Jesus | Michael Valliant

Love Over Law

Lead in: I am in my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are going to school. February 11-12 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for February 12 was a rough one–Matthew 5:21-37, part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells his disciples that not committing murder or adultery aren’t enough, you can’t hold onto anger or lust, or you are in the same shape, then moves into divorce and lying.

“Love Over Law”

There is a quote that comes to mind when I read this part of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. It’s by Lao Tzu, a Chinese mystic philosopher. He says:

“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

What begin as our thoughts, form who we become; and inform our destiny.

Our thoughts matter. Our words matter. Our actions matter. From their smallest beginnings, they can become our lives without us realizing it.

Let’s remember what Jesus said in last week’s reading, the passage just before today’s Gospel. Jesus said, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill… not one letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

He continues on to say not to break the least of the commandments or teach others to do the same, and that your righteousness needs to EXCEED that of the scribes and the pharisees.

Your righteousness needs to EXCEED the the letter of the law.

Some of the laws that Jesus cites in today’s reading are about actions: “You shall not murder,” “You shall not commit adultery,” and then he brings in divorce and lying. These are all actions, things that people do.

Jesus is trying to head these things off at the pass before they get anywhere close to being actions. Work with them when they are still thoughts.

Since Jesus has gone there, let’s think about it in a hypothetical situation with vengeance and anger. If someone has wronged you in the worst way, so much so that you decide you are going to take action: you are seething, you get into your car, you drive to where they are, you walk up to the door.

If the law is “thou shalt not commit murder”—where is the easiest place to stop that from happening? It’s not when you get to the house looking for revenge. It’s before you even get into the car. Once you’ve started the process, you are moving down a path that the further you get, the harder it is to turn back.

Jesus is telling his disciples not to go down that path.

Murder is obviously an extreme case. Jesus dials it back to anger: if you are angry with a brother or sister or if they have something against you—and here he says something remarkable for those of us sitting in church—before you go to church, reconcile yourself with your brother or sister. Then come to church.

Why would he say that? How is that a good church growth strategy?

Jesus is trying to build a community founded on love and caring for each other. If you’ve got a bunch of people worshipping together who have grudges against each other, or who come to have real issues with each other, that’s not a loving community.

Fr. Bill pointed out last week that in relaying this teaching and these stories that Jesus is telling his disciples, Matthew is passing along those instructions to his readers and ultimately intending it for us as disciples today. Jesus’ teaching is also meant for us today.

Let’s think about things in terms of us today. I think we all have friends who aren’t church-goers, some who maybe used to be, and others who simply don’t go to church and when they tell you why, it is because they know people who go to church and then they see how they live their lives outside church, and they want nothing to do with that kind of hypocrisy. They see them out in the community, how they treat people, the masks they wear, the things they do.

Look again at what Jesus is saying: if you have issues with someone, work it out, then come to church. Have your heart in the right place and your lives in the right place when you are here. Our relationships with each other are integral to who the church is. Jesus is holding us to a higher standard.

We have to see our relationships with each other as part of our Christian calling.

Jesus is asking his disciples, and us, to be accountable. Both to God and to each other.

My grandfather, my mom’s father, lived to be 92. He was a recovering alcoholic and spent the last 56 years of his life sober. He was a director of Tuerk House in Baltimore and a program director for the National Council on Alcoholism. He ultimately made his living and his life about helping people who wanted to get sober.

He lived in Baltimore and Towson, before spending the last years of his life in Easton. When he and my grandmother moved here, one of the first things he did was to find out when and where the AA meetings were, so he could connect with people.

We had a memorial service for him at Londonderry, where they lived, and people who knew him from AA came from Baltimore to be there and to speak. The Baltimore Sun newspaper wrote two stories about him after he passed.

He was extroverted, loved to talk and tell stories, and he was compassionate and an incredible listener. He was considered a rock for those battling alcoholism who were trying to reclaim their lives.

A saying that became his mantra was: “I don’t care whether an alcoholic came from Yale or jail or Park Avenue or park bench, I’m here to help.”

I will also always remember someone asking him if once you were an alcoholic, you could ever not be an alcoholic again, to which he said, “You can turn a cucumber into a pickle, but you can’t turn a pickle back into a cucumber.”

I bring my grandfather up because the 12 steps of AA became a way of life for him. And I want to look for a minute at a few of the steps and think about them in terms of accountability and in terms of how Jesus is asking his disciples to think and live. Here are a few of the steps in the program:

Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.

Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.

Make direct amends to such people wherever possible.

Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it.

Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

That sounds a lot like what Jesus is asking of his disciples.

There is law and then there is lifestyle. The 12 steps in AA are a way for people to live differently, to be accountable, and to stay humble.

Jesus is asking his disciples, and us, to live differently, to be accountable, and to stay humble.

It’s a way of life, not just about following the law.

We’re getting towards the end of our Bible study of Romans, which started in the fall. I won’t pull you too far into Romans, but one of the points that Paul makes repeatedly is that the law is not sufficient for salvation.

The law is prescriptive: it tells you what to do and what not to do, but by itself, it doesn’t change us.

Jesus Christ is transformative, he takes us from being stuck in the flesh, in sin, to being in Christ, in the Spirit, to becoming new creations.

Paul points out where we are stuck in today’s reading from Corinthians:

“I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you still are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?”

The law is the baby food. It’s meant to get us to the next thing. If we are stuck on the law, in jealousy and arguing, we’re not there yet.

Let’s leave the law for a minute. Let’s talk about anger.

For me, road rage is a hang up, it’s a real thing. When I am driving other people can lose their humanity quickly for me and I can lose mine. And I don’t mean in a run- people-off-the-road or get-out-of-the-car-and-start-a-fight way. I mean in a being overtaken by anger-way; a not being the person I should be-way.

I commuted from Easton to Washington, DC, and back for work for more than four years. It was a 70-mile commute, one way, which included Route 295 into DC. I mostly listened to sports radio or loud, obnoxious music, both of which helped. But I frequently felt my blood boil, my heart rate ramp up, and it wasn’t a good thing. And then when I got home in the evening, I wasn’t a horrible person or a terrible father, but I wasn’t fully present.

Some of that anger, some of that stress came in the house with me and kept me from connecting the way I should have. Jesus is warning us against this happening, he is trying to keep us from that kind of disconnect.

My life fell apart while I was making that commute. And in our reading today, Jesus warns us about divorce. He says don’t go there.

The law says, “whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” No big deal. And that’s where we are in society today. We treat marriage and divorce as if it is no big deal, almost as if divorce were expected.

Going through a divorce tore my heart to pieces. Nicky Gumbel, the pioneer of the Alpha Course, compares marriage to gluing together corrugated cardboard… and he says when you try to pull the cardboard apart, it destroys both pieces in the process.

That’s an accurate metaphor in my book. When I hear that someone is separating or going through a divorce, my heart breaks for them. It’s not something that is casual or that is meant to be casual.

It is not as simple, and shouldn’t be, as divorce papers, and divorce parties to celebrate. It’s something to mourn. It’s a death.

And that is where some of us end up, with the life that we had ending.

