Michael Valliant | Michael Valliant

Homecomings

“A home is a subtle, implicit laboratory of spirit. It is here that human beings are made; here that their minds open to discover others and come to know who they might be themselves.” – John O’Donohue, “To Bless The Space Between Us”

That is a way of looking at “home” that I hadn’t thought to articulate. Home is a laboratory of spirit, in that it gives us the comfort and the foundation to experiment, grow, change, find ourselves.

In our morning e-mail discussion of John O’Donohue’s book, “To Bless the Space Between Us,” this week’s theme is homecomings. One of the points he makes is that “home” should be a place that prepares us to go out and create a new home and ultimately that we also “develop the capacity to be at home in themselves.” He goes on to say:

“When one is at home in oneself, one is integrated and enjoys a sense of balance and poise. In a sense that is exactly what spirituality is: the art of homecoming.”

Spirituality as homecoming. As a coming back to something that we knew, or know, or that at least feels familiar. We recognize it. And it is something we recognize inside of us. If God is home, the Holy Spirit is the home within us. Mystical, or direct experience of something like that can help us feel at home in the universe and in ourselves.

But what if you’ve never known the safety of home, been able to open your mind, explore?

This past week, we had a Zoom conversation with Fr. Gregory Boyle. At Christ Church Easton, we’ve done studies of three different books that Fr. Greg has written–“Tattoos on the Heart,” “Barking to the Choir,” and “Cherished Belonging.” I’ve quoted and written about him frequently and I think that organization that Fr. Greg has founded, run, and been a spokesman for, Homeboy Industries, is the best example I can point to of what a community built around Christ-like love looks like today. Their community shows people in the toughest Los Angeles gangs what being loved and cherished can do, and it has changed the city and the world.

Fr. Greg mentioned that he sees tons of kids who have become adults and who have never been soothed at home, or anywhere. Between parents who themselves have never been soothed, or who weren’t there–were in prison or just left–or who were the opposite of soothing, imagine a childhood with no reassurance, no soothing. It immediately casts out any hope of HOME or this sense of home that O’Donohue is communicating. Homeboy Industries is the first sense of home they may know, and then once someone has experienced it, they can help offer a sense of homecoming to others.

Fr. Greg talks about a guy named Sergio, who Boyle calls his spiritual director. They write/text back and forth every morning reflecting on Scripture. The other day, Sergio ended his reflection saying, “Today, I will surrender into the arms of God, then choose to be those arms.” Boyle later made a similar point, that when we receive the tender glance, either from God, or from someone we encounter, we can then become that tender glance for someone else. Knowing that we are loved and cherished, then loving others from that knowledge, that belonging.

Let’s circle back to homecomings: if we have a sense of home, a sense of being loved, a sense of safety, we can be or offer that to someone who hasn’t had that experience of home before.

We develop or nurture our own sense of home, within us. And then we reach out to someone who could benefit from that feeling. Maybe that seems like a good idea, something you’d be game to try. You go through your day, you get to the evening, or maybe a quiet time before you go to bed.

John O’Donohue suggests, in his blessing, “At the End of the Day: A Mirror of Questions,” that we ask ourselves:

What dreams did I create last night?
Where did my eyes linger today?
Where was I blind?
Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?
What did I learn today?
What did I read?
What new thoughts visited me?
What differences did I notice in those closest to me?
Whom did I neglect?
Where did I neglect myself?
What did I begin today that might endure?
How were my conversations?
What did I do today for the poor and the excluded?
Did I remember the dead today?
Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?
Where did I allow myself to receive love?
With whom today did I feel most myself?
What reached me today? How deep did it imprint?
Who saw me today?
What visitations had I from the past and from the future?
What did I avoid today?
From the evidence–why was I given this day?

That’s a lot of questions–almost like a spiritually inquisitive kid who has been slamming Pixie Stix and then gives us an existential 20 Questions. Maybe focus on a few each evening–the ones that resonate or open something up. Watch what happens when you start asking yourself questions like this at the end of the day.

It’s akin to the Jesuit concept of the “Daily Examen,” where at the end of the day, you look back at the day you’ve just had and look where you saw, felt, heard, or experienced God’s presence or touch. And by doing that, you are also preparing yourself to look for it the next day.

O’Donohue’s questions are like that. If you get to the end of your day and reflect back with questions like this, you can be more mindful of looking for these things–keeping our eyes, minds, and hearts open to them–as they happen.

So what happens when looking back on our day with questions informs our coming days, that become our present days? Maybe we see, or hear, something we wouldn’t have.

It is so easy to stumble through our days without seeing, hearing, feeling. When we do that, there are so many things we miss out on. Let O’Donohue’s questions be a mirror. Let us be open to things that might be going on all around us, that we haven’t noticed before.

When we experience something new and profound, we can take it with us, and share it with others.

Harper’s House

I agree with writer Jim Harrison when he wrote:

“Barring love I’ll take my life in large doses alone–rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.”

People can be difficult. Dogs are different. Dogs bring love to our lives unconditionally and with no questions asked.

Earlier this week, we had to say goodbye to our dog Harper. She was spring-loaded with love and energy; she bounded and leaped in place like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh when her people came to the door.

A growth in her stomach changed her over the last couple weeks, which we hoped might be pancreatitis and tried to treat with our fingers crossed. It wasn’t. When we got home Wednesday night, she couldn’t get off the couch. She was shaking and panting and suffering in constant pain. She let us know it was time.

Harper changed our lives. When life hit the restart button in 2014, I moved into a guest house down a long winding road that had a no pets policy. The family pets stayed with the girls’ mom, and the girls spent equal time with each of us. This was the first time in my life, and theirs, that any of us had lived without pets.

After a year we moved to Oxford into another no pets house. A year later, the girls and I talked and decided our house needed a dog. We weren’t a family without one. Our landlord agreed to a dog, up to 35 pounds.

Through Operation Paws for Homes, we learned about an “Australian Shepherd Mix” who had been found on the streets of Columbia, SC, and who was now being fostered in York, PA. We knew from the picture that she was our dog.

Six-month-old Harper on the drive to her forever family.

I drove to pick her up on June 4, 2016. They guessed she was about six months old. My older daughter Anna wanted to name her Harper after her favorite baseball player, Bryce Harper—when he was still a “good guy” and played for the Washington Nationals I told Anna that players don’t often stay with one team, so we need another namesake, which was writer Harper Lee, of “To Kill a Mockingbird” fame.

Harper made our house a home instantly. She zoomed around the fenced in yard, loved walks around Oxford, and enthusiastically greeted dogs and people as they walked by the house. Two years later we moved to Easton and she patrolled the yard; learned to begrudgingly deal with cats, and kept our house safe from walkers and dog walkers in the neighborhood. Harper was a big fan of the pandemic lockdown in 2020–it meant we were always home.

Pandemic walks with the girls were a Harper favorite.

Walks around Tuckahoe State Park, Wye Island, and Easton’s Rails to Trails or Easton Point Park were Harper dreams turned reality. With her herding personality, she stuck close to her people, even in the house, or the writing shed out back, always lying next to one of us, always where the people were.

Seven years ago she met Holly’s black Lab puppy Luna and the two hit it off and loved to play at each other’s houses. We called Harper the “hall monitor,” as she didn’t tolerate off-hand behavior and would tell on Luna if she was trying to get food off the counter, get into the trash, or engage in any behavior that seemed suspicious.

