1 Lent

March 10, 2019

Luke 4.1-13

+ Lent is a strange time. It’s so different than the rest of the Church year, for me anyway. Because, what we’re forced to do in Lent is do something I don’t like doing sometimes.

I’m not talking about fasting or confession or giving up something for Lent.  No, what Lent forces me to do that I don’t really want to do is: look in the spiritual mirror. And not just look—but really look—honestly, bluntly—in the mirror. That is not fun to do.

It is not a pleasant experience to look at ourselves honestly and bluntly in the mirror. It is not fun to confront ourselves. It’s probably easier for most of us to confront the Devil—however we might view this personification of evil—in our own lives.

But, if you notice in our Gospel reading for today, that three-fold commandment of Jesus is all about looking in the mirror and confronting ourselves. We find Jesus repudiating the Devil’s temptations with some strongly worded quotes from Scripture:

“One does not live by bread alone”

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only [God]”

and

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

When we look at them, these commandments are really all about us. About me—the ego.  

The Devil becomes this almost peripheral character in our reading, if you notice. He’s kind of like a whispering shadow at the edge of the story. The main characters of this story are, of course, Jesus. And us.

So, in our Gospel reading, we hear first that we do not live by bread alone.  Looking in that mirror, looking at ourselves, we find that, yes, honestly, we’ve had too much bread—too many carbs—too much of everything.  

This season of Lent is the prime time for us to look long and hard at our eating practices.  For the most people, we simply eat without giving a second thought to what we’re eating or why we’re eating it. And this goes for drinking too.  

Certainly we have doctors who tell us that this is one of the leading causes of a good many of our health problems in this country.  Nutrition. Food. And too much food. And too much bad food.  When we realize how high the rate of obesity and related illnesses are, we know that food really is a major factor in our lives.  When we look at issues like obesity and eating disorders and alcoholism and all kinds of addictions, we realize that there is often a psychological reason for our abuse of food or alcohol.

We do eat and drink for comfort.  We do eat physically or partake of others things thinking that it will sustain us emotionally.  We put food or drink into that place in which God should suffice.

A time of fasting is a time for us to break that habit and to nudge ourselves into realizing that what should be sustaining us spiritually is the spiritual food we receive from God.

Then, we hear “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only [God].”

Here again is a major temptation for us.  Let’s face it, for us: the world revolves around us. Around me. And one of the sources of our greatest unhappiness is when we realize others don’t feel that way. We want people to notice us, to like us.

Ideally, we would like to have people fall at our feet and adore us.  We have all thought about what it would be like to be noticed—truly noticed—when we enter a room, like a movie star at the Oscar’s. OK. Maybe that’s a bit extreme.

But, just think about it for a moment. Look at how we feel when we send an email—and there’s no response. Or when we post something meaningful on Facebook—and we only a get a few likes

But, it’s not about others. That’s all about me and my ego. And I’m the only one angry or frustrated. And I put myself in this position. Yes, I might be mad at others, but it’s ultimately MY fault for feeling this way.

We are all susceptible to self-centeredness, to that charming belief that the world revolves me—the individual.  That, we believe, will make us truly happy.  If we can be fully accepted, fully loved and appreciated.

But Jesus again nudges us away from that strange form of self-idolatry and reminds us that there is actually someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts better than we do.  We are truly loved, truly accepted, truly appreciated—by God. And we shouldn’t worry about the rest. Rather than falling to the self-delusion of believing our world revolve around ourselves, we must center our lives squarely and surely on God.

Finally, we are warned not to put the Lord our God to the test.  We’ve all done this as well. We have railed at God and shaken our fists at God and bargained with God.  We have promised things to God we have no intention of truly keeping.  We have all said to God, “If you do this for me, I promise I will [insert promise here].”

Again, like all the previous temptations, this one also revolves around self-centeredness and selfishness.  This one involves us controlling God, making God do what we want God to do.  This one involves us treating God like a magic genie or a wishing pond.

I’ve done this. I’ve been here. I’ve shaken that fist at God and railed loudly at God.

The realization we must take away from this final temptation is that, yes, God always answers our prayers.  But the answer is not always what we want.

Sometimes, it’s yes.

Sometimes it’s no.

Sometimes it’s not yet.

But what we fail to realize in all of this is that those moments in which God does grant us the answer to prayer in the way we wanted, it is only purely out of God’s goodness and God’s care for the larger outcome.  It has nothing to do what we do.  We cannot manipulate God and make God do what we want.  None of us are in the position to do that.  

And if we had a God that we could do that to, I’m not certain I would truly want to serve that God.

These are the temptations we should be pondering during this Lenten season.