Thankfully, God doesn’t leave us at death. Jesus will come to know something about new life, after death. And in my experience, in giving divorce the gravity it can have in our lives, in mourning it and working through it as a death, new and unexpected life can come out of it. We need to walk through that and help others through it. That’s been part of my story and I am grateful for new life.

New life is what Jesus wanted for his disciples. It is what he wants for us. Life to the fullest.

The commandments, the laws, are not meant to make us miserable or keep us from that life. They aren’t meant to be spoilsports to take away the fun stuff. They were put in place to be guidelines for how to live in a community together without hurting each other, intentionally or unintentionally.

Murder, adultery, lying, coveting—none of these things help us love our neighbor better. Quite the opposite. And our thoughts, words, and actions can influence our lives in ways that move us in those directions.

Idols and false gods don’t bring us closer to God, they put things between us and God.

And when you add all these behaviors up and stir them up in a pot, you get what we see when we look around the world today—a world that is lost, people who are suffering from being estranged from God and each other; people who feel alone and confused.

The commandments and laws are already there. They haven’t changed or fixed things by their existence.

So what do we do? How do we fix this? We have to live differently. Righteousness has to let go of the law and point to God’s will and love.

To help us see a different way to live, a better way to live, I am going to borrow from a couple of our small groups—one of which looks ahead in Matthew’s Gospel just a bit.

Matthew Chapter 7, Verses 13 and 14 says:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life and there are few who find it.”

We have a men’s study that just began Fr. Gregory Boyle’s book, “Tattoos on the Heart,” about his experience working with Los Angeles gang members. They have an incredible ministry and they see ex-gang members transformed and leading new lives, by virtue of finding a community that loves and supports them and who are there for them.

Fr. Greg Boyle and trainees at Homeboy Industries.

And about the narrow gate, Boyle writes:

“Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel says, ‘How narrow is the gate that leads to life?’ Mistakenly, I think we’ve come to believe that this is about restriction. The way is narrow. But it really wants us to see that narrowness IS the way.

“… Our choice is not to focus on the narrow, but to narrow our focus. The gate that leads to life is not about restriction at all. It is about an entry into the expansive. There is a vastness in knowing you’re a son or daughter worth having. We see our plentitude in God’s own expansive view of us.”

And we take that in, God’s view of us. Boyle says we marinate in it.

God is vast and his love for us is expansive. But we can’t marinate in that, we can’t feel that, if we are scattered. The pharisees and scribes Jesus says we need to be more righteous than were obsessed with the law. Do you know how many laws are listed in the Old Testament? 613. Try to keep all those straight and see how narrow you feel.

We have to narrow our focus onto God’s love. If that’s what we focus on, that we are loved by God; if that’s what we take into our hearts and our lives, that we are beloved sons and daughters, ALL OF US, how does that make us feel and how does that make us want to treat each other?

If we narrow our focus to love, what does that look like?

You know who knows what that looks like? Paul knows. This coming week in our Romans study, we’ll be discussing Romans Chapter 12. Here is what Paul says in verses 9 through 16:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly…”

And he finishes chapter 12 saying, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

THAT’S NOT LAW, IT’S LOVE.

In his Sermon the Mount, which we are working through bit by bit each week, Jesus lays a lot in front of us. We get the blessings of the Beatitudes, we are reminded that we are salt and light, and today we get this over-the-top teaching about being more righteous than the law. Something we can never live up to or fully into.

Paul goes to a similar place in his letters—we need a Venn diagram and flow charts to get through Romans.

It’s a lot to learn and it’s hard to live.

But they both point us to the same place. To the power of God’s love. To the transformative, self-sacrificing love Jesus models for us and gives to us. To the grace that is our gift when we say yes to it.

We are God’s beloved. All of us. He wants us to know that and to live that way, with each other.

We don’t need laws to change us, we need love.

And when we have love, the laws become fulfilled, because our hearts are already far beyond them.

Our hearts are full of God’s love. And we treat each other that way.

Amen.

To be a human being among human beings

Life has felt large and open and raw of late, where prayers, feelings, experiences and thoughts are all super charged.

There are plenty of reasons: Ava’s stereotactic neurosurgery is on Monday; Anna turns 21 on Tuesday and Ava turns 18 in mid-February; we’ve past the half-way point in our Romans Bible studies; seminary is stirring good things up and Kelsey Spiker and I just became postulants, the next designation in the path to ordination to the priesthood; even occasional preaching is a full-body experience; gearing up for Lent small groups; and the girls had their first ever snow skiing experiences, which was a trip with Holly and her kids as well as many teen and twenty-something friends.

Life has an open feeling, which is both filling and fulfilling and taxing and shaky sometimes.

Studying for a Saturday seminary day retreat, Rev. Susie Leight has us reading and thinking about the spirituality of the priesthood, which included excerpts from Barbara Brown Taylor’s “The Preaching Life” and Gordon W. Lathrop’s “The Pastor: A Spirituality.” Lathrop recalls an experience in a Swiss airport where he read a quote on a poster from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, written in French. Lathrop translated it literally to say:

“As a profound thirst: the desire to be a human being among human beings.”

A deep and profound desire to be a human being–someone who lives and feels, who is flawed and who needs others–among human beings. To be in community and to be allowed to be fully ourselves. This is what it is to be open, to be honest, to be vulnerable, which is not instantly a comfortable place to be.

Thursday we had a class discussing Tracy K. Smith’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Life on Mars,” which is one of my favorite books. The discussion was about space and time, love, loss, grief, dancing, intimacy, language–it was flung like stars around the minds and hearts of those there. The last poem read was titled, “The Weather in Space”–

Is God being or pure force? The wind

Or what commands it? When our lives slow

And we can hold all that we love, it sprawls

In our laps like a gangly doll. When the storm

Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing

After all we’re certain to lose, so alive–

Faces radiant with panic.

That is part of the challenge of being human, loss and fear are always in the mix with us. It’s a lot and sometimes we want to–I want to–shut the faucet off. But that’s not why we’re here. That’s not why I am here.

On Tuesday morning, I was thinking ahead to this weekend’s Gospel reading, which is Matthew 5:1-12, commonly known as the Beatitudes:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.“

I’ve been in a habit of looking to see if Debie Thomas has anything to say about a particular Bible passage in her book “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.” And reading her take on the Beatitudes, it hit me that her book would make an incredible Lent study, looking at and discussing different aspects of Jesus’s life. Here is a bit of her take on the reading:

“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, unruly, and unattractive.”

She goes further:

“I think what Jesus is saying in the Beatitudes is that I have something to learn about discipleship that my privileged life circumstances will not teach me. Something to grasp about the beauty, glory, and freedom of the Christian life that I will never grasp until God becomes my all, my go-to, my starting and ending place. Something to recognize about the radical counter-intuitiveness of God’s priorities and promises. Something to notice about the obfuscating power of plenty to blind me to my own emptiness. Something to gain from the humility that says, ‘The people I think I am superior to have everything to teach me. Maybe it’s time to pay attention.'”

If I want to be a human being among human beings, I have to be open to, to learn from, to love, those whom God loves: everyone. More than that, if as followers of Christ, we look to do God’s work in the world, we have to be, we have to show, we have to act out in faith the love that God makes real here and now, especially to those who feel alienated or shut off from it.

