Scripture for the 3rd Sunday in Lent includes Exodus 3:1-15; I Corinthians 10:1-13; and Luke 13:1-9
The St. John’s Bible tour bus is on the road. Our first stop today is a desert hillside at Horeb, where Moses is minding his own business, tending his father-in-law’s flock of sheep. They’ve just been spooked, and Moses turns to see why.
A bush is blazing, and of course it is: an angel of the Lord is working that thicket, flashing about, trying to catch the attention of Moses, to whom this messenger of God has been sent.
It is tough, the work of an angel. No body to show for it, this kind of being that manifests itself best in the air, but sometimes must land to catch the imagination of near-sighted humans.
But landing is no easy thing. Crashing through the atmosphere is a trip in itself, and the nearer one gets to that crusty surface of earth, the greater the friction as one kind of being slices its way into the realm of the other, the physical. Watch the homeland security alert for angels rise from yellow to orange to red, as even one celestial messenger flashes its way to a landing. Well, more a hovering, as close as an angel gets. And the best this one can find is a thicket, a bush, for heaven’s sake.
Moses’ eye is caught. “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, why this bush burns but is not burned up!”
“Unbelievable!” mutters the angel. “That’s all he can see? How promising can this shepherd be? I know I’m just the messenger… but the Nameless and Holy One does tend to pick the odd ones, little imagination, fearful types… They all need teaching about sacrament, outward and visible signs bearing inward and spiritual grace… But here, this one’s getting close enough for encounter…”
And it is then that the force-field changes. The angel conveys the voice of God, calling by name the gawking shepherd, “Moses, Moses!” And proper introductions follow.
Now, if you don’t cotton to angels, I understand. Even the Bible itself at this point dismisses the angel and has Moses dealing with God directly. I suspect the ancient story tellers would laugh at us, though, for drawing any distinction between God and how God manifests (which can be any way God chooses).
Even as the story changes, I see the fire keep blazing, because the fire is the passion in the belly of God.
Granted, God has no belly… which is why, in the fullness of time, it should be so useful for God to be manifest in one who is both Son of Man and Son of God, Jesus Christ. If one thing is clear from the theological history over the millennia between Moses and Jesus, and in turn over the millennia between Jesus and now, it is that God must reach us through our bellies as well as through our imaginations. Famines must be survived, manna must be found, multitudes must be fed, God’s presence must be revealed as water flows from a rock in the desert, God’s generosity found in the flow of milk and honey, God’s deepest mystery known in the breaking of bread.
But all these affairs of the belly are outward and visible signs of inward spiritual grace, to those with eyes to see and ears to hear and imaginations wide open. And what that inward spiritual power is for, what it yearns and burns to accomplish, is the just and merciful saving of life. That is the fire in the belly of God. In Holy Week, we will see that fire in the passion of Jesus, whose radical preference for the poor advances them in the kingdom of God while simultaneously consigning him to a death sentence.
And in the old days of the Hebrew Bible, nowhere does the passion of God flash more brightly than in the Exodus rescue of Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt, fulfilling God’s promise to make of them a nation that would be a blessing to the world.
But this is the moment, at that place of fiery passion, when God tells Moses, “I need you in order to fulfil my promise. I who am what I am have the fire within me that must light the torches that lead my people through their darkest night and out into freedom—but yours must be the hands that carry this fire, the feet that travel such distance, the presence that confronts evil, and the heart that carries my people.”
Fair warning to us on the Bible tour bus: to stand this close to that burning bush is to hear the same need of God who observes the misery in Haiti, hears the cries from Chile, sees the oppression that perpetuates homelessness and a host of other injuries and injustices right here in this county. And needs our help manifesting presence and passion.
Before Moses could let the holy flame of God burn away the shame and fear and self-preoccupation fueling his resistance (“Who am I that I should go? And what if I don’t know how to do what you give me to do?”)… Before Moses can let all that light of God cross the short vast distance between bush and brain, the first leg of the Exodus… Moses must take off his sandals and spend some time alone with God. He must recognize that the ground of this present moment if holy with grace, power, presence that will be sufficient for every day and every task.
Doesn’t that sound like the invitation of Lent? To take off your shoes and spend time with God-- it’s early enough yet to start one of the Lenten guides at the foot of the aisle—and let God’s light cross that short vast span between source and self, the first and gracious step of renewal.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Putting Out and Letting Go
Scripture appointed for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany include Isaiah 6:1-8; I Corinthians 15:1-11; and Luke 5:1-11
Last Sunday, Jesus escaped an angry crowd in his hometown, Nazareth. They were furious at him because he told them stories they didn’t want to hear, stories in which God gives away his love to foreigners. Incensed, the hometown crowd rushed at him to send him headlong over a cliff, but he somehow slipped through the loopholes of their inefficient rage and went on his way.
And his way would bring him next to Capernaum, a city in Galilee where he performed a number of healings including bringing an old woman through a high fever. The more people he helped, the more people were brought to him, until he had to slip away from the dense pressure of so many needy people.
Then his way brings him today to the lake of Gennesaret, where again a crowd presses in on him, to hear him express the word of God. You will understand why his eyes travel to those two boats offshore. Jesus wants a Plan B.
And the more he considers those boats, the more swiftly they become his first choice for a pulpit. A portable pulpit, one that leaves him free to achieve that critical distance which preaching and teaching, and listening and learning, require. And then he’ll be free to move on. His earlier experience in Nazareth has taught him a thing or two.
It’s Simon’s boat he chooses to get into. Back in Capernaum just days ago, it was Simon’s mother-in-law whom Jesus had visited and brought through that deadly fever. So Simon and Jesus already have a history of grace, though Simon is still new to this generous love that is about to be shown.
Jesus has Simon put out a little way from shore. Jesus must have had a big voice, to teach them from that boat. I don’t imagine they hear him, though, when he turns to Simon and turns his life upside down.
“Put out…” (there’s that phrase again) “into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Sure, Jesus could have spoken loudly enough that the people on shore would hear his words to Simon… but I can’t picture that. That would have been like staging an act, like treating Simon as if he were more a prop than a person. No, I think he spoke quietly and directly to Simon, in a way that Simon would trust—because trust is just what it takes to outweigh logic in this instance. What he has seen at Jesus’s hands already leads him to trust the teacher—but it’s hard, letting go of what logic teaches him.
All night long, Simon and his crewmates have thrown their nets and caught nothing. As Simon is about to tell Jesus, none of them is in any rush to let down their nets any time soon because their own recent experience has taught them that the fish aren’t there.
Anticipating that someone here this morning might wonder about the practice of fishing at night, I consulted my closest commentary and found… nothing on the subject of nighttime fishing. When in doubt, google. And there I learned that here in the U.S., especially in summer, night is the time to fish if you’re after bass, catfish, or carp. And what the Bible commentator did tell me is that two of the three most common fish in the Sea of Galilee are, yes, catfish and carp. Like human beings, catfish and carp would just as soon escape the heat of the day, when they sink down to the deep places, rising at night to do their own feeding, up near the surface. So it’s with a certain authority that Simon could say to Jesus, “Master, if the fish weren’t rising last night, they won’t be rising today.”