When I said earlier that these confessions of Jesus are the basis for our understanding of Lent, they really are.  Each of these statements by Jesus are essentially jumping off points for us as we ponder our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves during this season. What Jesus experienced in that desert, we too experience this Lent—and at many other times in our lives. The confrontation with the Devil in the desert, is often a confrontation with ourselves in the mirror. It is a confrontation with that difficult and dark side of ourselves—that gossipy, self-centered, controlling, manipulative person we sometimes are.  These ego-centric behaviors really don’t promote our egos. They actually hurt our egos in the long-run.

Yes, we might have full stomachs, Yes, we might be loved and appreciated and accepted, yes, we would have a fairy-godmother-God who grants all our wishes—but we would not ultimately be very happy.  We would still want more and more. But, in our core of cores—in our very spirits—we would still be incomplete and unfulfilled.

But I also don’t want to just brush the Devil off here. Our Gospel reading today is important for one other aspect of Lent that is uncomfortable. It is confronting the Devil. We are also called to confront the devil during this season.

Now, I’m not talking about the little red horned creature with the forked tail. I am talking about the ways in which evil confronts us. We are confronted by the Devil when others bully us and push us around and abuse us and hurt us. We all have had them.

Bullies.

Mean-spirited people who truly want to do us harm.

Sometimes they are strangers.

Sometimes they are spouses, or family members.

Sometimes they “friends.”

Sometimes they are bosses.

Sometimes they are clergy.

And sometimes they are Bishops.

And sometimes it is not just the Devil, but those who have allowed the Devil to do the Devil’s work—those complacent followers of these people who have allowed evil to go on and persist.   When we are confronted by the Devil, we must resist. We must stand up and say no. And we must expose the Devil’s antics. The last thing we should do is simply roll over and present our tummies to the Devil like obedient puppies. And we must never blame OURSELVES for the evil that the Devil does in our lives.  When we do that—when we roll over, when we blame ourselves, when we come crawling back after being abused and mistreated, attempting a one-sided reconciliation—we are only giving more power to the Devil.

It is our job as Christians, as followers of Jesus, to resist the Devil again and again and again, whenever we confront evil in this world. It is our job to stand up and say “No!” to the Anti-Christ—to that personification of anything that is truly anti-Jesus in this world.

This is also a very important part of our Lenten journey—and our journey in following Jesus.  At some point during Lent, our job is to stop gazing in the mirror—to stop gazing longingly at ourselves— and to turn toward God.  Our job is to recognize this God who does truly grant us everything we really need and want, just maybe not in the way WE think those things should be given to us.   It is for that realization that we should be thankful during this season of Lent.

So, let us, when we emerge from the desert with Jesus, do so re-focused—not on ourselves, but on the God who truly does provide us with everything we need in this life, and the life to come.

Ash Wednesday

March 6, 2019

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6.1-6,16-21

+ I’ve shared this story with you before, I know. But it’s one of my own important Ash Wednesday stories.

Seventeen years ago—in 2002—Ash Wednesday fell on February 13.  On that Wednesday, I was here, at St. Stephen’s.  My friend, Andrea, and I had eaten supper at Juano’s on Broadway that night and came over for the Ash Wednesday mass.

I wasn’t a priest yet. But, I was, to be bluntly honest, in a bad place in my life on that Ash Wednesday. I had just been laid off from a job. And physically I was not feeling well.

Later that week, I would have to face that fact that something physically was not right in my life. And a week later to the day, on February 20, I was diagnosed with cancer.  It was a very hard Lent for me that year.  For some reason, I think of that Ash Wednesday often in my life. It was an important night for me.

I remember, on that night in 2002, that I had made a concentrated resolve to change my life, to “turn my life around.” And just when I thought that was exactly what I was doing, the bottom dropped out.

Not only did something bad happen to me. Something life-threatening happened to me. And I was faced not only with the unpleasantness of life.

I was faced with sickness.

And death.

My own death.

Maybe that’s why that Ash Wednesday and that Lent of 2002 was so important to me. Because, let’s face it: that’s what Ash Wednesday and Lent are all about.  Ash Wednesday—and these ashes we are using tonight—are also ways in which we too face these harsh realities of our lives.  They are reminders that we, one day, will die.

I hate to be the one to tell you that news, just in case you hadn’t realized that before.  We are all, one day, going to die.

The traditional phrase for a reminder of our death is Momento Mori. Back “in the day”—we’re talking the medieval and renaissance day—it was common for people to keep some kind of momenti mori around—a reminder of death. Often, that was a human skull- a real human skull. Of course, when you think of it, what makes a better reminder of death than a skull? In those days, one was encouraged to look at the skull as one would look into a mirror, realizing that what one was looking at was really themselves.