In teaching the Beatitudes, Jesus is turning the world and what we think we know about it, on its head. This is something he does frequently in his teachings and his parables. We should ask why.

Next week we will discuss poet Joy Harjo’s book “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.” In “Talking with the Sun,” she writes:

After dancing all night in a circle we realize that we are a
part of a larger sense of stars and planets dancing with us
overhead.
When the sun rises at the apex of the ceremony, we are
renewed.
There is no mistaking this connection, though Walmart
might be just down the road.
Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the
earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of
meaning.

To be a human being among human beings is also to be human in and as a part of God’s Creation. Which He asks us to be stewards of, to take care of.

Humans are vulnerable and rely on kindnesses. When I try to live with my heart open, I have a greater sense of, and gratitude for these kindnesses–kindnesses that can come from anywhere and anyone. Any one of us. Even me.

Are You the One Who Is to Come?

Lead in: I am in my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. December 10-11 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for December 11 was Matthew 11:2-11, where John the Baptist sends followers to ask Jesus if he is the one who is to come, or are they to wait for another? And Jesus’s answer.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

That’s the question we’re going to kick around, the one John has his disciples ask Jesus.

John the Baptist didn’t care what other people thought. He wore strange clothes, ate strange food, blasted the religious people, and attended to business in the wilderness. And he was faithful—he did what he was called to do and he had crowds following him.

And as he was called to do, he pointed to Jesus as the one who was to come—the one he wasn’t fit to carry the sandals of.

John is in the New Testament Hall of Fame—each of the four Gospels has him playing a pivotal role in helping Jesus launch his ministry. And it was John the Baptist’s death that marked the beginning of Jesus’s time teaching and healing and moving toward his death and resurrection.

And this same John, while in prison, sends a question to Jesus: are you the guy or are we supposed to wait for someone else?

Brutal, right? Disheartening. Not exactly a vote of confidence from your friend and mentor.

Let’s think about it from John’s perspective: he’s in prison. He will end up beheaded. The Jewish people’s position hasn’t been improved.

The Jewish people had this idea that the Messiah—the anointed one—will arrive on the scene, hand out justice, military-style, free Israel, put them back on top in power, and they will all be vindicated with a great, big victory to show the world they were right.

That’s what they’re waiting for. Hey Jesus, are you this guy? Or are we waiting for someone else?

Notice how Jesus answers him: he doesn’t say, “Yes, I’m the guy.”

He tells John’s disciples to “Go and tell John what you hear and see:

The blind receive their sight
The lame walk
Those with a skin disease are cleansed
The deaf hear
The dead are raised
The poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus points to his actions as his answer.

Is Jesus the one who was and is to come? Yes. He was showing it then and we’ve seen the movement that has swept around the world in the 2,000-plus years since. But he wasn’t doing what John, or what the Jewish people, or what the world expected.

I wonder if that is still the case. If we are still largely missing what Jesus was doing and what he came to do.

How many people have heard some form of the expression, “Wait til your father gets home…” Or, “when your father gets home…” That’s not really meant as a good thing, right? It’s more along the lines of—here come the consequences of your actions.

Think about that over the course of Biblical history, especially for those who have been singled out, chosen as examples, held up by God as those to look to. We see a lot of, “Wait til the Messiah gets here. Then you’re gonna get it. Then you’ll be sorry.”

Today it isn’t hard to look around and see people doing a lot of the same posturing: look at how you’re acting; look at what a terrible place the world is becoming. Wait til God gets here. Wait til Jesus comes back. Then you’re going to get it.

Don’t make God angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

God is not the Incredible Hulk. He didn’t give us free will and the capacity to love—he didn’t fill us with wonder and awe and compassion, just to smash us when we mess up or get things wrong.

God wants us to change. He wants to help us. He has bigger and better ideas in mind.

If God is Love, what does a big military victory and putting those who were oppressed on top of their oppressors—what does that do to further love in the world? What does that do to further the work that we know Jesus came to do? How does that put things back right?

We have this idea of righteousness, on our terms, not on God’s terms.

Jesus was working out righteousness and salvation in accordance with the will of his Father. Before he gets to his death and resurrection, he is giving us a model for how we can do the same.

ARE YOU THE ONE OR ARE WE TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE ELSE?

“Go and tell John what you hear and see:

The blind receive their sight
The lame walk
Those with a skin disease are cleansed
The deaf hear
The dead are raised
The poor have good news brought to them”

We are not Jesus. We can’t perform the miracles that we read about him doing throughout the Gospels. But those are things that God is calling righteous, that God is saying are in synch with His will.

If we want to know who God is and how he wants us to act, we need to look at Jesus.

And Jesus doesn’t want us to throw up our hands and say we’re not you, we can’t do it. He makes it clear that he gives us the Holy Spirit so we can continue the work that he began.

How much of our energy, how much of our attention, how much of our creativity, how much of our resources are being put towards this kind of work?

Who are we waiting for? Who will we follow?

I wonder how we would feel if we reframed John’s question for Jesus and pointed the finger at ourselves:

Are WE the ones Jesus has asked to continue his work or is He to wait for someone else?

That question should make us look in the mirror.

Here’s the thing about John: this isn’t a knock on him at all. He did his job well. He lived his life the right way and he spread the message he was given.

When Jesus starts to speak to the crowds he says John is a prophet and more than a prophet.

“To those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist… He is the one about whom it is written:

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
Who will prepare the way before you.’

What was John’s message? REPENT. TURN AROUND.

Don’t get caught up in all the things the world is throwing at us and telling us are important. Playing it forward: don’t make violence the answer. Don’t make hate the way we live.

To a people who have lost their way, to a people who are in a spiritual wilderness, John is saying to stop. Don’t keep doing the same things. Turn around. Be different. The kingdom of heaven is near.

It’s not too late to change.

Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, in chapter 4, after Jesus is baptized by John and then tested/formed in his own wilderness experience, Jesus hears that John was arrested. And as he begins his ministry, the message that Jesus proclaims is “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

They were both telling the people, and us, the same thing. The difference is that Jesus was bringing the kingdom with him. He knew the work he needed to do to help bring it about. And he showed us the work we need to do to keep it going.

John was TELLING us to live differently, Jesus was SHOWING us how to live.

Think about the list of things that Jesus wanted John to know about. What do they all have in common?

Jesus cared for others. He healed, he fed, he taught, he brought good news. That was how he was working to bring the kingdom of heaven near.

When we care for others, we are continuing Jesus’s work.

Marsha Allen, whose been a part of our Tuesday Bible study for years always asks one of the best questions: What am I supposed to do with all this? How am I supposed to live?

So let’s ask ourselves that question: what would that look like to continue Jesus’s work here in our community?

In 2009, what we now know as the Talbot Interfaith Shelter began as a temporary shelter in our Parish Hall. It would be at Christ Church for a period of time and then it would move to another location and this continued until 2014 when they opened their first and current location at Easton’s Promise. Today they have two facilities, and their program for helping their residents’ get back on their feet is called the S4 Program—shelter, stability, support, success. They don’t just give people shelter, they help them get back their lives back—they give them hope.

