Senior Sermon

Senior Sermon at Virginia Theological Seminary
September 8, 2010
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5, 13-17; Luke 14:25-33

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"Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,
but you, O LORD, know it altogether." Amen.

When I was in my first year of college, a friend in my dorm taught me to knit. She gave me some beautiful purple wool, helped me pick out the right needles, and got me started on my first scarf. Stitch by stitch, I started to get the hang of it, and I plugged away for weeks on that thing. Every now and then I would drop a stitch or the scarf would start to look a little too much like swiss cheese, so I would drag it upstairs and Kate would straighten it out. One of those times, though, the damage was too great for a quick fix. Kate declared that we were going to have to pull out several rows of my masterpiece in order to get those stitches back on track, and I watched in horror as she did just that. There are times when starting over is the only way forward. Jeremiah and Jesus offer us variations on that theme in today's lessons.

Jeremiah was writing on the eve of Jerusalem's destruction and the Babylonian Captivity, calling out to the people of Judah to prevent this impending disaster by changing their behavior. Jeremiah probably came from the same community that brought us the final version of the book of Deuteronomy, so he was almost certainly recalling the beautiful words we heard yesterday. But his people had not loved the Lord with all their heart and soul and might; they had not kept God's words in their hearts; they had not bound them into their lives. So Jeremiah warned them again and again to repent, literally in Hebrew to turn, shuv. The prophet knew that if the people of God continued in their broken ways, God would have to unravel their history and start again, and repentance, turning, was the only way to avoid what Jeremiah saw coming. But his message was not heeded; the people did not turn; and within just a few years of his warning Jerusalem lay in ruins and its people were slaves in a foreign land once again. As Jeremiah predicted, God was re-forming his people.

Our gospel lesson is also about starting over, but Jesus is not talking about starting over as something we should try to avoid. Rather, it is a condition of discipleship. Jesus asks us to unravel ourselves and the very fabric of our lives in order to become his followers. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." The Greek verb for "hate," miseo, has a more nuanced meaning than this English translation implies. It's not referring to an emotion as much as a dramatic shift in priorities – "hating" something means subjugating it to a higher ideal. Being a disciple of Christ has to come first, and everything else – even your closest relationships and life itself – has to come second. So this message is a little bit less harsh than it sounds initially, but it's still a very tall order.

I remember the opening day of VTS orientation, when my class was gathered together for the very first time, shivering in the back of the auditorium. Dean Markham asked us all to introduce ourselves and name the one thing that had been the most difficult about moving to seminary. There were stories about cats vomiting all the way from Kentucky to Virginia, adventures in IKEA, and getting lost driving around Alexandria, and we all had a good chuckle. I realized later that not one of us had given the real answer to that question – not one of us had talked about quitting jobs, selling houses, leaving behind co-workers and church communities, hugging our family and friends goodbye. But those things didn't really need mentioning, because everyone in this room knows what those painful sacrifices were like. I'm really preaching to the choir here today, because you are all well acquainted with the cost of discipleship and the pain that accompanies starting over in service of Christ.

But I hope you are also here because you have had a glimpse of where that decision is leading you, because you have felt the hand of God beginning to mold and transform your life into a new vessel that is stronger than the old one. Jeremiah introduced us to a God who breaks down and destroys but who also builds and plants, and when the prophet tried to understand the impending obliteration of Jerusalem in theological terms, destruction wasn't the end of the story. Destruction came in service of God's ongoing creation. Likewise, when Jesus set his face to Jerusalem and invited us to leave everything behind and come along, he invited us to witness not just his crucifixion but also his resurrection.

When my friend Kate pulled those rows of yarn out of my scarf, I thought the whole thing would fall apart. But, in fact, the thing that was weakening it most was my own stubbornness in clinging to every stitch as a precious artifact and plowing ahead even when I knew I wasn't doing my best. She could see ahead to a stronger, better scarf, one that I still wear to this day, and she knew that starting again was the only way to attain a final work that was good and whole.

Coming to seminary is not the first or the last time you will re-orient your life for God's service. But amidst the pain of turning and amending our lives, of shifting our priorities, of starting over, we rest in the hands of a Creator God – a knitting God, no less – a God of resurrection. No one says this more eloquently than our psalmist, so I leave you with these words: "You press upon me behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well." Amen.

The Gospel of 'Glee'

Sermon for the Preaching Excellence Conference, June 2010, Villanova University

Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 

“In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams. 

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

and they shall prophesy. 

