Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-36

Lord, make me a hollow reed so that Your Voice might be heard by all who hear these words. Amen.

In our readings today, this last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, we encounter not one, but two characters being “transfigured.” “Transfiguration” is not a word that is in our everyday vocabulary—but if you’ve read any of the Harry Potter novels, you’ll be familiar with the concept. In the magical world of witches and wizards, the ability to transfigure—to change oneself into another creature—is one of the many magic skills students are taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It’s clearly a useful skill, allowing one to travel about undetected, as Professor McGonagall does when she becomes a cat, or to hide from one’s enemies, as Harry’s godfather Sirius Black does, taking the form of a big shaggy dog when he escapes from Azkaban, the wizarding prison, and as the more nefarious Peter Pettigrew does as a rat, hiding out from his former master, the evil Lord Voldemort.

You might have noticed that in all the examples I’ve given, transfiguration allows one to be less obvious, to go unnoticed. But the kind of transfiguration that Moses and Jesus undergo is quite different—their appearance changes, to be sure, but rather than making them less conspicuous, helping them to blend in, or to get by undetected, their transfiguration – with glowing white robes and luminous faces – puts them right in the spotlight. Rather than hiding their true identities, the transfigurations of Moses and Jesus reveal them as who they are—prophet and liberator on the one hand; messiah, son of God on the other, and they serve as vivid reminders of God’s enduring presence in the world.

Moses, you will recall, has led the Israelites out of Egypt, out of slavery, into freedom—and right into the wilderness, where they must find their way, trusting in God to lead them to the “Promised Land.” The Israelites aren’t used to such freedom; it’s scary, and despite repeated assurances from Moses—and indeed, signs from God—they whine and complain every step of the way. When Moses ascends the mountain to consult with God on how to handle this recalcitrant people, he stay a little too long to suit the people, who, sure that they are being abandoned, quickly forge themselves a new “god”—a golden calf. When Moses, coming down with the stone tablets engraved by God, sees this idol he is so enraged that he drops the tablets and they shatter. It’s not just Moses who is angry, of course—God is angry, too, but Moses goes up the mountain again and intercedes, convincing God to give the Israelites yet one more chance. It is during this encounter that Moses is transfigured, and when he comes down, his face is shining so brightly that he must put a veil on it because the Israelites cannot bear to look at him.

You might have noticed that when Moses is transfigured, it is not during his first encounter with God. There is little doubt that each and every meeting with God, from the burning bush forward, changed Moses in some way, but this change was different, When Moses’ face was transfigured, changed so that his visage was so bright and shining that the people feared to look at him—well, that was more than Moses’ own personal transfiguration; instead, this was a sign to the people that God was still with them, and each and every time they gazed at Moses’ face alight with the glory of God, they would be reminded of that yet again.

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration in many way parallels that of Moses. Jesus, accompanied by Peter, James and John, climbs up a mountain to get away from the crowds that are always with him, to rest and to pray. As Jesus prays, his whole appearance begins to change – his clothes become a dazzling white, and his face begins to shine like the sun. And if that weren’t enough, Moses and Elijah appear beside him, and the three engage in a spirited discussion of what will come next for Jesus. Peter, James, and John, sleep-deprived as always and struggling to stay awake, don’t know what to make of this, and their wonderment and confusion must’ve only increased when the voice of God thundered from behind a cloud, “This is my son…listen to him.” When they came down from the mountain, they told no one of their experience, but surely as Mary did earlier, they must have pondered it in their hearts.

As it was for Moses, the timing of Jesus’ transfiguration was not accidental. Jesus’ ministry is drawing to a close, and he has begun to warn the disciples about what is to come, warn them that they, too, must be prepared to take up the cross. Peter has declared Jesus to be the messiah, the chosen one, but Jesus must have known that the disciples really didn’t understand who he was and what they would have to face. And so, witnessing the transfiguration of Jesus, seeing him reflect the glory and majesty of God, hearing God proclaim him as his son would’ve been for them like seeing Moses’ shining face was for the Israelites, a potent reminder of God’s on-going presence in their lives, a reminder that would become evermore important as they traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross.

The placement of these readings in our lectionary is not accidental, either. On Wednesday we’ll begin our long passage through Lent, retracing that road to the cross. Even though we have the assurance of the resurrection, the promise of Easter, this can be a dark, lonely and painful journey. We are asked to examine our lives, our hearts, our consciences; we’re asked to face up to our faults, to seek forgiveness, to turn away from those things that separate us from God and from being our best selves. We are asked to acknowledge not only Jesus’ suffering, but also our own and the world’s so that we may be truly prepared to enter into the joy of the resurrection at Easter.