I imagine Luke the story-teller relishing this moment. Simon thinks he’s an authority on the topic at hand, but he is clueless as to how much more Jesus knows about things of first importance. Simon deals in fish, but Jesus deals in resurrection. Simon knows how fish rise; Jesus knows how people rise.
And if nighttime represents the realm of human weakness up against the limitations imposed by darkness, if night ultimately symbolizes death, right down to the little dyings we do as each night we surrender consciousness and sink into sleep, then can’t you hear Luke the Gospel-teller setting the stage for Jesus, the light of the world, in full daylight launching the kingdom of God by speaking the Word that can be answered only by trust, not by logic: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
With these words, Jesus turns Simon’s world upside down. Soon, he’ll even be known by a different name, Cephas, the Rock, or Peter as the name is translated. This is the story of his being called to discipleship by Jesus. And the setting isn’t a temple, as in Isaiah this morning when the calling of the prophet happens in an ethereal venue complete with seraphs flying and God sitting upon a throne. Our setting in Luke is a fishing trip, and the divine one is seated on the plank of a small boat bobbing on the Lake of Gennesaret.
One similarity between the divine call of Isaiah to be a prophet and the calling of Simon Peter appears to be God’s penchant for needing and calling not the most capable, or the most qualified, or the most promising candidates. Nothing about young Isaiah or about Simon the fisherman merited or deserved the singling-out that came to each man. We can hear this in their common response of anguished amazement, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…” “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The Bible’s stories of God calling people to discipleship and leadership demonstrate that the call is to grow and share an interior life, both learning and leading spiritual life. And whether it’s in your household, your career, or your parish, equally, the principles shown by these call stories from Isaiah and Luke are these: Those whom God calls, God equips. And those whom God calls may resist and sputter, and by grace get over it.
Neither of these men thought that he’d won the Lottery. Each knew instinctively that he had been called to a life of service, complete with obstacles, risks… and grace, as each in time would understand and come to utterly rely upon.
But right now for Simon Peter, the Rock is sinking. His own boat is filled to the gunwhales, and so is the boat belonging to James and John, sons of Zebedee. None of them had ever seen the likes of this, and they were beginning not to like the looks of this, as their boats road lower and lower in the water. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.
In terms of the story-telling here, Luke is probably familiar with the metaphor of fishing, common in Greek literature for the activity of philosopher-teachers, where a good catch might be a point well made and readily taken.
In time, Simon Peter might have agreed. What becomes of all those fish we aren’t told. But what becomes of Peter the fisherman we know: his life is turned upside down. In one of my favorite hymns, it’s suggested that these were such “happy simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down. Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew the peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too.” It’s then that the hymn says, “Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless, in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, headdown was crucified. … The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing—the marvelous peace of God.”
What upends their lives isn’t the catch of fish, isn’t the momentum of the crowds, isn’t even the number of healings they witness and take part in. It is God who turns their lives around by calling them to claim the liberty of that abundant life which they see and feel and receive in Jesus. Through Jesus, God makes them free to serve, free to rise.
He weighs down their boats with fish to catch their attention, convincing them that they will never lack what they need with which to serve. For just a few moments, did it it nearly kill them, discovering that they have to let go of the catch of fish to become free enough to catch people?
Their suddenly gaining the material prosperity of all those fish almost puts them out of their boats, could put out their lives.
Their suddenly losing the material prosperity of all those fish puts them out a lot of money—but this they put out of mind as they recognize what is of first importance.
What happens to Simon and his fishing buddies today frees them to put first things first. In all our gainings of prosperity, in all our losings of prosperity, may we lay claim to the liberty of that abundant life which we see and know in Jesus, who has come not to be served, but to serve.
Last Sunday, Jesus escaped an angry crowd in his hometown, Nazareth. They were furious at him because he told them stories they didn’t want to hear, stories in which God gives away his love to foreigners. Incensed, the hometown crowd rushed at him to send him headlong over a cliff, but he somehow slipped through the loopholes of their inefficient rage and went on his way.
And his way would bring him next to Capernaum, a city in Galilee where he performed a number of healings including bringing an old woman through a high fever. The more people he helped, the more people were brought to him, until he had to slip away from the dense pressure of so many needy people.
Then his way brings him today to the lake of Gennesaret, where again a crowd presses in on him, to hear him express the word of God. You will understand why his eyes travel to those two boats offshore. Jesus wants a Plan B.
And the more he considers those boats, the more swiftly they become his first choice for a pulpit. A portable pulpit, one that leaves him free to achieve that critical distance which preaching and teaching, and listening and learning, require. And then he’ll be free to move on. His earlier experience in Nazareth has taught him a thing or two.
It’s Simon’s boat he chooses to get into. Back in Capernaum just days ago, it was Simon’s mother-in-law whom Jesus had visited and brought through that deadly fever. So Simon and Jesus already have a history of grace, though Simon is still new to this generous love that is about to be shown.
Jesus has Simon put out a little way from shore. Jesus must have had a big voice, to teach them from that boat. I don’t imagine they hear him, though, when he turns to Simon and turns his life upside down.
“Put out…” (there’s that phrase again) “into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
Sure, Jesus could have spoken loudly enough that the people on shore would hear his words to Simon… but I can’t picture that. That would have been like staging an act, like treating Simon as if he were more a prop than a person. No, I think he spoke quietly and directly to Simon, in a way that Simon would trust—because trust is just what it takes to outweigh logic in this instance. What he has seen at Jesus’s hands already leads him to trust the teacher—but it’s hard, letting go of what logic teaches him.
All night long, Simon and his crewmates have thrown their nets and caught nothing. As Simon is about to tell Jesus, none of them is in any rush to let down their nets any time soon because their own recent experience has taught them that the fish aren’t there.
Anticipating that someone here this morning might wonder about the practice of fishing at night, I consulted my closest commentary and found… nothing on the subject of nighttime fishing. When in doubt, google. And there I learned that here in the U.S., especially in summer, night is the time to fish if you’re after bass, catfish, or carp. And what the Bible commentator did tell me is that two of the three most common fish in the Sea of Galilee are, yes, catfish and carp. Like human beings, catfish and carp would just as soon escape the heat of the day, when they sink down to the deep places, rising at night to do their own feeding, up near the surface. So it’s with a certain authority that Simon could say to Jesus, “Master, if the fish weren’t rising last night, they won’t be rising today.”
I imagine Luke the story-teller relishing this moment. Simon thinks he’s an authority on the topic at hand, but he is clueless as to how much more Jesus knows about things of first importance. Simon deals in fish, but Jesus deals in resurrection. Simon knows how fish rise; Jesus knows how people rise.
And if nighttime represents the realm of human weakness up against the limitations imposed by darkness, if night ultimately symbolizes death, right down to the little dyings we do as each night we surrender consciousness and sink into sleep, then can’t you hear Luke the Gospel-teller setting the stage for Jesus, the light of the world, in full daylight launching the kingdom of God by speaking the Word that can be answered only by trust, not by logic: “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
With these words, Jesus turns Simon’s world upside down. Soon, he’ll even be known by a different name, Cephas, the Rock, or Peter as the name is translated. This is the story of his being called to discipleship by Jesus. And the setting isn’t a temple, as in Isaiah this morning when the calling of the prophet happens in an ethereal venue complete with seraphs flying and God sitting upon a throne. Our setting in Luke is a fishing trip, and the divine one is seated on the plank of a small boat bobbing on the Lake of Gennesaret.