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Preaching Jesus. That's our assignment for this week, and it sounds simple enough, right? Pick a gospel lesson and go. Actually, as I thought about this topic over the past couple weeks, I found it more challenging than I originally expected. So last Sunday when we read this lesson from Acts for Pentecost, I was glad to be reminded that I'm not alone. The book of Acts is all about those early disciples wrestling with this same question: how to preach Jesus. When Jesus was alive, he did most of the preaching; he told his own story, and the disciples were mostly apprentices. But suddenly Jesus is gone, and the entire burden of spreading the gospel rests upon them. It's really no small assignment, then or now.

So instead of tackling this topic with full force when school let out, I pretty much ignored it. Instead, I parked myself on my couch to watch the entire first season of the hit TV series "Glee." Now I see what everyone was talking about – and enjoying, while I was buried under theology, homiletics, & field ed this year. Before I even got through the first DVD, I was a full-fledged Gleek.

For those of you who have also been living in a cave this year, a synopsis: "Glee" is the story of a passionate, hard-working, very good-looking high school teacher who takes over the school's dying Glee Club and attempts to transform it into an award-winning show choir, with costumes, choreography, and even a little Lady Gaga. Lucky for him, William McKinley High School has a few supremely talented teenagers running around – and lucky for me, it's a really good metaphor for the early church. So I will venture to present five things "Glee" teaches us about preaching Jesus.

1. Strength in numbers
In Glee, the official "Show Choir Rule Book" specifies that in order to be eligible for competition, a group must have at least 12 members. During the first half of the season, nearly every episode deals with the ever-elusive quest to reach and maintain this magical number. At least one person is always walking out or threatening to quit, thereby endangering the entire existence of the Glee Club. But they always come back, restoring the original number, and the show goes on.

With two years of seminary under our belts, we all know how important the number 12 is, Biblically speaking. After Jesus ascends in Acts, the first thing the disciples do is hold auditions for a twelfth member. Before they can even begin to preach the gospel, they have to make sure they're within regulation. In this case, the rule book is that of divine necessity, of fulfilling the scriptures, a major theme for the writer of Luke and Acts. Without a full 12 members, the group will remain divided and thus Israel will remain divided, and God's plan to restore Israel will be ruined. So yes, in reality 11 disciples could have picked up the slack in getting the early church going and spreading the good news, but their insistence on having a total of 12 represents their knowledge of how important scripture and tradition are in providing stability for the message they will proclaim.

Second point: Preaching Jesus requires a common language
Like the original 12 disciples, the Glee Club at William McKinley High School is a rag-tag bunch. They have been called from all corners of high school society – some are football players and cheerleaders at the top of the heap, while the others are regularly thrown in the dumpster or have slushies thrown in their faces by those same popular kids. But they can all sing. And while some of the members originally join the group under duress or with ulterior motives, they soon discover this common language. They discover connections they never would have known if they hadn't joined Glee Club. In one of my favorite episodes, Mr. Schuester, the director, makes everyone spend a week navigating life in a wheelchair, so they can relate to Artie, their fellow singer who has spent most of his life in a wheelchair. To sing and perform effectively as a group, they have to be aware of their differences, but also of the things that connect them.

The author of Acts tells us basically the same thing. Suddenly Parthians, Medes, and Elamites understand each other. It's important to note that they don't all begin to speak the same language, but that they begin to hear one another, each in his or her own native language. The Holy Spirit makes this unity possible, and suddenly the crowd understands that they've all been saying the same thing all along. They have all been "speaking about God's deeds of power." Once they understand each other's languages, and what they have in common, they can finally hear and preach the good news.

This leads me to point #3, which is that preaching Jesus is often misunderstood
On the ladder of popularity, being a music nerd barely gets a foothold on the bottom rung. I can speak from experience on that one. In Glee, the football players and cheerleaders who take up singing have the hardest time explaining themselves to their peers. Their fellow jocks aren’t able to hear their common language of music and the connections it reveals between us, because that would upset their carefully crafted social order. So the "popular" Glee kids begin to experience the same threats and derision their nerdy counterparts are long familiar with.

Doesn't this remind you of the response of the crowd to the descent of the Holy Spirit. It's not: "Wow! This is amazing! How do I get to be part of this?" but "Ah, they're just drunk." Sometimes, even when we're doing our best, even when the Holy Spirit is speaking through us, the message can fall completely flat, by no fault of our own. The gospel doesn't always sound like good news the first time around (or the second, or the third), and no one knew that better than Jesus himself. But if it makes everyone feel comfortable and satisfies the status quo, it's probably not the true gospel. Preaching Jesus in a genuine way rarely leads to popularity.