Today’s readings remind us, as we undertake our Lenten journey, of the majesty and the glory of the God who created us, and of the promise of the God who does not, will not –has not ever—leave us on our own. Just as Moses’ shining face was a reminder to the Israelites that God will not abandon his people, no matter how difficult those people are, so too does it reassure us of God’s on-going presence in our lives. And just as Jesus’ transformation in the presence of Moses and Elijah proclaimed him as the messiah, the chosen one of God, so too does it affirm for us, that in Jesus, God’s promise to be with us always reaches its fulfillment. In that promise we can rest secure, knowing that we are held safely in God’s embrace, no matter how long or how hard the journey.

AMEN

Sermon for Epiphany 3, January 24, 2010

Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 24, 2010

Luke 4:14-21

Almighty God, may your Word be our light in the darkness, and may these words help to spread that light in the world. Amen.

Over the course of the last few weeks, we’ve focused on the season of Epiphany as a time of ‘revelation’ and how, during this season, Jesus is being ‘revealed’ to the world in Luke’s gospel. Luke is, of course, a consummate story teller, and in his gospel, he spins out a tale that takes us from the annunciation of Mary’s pregnancy through the birth in Bethlehem, the visit from the shepherds, the presentation of the infant at the Temple, Jesus’ lingering at the Temple as a preadolescent, his baptism, and now to this story, about the beginning of his ministry. At each point in the story, something about Jesus’ identity, his power and authority in the world, and his vocation as the messiah, the anointed one has been revealed, and this week, as Jesus preaches in the synagogue, we hear Jesus himself not only affirm that identity but also reveal his mission statement.

Luke’s narrative has Jesus’ ministry start out on a different footing that it did last week in John’s account. John places a great deal of emphasis on the ‘signs’ performed by Jesus, and he uses the story of Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana, the first of these signs, as a way of revealing Jesus’ power and authority in the world. But when we find Jesus in the synagogue today, in Luke’s telling of the story, he is fresh out of the desert where the Spirit led him after his baptism. Jesus has resisted the temptations Satan placed in front of him there, and he’s preached in a few synagogues along the way with favorable reviews, but he has yet to call a disciple, he has yet to perform a miracle; he is still largely unknown among the people when he returns to his hometown of Nazareth. On the Sabbath, like any faithful Jewish man, he goes to the synagogue for prayer, and there he stands to reads Torah, selecting passages from the prophet Isaiah.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And then, returning to his seat he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Wow.

I expect that it took a while for the full impact of what Jesus had just said to those gathered to sink in. And as we’ll hear in next week’s gospel, the reaction of the congregation was not entirely positive. But in fact, the congregation of this small synagogue in Nazareth, full of men and boys Jesus had grown up with, played with, studied and worked with, were the first to hear the proclamation of Jesus’ own mission statement.

Because that’s what it was, really. We’re accustomed to the whole notion of “mission statements” these days---every church and civic organization and corporation has one: a vision, a set of guiding principles that when well done captures the essence of what the group is about. We have a mission statement here at Trinity—it’s on our web page, and over the next year or so we will likely be revisiting it. I doubt, however, that the phrase “mission statement” was in the lexicon of Jesus or his audience. But when Jesus stood and read the prophecy from Isaiah, and then proclaimed that prophecy to be fulfilled in their hearing, he was claiming his identity and boldly staking out his mission in the world.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.” At Jesus’ baptism, Luke tells us, the Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove. That same Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and filled him when he returned to Galilee. And now, using the words of the prophet Isaiah, he asserts that he is full of the spirit because the Lord has anointed him.

We should not miss the import of those words. To be anointed was not such an unusual thing—kings were anointed, others in special positions were anointed—but Jesus is laying claim to a special anointing—by the Lord—an anointing that sets him aside as the chosen one, the one, the longed for hope of the Jewish people—the messiah. But it gets even better.

…he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor

Because we are familiar with the themes of Jesus’ preaching, we know the audiences to whom he preached, we are perhaps not as shocked by this claim as were those who first heard it. Isaiah of course wrote it in the context of the Babylonian exile, speaking of an Israelite people who had been oppressed and held captive. But when Jesus proclaims it as his mission, he is focusing on those not just politically held captive by the Roman Empire, but also on those held captive in poverty, in disease, in the oppression that comes in a social system weighted in favor of the wealthy. Jesus is foreshadowing a ministry in which he reaches out to the poor, the excluded, the outcast, and he’s foreshadowing his call to his followers to do likewise.

We’re more comfortable with the notion of “mission statement” than Jesus’ audience in the synagogue that day, but likely we we’re just as uncomfortable having those words directed to us as they were. Because when we take those words seriously, when we recognize Jesus’ mission statement as our own, it can rattle us to our very roots. We are called, as I say here almost every week, to love God, and to love our neighbor, but we often have a limited vision of who that neighbor is and what that love means. Jesus reminds us that we’re called to bring good news—the gospel with all it entails---not just to the neighbors who are like us, but also to the poor—the poor in spirit, and the poor in fact. We are called to not only bring that good news, but also to live it, to be forces of liberation in the world—liberation from poverty and disease and oppression of all sorts. And that’s a tall order.