One similarity between the divine call of Isaiah to be a prophet and the calling of Simon Peter appears to be God’s penchant for needing and calling not the most capable, or the most qualified, or the most promising candidates. Nothing about young Isaiah or about Simon the fisherman merited or deserved the singling-out that came to each man. We can hear this in their common response of anguished amazement, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips…” “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The Bible’s stories of God calling people to discipleship and leadership demonstrate that the call is to grow and share an interior life, both learning and leading spiritual life. And whether it’s in your household, your career, or your parish, equally, the principles shown by these call stories from Isaiah and Luke are these: Those whom God calls, God equips. And those whom God calls may resist and sputter, and by grace get over it.
Neither of these men thought that he’d won the Lottery. Each knew instinctively that he had been called to a life of service, complete with obstacles, risks… and grace, as each in time would understand and come to utterly rely upon.
But right now for Simon Peter, the Rock is sinking. His own boat is filled to the gunwhales, and so is the boat belonging to James and John, sons of Zebedee. None of them had ever seen the likes of this, and they were beginning not to like the looks of this, as their boats road lower and lower in the water. It is possible to have too much of a good thing.
In terms of the story-telling here, Luke is probably familiar with the metaphor of fishing, common in Greek literature for the activity of philosopher-teachers, where a good catch might be a point well made and readily taken.
In time, Simon Peter might have agreed. What becomes of all those fish we aren’t told. But what becomes of Peter the fisherman we know: his life is turned upside down. In one of my favorite hymns, it’s suggested that these were such “happy simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down. Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew the peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too.” It’s then that the hymn says, “Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless, in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, headdown was crucified. … The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet let us pray for but one thing—the marvelous peace of God.”
What upends their lives isn’t the catch of fish, isn’t the momentum of the crowds, isn’t even the number of healings they witness and take part in. It is God who turns their lives around by calling them to claim the liberty of that abundant life which they see and feel and receive in Jesus. Through Jesus, God makes them free to serve, free to rise.
He weighs down their boats with fish to catch their attention, convincing them that they will never lack what they need with which to serve. For just a few moments, did it it nearly kill them, discovering that they have to let go of the catch of fish to become free enough to catch people?
Their suddenly gaining the material prosperity of all those fish almost puts them out of their boats, could put out their lives.
Their suddenly losing the material prosperity of all those fish puts them out a lot of money—but this they put out of mind as they recognize what is of first importance.
What happens to Simon and his fishing buddies today frees them to put first things first. In all our gainings of prosperity, in all our losings of prosperity, may we lay claim to the liberty of that abundant life which we see and know in Jesus, who has come not to be served, but to serve.
What Tempts Us
The Gospel for the 1st Sunday in Lent is Luke 4:1-13
I opened my Ash Wednesday homily by noticing how, every now and again, we get a vague stirring of spring in the air, in the light, in the smell of the earth. Lent is our season, and that name comes from the same root as “length”, as in the lengthening of days. At this time in the calendar, smelling spring is very much a matter of hopeful anticipation, and the forecast of a snowstorm this week suggests how tentative that looking-forward may be.
I ended my Ash Wednesday homily by urging each of us to decide what kind of Lent we want, and then go for it. Don’t be satisfied with vague stirrings of the heart and tentative movements of the will. Be bold, as our artists have been, creating the Stations of the Cross that surround us here. Welcome a season of purposely growing your faith, your hope, and your love. At the foot of the aisle are daily guides through Lent. By far the best and boldest is Martin Smith’s book A Season for the Spirit. Henri Nouwen’s meditations are there, as well. As bold as these authors are, just reading isn’t what I have in mind when I recommend boldness; but what your reading may lead you into… now that’s where you may want to recall the adage, “Fortune favors the bold.”
And there’s nothing quite like temptation to discourage boldness, or to recklessly exaggerate it. So a good question for today is, “What’s tempting you?”
I notice from the temptations described by St. Luke that it may be the very thing you lack that defines your temptation. Jesus has fasted for forty days, a perilously long time to go without food, and he is famished. What’s the nature of his first temptation? Bread. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
Martin Smith, in his book, says that in the early days and weeks of our Lord’s public ministry he was not focused on being Son of God. Rather, he was keen on fulfilling the role of Son of Man. “The True Human Being” might be another way to understand that role. Unless he was fully identified with every reality of being human, Jesus would do us no earthly good as Son of God. There would be no pathway for the grace of God to reach us through a Messiah who didn’t put his sandals on one at a time like the rest of us.
Martin Smith takes us back to our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan River, and says, “In the muddy river Jesus was taking on the role of representing Humanity, of being its suffering Heart and Self before God. As soon as Jesus had done that decisively, God flooded him with awareness of his unique relationship as Son and anointed him with the life-giving Breath for his mission.”
Now in the desert, temptation rears its ugly head again with the prospect of his becoming a political Messiah hungry for national (even international) influence and glory, and Jesus recognizes one more category of what he lacks. He doesn’t have that kind of power, nor, as Son of Man, does he want it. (For that reason, I think this temptation is actually weaker than the first… I believe he really could have welcomed that bread.)
If this second temptation sounds vague and tentative, so does the third. Jesus is invited to imagine himself as a snow-less Shaun White, the Flying Tomato, flying down the halfpipe of the Temple parapet, executing a Double McTwist 1260. “It is written, He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,” cooes the Great Promoter.
To which Jesus replies, “And it is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus is not called to gravity extreme sport. Rather, says Martin Smith, “To exploit miraculous powers would be to insulate himself from day-by-day dependence on God’s voice, and force him to part company with ordinary men and women struggling to be faithful to a hidden God…. To stand with them means he may never stand over them.”
These three temptations suggest that what we do not have may uniquely and insidiously tempt us. There is Jesus in a barren place, void of civilization, and he has no bread, has no political power, has no need for the limelight. He is hammering-out the balance between being Son of Man and Son of God, and in each temptation what he doesn’t have could cause him to reach in a way that breaks his balance, distorts his nature.
I wonder if we are likelier to face temptation rising from what we do have. Here we are in an abundant life, a well-off society by comparison to so much of the world, many in this room living prosperous lives, even in a recession, in a land still blessed with a flow of milk and honey.
Our daily temptation may be to live within our homes without being thankful for them, without (to echo our first reading) celebrating “with all the bounty that the Lord our God has given to us and to our house.”
Our temptation may be to more quickly undertake home improvements than address homelessness.
Our temptation may be to never see or meet a homeless family, our lives being as well insulated as our homes.
Well, fair warning. Today’s Gospel is neither vague nor tentative in its presentation of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church, the author of our salvation, and the one into whose likeness and stature we are called to grow.
“His surrender to the Spirit of God allows him to break through to the truth that his specialness as the Beloved Son gives him the freedom to take human suffering upon himself and to be the Servant of all.”
His church, his people, have the same calling. You might say that our calling is to hammer-out the balance between loving obedience to the Son of God and loving obedience to the Son of Man.
Our Lenten mission focus on homelessness in North Berkshire is a step in responding to that call. It’s one that our children are hearing, and they’re leading us to be bold in answering.
