Lent 4
March 22nd, 2009
For 20 years Will and I toured each winter with the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center doing a show on winter ecology.
My favorite part was at the end, when we’d all stand at the door as the children left, holding strips of fur or pieces of bone for the kids to touch. My job was to hold the live snake who had a feature role in the production. I invited everyone who passed by to touch the snake’s scales to see if they were slimy (they weren’t).
I was amazed how many kids and teachers scooted out in back of the line to avoid me and the snake. No way were they touching that thing!
Fear of snakes lies deep in the human psyche.
The story of humankind’s first sin in the Book of Genesis personifies the voice of temptation as the hiss of a serpent. “Tassssste of the fruit . . . .”
So when the Israelites began to complain of life in the wilderness where God had led them after liberating them from slavery in Egypt, God responded to their constant whining by sending poisonous serpents to harass them.
It seems an appropriate punishment, doesn’t it? A people, miraculously fed with manna in the wilderness, hissing out complaints, being attacked by serpents.
Too often we move quickly to the happy ending, the bronze snake lifted up in the desert, everybody feeling better and temporarily repenting. So let’s pause here a minute in the desert with the snakes hissing at our feet.
The Israelites in the desert rail against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”
Angry and bitter, they scapegoat poor Moses as if it’s all his fault.
There’s a good description of them and people like them in the second lesson from the Letter to the Ephesians: they are people living in the passions of the flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses.
Now there is nothing wrong with the desires of flesh and senses—after all, God created them— but there is a lot wrong with living as if that is all there is. The Israelites refuse to remember their past, the suffering and slavery. They refuse to appreciate their present even surrounded as they are with God’s constant presence and care. They refuse to have faith in the future God has promised in a land “flowing with milk and honey.”
“Children of wrath,” they’re stuck in their own discomforts and wants, their anger and resentments against God, Moses, and each other.
That lesson from Ephesians reveals that sin is not so much a set of actions we can choose or reject, but a kind of pervasive muck in which we all get stuck, a vicious inheritance in which we all participate, a snake pit of greed and selfishness, hatred and wrath.
Here’s an example: All we have to do is walk out these doors today and go to Hannafords or the diner or café—or coffee hour—and I’m sure somebody will be talking about the AIG bonuses. It’s a colossal economic, political and moral mess. And just about everybody seems to be implicated. Politicians and journalists rail against financial managers for their greed, while at the same time they themselves are seething with wrath and oozing with self-righteousness.
Oops—here’s a good example of what I mean—look at me! I’m seething with wrath and self-righteousness. I’m hissing with anger and whining about how awful others are while conveniently forgetting my own frequent falls into self-righteousness and greed.
We are all “living in sin.”
Usually that’s a quaint expression referring to people living together without benefit of marriage.
But I find “living in sin” a helpful description of much of our lives.
“Living in sin” is living in a nest of vipers, where we poison one another.
I just finished reading Brideshead Revisited by the English writer Evelyn Waugh. Towards the end of the novel, a family incident shocks the main woman character, Julia, into looking, really looking, at her life.
Appalled, she cries out that she is “living in sin: “’Living in sin’ [is] not just doing wrong,” she says. “Living in sin, with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year in, year out. Waking up with sin in the morning, seeing the curtains drawn on sin, bathing it, dressing it, clipping diamonds to it, feeding it, showing it round, giving it a good time, putting it to sleep at night. . . .”
Julia realizes that “living in sin” poisons and destroys everything, even the God who loves us: “Mummy dying with it; Christ dying with it, nailed hand and foot; hanging over the bed in the night-nursery; hanging year after year in the dark little study at Farm Street with the shining oilcloth; hanging in the dark church where only the old charwoman raises the dust and one candle burns; hanging at noon, high among the crowds and the soldiers; no comfort except a sponge of vinegar and the kind words of a thief; hanging forever; never the cool sepulcher and the grave cloths spread on the stone slab, never the oil and the spices in the dark cave; always the midday sun and the dice clicking for the seamless coat.”
If that’s all there is to life, “living in sin,” what is the point? If we are all serpents to one another what hope is there?
Lent gives us a gift, a hard gift: the knowledge that as humans we hold two wildly contrary truths together at the same time: Sin is real, it’s all around us and clings to us and we cling to it and it seeks to kill the spark of life within us---that’s the first thing. The second thing is that the God who loves us will do whatever it takes to save us from its venom.
What did Jesus say in the gospel today?: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” And then the clincher—the reason why, the words that make all the difference, that means that the snake pit is not the only life option: What did Jesus say? Why did Jesus come to us? Because “God so loved the world.” God so loved the world.