4. We have to preach Jesus out of our own experience
Of course there are a lot of show stoppers in Glee, but it's not all song and dance. The music is set against the backdrop of each kid's individual life, and there's a lot of drama: Kurt has recently come out of the closet to his dad; Quinn was disowned by her parents and kicked off the cheerleading squad when she got pregnant; Fin's mom has just started dating for the first time since his dad died; and even Mr. Schuester has his own fair share of drama. All of this affects their performance in various ways, good and bad. At one point, Kurt (the one who just came out of the closet) tries to regain his dad's affection by ditching his usual designer wardrobe and dressing in flannel and truckers' hats. When he breaks out into a John Mellencamp tune, his friends politely point out that, while it is technically a fine performance, it's just not him.

The original disciples each had an individual relationship with Jesus. They had all witnessed the same person and the same events, but each one interpreted them through the lens of his own life and his own connection with Christ. While we don’t have the same physical connection 2,000 years later, we do all have our own relationship with Jesus. Our parishioners don't want to hear us preach someone else's gospel. They want to hear us preach about what the stories of salvation have meant in our own lives, so they can figure out the same thing for themselves. As preachers, we are not islands. We are real people living in time and space and relationships. To be authentic, we have to meet Jesus in our own lives and preach about what we find.

Finally, and perhaps most important, preaching Jesus requires passion and joy. Or, shall I say, glee. I've now used this word about a hundred times in this sermon, but it's one that's fallen out of common English usage for the most part – least of all in reference to religion. I think one of the reasons Glee has been such a popular show is that everyone wants to relate to that feeling of spontaneous song and dance, the unmatched excitement of choreography and jazz hands. We all want to think we could let go and have that much fun.

Even in our Pentecost lesson, Peter turns to Hebrew poetry from the prophet Joel to best express what is happening among the disciples – he pretty much breaks into song. “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." It's beautiful, and moving. I think we're all here because we hope our preaching can move people in the same way, and we know that it can be much more than brushing up on a few commentaries and listening to the sound of our own voice for 12 minutes. I'm not saying that preaching on sitcoms is the answer, but tapping into whatever it is that brings passion and joy into your life, because that is where Jesus dwells. So as we walk through this week together and then go our separate ways again, I hope you will find yourself surrounded by prophesy, visions, and dreams, preaching Jesus with a song in your heart.

Potty Talk

Do you know how, when you go on a trip, there's usually one image that sticks in your memory as the first one that comes to mind when you think back to that adventure? For me, when I recall my month-long immersion in Myanmar last January, the first thing I remember is the day we spent in the small village of Hmawbi.

We ten seminarians worshipped on Sunday morning at the village church, St. Michael's, and afterward we were divided into small groups to visit parishioners' homes. I had three or four students from Holy Cross Theological College guiding me around, translating, and making sure I didn't embarrass ourselves too much with cultural faux pas. My group visited three or four homes, and at each one I was seated in a central place of honor and asked to tell my story - where I was from, what my family is like, what I'm studying, what my ministry involves. Then I was asked to pray for the family gathered around me. (At one home I was asked to sing a song.) And then I was fed - and fed, and fed, until I thought I would pop. In these small grass huts in the Burmese countryside, we were showered with fruit and cake and tea in china teacups. It was not unlike the feeding of the 5,000.

We learned a great deal that day about radical hospitality and generosity to the point of giving beyond your means. We knew that in almost all of those homes we were being given gifts that those families really weren't able to give, but they did because that was what it meant to them to live in a Christian community of welcome. So when we received a request from the people of St. Michael's to help them build two modern toilets with plumbing, it seemed like a small gesture of generosity on our part. We appealed to the seminary community for 100 people to give $10. For us, $10 is well within our means. It is the cost of a movie ticket or, in Alexandria at least, going out for a pretty cheap dinner - two things that the people of Hmawbi will probably never in their lives do.

The World Toilet Organization estimates that every dollar donated to improving sanitation in developing countries ends up brings $9 in value to a community. So a $10 donation will benefit the people of Hmawbi with a value of $90 or more. We ended up with the equivalent of 160 people giving $10 to help their Christian neighbors around the world. This money will travel home with our dear classmate Lwin Thida when she returns in May. She will bring the gift of this money and a strong message of communion from the VTS community to the people of Hmawbi.

Doubting Thomas

Sermon Preached at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (April 11)
Second Sunday in Easter, Year C: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31

Earlier this week I took an online quiz on the web site beliefnet.com called "What is your spiritual type?" It was asking all sorts of questions about what you think about the afterlife, scripture, the created world, prayer, etc. And when you completed the quiz you were placed into one of several categories based on the number of points you scored. So here's the bad news: to make it into the "candidate for clergy" category, you had to score between 90 and 100 points. But I, your St. Aidan's seminarian, only got 71 points. And that score landed me squarely in the category of "Questioning Believer."