Harper brought unconditional love and unbridled energy and enthusiasm to our lives. Every night, she slept against me, and every 0’Dark:30 alarm clock, she bounded out of bed ahead of me to go out and then curl up for morning coffee, reading, and writing.

I come back to this Milan Kundera quote frequently:

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.”

There is a stillness here now, a silence that is not peace, though Harper is at peace. We have loved and been privileged to share life with her. Her presence was her gift. She made us more of a family.

Wherever she was with us, it was Harper’s House.

Coming Down the Mountain

Background: March 1-2 was a preaching weekend for me and the lectionary reading was Luke 9:28-43a, Jesus’s Transfiguration on the mountaintop. The following is the text of my sermon given at Christ Church Easton.

“Coming Down the Mountain (We’re Not Finished Yet)”

This is our last reading before Lent; our last reading for the Season After Epiphany, and it really bookends how we started the season, with the magi searching for and acknowledging Jesus. The transfiguration on the mountaintop is the vision, the revelation to Jesus’s closest friends as to his true identity as the Messiah.

Let’s get ourselves into the scene a bit. Since our last couple readings out of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has healed people, cast out demons, taught and told parables, calmed a storm, and brought back a girl thought to be dead.

He has called the Twelve together, given them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And they have gone out and done just as Jesus commanded. They came back to together and were excitedly telling Jesus about all they had done. As they were telling these stories, crowds gathered around Jesus and he welcomed them, taught them, healed them, and then working with the disciples and just a little bit of food, Jesus feeds 5,000 people.

Jesus then goes off by himself to pray, with only the disciples nearby and he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And then he asks the disciples straight up, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter says, “The Messiah of God.”

Hearing Peter’s answer, Jesus says don’t tell anyone. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected and killed and on the third day be raised.” He gives them some more mind-blowing, scandalous sounding teaching, which they can’t possibly make sense of, and then eight days later, Luke tells us, Jesus takes his closest friends, Peter, James, and John, and they go up the mountain to pray.

While Jesus is praying, his three friends have the ultimate epiphany. This isn’t just Peter saying “You are the Messiah,”—this is Jesus with his face changing and his clothes becoming as bright as lightning; Moses and Elijah appearing and talking to Jesus. There is a big difference between saying something and seeing it in miraculous form in front of you.

Peter, James, and John are weighed down with sleep, not sure if this is a dream or really happening. And Peter gives the line that we can all relate to, “Master, it’s good for us to be here; let’s set up three tents.”

A cloud overcomes them and out of the cloud they hear God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”

I feel Peter here. Let’s stay in this moment. What else do we need. We’ve got the law, the prophets, and the Messiah, everything has been revealed, what else can there be? This is the ultimate!

Mountaintop moments. Have you ever had moments like that, where everything makes sense, everything is lined up, all the most amazing feelings—awe and wonder so much that you can barely contain it.

We’ve seen Holy Spirit moments at Alpha Retreats we’ve taken into the hills of the Claggett Center outside DC. Joy, laughter, the good kind of tears overflowing, a sense of community and connection to where no one wants to leave and go back home. We all wanted to stop time and stay in those mountaintop moments.

Wow, do we need those moments. We need those moments, those epiphanies, where we feel connected to God, where our doubts are erased, where darkness and pain are left behind and God’s love in the person of Jesus is as bright as lightning.

But we can’t stay there yet. Just as Jesus had been talking to Moses and Elijah, he had work to do—his exodus, which would be achieved in Jerusalem—was still ahead of him.

It’s back down the mountain. We’re not finished yet.

And no time is wasted, the very next day, a big crowd meets Jesus. A man shouts, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son. Suddenly a spirit seizes him and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth. It mauls him and will scarcely leave him.”

In all the synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration—in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—coming down the mountain is each time followed by the encounter with the father and his child who is seized by demons. In Matthew’s account, the father says instead, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has epilepsy and suffers terribly.”

As the father of a daughter with epilepsy, who has seizures, I can tell you exactly what that looks like and how helpless you feel. Something happens to her and it’s not her there in front of me for a while. I don’t mind calling it seized by a demon, though we have a better understanding of it now.

The father tells Jesus that he brought his son to the disciples and they couldn’t cure him. Jesus gets miffed and says, “Bring him here to me,” and he casts the demon out, cures the boy, and gives him back to his father.

It’s interesting to think about: the disciples, who had been sent out to proclaim the kingdom and heal the sick, but couldn’t help the boy—they didn’t go up the mountain with Jesus. They weren’t there for his transfiguration and to hear God confirm his identity. They weren’t there for the mountaintop experience.

Something happened up there that came back down the mountain with Jesus and his three friends. This is how former Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, Steven Charleston puts it:

“The Spirit’s vision always takes us down from the mountaintop and out into the world. Our personal relationship with the Spirit opens us up to engage with others. In doing that, we begin with the one thing we all share in common: HOPE. Hope is the catalyst, the tipping point where what we believe becomes what we do.”

They came down the mountain with hope. And when we have our mountaintop experiences, our moments of certainty, our epiphanies—they give us hope that we can hold onto. Hope that lasts through the valleys, through the dark stretches we go through.

Jesus comes back down the mountain because he isn’t finished—there is work to be done. He gives us hope and the Holy Spirit because we are PART of that work. The hope we feel in our hearts is part of the way that His hope gets spread out into the world.

I wish with everything that life were all mountaintop moments. That we could dwell in them, build our tents with Peter and stretch them out. But the Kingdom isn’t the Kingdom until everyone is in it, until it fills the hearts of the poor, the sick, the confused, the outcast. All of us.

Jesus isn’t finished. And so neither are we. We come back down the mountain because the world needs that hope, that epiphany, that encouragement.

We can make the hope of the mountaintop our home on the ground.

Steven Charleston continues:

“When we claim hope for our home—when we make it the guiding energy of our faith—we transition from being scattered individuals who wish things would get better into being active partners with the Spirit, reshaping the balance of life toward mercy, justice, and peace. Hope becomes our goal. Once that hope has been released in the human heart, it cannot be forced back into the darkness. It is spiritually incandescent. The faith which we see penetrates the shadows around us like a searchlight seeking the future. Hope becomes a force that will not be denied.”

Incandescent. Like a searchlight. In the Old Testament reading, Moses came down the mountain with his skin shining because he had been talking to God. With Jesus it was more than that: Jesus’s face BECAME light. He was and is the light.

When we open ourselves to the Spirit, we allow that same light to shine in us. We can take that light into the world. What a privilege, what an opportunity, and what a challenge when life feels dark.

How do we keep in touch with the light? How can we find it when it seems distant?

We remember. Remember those mountaintop moments. Keep them in your heart.

We pray. We get vulnerable with God and open ourselves so that we can be filled with God’s love and light.

We share our stories, we share our hope, we come together in community.

My story as a father doesn’t have the healing in it that the father in today’s reading has. Yet. The demon of epilepsy is still in my daughter, and it breaks my heart at times.

But I’ve been on the mountaintop. I’ve seen and known that light, that incandescence, bright as lightning. I have hope and the Spirit.

And Jesus is coming down the mountain. He’s not finished yet. And neither are we.