Let us pray in the words of Guy Tillson’s prayer for the Seventh Station of the Cross:
Holy Lord Jesus, beneath the weight of your cross, you falter again, exhausted and weary from the burden you bear. You took upon yourself our human weakness so that we might enjoy the very holiness of God. In our darkness, may we turn to your light; in our exhaustion, may we find rest in you; in our lack of purpose, reveal your way to us; and, in our failings, may we rise up forgiven. Amen.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Lent 3 March 14, 2009
Lent 3
March 14, 2009
John 2: 13-22 Jesus overturns the tables in the temple
Who is this Jesus?! During one of the holiest seasons of the Jewish year, Passover, Jesus, a devout Jew, runs amuck in the Temple in Jerusalem, the most sacred place in the world for Jews, the House of God.
“What is he doing?,” people shout, “Stop him!,” as newly freed sacrificial doves wheel around in the air, as overturned tables crash to the floor, as coins roll along the tiles. “Somebody do something!,” they shout as he makes a whip and drives cattle and sheep into the street.
I can see the headlines on the internet news: “Madman Goes on Rampage in Temple; Halts Passover Services for Day.”
It was serious; a very big deal. It was exactly as if, on Easter morning, a stranger ran into this church, poured out the wine onto the floor and tossed the Communion wafers out the window, then ripped the offering envelopes and cash into little bits,. As if a stranger stopped our Easter celebration dead.
After all, this is our sacred place, our sacred time, Christ is present for us here, just as God was present in the Temple and Passover for the Jews.
If I were writing a Gospel, I’d omit this little incident.
It doesn’t make Jesus look good, not at all, especially not in our timid times. We’d rather have a Jesus who’d sit nicely down in the pew and behave.
But this is one of the few stories contained in all four Gospels in the New Testament.
If we assume that an incident contained in all four Gospels is particularly important, the story of Jesus “cleansing” the temple ranks right up there with Jesus’ baptism, the feeding of the 5000, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.
I want to make something clear: despite what you may have been taught in Sunday School, Jesus did not wreak havoc in the Temple because anything illegal or immoral was going on.
The doves, sheep, and cattle were there because blood sacrifice had been an integral part of the Jewish worship since before Moses.
And there was nothing wrong with money in the Temple. Moneychangers had their little booths there for convenience sake, just as they do in modern airports, to change one kind of currency for another so people could pay the “temple tax.” Jews from foreign lands needed to change their own currency into local coins. And no one could use Greek or Roman coins for the tax because they were printed with the image of the emperor in the form of a god.
No, Jesus that day was following in a long line of Hebrew prophets who’d learned that actions often speak louder than words.
The prophet Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign to Israel not to seek help from anyone but God.
And my personal favorite: the prophet Ezekiel lay on his side for 430 days in the city square, as a symbol of the weakness caused by Israel’s sins.
So then what message was Jesus conveying by turning the temple topsy turvy?
It is puzzling. Why stop worship? Aren’t we called to worship God?
But worship as an end in itself, independent of what’s happening in the world around us, is sin.
Listen to the prophet Isaiah, lashing out at the Jews, especially the well off, for observing a ritual—in this case fasting—while ignoring the plight of people around them:
God speaks through Isaiah’s voice: “Is such the fast I choose . . .to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
The answer is a resounding “no!” “Is not this the fast that I choose,” God says, “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them . . .?”
Jesus brought temple worship to a halt for a day to shock people, to shock people then to look around them and see the collusion of the priests and high officials with wicked King Herod, see the temple coffers filled to overflowing while people starved in the countryside around Jerusalem.
Jesus is showing us now by his outrageous act that a church should not be a closed-off place where walls block the world from coming in and block us from seeing the world. The walls of any house of worship must be porous and translucent.
What does that mean for our lives at Church of the Holy Spirit?
It means, for one thing, that bringing food in for the food pantry each Sunday is not just a nice thing or even a good thing to do—it is a sacramental and holy act that breaks down the barrier between world and worship.
Praying for the people of Mabvuku and bringing loose change to put into the jar is not just supporting the Millennium Development Goals. Each time we pray or pay we down the false barrier between worship and world.
Those of you who have taken the names of families to pray for know what I mean by breaking down barriers.
Last week one of you told me that she keeps the card with her family’s name on it folded on her table. Whenever she sits down to eat, she sees the card and remembers to pray that that family in the slums of Zimbabwe will have food to eat today. She told me how that practice had opened her heart and her prayer life in a whole new way.