In just a little while we’ll recess to the parish hall for our annual meeting. The temptation is great to view this meeting as something just to get over with, a necessary but not particularly exciting piece of business to take care of. And there certainly are those aspects of it. But I invite you this year to come to this meeting not only to do the required business, not only to review the year gone by, but also to look to the year ahead. We are undertaking a new thing here, you and I, in our ministry together at Trinity. We have many challenges and many opportunities ahead of us in the months and years to come. What better place to start than with Jesus’ very own mission statement? How can we use that statement to shape our own ministry here and out in the world, where we are, in the words of St. Paul, Christ’s very own body?

Amen

2 Epiphany January 17, 2010

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 27, 2010
John 2:1-11

Almighty God, may your Word be our light in the darkness, and may these words help to spread that light in the world. Amen.

Our gospel this morning is perhaps one of the best know stories about Jesus, a story that continues with our Epiphany theme of revelation—this time the revelation of God’s power and authority working in Jesus. Sometime shortly after his baptism and after calling his first disciples, we find Jesus attending a wedding in Cana—an ordinary event, to be sure but also a joyful and celebratory one. At the wedding, the supply of wine runs alarmingly low, and although he at first seems reluctant to do so, Jesus uses the most basic of elements—water—to demonstrate the power of God working through him by turning it into wine.

Turning water into wine, in the grand scheme of things, seems almost frivolous, and yet that is the miracle that first reveals Jesus’ power. In an act that is both understated and generous, Jesus demonstrates the abundance God holds for us; in doing so Jesus foreshadows a kingdom in which there is abundance for all, an abundance of those things which sustain physical life to be sure, but more importantly an abundance of the grace and love of God that sustain us spiritually.

In light of this week’s events, however—the horrific earthquake in Haiti, the unspeakable suffering and devastation in a country already living on the margins—it is hard to see that abundance; it is hard to see God’s love for the world at all. A disaster like this can test our humanity, test our faith, can move us to cry, “Where is God in all this?”

This is of course an age old question: How can evil and suffering exist in a world viewed as good at its creation by its creator, a God thought to be all knowing, all powerful, and loving? It is a question that is voiced throughout scripture, in the laments of the psalmists, in the cries of the prophets, in the plaintive voice of Job, and even in the cry of Jesus on the cross. Where are you God, and why have you forsaken me?

Over the years there have been many attempts to explain this paradox. We probably all have our own implicit theories that guide our thinking—for better or for worse. Probably one of the most common notions is one that we heard bandied about in the news this week from a well known conservative Christian: Evil and suffering are God’s punishment for sinners—people are just getting what they deserve, and haven’t we all been warned? For those of us who believe in a God who loves creation, who promises care and protection for the innocent, this type of explanation is not only inadequate but also offensive. And in the face of it, rarely are the “most evil” the ones who suffer; far more often it is the innocent—can we look into the faces of children who cry for their lost parents and really believe that they are deserving of the wrath of God being visited on them in this way?

If suffering isn’t divine punishment, could at be, as some speculate, that suffering is necessary somehow to elicit the moral qualities of empathy, compassion, and care in humans which otherwise would not be cultivated? Suffering – at least the suffering of others – does sometimes bring out the best in us—witness the outpouring of aid flowing towards Haiti right now—we do often rise to the occasion—but what about when we don’t? What about when evil begets evil and perhaps more importantly, what about those who are afflicted, those whose lives are simply destroyed by what they must endure?

Of course, we could just avoid the question of why God allows suffering and evil altogether and focus on eschatological hopes for redemption. We could embrace suffering as something to be borne because at the end time the glory we will experience in the presence of God will more than compensate for it. This approach, however, allows us to ignore suffering in the here and now and to simply shrug off the conditions in the world that we might otherwise work to change. At its worst, this kind of thinking might actually glorify suffering.

For me, these understandings of suffering and evil make no sense. They are inconsistent with my understanding—from scripture, from prayer, from experience—of a loving and beneficent God, a God whose Son became incarnate for our redemption, whose love for us seems to know no bounds. Why would a God who loves us and who created us to delight in us allow suffering, often unmitigated, to be so prevalent in the world? At the end, it remains a mystery to me, and I am forced to consider that perhaps all my attempts to make sense of it are themselves misplaced. Perhaps we are not meant to understand evil and suffering, only to live with it.