I opened my Ash Wednesday homily by noticing how, every now and again, we get a vague stirring of spring in the air, in the light, in the smell of the earth. Lent is our season, and that name comes from the same root as “length”, as in the lengthening of days. At this time in the calendar, smelling spring is very much a matter of hopeful anticipation, and the forecast of a snowstorm this week suggests how tentative that looking-forward may be.
I ended my Ash Wednesday homily by urging each of us to decide what kind of Lent we want, and then go for it. Don’t be satisfied with vague stirrings of the heart and tentative movements of the will. Be bold, as our artists have been, creating the Stations of the Cross that surround us here. Welcome a season of purposely growing your faith, your hope, and your love. At the foot of the aisle are daily guides through Lent. By far the best and boldest is Martin Smith’s book A Season for the Spirit. Henri Nouwen’s meditations are there, as well. As bold as these authors are, just reading isn’t what I have in mind when I recommend boldness; but what your reading may lead you into… now that’s where you may want to recall the adage, “Fortune favors the bold.”
And there’s nothing quite like temptation to discourage boldness, or to recklessly exaggerate it. So a good question for today is, “What’s tempting you?”
I notice from the temptations described by St. Luke that it may be the very thing you lack that defines your temptation. Jesus has fasted for forty days, a perilously long time to go without food, and he is famished. What’s the nature of his first temptation? Bread. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
Martin Smith, in his book, says that in the early days and weeks of our Lord’s public ministry he was not focused on being Son of God. Rather, he was keen on fulfilling the role of Son of Man. “The True Human Being” might be another way to understand that role. Unless he was fully identified with every reality of being human, Jesus would do us no earthly good as Son of God. There would be no pathway for the grace of God to reach us through a Messiah who didn’t put his sandals on one at a time like the rest of us.
Martin Smith takes us back to our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan River, and says, “In the muddy river Jesus was taking on the role of representing Humanity, of being its suffering Heart and Self before God. As soon as Jesus had done that decisively, God flooded him with awareness of his unique relationship as Son and anointed him with the life-giving Breath for his mission.”
Now in the desert, temptation rears its ugly head again with the prospect of his becoming a political Messiah hungry for national (even international) influence and glory, and Jesus recognizes one more category of what he lacks. He doesn’t have that kind of power, nor, as Son of Man, does he want it. (For that reason, I think this temptation is actually weaker than the first… I believe he really could have welcomed that bread.)
If this second temptation sounds vague and tentative, so does the third. Jesus is invited to imagine himself as a snow-less Shaun White, the Flying Tomato, flying down the halfpipe of the Temple parapet, executing a Double McTwist 1260. “It is written, He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,” cooes the Great Promoter.
To which Jesus replies, “And it is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus is not called to gravity extreme sport. Rather, says Martin Smith, “To exploit miraculous powers would be to insulate himself from day-by-day dependence on God’s voice, and force him to part company with ordinary men and women struggling to be faithful to a hidden God…. To stand with them means he may never stand over them.”
These three temptations suggest that what we do not have may uniquely and insidiously tempt us. There is Jesus in a barren place, void of civilization, and he has no bread, has no political power, has no need for the limelight. He is hammering-out the balance between being Son of Man and Son of God, and in each temptation what he doesn’t have could cause him to reach in a way that breaks his balance, distorts his nature.
I wonder if we are likelier to face temptation rising from what we do have. Here we are in an abundant life, a well-off society by comparison to so much of the world, many in this room living prosperous lives, even in a recession, in a land still blessed with a flow of milk and honey.
Our daily temptation may be to live within our homes without being thankful for them, without (to echo our first reading) celebrating “with all the bounty that the Lord our God has given to us and to our house.”
Our temptation may be to more quickly undertake home improvements than address homelessness.
Our temptation may be to never see or meet a homeless family, our lives being as well insulated as our homes.
Well, fair warning. Today’s Gospel is neither vague nor tentative in its presentation of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church, the author of our salvation, and the one into whose likeness and stature we are called to grow.
“His surrender to the Spirit of God allows him to break through to the truth that his specialness as the Beloved Son gives him the freedom to take human suffering upon himself and to be the Servant of all.”
His church, his people, have the same calling. You might say that our calling is to hammer-out the balance between loving obedience to the Son of God and loving obedience to the Son of Man.
Our Lenten mission focus on homelessness in North Berkshire is a step in responding to that call. It’s one that our children are hearing, and they’re leading us to be bold in answering.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Glory, Glory!
Scripture for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany includes Exodus 34:29-35; II Corinthians 3:12-4:2; and Luke 9:28-36
We hear about two kinds of glory today. One is fading glory. The other is transforming glory. I suppose you could say that it’s the first that brings us to church. And it’s the second we hope to find here.
Fading glory by its nature looks backward. Consider Moses. Every time he and God had a tete a tete conversation on Mount Sinai, Moses came down to the people with such radiance beaming from his face that he caught their attention and held it. But, says St. Paul in a rather catty way, the day came when that glory faded and, to keep the people from noticing, Moses took to wearing a veil over his face. Approval ratings hang on appearances, don’t they?
And consider Peter, John, and James. They’re present when transformation strikes on another holy mountain. “The Transfiguration of Jesus”, it’s called, and the moment makes you picture the aurora borealis in all its glory, and then some. Helpless (and who likes feeling helpless?) and clueless in the face of such evanescent glory, these three boys propose a small building project to capture the moment. Which, of course, cannot be done. Fading glory won’t be captured.
I’m wondering how many of us came through these doors today with a case of fading glory. The first cold of the new year (that was my week that was)… the demands of our workplace… frustrations and fears within the nuclear family (and let’s not even talk about the extended family)… disillusionment at how our federal legislators seem more helpless and clueless than Peter, John, and James (who at least offer to build something that isn’t located in their own congressional districts)…
And would it be about right to say that we, like Moses, know how to veil our fading glory? “How are you today?” “Fine, and you?” Our own little private version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”— self-protecting, subtly isolating, a veil we lift very selectively, when we believe we’re safe to do so (sometimes mistakenly).
If fading glory helps get us to church, it’s nothing we should have to hide. The first law of spiritual physics that we learn in the Foundations Course is the Renewal-Outreach model, the simple rule that human beings require a regular rhythm of cycling between (on the one hand) giving ourselves to the work of Christ in workplace, family, and community and (on the other) renewing ourselves in our baptismal identity and purpose, bathing ourselves in the mercy and healing of God.
In our second session of Foundations tomorrow evening, we’ll examine the Baptismal Covenant, that set of renunciations, affirmations, and vows which create the holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace.
If you will recall the last infant baptism you witnessed, you’ll find familiar a pair of questions asked of the Godparents and parents, “Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?” And the second question is yet more staggering and wondrous: “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”
The Christian faith never expects us to make vows trusting in our own ability to keep them. To get that wrong is the surest path to a fading glory. Always, the Christian answers, “I will, with God’s help.”
The maturing Christian accepts responsibility for bringing up in faith, hope, and love that self who was once the responsibility of parents and Godparents. The maturing Christian staggers with wonder into that transformation of a limited human self into the full stature of Christ. The language of our vows teaches us that if we have the will to so grow, the will to be so transformed, God helps it happen. And we learn that God doesn’t sweep away our human limitations, but sweeps them into the mix, which is shown in our Collect today: “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of Jesus’s countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.” No cross-- no struggle with our own limitations and those of other people and those of this world—no cross, no transforming glory.