At least I'm in good company. I imagine that many of you in this room could also classify yourselves as questioning believers. And you, like me, might breathe a sigh of relief when you hear the story of Thomas in this morning's gospel. This story is often read as an advertisement for taking a leap of faith, for leaving doubt behind. Nowadays, we don't call someone a 'Doubting Thomas' as a compliment, but rather as disparagement when we think they're being a stick in the mud, too cautious or too timid. But I think this story could actually be an endorsement of doubt.

Let's take a closer look. Thomas makes his terms and conditions very clear: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." And so a week goes by, a week where Thomas is still wrestling with whether the other disciples are pulling his leg, and where the other disciples are probably nagging him or feeling annoyed at him because he won't believe their eyewitness account. But then Jesus appears again, and after his greeting of peace, he turns right to Thomas. And he invites him to do all of those things that he said he needed in order to believe.

What Jesus says to Thomas as he makes this offer is translated for us as "Do not doubt but believe." However, in the original Greek it says fairly clearly, "Do not be disbelieving but believing." There is a big difference between doubting and disbelieving. Jesus knew that Thomas had doubts. He just hoped that those doubts would ultimately lead him to believing, rather than disbelieving, and that's why he returned to that room. He wanted Thomas, one of his original disciples, to be able to go out into the world with conviction, proclaiming the message of the resurrection. He said that it's great if you don't need to see to believe, but he doesn't condemn Thomas for needing that. Thomas needed to see to believe, and Jesus made that happen for him.

There's a radio program that I usually listen to on my way to St. Aidan's called "Speaking of Faith." It comes on at 7 a.m. every Sunday morning – apparently our public radio schedulers have assumed that the only people who would be interested in a show with a religious focus are the ones who already get up early on Sundays. And they may be right. Anyway, a few months ago they did an interview with poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht, who had written a book about the history of doubt. Hecht makes the point that Christianity is the first major religion to develop after a tradition of skepticism had become part of our greater cultural mindset, thanks to the Greek philosophical tradition. Before that, religion was mostly about doing the right thing, like making sacrifices at the right place and the right time, and as long as you did the right thing it didn't matter so much what you believed. But the Skeptics and the Cynics taught people in Greek and Roman societies that they could question their traditional pantheon of gods. Some rejected religion altogether, but others turned to Christianity instead. Hecht says that only very recently has doubt become narrowly equated with total rejection of faith rather than a healthy process of discernment. It used to be one of that ways early Christians arrived at their beliefs. Doubt is part of our DNA as Christians.

John spoke in his Easter sermon about belief as something that can be gradual, something that we live into little by little. Some of us can't just jump into the deep end of a pool. We have to start in the shallow end, waiting for the water to warm up before we step farther. The story of Thomas is reminding us of the same thing, acknowledging that there are many different varieties of believers in this world. In fact, the last verse of this lesson is really unusual, in that it is directed at us as readers and hearers of this story, especially those who are still hanging out in the shallow end of the pool. "These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." None of us will have the chance to see Christ's resurrected body the way Thomas did, but now these stories become our witnesses. Maybe they allow us to take small steps toward the deep end, until eventually we come to realize that we are swimming in a pool of living water.

So that hokey quiz I took, about my spiritual type, was actually for one of my classes at seminary. It's a class where, for six weeks, we're looking at the growing phenomenon of people who describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." So far the class has been fairly depressing, because it has highlighted the great variety of reasons why more and more people end up defining themselves in this way, many of which involve having been hurt by the church. To many people, the word "religion" is loaded: it means sex scandals in the Catholic Church or suicide bombers or being told they're going to hell because they weren't saved in the right way or mechanical liturgy that doesn't leave room for spirituality. Why would anyone want to wade farther into those waters? Unfortunately, these are often the only images of religion and faith that get projected in our culture. And we as believers often aren't very skilled at conveying our own faith, at articulating it so that others will have a deeper understanding of the life we have in his name. I wonder how the other disciples tried to convince Thomas of what they'd seen. Did they describe what those healing wounds looked like and how they felt when they saw them? Did they tell Thomas what Jesus was wearing, or mention those familiar mannerisms that let them know this was really their lord? Or did they say, "Hey, you just had to be there, man."

