Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5), June 10, 2007

I have so much stuff in my life that it seems like I sometimes do not have enough room to put it all away. Studies have been down to show that the size of houses being built are getting larger, while families are getting smaller. Even with these large houses, storage companies are doing fantastic business. We continue to accumulate more and more stuff and we run out of room to keep it all.

We are living in an amazing age. When I think of all the choices I have in life, it is simply astounding. When I open my cupboards at home I'm sometimes overwhelmed by the choices available. I go to the supermarket and can rarely find that which I have been sent to get because there is so much to sort through. It is simply amazing. Sometimes I remember to be grateful for it, but much more often I tend to take it for granted and don’t actually think about it at all. I'm living in the most prosperous nation in the world and I take it for granted. I am one of the most prosperous people in the world and I take that for granted. Yes, I try to remember to thank God on occasion for all I have, but more often than not, I just take it for granted.

The story today in the First Book of Kings challenges me and each one of us on this issue. In a way, like all of us, Elijah is living the easy life. God sent him to a place where he had plenty of food and water as a famine and drought were in the land. His metaphorical cupboards were full to overflowing, much like mine. But then God suddenly decides to move him from this easy life out to where the famine and drought has been ravaging the land. He is called to go to a far country and live where a widow will feed him. Elijah is supposed to leave the easy life he has become accustomed to, and go stay with a widow who would provide him his needs. Now lets face it, Elijah knew full well that widows in his time could rarely provide for themselves, let alone for anyone else.

That would be like God telling me to move to one of the drought stricken areas of Africa where a widow would feed me. I know I would be leaving a lot. I would be leaving all my comforts. I would be leaving all my food. I would be leaving all my clean water. I would be going to a place where I could expect to be hungry all of the time. To me it does not sound like a very attractive call to receive from God.

But what really strikes me about the lesson in First Kings today is the willingness of people to be faithful. I see faithfulness and trust in God at levels I wonder if I would be capable of if called upon by God. I’m reminded of Francis of Assisi a person who also had a pretty good life. He had all that he could have wanted, at least by the standards of the world today. He had wealth and power. Yet he was willing to give it all up to answer the call of God. Like Francis I see in my own life a life of relative wealth and power. My needs are all taken care of. Many of my wants are taken care of as well. Most of us can identify with that.

Elijah was challenged to leave all that behind. In Elijah we find an example of what it means to be obedient to the call of God. Like Elijah we too may often find that the call of obedience to God calls for self-sacrifice and suffering. But as we see in the story, responding positively to the call to obedience is rewarded with blessings from God. Elijah’s needs were miraculously taken care of.

It seems like it is easy to doubt the power of God in our lives at times. The widow, responding to the call of God, gave up what she believed was her last meal with her son in order to feed Elijah because she believed the promise that God would continue to supply her. And God did. No matter how often she dipped into the jars of flour and oil there was always enough there for the next meal. She risked everything to respond to God’s call to service and sacrifice.

Rick Warren in the book “The Purpose Driven Life” believes that there are “three metaphors that teach us God’s view of life.” Life is a test, life is a trust and life is a temporary assignment.

I have no problem with the second two, but the first is problematic to me. Not that I don’t believe that all of us must face tests in our lives, just as Elijah and the widow did. But it is a much different thing to believe that we are sometimes tested in life rather than life is a test. To me that sounds like an unremitting life of test after test.

But I certainly do agree with him that life is both a trust and a temporary assignment. Life is a trust in many things, not the least of which is a trust in God. The challenge for myself and perhaps many of us is how do we live that out in our lives. It is easy to talk about trust in God when we have so much in our lives.

It would be hard to find anyone who disagreed with the fact that life is a temporary assignment. No matter what a person may believe about the hereafter, we all know that our days in this existence are temporary. But do I live my life as if I truly believe it. It is much too easy to live my life as if the here and now is all that there is. Allowing the cares and concerns of life right now interfere with my relationship to the God who created me.

The true test of our character and of our trust and faith is how do we face the “Elijah moments” that may come into our lives? I pray that God gives each of us the strength to respond in faith and trust.

Sermon for the Day of Pentecost, May 27, 2007

Happy Birthday! Today is one of the days we celebrate as the birthday of the church. Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. And it is a birthday party!

You have to enjoy the story of this birthday found in the Book of Acts. To me as I heard the story told, it sounds like bedlam to me. The scene is filled with the sounds of roaring wind, what appears to be fire is dancing all around, people are speaking in all sorts of languages. Those around the party experience all sorts of emotions and reactions to what is going on. Some of them are bewildered, some are amazed, some perplexed, and some are convinced that everyone is just plain drunk.

Now this sort of celebration is not the sort of thing you would expect to find in most churches, and particularly not in most of the Episcopal parishes. But the truth of the matter is I think the sound of bedlam in a church is sometimes a good thing. There is something inherently healthy in it.

Perhaps that is why I so much enjoy our annual pet blessing when we have all of the pets right inside the church building for our entire service, a practice foreign to most places for many reasons. I invariably at some point in the service, because the dogs are so rowdy, end up laughing. I can barely hold it together for a whole service. I enjoy the bedlam. It is an expression of God here with us. And I think God gets a kick out of it too.

It is why I so much like that all our children are welcome in our services. As distracting as it might be at times, I think distraction is healthy. It serves as a reminder to us that when you think about it, life is rarely as ordered and serene as we might like to pretend it is. As we might like to pretend church is. Church, like our lives, occasionally can be rowdy, disorganized and utterly lacking in a quiet religious spirit.

Of course those who were actually experiencing Pentecost, those who were in the middle of it, didn’t find it bedlam at all. They found God in that time and in that place. We should be looking for God in all the experiences of our lives. Sometimes it is in the unusual or disturbing that we are able to see God anew. The sounds of the animals in our church remind me of the sound of creation much have been light when the animals were being brought forth. Creation is something we should always be grateful for and celebrating. The sounds of the children in the parish remind me of life and excitement and an interest in so much new in the world. We should also always be thankful for those reminders.

We all have things in our church life that can intrude on what we personally find an uplifting experience of the holy. There are some Episcopal parishes that when you enter on a Sunday morning you can hear a pin drop. There are no sounds other than the quiet sound of people and families quietly slipping into their pews, the sound of pews squeaking and the sound of kneelers falling to the floor for prayer and quiet in preparation for the service. I have been a member of this kind of parish. It is a wonderful, powerful, and moving experience. Someone from that background might find themselves uncomfortable coming to St. Peter’s on a Sunday. It might sound like bedlam to them. Might seem like bedlam to some of us sometimes.

But we are all faced with a choice. And it is our choice to make. How will we respond to this new and different experience? We can spend our entire time in church worrying or complaining to ourselves about it. Or we could worry about how we at St. Peter’s can stand to worship with such noise. Or we can choose to experience worship in a way different and perhaps uncomfortable to us.