Well, tonight, we have our own momento mori. These ashes that we are about to receive are, truly our momento mori—our reminder that we are all going to die one day. To some extent, as morbid as it might seem, I think it wouldn’t hurt us to think about and ponder such things in our own lives. 

In our lives, we do go about oblivious to death. We go around as though we are invincible, that we are eternal, that this moment in which we are living will last forever. As much as we might wish for that and hope for that, the fact is, it is simply not the case. We don’t realize that we are bones and ash essentially.

In this service this evening, we are reminded in no uncertain terms that one day each every person in this church this evening will stop breathing and will die.

It’s sobering, but it’s what we are reminded of this evening and throughout this season of Lent.

We will stop breathing.

We will die.

Our bodies will be made into something that will be disposed of—either by burying in the ground, or by being cremated.

In these last 15 years of my life as a priest, I have presided over many, many funerals, with embalmed bodies and cremated bodies. And, let me tell you, doing so certainly puts into perspective the fact that we are all physically disposable. With cremation so prevalent these days, out momemto mori is not so much a human skull anymore. Our momento mori is nowadays ashes.

I thought about that a lot back during Lent in 2002.  I can tell you that that Lent was one of the most difficult Lents of my entire life. But it was also, I have to say, one Lent in which the real meaning of this season was driven home for me. As I went through the shock of diagnosis, the emotional and physical roller coaster of treatment, I found myself thinking a lot about the fact that I will one day die.

I thought about my relationship with God, about how faithfully (or unfaithfully) I had followed Jesus in my life. And I thought about Jesus’ own encounter with his mortality in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Sometimes, as horrible as experiences like cancer are, they can be gateway events. They can be events in which we find ourselves opened up to a new understanding and new perspectives on the world and our relationship with God.

That essentially is what Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are all about. It is a time for us to stop, to ponder, to take a look around us and to take a long, hard, serious look at ourselves and our relationship with God. It isn’t easy to do.  It isn’t easy to look at where we’ve failed in our lives and in our relationship with others. It isn’t easy to look at ourselves as disposable physical beings that can so easily be burned to ashes or buried.  It isn’t easy to imagine there will be a day—possibly sooner than later—when life as we know it right now will end.  It isn’t easy to shake ourselves from our complacent lives.

Because we like complacency. We like predictability. We like our comfortable existence.

However, we need to be careful when we head down this path. As we consider and ponder these things, we should not allow ourselves to become depressed or hopeless.

Yes, our mortality is frightening.  Yes, it is sobering and depressing to think that this life we find so normal and comfortable will one day end.   But this season is Lent is also a time of preparation.  It is a preparation for the glory of Easter. It would be depressing and bleak if ashes and the skull were the end of our story. It would be sad and sorrowful if all we are reminded of when we ponder these ashes is the finality of this life. It would be horrible if we were not able to see the momento moris of our lives as gateways to something larger and more wonderful.

But for us, death is a gateway. Death does lead not to eternal non-existence, but rather to eternal existence—a larger life in God.  The darkness of death leads to the glorious light of Easter.

What I like about Lent is that is shows us that, even though we are living in the glorious light of Easter, bestowed on us at our Baptism, it’s not always sunshine and flowers and frivolous happiness all the time.

If our Christian faith was only that, it would be a frivolous faith. It wouldn’t be taken seriously because it would ignore a very important part of our lives.

But Lent shows us that, as Christians, we are to reflect about where we have failed—where we have failed God, failed others and failed ourselves. And it reminds us that death—death of our loved ones and our own deaths—is simply a fact of life.  It is a part of who we are and what we are. It forces us to realize that we are wholly dependent upon God for our life and for what comes after death.

Of course Ash Wednesday is not a time to disparage our bodies, to believe that our bodies are some kind of prisons for our souls. All we do on this Ash Wednesday is acknowledge the fact that we are mortal, that our bodies have limits and because they do, we too are limited.  Lent is not a time for us to deny our bodies or see our bodies as sinful, disgraceful things. Rather it is simply a matter of not making our bodies our treasures.

Jesus tells us in tonight’s Gospel not to lay up our treasures on earth, in corrupting things, but to store up our treasures in heaven.
A lot of us put more store in our bodies than we need. We sometimes don’t take great joy in our bodies at all, but rather abuse our bodies or become inordinately obsessed with our bodies and in what used to be called “the way of the flesh.”

We eat too much.

We drink too much.

We get lazy sometimes.

And we let our bodies go sometimes.

This time of Lent is a time for us to find a balance with our physical selves as well as with our spiritual selves. That is really the true meaning of Lent.
Where are our treasures?