I think Jesus commissions us with three things in this story:

Number 1: Don't be afraid to doubt. Doubt is the constant companion of maturing faith. It means that we're not accepting things just for their surface value. Jesus invited Thomas to name his doubts, to bring them forward. He invites us to do the same. And this very room is one of the best places to offer up your doubts – bring them to worship, bring them to coffee hour, just don't keep them locked away, pretending they don't exist.

Number 2: At the same time, be imaginative and active in seeking those things that help you wade into deeper waters. The evidence of God's saving love, of Christ's passion, is all around us. But what helps you "come to believe" is not necessarily what helps the person sitting next to you come to believe. If the definition of what you think you're supposed to believe feels too narrow, widen your scope. Name what you need to see to believe, and then be on the lookout for it. It may appear right in front of you, in a room you thought was locked.

Number 3: When you have those experiences of swimming in living water, keep building your toolbox of how to share that with others. If those of us who aren't afraid to define ourselves as "religious" aren't able to explain why, or answer questions about the deep riches of faith and tradition, we'll be swimming alone. So come to adult forum (hint hint – I'm starting a series this morning about the prayer book, hope to see you there), try daily Bible reading, keep asking questions in coffee hour, maybe even get up next week at 7 to listen to "Speaking of Faith" on public radio (or download their podcasts)! No matter what, keep learning new vocabulary to describe whatever it is that brings you here on Sunday mornings – not just "You have to be there."

I would be interested to hear more about the things you doubt, the ways you discover Christ's love in your life, and what you want to learn more about. And I invite you - from one questioning believer to another. Come on in – the water's fine.

Good Friday meditation

April 2, 2010
St. Aidan's, Alexandria

What part of this story could we leave out and still have the story we need? That is a question we ask sometimes with children in Godly Play, when we are "wondering" about the stories of scripture. What part of this story could we leave out and still have the story we need?

Of course we can't leave out Jesus, or the cross. They are the focal point of this story, the focal point of our faith. Generations of theologians have spelled out the necessity of this moment for our salvation. Christ's sacrifice is not something we can leave out of our Christian story.

But there are many other characters in our gospel lesson for this day. What about them? Could we leave them out? Are they distracting us from the main focus of what Good Friday is all about?

There's Judas and his betrayal. Judas came to the garden with soldiers and weapons, in fear and defense, even though Jesus gave himself up without a fight. Only hours after the Last Supper, Judas gave up his Lord to his death. Why did it have to be someone in Jesus' inner circle, someone who had followed him and his teachings, who gave him up? It would be nice to leave this part out.

There's Peter and his denial. Peter denied his connection with Christ; he denied being a disciple; he denied even being seen with Jesus. One of Jesus' most beloved disciples, the one who was the first to recognize him as the Messiah, failed him when it mattered most. Jesus' betrayal and death are cruel enough, without this extra layer of disloyalty from one of his most faithful friends. This part is hard to reconcile with the rest of the story.

There's Pilate and his conviction. Pilate wrestled with his conscience, and with his power. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, but he was afraid to take responsibility for releasing him. Instead, he passed the buck. He tried to prevent his own guilt by handing Jesus back over to the angry mob, knowing full well what they intended to do. If Pilate had just been a cruel or careless dictator, it might be easier to accept his decision. But he knowingly condemned an innocent man to death, over his better instincts. How do we reconcile this part of the story?

Mary and the other disciples also trouble us in this story. Mary, the mother of Jesus, looked up at the cross remembering her baby boy. The other women probably tried to keep her away, but she had to be there. She who had witnessed Jesus' first moments of life had to be there to witness his last. Why did she have to watch her child die? I would really like to leave this part out.

And then, right at the end, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came out of hiding to honor their savior. They acted quickly and furtively, to prepare Jesus' body before the Sabbath. They brought expensive spices, doing work that normally would have fallen to the women of the community. And then they disappeared as quickly as they had come. Is their role important to our story?

You may have discovered someone among this cast of characters that you would like to leave out, someone who complicates the story too much or makes its heaviness too much to bear. But there is a danger, when we talk about Jesus' death on the cross, to speak of it as a concept rather than as a real, live historical event, something that happened in real time with real people. So these other folks, who are huddled around the cross in various ways, anchor this moment in history and in humanity, and they also help us anchor ourselves in the story. Because, ultimately, WE are a part of the story that can't be left out. We betray and deny and convict, but we also wait and suffer and anoint. When we look into this story, Judas and Peter and Pilate and Mary and Joseph of Arimathea reflect pieces of our own image back at us.

One of the Holy Week hymns in our hymnal says:

“Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended? By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted. Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. ‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee. For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation, thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation; thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion, for my salvation.”