I hope everyone would choose the latter. That no matter how uncomfortable they might find themselves in a service that they would want to challenge themselves to find the holy in that moment. We all have to choose how we will respond to the world around us. And I hope that I when faced in a similar situation would choose the latter as well. We all have to choose how we respond to the world around us.

In the Gospel reading today Phillip said “Show us the father and we will be satisfied.” Lord, do this and make me happy. Wow. When I read that I can’t imagine anyone demanding something from Jesus in order to be satisfied. But then I look at my own life. And I’m forced to think about how many times I may not have said those exact words but still expected that same thing from God. God do this in my life and then I will be satisfied. God make this thing this way and I will be happy. What pride it must take to be able to say something like that to God. But like Phillip I suspect that we blurt those things out without even thinking about it. It is easy to ask God to meet us on our terms. It makes our lives very comfortable. It can be very satisfying. We don’t need to worry about changing anything. God will change and bring it to us just the way we want it. But it is a much harder to be willing to meet God on God’s terms.

As I was working on this sermon, I was thinking about the changes at St. Peter’s in this past seven years. How much different our services are now from what they were then. They were very quiet then. You don’t have much noise in church when your youngest parishioner is fifty. But what amazes me and surprises me is the willingness of everyone to accept change. The willingness of everyone to embrace the idea that God is doing something new at St. Peter’s with the new people being brought into the parish. It could be easy to try and avoid change. But instead we are embracing what God has called us to be as a community. A community that can change and embrace new things. A community able to see God in all of life’s experiences, not just those experiences which “I” might think are experiences of the holy. God is bigger than each and everyone of us here. And God can and will come to us in ways that will boggle our imaginations at times.

We should be able to see God in all of life’s experiences, not just the ones we find particularly holy and spiritually uplifting. God is bigger than each one of us here and can come in ways both unimaginable and scandalous.

What are some of the things I think scandalous and try to keep God out of? Jesus was a very scandalous guy. He was always causing trouble in the community by what he did. He scandalized by what he said. And he was a scandal most to the people in the synagogues. To the people trying to practice their faiths. He was the one that bothered them the most. It is important for us to remember that we need to be open to God wanting to work in our lives in different ways. We need to be open to God wanting to touch our lives in different. I think God will surprise us if we are open to that.

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 20, 2007

“Jesus prayed for his disciples and then he said, I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” What does it mean when Jesus prayed that we all “may be one”?

Many people have different ideas about what it means. One is that Christians cannot have differences of opinions. They believe that we must all conform to some homogenized set of views acceptable to everyone (or more correctly, acceptable to the group requiring the conformation of others). This is not a true view of Jesus’ prayer for unity. Another idea is that denominations are wrong. Now we see from some a requirement not only to conform to the same beliefs but also to conform to the same practices of worship. This is not true of Jesus’ prayer either. This is because the prayer of Jesus is not asking for a lockstep uniformity of either doctrine or practice.

The true fellowship of the saints is found not in uniformity but in unity, a unity of spirit and purpose, which is a much different thing. Rick Warren in the book “The Purpose Driven Life” said: “God expects unity, not uniformity, and we can walk arm-in-arm without seeing eye-to-eye on every issue.” It is very similar to what Paul explained in the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians when he was likening the faith community to the human body. Not everyone in the faith community is called to the same work or responsibility. Likewise we are not all called to the same expression of our practice of our faith just as not every part of the body is called to be identical.

In fact the human body will not work if all of the parts are identical. The human body works because of its diversity. That is how the Christian Church works as well. It is in our diversity of views and practices that we can live together, accomplish ministry and mission together, and learn and grow from each other. We should be celebrating our differences. How boring and unattractive it would be for many if the only expression of the Christian faith was Episcopalian or Baptist or Lutheran or Pentecostal. Not everyone is drawn to that sort of expression of faith.

Some believe that the differences in the Christian community are a stain on the Christian witness, but “(d)iversity is not always a blemish. It is a feature of nature…” You see that not only in the human body but in many other places as well. A garden would be so boring if it required uniformity. You don’t see many gardens filled with the exact same plant. I actually have never seen one like that. Imagine a forest where all that you found was one particular type of tree. No other vegetation. It would simply seem wrong to us. God created the world in wonderful and amazing diversity. So finding diversity in Christian expression should not really surprise us. Christian unity comes through a unity of relationship, unity is not found in some kind of lockstep uniformity.

Sadly “…outward disunion is too frequently indicative in inward disunion, for unity of action is often entirely lacking. The Christian churches are not all like divisions of one great army under one head, but are often rather like contending factions.” And yet how often it is that we see Christians acting like contending factions. The constant fighting of denominations and the constant fighting inside of denominations, our own included, surely does fly in the face of Jesus prayer for unity. Perhaps some are threatened by a lack of uniformity and see trying to enforce uniformity as the only way to make their faith strong.

“When we focus on personalities, preferences, interpretations, styles, or methods, division always happen. But if we concentrate on living (with) each other and fulfilling God’s purposes, harmony results.” The seeming constant focus on division surely grieves Jesus and is the exact opposite of his prayer in this passage. Jesus is calling on us to live in harmony with one another. We are called to over look differences with a spirit of focusing on that in which we can agree and then working together for the spread of the kingdom. It is the practice of Generous Orthodoxy as advocated by Bruce McLaren. And yet it seems too often that a generosity of spirit is missing in the church world around us.

James 3:18 explains what this unity of action is that we should be striving for. The author writes: “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.” (The Message) Respecting the dignity and worth of every person is what each of us have been called to do in baptism.

It is important to remember that “Christian unity is not formal, but spiritual, -- If we are looking for formal union, we are looking in the wrong direction, and we are looking for the wrong thing.” We are missing the point of Jesus prayer for unity. We should be rejoicing in the diversity of the Christian family. If we truly are able to do this then we will be able to work together for ministry and mission in the world around us.


What should we do to respond to the work we are called to do in the prayer of Jesus? First, we should be praying for our fellow Christians, particularly those who we think are wrong for whatever reason. But we should not be praying that God brings them around to our way of thinking. Rather we should be praying for God’s blessing on them and for opportunities to work with them to do things like feed the hungry, visit the sick and those in prison and provide shelter for the homeless. Second, we should pray that God will give each of us a true generosity of spirit in our hearts towards fellow Christians. We should be asking God to soften our hearts towards our sisters and brothers. Third, we should seek to serve God in those with whom we have disagreements. We must respect their dignity and worth as beloved children of God.

If we can accomplish these steps the prayer of Jesus may be finally answered.