Are they here, in the corruptible, or in they in the incorruptible?  This is the question we must ask. his is the question we should be pondering throughout this season.

Where are our treasures?

So, as we head into this season of Lent, let it be a truly holy time. Let it be a time in which we ponder whatever momento mori we might have in our lives. Let it be a time in which we recognize the limitations of our own selves—whether they be physical or emotional or spiritual.

But more than anything, let this holy season Lent be a time of reflection and self-assessment.  Let it be a time of growth—both in our self-awareness and in our awareness of God’s presence in the goodness in our life.

As St. Paul says in our reading from this evening:

“Now is the acceptable time.”
“Now is the day of salvation.”

It is the acceptable time. It is the day of salvation. Let us take full advantage of it.

Last Epiphany

Transfiguration Sunday

March 3, 2019

Exodus 34.29-35; Luke 9.28-43a

It’s appropriate I guess. We began this season of Epiphany with a glorious event. And now, we end the season of Epiphany with a glorious event.

Way back on January 6 (doesn’t that seem like ages ago already?) we began this season with the Magi visiting the child Jesus In that event, we had a mysterious star.

Then, on January 13th, we commemorated the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist.

The following Sunday, January 20, we commemorated the Wedding Feast at Cana, in which Jesus turned all that purification water into fine wine.  

Now we end the Epiphany season on another glorious high note.

First, today, we get this reading from the Torah—from the Hebrew scriptures—about Moses’ encounter with the glory of God on Mount Sinai. The glory of God, we find, is so powerful that it has a kind of residual effect on those who encounter it. For Moses, in our reading from Exodus, after encountering the glory of God,  “the skin of his face was shining.”

Then, in our reading from the Gospel today, we find a similar event.  We find another encounter with the Glory of God on a mountaintop: the Transfiguration.

I realize that I preached a lot about the Transfiguration in my 15 years as a priest. It’s an event I have explored so often in sermons and in scripture study and in my prayer life.

Why is that? Because it really is an important event in scripture and in our lives as Christians. In fact, it is such an important event that we actually celebrate twice in our Church Year. We celebrate today of course, the Last Sunday of Epiphany—the last Sunday before Lent begins. And we celebrate it again on August 6.

Personally, I truly appreciate that we celebrate it on this Sunday before Lent begins.  I’m happy that we go into the season of Lent with this vision fresh in our minds. I am happy that we enter Lent with the glory of God shining on the skin of our faces.

There is no better way to enter this season.  The events of Moses’ encounter with God and the Transfiguration is what will sustain us and hold us and nourish us through these next forty days.  This Transfiguration and the glory that we see revealed on the Mount was certainly one of the defining events in Jesus’s life. And in ours too, as followers of Jesus.

For us, the glory we witness on Mount Tabor is the glory that awaits us in God’s Presence. It is the glory we see whenever we encounter God in our lives.

On Mount Tabor, we have seen the veil temporarily lifted that separates this world from God’s world.  And it is a glory that is almost too much for Jesus’ followers to comprehend.  It is this glory that we glimpse today that sustains us.  It strengthens us for what we are about to participate in our following of Jesus.

Because following Jesus always involves this glory that we encounter on the mount. Following Jesus means recognizing in him the fulfillment of the Law (which is represented by the presence of Moses on the mount in today’s Gospel reading) and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures (represented by Elijah’s presence on the mount)

There is no doubt, as we enter the season of Lent, that the one we follow is not just another great teacher or leader. The one we follow is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed One, the one promised to us in the prophecies, the one who embodies the Law given to Moses.

This is important to recognize and hold close as we enter Lent.  Because following Jesus also means following him down off the mountain and onto the path that lead to another hill-top—Golgotha.  It means following Jesus from the glory of the mount all the way to the darkness and defeat of the cross.  And, of course, to the eternal glory beyond the cross as well.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  For now, we are here. For now, we are encountering the glory of this moment. For now we come down off the mountain with Jesus and his privileged three followers. And we are struggling to make sense of this event. We are struggling to make sense of this moment of glory.

What do we do when we encounter the glory of God? How do we process it? How do we make sense of glory? I don’t know if we can make sense of it.

But what we can do it is embody it. What we can do it open ourselves to this glory of God. Because it is a glory that is given to each of us, no matter who we are.

Now, of course, this past week, you have heard about the very disappointing vote in the United Methodist Church regarding not giving full-inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life and ministry of the Church. We, in the Episcopal Church and especially re at St. Stephen’s, felt the pain of those United Methodists affected by this vote. We have been there. We know this disappointment, this frustration.

Here, we are still living within that disappointment and frustration. We know the pain of what it feels like to be told to “wait.”

