1.25.09 - 3 Epiphany, Cathedral, Bethlehem Year B The Rev. Canon Jane Teter
In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Give us grace, O lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, … (Collect for the day).
When I was a child, one of the more important pieces of family equipment was an old iron bell. My mother used this bell to call us home for dinner and other family activities. Its gong would sound throughout the neighborhood, and my brother and I would abandon games of hide-and-see, cowboys and Indians, and turn our skates and bicycles around and head home.
Because we knew the consequences of not immediately heeding its summons, we quickly responded to the bell. Even the neighbors knew what it meant. Our passage home was often accompanied by a neighbor calling out, “your Mother is calling.”
The calls in today’s Gospel demand a similar kind of obedience, even if they are profoundly different from my mother’s dinner bell. Jesus issues two calls, one universal and one particular. Though their scope is different, both insist on an immediate response.
The first call defines Jesus’ message in three simple phrases, “This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand! Reform your lives and believe in the good news!” Isn’t that the heart of the Christian vocation? - “this is the time of fulfillment, the reign of God is at hand, reform your lives and believe the good news.” To know that here and now God is completing the work of redemption in our lives? To hear in that good news the invitation to become more than we ever thought imaginable?
Only from the center of that first calling can we begin to understand the second, not as something that was given to the disciples there and then, but to us at this moment. For Jesus takes the universal call of his preaching and he calls Simon and Andrew, James and John, you and me, to follow him.
But notice how he does it – it is not simply a matter of call; but to call from; to call to. Unlike my mother’s bell, the call of Jesus doesn’t demand that we abandon what we are doing but that we transform it. Simon and Andrew will no longer be simple fishermen. They will fish for people. James and John will leave their father not to abandon their family but to belong to a larger family: those who hear the word of God and keep it.
It is the same for us today. Each one of us is called to use our particular talents and limitations to further the fulfillment of the good news in everything we do.
We are called to model our lives on the example of Christ. Now, we know we can never be perfect, but surely we can try to do our very best.
We need to do what we can do as best we can and not worry about what we cannot do. Perhaps that is visiting a shut-in, volunteering at a soup kitchen or a food bank or a shelter, maybe reading a book to children or the elderly. Some may run errands or do some shopping or help with minor repairs, shovel snow or cut the grass. I know some of you helped in some way when our local churches (including Nativity) cam together to set up emergency shelters for the homeless when it was bitter cold outside. There are many opportunities – use your gifts to make a difference in someone’s life.
When I moved here from Lebanon many years ago, I left behind several residents of nursing homes that I visited regularly. I missed those visits and I began to send notes and cards to them on any and every holiday. I did that for several years and then began to wonder if I was doing this for myself. Then one day I met an old friend for lunch and she told me she had been to visit May and May had showed her a huge pile of cards she had received from me over the years. My friend told me she looked through them all the time.
So, you see, little things do mean a lot.
Today’s gospel tells us to “follow me and I will make you fish for people.” A retired priest who is a good friend is an avid fisherman. He says, “the lesson is about the calling of Simon and Andrew to be evangelists.
The point is that God through Jesus asked them to be followers of him, and that he would make – not force – but help them become “fishers of men.” He built on what they already knew and utilized what they were to help become evangelists, heralds, role models, mentors.
I think of the people who have influenced me, he continues: college professor, priest, mother, garbage man, sick and lonely, many parishioners and many friends. In this day and age with the decline of heroes and moral leadership, and the rise of cynicism, we must listen carefully and respond faithfully to the invitation of Jesus.
He continues, “I hope I am not stretching it too much when I say fishing can teach you a lot. There are three requisites about fishing. You have to go where the fish are. You have to offer what the fish want. Your have to present your offering in a way that is attractive and inviting, not scary or threatening. Doesn’t this say something about evangelism? He says that, even more basic, you have to have confidence, you have to have hope, you have to have a sense of expectancy that the fish are there, that you are offering them good stuff, and that you can catch them. Frequently, he says, I have seen evidence of fish. Often I see others catching fish. Sometimes I have caught a fish. Even so, the ratio of cast to fish is very low. There are other benefits to fishing. Perseverance is important. Keep trying. I have gotten to know a wonderful guide on the river. Jerry sometimes comes over to me and suggests I cast to a different location, try a different fly, or with a suggestion to improve my casting.