08/06/15 was the date of Ava’s first seizure and the beginning of our lives with epilepsy. She hopes to get a second tattoo of the date where she knows it is behind her.

Living with Mercy and Grace

Background: The lectionary readings for Sunday, February 23 include Genesis 45:3-11, 15, where Joseph is merciful to his brothers who threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery, and Luke 6:27-38, where Jesus tells his disciples to love your enemies, as part of his Sermon on the Plain. This is a quick homily I gave at the Wednesday Healing Service at Christ Church Easton, as these are both readings I think we need to discuss more.

“Living with Mercy and Grace“

Jesus’s teaching today is a continuation of the “Blessings and Woes” or Beatitudes that Patrick talked about last week. Let’s remember that Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is different than the one we find in Matthew’s Gospel, both in nuanced ways and in that Matthew shows Jesus going up a mountain to teach, whereas Luke has Jesus going down to a level place. Matthew’s version is often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount; this speech in Luke is often called the Sermon on the Plain. That’s an intentional setting for Luke, who shows Jesus among the people, not above them, lifting up the poor, and being visited by shepherds, not wise men.

After Jesus has bowled the disciples over by calling the poor, the hungry, and those who weep “blessed,” now he’s gone totally off his rocker telling them to love their enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.

If we think Jesus is just speaking theoretically, no, he gives examples: if someone hits you on the cheek, give them the other one too; if someone takes your coat, give them your shirt as well; give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes your stuff, don’t ask for it back.

Then Jesus drops a version of what we call the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

How do you want to be treated? With love? With kindness? Then treat people that way. That’s a teaching we can get behind. We get something out of that, we think about how we want to be treated, which of course is to be treated well.

What about mercy? Hhhmmm… there is something to that. If only we had a case study, an example, something from the Old Testament maybe, to refer to…

Oh wait, we’ve got Joseph and his brothers from our Genesis reading. Joseph’s story is well known, even turned into a musical. Joseph was a dreamer and favored by his father; his brothers were jealous, decided to kill him, thought better of it, threw him into a pit; then got the bright idea to sell him into slavery; they took his robe or coat and put blood all over it and took it to their father, who assumed Joseph had been killed by wild animals.

From being a slave, Joseph works his way up to becoming the Pharoah’s top advisor in Egypt. He is able to see the tough times coming, store up food in times of famine; and in our reading today, his brothers come before him, in need. Joseph has all the power and can do with them whatever he wants. How many Hollywood movies would have this scene being sweet revenge, just retribution. But it’s not.

Joseph is merciful. And then some. The brothers don’t ask for forgiveness, they don’t fall down at his feet. It’s Joseph who initiates it:

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life… God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors”… And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them.”

It’s okay. You didn’t know what you were doing. But God did. This is where I was supposed to end up, so I could save us. It had nothing to do with how his brothers acted; it had everything to do with who Joseph was and how he acted.

Joseph was merciful. Even when he had every right to get back at them. And he showed mercy in a way that let his brothers save face.

Fr. Richard Rohr from the Center for Action and Contemplation website.

Franciscan and best-selling author Richard Rohr in talking about today’s Gospel reading gives us a thought that connects both readings. He says that Jesus doesn’t forgive in a way that makes him look good and sinners look bad. Jesus doesn’t say look how great I am and how sinful you are.

Rohr writes:

“Forgiveness is loyalty to the truth of who you are. To forgive someone is to recognize who they are, to admit and affirm who they are, and to know that their best selves will be brought out only in the presence of an accepting and believing person. Forgiveness is basically the act of believing in another person and not allowing that person to be destroyed by self-hatred. Forgiveness involves helping people uncover their self-worth, which is usually crusted over by their own self-hatred.

“This is a way of forgiving people that does not make you look goodbut makes them look good. That’s the way God forgives us. In the act of forgiveness, God gives us back our dignity and self-worth. God is loyal to the truth of who we are. God affirms that we are good persons who have sinned. God asserts that we aren’t bad.”

Joseph doesn’t wait for his brothers to grovel and plead. He jumps right out and says, don’t be angry with yourselves. This isn’t your fault. God needed me here to help.

Let’s move back to the Gospel. Jesus says, loving people that already love you? You want credit for that? Doing good to those who do good to you? Giving to those who you expect to get something back from? That’s not love, it’s business. We’ve got plenty of that going around.

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Jesus is a teacher whose actions back up his words. If the disciples, or if we think, yeah Jesus, that sounds great and all, but mercy isn’t how the world works. Jesus’s response, with his life, is to show mercy and to love those he encounters, to walk himself straight to Jerusalem, into the hands of those who will persecute and execute him and as he is dying on the cross, being mocked by the thieves on either side of him, as Luke tells it, one thief wises up and says, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Mercy. Forgiveness. Right up to his death. And in his Resurrection, does Jesus ask for retribution? Does God want justice? No. Again, and again, and again, God shows mercy. Jesus forgives.

And it’s love that wins.

This is from The SALT Project’s weekly commentary, which brings it together beautifully:

“And what do we call this kind of love, this completely free, above-and-beyond, gratuitous giving? We call it “grace.” We may think of grace primarily as the unmerited, saving love of God — and well we should, Jesus says, for God “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” But at the same time, this is exactly the love Jesus calls us to live out, not as gods or angels but as “children of the Most High,” human beings created in God’s image: “Be merciful, just as God is merciful” When we love this way, we embody the imago Dei (the image of God). This is the love we were made for.”

How God Speaks to Us

Background: February 1-2 was a preaching weekend for me and the lectionary was “The Presentation of the Lord,” a feast day, which used Luke 2:22-40 with baby Jesus being presented at the Temple and Simeon knowing who Jesus was through a gift of the Holy Spirit. This resonated with discussions we’d been having in small groups during the previous week.

“How God Speaks to Us”

When we preach, we try to bear witness to Scripture, bringing our own witness to it—where we are, how we engage with the text, and where the Spirit takes us. The next time a reading comes back in the lectionary cycle, three years from now, what speaks to us in a passage will likely be different.

We’ve been having some great conversations this week about Scripture and faith. And what stands out to me in today’s readings are the Bible, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit: different ways of knowing God.

We start out with Malachai, our Old Testament reading. Malachai may or may not be a proper name here as the name Malachi translates as “my messenger.” And here the writer is facing toward the future, talking about “my messenger” who will prepare the way for “the Lord who will suddenly come to his Temple” (we can see why these readings are paired together). As Christians, we look back on a passage like this and we say, Malachai is pointing us to John the Baptizer and to Jesus.

And when we use Jesus as our lens, we can look back on different prophets and different passages in the Hebrew Bible, in the Old Testament, and say, look at the prophetic writings and how and where they point to Jesus. It’s an incredible exercise to do, and we start to make connections and draw threads throughout Scripture.

In our Gospel reading, Luke shows us Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus at the Temple, as was the custom: eight days after being born, a Jewish male child would be circumcised, and 33 days after giving birth, the mother was expected to participate in the rite of purification, a symbolic restoration of purity.

When they get there they encounter a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, who was righteous and devout. It had been revealed to Simeon that before he died, he would see the Lord’s Messiah. This is a revelation that came not from Scripture, but from God.

Simeon comes to the Temple, “guided by the Holy Spirit,” and he is able to recognize Jesus, to know who Jesus is by trusting God.