A number of years ago, volunteering at the shelter one evening at just this time of year, I met a father and son there—the son was in elementary school. Their wife/mother died from cancer, but not before medical expenses they couldn’t keep up with left them homeless.

I can remember everyone had gone upstairs to bed and a few minutes later the boy came back down the stairs and was standing in the living room staring at the Christmas Tree. When we asked if we was okay, if he needed anything, he said, “No, I just like looking at the tree.”

His dad gave an incredible testimonial about how the shelter helped them, how much being there meant to them. Executive Director Julie Lowe and her team BRING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR.

CarePacks of Talbot County began when Emily Moody, who was a social worker at Easton Elementary, noticed how many kids were going home on the weekends without healthy food to eat. She and Megan Cook began an effort that is now at place in every school in Talbot County, where packages of food are sent home every weekend to make sure the kids who depend on free breakfast and lunch at school can eat on the weekends. And once a month on the fourth Friday, people can go to CarePacks to pick up food for whole families. This kind of program is also in place in Caroline County and it being put in place throughout the Eastern Shore. THE HUNGRY ARE BEING FED.

Global Vision 2020 is an international non-profit organization, founded here in Easton by Kevin White. They go around the world, diagnose sight problems, and are able give glasses, on the spot, to people in the poorest countries. There are people who literally can’t see and that’s how they experience life. And with inexpensive glasses given to them then and there, their lives are changed.

When our Mission Trip goes to Peru next summer, helping give people sight through Global Vision will be among the work that Kelsey Spiker and the team will be doing. THE BLIND ARE RECEIVING SIGHT.

None of these things are miracles in the sense that we see in Scripture. But each of these organizations are very clearly continuing the work that Jesus started and gave us as a model of working toward the kingdom of heaven.

The reason I mention these particular groups is: not only are they all local, they were all begun by people who were parishioners here at Christ Church. And they have all received either outreach funding and/or volunteer support from the church over the years.

There are so many more examples in our community, all around us, which many of you support and volunteer for, and that need your help.

This is a time of year when people get stressed. Heating and electric bills go up, it’s colder outside for those without a place to stay; in many cases, parents just want to give their kids a good Christmas, but they are stretched too far. The Advent Angel gifts around the altar are another example of ways to help people in the community who are in need.

Here’s the thing though. In just the last 20 years at Christ Church, many new ministries have been started and borne fruit, and they have made a difference in people’s lives.

We don’t know what the next ministries are going to be looking out five, 10, 20 years. But recent history says that they will come from YOU—the vision, the work, the love, the hope will be raised up from people sitting right here who are open to the work of the Holy Spirit and who seek to follow and continue the work that Jesus began.

Advent is a season where we wait with hope. Where we listen for how we can help. Where we see and tell people about the work Jesus was doing, the work he gave as an answer to John.

The blind receive their sight
The lame walk
The sick are healed
The deaf hear
The dead are raised
The poor have good news brought to them

Think about those things. Think about caring for others. And at the end of the service when we say together “and now send us out to do the work you have given us to do,” let these words sink in and mean something.

This is the season where we say,

with our hearts
and our minds
and our actions

that Jesus was and is the one to come, and the one we give our lives to follow.

AMEN.

Do unto others

The world can break our heart every single day. We can wake up grateful and things beyond our control can devastate us and leave us asking questions and feeling shattered.

The world can also show us love, connection, friendship, laughter, warmth, and spark our sense of wonder.

For all the times we don’t get to choose what happens, how do we make the most of the time that we have? How do we cultivate and appreciate moments? How can we lean into connection rather than withdraw into isolation?

As the sun comes up through the trees, I have coffee in my mug. I have a dog next to me who wonders what we’ll do today and for whom whatever the day brings is enough. I have books at my elbow that inspire and provoke me. I have pen and paper to help me record and communicate life from where I sit.

There are birds coming and going at the backyard feeders—Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmice, Chickadees, Wrens.

Whatever the day brings is enough. Because that is what will be. And at the same time, there are days when we get to decide something of what the day will be.

Jesus tells us, at the end of the Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s Gospel, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

If we want to spread joy that will last, let’s think first about the heartbreaking days that crush us. What if on those days, someone reaches out to you; someone checks in on you; someone lets you know you are not alone—that you matter.

Let’s say that is how we want to be treated. What is stopping us from treating other people that way—today, now. If you have anyone in your life who you are thankful for, or concerned about, or who is on your heart or your mind, reach out. Say hello, say thank you, say I am thinking of you, say I appreciate you, say I love you.

Not because you will get something back, but because it is how you want to be treated. Because that is a gift that we can each give. And when we are more concerned with giving than with getting, we find we need less.

Maybe that is the beginning of gratitude.

Life in Three Books

Books are time travel devices on their own. But when you take a book off your shelf that you have read, all kinds of associated memories come rolling back. Re-reading three books this week, weaving in and out of time, life comes up.

I first learned about T.H. White’s novel “The Once and Future King” from one of the X-Men movies where Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier has his students reading it (that was X2 in 2003). I’ve loved King Arthur stories and legends since I was a kid–when I was 9 years old I named our new Golden Retriever “Morgan” after King Arthur’s devious half-sister Morgan Le Fay. So it didn’t take much prompting, finding out White’s novel was a modern, moving, funny re-telling of the Arthur story, I was all in. My brother-in-law mentioned he’s given more copies of that book to people than any other book and he named a bearded dragon King Pellinore after White’s version of the character.

Merlyn is phenomenal, from his physical introduction in the story, to his life philosophies:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

Learn why the world wags and what wags it.

I’ve started the book maybe three times over the years, read 100+ or 200+ pages and life has happened in a way that has made me put it down, despite being drawn in.

2018 was the last time I tried to make time to read “The Once and Future King.” I found a note I left myself on page 154–that is where I stopped. This past week, studying the Pre-Reformation Church in England for seminary, Sir Thomas Malory’s “Morte D’Arthur” was discussed and a quick line about White’s updated telling. That was enough to motivate me. I started again and knocked out 30 pages this morning, making a goal to finish it before the end of the year.

Photo from Smith reading from “Life on Mars” at “The Universe in Verse” with Maria Popova.

Sitting on the campus of the National War College in DC 10 years ago, I read Tracy K. Smith’s “Life on Mars” on my lunch breaks. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. My mind was thrown open and my jaw was frequently dropped while reading.

My friend John Miller and I are going to lead a discussion on Smith’s book in January and February for Chesapeake Forum. I grabbed my copy from the bookshelf in my bedroom and the bookmark I had in the book was my ordering receipt from Barnes and Noble, May 2012. I have lived in three houses since the house it was delivered to.

This morning I read this, from the poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars”–

…I want to be
One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.
Wide open, so everything floods at once.
And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,
Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.

Reading today, what I read 10 years ago, finding the receipt with an old address on it from what feels like a different life, time did curl in on itself.

“My God, It’s Full of Stars” is how I feel every time I look up at a clear night sky.

The last book doesn’t go back so far, but it washes over me in new ways each time I read it. I found Rowan Williams’ “Being Christian” in 2019 and have led three classes using it for perspective on what the things we do as Christians are all about. This fall we have 20 people in our newcomers class at Christ Church Easton, a new group of folks wading through Williams. Last week, we talked about baptism, but the former Archbishop of Canterbury goes deeper than most of us go. He talks about how we have lost our identities, we have let go of them. Our default settings aren’t the way they should be. Enter Jesus.