It is here that the work of contemporary theologian Wendy Farley^[1] gives me some hope, in fact, saves me from despair. Farley reminds us that we live in a world that is by nature less than perfect, a world that although created by an all powerful God, operates according to natural principles. In Farley’s view, creation is inherently defective even though created by a good God; because creation is separate from God it must be less than God and thus less than perfect, and in this fact lies creation’s “fatal flaw.” In such a defective creation the very diversity and variety that contribute to its goodness also give rise to conflicts that make suffering inescapable. The natural order of the world too contributes to humanity’s suffering. Worst of all some suffering seems irredeemably unjust.

What Farley contends is that in the face of the inevitability of suffering our energies are wasted in attempting to understand it. What is more important, ultimately, is our response to that suffering—our response and God’s.

For the God who lovingly created us, the God who showers us with abundance, the God whose authority was revealed in deeds as small as changing water into wine and as large as raising Lazarus from the dead—that God, our God, suffers along with us. And in that suffering our God works through us to make God’s presence felt.

And so, we find God in the hands that wipe away the tears of those who mourn their loved ones, we see God in the survivors who, as one eyewitness report tells us, huddle on an open field singing hymns well into the night and greeting the morning with prayer. We find God in the doctors and nurses who work in unspeakably poor conditions to heal the wounded, we encounter God in the offerings of food and medicine and clothing and money that are flooding in around the world. We find God in the outpouring of prayers for the people of Haiti, in the torrent of compassion, in the unity we find in reaching out to those who suffer.

Here’s the thing though—we shouldn’t wait for tragedy to strike to see God, to do God’s work in the world. Just as Jesus first revealed his power and authority in a relatively mundane way, turning water into wine at a wedding, rather than waiting for some more dramatic occasion, so too should we look for God’s grace and act as Christ’s body in our quotidian activities.

And so when the emergency is, when the dead are buried and the wounded are healed, when the rebuilding is over and life returns to some semblance of normality, in the space before the world’s next cataclysmic event, we must not abandon our role as Christ’s body, doing Christ’s work – in Haiti, or in New Orleans, or in Palestine, or anywhere else where there is need. For where there is suffering, there too is God—calling us to be there with him, calling us to love our neighbors as ourselves, calling us to be partake of that abundant grace God holds for each of us. Amen.

---

[1] Farley, Wendy (1990). Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy.

Westminster/John Knox Press.

Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord January 10, 2010

The First Sunday after the Epiphany
The Baptism of our Lord
January 10, 2010
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The great protestant reformer Martin Luther is reputed to have proclaimed passionately to his audiences, “Remember your baptism!” For those of us who were baptized as infants, that is just about impossible. But if you are like me, perhaps the gaps in your memory have been filled in by family stories. I don’t remember my baptism, but I know that it took place on a hot June Sunday, in an Episcopal Church in North Carolina, long before anyone thought of air-conditioning churches. My whole family was gathered—my parents, and my grandparents and a couple of aunts and uncles, along with some of my parents’ closest friends, and of course, the congregation. I was wearing the long white dress my older sister had worn at her baptism a few years earlier. Because I was a chubby baby, and perhaps a few months older when I wore that dress than when my sister did, the arms were too tight, and my mother tells the story of how, in the rush to get to church on time, she simply took the scissors and snipped a few threads in each sleeve to make it more comfortable for me.

More than 50 years later my little granddaughter Julianna wore that dress at her baptism, the sleeves still bearing the mark of my baptism day. Julianna likely won’t remember her baptism day either, but she’ll be able to see the pictures, and she’ll hear the stories—how it was hot in church that night, too, even though it was only April, and how the smell of the incense wafted through the congregation, and how her family gathered, church goers and non-church-goers alike in the candle light, as her Amma baptized her with water and marked her by the power of the Holy Spirit with fragrant oil, sealing her as Christ’s own forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even if we don’t remember our own baptisms, chances are that we all know the story of Jesus’ baptism. It’s told in all four gospels, and we hear it each year on this Sunday, the first Sunday after the Epiphany. It is, I think, no accident that this story is told in the season of Epiphany. “Epiphany” means a revelation, a showing, and in Jesus’ baptism and the actions that followed it, Jesus’ identity, his true identity, is revealed—not for the first time, certainly, for as we’ve heard over the last few weeks, the angel Gabriel revealed Jesus’ identity to Mary at the annunciation, and again to the shepherds on the night of his birth. The infant John leapt in the womb, revealing this identity to Elizabeth when Mary went to visit, and Simeon and Anna caught glimpses of it when he was presented at the Temple. And in last week’s gospel, when Jesus lingered in the Temple and told his parents that he was in “his father’s house” he seemed to have had some inkling of who he was.

