say that I am not a stickler as to the particulars of how Jesus comes among us in the Eucharist. I just read a wonderful new book by the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, called Encountering the Mystery. In this book, Patriarch Bartholomew talks about how important mystery is to the Orthodox understanding of God. He writes:

“The sacraments are the Church’s way of restoring the intimacy between God and the world…They are gifts from God, given in order to appropriate wholeness through transformation. Orthodox Christians in fact prefer to speak ‘mystery’ rather than ‘sacrament’… In this respect, every aspect of divine life is sacramental. Mystery is that sacred space or moment when humanity and creation encounter the transcendent God.”
(Encountering the Mystery p. 86-87)


And that is how we should approach the Eucharist as well. Each Sunday, we gather here and witness a mystery. We, together, participate in something that we might not understand and we might not fully appreciate. But it is, as we all realize, important and wonderful and beautiful.
In what we do here at the altar, we experience Jesus. We see Jesus, we feel Jesus, we taste Jesus. As the contemporary Italian saint, St. Gaetano Catanoso (1897-1963) said, "If we wish to adore the real Face of Jesus, we can find it in the divine Eucharist, where with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Face of Our Lord is hidden under the white veil of the Host".
So, in a very real way, the anxious waiting we are doing during this season of Advent is like the anxious waiting we should do when coming to this altar. It all about anticipation. It is all about our deepest hopes and desires being realized. And they are realized—in Christ. Because they are realized in Christ, we find them realized whenever we encounter Christ.

As I said last week, the Advent of Christ’s coming happens again and again in our lives. Whenever we meet Christ—in the hedges and the highways, as Bishop Frank Weston once proclaimed to us, in the naked and sweated—we find Jesus coming among us yet again. Or, as Patriarch Bartholomew writes in Encountering the Mystery:

“[The Eucharist] challenges individuals and communities to work for a just society, where basic food and water are plentiful for all and where everyone has enough.”

Whenever we meet Christ in the Eucharist, we emerge transformed. We are not the same people were before Communion. We are a people challenged to then go out and share this Communion with others in whatever way we can.

What we are longing for in this season is not something vague and distant. It is not something so mysterious that we can’t fathom it. Rather, what we long for is, truly, fulfillment. It is the fulfillment of all that seems to be missing in us. It is the fulfillment of our anxieties and our frustrations and our depressions and our hopelessness.

In a very real way, the words of our psalm today give voice to what we are unable to say in our hope. When we hear those words,

Truly, [your] salvation is very near to those who fear [you], *
that [your] glory may dwell in our land.

To fear God doesn’t mean to live in fear. It simply means an awesome respect and wonder for God. And for those of us who have such a respect for God we will find God’s glory in our midst. In the Eucharist, in this bread and wine, in this tabernacle, in this unique and real Presence we experience here, we find truly that God’s glory is not out there somewhere—in some distant heaven. Rather, God in Jesus, has come to us and remains among us in a very real and tangible way. In this Eucharist, God’s glory truly does dwell in our land and we are fortunate to be able to partake in it. In God’s Presence among us, we realize, if we truly open ourselves to this experience, that our frustrations, our depressions, all of our spiritual and psychological pains have been healed and our longings have been realized. We don’t need to look anywhere else than right here. And, in that moment of realization, only poetry can truly express what we feel.

In this psalm, we find that lovely verse:

Mercy and truth have met together; *
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. In that phrase we are able to find joy bubbling up from one’s lips and it being captured in words. In that meeting of righteousness—of what we know is true and right—and peace—that sense of quietness and confidence within us—we know God is present.

Truth shall spring up from the earth, *
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Before we celebrate the Eucharist together, during the offertory, after the gifts of bread and wine have been brought to the altar, you will see me praying quietly to myself as I touch the bread and the wine. The prayers I pray here are not secret or private. They are just prayers of offering. When I hold the bread, I pray,

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

And when I hold the wine, I pray,

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, the fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.

In the Eucharist, in these gifts of the earth—this bread which the earth has given and this fruit of the vine—in them, Truth—Jesus himself being the Way, the Truth and the Life—springs forth. The very world in which inhabit—and not just this physical earth, but the our spiritual world, the world of our very essence and existence—will proclaim the truth of God’s Presence among us.

The LORD will indeed grant prosperity, *
and our land will yield its increase.

The truth we have realized is that our fulfillment is only in God. Only in God will we find our anxieties quieted, our hopes realized. At the altar, when we share this bread and wine with one another, we know what true spiritual increase means.