“And when Jesus arrives on the scene he restores humanity to where it should be. But that in itself means that Jesus, as he restores humanity ‘from within’ (so to speak), has come down into the chaos of our human world. Jesus had to come down fully to our level, where things are shapeless and meaningless, in a state of vulnerability and unprotectedness, if real humanity is to come to birth.

“This suggests that the new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that is always going to be successful and in control of things, but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God.”

Baptism is going down into the chaos and coming up as new people, in a new relationship with God in Christ. Not as perfect or flawless, but one where we can reach out to be touched by God. That’s not generally what we think about when we attend a baptism, though it’s all right there in the vows.

Williams has this wonderful way of looking at the kind of life that is begun anew through baptism:

A life that gives us resources and strength to ask questions; a life that reconciles and builds bridges and repairs broken relationships–a life that reflects God’s wisdom and order. That sounds like a life worth living.

My mind moves forwards and backwards in time re-reading books, wandering through memories, and leaning into both goals and daydreams. “Once and Future,” stands out as a phrase that touches on something about that.

For those of us who have been in and around Easton for any time, Waterfowl Festival is an event that moves in both directions as well. As a kid, I watched my mom cut greens and decorate buildings and saw my dad cooking and serving food with the Kiwanis Club in town. Over the years, it’s been a fun reason to either walk through town as a spectacle, or avoid town altogether.

For the past six years (of my life, the church has been doing it much longer), Waterfowl Festival has meant Christ Church coming together to decorate, to serve food, to be together, to raise funds that go back out into the community, where they are needed. That points to Williams’ idea of a communal life that “looks toward reconciliation, building bridges, repairing shattered relationships.” It’s a step in the right direction. It’s among the work we are sent out to do.

Faith and Gratitude

Lead in: I am in my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. October 8-9 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for October 9 was Luke 17:11-19, where Jesus heals 10 men with a skin disease and only one, a foreigner, comes back in praise and gratitude.

“Faith and Gratitude”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. Over the past few weeks, we have seen him talking to and teaching his disciples. But today there is a bit of shift.

He’s approached by 10 lepers. What do we know about lepers during this time?

They kept distant from non-lepers.
They formed their own colonies.
They positioned themselves near trafficways so that they could make appeals for charity.
To be let back into society they had to be checked out by a priest, in a kind of certification process.
Leprosy was estrangement from both God and other people. It had a stigma.

When writing his novel, “The Name of the Rose,” Umberto Eco put it like this: “In saying ‘lepers’ we would understand ‘outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the city.’”

They were the fringe of the fringe.

The lepers are keeping their distance and following protocol and they call out to Jesus. And he SEES them. Seeing is important here.

He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, which is how they would be able to get back into everyday life, to no longer be outcast or untouchable.

And “as they went,” they were made clean. Their healing was connected to their obedience—they did what Jesus told them to do.

One of the lepers, a foreigner, a Samaritan, SAW that he was healed, and his response was to turn back, praise God with a loud voice, and to lie on the ground in front of Jesus and thank him.

It’s notable that the leper doesn’t just thank Jesus as some great healer on the street, he knows the healing has come from God and he praises God before he thanks Jesus.

Jesus SAW the lepers and the one Samaritan leper saw that God had healed him through Jesus. And he was grateful.

We see a lot of healing stories in the Gospels, but in this case, the story Luke tells is less about the healing and more about the response of the one leper.

The three questions Jesus then asks are not really addressed to the grateful Samaritan but they underscore the point of the story:

Were not 10 made clean?
Where are they?
Were none of them found to return and give praise except this foreigner?

Why the Foreigner?

This is not a knock on the nine who did what they were instructed. They followed orders. They were healed. We don’t know what happened to them after—they may have gone on to spread their own stories and good news for the rest of their lives.

But the foreigner, the stranger was different. Why is that? What was it that made him turn around while the others went on their way?

I like a thought that Fred Craddock shared in his book, “Interpretations: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching—Luke.” In thinking through the stranger in our time, he said:

“It is often the stranger in the church who sings heartily the hymns we have long left to the choir, who expresses gratitude for blessings we had not noticed, who listens attentively to the sermon we think we have already heard, who gets excited about our old Bible, and who becomes actively involved in acts of service to which we send small donations. Must it always be so?”
Fred Craddock

I wonder, do I get complacent? Do we sometimes go about our business doing what was asked of us, but not stopping to give thanks and praise for both remarkable and everyday things that bring us joy? Or those things that connect us to God and to each other?

Reading Scripture: WWJD?

Studying Scripture has so many layers to it, any of which can give us pause, can make us think, can stop us and meet us where we are.

We need to understand the context in which something was written; we need to think about the audience the writer, in this case Luke, was writing for; and we have both God’s Word in the Bible and any number of great commentaries that have been written to help us understand it.

And then we also want to figure out the relevance of something for our lives. What do we do with what we read? Why does it matter? What is the “so what?” of ten lepers getting healed more than 2,000 years ago? Why should we care?

Fr. Bill Ortt often says to think about Scripture as a prism, where you can turn it around to see different facets of it. And if we do that in this story, we’ve got the grateful leper, we’ve got the other nine who were healed, and we’ve got Jesus. We may have a tendency not to put ourselves in Jesus’s place in the story, because, well, he’s Jesus and we’re not.

But these stories are shared for us to learn from. For us to ponder, to take in. And who is the main character in the New Testament who we want to learn about? Jesus.

And why? Maybe to be more like him. What’s the bumper sticker—what’s the saying that is used over and over again: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

And how do you know, how can you consider what Jesus would do if you don’t read Scripture to get to know him better?

So in this story, what does Jesus do?

Seeing and Doing

First, Jesus sees the lepers who call out to him. Really sees them and what their problem is. And what he sees is human beings, not lepers. Luke illustrates this point over and over again in his Gospel:

When we meet the demoniac at Gerasene, Luke calls him, “a man from the city who had demons.”
Here, Luke doesn’t say 10 lepers, he says, “10 men with a skin disease.”

In writing his Gospel, Luke doesn’t define people by their afflictions, by their diseases, by what’s wrong with them. Because Jesus doesn’t define people that way. Jesus sees our humanity. And he sees the humanity of these 10 men.

And what does he do once he sees? He acts, he steps in to help, to heal.

If we want to model our lives after Jesus, where does that leave us?

We need to see. Do we take the time to see what is going on around us? We can look nationally and globally—the devastating damage in Florida from Hurricane Ian; the ongoing war in Ukraine; insert your news of struggle and suffering going on in the world.

We can also look closer to home: our family, our friends, our neighbors, and people in our community. We’ve got a lot of people barely holding on around us. Do we see them?

Then, what do we do when we see them? Do we reach out? Do we pray for people? Do we come alongside them when we can and walk with someone who is having a hard time.

Do we do…what we see Jesus doing time and time again in Scripture, and especially in Luke’s Gospel, and in today’s story? See, help, heal.

What do we see?
Do we see the needs, the struggles of others?
And what do we do?