This friend has some wise learnings:
- be inviting but not scary or threatening
o no “brother are you saved”
o no “you better mend your ways or you will go to hell”
(who am I to make that decision?)
- we need to be caring and compassionate and have lots of patience in all we do. We need a good, positive attitude – remembering to
follow Jesus’ example in reaching out to people.
- we need to meet people where they are, not where we want them to
be. (not “why the heck is he homeless – the point is he is homeless and needs our help).
- Don’t go it alone – be open to support and suggestions from others.
Maybe my way isn’t the best way – my fisherman friend was open
to suggestions that made him a better fisherman.
And so, this Jesus, this guide, comes to Simon and Andrew, James and John, and to each of us, and says “come here with me, watch me, try this…I will make you fish for people.”
“Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation…”
Amen.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday January 18, 2009
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
II Epiphany
I Samuel 3:1-10
A boy, rabbinic scholars tell us probably 12-15 years old, living thousands and thousands of years ago, is slumbering warmly in his bed, protected from the elements of the outside when he is rudely interrupted by a voice calling him! Samuel, Samuel! Thinking wrongly the voice is but a rude interruption or even a call for help from his mentor Eli, who he shares the space with, he rises from the warmth of his bed, and travels through the dark house and asks, What do you want! It’s not me calling, go back to bed! Good news! We all love to go back to bed. Three times that voice comes and three times the young boy finds himself confused and yanked out of bed! Finally Eli, the mentor discerns the voice must be coming from God and with simple wisdom and some fear for his own place in the world, Eli says, it is God, Just lay there and listen! Imagine the twelve year old boy and the context of his world. These were ancient times where the people of Israel in their journey with Yahweh have not yet developed into a nation governed, ruled, and protected as other people’s were at the time. Many of their powerful neighbors were established as a monarchy, ruled by a King. Israel at this point in their history are more of a confederacy of sorts, organized as tribes scattered throughout an ancient land, worshipping a unique God. This people would daily be challenged by influences of competing for “prosperous” and generous farm lands. They would compete with a diversity of people’s and nations for the same land, and would be influenced by other customs, ways, and even Gods! How do these tribes stay unified, protected, and how do they make for themselves an “economy”? For Samuel, the young boy, he will be called by God to stand in line as a “JUDGE” and a Prophet”. A Judge as is the name given to those “holy men” called to be leaders of this “confederacy” of tribes, to hold them together, unified in purpose, in devotion to Yahweh, and as competitors to foreign influences and challenges. For Samuel, the young boy, you have to wonder as he contemplates the complex enough question of who he is becoming as a young man, how he might identify himself as a young man in complex world. If he is to Listen to God, what could it all mean for his life? If he is to listen to God and even make his way through the complexity of his context to discern this call, he has to be asking what difference can he make at all should he respond to this call?
I don’t know about you, I don’t know how you listen to God’s voice. I don’t know if God’s voice wakes you from your sleep, or slips into your daily conversations, or comes to you in prayer. I know what wakes me these days is the stark contrast of the cold outside and the blessed warmth of my bed. What wakes me these days is the strange juxtaposition of life that puts me in the warmth why others are on the street in the cold. I know what wakes me is the middle of the night is the thought and challenge of waking my way to the next piece of my daily routine, how and when the juggle of schedule will lead to all that needs to be done get done. I know that at times when I am awakened in the middle of the night I give in to the bad habit of turning on my television and there I see the complexity of the world I live in. I know you see it too: war, economic tenuousness, disease, famine, crime; you know the list. These things of my context I confess I sometimes get a helpless feeling, as I consider what it is that I am to do about any of it.
The complexity of the pace of life and our place in it is a challenging enough task. We consider our place and future in our vocations, employment, our relationships, and in our household. It is plenty complex as rise and face our own identity, strengths and weaknesses in the human condition. It is even more complex when we consider the struggles of our local governments, our nation, and the world.