Righteousness shall go before [the LORD], *
and peace shall be a pathway for [God’s] feet.

It’s all right here—in this beautiful poem. What we do here at the altar is important. It is vital to our understanding of ourselves as Christians. It is a wonderful and glorious mystery that we shouldn’t try to pin down and analyze too deeply. We should rather accept it and delight in it and let us fill us and fulfill us.

In these days of Advent, as we prepare to remember Jesus’ first coming among us, our time at the altar should take on special meaning and precedence for us. We should give true and deep thanks for the opportunity to have Jesus come to us in such a unique and wonderful way. And as we come to the altar, with our joy bubbling up from within us, with our anxieties and fears and depressions allayed by the healing balm of this bread and wine, of the healing Presence of our God, we too are able to proclaim with honesty and truth,

You have been gracious to your land, O LORD, *
you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.

You have forgiven the iniquity of your people *
and blotted out all their sins.

I Advent

November 30, 2008

Psalm 80. 1-7, 16-18; 1 Corinthians 1.3-9; Mark 13.24-37

In today’s scriptures we find everything turning. The vision has shifted. We are not looking back. We are not looking inward. We are not looking at each other. Our vision has been forced, collectively, to the future. We are looking to the future and to all it holds for us. We are looking into what seems to be the darkness. And our spiritual eyes are struggling to adjust—to focus.

At first, it seems as though we can’t. The darkness of the future is just too deep. Yes, we know that there might be hope somewhere there—we know that the potential hopes and dreams we carry with us might be there, somewhere in the dark, but we simply can’t see them.

The darkness also reminds us that the future holds fear and insecurity as well. The future holds the potential also for pain and loss and all other kinds of uncertainty. On this first Sunday of Advent, as we gather here, squinting warily into this uncertain darkness, we are reminded of two things.

First of all, we are reminded of what awaits us there in there darkness. If we look hard enough, if we look patiently enough, we will see it. There, in that darkness, it will appear as maybe a spark or a flash. It might seem like our spiritual eyes are playing with us. But if we are truly astute—if we spiritually attuned—we will know in our essence that it is not a figment of our imagination. That spark of light, the soft gray glow is none other than light.

As we progress through Advent, that light will become brighter and clearer and more defined. To our eyes, as used as they are to the darkness, it might become almost blinding. But that Light awaiting us at the edge of our spiritual darkness—that Light that is breaking through into the very midst of our collective darkness—is none other than that which we hear about in our reading from Paul’s letter.

In Paul’s letter, we find a name given to this momentous event—this moment in which the Light breaks through—this moment we are all deeply longing for. It is “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the Old Testament, this day—the day of the Lord, the day of Yahweh—was a day of fear. It was something to dread and to wish would not happen, because it was a day in which God’s wrath would be wrought on the earth.

For us, it isn’t the same. For us, as Christians, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ is a glorious and wonderful day. It is the day in which God breaks through to us finally and completely. It is the day in which everything that separates us from God is broken down and destroyed. It is the day on which whatever barriers there are between us and God are once and for all time destroyed.

The day of our Lord Jesus Christ is a glorious day. And this Advent time is a time in which we are reminded that this is exactly what we are looking toward and longing for in our spiritual lives. This day of our Lord Jesus Christ is the day when the light of Christ breaks through into the darkness of our lives. It is the day in which the blinding, all encompassing Light of Christ breaks into not only our collective darkness, but also into our personal, individual darknesses as well.

And it is there. The day is just there beyond our spiritual vision. In the darkest moments of the night, it is hard to imagine the dawn. But that day is about dawn into our lives.

Which leads us to the second point of which we are reminded. In our Gospel, we find the rallying cry of Advent—the word that captures perfectly what we should be doing during this season. It’s just one simple word.

“Watch.”

Our job as Christians is sometimes no more than this. It is a matter of watching. Our lives as Christians are sometimes responses to our watching. For those of us impatient in our watching, our impatience sometimes manifests itself in our spiritual life and in our relationship with others. When we become impatient in our watching, we sometimes forget what it is we are watching for. We sometimes, in our intense watching, fail to see.

One of my favorite pieces of Christian literature is the famous dictum of Frank Weston, the early 20th Century Anglican Bishop of Zanzibar. Weston wrote a piece that is a perfect reminder to us as we leave church each Sundays. But it is also a reminder to us who might be watching for the day of Our Lord Christ too closely. In it, we find that the day of Our Lord Jesus is not some apocalyptic event in the future—some rending of the skies and thunderous descent from heaven. It is not the day in which we encounter the Judge Christ on his mighty throne. Rather, the day of Our Lord Jesus sometimes dawns in our lives again and again. Sometimes we are so accustomed to the darkness of our lives, we become blinded and cannot even recognize the dawn.