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Mary 13, 2007

Much to my dismay we continue in this Sunday’s lesions with visions. Several of the lessons for today are about visions. Today we heard the stories of Paul’s vision to go to Macedonia and the continuing vision of John of Patmos’ in the book that we call the Revelation.

I’m personally very conflicted about the idea of visions. I see them as potentially good and potentially bad. On the one hand, visions seem like they can be extraordinarily helpful. Paul certainly did not have to wonder, think about, and struggle with a decision as to whether or not he should go to Macedonia or to some other part of the then known world. He had the answer. It was quick, concrete, and undeniable. This makes life very easy. It makes me sometimes wish for a few visions like this from God as well.

When I was in the military my life was fairly easy. I never had to wonder as I moved from assignment to assignment if that was the right choice or not. Sure I always asked for jobs that interested me, but once I had my orders, I no longer had to worry about if I had made the right choice. I didn’t make the choice at all. Like the wizard of OZ hidden behind his curtain, some unknown person at Headquarters made the choice for me. But the assurance was there. There was no second guessing. And so like Paul, I didn’t have to wonder if this was where I was supposed to be, it was crystal clear. Sometimes I wish my life was still that easy.

The problem with a vision like this is that it is very hard to ignore. They force us to come face to face with what God is calling us to do and they are very hard to ignore or explain away.

Most of us don’t have the convenience of that kind of clarity. Instead we must struggle with the choices that life presents us with, trying to discern the will of God for our lives in a much less concrete way.

And while clarity has its benefits, at the same time I’m very uncomfortable with visions. I’m uncomfortable with the idea wondering if a vision might be wrong. Or if I might interpret the vision in the wrong way. What if the vision is not from God. This has always been a real concern in the Church. Some of the mystics in the early church came up against this issue in their lives. The church tends to react against mystics and those who see visions. They are seen as a disruption and a threat to the order of things. As a person who very much likes order in my life and in the church I can identify with and understand this position.

So visions are a double edged sword. They can result in very different reactions. But still, the idea of visions interests me and so I wanted to spend some time exploring it.

In spite of the fact that it may sounds like I’m a real cynic when it comes to visions, I’m really not. Because I believe that churches need to have visions to grow.

In fact, I truly believe that people right here at St. Peter’s are having visions calling them to new things. Now I do not know if they are necessarily like the visions of Paul and John, those experiences where God speaks in a specific way to us. Perhaps they are and perhaps they are not. But I think the visions they have had are powerful and transforming in their lives. We have visions for mission or ministry that come to us inspired by God. These visions or inspirations are just as powerful, transforming, and life changing as those of Paul and John.

Now I don’t want to embarrass anyone by naming names. But I am convinced that some of the new things we are doing around St. Peter’s are as a result of the visions of some individuals in our faith community.

As we see at St. Peter’s visions can be life giving to a community. And visions don’t always have to be like Paul’s or John’s. Some of us get visions in other ways. Robert Kennedy said: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” Those experiences of dreaming of things that never were and then dreaming about doing something about it, those are powerful visions from God.

This spirit of God, the spirit that asks not the question of why, but of why not, is a vision from God. It is the vision that makes things happen in the world.

God gives us all visions to work out in our lives. The challenging thing for us is to seek out those visions and follow them. It is hard when they are not visions like Paul’s. They are easier to ignore. The key for us is to have an open heart and open mind for God. We must quiet our hearts and our minds to the quiet voice of God inside of us.

We must answer our visions and respond in faith and joy to what God has called us to do.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, Year C, April 15, 2007

This Sunday is often called Thomas Sunday after Thomas the Apostle. I think Thomas would make an excellent patron saint for Missouri, the “show me” state. That is basically what Thomas wanted, he wanted to be shown. In the church we often refer to him as Thomas the Doubter, Doubting Thomas, or perhaps in more modern parlance, Thomas the pessimist.

Perhaps I’m just overly sensitive since I share his name, but this has always bothered me. It seems very unfair. After all in this passage it is clear that the other disciples got what Thomas was asking for. Jesus showed them his hands and his side. They may not have been brave enough to express their doubts out loud since they have been in hiding since Jesus death, but Jesus must have suspected some level of doubt as he offered them a view of this hands. Yet poor Thomas takes the rap as the doubter. Why don’t we call him Thomas the believer for his profession of “My Lord and my God” which is a whole lot more than any other apostle said so far.

The Scriptures are filled with stories of doubters. We find story after story of people who doubted that God would be able to do what God claimed. Moses was a doubter. Abraham was a doubter. We can find page upon page of doubters. And yet Thomas gets stuck with the name.

I think Thomas the Doubter resonates with us better because we live in a world often filled with doubt. People demand proof for everything.

I think the real reason that the title Doubting Thomas remains used is the fact that many of us our doubters ourselves. We can identify with Thomas the Doubter much easier than Thomas the Believer.

We are all believers but I know that I am a believer with doubts. Perhaps some of us doubt the virgin conception. Perhaps some of us doubt a bodily physical resurrection. Perhaps some of us doubt the inspiration of all of the Scriptures. But doubt is there. Sometimes doubt is transitory and we find the faith to drive the doubt away. Sometimes the doubt is pernicious and we learn to live with it throughout our lives.

Some might think that we need to start a self help group which could be called Doubters Anonymous. But I think this would be a mistake.

I believe doubt is a good thing. It is healthy. It shows that we are using the brains which God has given us.

Look at what Jesus was able to do with the doubts of Thomas and the other apostles. And just think what Jesus can do with our own doubts if we only let him. Thomas was not afraid to admit his doubts. But I think many of us are. It may be we live in a more hostile world for doubting today. Express a doubt about the Christian faith publicly today and you are liable to be immediately trashed as a heretic or a heathen.

That is an unfortunate reaction, but it is a reflection of the current polarization in the Christian church. The slightest deviation from orthodoxy must be immediately rooted out lest anyone begin that long slide down the slippery slope. This is a very sad response. It causes people to be fearful of raising their doubts, it makes them keep their doubts bottled up inside.

Bottling up doubts inside of us will never solve them. It will not help to drive them away. To deal with our doubts we need to be able to talk about them. We need to be able to explore them in a safe environment. We grow through exploring new things.

We must free ourselves to be doubters like Thomas. No one challenged Thomas. Jesus never condemned Thomas for his doubt. Instead Jesus used Thomas’ doubt for a moment of grace and healing.

But we, unlike Thomas, often try to hide our doubts from others and perhaps even ourselves. We fear the response of others to genuinely felt doubts. Perhaps Thomas would have to, but in the moment he blurted out the truth of his heart. God longs for us to express that same honesty of Thomas.

My life is filled with doubts. I spent many years in a very rigid orthodox denomination where doubts were signs of loss of faith. Now I’m free to experience and express my doubts.