Let’s take some pressure off of ourselves for a minute. Living like Jesus is certainly the goal, but wow, is that tough. Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning and getting through the day without telling someone off seems more attainable.

Gratitude

Let’s look more closely at the Samaritan who was healed and who came back. Let’s walk in his footsteps.

Back to seeing: what does the Samaritan see? He sees that he has been healed. He recognizes that God was at work. And he praises, he humbles himself, and he gives thanks.

We can do that, right? There are times when being grateful is everything. That’s a big part of my story and what has me standing here in front of you.

I caught up with a childhood friend who I haven’t seen in decades. We grew up playing little league baseball together in Oxford and he went on to fly F-16s in the Air Force for 20 years. We had lunch last week and what we both wanted to talk about was faith and spiritual awakenings. And he asked what prompted this calling in me.

My one-word answer was, and is, gratitude.

A little more than seven years ago my younger daughter had a bad seizure caused by brain swelling. She was visiting family outside Pittsburgh and she had to be intubated and flown by helicopter to Children’s Hospital, where she was in pediatric intensive care for 10 days and in the hospital for the next month.

Faith wasn’t a big part of my life then, but as I sat with her in the hospital, as I listened to doctors, as we tried to figure out what was next, people continually reached out to say they were praying and ask how they could help.

And what I could feel, could palpably feel, was a community of prayers changing me. I wouldn’t say I started out where the Grinch was, but my heart grew in significant ways that I am still trying to wrap my head around. And I felt a peace and calm in the midst of so much worry.

When we came home, I was full of capital “G” Gratitude. I didn’t necessarily know where to put it or what to do with it, but a friend invited me to church. That sounded like a good start. And that was the first step on a path that led here, and with gratitude every day it is a walk that is still going.

I saw healing. I felt a change, a kind of healing in me. And giving praise and thanks is my response.

Salvation

Let’s turn our attention back to the grateful leper. Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” Fred Craddock who I quoted earlier points out that the verb that was used for “made well” is the same word that is often translated, “to be saved.”

Jesus healed 10 people, but only one, the one who came back and was grateful, received something much bigger than physical healing. His faith, as expressed by his gratitude, saved him.

Alan Culpepper in “The New Interpreter’s Bible,” looks at this and says that the story challenges us to regard gratitude as an expression of faith.

That resonates with me. Gratitude feels like a way to express our faith.

Culpepper says further: “If gratitude reveals humility of spirit and a sensitivity to the grace of God in one’s life, then is there any better measure of faith than wonder and thankfulness before what one perceives as unmerited expressions of love and kindness from God and from others?”

Living with a Grateful Heart

What does gratitude look like in our lives? What do we do when we have a grateful heart?

I have one more quick example. When I started working here at Christ Church they gave me the office at the top of the stairs in the Rectory. I end up talking to just about everyone who comes up and down the steps—which aren’t the easiest steps to navigate.

Well, a few times a week, Bruce Richards would come up the steps and go into the bathroom, and when he came out he would stop in and share this amazing smile, and energy, and joy and gratitude.

It turns out at the time that all the Stephen Ministry books, brochures and pins were kept in the bathroom closet, and he would go in to stock up on whatever he needed.

So I had a running joke with Bruce that he had a Clark Kent/Superman phone booth in the bathroom and he would come out as a superhero for pastoral care. Except it wasn’t a joke at all. That’s who Bruce was.

As the years went on, Bruce was slower getting up and down the steps, but his joy, his smile, and his gratitude didn’t change.

We commended Bruce to God on Saturday and I have so many pictures of him on my heart. Bruce carried printed out prayers in his wallet and in his calendar and he sometimes gave me one if he thought I looked like I needed it, or he would tell me to pass it on to someone who did.

Bruce came with us to give Communion to a parishioner in Oxford who had fallen and couldn’t make it to church for a while. For us, it was a special visit, but Bruce did this all the time, in nursing homes, people’s houses, you name it.

And I have a picture of Bruce coming to his door on his 80^th birthday, during the height of the pandemic, when a group of us went to sing happy birthday to him with Brenda Wood playing the accordion.

Bruce was a grateful heart personified. He showed us what it looked like to live with gratitude and for him it looked like caring for others, so much so, that he helped begin a new ministry at the church, specifically to care for people going through tough times… by listening to them, praying with them, and walking beside them. And Bruce’s work of 18 years here continues today with all the Stephen Ministers, the care givers and care receivers, who are grateful and helping us create a church community of compassion.

Bruce saw people hurting. He acted, he did something about it, using gifts that he didn’t know he had, always giving thanks with gratitude.

I wish we didn’t have to lose people like Bruce, people in our lives who show us what it is to live with a grateful heart—people we are grateful for. But it makes me even more thankful for the time that we had together and the example he still is for all of us. What a gift to know people like that and to be able to continue their work in love.

Alan Culpepper has a thought here that I’d like to close with, which gets us to the heart of today’s Gospel:

“Faith, like gratitude, is our response to the grace of God as we have experienced it. For those who have become aware of God’s grace, all of life is infused with a sense of gratitude, and each encounter becomes an opportunity to see and respond in the spirit of the grateful leper.”

Amen.

Burn it down: we are called to live differently

Lead in: I am about to begin my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. August 13-14 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.

Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.

The Gospel reading for August 14 was Luke 12:49-56, which begins with Jesus saying “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already ablaze!” and then gets more confusing from there.

For my last two preaching weekends, I have had demoniacs and fire-casting Jesus, both of which ask us to get our thinking caps on. The upside to getting the more obscure or confusing Gospel passages is that I generally have a lot of room to work with. We’re all kind of left scratching our heads and wondering what Jesus, and Luke, are talking about.

I think it is safe to say that the disciples were doing the same thing. I can imagine them looking back and forth to each other going, “I have no idea what he is talking about…”

And that is a theme throughout the Gospels: Jesus delivering a message that people didn’t understand or weren’t ready for. Or in some cases, that people didn’t want to hear.

One of the things we find Jesus talking about repeatedly is the way the world is…and the way the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is. And he wants to help us bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Which is not how things were, and not how they in the world now. But they could be.

Jesus was not one for the status quo. He didn’t want things to just keep going the way they were. He came to be different and to show us how to be different, and how to live differently.

Thinking about Jesus’s strange message in today’s Gospel, I thought it might be helpful to point out a few things that Jesus IS NOT KNOWN TO HAVE SAID.

Here we go:

Jesus never said, “It’s all good.”

Jesus never said, “You do you.”

Jesus never said, “As long as you don’t hurt anyone.”

And Jesus never said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Jesus followed more in the sandals (not shoes) of John the Baptist, who said, “Repent.” Turn around. Stop doing what you are doing and live differently.

It’s important to put today’s message in context of Luke’s Gospel and the passages that are going on around it.

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve heard Father Charlie Barton distill the preceding Gospel messages to a few key phrases:

“Be rich toward God—don’t make your life about material things or treasures.”

And “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

I am a fan of a Franciscan Friar/Monk named Richard Rohr. In talking about Luke 12, he says:

“The simplest rule of thumb for each of us to ask, ‘Where do we spend our time and where do we spend our money?’ That’s where our treasure is, we can be sure. The focus of your time and money will tell you what your God is and what is important in your life. As others have wisely said, your checkbook and your calendar reveal your true belief system.”