And look at his reaction, Simeon takes Jesus into his arms and says:

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”

Image from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

He is overwhelmed with joy at this knowledge. He can die with peace. Another prophet, an old woman named Anna has a similar reaction, praising God and speaking about the child who would redeem Israel.

Their way of knowing who Jesus is, comes to them by God’s Spirit.

Let’s think back to our readings from a couple weeks ago: the Baptism of Jesus, which happens as he is about to begin his ministry, as an adult. After Jesus is baptized and he is praying, “the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’”

That’s confirmation for Jesus as to who he is. The Spirit is testifying both in Jesus and in others as to Jesus’s identity as the Messiah.

But a funny thing begins to happen in Jesus’s ministry. We saw it last week, as Kelsey (Rev. Kelsey Spiker) read and preached: Jesus unrolled the Isaiah scroll, and read, and told his listeners about being sent to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free,” what great news! And then Jesus gives them the biggest news of all, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing!”

I picture Jesus in front of the crowd, “up here, gang—it’s me. I’m the Word made flesh. You’re not going to believe the things we are going to do.” But as he keeps talking, what started as excitement turns to anger and the gathered crowd chases Jesus out of the town, and they want to throw him off a cliff.

What’s going on here. Haven’t they read their New Testament, their Gospels? Oh wait, none of that has been written yet. It’s not in their Bible.

Jesus IS the Word made flesh. He is standing in front of them. He is writing the rest of Scripture. Wait, actually he is not. To our knowledge, from the stories we have in the Gospels, Jesus had a two or three-year ministry and he never wrote down anything he said or did or taught. He was too busy doing the work—loving and serving—to bother to write any of it down himself.

Isn’t it interesting: our Scripture, our Bible is written by regular people, inspired by God. But still regular people, who don’t always get everything right; who come at things from their own perspectives—that’s why we have two creation stories in Genesis and some differences in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s Gospel accounts—they give us our Scripture, from a human perspective, written in a particular time and place.

And when the one guy who can get everything right; who can and does speak for God; who heals, teaches, and forgives sins, with God’s authority; when the one person who can make everything crystal clear is here in the flesh—Jesus doesn’t write anything down. And when he teaches, he teaches in parables—in riddles, which we have to work on and work out, they don’t come to us ready-made.

Jesus’s life and ministry as it happened required people to use Scripture as the road map to get them to Jesus, and then they had to look up from Scripture to witness, follow, and continue what Jesus was doing in the moment. When we read Jesus’s parables and about his life, it also takes our involvement in the here and now. Scripture points to Jesus, points us to God, is inspired by God, but is not God.

The scribes and pharisees who focused too closely on Scripture, missed Jesus in their midst.

And then as Jesus goes about his ministry an even stranger thing happens. The folks who know their Hebrew Bible, their Old Testament, the Law, the Torah the best, they are Jesus’s biggest detractors, his biggest critics. And Jesus will get in trouble with them for actually doing things their Scripture says not to do: healing on the Sabbath, working on the Sabbath, hanging out with people who the law says are unclean.

Jesus is going to show them at every turn, that where love and the law are at odds with each other, go with love. Every. Time.

Look up from your Bibles. I am the Word made flesh. I am right in front of you. Follow me. Watch me. Learn from me. We will do this together. Together, we will write the next part of the story.

The disciples are going to walk through Scripture in real-time, face-to-face with Jesus. To do that, they’ve got to believe in him. They’ve got to trust him.

So we’ve got Scripture, leading to Jesus. Then Jesus holds the baton saying, “Word made flesh here, watch me, follow me, love one another as I love you.” And then, after Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we’ve got more Scripture written (the New Testament), so that we don’t miss out on who Jesus was and what he did. Scripture is the main way we learn about Jesus. But he also gives us something else to help.

Sticking to Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus’s resurrection and explaining everything to the disciples, he says wait for the Holy Spirit, which will give you power. The gift of the Holy Spirit is another way for us to know, understand, and participate in God and Jesus.

This is the same Spirit that revealed to Simeon who Jesus was. It’s the same Spirit that spoke to the prophets of the Old Testament, and it’s the same Spirit that convicts us in the work of God’s love.

Simeon was a devout Scripture reader, who also made space for God to speak to him through the Spirit.

There is not one singular way for us to understand God, and God’s will and ways. We need to stay on our toes and be open to how God might speak to us.

We need Scripture to point the way, to be our road map.

We need Jesus to show us, to be for us the way and truth and the life.

We need the Holy Spirit to fill us, convict us, and guide us.

We need each other to love and serve and to be God’s love, to build the community that Jesus began, and to be his hands and feet in the world.

God’s Word came alive, became flesh, in Jesus.

Through the Holy Spirit, God’s Word is alive and alive in us.

Conversion of St. Paul: Embracing Change

January 25 is the day the lectionary celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul. For our Wednesday Healing Services at Christ Church Easton, I have been using feast days that occur during a given week as a chance to do something along the lines of a homily to recognize them. This is what I put together for this week.

“The Conversion of St. Paul: Embracing Change”

Saul was not an atheist. He wasn’t a morally questionable person. He was a faithful and devoted Jew, who thought he was doing God’s work. And he was a persecutor of Christians. He approved the stoning of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr in the Book of Acts.

There is no way in the world he was going to be even supportive of this movement, these followers of Jesus.

Until he was. This was not a change-by-degrees situation; this was being struck blind on the road to Damascus and having to come face-to-face with not just the risen Christ, but with the idea that the things you were devoted to, committed to, SURE OF, turned out to be wrong.

This was not an unlikely conversion. It was an impossible conversion. It made no sense. Saul had to come into it and not only that, if you were one of the early followers of Jesus, you knew who Saul was and there was no way you were going to trust him.

From the account in Acts, Saul was blind for three days and didn’t eat or drink for that time.

The Lord called out to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias, and told him where to go to find Saul and lay hands on him so that Saul could regain his sight.

And Ananias said:

“Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has authority to bind all who invoke your name.”

In other words, “Lord, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

The Lord said to him, “Go for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel. I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

Even after his conversion, regaining his sight and becoming an incredibly powerful and persuasive preacher—so much so that now the Jews wanted to kill him; when Saul came to Jerusalem to join the disciples, they were all afraid of him and didn’t believe he had really changed.

Paul’s life got significantly more difficult after his conversion. Many of his letters were written from prison, which he found himself in and out of.

Now in terms of hand-picking apostles, Jesus hit the jackpot with Paul. Paul was Jewish, a pharisee. He was a Roman citizen, he spoke multiple languages, he was literate and educated, and passionate—he was actually the perfect combination of skills, upbringing, and knowledge to take this movement to the next level.

Let’s talk about change. Paul had to completely change his life, to repent, to turn around and go a different direction. And he is well documented in his own words for doing so.

Has your own path of following Jesus asked you to change or make changes in your life? What kind?

Our changes aren’t going to be a severe as Paul’s—I don’t think any of us were persecuting or killing Christians. Changes in our lives might look very different.

I’ll show you what I mean. I make this point a fair amount: over the past eight years, I have cried more than any other period of my life. Following Jesus has opened my heart and caused me to care about more people and more things, to take them into my heart—it’s a much more difficult way to walk through life. But it’s also richer and more rewarding.