Did Jesus have a physically resurrected body? I honestly don’t know. I have my doubts. But I don’t doubt the truth of the resurrection. I don’t doubt that Jesus did conquer death and return to his disciples. I can see that clearly in how the apostles reacted to their experience with the resurrected Jesus.

Some parts of the resurrection story clearly argue for a physical body, Jesus ate, Jesus touched. Other parts of the resurrection story seem to point in a less physical reality, Jesus appeared out of nowhere, Jesus walked through walls.

But in spite of my doubts about how it actually worked out, I can freely join in the Easter acclimation that Jesus is risen! I believe it. I may not believe it like everyone else. Neither may you. But that makes us neither heretics nor pagans. It makes us thinking, wondering individuals struggling with what the mystery of the incarnation and resurrection means in our lives. I pray that God will raise up more doubters in the church. Through their struggles we will all grow and learn.

Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007

Today is the day of resurrection. Today we celebrate new light and new life. It is evident from our very surroundings. Last night at the Great Vigil of Easter we celebrated the rekindled light representing the light of Christ. This is particularly moving as during the Tenebrae last week we slowly extinguished the lights. Now the dreary purple of Lent has given way to the dazzling white of Easter. The Paschal Candle burns bright after its lighting last night.

Today we celebrate the central event of the Christian tradition. The resurrection of Jesus provides the foundation for what we believe. If there is no resurrection then there is no Christianity.

But in addition to celebration this can be a day of reflection. It is a day we should reflect on what the death and resurrection of Jesus means to each one of us individually.

This time of the year seems to invariably bring out theological scholars who make arguments about what this most crucial events means and what it does not. This year is no different. Dean Jeffrey Johns, a theologian over in England, recently wrote an article about his view of the atonement. Atonement means a “satisfaction given for wrongdoing” or injury. Theologically atonement specifically refers to “the redeeming of mankind and the reconciliation of God with man, brought about by Jesus sufferings and death.”

Dean Johns is troubled by the traditional view of the atonement which seems to place too great an emphasis on the wrath and punishment of God making the sacrifice of Jesus necessary. It is basically a “The Passion of the Christ” view which in my own mind focused entirely too much on the passion and not nearly enough on the resurrection. There was an immediate cry raised over Dean Johns’ thoughts.

My point in this is not to defend Dean Johns, although I agree with his concerns. But I do think it important that as Christians we are not afraid to discuss these issues. The cries of immediate condemnation are unhelpful as all of us struggle to understand the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The title for the article about his comments was rather inflammatory: “Christ did not die for our sins.” This was definitely not what Dean Johns was trying to say at all. But it certainly made better press. He was trying to get people to examine the atonement in a different light.

The article states: “Mr John argues that too many Christians go through their lives failing to realise that God is about "love and truth", not "wrath and punishment". He offers an alternative interpretation, suggesting that
Christ was crucified so he could "share in the worst of grief and suffering that life can throw at us".

I actually find nothing terribly wrong with this idea. I know I have always been more interested in talking about the resurrection than the crucifixion. It is the resurrection we celebrate every Sunday. A faith fixated on the substitutionary suffering of Jesus on the cross does indeed stress too much the wrathful and vengeful nature of a God which Jesus clearly portrayed as loving.

And love is what Easter is really all about. God sent Jesus because of love. Jesus laid down his life for us because of love. John 3:16 reminds us of why God sent Jesus. It was because of love. “Because God so loved the world…” begins the verse that so many of us know by heart. The idea of a wrathful God demanding the death of his son is foreign to the Christian scriptures. It is a theology developed hundreds of years later. And yet many cling to it as “gospel”.

We must reject it as a perversion of the very nature of God. Instead, this Easter let us embrace the true image of God. God is love. Jesus taught this time after time. Jesus taught that others will recognize our faith by our love. This week we have experienced the power of God’s love as we traveled through the suffering, death and now the resurrection of Jesus.

You may think it strange that I have spoken all this time and other than mentioning the fact of the resurrection as being central to our faith, have not really spoken about resurrection at any length. What a strange way to approach an Easter sermon.

Yesterday, after the Great Vigil of Easter Ian came up with a great theological question. He wanted to know how, if Jesus was the son and God was the father, how could they be one? My years of theological training and years in the ministry had prepared me for just this moment. I knew exactly what to do. I referred him to Father Emmanuel conveniently standing nearby.

Father Emmanuel explained that in the end it is a mystery. And that is the truth. That is also the best explanation I can come up with for the resurrection as well. It is a mystery. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know exactly how it worked out in our physical world. But I do know that it too was a product of love.

Alleluia, Jesus is risen!

Alleluia, Jesus is love.

Let us go from here and share the love of Jesus with everyone we meet.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 25, 2007

We find in the reading today from Isaiah a warning from God that new things are about to be done. Warning about new things coming is probably a good idea. No one seems to particularly like new things. We all love the old things. And yet we are warned in this same passage to “not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” This is a hard teaching for Episcopalians! In fact, even with lots of warning, change is still hard to deal with.

I’m reminded of this struggle we all have with change in a story line from the series “The Vicar of Dibley”. In the first episode a “woman” priest is sent to the parish as their new vicar. The initial shock left everyone silent. As some of the parishioners began talk about change they observed that there is good change and bad change and that is true in the world today. But what makes it so difficult is our inability to come to agreement on which changes are good and which are bad. This is reflected locally and in the wider world. It effects everything from what we do here at St. Peter’s when we make changes to what is going on today in the world wide Anglican Communion.

Make a river in a desert as it says in Isaiah and you are sure to find some who would find reason to complain. The river is not in the right place. Too many people or animals are around now. The environmental balance has been changed. There is now too much traffic. It used to be nice and peaceful and quiet here and now it is so loud and disruptive. And you have to deal with the mud.

Look at the Israelites, they were freed from slavery and provided manna from heaven and yet still managed to complain about it. The old times were better they said. We are sick and tired of this manna they complained. The very food sent down from heaven by God was becoming tiring to them. The grass always is greener on the other side! And I’m sure if we look in our own lives we will find plenty of times when we complained and perhaps the complaint was not really all that justifiable.

Why do people complain about change so much? I think it is because we mourn the loss of the familiar. The familiar is comfortable and easy to go along with. It doesn’t cause stress or anxiety. People also don’t like change because of the fear of the unknown. Change puts us face to face with something new. Something that may be unpalatable or undesirable. Or maybe just something that is different. Like a river in a dry place.

But there is something even more important in this passage today. God says that she is about to do a new thing and yet we do not see it. There are two things here particularly important. First that God is doing a new thing. There are some who would prefer, who pray for and who fight for God to only do the old things. There is no understanding or comprehension that God may indeed be doing a new thing in their life or in the life of the Church. Those who would paint God in a nice neat corner are only bound to be disappointed. Several weeks ago I spoke about how surprising God can be and is. Of this there can be no doubt.