Bishop Weston writes;
You are Christians!
Then your Lord is one and the same
with Jesus on the throne of his glory,
with Jesus in his Blessed Sacrament,
with Jesus received into your hearts in Communion,
with Jesus who is mystically with you as you pray,
and with Jesus enshrined in the hearts and bodies of his brothers and sisters
up and down the world.

Now go out into the highways and hedges,
and look for Jesus in the ragged and naked,
in the oppressed and sweated,
in those who have lost hope,
and in those who are struggling to make good.
Look for Jesus in them;
and when you find him,
gird yourselves with his towel of fellowship,
and wash his feet in the person of his brethren.

For us, the day of our Lord Jesus comes when we do just that It comes when, in our watching, we see the rays of the light breaking through to us in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Communion we share and receive. Certainly, in a very real sense, today is the day of the Lord Jesus. Today, as Reginald Fuller said, “the Church experiences a rending of the heavens in each liturgy, when Christ comes down in his sacrament to visit the people in their need.”

But those rays also break through when, in our watching, we recognize Jesus in the ragged and naked. Those rays of the Day of our Lord Jesus breaks through when we can see Jesus in “all the oppresses and sweated, in those who have lost hope, and in those who are struggling to make good.” Those rays break through when we can even recognize Jesus in the ragged and naked, oppressed and sweated, hopeless person struggling to make good who stares back at us in our own mirrors.

In this beautiful Sarum blue Advent season, we are reminded that the day of our Lord Jesus is about dawn upon us. The rays of the bright sun-lit dawn are already started the lighten the darkness of our lives. All we have to is watch. And, in watching, we have to see. We cannot, when that day dawns, be found sleeping. Rather, when that Day of our Lord Jesus dawns, let us greet it joyfully. Let us run toward that dawn as we never have before in our lives. Let the joy within us—the joy we have hid, we have dried to kill—the joy we have not allowed ourselves to feel—come pouring forth on that glorious day. As we run to greet that dawn, let us do so with song, with our souls singing,

Restore us, O God of hosts;*
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Thanksgiving Eve

November 26, 2008

Matthew 17.11-19

This evening I appear before you half the man I used to be. As some of you might know, I have lost over 70 pounds since last year. I don’t’ have to tell you that 70 pounds is a lot of weight. We’ve all seen those infomercials with doctors showing what 10 or 20 pounds of fat look like. Or those commercials in which they tell us that carrying that much weight is the equivalent of carrying around a certain number of bowling balls.

It has been an incredible experience for me. I don’t feel, physically, the way I did before. I feel lighter and more comfortable in physical body than I ever have before. I love buying new clothes—clothes that fit me and look good on me.

Losing that much weight is not just a physical experience; it is an emotional and psychological experience as well. I can tell you in all honesty that losing that much weight involves a radical change of thought regarding food.

And what I realized in my understanding of food and how I dealt with it, was that, for the most part, we don’t even think about what we’re eating or why we’re eating. We eat out of habit. We eat because our internal clocks tell us, not because our stomachs tell us. We eat because we’re bored, or because we can, or because we just don’t want food to go to waste. And even if we eat our meals on time, we still are tempted to snack on foods when we’re not hungry. Still, even with all that food we eat, we find out that food does go to waste. We will no doubt see a lot of our own food go to waste tomorrow and in the days and weeks to come.

In the Litany of Thanksgiving, which can be found on page 837 in the Prayer Book, which we will pray together in a few moments, we find a petition there that really speaks to that mindlessness we all sometimes have regarding food. The petition begins, “ For our daily food and drink…We thank you, Lord.

The fact is, we really don’t. We don’t thank God as we should for the food and drink we receive daily, because we are just so used to this food. And as a result of our thanklessness, we take advantage of food. We eat without thinking, or without gratitude. We use food not for nourishment, not for sustenance, but to fill our own needs. We use food to fill the spiritual and psychological gaps within us.