Following Jesus with our whole hearts should make us care more about the world and be heartbroken by things we might have ignored before.

Following Jesus asked me to give up a temper that I had been developing over the years.

Following Jesus asked me to let go of judging people and situations. On the Meyers Briggs personality test that people take, I used to test as INFJ—introverted, intuitive, feeling, judging—over the past five years, anytime I have taken the test and been totally honest, I am INFP—judging changed to perceiving.

Change was necessary for Paul and it’s necessary for us. Transformation is a word that is not to be taken lightly.

Another thing we might learn from Paul is the difference between righteousness and self-righteousness. Saul, the pharisee who persecuted Christians was sure he was right. Jesus had a different opinion.

It makes me think of a more modern-day hero of mine. Verna Dozier was an African-American woman who was an English teacher at Dunbar High School. When she retired, became one of the lay (non-ordained) leaders of the Episcopal Church. I keep a copy of her book “The Dream of God” on a shelf near my desk. We did a small group study of that book, and I loved everything about this quote:

“We always see through a glass darkly, and that is what faith is about. I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong.”

It is a powerful and humbling thing to live knowing I (or we) don’t and can’t know everything. I do my best to figure things out and have the courage and grace to keep learning and I realize that because something seemed right yesterday, it doesn’t mean it can’t be proved wrong today or tomorrow. If that happens, then I need to be willing to change. Just like Paul did.

So maybe humility becomes important, to realize I am not always right, no matter how passionate I might feel about something. I could have a realization—an epiphany—that I was wrong. Then I need the courage to admit it and think and live differently.

What else can we learn from Paul’s conversion? How about don’t write off your enemies. Saul wasn’t just disliked by the early Christians—he was public enemy number one. They were scared and skeptical of bringing him into the fold.

I apologize for bringing sports analogies into a discussion of such important things, but it’s still football season and we can make a couple points here.

There was a defensive back who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers named Rod Woodson, who is a Hall of Fame player, one of the best to play football at his position. The Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens are big rivals, they don’t like each other on the field very much. Rod Woodson ended up becoming a Raven, helped them win a Super Bowl, and now he is one of their radio broadcast announcers. Loved in both cities, he has dual citizenship.

If you follow the Philadelphia Eagles, running back Saquon Barkley was the franchise player of their division rival New York Giants. Philly fans booed him when the Giants came to town. This year he was traded to the Eagles, has been their best player, the most loved of the Eagles this year and one of the main reasons they are playing this coming weekend for a chance to go to the Super Bowl.

Sports are not life, but the point is, people who were once hated by entire cities and fanbases, become beloved and embraced.

Because someone was your enemy one day, or for a time, doesn’t mean they can’t become an ally, a friend, even beloved. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said “love your enemies.” He showed the world with Paul, that your enemy is your brother or sister, and we and they are capable of change.

I have been reading Gregory Boyle’s book “Cherished Belonging” to get ready for our small groups that start next week. Boyle points out that on the day when Jesus entered Jerusalem on his way to be arrested and crucified, there were two parades that day.

On the one side, coming from the west on the main road, was Pilate and his show of military power and force. It was a display of power. Don’t mess with Pilate or you see what you’ll get. Boyle writes:

“Then there’s Jesus, on a small donkey, humbling entering the city from the east. Jesus’s trek and mission displays a way of life whose hallmarks are inclusion, nonviolence, unconditional loving kindness, and compassionate acceptance. The parade of warhorses announces the threat of violence, force, coercion, and the oppression of the poor. The “triumphant” entrance of Jesus is not an indictment but an invitation. Village transcending tribe. Jesus doesn’t draw lines (of division). He erases them.

Paul’s encounter with Jesus caused him to change his life completely. To become the thing that he despised. To embrace the other side.

Jesus invites us to do the same. To change. To be humble. To let go of our self-righteousness. To embrace his way of inclusion, even of our enemies, nonviolence, unconditional loving kindness, and compassionate acceptance.

Paul’s conversion changed everything. So can ours. So can anyone else’s.

Top image: “The Conversion of St. Paul” by Caravaggio, oil on cypress wood, 1600/1601.

Healing, letting go and sunrise

Background: We have just finished a series of three Blue December services at Christ Church Easton for anyone who is having a difficult time during this season. We’ve had a heartening turnout, more people each week, and wonderful feedback from those who attended. The services have been put together and led by a Lutheran Deacon (Mike Hiner) and an Episcopal Deacon (Michael Valliant). This is the text of the reflection/homily in third service on Dec. 18.

“Healing, Letting Go and Sunrise”

St. John of the Cross was a Christian mystic and monk who lived in Spain the 1500s. He is most known for talking about “the dark night of the soul.” John thought it was necessary for us to experience or go through dark nights of our souls in order to fully know, appreciate, and experience the love of God.

It’s a memorable phrase, but it’s not a great marketing campaign. No one is going to line up at the door to go through dark nights of the soul. The reason the phrase and the idea is memorable is not because it sounds desirable; it’s because we can relate to it. I would guess when I say “dark night of the soul” there are a number of us here who understand what that feels like in our own lives.

The fact that we are sitting in a church might mean that we are willing to look to God, look to Jesus for some help with those times.

When you are going through a difficult time, parables don’t seem like the most helpful thing you can come across. But Jesus frequently uses them. That must have been annoying to his disciples and friends.

Jesus, could you please just tell me what I need to do? I don’t have time for another story, another riddle.

Jesus’s parables frequently work on our expectations and our sense of time. The one I come back to over and over again is the Parable of the Sower. And the notion of planting seeds—all over the place, on every kind of soil. The thing about seeds is that they take time to grow. And that, though we can help, we can’t make them grow.

Healing what troubles us is sometimes like planting a seed and/or waiting for it to grow. It doesn’t happen quickly, certainly not fast enough for us when we are hurting. Often we find ourselves waiting.

In my most uncomfortable waiting, I am left with the idea that all I can do is show up, let go of my expectations and desired outcomes, and let God work on them.

I want to talk for a minute about healing. Henri Nouwen was a gifted priest, teacher, and author, who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard. But where he came alive was when he left those prestigious institutions and became the pastor at L’Arche Daybreak, a community for people with intellectual disabilities in Ontario. It was working with this community where Nouwen got a sense for what work was most important.

He wrote that:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”

Someone who shares our pain and touches our wounds. Have you ever had that kind of friend? Have you ever been that kind of friend?

The season of Advent finds us in a time of waiting. There is something about the patience of waiting and the patience of healing that goes together.

Rachel Held Evans was a best-selling author and speaker who died in 2019 at 37 years old from an allergic reaction to a medication she was given for an infection. She wrote a lot about bringing people and groups into the church who felt outcast and unwanted. And she wrote about healing: how the church is called to the “slow and difficult work of healing… being with people in their pain and sticking around no matter the outcome.”

Healing is something that takes time and it is relational. Held Evans wrote:

“Rarely does healing follow a straight or well-lit path. Rarely does it conform to our expectations or resolve in a timely manner. Walking with someone through grief, or through the process of reconciliation, requires patience, presence, and a willingness to wander, to take the scenic route.”

During my lowest times, the immediate thing I want to do is fix whatever is wrong, make it go away and move on. How do I get rid of it?