Where we focus, what we value most, that will determine who we become and how we act in the world. So focus on God. Don’t focus on the things of this world, but on what Jesus has been telling us is more important. Things like caring for the poor and the sick, lifting each other up, loving God and our neighbor.

So when Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze”—he is talking about the way the world was, those who are storing up earthly treasures, those who are focused on power and not on love.

Burn down the old ways, Jesus is offering something new.

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” And what happened to the people of Israel who decided to follow Jesus: division.

Even in and among households. If you are living in the old house and can’t picture what the new one looks like yet, you might not be ready to burn what you’ve got. Or maybe you think this guy is full of nonsense, you have no desire to do what he says or follow where he leads. Some followed, some didn’t. And households became divided.

Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have divided households now [raised eyebrow, pulls at collar] Glad they got that out of the way… or maybe what seemed like a strange, bombastic reading has some relevance.

How many people have family members or close friends who you aren’t speaking to or can’t talk to about religion or politics? How many have divided houses when it comes to big, important issues?

Maybe Jesus was on to something.

We all know the peace-and-love Jesus, and that’s the Jesus we hold dear. That’s the Jesus we want to study and to emulate. And that’s what we should do.

But we also need to remember that Jesus was not afraid to call people out.

Blessed are the peacemakers, absolutely. But the status quo then, AND NOW, isn’t peace. We have a lot of work to do.

Here at Christ Church, in our Bible studies we’ve used commentary by a bishop and theologian named N.T. Wright, and we have found him to be helpful for making sense of Scripture. In talking about this passage, Wright says that there may come a time when Christian teachers and leaders find people have become too cozy and comfortable.

He says that maybe churches might start to omit the Bible readings that talk about judgment, or warnings, or the demands of God’s holiness, because they ask something of us. And that maybe there are times when, like Jesus himself on this occasion, we need to wake people up with a crash. There are, after all, he says, plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of going to sleep on the job.

Cruise control does not serve us well when we are heading in the wrong direction, or off a cliff.

“It’s all good” doesn’t work when it’s not all good for a lot of people, or when power and security are held closer to the heart than love and compassion.

Jesus talks to the crowds about how when you see clouds, you know it’s going to rain and when you see the south wind blowing, you know it’s going to get scorching hot.

Granted, weather forecasters don’t get much credit in our world today, but there are so many things we can know, we can predict, we can figure out. Look at all the technology around us and what we can do. On the simplest scale, I was blown away recently with the thought that I can send my family pictures while I am in Alaska and they get them instantaneously back here.

If we can do so many things, how come we can’t step up for those who can’t stand for themselves? How come we still store up earthly treasures but aren’t rich toward God? Let’s look where our treasure is, where our priorities are, and try to see where our collective heart is?

Jesus came to change the direction humanity was heading.

He came to show us a different way to be—one that isn’t easy, one that not everyone will get… a way that will cause division, and will call for the burning of some of our current, misdirected ways.

And he gave his life for that cause, and in today’s reading, he knew that that’s where he was heading.

Maybe it was fair to call out the crowds. And guess what?

We’re the crowds. Maybe it’s still fair to call us out.

N.T. Wright says:

“If the kingdom of God is to come on earth as it is in heaven, part of the prophetic role of the church is to understand the events of the earth and to seek to address them with the message of heaven.”

Maybe we need to do a better job of addressing the world with the message of heaven.

Maybe we should help burn down some of what’s broken for a new way, for a more loving way, for a more caring way.

For Jesus’s Way.

Amen.

What does love look like?

It’s hard to know what to say, so I can only speak from my life and experiences. And my life is one of privilege. I haven’t earned the life I live based on my own sweat and effort–I was given a gift of an upbringing and a social and economic status that I had nothing to do with. I try to live up to and into that gift, and I am grateful for it daily. I try to dream and picture what my daughters’ lives might look like, and I know they are only limited by themselves.

When I run through town, I am the maybe overly friendly guy who says good morning or hello to everyone I pass. And I have never gotten weird looks–usually a wave or smile back. People aren’t generally intimidated by or suspect of me at first encounter. Again, none of this has much of anything to do with anything I have done. If my skin were a different color, I’m not sure reactions would be the same.

In my teens and early 20’s, we were troublemakers often enough and had run-ins with police, but I never feared for my life. We live in a small community and over the years, I have come to know more and more police officers as friends, and I know them all to be amazing human beings who help people at an instant. Theirs are friendships I am blessed to have–getting to know the people and not just their jobs. And they have seen me for who I am.

Over the years my heart has hurt and my mind has been jarred by so many events on the news, or listening to others’ experiences of the world. And these stories rise up, make their rounds, and then life goes on. For those not directly affected. But each time, it is only a glimpse; only a flicker. Too many people can change the channel and not have to face something directly.

When people speak up and speak out, they are quickly silenced. Yes, you can protest, but not like that. And no, not like that. Yes, we believe in your right to be heard, but we are watching football right now. How about some other time, some other place, where I can still watch what I want and think how I want and not have to pay attention?

Right now, there is attention. We are not promised tomorrow, so right now is what we have. I can’t know or understand what it is to be black, but I can listen and I can stand.

I am a part of a faith community where I know that people of any race, culture, or religion are welcome, and I consider that a blessing. I have watched our rector befriend a Hindu man who was working in Easton and loved coming to our 5:00pm service. He was happy in his faith, he just loved the music and energy of the service, and it was a beautiful thing.

After the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests and riots, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, an African-American man, on Sunday published an op-ed in The Washington Post about choosing love over hate. He also talked about what the path of love might look like in these times:

“Love looks like all of us — people of every race and religion and national origin and political affiliation — standing up and saying “Enough! We can do better than this. We can be better than this.”

“What does love look like? I believe that is what Jesus of Nazareth taught us. It looks like the biblical Good Samaritan, an outsider who spends his time and money healing somebody he doesn’t know or even like.”

There is a way forward through this that looks like love. That looks like the self-sacrificial love that Jesus showed us, taught us, and modeled with his life. And it looks like coming together, in love.

In Bible studies over the past months, we have been studying Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in which Paul is emphatic about the unity of the church. In his commentary on Chapter 2, scholar and former bishop N.T. Wright says:

“If our churches are still divided in any way along racial or cultural lines, (Paul) would say that our gospel, our very grasp of the meaning of Jesus’ death is called into question. How long will it be before those who claim to follow Jesus, not least those who claim also to love Paul’s thinking, come to terms with the demands he actually makes?”

The way forward in love right now is not about doctrine. If we look at Jesus, when he dealt with the hurting, the sick, the lonely, the disenfranchised–he saw them, he healed them, he loved them, he brought them into the fold. Where Jesus is love, Paul also calls that love into unity.

I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. But I know I can’t really think or write about anything else with it so large on my heart and mind right now.

In talking about love and faith, Krista Tippett, author and the host of “On Being,” writes:

“Every time I let myself go deeper into the mess and mystery of human loving, I am hit over the head again by theology–an insistence that the love of God is so much fuller than we can usually imagine or take in… I keep pursuing faith, if for no other reason than because it is the place in our common life that keeps reminding me of the necessity of love–not the romantic love of poets, but the practical love of sacred texts–however fraught and imperfect our practice of it may ever and always be… love is not the starting point, but the goal. It is not something we are born knowing how to do, not something we fall into. It is something we spend our whole lives learning.”