Only when I stopped eating mindlessly was I able to truly change everything about myself and how I ate. When people see me now after not having seen me in a while and notice the weight I’ve lost, they almost always ask: “How did you do it?” I have no problem telling anyone my secret—a secret that, if I was more of an entrepreneur—I would exploit. If I was more motivated to just make money in a get-rich quick scheme, I could go out and make a load of money by writing some self-help diet book. The title of that book would be a catchy title that captures perfectly the secret of my weight loss. And it is a simple formula, and it’s one that truly works. And if more people followed it, I would guarantee that they would lose weight. The secret formula is this—nothing more, nothing less:

Eat less. Move more.

Just that and nothing more. There’s no special food you have to eat less of. I didn’t cut out carbs, or dairy, or count calories. I didn’t drink diet shakes or only eat grapefruit or drink liquids and no solids. I simply took what food I normally ate and just cut it in half. And…I got up and moved. I didn’t push myself physically. I didn’t work out to the point of exhaustion. I simply just moved. And the weight, slowly but surely came off. I stopped snacking. I stopped eating everything on my plate. I stopped eating without thinking. I stopped eating when I wasn’t hungry. I started eating smaller portions. I ate when I was hungry—when I felt hunger—real hunger—a feeling I hadn’t felt in years—in my stomach.

All of this, of course, is important to ponder and consider as we prepare ourselves for our meals tomorrow. Yes, it’s good to be with family. It’s good to sit down and eat and drink and be nourished both physically and emotionally. And we need to be thankful for that nourishment. But we also need, at this time of Thanksgiving, to think about our spiritual nourishment as well. Our spiritual nourishment comes to us not through food or drink. Our spiritual nourishment comes through awareness. It comes through mindfulness. It comes through being awake spiritually so that we can live fully and completely. And sometimes to wake ourselves up spiritually, to be mindful, we need to deny ourselves.

In tonight’s Gospel reading, we find the ten lepers coming before Jesus, and crying out to him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Mercy is a strange and wonderful thing. In this Gospel, we find that mercy is given to all of them. The ones who ultimately are unable to show their gratitude are still healed by the end of the story. And the one who is thankful doesn’t get anything additional from Jesus. Or at least, on the surface, it doesn’t seem like he does. There is no additional miracle. The result is the same. But the one who is grateful is the one comes back to Jesus, prostrates himself and thanks him.

By prostrating himself—by humbling himself in that way—he is not making himself the center of his life anymore. He is, in a very real way, denying himself. By prostrating himself, we know that he has been mindfulness enough, aware enough, that something great and powerful has happened in his life and he has went back to the source of this powerful change to express his gratitude. And we know that this awareness has humbled him. This mindfulness of what has happened to him has not sent him off to mindlessly bask in his renewed health. Rather, it has sent him to his knees in gratitude. In doing so, what he does come away with is not only healing, but his renewed faith. That is what makes all the difference in his life.

Today, we too have seen mercy come into our lives. It has come into our lives as grace. It has come raining into our life in more ways that we can fully recollect or express gratitude for.
In our Litany, we find another wonderful petition. In that petition, we pray, “For all that is gracious in the lives of men and women, revealing the image of Christ, we thank you, Lord.” When those moments of graciousness—of pure and holy grace—come into our lives, we find Christ in our midst. Like those ten lepers in tonight’s Gospel, grace came to them in their healing. Did they deserve the healing? Well, you can be the judge of that. Certainly some people would very quickly say, “No, they didn’t. Their ungrateful attitude makes void whatever they deserved.” But the fact that the healing stayed with them despite the fact they did not say “thank you,” was a grace to them.

In a similar way, that is what we should be pondering and being thankful for tonight and tomorrow. When those moments of grace have com into our lives, have we been thankful? Have we been mindful and aware of them? In our mindfulness and awareness, have we seen the revealed image of Christ in those grace-filled moments of our life? If we have, have we, like the one of leper, prostrated ourselves—denied ourselves—and expressed our deep-felt gratitude to Christ.

Tomorrow eat and drink and be grateful. But also be mindful. Be aware. Be moderate in your consumption and consider the fact that the grace sin your life are wonderful and beautiful. You are surrounded by loved ones, by food and drink and emotional and spiritual security, while others, at this same time, are not. Others are not so fortunate. Other are starving, are lost, are lonely, are slaves to their addictions and their obsessions and their pains. And knowing that—being aware of that—let this awareness humble you. Let it send you also to your knees in gratitude. Let it change you and heal you where you need to be healed. When you get up from your knees, be aware that what you have is more than just healing. It is renewed faith.

“Get up and go your way; your faith has made you well.” These are the words that should be ringing in our ears on this Thanksgiving. These are the words that should give fuel to the fire of our own personal thankfulness.