This is not a spectator’s sport, not the Olympic performance of a gifted few. This is the life of the Spirit opened by Jesus Christ for participation by all who have the will to seek the grace to walk the rhythmic walk that cycles between outreach and renewal, work and prayer, mission and repair, embracing in ministry and being embraced in mercy.
Here I am, nearing the home stretch in this sermon; we’d better turn our attention to transforming glory. If fading glory looks backward, transforming glory moves forward. If fading glory gets us in the door, within this house of prayer and time of worship aren’t we hoping for at least a trace of transforming glory? Better yet, a solid dose of it here in this holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace?
But wait… those were the same words I chose, moments ago, to describe the Baptismal Covenant that shapes our relationship with God. I referred to those several renunciations of evil, affirmation of faith, and vows of our baptism having created a holy space. So what we do here in this space is related to what you do in yours. Transforming glory may touch you from here. But you may touch what we do here with the transforming glory that meets you in the holy crucible of your life. And if you aren’t meeting it there, maybe you won’t recognize it here.
In our second lesson, Paul prepares us for the encounter wherever it will happen. And he tells us first to lift our veils. Take off your coats, take down your self-protection, lay down denial, be honest, be open. He might also invite us to slip off our self-absorption, and offer up our mirrors for a thorough cleaning, the mirrors we adjust ourselves in, the ones we check to make sure we’re still alive, still recognizable.
Then listen to what he says: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Catch this stunning message: Your mirror may show you a fading glory, and you must lay it down for a thorough cleaning. But the Lord Jesus is not scolding you for needing that mirror. Wondrous thing: when you lift your veil, you will see him meeting you there within the reflected image—“as though reflected in a mirror” you will meet transforming glory within your own experience, within your own limitations, walking your own walk, dealing with your own issues.
For he knows them all. It is written somewhere in the Gospels that he has no need to be instructed about human nature, for he knows what is in the heart. His way of the cross makes clear that he is no stranger to the forces that would fade all glory.
As we step into Lent this week, we will walk the way of the cross both here and there, in the sacred space of our own lives. Walking and praying the stations of the cross, as we shall do from Wednesday on, we will find him walking our way, as well. Looking into each of the fourteen stations of his passion, we will find mirrors along the way, where his likeness meets our own reflection. May the closeness of the two—of him with us and us with him—strengthen our will to be open to transforming glory.
.
We hear about two kinds of glory today. One is fading glory. The other is transforming glory. I suppose you could say that it’s the first that brings us to church. And it’s the second we hope to find here.
Fading glory by its nature looks backward. Consider Moses. Every time he and God had a tete a tete conversation on Mount Sinai, Moses came down to the people with such radiance beaming from his face that he caught their attention and held it. But, says St. Paul in a rather catty way, the day came when that glory faded and, to keep the people from noticing, Moses took to wearing a veil over his face. Approval ratings hang on appearances, don’t they?
And consider Peter, John, and James. They’re present when transformation strikes on another holy mountain. “The Transfiguration of Jesus”, it’s called, and the moment makes you picture the aurora borealis in all its glory, and then some. Helpless (and who likes feeling helpless?) and clueless in the face of such evanescent glory, these three boys propose a small building project to capture the moment. Which, of course, cannot be done. Fading glory won’t be captured.
I’m wondering how many of us came through these doors today with a case of fading glory. The first cold of the new year (that was my week that was)… the demands of our workplace… frustrations and fears within the nuclear family (and let’s not even talk about the extended family)… disillusionment at how our federal legislators seem more helpless and clueless than Peter, John, and James (who at least offer to build something that isn’t located in their own congressional districts)…
And would it be about right to say that we, like Moses, know how to veil our fading glory? “How are you today?” “Fine, and you?” Our own little private version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”— self-protecting, subtly isolating, a veil we lift very selectively, when we believe we’re safe to do so (sometimes mistakenly).
If fading glory helps get us to church, it’s nothing we should have to hide. The first law of spiritual physics that we learn in the Foundations Course is the Renewal-Outreach model, the simple rule that human beings require a regular rhythm of cycling between (on the one hand) giving ourselves to the work of Christ in workplace, family, and community and (on the other) renewing ourselves in our baptismal identity and purpose, bathing ourselves in the mercy and healing of God.
In our second session of Foundations tomorrow evening, we’ll examine the Baptismal Covenant, that set of renunciations, affirmations, and vows which create the holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace.
If you will recall the last infant baptism you witnessed, you’ll find familiar a pair of questions asked of the Godparents and parents, “Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?” And the second question is yet more staggering and wondrous: “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”
The Christian faith never expects us to make vows trusting in our own ability to keep them. To get that wrong is the surest path to a fading glory. Always, the Christian answers, “I will, with God’s help.”
The maturing Christian accepts responsibility for bringing up in faith, hope, and love that self who was once the responsibility of parents and Godparents. The maturing Christian staggers with wonder into that transformation of a limited human self into the full stature of Christ. The language of our vows teaches us that if we have the will to so grow, the will to be so transformed, God helps it happen. And we learn that God doesn’t sweep away our human limitations, but sweeps them into the mix, which is shown in our Collect today: “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of Jesus’s countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.” No cross-- no struggle with our own limitations and those of other people and those of this world—no cross, no transforming glory.
This is not a spectator’s sport, not the Olympic performance of a gifted few. This is the life of the Spirit opened by Jesus Christ for participation by all who have the will to seek the grace to walk the rhythmic walk that cycles between outreach and renewal, work and prayer, mission and repair, embracing in ministry and being embraced in mercy.
Here I am, nearing the home stretch in this sermon; we’d better turn our attention to transforming glory. If fading glory looks backward, transforming glory moves forward. If fading glory gets us in the door, within this house of prayer and time of worship aren’t we hoping for at least a trace of transforming glory? Better yet, a solid dose of it here in this holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace?
But wait… those were the same words I chose, moments ago, to describe the Baptismal Covenant that shapes our relationship with God. I referred to those several renunciations of evil, affirmation of faith, and vows of our baptism having created a holy space. So what we do here in this space is related to what you do in yours. Transforming glory may touch you from here. But you may touch what we do here with the transforming glory that meets you in the holy crucible of your life. And if you aren’t meeting it there, maybe you won’t recognize it here.
In our second lesson, Paul prepares us for the encounter wherever it will happen. And he tells us first to lift our veils. Take off your coats, take down your self-protection, lay down denial, be honest, be open. He might also invite us to slip off our self-absorption, and offer up our mirrors for a thorough cleaning, the mirrors we adjust ourselves in, the ones we check to make sure we’re still alive, still recognizable.
Then listen to what he says: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Catch this stunning message: Your mirror may show you a fading glory, and you must lay it down for a thorough cleaning. But the Lord Jesus is not scolding you for needing that mirror. Wondrous thing: when you lift your veil, you will see him meeting you there within the reflected image—“as though reflected in a mirror” you will meet transforming glory within your own experience, within your own limitations, walking your own walk, dealing with your own issues.
For he knows them all. It is written somewhere in the Gospels that he has no need to be instructed about human nature, for he knows what is in the heart. His way of the cross makes clear that he is no stranger to the forces that would fade all glory.