Another: You’ll see in the insert that we’re going to haul our card table back to WalMart next Saturday morning to offer Free Prayer for anyone who wishes us to pray for themselves or loved ones. Once again, we’re making ourselves step away from the safe walls of the church to plunk ourselves down in the world where many people don’t know the consolation of someone offering to pray for them.
If Jesus walked through our doors today, what would he do? Would he worship with us, smiling as he lifted his voice in the “Holy, holy, holy” to our God? Or would he stride down the center aisle pounding on the pews and reach out his hands to sweep the bread and the wine to the floor? Which? Which? Which?
March 14, 2009
John 2: 13-22 Jesus overturns the tables in the temple
Who is this Jesus?! During one of the holiest seasons of the Jewish year, Passover, Jesus, a devout Jew, runs amuck in the Temple in Jerusalem, the most sacred place in the world for Jews, the House of God.
“What is he doing?,” people shout, “Stop him!,” as newly freed sacrificial doves wheel around in the air, as overturned tables crash to the floor, as coins roll along the tiles. “Somebody do something!,” they shout as he makes a whip and drives cattle and sheep into the street.
I can see the headlines on the internet news: “Madman Goes on Rampage in Temple; Halts Passover Services for Day.”
It was serious; a very big deal. It was exactly as if, on Easter morning, a stranger ran into this church, poured out the wine onto the floor and tossed the Communion wafers out the window, then ripped the offering envelopes and cash into little bits,. As if a stranger stopped our Easter celebration dead.
After all, this is our sacred place, our sacred time, Christ is present for us here, just as God was present in the Temple and Passover for the Jews.
If I were writing a Gospel, I’d omit this little incident.
It doesn’t make Jesus look good, not at all, especially not in our timid times. We’d rather have a Jesus who’d sit nicely down in the pew and behave.
But this is one of the few stories contained in all four Gospels in the New Testament.
If we assume that an incident contained in all four Gospels is particularly important, the story of Jesus “cleansing” the temple ranks right up there with Jesus’ baptism, the feeding of the 5000, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.
I want to make something clear: despite what you may have been taught in Sunday School, Jesus did not wreak havoc in the Temple because anything illegal or immoral was going on.
The doves, sheep, and cattle were there because blood sacrifice had been an integral part of the Jewish worship since before Moses.
And there was nothing wrong with money in the Temple. Moneychangers had their little booths there for convenience sake, just as they do in modern airports, to change one kind of currency for another so people could pay the “temple tax.” Jews from foreign lands needed to change their own currency into local coins. And no one could use Greek or Roman coins for the tax because they were printed with the image of the emperor in the form of a god.
No, Jesus that day was following in a long line of Hebrew prophets who’d learned that actions often speak louder than words.
The prophet Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign to Israel not to seek help from anyone but God.
And my personal favorite: the prophet Ezekiel lay on his side for 430 days in the city square, as a symbol of the weakness caused by Israel’s sins.
So then what message was Jesus conveying by turning the temple topsy turvy?
It is puzzling. Why stop worship? Aren’t we called to worship God?
But worship as an end in itself, independent of what’s happening in the world around us, is sin.
Listen to the prophet Isaiah, lashing out at the Jews, especially the well off, for observing a ritual—in this case fasting—while ignoring the plight of people around them:
God speaks through Isaiah’s voice: “Is such the fast I choose . . .to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
The answer is a resounding “no!” “Is not this the fast that I choose,” God says, “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them . . .?”
Jesus brought temple worship to a halt for a day to shock people, to shock people then to look around them and see the collusion of the priests and high officials with wicked King Herod, see the temple coffers filled to overflowing while people starved in the countryside around Jerusalem.
Jesus is showing us now by his outrageous act that a church should not be a closed-off place where walls block the world from coming in and block us from seeing the world. The walls of any house of worship must be porous and translucent.
What does that mean for our lives at Church of the Holy Spirit?
It means, for one thing, that bringing food in for the food pantry each Sunday is not just a nice thing or even a good thing to do—it is a sacramental and holy act that breaks down the barrier between world and worship.
Praying for the people of Mabvuku and bringing loose change to put into the jar is not just supporting the Millennium Development Goals. Each time we pray or pay we down the false barrier between worship and world.
Those of you who have taken the names of families to pray for know what I mean by breaking down barriers.
Last week one of you told me that she keeps the card with her family’s name on it folded on her table. Whenever she sits down to eat, she sees the card and remembers to pray that that family in the slums of Zimbabwe will have food to eat today. She told me how that practice had opened her heart and her prayer life in a whole new way.