The second part of that verse “do you not perceive it?” should be a warning to us. A warning to not try and fight against the new things God is doing. But this can be painfully difficult.

How do we know that all the new things going on now are from God? That is the critical question. Those against the new things clearly see the answer as no, they are most definitely not from God. Those in support of the new things clearly see the answer as yes, God is working powerfully among us. Personally I think that the Christian community would be in much better condition if everyone kept in mind that they just might be wrong. This sort of humility seems to be sadly lacking in many of the conversations in the Church today. An embrace of the idea of the possibility of error in my own thoughts would allow greater charity towards those we disagree with. It would also lower the level of strife for those fighting so hard for what they feel is right.

There is one thing that is very good about change, whether you are in favor of it or not. Change forces us to re-evaluate what is going on in our lives. And that is a good thing. It is healthy and an opportunity for spiritual growth. It can cause us either to strengthen the views we already held or be an opportunity for the possibility of changing them. Whether in the end the change was necessary or perhaps quietly done away with, self examination of our own lives and of our own, sometimes closely held beliefs is good.

Change forces us to wake up from the lethargy of the usual, of the common, and to look at things in a new light. That may feel like a dangerous thing. But it is life giving.

As Christians we are called to face change with expectation and hope. We need to view change with the expectation and hope that God just might be doing a new thing in our lives. So when we are faced with changes, we should not react with a gut level reaction to immediately reject it. Instead we need to think about it. We need to test it out.

Perhaps, just perhaps it can help us grow.

The Three G's

The Three G’s

A wonderful friend, Mary Grace shared the 3 G's with me a while back (a long while back now that I think about it). Grace, Gratitude, and Generosity. These are three gifts/abilities that I think more of us need to work in (particularly myself). I see in our current church issues a particular lack of all three in the discussions going on. Most distressingly (at least for me) is this lack from the liberal orthodox side. Since I count myself on this side I would hope that we would live what we believe and so often say regarding respecting the dignity of worth of every human being. Sadly language can hurt and it is hurtful too often. Of course I’m also disappointed to see it from the reasserter orthodox side as well, but since I’m not tarred by the same brush I suppose I’m less sensitive. Which is a good think considering that the reasserter orthodox side seems to most often violate the 3 G’s in posts I see in the world of the blogs.

I pray that all will seek to see Jesus in the face of those whom we oppose. Perhaps that will lower the level of rhetoric.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year C, March 11, 2007

Have you ever been surprised by something? I’m sure we all have at one time or another. Life is full of surprises. Imagine how boring things would be if this were not true. It should not be shocking to discover that the creator of all, God, is full of surprises as well. I want to speak about two surprises in the lessons for today. Both occur in the lesson from the Book of Exodus.

Now the idea that God is surprising should not be that novel. I know that as I look back in my own life it is filled with surprises, things which I never would have expected. There are twists and turns in my life that have led me to places I never though I would be. I’m sure that many of you today can identify with those same experiences.

The Holy Scriptures are also packed full of surprises. In the Scriptures we find stories of old women having children. There is the most memorable story of a young maid giving birth to the son of God. Stories of angels appearing when no one expected them.

Even today here at St. Peter's we celebrate a surprising event. That most unexpected of occurrences in an Episcopal Church, a baptism in Lent. Today we will baptize Spencer and welcome him to our faith community. Life is full of surprises. And like the baptism today, surprises are not always bad things.

In the reading from Exodus today we see that God can come to us in surprising ways. Moses is out wandering around with his flocks. As he wanders, he sees something not all that uncommon in his experience. He sees a fire. But as he looks at it be becomes surprised. He sees something totally unexpected. Moses observes that while there is a bush blazing on fire the bush is not being burned up. That had to be quite a surprise. And then Moses discovered the source of this seemingly impossible event. And it was another surprise. It was God. God came to Moses in a surprising way, in a way Moses did not expect. And I think that often happens to us as well, God comes to us in surprising ways. God comes to us through people we would not expect or events we would not anticipate. And suddenly we realize that God is trying to tell us something or God is trying to show us something in a new way.

Next we see that God uses surprising people. As a matter of fact, God uses people who don’t think they should be used by God. God tells Moses “Guess what, you are going to be the one Moses. You are the one who is going to save my chosen people. You are the one who will go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go. I think at that moment Moses probably looked around to see if there was someone else standing behind him to whom God must be speaking. God sure surprised Moses in his choice of who he would use to bring God’s people out of Egypt. Moses was convinced that God had chosen the wrong man. I think many of us often feel that same way. The Lord can’t possibly be talking to me and calling me to do something. First of all who wants to go and tell anyone that the Lord has told me I’m supposed to do this. Most people would maybe take a few steps away from you and wonder either how they can get away from you for good or how they can get you to some treatment. But they are mostly likely not going to say “Oh hallelujah, I have been waiting for you to tell me.” And Moses knows this. And I think the other thing is that Moses knows himself. Here he is a simple shepherd and yet God is going to call him to do amazing things and deal with the most powerful man that Moses knows in the world. And he is going to have to tell the most powerful man in the world some things that man does not want to hear. “Who am I that I should go…” Moses responds to God. This might not be an unexpected response. It might be a response we have offered to God in our own past when we felt the call of God in our own life. No one really wants to have to tell everyone that God sent them to them. Or like Moses we might recognize that there is nothing special about ourselves. There is nothing powerful about ourselves and we might respond “Lord there must be a better person to do your work.”

And what do you think the Lord’s answer to Moses was. We all know. Moses you are the one. I know you are the one. You can do it. I sometimes think that God chooses people on purpose who don’t think they can do it. You see the problem is that if you think you can do it, then you don’t have to rely on God. You can just go out and do it on your own. But if you are convinced that you cannot possibly be the right person to do it, then you have no choice. You have no choice other than to rely on God to give you the strength and the power to carry out what it is God wants you to do.

And so my challenge to you is to look for unexpected things in your own life from God. Look for God to speak to you in unexpected ways. Look for God to ask you do to unexpected things. And then trust God to give you what you need to do it.

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year C, March 4, 2007

Many of you may remember that the Gospel passage for today contains one of my favorite verses. In fact, it seems I can not avoid preaching on this particular text anytime it comes up in our readings. For some reason I find amazing comfort in these words: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” Or as Eugene Peterson puts it: “How often I’ve longed to gather your children, gather your children like a hen, Her brood safe under her wings…” It makes me feel safe just saying the words. However the end of this verse is very sad “but you refused and turned away!”

You may have noticed that Jesus is using a feminine example in this story. Now this kind of thing does not always sit well with everyone.