“Wait,” those in authority keep saying. And many of us have waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And, in our waiting, we have often felt neglected and forgotten and cast away.

But the fact is this: church votes and commands to wait do nothing to lessen the glory of God that dwells within each of us. Each of us—no matter who we are—carry within us that transfiguring glory of God—of the God who appeared to Moses, of the God whose glory descending upon Jesus on Mount Tabor, of the God who is our God as well, who loves us and knows us and is well-pleased with each of us.  And that is what we take away from our encounter with the vision on the mount of the Transfiguration.

It would be nice to stay here, basking the glory of this event. It would be nice to stay put and not come down off the mountain. Because once we come off the mountain, we must face some unpleasant things.

For the followers of Jesus, they must endure their own betrayal of Jesus, they must endure the fact that their betrayal contributes to Jesus’ torture and murder. In our lives, we must come down from the mountain and face our own issues. We must face a Church that is still fractured, that still tells us to “wait,” that still excludes and turns away.  We must come down and face whatever issues we are wrestling with our lives—issues that seem in many ways to detract from the glory that we have just witnessed. And as we come down and face those things, it is amazing how quickly the vision of God’s glory vanishes from our minds.

In that one moment, when all seemed clear, when all seemed to have come together, we find in the next instant that everything is topsy-turvy again.  And that’s this crazy thing we call life. It often works out this way. We find that we can’t cling to these glorious, wonderful events that happen.

But what we can do is carry them deep in our hearts. What we can do it not let that glory of God that dwells within us and shines brightly on the skin of our faces to die away.  And if we recognize that, if we embrace that  we find that somewhere down that road away from the mount, it will still be there, borne deep within us. Somewhere, when we need it the most, that comforting presence of the God of glory we encountered on the mountain will well within us and help sustain us when we need sustaining and shine brightly on our faces.

Of course, the stickler about this is that it is not something WE can control. We can’t make it happen. We can’t conjure that glorious experience whenever we want it.

It happens on its own. It happens when it is needed the most. And when it does, it truly does sustain.

In these next forty days, we will need to be sustained by the glory we encounter today. In this upcoming season, we will be encountering a somewhat more dour side of spirituality.

On Wednesday, we will have ashes smeared on our foreheads as a reminder that we will all one day die. We, in this upcoming Lenten season, will face the fact that we truly do have limitations. We will remember and repent of the wrongdoings we have done in this life—to God, to others and to ourselves.

And we will fast.  Some of us will fast from certain physical foods or drink. Some of us will abstain from certain practices. Some of us will struggle to use this upcoming season to break certain dependences we’ve had on things and people.

And in this season, we will hear in our scripture readings and participate in our liturgies the continuing journey away from the amazing mountain-top experience toward the humiliation of the cross of Golgotha. 

In those moments, we will need to find an inner sustenance.  In those moments, we will truly see how far we have journeyed away from the mount of Transfiguration. We will, at times, no doubt, feel as though we are far separated from the glory of God. It will not seem that this glory will be shining on the skin of our faces.  

But, then, on Easter morning—there again, that glory will be revealed to us once again and it will all fall into place once more.

So, let us begin our Lenten season with our faces still aglow with this encounter with God.  Let us go knowing that no matter what will happen—betrayal, physical and emotional pain, even death—we know that what ultimately wins out is the glorious light of God’s loving presence in our life. Let us go from here carrying that glory within us, without detachment. Let us go from here transfigured with Jesus—changed by this encounter with God’s glory so that we can reflect and spread this glory even in the midst of whatever may come to us in the days that are to come.

To our United Methodist brothers and sisters

Even on vacation, I have been watching the very disappointing vote yesterday regarding LGBTQ full-inclusion in the United Methodist Church closely. My disappointment in this vote is nothing compared to the ramifications this has for my many United Methodist friends and colleagues at this time. I worked in the UMC for a few years back in my 20s and was amazed by the incredible people I came to know and love (many of whom are still close and dear friends). I am especially grateful today for the several former United Methodists (including two former pastors) who are such a vital part at St. Stephen's.

5 Epiphany

February 10, 2019

Isaiah 6.1-13; Luke 5.1-11

+ Last week I observed a somewhat sobering anniversary. On January 29, I realized it had been twenty years since I began the process to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.

It was definitely a momentous moment in my life. Occasionally we have those moments in our lives when we look back and realize the life we lived before that ended on a particular day. These momentous moments happen and we realize life will never be the same again.

January 29, 1999 was one of those days in my life.  Life changed drastically for me on that day, though I didn’t fully realize at the time. And twenty years later, here it is.

As I look back at the 1999 Jamie, I wonder what I—2019 Jamie—would tell him.  Did he really know what he was getting himself into? It was definitely not an easy route he was about to take.