The only way I have been able to get out of that space is by realizing I can’t fix myself and that ultimately I have to let go of whatever I am holding too tightly—in order to be able to breathe, in order to be able to heal.

In this letting go, I have actually felt weight lift off my shoulders and a sense of being free from whatever it was that had me start to take shape.

This is what Jesus invites us to when he says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30, NRSV)

We might come to the church, come to Jesus asking to make this hurt go away, and Jesus asks us to set it down, to give it to him… breathe… take a minute… readjust. Taking Jesus’s yoke upon us—being gentle, humble in heart, is how we find rest for our souls.

It takes letting go and it takes time. But we can get there.

I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but there are times when I can get so worked up, so upset about something that I can physically feel it—it’s a tension, like a clenched fist. Jesus invites us to open that fist. Let it go, give it to him. “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”

Jesus is offering us rest, both by taking our burdens and by giving us his approach—gentleness and being humble in heart, letting go of the tension and anxiety that we’re holding onto.

Jesus is inviting us into a new way of life, a new way of dealing with suffering—letting it go into God’s love, by which our suffering, our pain, is what helps us experience this love.

St. John of the Cross had his dark nights of the soul. But he didn’t stop there, he didn’t stay there, he used them to come to know God’s love. He waited out the darkness until the light came.

Jesus experienced his own darkness and death on the cross. But he didn’t stay there. He became the sunrise.

Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest who founded Thistle Farms, a community in Tennessee where women come out of prison and are loved, supported, and taught life skills. They come out of their own dark nights of the soul and into light.

Stevens relates this new light, this sunrise, to the Easter story, and to our lives. She says:

“Sunrise in the story of Easter is not just a time of day; it is a state of the heart. Sunrise is the space where nighttime fears move aside for hope, where we feel peace about our mortality in the scope of the universal truth that love abides and where we feel light crest the dark horizons of hearts we have kept barricaded.”

Sunrise is a state of the heart, where nighttime fears move aside for hope. It takes time. It takes love. It takes letting go. Jesus invites us to give our pain, our fears, our anxiety to him. To try his way of being. And to sit with each other, and him, to help us get there.

Featured image (Top of the Page) – Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Helped Are the Lonely

Background: This month at Christ Church Easton, we are offering Blue December services on Wednesday evenings leading up to Christmas. These services recognize that people have a difficult time leading up to Christmas for any number of reasons–loneliness, grief, depression, anxiety, or just feeling out of step and out of place in a commercially-consumed culture. These services include lighting of candles, prayers, quiet music and singing, Scripture readings and reflections, some silence, Communion with previously sanctified elements (often called a Deacon’s Mass), and they are for are for anyone going through something this time of year who might want to come together for a quiet worship service in the evening in the middle of the week, and have some fellowship and discussion after. Our hope is that people will feel God’s presence and love and experience the company, care, and fellowship of other people.

The Gospel reading for the service on December 4 was Matthew 5:1-12, often called the Beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.

“Helped Are the Lonely”

The cards are stacked against us if we are going through a hard time in December. It’s getting colder, it’s basically dark after lunch, Christmas movies and music are streaming 24-7, and we feel like we are supposed to act like we are happy, even when we are the farthest thing from it.

States of being that include loneliness, grief, depression, and anxiety are all connected, we can move back and forth between them. And I say states of being because these aren’t things we can just change our mind about and decide, “I am not going to be lonely or sad,” “I am not going to grieve anymore,” or “I am tired of being depressed.”

But we can reach out. We can show up. We can give ourselves permission, allow ourselves to be low or hurting, or questioning. It may be counter to what we see when we look around this time of year, but it’s honest. Let’s start where we actually are.

How’s it going? Fine. How are you doing? Good. Granted, when someone asks us that when we run into them at the grocery store, that may not be the time and place to bare our souls. But we need to have some place we can do that.

Different people have different ways of coping with life. I don’t know where I would be without distance running and reading, two things that have helped me keep going through some of my darkest times. Reading, in part, because I find people who are describing the same thing I am feeling—someone who helps me give words to something I feel but can’t describe.

There is a poet named David Whyte. In his book “Consolations,” he talks about loneliness.

“Loneliness can be a prison, a place from which we look out at a world we cannot inhabit; loneliness can be a bodily ache and a penance, but loneliness fully inhabited also becomes a voice that asks and calls for that great unknown someone or something we want to call our own.”

One of the questions that led me to searching and to the journey I am on now was wondering in my bones and in my soul, “am I really and ultimately alone—are we only ever truly alone in the Universe?” It’s a question I came back to often enough, and one of the times that it had legs and kicked me in the gut was when my marriage was ending. I knew that even together, I felt alone, I knew that even among friends, I felt alone, like no one was out there, or really understood who I was.

But I wanted there to be. The fact that I didn’t want to be and feel alone, sent me both inside myself and out into the world.

This is David Whyte again:

“Loneliness is the very state that births the courage to continue calling, and when fully lived can undergo its own beautiful reversal.

“Loneliness is the place from which we pay real attention to voices other than our own; being alone allows us to find the healing power.”

Lonely human beings are lonely because we are made to belong. Feeling alone is hard because we aren’t made to be alone. As many times as I feel like living as a hermit would be a lifestyle-change I would embrace—even for an introvert, there are times I need connection.

In one of the most counter-intuitive sermons in the Bible, Jesus says that these low times we experience have a purpose. We call this section of Matthew’s Gospel, the Beatitudes, for its use of the word “blessed.” This is one of the key parts of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. He tells us:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
“Blessed are those who mourn,
“Blessed are the meek,
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”

Ummm… Jesus, what are you talking about? I’ve felt those things, and no offense, but I’d like to be done with all that.

In her book, “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories,” Debie Thomas writes:

“What Jesus bears witness to in the Beatitudes is God’s unwavering proximity to pain, suffering, sorrow, and loss. God is nearest to those who are lowly, oppressed, unwanted, and broken. God isn’t obsessed with the shiny and the impressive. God is too busy sticking close to what’s messy, chaotic, and unruly.”

What our faith tells us, what Jesus showed again and again with his teaching, his healing, his life, is that it was the outcast, the low, the hurting, the people no one wanted to think about or deal with, who were his people.

Self-reliance and independence are very American values. I can take care of myself, I got this, I don’t need anyone’s help. Those ideas are NOT Christian values. They are not love-centered values.

One of the biggest Christian values we hold is surrendering. Realizing that we don’t control the Universe; that there are so many things in our own lives that we don’t have control of and that we are helped when we surrender our need to be in control to a higher power, to God.

It often happens that we don’t experience a need for God, a need to accept that we aren’t always in control, until things start to fall apart.

And it’s those times that God is closest to us. It’s those times when what we’ve been fed by society—that if we have the right house, the right family, the right job, the right car—then we ‘ll be happy. When that turns out not to give us what we are looking for, or pursuing those things stops making sense, and we are looking for something more substantial, then we are open to another way of thinking about life.

One of the most useful things I’ve run into in thinking about the Beatitudes is the novelist Alice Walker, who wrote “The Color Purple,” in coming up with a similar list for a character of hers, changed the word “blessed” to “helped.” Listen to Jesus’s teaching like this:

“Helped are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Helped are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Helped are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Helped are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Helped are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Helped are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Helped are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The world wants us to be hard, tough, to put our heads down and be productive. To be good, to be fine, to be surface level.