Another: You’ll see in the insert that we’re going to haul our card table back to WalMart next Saturday morning to offer Free Prayer for anyone who wishes us to pray for themselves or loved ones. Once again, we’re making ourselves step away from the safe walls of the church to plunk ourselves down in the world where many people don’t know the consolation of someone offering to pray for them.
If Jesus walked through our doors today, what would he do? Would he worship with us, smiling as he lifted his voice in the “Holy, holy, holy” to our God? Or would he stride down the center aisle pounding on the pews and reach out his hands to sweep the bread and the wine to the floor? Which? Which? Which?
Sunday, March 8, 2009
First Lent March 1, 2008
First Lent
March 1, 2008
Lent is one of those seasons where you don’t have to guess that something’s going on!
You just have to walk in the church door. The Stations of the Cross so bright and deceptively simple. The baptismal font at the door, open and full of water instead of semi-invisible over in the corner. Bare branches on the altar. The words and music—more solemn, more ancient. A little harder to wrap our lips around.
The Confession, which we don’t say as a body during the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, is back in spades. At the 9:30 service, no music during Communion.
All this is on purpose—the church with her colors, sounds, and rituals is inviting us into the journey of Lent.
Jesus’ Lenten journey started way back at the River Jordan.
When Jesus came up out of the water after being baptized by John the Baptist,“he saw the heavens torn apart and . . . a voice came from heaven saying these incredible words: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well pleased.’”
So what might you expect to happen next? Something pretty great, right? Choirs of angels, an easy life, salvation guaranteed?
Here’s what happened to Jesus,: “Immediately,” Mark’s gospel says, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. (In the other Gospels, the Spirit “led” him—here the Spirit of God got behind him and pushed!)
One minute he’s the beloved child of God. The next he’s abandoned without food or water in a stripped down landscape of rock and sand.
He’s not quite alone. Wild beasts roam through the desert at night. And day and night, night and day Satan tempts him.
We’ve got to stop and notice something important here: Jesus’ Lenten journey goes in a particular direction. The direction is crucial.
What if Jesus had begun his journey in the desert, fending off Satan, and then on the 41st day emerged and strode triumphantly to the Jordan?
Then, when God called him “Beloved Son,” it would be a reward for his victory over temptation. He’d be like the victorious heroes of Greek myths, crowned by the gods with laurel wreaths.
If that was the direction of our Lenten journey in the Lenten landscape, here’s what we’d have to do: like good Christian soldiers we’d have to put on our armor and do battle with Satan in order to earn God’s love.
I’m afraid many of us think of Lent that way. We try to prove something to God and to ourselves.
Someone just told me of overhearing a pair of church people in an Orthodox church—where they take Lent pretty seriously—at coffee hour on Easter morning. One asked the other how his Lent had gone. “15 pounds,” he answered. “Wow,” the first one said, “I only lost ten. You really had a holy Lent!”
But earning God’s love by resisting temptation is walking the Lenten journey backwards.
Before he faced down Satan in the wilderness, Jesus knew in his blood and in his bones that God loved him. Then and only then was he ready to face temptation. Knowing he was loved made everything else possible.
I had a friend once who was determined to make the best of a bad marriage. For ten years she tried everything she could to make her husband love her. She changed her hair style, she gained weight, she lost weight. She dressed one way, then another way. She read books she didn’t like, she took a job she hated.
For ten years she tried to earn her husband’s love. For ten years she tore herself apart, forgot who she really was—and did it work? No, of course not. And when hard times came, the marriage split apart. It took her years to trust herself again.
But what if her husband had loved her to begin with? What if she had confidence in his love. Then she could have done exactly the same things: played with hair styles, fashions, jobs, she could make mistakes and start all over again—trusting that none of this would change his love for her. When the hard times came, then she could have confidence that he would be there with her and that together they could face them.
And that is human love. How much more confident can we be in God’s love. Like the psalmist we can say, “To you, O Lord, I life up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you.”
Imagine: as you walk out of church today the snow stops in midair and a rip appears in that gray blanket of sky and God says gently to you, to you: “You are my Child, my Beloved; in you I am well pleased.” Wow!
That’s what happens to each of us at our baptism and every time we receive Communion, and every minute of every day, God greets us as beloved children.
And surrounds us with that love, even as we face temptations and hard times every day.
I want to suggest a practice for the week: Begin your Lenten journey where Jesus began. Before you get up in the morning, or before you go to sleep at night, take a little time to hear the voice of God say to you: “You, Paula, Betty, Bill, Russ . . .. , you are my Beloved, my Child. In you I am well pleased.” It will probably feel strange—we’re so used to beating ourselves up before God.