But despite all the heartache and pain, despite homophobia and the cancer and the really terrible people he would encounter at times along the way, at time of seeing the Church be a truly ugly, horrible place at times, despite the people who really did try to throw a wrench into the ministry 1999 Jamie felt called to do, who did not want him to be a priest, or to serve in the Church (and yes, there were lots of those people over the years), I have to ask myself; if I had to do it all over again, would I?

And the answer is: Yes.

Yes.

Because, the good of these years definitely outweighs the bad.  There were so many more good people, supportive people, loving people who were there for me. And the Church, as a whole, really is not a terrible corrupt place.  It really isn’t.

And, of course, I have to accept the greatest reality in all of this: there was God with me through it all.  God held me up and led me through. Or, as the hymn we will sing later today says,

“I will go, Lord, if you lead me.”

God led me.

In the ordination process, there were several scriptures that were often used to describe the discernment and ordination processes.

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah is definitely one of the scriptures people in the process quote often.  A very powerful image of the call and response process of ordination is right there, with God, on the throne, asking:

“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”

And Isaiah’s response of “Here am I; send me!”

For me, I realize, that call is still resounding my own life:

“Whom shall I send?” God still is asking in my life.

And even 20 years after first heeding that call, I can say again, now:

“Here am I; send me!”

Another of those discernment images was the one we get in today’s Gospel reading. And, like the scripture from Isaiah,  it works. And, like the reading from Isaiah, it’s not just for people who seek ordination. It works for all of us in our ministries.

In that Gospel for today, we have an interesting dynamic happening.  A very enthusiastic crowd has gathered beside the water to hear Jesus preach. Jesus, in a sense, use the boat of these work-weary fishermen for a pulpit to preach to the crowd.

Now, put yourself, for a moment, in the place of those fishermen. They have been working all night. They are trying to come home, clean up and go to bed.

Still, Simon Peter agrees and Jesus beings to teach. Then, Jesus does something a bit strange. He tells these weary guys to throw their nets into the water.  Again, put yourself in the place of the fishermen. Here’s a carpenter’s son—a Rabbi—telling them to do even more work. Certainly anyone else would simply say no and go home.

But not these guys.  They do as Jesus says.  They put the boat out into the water, they put down their nets.  And what happens?  They get fish.

I know none of you this morning fish for a living. For most of us here, in this part of the country, if we fish, we do so for sport. (I don’t fish; I’m vegan. I have never understood why people fish for sport anyway)

So, to some extent, we might not “get” the imagery here. Or rather, we might not “get” the imagery in quite the same way those fishermen Jesus spoke to in today’s Gospel would have.

When Jesus talks about “catching” people for God, it might not mean the same thing for us as it did for those disciples—those men whose very livelihood was catching fish.  Jesus is using their language to make real what they are called to do in following him. Jesus is using what they knew and held dear to go out and do what he is calling them to do.  He is not over-intellectualizing this for them. He is not making it complicated. He is being as straightforward as one can get.

You—fishermen—go out and catch people like you would catch fish.

And that is our job as well. We are called, just as those first disciples were, to bring back people for Christ. We are called just like the Prophets Isaiah, to respond, “Here am I! Send me!”

We are called to not be complacent in our faith. We cannot just sit on our hands and expect to feel good about being a Christian.  

To be a fully useful Christian, we need to go out and be a follower of Jesus in the world and, in doing, so, to bring others to God’s love.

Now, this sounds very uncomfortable for most of us. We have all encountered those somewhat unpleasant people who proselytize to us—who, very obviously, want to catch us.  They have come to our doors or they have called us on the phone or we have worked alongside them at work.  They are the people who preach AT us, who tell us that unless we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior we won’t be saved. They are the ones who spout their memorized verses from their Bibles and give us religious pamphlets and are always talking about their plastic, blond white Protestant Jesus.   And more often than not what they do NOT do is draw us closer to Christ.

Rather, they often make us uncomfortable with the Christian faith.  I’ll be honest, they make even me uncomfortable at times. Often when I hear someone go off to me (and they like to do that to priests, let me tell you), I find myself sitting thee wishing I was Jewish or Buddhist.  Their Christ—their blond plastic Protestant Jesus—seems so unpleasant and alien to those of who strive to know the true Christ.

Now, we Episcopalians just don’t do things like that. We’re not comfortable knocking on doors or spouting Bible passages at strangers or co-workers. After all, doing so rarely works.  And that kind of proselytizing has done great harm in people’s lives.