We now have a few moments to sit with this story and to sit with the cross. If you’d like, you may move closer to the cross, to look at it and contemplate it more closely. And as we move through this time in silence, I invite you to do your own wondering. Where do you find yourself in this story? How have you participated in Christ’s moment of suffering? How do you accept this sacrifice?

You can write your reflections on your piece of paper and, as you feel comfortable, lay your paper in the offering basket at the foot of the cross.

Sermon Preached in Class (December 8) and at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (February 28)
Second Sunday in Lent, Year C: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom then shall I fear? *
the LORD is the strength of my life;
of whom then shall I be afraid?

Of all the powerful stories in the Hebrew Bible, today’s reading from Genesis is one of the very most significant. This story is the story from which all those after it will proceed, the moment when God makes a solemn and binding covenant with one man and all his descendants, marking them as chosen by God. This is the story that was told around the campfires and dinner tables of those chosen people for generation upon generation until it was finally written down several centuries later. But even though Abram is ultimately remembered as the patriarch of the Hebrew nation and the father of faith, his story was recorded in such a way that we can see that he wasn’t exactly chosen because he had his act together. Abram obeyed God’s initial call a couple chapters earlier to leave his home and everything familiar to settle in the land promised to him in Canaan, but he ended up in Egypt for a spell, where he tried to pass off his wife Sarai as his sister so she could join Pharaoh’s household and gain his favor. And after getting kicked out of Egypt, Abram separated from his nephew Lot, the only family he had left. On top of all this, Abram and Sarai have never been able to have a child. So when God re-appears in this morning’s passage, Abram has been wandering in the wilderness, literally and figuratively, and he’s had just about enough.

God shows up in a vision with words of reassurance and promise, but for Abram those words are hollow, because in his culture God could give him the entire world, but it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have offspring to pass it on to. Without a son, the inheritance of land that God has promised is basically worthless. So even though Abram has in many respects just won the lottery – he’s an ordinary and sinful guy who has been hand picked by God for an amazing inheritance – he doesn’t rejoice or even say ‘thanks.’ Instead, he vents! “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless?” Dialogue in Hebrew is typically back and forth, with people politely taking turns, but Abram interrupts God to take another turn, in case that last point wasn’t clear. “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born of my house is to be my heir!” In other words, this makes no sense! God has picked the wrong guy!

God waits like a patient parent for Abram to finish his fit and soon realizes that words are not getting the point across. So God gently nudges Abram out the door and asks him a trick question: “Can you count the stars?” Unfortunately, most of us are usually in places where we can count the stars, but Abram would have seen a whole sky-full, so dense they looked like a gauzy film across the dark sky. God doesn’t explain the meaning of this exercise right away, so I imagine this space between sentences as the time where Abram actually tries to count, and you can just imagine him craning his neck, leeeeeeeeeeaning back to try to get a good look.

A couple summers ago my husband and I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at the night sky from Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. Some of the largest telescopes in the world reside at Mauna Kea’s summit – it is 300 miles away from the nearest big city, and at over 13,000 feet its views are unpolluted by light or obstacles. Our guide for the evening, Buck, spent two hours mapping out the night sky for us: all the major constellations of the zodiac, Orion, the Big Dipper, the Pleiades, and a special treat – the Southern Cross. I have never seen so many stars, and I probably never will again. But, since then, every time I have been far enough out of a major city to see more than a handful of stars, I have been transported back to that wild, amazing place, and I can hear Buck’s voice explaining how those stars are all connected in an intricate and beautiful pattern.
Most of the stars I saw that night are the same ones God pointed out to Abram. And when Abram saw them he suddenly understood that God was serious, that God hadn’t chosen the wrong guy. He understood that he wasn’t expected to do anything except move forward as if God’s promise was true, even if it didn’t make sense, and that’s how he came to be known as an example of faith. And every night a visible reminder of that promise appeared in the sky above him, so when he forgot, when he felt unworthy, when he felt like he would never be a father and would never have a home again, all he had to do was look up. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would we believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their smile.”

Abram didn’t receive offspring right away, and he was still surprised when he did, but for the rest of his life, when he looked at those stars, he could remember that vision, he could remember God’s voice showing him the map of his inheritance, that intricate and beautiful pattern. When he finally had a son, he told him this story, and the son told his son, and he told his son…on and on until this very morning. And each of us is one of those stars, an heir of God’s promise.

But here’s the catch: To see an infinity of stars, you don’t have to be an ancient Middle Eastern shepherd, and you don’t have to be on Mauna Kea, but I think you do have to be in the wilderness. It is hard to see the stars from, say, Times Square, where we are surrounded by a glow of prosperity. When we are surrounded by light, when we are surrounded by prosperity and fulfillment, our eyes are clouded and the sky may look dark and empty. God sent Abram into the wilderness so that his vision could become clear. And as Abram’s story continues through his descendants, the wilderness is where the Israelites will always encounter God. That’s why Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, and that’s why we send ourselves into a metaphorical wilderness during this season every year.