But if we’re to match our Lenten journey to Jesus’, it’s the only place to start.
March 1, 2008
Lent is one of those seasons where you don’t have to guess that something’s going on!
You just have to walk in the church door. The Stations of the Cross so bright and deceptively simple. The baptismal font at the door, open and full of water instead of semi-invisible over in the corner. Bare branches on the altar. The words and music—more solemn, more ancient. A little harder to wrap our lips around.
The Confession, which we don’t say as a body during the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, is back in spades. At the 9:30 service, no music during Communion.
All this is on purpose—the church with her colors, sounds, and rituals is inviting us into the journey of Lent.
Jesus’ Lenten journey started way back at the River Jordan.
When Jesus came up out of the water after being baptized by John the Baptist,“he saw the heavens torn apart and . . . a voice came from heaven saying these incredible words: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; in you I am well pleased.’”
So what might you expect to happen next? Something pretty great, right? Choirs of angels, an easy life, salvation guaranteed?
Here’s what happened to Jesus,: “Immediately,” Mark’s gospel says, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. (In the other Gospels, the Spirit “led” him—here the Spirit of God got behind him and pushed!)
One minute he’s the beloved child of God. The next he’s abandoned without food or water in a stripped down landscape of rock and sand.
He’s not quite alone. Wild beasts roam through the desert at night. And day and night, night and day Satan tempts him.
We’ve got to stop and notice something important here: Jesus’ Lenten journey goes in a particular direction. The direction is crucial.
What if Jesus had begun his journey in the desert, fending off Satan, and then on the 41st day emerged and strode triumphantly to the Jordan?
Then, when God called him “Beloved Son,” it would be a reward for his victory over temptation. He’d be like the victorious heroes of Greek myths, crowned by the gods with laurel wreaths.
If that was the direction of our Lenten journey in the Lenten landscape, here’s what we’d have to do: like good Christian soldiers we’d have to put on our armor and do battle with Satan in order to earn God’s love.
I’m afraid many of us think of Lent that way. We try to prove something to God and to ourselves.
Someone just told me of overhearing a pair of church people in an Orthodox church—where they take Lent pretty seriously—at coffee hour on Easter morning. One asked the other how his Lent had gone. “15 pounds,” he answered. “Wow,” the first one said, “I only lost ten. You really had a holy Lent!”
But earning God’s love by resisting temptation is walking the Lenten journey backwards.
Before he faced down Satan in the wilderness, Jesus knew in his blood and in his bones that God loved him. Then and only then was he ready to face temptation. Knowing he was loved made everything else possible.
I had a friend once who was determined to make the best of a bad marriage. For ten years she tried everything she could to make her husband love her. She changed her hair style, she gained weight, she lost weight. She dressed one way, then another way. She read books she didn’t like, she took a job she hated.
For ten years she tried to earn her husband’s love. For ten years she tore herself apart, forgot who she really was—and did it work? No, of course not. And when hard times came, the marriage split apart. It took her years to trust herself again.
But what if her husband had loved her to begin with? What if she had confidence in his love. Then she could have done exactly the same things: played with hair styles, fashions, jobs, she could make mistakes and start all over again—trusting that none of this would change his love for her. When the hard times came, then she could have confidence that he would be there with her and that together they could face them.
And that is human love. How much more confident can we be in God’s love. Like the psalmist we can say, “To you, O Lord, I life up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you.”
Imagine: as you walk out of church today the snow stops in midair and a rip appears in that gray blanket of sky and God says gently to you, to you: “You are my Child, my Beloved; in you I am well pleased.” Wow!
That’s what happens to each of us at our baptism and every time we receive Communion, and every minute of every day, God greets us as beloved children.
And surrounds us with that love, even as we face temptations and hard times every day.
I want to suggest a practice for the week: Begin your Lenten journey where Jesus began. Before you get up in the morning, or before you go to sleep at night, take a little time to hear the voice of God say to you: “You, Paula, Betty, Bill, Russ . . .. , you are my Beloved, my Child. In you I am well pleased.” It will probably feel strange—we’re so used to beating ourselves up before God.
But if we’re to match our Lenten journey to Jesus’, it’s the only place to start.
Ash Wednesday February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday
February 25, 2009
Alas--despite my best efforts at motivation, observance of Ash Wednesday is still very much a minority activity at Church of the Holy Spirit.
For many people in the church, it’s just never been part of their tradition. It has a Papist smell to it! And it’s so out there—wouldn’t we feel like hypocrites walking back into work or home dripping ashes from our foreheads?
We New Englanders tend to keep our religion private. “Don’t ask, don’t tell”—and oh dear what if someone asks us explain the ashes. What would we tell?