By spouting Bible passages and waving Bibles at people and demanding that people accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior (which, by the way, is completely unscriptural) , and inflicting the fear of hell into people, we aren’t really evangelizing.  We are just manipulating. We are just coercing.  We are just hiding. We are hiding behind the Bible, hiding behind platitudes and tired catch-phrases. We are preaching with our mouths, but not with our hearts and our lives.  Bringing people for Christ sometimes involves nothing more than being who we are and what we are.

I worked with a priest once who loved to repeat something St. Francis of Assisi supposedly said:

“Preach the Gospel, use words only if necessary.”

I like that quote.  And it’s true.

Oftentimes, the loudest preaching we’re ever going to do is by what we do and how we act. By being who we are.  Even being the imperfect, fractured human beings that we are.  And, let me tell you, what we do and how we act is sometimes much harder than preaching with our mouths and hiding behind memorized Bible verses.

In a sense, our very lives should be one long proclamation of the Gospel.

We all should be living the Gospel in our very lives, and then our proclamation comes naturally in how we live and interact with people. We should be clear to those around us who we are:

Yes, we’re Christians—we’re followers of Jesus, just as those people in the boat in today’s Gospel were.

Yes, we’re Episcopalian Christians.

But how do we live that out in our lives? How does that fact become a way to bring people to Christ?

Now for each of here this morning, that might be something different. For one it might mean inviting someone to St. Stephen’s, which I know many of you do. To others it might simply mean living our lives a little differently than our neighbors do, even living our lives a little different than what is expected of Christians to do.  

For many of us, it means standing up and speaking out loudly when we see injustice and oppression and sexism and homophobia and transphobia or any other kind of oppression that causes people to be less than who they are.  And to do so in the name of Christ.

And not just speak out. But to actually live that way of life. To not treat others disrespectfully. To not ignore the homeless in our midst, to not ignore those who are invisible to others.  To do whatever we can to change injustice and oppression, in the name of our God in any way we can.

It might mean being just a compassionate human being in this world.

It might just being a kind, loving person in this world.

Whatever we do—however we do it—all we have to remember is that it is not us who does the proclaiming. It is not us who does the catching, ultimately. It is God’s Spirit in us who does the proclaiming and the catching. And our job is to simply let God use us as we need to be used to bring people to God. It is sometimes as simple as letting God use our actions and our way of life to bring people closer to God.

It doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. It can be as simple as Jesus telling fishermen to bring in people like they bring in fish. It can be as simple as living a life of integrity and uprightness and holiness in all that we do and say. It is as simple as living a life in which we do not allow injustice and oppression to happen around us.

So, let us listen together to what Jesus is saying to us this morning. Bring in people to God.  Let us do it by whatever means we have. Let us do by words, if that works.  Let us do it by actions, if that works. Let us do it by the very ministry of our own selves. Let us hear God’s call to each of us:

“Who will I send? Who will go for us?”

And let us respond:

“Here am I! Send me!”

And let us let God, who dwells within us, use our voices to proclaim God’s words and presence to the world around us. Amen.

6 years meat-free

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

February 3, 2019

Luke 2. 22-40

+ So, let’s see if you can remember this. What happened 40 days ago yesterday?

I know it’s hard.

But, yes, Christmas happened 40 days ago yesterday.

I know it’s hard to even think of Christmas, now in early February. It feels so long ago already. But, 40 days ago we commemorated the birth of Jesus.

Which is why, today, we are commemorating the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.  Which simply means that, in Jewish tradition, the first born son was to be presented to God in the Temple on the 40^th day after his birth.  And on that day, the child was to literally be redeemed.

This is reminiscent of the story of Abraham and his first son Isaac. But instead of an attempt to sacrifice the son, an animal sacrifice would’ve made in the place of the life of the son, which in the case of Jesus’ family who were poor, would have been two doves.

Now why, you might ask? Why 40 days? Well,  until about the Thirteenth century, it was often believed that the soul did not even enter a boy child until the 40^th day. (The soul entered a girl child on the 80^th day) I suppose this kind of thinking had to do with the high rates of infant mortality at the time.

So essentially, on the 40^th day, the boy child becomes human. The child now has an identity—a name.  And the child is now God’s own possession.

Now, we’ll get into the specifics of Jesus’ own particular presentation in the Temple in a moment.  For now, we just need to recognize that this feast of the Presentation has been an important one of the Church.

In fact, it’s been a very important feast in the Church from the very beginning. Of course the Eastern Church, which celebrates Jesus’ birth on January 6, doesn’t celebrate the Feast of the Presentation until when???    …    February 14^th.

This day is also called Candlemas, and today, of course, we at St. Stephen’s, in

keeping with a tradition going back to the very beginning of the Church, will bless the candles that will be used throughout the church year on this day.  In the early Church, all the candles that would be used in the Church Year and in individual people’s lives would be blessed on this day.  Here, as the hope of spring is in the air.  