As we step into Lent this week, we will walk the way of the cross both here and there, in the sacred space of our own lives. Walking and praying the stations of the cross, as we shall do from Wednesday on, we will find him walking our way, as well. Looking into each of the fourteen stations of his passion, we will find mirrors along the way, where his likeness meets our own reflection. May the closeness of the two—of him with us and us with him—strengthen our will to be open to transforming glory.
.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Gold Standard
Scripture for the 4th Sunday in Epiphany includes Jeremiah 1:4-10, I Corinthians 13:1-13, and Luke 4:21-30
St. Paul’s great hymn to love, his exaltation of “agape”, self-yielding love, all-accepting love, entirely-committed love, over-the-top love which we know in Jesus Christ, the gold standard for the Church.
How irritating a standard this is! How unreasonably demanding.
Just when we imagine we’ve found a hot new step to clang and gong our way into the limited attention span of our culture, with plugged-in worship and express-lane religion, we keep getting held to the standard of “as I have loved you, so you must love…”
And while editors sharpen the edges of intriguing faith formation programs, encouraging fresh interpretations and dynamic understandings, St. Paul is still singing in the background about how we’re measured not by our having faith, or by our having understanding, but by our having love.
For heaven’s sake, the apostle even dismisses extreme stewardship—giving away all my possessions—as being no gain, without love.
How very irritating this is. At this rate, even fitness and health could get knocked off their pedestal, if they’re the be-all and end-all, and not love.
How annoyingly counter-cultural, this standard of love. It’s against our ways as a church, not to clang our cymbals and flex our powers. And it’s against our culture to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. We don’t know how to rejoice in the truth—we spin the truth, we distract ourselves from the truth.
You would think St. Paul might have learned from what happened to Jesus, who came telling truth, and look at the results. Instantly, his hometown crowd turned cynical on him. He heard them warming up to give him a ribbing: “Doctor, cure yourself! You aren’t looking very successful. Same scuffed sandals we wear… and from the look of that tunic your wardrobe hasn’t gotten updated in years… Where’s the good news, brother? You sure aren’t wearing it!”
“Always seeking a new improved model, are you?” Jesus asks. “Small wonder that no prophet is accepted in that prophet’s hometown. You want a few healings, the kind we saw in Capernaum?
“What if I told you that a clean bill of health isn’t everything? That freedom from pain and escaping illness are not essential signs of God’s favor? That what matters is your being open to the presence and love of God in whatever circumstance or condition you’re in? That all that matters is that you not reject grace when it meets you?”
Grace, he says. Love unmerited, unearned, undeserved, pure gift. No clanging bells, gongs, or whistles.
And there we go again, that annoying measure requiring us to welcome, treasure, and imitate the unmeasurable.
That irritating standard, the grain of sand that agitates, stimulates the forming of pearls, pearls of great value, like the one Jesus holds in his hands as the crowd rushes at him to hurl him off a cliff.
And what has he done to deserve this? He has told them truth. He tells them of a time when catastrophe racked the middle east, a severe famine, and the great prophet Elijah was sent, not to a widow in Israel, but to help a widow in Syria.
Grace: love unmerited, undeserved, generous, gift.
And on the heels of that story, another: when God showed unmeasurable love to someone simply because he needed it—and, annoying, irritating, this recipient was also a foreigner, not one of the hometown crowd, a fellow not covered by insurance, not one of the favored chosen, yet met by grace.
It didn’t take a third story to get the hometown crowd ripping mad at Jesus. Some of them rushed at him, but somehow he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. I picture just enough of them believing with him, hoping with him, forming to his right and to his left a gauntlet of grace to bear him, to endure all this rage.
And there is a homely image of the Church. As he moves about the world holding out the pearl of truth, the pearl of grace that people need, all who believe with him, who hope with him, who love with him make way for him to reach all who need him.
And that way is known to be formed of faith, and hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
St. Paul’s great hymn to love, his exaltation of “agape”, self-yielding love, all-accepting love, entirely-committed love, over-the-top love which we know in Jesus Christ, the gold standard for the Church.
How irritating a standard this is! How unreasonably demanding.
Just when we imagine we’ve found a hot new step to clang and gong our way into the limited attention span of our culture, with plugged-in worship and express-lane religion, we keep getting held to the standard of “as I have loved you, so you must love…”
And while editors sharpen the edges of intriguing faith formation programs, encouraging fresh interpretations and dynamic understandings, St. Paul is still singing in the background about how we’re measured not by our having faith, or by our having understanding, but by our having love.
For heaven’s sake, the apostle even dismisses extreme stewardship—giving away all my possessions—as being no gain, without love.
How very irritating this is. At this rate, even fitness and health could get knocked off their pedestal, if they’re the be-all and end-all, and not love.
How annoyingly counter-cultural, this standard of love. It’s against our ways as a church, not to clang our cymbals and flex our powers. And it’s against our culture to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. We don’t know how to rejoice in the truth—we spin the truth, we distract ourselves from the truth.
You would think St. Paul might have learned from what happened to Jesus, who came telling truth, and look at the results. Instantly, his hometown crowd turned cynical on him. He heard them warming up to give him a ribbing: “Doctor, cure yourself! You aren’t looking very successful. Same scuffed sandals we wear… and from the look of that tunic your wardrobe hasn’t gotten updated in years… Where’s the good news, brother? You sure aren’t wearing it!”
“Always seeking a new improved model, are you?” Jesus asks. “Small wonder that no prophet is accepted in that prophet’s hometown. You want a few healings, the kind we saw in Capernaum?
“What if I told you that a clean bill of health isn’t everything? That freedom from pain and escaping illness are not essential signs of God’s favor? That what matters is your being open to the presence and love of God in whatever circumstance or condition you’re in? That all that matters is that you not reject grace when it meets you?”
Grace, he says. Love unmerited, unearned, undeserved, pure gift. No clanging bells, gongs, or whistles.
And there we go again, that annoying measure requiring us to welcome, treasure, and imitate the unmeasurable.
That irritating standard, the grain of sand that agitates, stimulates the forming of pearls, pearls of great value, like the one Jesus holds in his hands as the crowd rushes at him to hurl him off a cliff.
And what has he done to deserve this? He has told them truth. He tells them of a time when catastrophe racked the middle east, a severe famine, and the great prophet Elijah was sent, not to a widow in Israel, but to help a widow in Syria.
Grace: love unmerited, undeserved, generous, gift.
And on the heels of that story, another: when God showed unmeasurable love to someone simply because he needed it—and, annoying, irritating, this recipient was also a foreigner, not one of the hometown crowd, a fellow not covered by insurance, not one of the favored chosen, yet met by grace.
It didn’t take a third story to get the hometown crowd ripping mad at Jesus. Some of them rushed at him, but somehow he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. I picture just enough of them believing with him, hoping with him, forming to his right and to his left a gauntlet of grace to bear him, to endure all this rage.
And there is a homely image of the Church. As he moves about the world holding out the pearl of truth, the pearl of grace that people need, all who believe with him, who hope with him, who love with him make way for him to reach all who need him.
And that way is known to be formed of faith, and hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Indelible Grace
Scripture for the 1st Sunday after the Epiphany includes Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Can there be a finer way to celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord than to baptize in his name today? On your behalf, I thank Jennifer and Jarrett, Eleanor and Will, for choosing this day for their child’s baptism.