The revelation in today’s gospel, however—when the heavens opened up and a dove descended, and a voice proclaimed, “You are my son…” – did more than just signify Jesus’ identity. These words marked the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the world; they set him on the journey that would culminate with the cross, and the empty tomb. When Jesus was baptized and received the Holy Spirit, he received not only an affirmation of who he was, he also received a vocation.

That sense of vocation is something I fear we sometimes miss in our practice of baptizing infants and young children. Don’t get me wrong—as you may be able to tell from my story about Julianna’s baptism, and from last week’s baptism of little Jacob, I love baptizing babies. When it is time to mark the sign of the cross on their foreheads with the holy oil, and to utter the words, “You are marked by the Holy Spirit and sealed as Christ’s own forever,” I get a chill. Something very real, very powerful happens when we pour that water over an infant’s head, when we Chrismate with that oil—and it’s not something I’d want to give up.

But—and there is a very real but coming—but when we fail to take the promises we make for the child being baptized seriously, when we fail to take those vows to heart for ourselves, when we fail to recognize that each and every one of us is given a vocation at baptism, then I fear that we miss the point of what we are doing. For baptism is more than a social occasion, it is more than a moving liturgy. We consider baptism to be a sacrament—an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace—because baptism is transformative. It is life changing. And it is through baptism that we are called to live as Christ’s own forever, with all that entails.

We may not remember our baptisms, and we may not always recognize the impact baptism has on our lives. But lucky for us, we are given the opportunity to refresh our memories as it were and to revisit what baptism means for us whenever we witness a baptism, and whenever we celebrate a “baptismal occasion” as we do today as we celebrate the baptism of our Lord. In just a few minutes we will stand and we will renew our baptismal covenant—those promises that were made for us by our parents and godparents, or perhaps that we made for ourselves if we were older. And in an act meant to fully reconnect us to the power of that moment in time, we’ll be sprinkled again with the holy waters of baptism.

This may seem like so much show, but I invite you to enter fully into this moment. Think about the promises you are making, and what they mean for your lives—as individuals and corporately as members of this parish, as members of this community, as members of the body of Christ. Pay attention to what you are promising—not only that you believe, but also that you will “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, “ that you will “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself,” and that you will “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” And if these promises seem daunting, pay attention to the responses we make to each one, “I will with God’s help.”

I will with God’s help. And that brings us full circle. In baptism we receive our vocation as Christians, but we are not left to do it all on our own. Instead we are given God’s grace and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus was empowered by the spirit on the day of his baptism. We are empowered by the spirit and we are called into the community of the church to do the work of Christ in the world. And if we take this seriously, then our baptisms will be transformative not only for us, but for the whole world. Think about what that could mean.

And now, let us stand and reaffirm the promises of our baptism…

DRAFT~~2 Christmas 2010

The Second Sunday of Christmas
January 3, 2010
Luke 2:41-52

Almighty God, may your Word be our light in the darkness, and may these words help to spread that light in the world. Amen.

When I was a kid I spent a great deal of time in the public library. As a very young child, I haunted the children’s room of our local library, which was located in an old house, conveniently within walking distance of my own. In the first couple of years after I learned to read, I read through that children’s room, bottom to top. One of my favorite parts was a collection of biographies written for children. The characters were familiar—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Dolly Madison, Molly Pitcher, Florence Nightingale, George Washington Carver, and many more. I think my love of American history might have been born in reading those stories. But what I loved most about them is that they didn’t start with adult characters—they focused on the childhoods of these famous figures. Of course, looking back I can recognize that much of what they contained must have been fiction; enough historical accuracy to be credible, but made-up stories to fill in the gaps. Nonetheless I treasure those books for what they taught me and for the way that they made historical figures real.

We don’t have many stories about the boy Jesus. In fact, today we hear the only story in our canonical gospels that deals with Jesus between his birth and his baptism, marking the beginning of his ministry some 30 years later. There are, of course, apocryphal stories about Jesus as a child to be found in writings not included in our canon of scripture. The best known of these is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a collection of tales that has Jesus creating birds out of clay, bringing dead things back to life, and yes, even using his superhuman powers in ways that aren’t entirely nice—perhaps one reason they are excluded from our canon!

Although it is not meant to be a biography, as we understand them, Luke’s gospel, has the fullest account of Jesus’ early years that we are afforded in our four gospels. Luke begins his story with the visit of the angel to Mary, announcing her impending pregnancy. He recounts the birth in Bethlehem, the homage paid to the infant by the humble shepherds, and the trip to Jerusalem to the Temple for the presentation of the infant Jesus, a trip during which Simeon and Anna recognize the infant for who he is. And then we pick up with today’s gospel. Jesus is 12—not quite yet a man, but certainly no longer a small child. The family has traveled to Jerusalem, as most faithful Jewish families did, to be at the Temple for the holy days of Passover. In many ways, these annual trips must have been like a big family reunion, and it’s easy to imagine Mary feeling comfortable with Jesus mingling in the crowds. It’s only when they are on the way home that she becomes alarmed when she can’t find him. I can imagine her growing feelings of fear and panic as she searched for him, and her mixture of exasperation and relief when Jesus turns up safe and sound in the Temple. And I can hear her saying, “What were you thinking? Didn’t you know we’d be worried?”