Last year during Holy Week I joined a few folks at seminary in doing a juice fast. From the afternoon of Palm Sunday all the way until the evening Maundy Thursday service, we drank only juice and broth. It was kind of crazy, and to be honest I didn’t really think I could make it through the week without cheating, but it seemed like an important thing to try at least once. The fasting got really hard every evening around what would have been dinnertime, and that’s when I came the closest to running to the cupboard to have just one little bitty Cheez-it, or maybe two. On the second night of this, I was sprawled on the couch in misery, trying not to think about my kitchen cupboards, feeling weak and certain that I would not get through the rest of the week. But at that moment my eyes fell on a statue I had brought back from a seminary mission trip to Myanmar last year, a statue of a woman who is kneeling in fervent prayer, with her hands raised up and her face gazing straight up toward heaven. It reminded me of all the people I met there who are hungry every day, and not by choice, who live in a type of wilderness that I will never know. And so that hungry time each evening, when I wanted to throw in the towel, became a time of prayer for me, a type of raw, vulnerable prayer that I hadn’t experienced before. I probably sounded something like Abram, listing off the things that were just not adding up. But overall that is a week that I remember as having great clarity. I wasn’t ravenously hungry all the time, but I became keenly aware of food, and I realized how often and how much I eat during a normal day. Suddenly I was able to see the abundance that had been existing all around me, abundance that I had never asked for: food at my fingertips all the time, my loving family, opportunities to travel and explore and study. I saw God’s grace in my life. I saw stars.

I’m not recommending that you try juice fasting at home, and the jury’s still out on whether I’ll do that ever again, but it helped me to see the importance of separating ourselves for a time from the abundance and light that can cloud our vision. Whether our wilderness is something symbolic that we undertake during this season, or the dark places of our lives that we already inhabit, God will meet us there. That is how we too become people of faith, by allowing that hand to lead us outside, by craning our necks to look toward heaven. There is no wilderness that is too dark for God’s light. In fact, that is where we are most able to see it.

Sermon for November 29

Sermon Preached in Class (November 10) and at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (November 29)
First Sunday of Advent, Year C: Jeremiah 33:14-16, Psalm 25:1-9, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36
Rebecca Edwards

In his novel The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen tells the story of a typical Midwestern family that is falling apart at the seams as Christmas approaches. At one point, the story focuses in on the family matriarch – Enid Lambert - as she begins to prepare for the holiday:

“For as long as anyone could remember, the Tuesday ladies’ group at the church had raised money by manufacturing Advent calendars. They were beautifully hand-sewn and reusable. A green felt Christmas tree was stitched to a square of bleached canvas with twelve numbered pockets across the top and another twelve across the bottom. On each morning of Advent your children took an ornament from a pocket – a tiny rocking horse of felt and sequins, or a yellow felt turtledove, or a sequin-encrusted toy soldier – and pinned it to the tree. Even now, with her children all grown, Enid continued to shuffle and distribute the ornaments in their pockets every November 30. Only the ornament in the twenty-fourth pocket was the same every year: a tiny plastic Christ child in a walnut shell spray-painted gold. Although Enid generally fell far short of fervor in her Christian beliefs, she was devout about this ornament. To her it was an icon not merely of the Lord but of her own three babies and of all the sweet baby-smelling babies of the world. She’d filled the twenty-fourth pocket for thirty years, she knew very well what it contained, and still the anticipation of opening it could take her breath away.”

Though we still have a couple more days to prepare our Advent calendars, today is the first Sunday of Advent in the church calendar and the beginning of a new church year. For most of us, Advent represents the go-ahead that we can start getting ready for Christmas. It’s time to dig ornaments out of the attic and get serious about our shopping lists. Like Enid, we are anticipating the birth of the baby Jesus and the joy of the Christmas season as the ultimate reward for this season of frenzied preparation.

BUT today’s gospel lesson doesn’t sound at all like this warm holiday vision. Truthfully, I have my doubts that all of us even listened to the entire reading today, because it is so far from our normal frames of reference that we tend to almost automatically tune it out. So I’ll give you a quick recap of what Jesus predicts: distress, confusion, fainting from fear and foreboding, the powers of heaven being shaken, signs in the heavens, and the roaring of sea and waves. The Son of Man will come and heaven and earth will pass away. The writer of this gospel and almost all early Christians genuinely expected Jesus to return at any time, but as for us – well, this story was written 2,000 years ago and none of this stuff has happened yet, so why should we start to worry now? Very few of us these days walk around with a palpable fear that the world will end tomorrow.