Christ the King

November 23, 2008
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

Matthew 25.31-46

I have now been your priest at St. Stephen’s for almost two months. In that time, I’ve confessed a few things during my sermons that seem fairly innocent. Last week, I confessed my laziness in the fourth grade and my love of the film Auntie Mame. A few weeks before that, I confessed that my big mouth got me in trouble a few times in my life.

But today, I’m going to reveal a part of myself that is, let’s say, a bit darker. Now, already I can sense some of you bracing yourselves for whatever this dark revelation might be. 

Well, my revelation to you is this: I love horror movies. And not just any horror movies. I’m not fond of the slasher, violence-for-the-sake-of-violence kind of horror film. My favorite kind of horror films are the apocalyptic ones.

One of my favorite movies in the last few years is the M. Night Shyamalan film Signs, which deals with an Episcopal priest, played by Mel Gibson, who has lost his faith just before aliens invade the earth and attempt to wipe out the human race. Or, Shyamalan’s newer film (which was universally panned by critics), The Happening, about a neurotoxin released by plants and carried by wind that caused people to commit suicide in mass numbers and in very gruesome ways.

I also like the George Romero Night of the Living Dead zombie films. These zombie really give voice, I think, to the fear we all have inherently of death.

And just last week my good friend Greg recommended a book that I ended up reading in one night. The book is called The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a very touching and moving book about a father and son wandering along a deserted interstate following a catastrophic event that leaves only a few humans alive. All of these deal with the issue of (as the old R.E.M. song proclaimed) it’s-the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it kind of situation.

Recently, as I thought about the guilty pleasure I have in these films, I realized that my love of this genre has its roots firmly in my faith life as a Christian. In the secular world, these films and books are called apocalyptic, or post-nuclear, or whatever. But we Christians have a term for this kind of genre as well. That term is eschatology.

Eschatology, to quote my trusty old Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, is defined as: the study of the “last things” or the end of the world. It goes on to further define it in this way: Eschatology means “Theological dimensions including the second coming of Jesus Christ and the last judgment.” These films, seen, for me, through the lens of my being a Christian and as a priest, are very eschatological. But for others they might not seem so.

At first glance, there is a bleakness to them—a hopelessness to them. For the most part, these films and movies show a kind of evilness—whether it be nuclear evilness or natural evilness, or even extraterrestrial evilness—as prevailing. In most of the films and books that deal with these issues, the perspective is almost always from a seemingly non-Christian perspective. This world of bleakness and purposelessness is seems, on the surface anyway, wholly void of God or Christ.

But for me, I don’t see it as clearly. For me, I love them because they jar me. They jolt me out of my comfort zone and make me imagine—for a few hours anyway—what the end of the world might be like. These films also make me ponder and think about Christ’s place in these situations.

For most of us here this morning, we no doubt remember that fear and shock we felt on September 11, 2001. For those of us who never gave eschatology a second thought, we found ourselves wondering, even for a moment, if this might actually be the end of the world. Certainly we, in the Church, get our glimpses of the end of the world in our liturgical year.

As you probably have guessed, I always love preaching about beginnings. Beginnings are always a time of hope and joy. They hold such promise for everything that can possibly happen. But occasionally, we all must face the fact that, in the Church and in our lives, we also must confront the ending. Now for most people, the ending is a time to despair. Certainly that is where I think so much of the darkness in those films and books come from.

Certainly that’s where much of the darkness we experienced came from in the days following 9/11. Despair reigned. And when despair reigns, it is a bleak time.

The ending is a time to dig in one’s heels and resist the enviable. But for us—for Christians—it’s not that way. For us, the ending is not the ending at all. It is, in fact, the beginning. For us, what seems like dusk to others, is actually dawn, though we—and they— sometimes can’t recognize it.

Today, of course, is Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday in that very long, green season of Pentecost. Today, for the Church, it is New Year’s Eve. The old church year of Sundays ends today. The new church year begins next Sunday, on the First Sunday of Advent. So, what seems like an ending today is renewed next week, with the coming of Advent, in that revived sense of longing and expectation that we experience in Advent. So even then, at that beginning, we are still forced to look ahead. We are forced to face the fact that the future does hold an ending that will also become our beginning—a beginning that will never end. And as we face that future, we do so on a Sunday in which we proclaim Christ to be King.

We do so on a Sunday in which Jesus tells us that story of the sheep and the goats—a story that is very clearly eschatological in its message. On the surface, in this story, we meet the shepherd.