I find names fascinating. Maisie and Wilson are the two we will hear today at the font.
You can bet I googled Maisie, and learned that it’s a Scottish form of the name Margaret. I learned that Sir Walter Scott wrote a poem about Proud Maisie. Henry James wrote a novel, “What Maisie Knew”. More recently, Maisie Dobbs is the London psychologist-investigator featured in Jacqueline Winspear’s mystery series. And there is a London wedding cake baker named Maisie Fantaisie. I don’t know if that’s how she pronounces her last name, but could there be a better way? What’s so to be liked about this name Maisie is how it sounds.
We might say the same about Wilson. I don’t suppose it’s an accident that the son of Will should be Wilson. Another fellow named Wilson once stood at the baptismal font here, though that wasn’t his first name—his well-meaning parents had saddled him with the first name Woodrow. That must have set him up for challenging times on the playground when he was a child, but perhaps those were more polite times than these—and it evidently didn’t get in the way of a career in politics.
Having started that story, I’d better finish it. President Wilson came here in April of 1915 to serve as Godfather to Francis Woodrow Sayre, his grandson, the son of his daughter Jessie and her husband, Francis. Why here? Francis was a Williams alum, and during his student years (when he and Jessie were courting), Jessie would stay at what was then the rectory, the private home of The Rev. and Mrs. J. Franklin Carter. There’s a story about student ministry and hospitality… And by the time of the baptism, Francis was Secretary to the President of Williams College, and he and Jessie and Baby Francis were living in a house on West Main Street.
Explaining things further, the Carters and the first family were old friends. In a recent article in the Eagle, Bernard Drew says that from time to time, on their way to or from the summer White House in New Hampshire, the Wilsons would come to visit the Carters in their home, what is now Vogt House here on Park Street, a house not quite as big as the White House.
If you read Bernard Drew’s story, you know he ended without resolving a mystery. When that once-upon-a-time baby Francis Sayre died in 2008 (after an illustrious career as Dean of the National Cathedral), his name was given not as Francis Woodrow Sayre, but Francis Bowes Sayre, Jr.
Now, the Episcopal Church considers Holy Baptism to be indelible. What is given in Baptism cannot be taken away. One is made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church, a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.
But evidently one’s name is not indelible. When Francis gained a little brother, the name Woodrow, Francis’s middle name, was given to his kid brother as a first name. Is that why Francis’s name was changed, his middle name replaced by his father’s middle name, to free the name Woodrow in that generation? Or did Francis’s parents decide that they wanted a junior?
Who knows? Who cares? I presume that the change was made while Francis was still young enough that he was none the wiser. But isn’t it a story of how ephemeral some things are that get set down on paper, how whimsical we humans can be.
By contrast, hear again the firm opening words of the 43rd chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah: “Now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Indelible is the name God gives to us each, the very same name God gives to his Son Jesus in his baptism: beloved. “You are my Son, the Beloved.” Becoming a Christian—and I don’t mean just at the moment of baptism, but becoming a Christian over a lifetime—is much about daring to hear those words addressed to each of us: “You are my son, my daughter, beloved.” And daring to let that voice commission us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus so that all will come to know this relentless love.
Isaiah’s words express the promise Christians find in baptism: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” By these terms, see Christian baptism not promising the magic of being protected-from life, but promising the companioning presence of God who supports and carries us through life, into life. Through deep waters in life, through whitewatered rivers, through crashing breakers… you get the idea.
No mistaking it that using water as the outward and visible sign for this sacrament skirts the razor-thin border between security and vulnerability, between life and death. A mother’s water breaks for a child to be born, a baby’s bathwater replicates the wet warmth of the womb. Water sustains and comforts us.
But Jesus standing in the muddy waters of the Jordan River does so with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other pilgrims seeking to be washed in newness of life, and it’s not the picture of hygiene. He’s there on our behalf, achieving solidarity with the human race—and see this scene declaring his immersing himself in the total care and ecology of God’s creation. He’s opening himself to his full mission, the birthing of God’s new creation. And it’s risky, mucky business, this taking-upon oneself full humanity. Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, but also calls us to our responsibilities.
And in the early generations of believers, to be baptized was to be physically lowered, covered, immersed, in the live water of a stream, river, or natural pool, as if brushing against the very threat of drowning, death. On Easter Day, when baptisms were conducted by dawn’s light, believers went with Jesus right to the gates of death to find him already there, his the lift of strong arms belonging to deacons lowering and lifting each candidate in baptism, once in the name of God the Father, again in the name of Jesus the Son, once more in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, calls us to responsibility. We’re made of it, and it can unmake us, threaten us, endanger us. And it is along this razor’s edge that the water of baptism is poured, the promise of the sacrament being not a magical protection from life, deep sweeping tidal life, but the promise of bearing us, carrying us through, indelibly pledging to us God’s presence, God’s passionate naming of us beloved, God’s Spirit engaging and embracing and dwelling within us in Jesus Christ our Lord. All the powers of God that will make us ready and able to open ourselves to life, to the birthing of new life.
Can there be a finer way to celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord than to baptize in his name today? On your behalf, I thank Jennifer and Jarrett, Eleanor and Will, for choosing this day for their child’s baptism.
I find names fascinating. Maisie and Wilson are the two we will hear today at the font.
You can bet I googled Maisie, and learned that it’s a Scottish form of the name Margaret. I learned that Sir Walter Scott wrote a poem about Proud Maisie. Henry James wrote a novel, “What Maisie Knew”. More recently, Maisie Dobbs is the London psychologist-investigator featured in Jacqueline Winspear’s mystery series. And there is a London wedding cake baker named Maisie Fantaisie. I don’t know if that’s how she pronounces her last name, but could there be a better way? What’s so to be liked about this name Maisie is how it sounds.
We might say the same about Wilson. I don’t suppose it’s an accident that the son of Will should be Wilson. Another fellow named Wilson once stood at the baptismal font here, though that wasn’t his first name—his well-meaning parents had saddled him with the first name Woodrow. That must have set him up for challenging times on the playground when he was a child, but perhaps those were more polite times than these—and it evidently didn’t get in the way of a career in politics.
Having started that story, I’d better finish it. President Wilson came here in April of 1915 to serve as Godfather to Francis Woodrow Sayre, his grandson, the son of his daughter Jessie and her husband, Francis. Why here? Francis was a Williams alum, and during his student years (when he and Jessie were courting), Jessie would stay at what was then the rectory, the private home of The Rev. and Mrs. J. Franklin Carter. There’s a story about student ministry and hospitality… And by the time of the baptism, Francis was Secretary to the President of Williams College, and he and Jessie and Baby Francis were living in a house on West Main Street.
Explaining things further, the Carters and the first family were old friends. In a recent article in the Eagle, Bernard Drew says that from time to time, on their way to or from the summer White House in New Hampshire, the Wilsons would come to visit the Carters in their home, what is now Vogt House here on Park Street, a house not quite as big as the White House.
If you read Bernard Drew’s story, you know he ended without resolving a mystery. When that once-upon-a-time baby Francis Sayre died in 2008 (after an illustrious career as Dean of the National Cathedral), his name was given not as Francis Woodrow Sayre, but Francis Bowes Sayre, Jr.