The candles blessed on this day for personal use were actually considered a little more special than other candles. They were often lit during thunderstorms or when one was sick or they would be placed in the hands of one who was dying. The reason being, the flame of  blessed candle reminded people of God’s love and protection in their lives.   

It was also believed that the weather on this day decided what the rest of winter would be like.  In fact there was also a wonderful little tune used in rural England that went:

If Candlemas-day be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight

If Candlemas-day brings cloud and rain,

Winter won’t come again.

What does that sound like? Yes, Ground Hogs Day. In fact, Ground Hogs Day, which originated in Germany, was a Protestant invention to counteract what they perceived to be this Catholic feast—even though the Lutheran Church has always celebrated this feast.

Now all of that is wonderful and, I think, is interesting in helping understand this feast day and in its importance in the life of the Church and the world.  But the real message of this day is of course the fact, in presenting Jesus in  Temple, the Law of God in Jesus was being fulfilled.

This morning, in this feast,  we find the old and the new meeting. That is what this feast we celebrate today is really all about . The Feast of the Presentation is all about the Old and the New meeting.

 In fact, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, this feast is called the Meeting  of Christ with Simeon.

In our Gospel reading for today, we find Simeon representing the Old Law. He is the symbol of the Old Testament—the old Law. We have Simeon who, it seems, is a priest in the Temple. He is nearing the end of  his life.  He knows he is in his last days. But he also knows something new is coming. Something new and wonderful and incredible is about dawn.  The Messiah, he knows, is about to appear. And, of course, that is important for all Jewish people. This is the event they have been longing for, deeply.  If he was a priest, he performed those Levitical rites that fulfilled the Law. He oversaw the rites of purification.

Mary herself—as a devout Jew—would certainly be going through the purification rites all mothers had to go through on this fortieth day, according to the Law we find in the Book of Leviticus.  

Simeon would also have presided over the dedication service of the new child to God, which, of course, would have included both his naming and his circumcision.  All of this fulfils the Old Law.

Then, of course, there is a figure who we always seem to overlook in the scripture. The Prophet Anna.  I like Anna for some reason.  She seems to be the bridge here.  She seems to come forward out of the background.

Now whether she recognizes Jesus has the Messiah is not clear.  But it seems like she suspects that’s who he is.  What she sees is Jesus—born under the most unusual of circumstances.

In case we forgot what happened 40 days ago, he was conceived and born of a virgin, with angels in attendance, with a bright shining star in the sky and mysterious strangers coming from the East.

These are signs.  This is no ordinary person. This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God whom God has sent to us.  And in Jesus, we have the Law fulfilled.

Eventually, in this baby that comes before Simeon, the old Law and the New Law become blended and brought together.  The Law is fulfilled in this baby, who will grow up, to proclaim God’s kingdom in a way no else has before or since.

But no doubt we start asking this important question: why do we even need the Old Testament. If Jesus came to fulfill it, it seems pointless. But what we need to remember is that this New Law does not overcome or cancel out the old Law. It only solidifies it. It makes it more real.

The Old Law will simply change because now there will be no more need of animal sacrifices and atonement offerings. In Jesus—this ultimate Lamb of God—those offerings are taken away. They were needed then. They are not needed now. But they foreshadowed what was to come. We have one offering—that offering of Jesus on the Cross—and through it we are all purified.

But even more so than that. This Feast of the Presentation is about us as well. We too are being Presented today.  We too are presented before God—as redeemed and reborn people. We too are being brought before God in love.

And just as the favor of God was upon Jesus, so that same favor is upon each of us as well.  From this day forward we know that we are loved and cherished and favored by God. We know that we are all essentially loved children of God, because Jesus, the first born, led the way for us. 

The Old Law hasn’t been done away for us. Rather, the Old Law has been fulfilled and made whole by the New . Everything that the Old Law was anticipating was fulfilled in the New Law.  

We see that there is a sort of reverse eclipsing taking place. The Old Law is still there. But the New has overtaken it and outshines it.

See, it really is a wonderful day we celebrate today. The Feast of the Presentation speaks loudly to us on many levels. But most profoundly it speaks to us of God’s incredible love for us.

So, this morning, on this Candlemas, let us be a light shining in the darkness. Let us carry that light of God within us like the Christ Child who was presented in the Temple.  We, like Jesus being presented to Simeon, are also be presented before God today and always.

So let us rejoice.  Let us speak to all who are looking for redemption. And with Simeon, let us sing:

“Now you may dismiss your servant in peace, according to your word;

For my eyes have now seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.”

Amen.