The ashes, we might answer, are a mark of acknowledgment that we are basically animated dust.
The Hebrew word ‘ad-am’ means just that—soil or dust. We are not gods, we are not angels. Dust walking.
And we might add to anyone who questions us that this once a year, the ashes remind us of what most of us don’t believe, not really: that we are going to die and sooner (with cremation) or later (with burial) we will become “ad-am.” On Ash Wednesday we bear this stark truth physically on our foreheads.
But there’s more to tell, isn’t there? The ashes aren’t just a blob. I inscribe them on you in a particular pattern: the shape of a cross.
A cross—that could be another grim sign. Beyond the fact that we’re all hurtling towards death, now we’re marked with the sign that we’re sinners. Even more depressing.
At this point, the person who asked the question is probably itching to get away.
So what must we quickly tell before he hightails it down the street? That the cross is not so much a sign of the bad news that we’ve sinned against God and one another, as of the good news that God has taken us back. God offers each one of us the gift of reconciliation.
Jesus on the cross didn’t add up the horrific offenses done against him that dreadful first Good Friday.
No. He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”
God does and will forgive. The psalm we all just said together says that over and over: “[God] forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities.” “The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.” And “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.”
Reconciliation, though, is a two-way street.
Paul writes to the Corinthians in today’s second lesson, “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
So God is not the problem in this reconciliation business. We are the problem. The downside of God’s gift to us of free will is that we can choose not to be reconciled back to God.
We have options: We can turn our backs on Christ, and God, and the cross. Or we can accept God’s loving gift of forgiveness. Today an ashen cross will be a sign of your acceptance and mine. A pledge between us and the God of reconciliation.
We wonder each year, “What am I going to do for Lent?”
Will I give something up (old-fashioned, but not a bad idea—sort of like committing to an exercise program)? Or will I add a loving practice to my days: writing letters to old friends, volunteering at Meals for Many, . . .
I know I often simply pick my choice out of the air. What I choose to do or not do for Lent is not particularly connected to where I am with God at the time.
Yet isn’t that just the point and the opportunity of Lent? To begin today and really reflect on the question, “what keeps me right now, at this time in my life, from being reconciled with God?” or “What’s more important to me than God right now?” or, quoting St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans, “what is separating me right now from the love of God?”
The obstacles to reconciliation, right relationship, and mutual love with God aren’t with God! God has forgiven us. Humanity has done its worst, it has murdered God’s Son, God’s own self, and God still forgives. That’s it, that’s the guarantee.
The obstacles to reconciliation, right relationship, and mutual love with God are right here, in our own hearts and minds and bodies; in our ways of life; in what we choose to love more than God.
So the right question for today is not: “What am I going to do for Lent?”
It’s “what can I do over the next 40 days to turn myself around so that I’m faced back to God?”
Maybe it’s tearing away time from some of the way-too-many things most of us do in a day and use that time to “waste time with God,” my favorite definition of prayer. Maybe it’s finally getting up the nerve to admit you’re powerless in the face of food or drink and join Overeaters or Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe it’s cutting up the credit card and facing shopper withdrawal.
Christ says to us, even in the dark days and nights of Lent: “Don’t be afraid, I am Resurrection and I am Life.”
God’s love and life and saving power are not in question. The problem is with you and with me. As Pogo said in the old cartoon, “We have seen the enemy and it is us.” “Turn around,” Lent calls to us, “turn back into the light of God’s shining face.”
February 25, 2009
Alas--despite my best efforts at motivation, observance of Ash Wednesday is still very much a minority activity at Church of the Holy Spirit.
For many people in the church, it’s just never been part of their tradition. It has a Papist smell to it! And it’s so out there—wouldn’t we feel like hypocrites walking back into work or home dripping ashes from our foreheads?
We New Englanders tend to keep our religion private. “Don’t ask, don’t tell”—and oh dear what if someone asks us explain the ashes. What would we tell?
The ashes, we might answer, are a mark of acknowledgment that we are basically animated dust.
The Hebrew word ‘ad-am’ means just that—soil or dust. We are not gods, we are not angels. Dust walking.
And we might add to anyone who questions us that this once a year, the ashes remind us of what most of us don’t believe, not really: that we are going to die and sooner (with cremation) or later (with burial) we will become “ad-am.” On Ash Wednesday we bear this stark truth physically on our foreheads.
But there’s more to tell, isn’t there? The ashes aren’t just a blob. I inscribe them on you in a particular pattern: the shape of a cross.