In the world of this Gospel reading, a king and shepherd were very similar. For this Jewish culture, which looked so longingly toward the shepherd David who became their greatest king, these roles became enmeshed in their understanding of what a king was. A true king was more than a despotic ruler. A true king was truly a shepherd—one who cared and looked after his subjects. So, yes we meet the king we celebrate today—the king we catch a glimpse of in our reading from Ezekiel—now being fulfilled in our sight—in the person of Jesus.

But there is more going on here. I love this parable—not because of its threat of punishment, not because of its judgment. I love this parable because there is something beautiful and subtle going on just beneath the surface. And that subtle aspect of this parable is this: the reward is given not to people who work for the reward. The reward is not given to people who help the least of their brethren because they know they gain the reward. The reward is granted to those who help the least of their brethren simply because the least need help. The reward is for those who have no regard or idea that a reward awaits them for doing such a thing.

The least of our brethren are the ones who are hungry, who are thirsty, who are naked, who are sick and in prison. In our own society, we find that these same terms have a wider definition. Hungry for us doesn’t just mean hungry for food. It means hungry for love, for healing, for wholeness. Thirsty doesn’t just mean for water. Thirsty for us means thirsty for fairness or justice or peace. Naked doesn’t just mean without clothing. It means, for us, to be stripped to our core, to be laid bare spiritually and emotionally and materially. To be sick, doesn’t mean to be sick in our bodies. It is means to be sick in our minds and in our hearts and in our relationships with others. And we all know that the prisons of our lives sometimes don’t have walls or bars on the doors. The prisons of our lives are sometimes our fears, our addictions, our prejudices. To not go out and help those who need help in their needs is to be arrogant, to be selfish, to be headstrong.

And so, we find a great analogy here in Jesus’ story. For the people who heard this story, they understood what Jesus was saying. They knew that sheep and goats grazed together during the day, but at night were separated because the goats needed shelter during the night. The sheep could take of themselves during the night when it came. But the goats needed special care. And when we are headstrong, arrogant, selfish, what we end up doing to ourselves is what the shepherd in today’s story does to the fold. When we are self-centered and egotistical, when we refuse to help those who need help among us, we separate ourselves. We become the goats who must be separated from the sheep. We bring upon ourselves that eschatological judgment. We bring upon ourselves a judgment that is just as frightening as any horror film we can imagine.

But if we concentrate on the punishing judgment, we have missed the point of the parable all together. The real message of this story has nothing to do essentially with the punishment. The meaning of this story is this: If you do these things—if you feed the hungry, if you give drink to the thirsty, if you welcome the stranger, if you clothe the naked, if you visit the sick and imprisoned—if you do these things without thought of reward, but do them simply because you, as a Christian, are called to them, the reward is yours. There’s no need to think about the punishment. As Christians, we should haven’t to think about doing any of those things. They should be like second nature to us. We should be doing them naturally, instinctively. And if we aren’t doing them naturally or instinctively, then we have no need to despair either. We just simply need to recognize it and work harder and strive to make it part of our nature.

Which causes me to return to those horror moves I love so much. I said earlier that it seems they are absent of Christ. But that isn’t entirely true. In many of those films, there always comes a moment of grace. There is always a moment when it seems evil prevails—when darkness has encroached on the earth and human kind is about to be obliterated. In the case of the zombie films, it is more profound. It seems as though death—symbolized by these walking “living dead”—has prevailed over life itself It is in that moment, that there is a turning point. The heroes of these films, at this point, usually recollect themselves. They find an inner strength. They find some kind of renewed hope that motivates them to rise up and to fight back. And, in the end, they are able to push back—or, at the very least, hold at bay—the forces of darkness, death and evil.

For us with eyes that see and ears that hear, that hope is very Christ-like. For those of us who are hungry or thirsty, who feel like strangers, who are naked, sick and imprisoned, we find Christ in those rays of hope that break through into our lives. It is very similar to the hope we are clinging to in this moment as we enter Advent—that time in which the light of Christ is seen breaking into the encroaching darkness of our existence. And we—in those moments when we feed the hungry, when we give drink to the thirsty, when we welcome the stranger, when we clothe the naked, when we visit the sick and imprisoned—in those moments, we become that light in the darkness, that hope in someone else’s life. We embody Christ when we become the conduits of hope.

So, as we celebrate the end of this liturgical year and set our expectant eyes on the season of Advent, let us not just be filled with hope. Let us be a true reflection of Christ’s hope to this world. Let us be the living embodiment of that hope to those who need hope. And in doing, we too will hear those words of assurance to us: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”