Jesus wants us to have soft hearts. To go deep. To care for one another, to help one another, to love one another. Our ability to do these things is part of what constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven.

We are not meant to go through life alone. We need each other. We need to be there for each other.

To have soft hearts, to be able to be there for someone, we are helped by knowing what they are going through.

Brene Brown describes herself as a storyteller and social worker. This is how she talks about empathy:

“Empathy is feeling WITH people. I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space. When someone’s in a deep hole and they shout from the bottom and they say “I’m stuck. It’s dark. I’m overwhelmed.” and we look and we say “Hey” and climb down and say “I know what it’s like down here, and you’re not alone… Empathy is a choice and it’s a vulnerable choice. In order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling.”

Helped are the lonely.

Helped are those who struggle.

Helped are those who feel lost.

Because they are closer to God. And God can help.

And we can help each other.

Love God, Love Your Neighbor

Background: Last week I preached at Christ Church Easton’s weekly Wednesday healing service and led our Zoom Prayer service and Gospel discussion. The lectionary Gospel was Mark 12:28-34, where a scribe asks Jesus, “What is the first (greatest) commandment?” This is the text of the homily and what we used to get us discussing the reading on Zoom.

“Love God, Love Your Neighbor”

What is the first/greatest/most important commandment?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

How many people have heard this answer from Jesus? It’s one of his teachings we’ve become pretty familiar with, I think.

I’m curious, if you’d never heard Jesus say this and someone put a list of the commandments in front of you, which one would you think is the most important commandment?

Jesus always seems to understand what is behind the questions that people ask. To use a saying that goes around, the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees are all playing checkers while Jesus is playing chess. And I’ve always laughed at the line Mark gives us at the end of this reading, “After that no one dared to ask him any question.”

I’m serious when I say that I thank Jesus for this teaching every day. In part, because I hate having to memorize long lists, particularly of rules to follow. Two is a good number for me to remember.

The reason there are only two is because Jesus has taken it down to the very essence of all the laws. And he’s done it with one action verb: LOVE.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

If we were to paint a picture with words, what would it look like in our world and in our lives if we loved God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Can you give me any examples that pop into your minds?

Part of it for me is that we would love what God loves. Have you had the experience of loving someone so much that their love of something becomes your love of it too? When there is something that your loved one gets so charged and excited about that you then come to love it as well?

What if we allowed ourselves to love God so much that what God loved, we loved as well, feeling the joy that God gets out of something.

How about Creation. The universe, the world—Creation of which we are a part. In the creation story in Genesis, God looks around at the end of each day and says, it’s good. And as he is finished, he looks at mankind and says, you are in charge. Take care of it.

If there is anything we have royally screwed up in modern times, it’s caring for Creation. But darned if we aren’t willing to ruin the world for lower gas prices, a better economy, and convenience for ourselves.

I can remember reading Dr. Seuss’s book, “The Lorax” to my girls when they were little and thinking that we should be reading this book to grown-ups every day in regular conversation. That and Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree.”

Under Michael Curry as our Presiding Bishop (whose nine year term ended on October 31), the Episcopal Church prioritized a few core initiatives to focus on along with its program ministries. What it picked as the key things we need to focus on as a church to further the work of Jesus are: evangelism, racial reconciliation, and Creation Care.

This is the charge for Creation Care:

“In Jesus, God so loved the whole world. We follow Jesus, so we love the world God loves. Concerned for the global climate emergency, drawing on diverse approaches for our diverse contexts, we commit to form and restore loving, liberating, life-giving relationships with all of Creation.

“The Episcopal Church’s Covenant for the Care of Creation is a commitment to practice loving formation, liberating advocacy and life-giving conservation as individuals, congregations, ministries and dioceses.”

“We follow Jesus, so we love the world God loves.” That’s it in a nutshell. We’ve got our work cut out for us. To form and restore, loving, liberating, life-giving relationships with all of Creation. I can’t think of anything more important than that when it comes to living out what it looks like to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.

Don’t forget, Jesus gave us a second commandment—whether we want to call it number two, or 1-A, because it is absolutely connected to the first. How about loving our neighbors as ourselves? What does it look like if we take this commandment seriously?

One of the things you are taught not to do when preaching is not to use a different Gospel, say Luke, to make or prove a point when talking about Mark’s Gospel. So let me tell you a parable:

A man was going down to Oxford and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half-dead. Now, it happened a priest was going down Oxford Road, and when he saw the man beaten and in the ditch, he crossed over and passed by him on the other side. Likewise a deacon came to the place, saw him, and passed by on the other side. But a pagan biker while traveling down Oxford Road saw him and was moved with compassion. She went to him and bandaged his wounds and spared no expense of her own money. Then she put him in her sidecar, took him to an inn, and gave the innkeeper money and said take care of him, and if it costs more than this, I’ll pay you when I come back.

Which one of theses three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?

If you’ve ever heard a different version of that story, the Samaritan, or pagan biker, is the one least likely in the minds of those hearing the story, to stop and offer help.

And yet, we can all agree that the biker is the one who treated the wounded man as her neighbor.

If we take a point from the story, it might be that everyone is our neighbor, when it comes to caring and being cared for. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor, what race, how they vote, who they love, how they dress: we are all created in the image of God and we are all neighbors to each other, and if we are to take the commandments by their name, we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the same way we look after our own self-interests, we are charged to look out of our neighbors’ care and well-being.

Our Mark reading today begins with a scribe asking Jesus a question. This wasn’t a scribe who was trying to trick Jesus, as we’ve seen in some other cases. This was a scribe who saw people arguing and heard Jesus answer questions so well, that he put the question to him: which of the commandments is the most important?

And hearing the answer Jesus gave, the scribe thinks about it and says, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

What an amazing answer. Not nice job, or ‘atta boy’, or even ‘your faith has made you well.’ You are not far from the kingdom of God.

We’ve heard this throughout Mark’s Gospel, and we can agree that the kingdom of God is what we are all aiming for—that’s the end result we want.

The scribe, in taking Jesus’s words to heart, letting them sink in, letting them work on him, has moved close to the kingdom of God.

If we are to take Jesus as his word, wouldn’t the same thing be true for us? If knowing and fully understanding that loving God and loving our neighbor are the most important commandments God has given us, and that Jesus has summarized and made easier for us to remember; that if we have this understanding, then the only thing standing between us and the kingdom of God is actually putting it into practice, actually living it out in our daily lives—that fully realized and lived, LOVE of God and loving our neighbor is what brings us to the kingdom of God…

If that’s the case, and Jesus says it is, shouldn’t we spend a bit more of our time, effort, and resources trying to do so?

At this point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has already entered into Jerusalem. He’s already cleansed the Temple. He’s about to get arrested and be put to death. He’s put his life on the line for us. What are we willing to do for him?

‘Hear, O Believers: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Amen.

Was Blind But Now I See

Background: Last weekend was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The Gospel story in the lectionary was Mark 10:46-52, the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus and Jesus giving him his sight back. Following is the text of the sermon.

“Was Blind But Now I See”

This is a story that begins and ends in faith. Sometimes faith starts in the dark. And sometimes things go dark or at least get obscured without us losing our physical sight.