Some of you may remember that our Presiding Bishop got into considerable trouble at her first sermon ever as Presiding Bishop at our last General Convention. In her sermon, she used the term “mother Jesus”. This term sent up howls of complaint regarding her theology. Of course, she did not coin that term. It has been used in the past, most notably by the mystic Julian of Norwich. But she took a lot of grief for using a feminine image of Jesus. And yet in this passage we have Jesus likewise using the image of the feminine in describing his desire to hold a people close to him as a hen gathers her chicks.

As a farm boy, I remember well the image of chicks out in the yard running to the mother hen at the first sign of danger and good mother hen managing to tuck an amazing number of chicks under her wings to protect them. Not that the hen had much of a chance against any predator, but she was willing to try. And it reminds me of an image we are blessed to see more and more often around St. Peter’s. That of a child getting hurt from a bump or scratch and running to the safety and warmth of mother’s arms for protection and solace.

Jesus is longing to have that same relationship with the world. Jesus wants to be the safety, warmth and protection for us. But how often to we respond the same way many responded to Jesus in his own time – the people “refused and turned away.” What is it that makes people want to turn away? What is it that makes us sometimes want to turn away from the invitation of Jesus?

I think that there are many causes. Some of these include pride, a feeling of self importance or the opposite the belief that we are undeserving, fear, hopelessness, the desire for self sufficiency, anger, or the cares of the world, to name just a few. The cares of the world is such an interesting phrase. It comes to us from Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Mark.[1] The cares of the world is anything that distracts us from God. These cares can very easily become idols in our lives. An idol is anything less that God that we allow to take the place of God in our life. These things can drive wedges in our lives which can separate us from each other and can separate us from God. But the reality is that Jesus is always there, always waiting for us to return to his tender embrace.

Have you ever been through a difficult time in your life? I’m know we all have. Each and every one of us has struggles and battles some of which we fear to share with anyone. But Jesus is there.

To be honest, I like the idea of “mother Jesus”. With all the masculine references to God we are surrounded with in the Holy Scriptures and in the world around us it is well to be shocked back into reality once in a while. God the stern taskmaster or God the judge seems to come all to easily to our collective minds. We inherited this view from the long tradition of church history as well. While the Greek words for Jesus and God are male forms of words, the Greek word for the Holy Spirit is a female form. And yet when this sermon is over and we recite the Creed in the paragraph dealing with the Holy Spirit we will use all male pronouns. The use of language and image in the Church is see to be universally masculine images. Those brave enough to challenge this are often dismissed as heretics. God the mother is a good contrast for us to meditate on.

The image of Mother Jesus is very much misunderstood and wrongly maligned. But that should not surprise us – much about Jesus was and is misunderstood. I want to end with a thought from one of our church fathers (regretfully, church mothers don’t get near the exposure they deserve):

He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life.
Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water.
Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King.
Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons.
Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears.
Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world.
Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd.
Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.
Gregory of Nazianzus, A.D. 381.

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[1] Mark 4:19.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, Year C, February 25, 2007

How often have you been told that you or perhaps a member of your family had their priorities all wrong. I certainly sometimes think that is true, not only in my own life but in the life of the wider church. Our priorities are messed up big time. A prime example of this was the recent primates meeting in Tanzania. The primates of the Anglican Communion gathered together at great expense for five days. And what did they spend the vast majority of their time talking about for those five days? Sex.

Seven of them refused to share communion together due to the presence of our Presiding Bishop. If fact, they couldn’t even agree to get together for a picture! Now some of you might be thinking, so who really cares about the primates or the Anglican Communion anyway, what really interests me is St. Peter’s. After hearing about this meeting I might well agree with you! But we cannot escape our connection to the wider communion and we cannot escape the fact that this is important to some people.

And yet, children are dying every day of starvation and of completely treatable diseases. In fact, during the five days the primates met it is estimated that over 18,000 children died from poverty related causes. Did they spend five days talking about that? Nope. People are murdering others for what they believe or because of their tribal affiliation or because of their religious belief. Did they talk about that for five days? Nope. Wars are being fought in several places in the world. Did they talk about that for five days? Nope.

I find myself in agreement with Bp. Chane of the Diocese of Washington who said just a few days ago: “I am deeply distressed that the Primates spent so much time discussing the internal life of the Episcopal Church and devoted so little attention to the woeful state of our global community. The Gospel summons us to a unified effort against the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, hunger, poverty, human rights violations, the degradation of women and children and the behavior of corrupt governments. Yet the Primates continue to behave as though quashing dissent on issues of human sexuality were the central calling of the Christian faith.[1]

It has to be enough to make Jesus weep.

It is obvious to me that the priorities of the primates are completely out of whack with what the Holy Scriptures are calling us to. Instead of focusing on relieving the suffering, starvation, and death going on in the world around us, much of it in their very own back yards, the primates felt the pressing need to focus on who is sleeping with whom. I think that is a sin.

The Scriptures today call us to examine our priorities in life. In the lesson from Deuteronomy we are challenged to examine our priorities with respect to God, particularly with regard to how we handle the material blessings God gives us. The Israelites were reminded that all the land they possessed was a gift from God. They had nothing and were wandering from place to place with nothing to call their own and in the midst of this God provided for them a wonderful land. God did amazing things for them and then God calls them to remember this by giving back to God. But God calls on them to give to God in faith. God tells them that they are to give God the first of the harvest. They are not to wait until the harvest is complete and the storage rooms full and then give a part to God. Rather God calls them to step out in faith and give when their storehouses are not full, but rather when they are empty.

At great expense the primates met to talk about sex. Imagine how many of those 18,000 children could have been saved if they decided to just minister to the poor and needy by skipping the meeting and directing all that money to the poor.

In Romans we are reminded that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Interestingly enough it does not say that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord and sleeps with the right people will be saved. It does not say that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord and then obeys the primates will be saved. It does not say that you have to do anything else. No requirements. No prior agreements. Just call on the name of the Lord. Our primates and our sisters and brothers on the liberal and conservative fringes both miss this important point. They are so wrapped up in political battles that they miss the point completely.

Nothing could teach more clearly the importance of a right ordering of our priorities than the message from the Gospel for today. In each of the temptations Jesus is offered something good. But each time Jesus responds with a right ordering of priorities. When hungry and tempted with food Jesus reminds us that it is not all about what we feed ourselves that is most important. When offered power, Jesus reminds us that grasping for power is not the most important thing.

Our Episcopal Church has embarked on a path to live out the promises we make at baptism, to respect the worth and dignity of every human being. Not just those human beings with whom we agree. But most importantly each of us has promised to respect the dignity of those human beings with whom we completely disagree. This is a powerful witness to the world about the transformation in our lives. Some of the primates and some of those in our own church are willing to give this up. They are willing to do that most un-Christian of things, sacrifice others for their own peace.