Like most preadolescents, Jesus has a ready answer “Why would you worry? Don’t you know I belong in my father’s house?” And as she had earlier, Mary pondered this in her heart.

I love this story. I love it as a mother because it is so very real. Jesus, like any other preadolescent, is wrapped up in himself—what he needs, what he wants, with little regard for his parents’ feelings. It’s not mean, it’s not malicious; it’s just preadolescent. He’s on that developmental quest to figure out what it means to grow up, to figure out just who he is and what he is about.

And I love this story because Jesus is so very human. We can relate, can’t we? As a child or as a parent, we’ve been there, done that. Like Jesus, we have to figure out who we are and what we are called to be in this world. We have to break away from the comfort of our parent’s care and learn to stand on our own. And sometimes in doing so we hurt the ones we love, or we frighten them or cause them worry. It’s unintentional but it’s real.

When Jesus stays behind at the Temple, worrying his parents, doing what HE needs to do, he is revealing a very human side—Jesus is incarnate, enfleshed; he’s human like the rest of us. And yet, what Jesus says and does at the Temple reveals something else to us—his divinity. For even as he seeks validation as a preadolescent, he reveals the wisdom and foresight that mark his divinity. Jesus may be figuring out what he is about but he knows in a very real way WHOSE he is. He’s very clear when he says to Mary, “I was in my father’s house.” For Jesus, knowing that, knowing who his father is, is the key to all the rest. WHOSE he is determines WHO he is; it shapes his ministry and sets him on a journey that will end at the empty tomb. For Jesus, knowing WHOSE he is is everything.

As a developmental psychologist by training, I could give you a good lecture on how important it is for adolescents to figure out WHO they are; about how they must question all the values and beliefs their parents have worked so hard to instill in them, how they must question them and make them their own, and figure out who they will be in this world. And while I know that to be a crucial part of development, I also know that it leaves something out—it leaves out what Jesus shows us in today’s gospel. We don’t need just to know who we are—we need to know WHOSE we are. Jesus was, is, the Son of God, but we are God’s children, created in God’s image, beloved of God. And knowing that grounds us, roots us, gives us the foundation we need to figure out all the rest, to be the people we were made to be, to live the way Jesus calls us to live. Knowing WHOSE we are is just as important for us as it was for the 12-year-old Jesus.

This morning we will baptize baby Jacob Marc, incorporating him fully into the body of Christ, the church. At the end of that ritual we will sign his forehead with oil, sealing him as Christ’s own forever. What better way to remind ourselves WHOSE we are. We are God’s beloved children, we are sealed as Christ’s own, we are infinitely precious, each and every one of us, to the One who made us. And that is the most important thing for us to know.

AMEN

A Sermon for Advent 3 2009

The Third Sunday in Advent
December 3, 2009
Luke 3:7-18

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might, come among us; inspire us with your Word and fill us with your joy, we pray. Amen.

More than 20 years ago author and Unitarian minister Robert Fulghum captivated the minds and hearts of readers with a volume of essays written to summarize and illustrate his Credo, his belief system, his philosophy of life, if you will. All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten captured the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list for almost two years, and even now, its simple wisdom resonates deeply with us as we struggle with living in an increasingly complex world.

In his first chapter, Fulghum writes,

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
  

In the years since these words were published, Fulghum has been both praised for capturing the essence of what is important in life, and criticized for been too simplistic, too saccharine, and trite. What strikes me, as I reread these words, though, is how similar they are in theme to John the Baptist’s replies to his audience in today’s gospel when asked, “What then should we do?”

We don’t often think of John the Baptist as one who gives advice on how to live—at least not specific advice. “Prepare the way,” we hear him cry; “Repent, and make way for the one who is to come.” But what does it mean to repent, anyway? When we repent of our sins, most of the time we mean that we are sorry, and that we won’t do it—whatever it is—again.

That’s fine as far as it goes. But the Greek word which we translate as repent—metanoia—has a deeper meaning. Metanoia connotes turning away—turning away from those things that are bad for us, that are evil, that separate us from God. But when we turn away from those things, are we turning towards a vacuum? What is it that will replace them? Any good behavioral psychologist will tell you that to get rid of an undesirable behavior, you must replace it with one that is more desirable. So when we turn away from our sins—from those things that separate us from God—we must turn towards something new, something that will draw us ever closer to God.