Faith is not about seeing. Faith is about trust. And trust can lead to vision.

Over the past several weeks, Mark has shown us the disciples failing to understand what Jesus is telling them, failing to understand his mission, and putting their needs and desires before his.

In contrast to that, Mark gives us Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, who shows all the characteristics of being a faithful disciple.

Profession of Faith

Bartimaeus is blind and an outsider and all Jesus has to do is come close to him for the beggar to know who Jesus is and what he can do.

He shouts out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Doing this, Bartimaeus proclaims both Jesus’s identity and his own faith, his trust in Jesus’s power and what he can do.

Even as people try to silence him, Bartimaeus calls out again, louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This stops Jesus in his tracks. We’ve seen this before in Gospel stories, where someone’s extraordinary belief or faith in Jesus causes him to stop.

Jesus calls him over and in his response to being called, Bartimaeus throws off his cloak—everything he owns—and he leaps up to come to Jesus. Does that remind us of the rich, young ruler, who Jesus tells to give away everything he owns and follow me? Bartimaeus has already done what the rich man couldn’t, and he wasn’t even asked.

The Big Question

As Bartimaeus comes before him, Jesus asks the key question: “What is it you want me to do for you?”

I wonder if there are two questions that Jesus asks in Mark’s Gospel that are the primary questions of our faith:

Who do you say that I am?

What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” And they’ve been working on what that means for the disciples and for Jesus ever since Peter’s answer.

Last week, Jesus asked his followers James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” The same question he just asked the blind man. And their response was, “We want to sit at your right hand and at your left hand in glory.” They wanted glory, prestige, power. Jesus wasn’t going in that direction, and he told them they didn’t know what they were asking for. Their desires and Jesus’s mission were not aligned.

Now he asks Bartimaeus, a man who has been a beggar, who has been blind, who has figured out how to live his life on the charity of others, what do you want me to do for you?

Bartimaeus being blind, that may seem like a simple answer. But getting his sight will require him to try to live a completely different life, to leave everything he has known and learned, and to go in a new direction.

I wonder, if we are living lives we aren’t happy with… lives that feel empty, or broken, or even just less than we would like them to be; but lives that have become comfortable…. Would we ask for something miraculous that would give us new life, but also ask something of us in return, something that would require us to leave our current lives behind?

If Jesus asked you, what is it you want me to do for you, and you had every feeling that he would give you what you asked for, what would it be?

How We Answer

“The blind man said, ‘Teacher, I would like to see again.’”

He has cast off all he had, he has stepped out of his old life and is taking a risk. He is asking for sight, to go along with the faith he has already shown.

“Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ (And) Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.”

Bartimaeus expressed the faith that the crowds lacked. He gave up everything in a way that the rich young ruler wasn’t able to do. And he answered the question Jesus also asked the disciples, with humility and gratitude. This is what discipleship looks like.

Blind = lost

Last weekend we were in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and I got up early to walk trails through meadows and along the woods to look for and listen to birds. It was a beautiful and quiet morning, and overnight, fog had settled in.

I went to bed with my full eyesight and woke up and my eyes still worked (at least after coffee) and yet, as I was walking around, fog had taken over and I couldn’t see as well as I could the night before.

We live in an area that has fog delays for schools, so I know you can all relate to trying to see through a foggy haze.

I wonder if you’ll take a step with me when I say that fog is also a helpful metaphor in our own lives for when our vision gets obscured, obstructed, and we can no longer see clearly.

I wonder if we can go blind without losing our physical eyesight.

It would be nice to dismiss the story of Bartimaeus by saying, hey, I’m not blind, this story doesn’t apply to me. But I think we are all blinded from time to time, often without realizing it.

Thinking about this reading during the week, I’ve had the lines from the song “Amazing Grace” in my mind:

“I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.”

I wonder if being lost is like being blind. Have you ever felt lost in your life in a way that you couldn’t see to find your way out?

From 2010 to 2014, I commuted across the Bay Bridge to Washington, DC, writing for the Coast Guard. It was a cool job and I met some great people. I never thought I would be able to stomach commuting like that every day and driving into the city.

The jobs I had before that were non-profit jobs here on the Shore. They kept me in touch with the community, they connected me to parts of my family history and opened new doors and new ways of seeing and being in the place where I grew up. And I felt like I was doing something for, and contributing to our shared community.

But it’s hard to make ends meet working for non-profits. My DC job more than doubled the salary I was making on the Shore. I remember driving one day—I don’t remember whether it was on the way to work or on the way home—and thinking, I’m stuck now. I am going to have to keep commuting, keep working in DC for the rest of my career, now that I’ve started this and found the proverbial pot of gold.

There was a slight pause in 2013, when the contract we were working on didn’t get renewed and I had to figure out what was next. I started interviewing for jobs on the Shore and out of nowhere, I had this uncanny and sure sense that I was supposed to go to seminary. Which made no sense, we weren’t even going to church. But that feeling was there.

During that time, I got a job offer on another contract for the Coast Guard, which solved all the financial concerns. It didn’t shake the sense that I was supposed to be doing something else; that I had become completely alienated from the community around me, that I had less time with my daughters for having to commute. But I convinced myself that this was the right decision for my family.

The fog was thick. I took the DC job. During that next year, my entire life fell apart. Family, job, sense of self and self-worth. I had become lost, even though I saw every step I was taking.

Last weekend, when I was walking in the fog, a cool thing happened. I was walking up the hill towards the B&B where we were staying and the fog was laid in, but the sun was also coming up. And as we know happens, the sun started to burn off the fog. If you can take the time to stand in one place, facing toward the sun, and watch as it overcomes the fog, and the fog begins to fade, clarity sets back in. It’s nothing short of miraculous to watch.

I don’t have 20/20 vision as my glasses attest to. But over the course of the last 10 years, I have gone from feeling lost, to being found. From being blinded, to regaining my sight.

And the question that helped me get there—though at first, I didn’t recognize that it was Jesus asking it—was, “What do you want me to do for you?” What do you want your life to become?

Following and Freedom

On my West Virginia morning, and really anywhere there is fog, it takes the sun to burn it off. There was nothing I could do on my own to see through it, it was the sun that had to do the work. In my life, in Bartimaeus’s life, and for many others, it took the S-o-n, Jesus, to give us back our sight, our vision.

Bartimaeus needed his sight to live the life he wanted to live. But he showed it wasn’t just about him. When he regained his sight, what did he do with it? He followed Jesus. In doing so, with his new life, I think it is fair to say that the seeing Bartimaeus was more truly who he was supposed to be than the blind version of himself ever was.

He used his sight in the service of God. Not because he was told to—all Jesus said was “Go.” Bartimaeus followed Jesus in act of gratitude and of realizing what his sight was for.

Author, pastor, and theologian Frederick Buechner put it wonderfully when he said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

It’s been my experience that when we put our trust in Jesus and start to follow, when we let the sun burn off the fog, that meeting place of our deep gladness and the world’s hunger becomes more and more clear.

Are you seeing clearly or do you feel lost? If you feel lost, when Jesus draws near to you, do you trust him enough to call his name? If he asks you what you want him to do for you, do you know what your answer will be? Will it be to ask for the sight to live your life to the fullest, to live the life that God has envisioned for you? To align your sight and your life in following the one who gives us both life and sight?

“I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.”