And yet while we may not expect the powers of heaven to be shaken tomorrow, I daresay that we have all experienced moments when it felt like our world was ending: losing a job, ending a relationship, sitting in a hospital waiting room expecting the worst. This gospel lesson was written out of the Jews’ deep pain at seeing their temple in Jerusalem destroyed, their holy of holies razed to the ground, the unimaginable coming true. One commentary I read explained that Apocalyptic literature is about “the end of the world as we now experience it and the beginning of a new world.” First-century Jewish Christians were trying to figure out how to reconstruct their world, and this lesson is an insight into how they were able to do that in the midst of their pain. It encouraged them to remember that every day could be their last day, to remember that the world as they knew it could pass away before their eyes.

This fall I received devastating news from the school where I worked for several years before coming to seminary. One of our recent graduates – a smart, friendly young man - had reached a point in his four-year battle with cancer where nothing more could be done. At the age of 19, he has entered hospice care at home, knowing that he has only a short time left to live. His family’s worst nightmare, coming true. But over these last few weeks of Joe’s life, his mother has offered up a beautiful gift. She has posted regular updates on a web site for friends and family, giving testament to how she and her family are looking into the eyes of this apocalypse in their lives and how they have learned to live in the face of this destruction. Here are a few of the things she has shared:

• On October 10: We have had another day with our family. Off and on, when Joe has the energy we are choosing pictures for his slide show. He rests most of the day. The bedtime routine is now all of us gathering in his room until his medicine takes him off to sleep. Every day is a blessing now and we hold on tight through the night hoping for another day.

• On October 16: We never know what the next day will bring, but our first wish is that Joe will wake up. It is ironic we all speak of living each day to the fullest, and in reflection we always think we do, but in reality we don't. Our family has had the best and fullest days this past week. I can't think of another time, trip or gathering that has been better. Each of us will remember these past few days forever and I am pretty sure it will not be with sadness.

• Or just last week: There are so many times I watch Joe sleep wondering what could have been without this horrible cancer. I ask why he was not one of the survivors, giving him the chance to live his life, fulfill his dreams, fall in love and have a family of his own. Since the onset of his cancer I have searched for an answer but have never discovered why it is Joe, why our days have been filled with this heartbreak. So after almost four years I have given up searching for the answer since it will elude me. Instead I strive to focus my energy toward enjoying every day, not what the future will bring nor dwell on time that has past. Ironically, I have found over these past weeks that living in the present is comforting, and I think this is a peaceful way to live.

Joe’s parents and younger brothers have spent nearly two months together in that room doing everything in their power to savor their time together: sleeping on the floor at Joe’s bedside to catch every waking moment, recounting favorite memories, re-reading beloved books, planning Joe’s memorial service with him, saying their goodbyes over and over.

The truth is that for each of us, every day is a gift from God, but we so easily forget this. Unlike those early Christians, we go through our days expecting many more. But Advent is not about complacent expectation of more days to come that will be even better than these ones: Advent seeks to jolt us back into remembrance that all time is holy time. If we can live our lives in expectation that everything we know and love could pass away, we can start to live free from what Jesus called “dissipation, drunkenness, and all the worries of this life.” When we can look at the world with this Advent perspective, we can put on the armor of light; we can see and do what matters most. We can stand up and raise our heads, for our redemption comes near in that awareness of how precious our time is.

So yes, in Advent we anticipate Christ, but not just the little baby in a walnut shell. We anticipate Christ in his second coming, the Christ who can shake the powers of the heavens, and we learn to face this possibility and guard our hearts from the things that distract us from living our lives fully until then. What if your anticipation of Christ’s coming was as palpable as that of Enid Lambert, who knew full well what was in that tiny pocket but still found the wind knocked out of her every Christmas Eve? What if you made New Year’s resolutions now, at the beginning of this church year, instead of waiting for January 1st? What if you filled the pockets of your Advent calendar with ways to embrace this season as holy time, things that look something like what Joe’s family is doing to make sacred their last days together, things like being more patient with your kids or your spouse, honking less in the parking lot at the mall, trying to see the best in your crazy relatives, spending less but giving more? Living our lives this way is our prayer for strength to stand before the Son of Man, to stand in the face of knowledge that the world can and will end.

Today’s gospel challenges us to live with clarity, to live with alertness, to live with kindness, to live like it really means something. Do you accept the challenge?