John the Baptist is preaching in the wilderness to a varied audience, one comprised of the crowds who flocked to hear him, often poor and marginalized themselves, but also soldiers and tax collectors. It is to this scruffy, rag-tag group that his comments are directed today. To the crowds he says to share what they have; to the tax collectors, whose jobs regularly included extorting extra funds to line their own pockets, he advises not taking more than they should. And to the soldiers, who like the tax collectors, had the power to take more for themselves, he says, “Be satisfied with what you have.”

Share.
Be fair.
Don’t be a bully.

Yes, it’s that simple. Like Robert Fulghum’s advice, it’s the stuff you learned in kindergarten. And yet, at the same time, it’s radical.

It’s radical because it’s the kind of behavior that we preach to our kids and claim to embrace ourselves, and in spite of that, it sometimes runs against our very grain to actually do it. It’s the kind of behavior that we don’t hesitate to put aside when doing so serves us better. Its very simplicity makes it vulnerable to our darker sides—our desires to get ahead, to put our self-interest first, to exert our power over others because we can.

It seems too easy, and yet it is so hard.

John the Baptist likely knew this, preaching at he did in the midst of his stern warnings to prepare the way…look at how he started off: You brood of vipers! Don’t rest on your laurels, don’t feel safe because you are descendants of Abraham! Trees that bear no fruit are torn up by their roots! Beware!

Only when he has completely grabbed the attention of his audience, only when he has them shaken up a bit, does he go on to give them the good news. Another is coming, one who will baptize them in the spirit. And in the meantime, this is how they should live.

The one who comes after John, Jesus the Messiah, of course, takes up this same good news, preaching it over and over again.

Share.
Be fair.
Don’t be a bully.

We preachers who dwell on this message have sometimes been accused, like Robert Fulghum, of being trite. We’re accused of reducing the gospel message to nothing more than a lesson in ethical behavior. We’ve been charged with making Jesus (and John the Baptist, since he’s our preacher today) nothing more than a teacher of morality, and of overlooking the message of the cross. But I think that charge is unfair. Because this message is at the VERY HEART of the gospel. It’s what Jesus taught all the way to the cross, and he sums it up when he summarizes the law: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like unto it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do that, it becomes the well-spring from which everything else Jesus preached naturally flows. It becomes the foundation on which the kingdom of God that Jesus promises us is built. It becomes the linchpin in our salvation.

John foreshadows that message with his prophetic cry today. His rag tag audience asks, “What should we do?” and he answers them. We come before God each and every week often asking that same question, “What should we do?” and John’s advice is good for us, too.

Share.
Be fair.
Don’t be a bully.

What might our world be like if we REALLY behaved that way? Not superficially, not just when it suited us, but ALL the time, in every situation? I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that if we really behaved that way—in all places and in all times—that we’d be ready for Jesus to come. We’d be ready for the joy Paul describes in his letter to the Philippians. We’d be ready for the savior.

So what do you think? What should we do?

Share.
Be fair.
Don’t be a bully.

Love God and love your neighbor.

Open your hearts to the joy that is the Christ Child.

Amen.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany A
January 20, 2008
John 1:29-42


For the last couple of years I’ve been part of an informal network of women clergy who mostly know each other through the internet. This group comprises women of all ages and many different denominations and besides the camaraderie and commiseration we offer one another, we also share notes on preaching. This has been a real learning experience for me, particularly hearing how others choose their texts. Suffice it to say that there is great variety in how this happens, but what it has reinforced for me is something I’ve said here before: I’m really glad we have a lectionary. I’m glad because I don’t have to pick, I just preach on whatever is assigned, whether I like it or not.

Lately though, I’ve been intrigued by the choices made by those who constructed the lectionary…why this lesson this week? Why that one now? And so about 10 days ago when I looked up the readings for today I had to ask myself, “Why do we get the Gospel of John when we are just getting settled into year A which focuses on Matthew?”

That question stayed in the back of my mind as I let this week’s gospel settle into my bones. Why John? Why now? It was a little discomfiting to me because lately I’ve been thoroughly immersed in the Gospel according to Matthew, and I’ve asked you to enter that narrative world with me, and now we have to shift gears. But late Friday night as I read over today’s gospel one more time, I had a “eureka” moment—a flash of insight, an epiphany if you will, in this season of Epiphany. One way to look at the lectionary is just as a walk through the gospels, roughly in the order that they’re written. But the lectionary is also shaped to tell a story—THE story, and the season of Epiphany is all about being shown who Jesus is—that’s what the word means, after all, epiphany coming from epipheinen, to show. Read in this light the gospels passages for season of Epiphany might be seen as a series of “epiphanies” On the feast of the Epiphany the Magi show us that Jesus is the chosen one who comes not just to the people of Israel, but to everyone. On the first Sunday after Epiphany Jesus is baptized and hears the voice from heaven declaring him to be God’s beloved son—perhaps confirming for himself who he really is. And today we hear the story from John the Baptist’s perspective; we get another view of who Jesus is and what he’s all about.