That is a love I want to learn to do better. I want to spend my life learning and practicing it. Right now it feels like it starts with listening and with standing.

Don’t bury your talents

We all bring something to the table. And what each person brings is necessarily different from what anyone else brings. And if you subscribe to the notion of life taking a village, a community, part of what makes everything work is each of us adding our own gifts.

This week in our Lent small group, we read Matthew 25 in N.T. Wright’s “Lent for Everyone,” which includes the parable of the talents. In the story Jesus tells, the master goes on a journey and leaves a sum of money (talents) with three different slaves. He gives the first slave five talents, the slave turns it into 10; he gives the second two talents, he turns it into four. The master is pleased and rewards them. The last slave is given one talent, is scared, buries the talent, and just gives it back to the master when he gets back. The master is not happy and wants him thrown out into the dark where bad stuff goes down.

The things about parables, about stories, if they aren’t memorable, they aren’t worth much. Some of them are harsh, and each of the stories Jesus tells are meant to get a message across. Whereas a talent in the story is currency or money, it is a word that works for us in our time as well: talking about our own talents.

Wright breaks it down for us in his commentary after the reading:

“…each of us has been put here with a particular purpose and calling, which only we can do. Our task is to find out what that is and to do it. That remains true whether the purpose is playing the trumpet, cooking meals, planting trees, performing heart transplants, or even preaching sermons. Sometimes, of course, it’s a struggle to discover what our calling is.”
N.T. Wright

We could stand to listen to Jesus, and to Wright, during this time of pandemic with COVID-19 calling for so many different responses from all of us. Some of the shining talents that have come to light at Christ Church Easton during this time, are the musical and video editing skills of members of the church’s music ministers, bands, and choirs. “Hold Us Together,” “Stand in Your Love / Chain Breaker,” and “Be Still My Soul,” have each become Facebook phenomena going far beyond anything the church has recorded or media that it has created. The comments about the hope and connection people are feeling from them have had hearts overflowing all over. I still have a hard time getting through any one of the videos without breaking down.

None of this happens if contemporary music minister Ray Remesch doesn’t step up and say he can direct, record, and edit videos; if Alive @ 5 music minister Bruce Strazza isn’t using his technical expertise, above and beyond his musical talent, to make sure the staff and the band have the systems and equipment they need to work remotely; if the musicians and singers don’t make the time to bring their skills to the table; and Tracy Kollinger doesn’t research and figure out the best ways to upload and stream live videos. We’ve had different staff and volunteers who have stepped up and into different hats in both subtle and profound ways.

Obviously these aren’t front-line jobs. The talents of doctors, first responders, school systems and community volunteers working to make sure kids and families are fed; grocery store and restaurant workers coming up with new ways to stay open and feed people; there are so many people offering and stretching their talents in so many ways, that it is nothing short of remarkable. People are stepping up with the gifts they have been given and are increasing their talents, not burying them.

There are also those of us that are waiting, maybe unsure what gifts we bring to the table, and unsure about the timing and way we might use them. In his commentary on the parable of the talents, Wright has some thoughts:

“…each of us is called to exercise the primary, underlying gifts of living as a wise, loving human being, celebrating God’s love, forgiving, praying, seeking justice, acting prudently and courageously, waiting patiently for God’s will to be done.”
Wright

In this case, God’s will has nothing to do with the pandemic virus sweeping the world, but everything to do with how God’s people are called to respond. It’s up to us, to use the talents God has given us to give back to the community, our neighbors, and thereby the world.

It could be praying; it could be reaching out to a friend or family member; it could be supporting local businesses who are going through an unprecedented time; it could be feeding people; it could be staying home and being available when ready; it could be giving hope and humor and peace to someone who needs it.

What’s asked of us is not to bury our talents, but to be open, to increase them, and to share them. There is hope there.

A few small stones

Most of us won’t get to everything on our bucket lists. There’s a good chance we won’t accomplish everything we hope to do in life. And some of that could be on us, but there are plenty of factors beyond our control. Does it make our lives less than?

Mary Oliver’s poem, “Praying” found me this week:

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest, but the doorway
Into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Maybe we spend too much time waiting for the blue iris–the extraordinary to show up, when we could make more out of a few small stones.

Don’t get me wrong–I want to savor the blue iris moments when I have them, if I have them, but not at the cost of the stones all around me. Those moments, the ones we have right now, are all we know we will get.

Two friends have died in the past few weeks, unrelated to each other. Their deaths were unexpected and tragic and they left behind kids and families. I’m sure each had more they wanted to do, to say, decisions they’d love a do-over for. But when I think of each of them, I smile for how they made me feel; for each of their smiles; their stories; the way they approached each day during the time that I knew them.

We remember how people made us feel. I know I need to be more conscious of that. We remember the time we shared with someone, the stories we told. What I know of Chris and Mike is a small section of their lives, but an intersection I am grateful for. Each of them gave me a gift in knowing them and I am glad Christ Church Easton’s Alive @ 5 service connected and/or reconnected us.

As I think about friends dying, we are reading Chapter 11 in our study of John’s Gospel, which is where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. There is a scene where Mary, Lazarus’s sister comes out to see Jesus as he has arrived.

“When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep.” (John 11:32-35)

It’s a profound thing that Jesus weeps with us in our grief. Jesus knows that he is about to raise Lazarus, that things will be okay in the long run, but he cries with his friends in their shared grief. As we are reading John, we are using N.T. Wright’s commentary in “John for Everyone.” Wright talks about this moment of grief like this:

“It’s one of the most remarkable moments in the whole gospel story… Throughout the gospel, John is telling us… that when we look at Jesus, not least when we look at Jesus in tears, we are seeing not just a flesh-and-blood human being, but the Word made flesh. The Word, through whom the worlds were made, weeps like a baby at the grave of his friend. Only when we stop and ponder this will we understand the full mystery of John’s gospel. Only when we put away our high and dry pictures of who God is and replace them with pictures in which the Word who is God can cry with the world’s crying will we discover what the word ‘God’ really means.”

God is the creator of the Universe. He’s larger than life, the spinner of the cosmos, author of the Mystery, beyond comprehension. And at the same time, He becomes human and cries with his friends. And that is a part of who God is. And it is a way we can get to know Him and draw closer to Him.

In the raising of Lazarus–John doesn’t tell us it was because Lazarus had so much more to do with his life, he doesn’t tell us what he had done up to that point or what he goes and does after–that’s not the point. God just does it. As with so many stories in the Gospels, it’s a story of hope. And hope comes in so many ways at so many different, and unexpected times.

We don’t all get Lazarus moments that we can see in this life. Not all our outcomes are how we want them, nor are we on our time. But we can find hope.

And we aren’t guaranteed blue iris moments. But we are given this moment and a few small stones. And we can build something with them, in this life, with those around us, right now. If we are lucky, those moments, those few small stones we share with those we meet, maybe, as Mary Oliver says, they can be “the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.”