The Gospel calls us to self sacrifice, not to the sacrifice others. During this Lenten season let us examine our lives and our actions in light of the priorities that we believe God wants us to observe in our lives.

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[1] The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington, pastoral letter dated
February 22, 2007

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, Feb 11, 2007

Many of you may have heard the State of the Union address a few weeks ago. I confess to having missed it, but I was able to hear plenty of clips in the news in the days that followed. The President talked about issues like making health care available for more Americans. The Congress is trying to raise the minimum wage. But imagine what the response would have been had the President just got up and said “the poor are blessed and so are the hungry” and left it at that. There would have been outrage. And yet, that is the message in the Gospel today. It seems rather bleak and hopeless to me and in fact doesn’t offer much tangible hope to those around us in need. Why do we help sponsor a food bank if this is true?

Now you might be saying to yourself, “hey, the words today from the Gospel just do not seem quite right” this morning. Most of us are more used to hearing the words known as “The Beatitudes” from the Gospel of Matthew. There is a significant and important difference between Matthew and Luke in reporting this sermon of Jesus. In Luke we hear “blessed are you who are poor” while Matthew records “blessed are the poor in spirit”. Luke says “blessed are you how are hungry now” and Matthew says “blessed are you who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Quite a difference!

Because Matthew spiritualizes the text, it is easier to accept. If we are talking about spiritual hunger then that is not quite so hard a concept to swallow. However, Luke’s stark message forces us to confront ourselves and our ideas. It is one thing to say the poor in spirit are blessed, we can all live with that. But to say that the poor are blessed is tough to accept or believe.

Somehow I have to find truth in it because God said it. The first truth I see in this is the realization that God values things I might not value. Or certainly God looks at things much differently than I do. That serves as a warning and challenge to my own, often cherished, views. I need to be willing to look critically at my thoughts and believes and realize that I just might not be looking at something the way God would look at it. This is a lesson the apostles seemed to have to learn over and over again, and so in that I take some comfort, God will be patient with me on this path.

And yet at the same time, the poor being blessed is not all God said. I am mindful that in the Book of James we are warned that our faith is dead if the hungry come to us and we just pat them on the head and send them on their way without feeding them. God challenges us to do something specific about those in need around us. To fail to do so is to fail the test of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

The poor are blessed because God has always expressed a “preferential option” for watching over, protecting, caring and calling others to care for those who most need it. This includes the poor and the often used phrase of “widows and orphans”.

I think another reason the poor are blessed and promised the kingdom of God is that they are less likely to fall into the idolatry that so easily entices us who are wealthy. As the Scriptures warn us else where it is easy to let the concerns of wealth distract us from God. But to me this seems like little consolation if your family is going to bed hungry. So in the end I’m left to puzzle over this. The poor are blessed by God in ways that I and perhaps they cannot understand.

We are also faced once again with the question of the Kingdom of God and that pesky Greek word basolia which can contain so many meanings. While generally translated kingdom or realm some scholars have suggested that a better translation might well be purpose as I have shared with you before. Looking at this particular part of the passage in this light we get a significantly different meaning. Blessed are the poor because theirs is the purpose of God. This reminds me of the story of the man born blind from birth. When everyone was assuming that he was blind because of his or his parents sins Jesus made quite clear that he was blind to serve the purpose of God. If the poor are indeed part of the purpose of God, what is the reasoning?

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, January 28, 2007

This morning we hear the story of the call of the prophet Jeremiah to service for God. As is fairly common in the calling stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, we find a rather reluctant recipient of the call. And we can hardly blame Jeremiah for this response. Look at the treatment prophets get. When you think about it, a call from God is not necessarily such a great thing. People hate you. They persecute you. They ignore you. They taunt you. It seems that calls from God are not such a great thing. And so Jeremiah pleads to be let off the hook. He is young. He is not an eloquent speaker. But of course, God does not brook excuses. And God gets to the heart of the issue. Not only does God promise to give the words, but God encourages Jeremiah to not be afraid of “them” because God will be with him. God knew that Jeremiah knew the life ahead of a prophet and got to the heart of the matter.

I don’t think that things have changed all that much today. It can be a frightening thing to receive a call from God. Many of us are only too willing to make excuses and try and put God off. But that is rarely a successful endeavor. By our baptism we are all called to serve God in the church and in the world. Others are called to ordained ministry as deacons and priests. That is also a call many of us might like to fight off. I know I tried to ignore my call for quite some time. But God tends to keep after us and eventually it became clear to me that God would not let me off the hook.

Perhaps in your own life you have felt the call of God to a particularly ministry. There are many excuses all of us can use. I’m not good enough. I don’t speak well enough (a perennial favorite in the Hebrew Scriptures). You must be mistaken, you can possible mean me! I don’t have enough talent or time or ability. I am not capable enough. I am not something, anything enough! Our excuses are limited only by our imagination.

If you ever feel overwhelmed by what you think God is calling you to do, take hope. God promises to be with you. You see, God does not call us and then abandon us. God provides what is necessary to answer the call. Some of you today may be struggling with the call of God in your own life. You may be wondering how in the world you can do what God has called you to do. But God does not abandon us. God will follow you and bless you as you follow the path God has set before you.

It is not always easy to follow a call though. Aside from all our personal reservations and concerns we often have to deal with those around us as well who might question our call. Jesus himself had to deal with this situation. In the Gospel of Luke today people drove Jesus out of town, not a particularly warm reception. And yet in other places people were astounded by Jesus. No doubt that as we follow the call of God in our lives we will experience the same sort of responses. Some will doubt or scoff and wonder how in the world God could use someone like me. Others will be excited and supportive.

But when you think about it, that is really life. The key is to find and work with those who are supportive.

Is God calling you to do something? How have you been responding to that call? Are you approaching it willing and hopeful to do what God has called you to do? That is the response God is waiting for. But don’t worry, even if we respond like Jeremiah, or Jonah, or Moses God will still be there working in our lives. God will patiently continue to call you until you respond. To be honest I’m not sure if that should be comforting or scary, but it is true.

If you are worried that you might not be up to the task, don’t. God will give you what you need. Actually, I think God prefers to work through our weaknesses. When God chooses to use us in this way we are unable to try and rely on our own strengths. Instead me must rely on the strength of God working through us.

I learned a fantastic song last weekend. The words go something like this: “You are loved. You are beautiful. You are gift of God, His own possession. You are gift to all mankind. His gift of love to them you are His. God danced the day you were born.” Never forget this. God calls us sometimes to step out of our comfort zone. But we always need to remember that we are loved by God and a gift from God. The idea that God danced the day each of us was born excites me.

We don’t serve a boring or scary or threatening God. We serve a God who danced the day we were born. So when God calls you, don’t make excuses (even if they happen to be true). Instead dance. Dance to answer the call of God in your life.

Sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, January 7, 2007

Who or what is God to you? When you think of God what are the images that come to your mind? These are important questions for us to consider. The portrait we carry of God in our own mind will affect how we see God and how we see God at work in the world and in our lives.

Some of the lessons today speak of God’s revelation of self to others. Perhaps the revelations were exactly what the people expected. Perhaps they were much different from what was expected. As I pondered this idea of God’s self revelation I though about the different way that I or others have viewed God.

Some see God as a sort of cosmic and all powerful Santa Clause. We ask for good things and if we have been nice we can expect to receive. However is we have been naughty we can anticipate the proverbial lump of coal.

Others may see God as a 911 responder to emergencies. The kind of God you make supplication to once in a blue moon. Perhaps when things are so desperate that I have to give up thinking I can handle it myself and toss up a “hail Mary” prayer hoping against hope that since I haven’t prayed to God in so long a while that I will be remembered and saved from whatever horrible circumstances I find myself in.

Others may see God as that benign grandfather. Some what similar to the Santa Clause God, but a little more active and involved in our lives. Giving us all good things, perhaps whether we deserve them or not.

Perhaps some see God as an all powerful and all knowing scorekeeper. A God who keeps track of how well or how poorly we are doing in our life. In the end it is all up to us, but God is constantly looking over our shoulders keep the score.

And of course there is always the option of God as the stern disciplinarian. God standing over us with a long list of rules and regulations which we are expected to keep and if we don’t, we can count on getting our just rewards.

As we look to our lessons for today we will not see any of those images fortunately. Today have heard of God’s self revelation. We will no longer be dealing with the imaginations of ideas of women and men about how God is. Just yesterday was the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany if the feats of the Church which celebrates the revelation of the son of God to the Gentiles in the persons of the magi. But this is a strange revelation. The magi come in search of a king. My guess is that they were looking for a palace, some finely appareled parents and a baby in a setting fit for a king. Instead at the end of their journey they find a baby in poverty. Perhaps the human response might have been to turn away. Certainly the star must be wrong. This baby can’t be the right one. But they accept what God has revealed to them. In spite of their preconceived notions they offer the gifts they have brought for this king.

In the prophet Isaiah today we hear God revealing himself to his people again. God reveals himself as the one who created them, the one who ransomed them, and the one who will be with them. After grieving over the failure of the chosen people to remain faithful to God in chapter 42 God still reaches out to them in love. Here we find not a scorekeeper God, not a Santa, grandfather or any of the other notions one might have of God. Instead we see a God of patience, love, and compassion.

What a comfort it is to know that we still follow a God who unfailingly reaches out to us. No matter our faults, our fears, or our failures, God reaches out to us. The same God who again and again sought out his chosen people Israel will again and again seek us out. God does not count the number of times he has been rejected, but steadily continues to call us out by name. “When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you.”[1] Those are the words of God to a people he is trying to call back to himself. These are the same words God speaks to us when we fail.

The story of the baptism of Jesus in Luke also reveals more of God to us. I think the most important revelation in this story for me is the revelation and reminder that God is a God of relationships. God refers to Jesus as his beloved. This term speaks of a richness of depth that is incomprehensible to me. God could have just announced Jesus as his son or as the messiah, either announcement would have gotten the job done. But God announces Jesus as his beloved son.

This is something we share with Jesus. As children of God through Jesus we likewise are beloved children of God. Having faith and confidence in this truth, we need to do away with revelations of God in our own minds that are inconsistent with this view of sharing in the heritage of a beloved child of God. Those false views of God will only encumber us in our walk with Jesus. They will hold us back and not allow us to enjoy the truth of our relationship with the creator of the universe. That same God who created all in his spoken word speaks to us today and calls us beloved children of God.

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[1] Is. 43:2 (NLT)

Sermon for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006

Peace on earth, good will to all. That is the message of Christmas and as we celebrate the birth of a baby who would become the savior of the world, I wanted to reflect on a Christmas Carol.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Peace on earth, good will to men. That is the message of Christmas. Some of you may recognize the words of this Christmas Carol even though it is absent from our Hymnal. It was written by a man during the holidays several years after the tragic death of his wife. He was still dealing with his feelings of loss and wrote these words to try and help himself heal during the holidays. It was his attempt to try and recover the feelings of the holidays he was so used to experiencing with his wife.

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I can almost feel in my own being that the writer has truly begun to capture the spirit of the Christmas message. The message of peace and good will is a difficult one to reject. You feel this spirit building in each stanza. There can be no doubt that God has done an amazing miracle in the incarnation and that God continues to do amazing things in the world around us. Who would have expected peace on earth and good will to all from a child in a manger.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

These two stanzas may be unfamiliar. They are not found in most songbooks. They are a reference to the Civil War. The author wrote this carol during that conflict but because these two verses clearly don’t play well with the Christmas message they are usually left out. However I think it important that we face them. Then as now we are faced with the terrible reality that humanity has a way with ruining that which God created. We are willing to attack and kill those made in the very image of the creator. It is hard to share the message of peace on earth, good will to all in the face of this reality. How easy it is for the sound of battle, strife, and hate to drown out the message of the Christ child. Christians of good heart and intention are working all over in the world to try and alleviate suffering, starvation and death. And yet what do we hear on the new. Only the sounds of battle. The work of God in the world is drowned out. The next stanza (which is familiar to us and perhaps even better understood in the context of the preceding verses) is:

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

These are strong and powerful sentiments. As Christians they are probably feelings we all can share. When we look out on the world and see so much hatred amongst people and so much apathy to the plight of the poor and the oppressed how can we feel any way other than that the message of peace on earth, good will to all is mocked by the world today. I say an item in the news tonight about a “Christian” game called “Left Behind”. In the game, you can get points for killing those who do not come to faith. What sort of message is that to send, The world is in bad enough shape without the image of Christians gaining points for killing people.

But our song ends in triumph and not defeat:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

The message of Christmas is that God is not dead. The same Jesus who appeared in the manger as a child, who lived his life on earth and finally laid his life down on the cross is not dead. God is alive and well in the world today. We know that in the end wrong shall indeed fail and right will prevail and the message of peace on earth, good will to all will come true.

God calls on each and every one of us to do our part. God calls on us to work for the kingdom today. No matter how bleak the future looks, no matter how impossible the task seems, God calls for us to speak out, to take our place in the world today working to make this world a world where the message of peace on earth, good will to all can seem like a possibility.

As we celebrate the birth of a savior in a lowly manger and as we look forward to the new year to come, let us not give up hope. When people ask me why God allows this or that evil in the world today, my response is why do we? What evil in the world can you work on making right. Go out and do you part to bring peace on earth and good will to all.