Now perhaps I’m preaching the obvious to many of you, but this notion of the whole season of Epiphany being specifically about showing us who Jesus is was so intriguing to me that I skimmed over the lectionary for all three years, and sure enough, it’s there. No matter whether we’re mainly focused on Matthew, Mark, or Luke, the gospels selected are ones that concentrate less on what Jesus did and more on who he was and is. In almost every passage there’s some new clue about what it means for Jesus to be the messiah, the anointed one, about the meaning of his ministry. And each year, the season of Epiphany reaches its culmination with the story of the transfiguration when Jesus is shown, revealed in all his glory to his closest disciples—but I’ll have more to say about that in two weeks!

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what today’s gospel reading from John shows us about Jesus. To do that, I’d like for us to leave behind the narrative world of Matthew where we’ve been for the last few weeks and to enter instead into the world of John, a very different world in some ways. In the Gospel according to John, we get no birth story at all. We know nothing about Jesus’ human origins and early life. What we get in John’s gospel is a beautiful and poetic prologue, which places Jesus as the Word, with God at the very point of creation. In this prologue we also learn that there will be voice crying in the wilderness to prepare for the coming of the anointed one, and we meet John the Baptist who embodies that voice, but it is not until we get to verse 29, where our gospel begins to today, that we actually meet the person Jesus or hear his name. And even then we first meet him through John, who sees him walking by. There is no interaction between John and Jesus—we suppose that John has baptized Jesus, but we do so on the basis of what we know from the other gospels because there is no direct evidence of that happening here. Nonetheless it is clear that John, and perhaps John alone at this point, knows who Jesus is because as Jesus walks by John exclaims,

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”


“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That phrase, familiar as it is to us, is fraught with meaning, and I wonder if John’s disciples standing there with him fully realized the impact of what John said. With this one phrase John has placed Jesus clearly into the scope of Israel’s salvation history. The full impact of this won’t be obvious until the crucifixion, but it is a clear portent of what is to come, and a sign that God has privileged John, allowing him this insight, this epiphany.

John is not the only one who has an epiphany though. The next day John is again standing with two of his disciples when Jesus walks by. John once more exclaims, “Here is the Lamb of God,” and this time his two disciples, struck by what he has said, or compelled by the magnetism of Jesus, or both, begin to follow him. And one of them, Andrew, not only follows but also goes to fetch his brother Simon, telling him that they have found the messiah.

It seems remarkable to me that at this point Jesus hasn’t said or done anything that would signify his status. Rather John and his disciples have been shown who Jesus is through revelation—God’s voice and John’s, proclaiming that Jesus is the one. Like the Magi who followed the star to find the babe, John and his disciples are pointing to Jesus, revealing his identity, showing him to others.

And that brings us back to where we started. If this season of Epiphany is about being shown who and what Jesus is, what then does this gospel from John show us? And what are we to do about it? During Epiphany we move between the two great feasts of the Church Year—Christmas—the birth of the child—and the Triduum—the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Liturgically, theologically, we spend this time trying to grasp—yet again—who this Jesus is and what he means for our lives. In naming Jesus the Lamb of God, John seems to grasp the full import of Jesus’ life and ministry, and John’s voice, crying in the wilderness is clear and strong: Jesus is the one for whom the people of Israel have been waiting. John points the way so that others might follow, and we are among those others. Like the crowds who followed Jesus, we are sometimes slow to get it, but get it we must, otherwise Easter is meaningless.

But it doesn’t stop there. I don’t want anyone to leave here today thinking that this is all esoteric, abstract theology, something that we have to think about only during church. In fact, I think today’s gospel and all of the gospels of Epiphany raise a very real and pragmatic question for us. How do we recognize Jesus in the here and now? Where do we find our epiphanies? Is it in the words of the evangelists? Is it in the Eucharist? Is it in the faces of our guests at the days and nights of hospitality? Is it in a word of condolence, a hug we receive from others, a light moment shared with a friend? Is it in a walk in the garden or on the beach?

Because, friends, the good news is that Jesus is here with us, and Jesus calls us to follow, just as he called his first disciples. Every day. All the time, whether we’re aware of it or not. Like the disciples we are free to hear and respond or to ignore him. But if we do respond, like the disciples, if we do respond our lives will be changed in ways that we may not be able to imagine.

And so, I have a challenge for you, for all of us as we move through the last two weeks of this season. Look for Jesus. Watch for epiphanies. Be ready to respond when Jesus says, “Come and see.” And see where that leads us.

AMEN