A cross—that could be another grim sign. Beyond the fact that we’re all hurtling towards death, now we’re marked with the sign that we’re sinners. Even more depressing.
At this point, the person who asked the question is probably itching to get away.
So what must we quickly tell before he hightails it down the street? That the cross is not so much a sign of the bad news that we’ve sinned against God and one another, as of the good news that God has taken us back. God offers each one of us the gift of reconciliation.
Jesus on the cross didn’t add up the horrific offenses done against him that dreadful first Good Friday.
No. He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”
God does and will forgive. The psalm we all just said together says that over and over: “[God] forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities.” “The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.” And “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.”
Reconciliation, though, is a two-way street.
Paul writes to the Corinthians in today’s second lesson, “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
So God is not the problem in this reconciliation business. We are the problem. The downside of God’s gift to us of free will is that we can choose not to be reconciled back to God.
We have options: We can turn our backs on Christ, and God, and the cross. Or we can accept God’s loving gift of forgiveness. Today an ashen cross will be a sign of your acceptance and mine. A pledge between us and the God of reconciliation.
We wonder each year, “What am I going to do for Lent?”
Will I give something up (old-fashioned, but not a bad idea—sort of like committing to an exercise program)? Or will I add a loving practice to my days: writing letters to old friends, volunteering at Meals for Many, . . .
I know I often simply pick my choice out of the air. What I choose to do or not do for Lent is not particularly connected to where I am with God at the time.
Yet isn’t that just the point and the opportunity of Lent? To begin today and really reflect on the question, “what keeps me right now, at this time in my life, from being reconciled with God?” or “What’s more important to me than God right now?” or, quoting St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans, “what is separating me right now from the love of God?”
The obstacles to reconciliation, right relationship, and mutual love with God aren’t with God! God has forgiven us. Humanity has done its worst, it has murdered God’s Son, God’s own self, and God still forgives. That’s it, that’s the guarantee.
The obstacles to reconciliation, right relationship, and mutual love with God are right here, in our own hearts and minds and bodies; in our ways of life; in what we choose to love more than God.
So the right question for today is not: “What am I going to do for Lent?”
It’s “what can I do over the next 40 days to turn myself around so that I’m faced back to God?”
Maybe it’s tearing away time from some of the way-too-many things most of us do in a day and use that time to “waste time with God,” my favorite definition of prayer. Maybe it’s finally getting up the nerve to admit you’re powerless in the face of food or drink and join Overeaters or Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe it’s cutting up the credit card and facing shopper withdrawal.
Christ says to us, even in the dark days and nights of Lent: “Don’t be afraid, I am Resurrection and I am Life.”
God’s love and life and saving power are not in question. The problem is with you and with me. As Pogo said in the old cartoon, “We have seen the enemy and it is us.” “Turn around,” Lent calls to us, “turn back into the light of God’s shining face.”
Last Epiphany February 22nd, 2009
Last Epiphany
February 22nd, 2009
Last Epiphany
This Sunday, the Last Sunday of Epiphany, is a hinge swinging between the two most holy seasons of the church year: Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Eastertide.
And what are we given?: a story of glory, fear, and transformation
On that mountain Jesus became transfigured, transformed. His “face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”
Jesus was not changed from one kind of a being into another—like the “transformer” toys of my son’s childhood. The transfigured Jesus revealed something new to the three apostles shell-shocked on the ground in front of him—Jesus’ glory shining around and out of him—the glory of his divinity. Jesus revealed to his friends as much of his holiness as they could bear.
And scared them just about to death.
So much of our faith centers around transformation—or better, transfiguration. Transfiguration occurs when things aren’t just changed, but rather become more truly what they really are. Or, another way of saying it, transfiguration is when heaven and earth are revealed as parts of one whole reality.
Think of what happens when we come together for Eucharist. It’s all about transfiguration
A simple coming together of people on Sunday morning—you and me here at 170 North Main Street in Plymouth—is transfigured into a heavenly feast, a foretaste of heaven, in which we all participate.
The wafers and the tawny port, these ordinary things, are transfigured into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shared freely with us in an outpouring of his love.
We, this motley crew of us, each of us perfectly ordinary people, are transfigured each time we come together for Eucharist, into very special people, the People of God.
I remind us of that every Sunday when, just before Communion, I lift the broken host and the chalice of wine and say to you: “The gifts of God for the People of God.”
Does it ever strike you how outrageous that is! I am claiming on behalf of all of us, that participating in Eucharist has changed us, has transfigured us into the people God yearns for us to be.
I sometimes think that it’s unfortunate we’re the opposite of Peter, James, and John. We Episcopalians don’t tend to get knocked to the ground.