Now, the Episcopal Church considers Holy Baptism to be indelible. What is given in Baptism cannot be taken away. One is made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church, a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.
But evidently one’s name is not indelible. When Francis gained a little brother, the name Woodrow, Francis’s middle name, was given to his kid brother as a first name. Is that why Francis’s name was changed, his middle name replaced by his father’s middle name, to free the name Woodrow in that generation? Or did Francis’s parents decide that they wanted a junior?
Who knows? Who cares? I presume that the change was made while Francis was still young enough that he was none the wiser. But isn’t it a story of how ephemeral some things are that get set down on paper, how whimsical we humans can be.
By contrast, hear again the firm opening words of the 43rd chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah: “Now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Indelible is the name God gives to us each, the very same name God gives to his Son Jesus in his baptism: beloved. “You are my Son, the Beloved.” Becoming a Christian—and I don’t mean just at the moment of baptism, but becoming a Christian over a lifetime—is much about daring to hear those words addressed to each of us: “You are my son, my daughter, beloved.” And daring to let that voice commission us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus so that all will come to know this relentless love.
Isaiah’s words express the promise Christians find in baptism: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” By these terms, see Christian baptism not promising the magic of being protected-from life, but promising the companioning presence of God who supports and carries us through life, into life. Through deep waters in life, through whitewatered rivers, through crashing breakers… you get the idea.
No mistaking it that using water as the outward and visible sign for this sacrament skirts the razor-thin border between security and vulnerability, between life and death. A mother’s water breaks for a child to be born, a baby’s bathwater replicates the wet warmth of the womb. Water sustains and comforts us.
But Jesus standing in the muddy waters of the Jordan River does so with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other pilgrims seeking to be washed in newness of life, and it’s not the picture of hygiene. He’s there on our behalf, achieving solidarity with the human race—and see this scene declaring his immersing himself in the total care and ecology of God’s creation. He’s opening himself to his full mission, the birthing of God’s new creation. And it’s risky, mucky business, this taking-upon oneself full humanity. Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, but also calls us to our responsibilities.
And in the early generations of believers, to be baptized was to be physically lowered, covered, immersed, in the live water of a stream, river, or natural pool, as if brushing against the very threat of drowning, death. On Easter Day, when baptisms were conducted by dawn’s light, believers went with Jesus right to the gates of death to find him already there, his the lift of strong arms belonging to deacons lowering and lifting each candidate in baptism, once in the name of God the Father, again in the name of Jesus the Son, once more in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, calls us to responsibility. We’re made of it, and it can unmake us, threaten us, endanger us. And it is along this razor’s edge that the water of baptism is poured, the promise of the sacrament being not a magical protection from life, deep sweeping tidal life, but the promise of bearing us, carrying us through, indelibly pledging to us God’s presence, God’s passionate naming of us beloved, God’s Spirit engaging and embracing and dwelling within us in Jesus Christ our Lord. All the powers of God that will make us ready and able to open ourselves to life, to the birthing of new life.
The Gift We Need
I had a wicked thought, the other day.
What if, the Sunday after Christmas Day, we each brought to church the one gift we’d received this Christmas, the one gift that we had the least idea what to do with. The kind of gift that you just hold in your hands and stare at a while, shaking your head, wondering how has this come to be?
You know, it might work. For one thing, we could turn it all into a silent auction, for who knows? Someone else might want that thing. Or, failing that, we could have a team of judges and give them a small supply of colored ribbons for various categories, like Most Astonishing, Most Puzzling, and Most Useless.
So what am I doing, but poking fun at how, at this time when the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ most honors matter, like flesh and blood, we do fill our days trying valiantly to repackage matter in such a way that the things we give one another succeed in, well, mattering.
The British poet John Betjeman wrote about this plight in his poem “Advent 1955”, a portion of which I’d like to read to you:
“…For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound—
Journey to what? To whom? To where?
The Advent bells call out, ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how in fact do we prepare
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know—
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising.
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’,
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.”
Between my wicked thought, and the poet’s clever lines, I conclude that we’ll not get inspired much by the caliber of our own gift-giving. So let’s fix our attention on the nature of God’s giving.
And about that, the Christian claim is astonishing. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” No, let me read it in paraphrase from The Message, further paraphrased by me: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need offer himself up on an altar of sacrifice; but by believing in him, by letting his love shape our own, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is put right with God.”
That (more or less) is how our patron, Saint John the Evangelist, expresses the Christian claim. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the Book of Common Prayer puts it another way. In the collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, we pray: “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ…”
God, who invested the human race with dignity, does not hold it against us that we lost that dignity. Rather, God restores it to us as we share the divine life of Jesus, who humbled himself to share our humanity.
Listen to how this matters. God does not go 50% of the way to reach us, across the vast gulf of all that lost dignity. The story of God’s giving at Bethlehem shows God going 100% of the way to reach us. We must learn to reach out like that, go that far out of our way in love, in generosity, in forgiveness, to make the difference the world, someone in our world, needs of us.
We can give whole-heartedly like that, when our hearts are set free by receiving the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
Holy One, this Christmas, tonight, right now, help us open ourselves to the free and freeing gift of your love in the person and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
What if, the Sunday after Christmas Day, we each brought to church the one gift we’d received this Christmas, the one gift that we had the least idea what to do with. The kind of gift that you just hold in your hands and stare at a while, shaking your head, wondering how has this come to be?
You know, it might work. For one thing, we could turn it all into a silent auction, for who knows? Someone else might want that thing. Or, failing that, we could have a team of judges and give them a small supply of colored ribbons for various categories, like Most Astonishing, Most Puzzling, and Most Useless.
So what am I doing, but poking fun at how, at this time when the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ most honors matter, like flesh and blood, we do fill our days trying valiantly to repackage matter in such a way that the things we give one another succeed in, well, mattering.
The British poet John Betjeman wrote about this plight in his poem “Advent 1955”, a portion of which I’d like to read to you:
“…For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound—
Journey to what? To whom? To where?
The Advent bells call out, ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how in fact do we prepare
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know—
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising.
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’,
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.”
Between my wicked thought, and the poet’s clever lines, I conclude that we’ll not get inspired much by the caliber of our own gift-giving. So let’s fix our attention on the nature of God’s giving.
And about that, the Christian claim is astonishing. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” No, let me read it in paraphrase from The Message, further paraphrased by me: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need offer himself up on an altar of sacrifice; but by believing in him, by letting his love shape our own, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is put right with God.”
That (more or less) is how our patron, Saint John the Evangelist, expresses the Christian claim. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the Book of Common Prayer puts it another way. In the collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, we pray: “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ…”
God, who invested the human race with dignity, does not hold it against us that we lost that dignity. Rather, God restores it to us as we share the divine life of Jesus, who humbled himself to share our humanity.
Listen to how this matters. God does not go 50% of the way to reach us, across the vast gulf of all that lost dignity. The story of God’s giving at Bethlehem shows God going 100% of the way to reach us. We must learn to reach out like that, go that far out of our way in love, in generosity, in forgiveness, to make the difference the world, someone in our world, needs of us.
We can give whole-heartedly like that, when our hearts are set free by receiving the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
Holy One, this Christmas, tonight, right now, help us open ourselves to the free and freeing gift of your love in the person and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