But maybe we should be! Why aren’t we “slain by the Spirit”—like the Pentecostal folks are—in front of the altar as we all swallow the bread and the wine (how unEpiscopalian that would be!). One of my favorite hymns at the Orthodox monastery I go to begins “Come, let us worship and fall down.” What if, one day, we let ourselves go and just succumbed, right here, to the wonder of it. How embarrassing! How could we hold up our heads at coffee hour!
The writer Annie Dillard gives a great description of our refusal to admit the reality of what we say is happening:
“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? .. . Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should last us to their pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” (from Teaching a Stone to Talk)
Crash helmets or not, what do we do next, we transformed people fed with heavenly bread and heavenly wine?
We leave, we get out. “Go forth!,” I shout from the back of the church. “Let’s get out of here! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” And we gather our coats and scarves and gloves (and at 9:30 a cup of coffee and a bit of cake) and brave the snow and wind.
We probably look pretty ordinary at that point. We’re probably not glowing so’s anyone could notice. Often we don’t feel a bit different.
But in this holy ritual of Eucharist, God is working in us in a place deeper than feeling. It doesn’t really matter whether we feel it or not. As we participate in the Eucharist, is transforming us, transfiguring us, little by little.
When we leave the church, we may think we’re the same as we were when we came in, but that scary glory that shown around and through Christ that day on the mountain?—we carry our own bit of that glory out of the church doors, down the stairs right into the world.
February 22nd, 2009
Last Epiphany
This Sunday, the Last Sunday of Epiphany, is a hinge swinging between the two most holy seasons of the church year: Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Eastertide.
And what are we given?: a story of glory, fear, and transformation
On that mountain Jesus became transfigured, transformed. His “face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”
Jesus was not changed from one kind of a being into another—like the “transformer” toys of my son’s childhood. The transfigured Jesus revealed something new to the three apostles shell-shocked on the ground in front of him—Jesus’ glory shining around and out of him—the glory of his divinity. Jesus revealed to his friends as much of his holiness as they could bear.
And scared them just about to death.
So much of our faith centers around transformation—or better, transfiguration. Transfiguration occurs when things aren’t just changed, but rather become more truly what they really are. Or, another way of saying it, transfiguration is when heaven and earth are revealed as parts of one whole reality.
Think of what happens when we come together for Eucharist. It’s all about transfiguration
A simple coming together of people on Sunday morning—you and me here at 170 North Main Street in Plymouth—is transfigured into a heavenly feast, a foretaste of heaven, in which we all participate.
The wafers and the tawny port, these ordinary things, are transfigured into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shared freely with us in an outpouring of his love.
We, this motley crew of us, each of us perfectly ordinary people, are transfigured each time we come together for Eucharist, into very special people, the People of God.
I remind us of that every Sunday when, just before Communion, I lift the broken host and the chalice of wine and say to you: “The gifts of God for the People of God.”
Does it ever strike you how outrageous that is! I am claiming on behalf of all of us, that participating in Eucharist has changed us, has transfigured us into the people God yearns for us to be.
I sometimes think that it’s unfortunate we’re the opposite of Peter, James, and John. We Episcopalians don’t tend to get knocked to the ground.
But maybe we should be! Why aren’t we “slain by the Spirit”—like the Pentecostal folks are—in front of the altar as we all swallow the bread and the wine (how unEpiscopalian that would be!). One of my favorite hymns at the Orthodox monastery I go to begins “Come, let us worship and fall down.” What if, one day, we let ourselves go and just succumbed, right here, to the wonder of it. How embarrassing! How could we hold up our heads at coffee hour!
The writer Annie Dillard gives a great description of our refusal to admit the reality of what we say is happening:
“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? .. . Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should last us to their pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” (from Teaching a Stone to Talk)
Crash helmets or not, what do we do next, we transformed people fed with heavenly bread and heavenly wine?
We leave, we get out. “Go forth!,” I shout from the back of the church. “Let’s get out of here! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” And we gather our coats and scarves and gloves (and at 9:30 a cup of coffee and a bit of cake) and brave the snow and wind.
We probably look pretty ordinary at that point. We’re probably not glowing so’s anyone could notice. Often we don’t feel a bit different.
But in this holy ritual of Eucharist, God is working in us in a place deeper than feeling. It doesn’t really matter whether we feel it or not. As we participate in the Eucharist, is transforming us, transfiguring us, little by little.
When we leave the church, we may think we’re the same as we were when we came in, but that scary glory that shown around and through Christ that day on the mountain?—we carry our own bit of that glory out of the church doors, down the stairs right into the world.
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