I suppose what I mean to say is that when we start each day, just trying to figure out who WE ARE, What we will BE, WHO we will be in the everyday, this seems like enough of plenty, BUT when on top of it then we may find ourselves reflecting on a world and even struggling to pray for a world that is war torn in many places, where there is suffering and hunger in so many places, where there is financial and economic tenousness and even ruin in so many places, this sometimes seems overwhelming!
We listen for God’s voice the scriptures reveal to us, yes Lord, but How can we even consider taking our place in this sometimes overwhelming world? Where do we look for that voice? How can we hear that voice? Most importantly, if we do hear that voice, that call, and if we get to a point of responding, are you sure its going to make any difference at all?
Sometimes in it all we may find ourselves caught up at times in history, where the smacking of justice catches up with the ticking of history. We may see glimpses of calls heard and responded to that break in to our daily lives in tangible and significant ways. I pray we note the significance of his profound historical moment in our country as we witness an African American being sworn in as President of these United States. This is particularly poignant as this act occurs just a day after we recognize the life and witness of Martin Luther King who, having heard God’s voice of call, responded in such a way that led to the sacrifice of his very life in the name of Justice and equality for all of God’s people. I pray this sacrifice by not only Dr. King, but so many ordinary people who marched and sacrificed and died in dark remote forests in the middle of the night, to public streets in cities like Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Chicago. These brave actions made so such a moment in history possible. Regardless of our political positions and persuasions all of in this moment of history want what is best for our country. We hope against hope that the difficulties of our country and the world can be faced with integrity and faithful action by those we elect to help lead and invite us into faithful actions of resolve in the face of our challenges.
Thank God for such a witness and response to God’s vision for equality that would lead us to see tangibly that equality is possible.
Yet still, for you and for me, trying to figure out our place in this world, even so, we may be wondering how we take our place in this equation of life in a way that can make any difference at all? Let’s face it, for the majority of us here today, and certainly with some exceptions, we will not be the ones sitting at tables of influence charting forward a plan for economic recovery, or for finding resolution to peace in the middle east, or creating a systematic approach to eliminate hunger and disease, around the world. Its complex enough isn’t it, trying to figure out how we will stay alive in our marriage, Be alive as a parent, sustain ourselves and provide for ourselves and our families.
So as we rise in the darkness of each day, grateful we pray for the gift of another day, but I confess as we engage the boy Samuel and the story of his calling, perhaps each us deep down asks the question, so if I can after all Listen for God’s voice calling me, what difference will it make anyway even if I figure out how to respond?
Madeline L’Engle in her book “Glimpses of Grace” quotes a poem her Grandmother used to recite to her:
“Little drops of water,
Little grains of Sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
She goes on to say, “ I believe the Kingdom is built on little things that all of us do. A single drop can’t even make a puddle, but together, all our drops and God’s planning can make not only a mighty ocean but a mighty difference”.
It’s easy to be overcome by the bigness of the complexity of the world’s needs and easy to be in a place to wonder, if we are able to hear God calling, What difference will it make anyway. It’s understandable that we may stand afar and be thankful that Samuel answered his call to Yahweh and became a prophet of integrity and a Judge who would lead the tribes of Israel strongly against foreign invaders. He would call people into faithful relationships with Yahweh, and he would “begrudgingly” give in to the cry for a Monarchy and anoint Saul as the first King of Israel.
Its understandable that we would stand grateful that a young boy from Atlanta would hear a call from God that would lead him to lead a movement that would work toward equal rights and we would give thanks for that sacrifice for justice.
But given most of us will not lead a nation, or a movement, though indeed I am banking on the fact that some out there may, we still ask the question to God, what difference can we make.
Sometimes God’s opportunity to “make a difference” begins with a simple email naming small realities. For example this week, an email came from across the river, It’s cold outside, dangerously cold, and the small but deserving homeless population in Bethlehem have no shelter. Like drops of water combining together to make a mighty ocean, or in this case, like grains of sand coming together to create a pleasant land, the pieces of a puzzle began to come together in response to a call! Here on Thursday night, blankets and pillows began to arrive, soup and cereal, bread and water, bodies and souls, coming together, and with heart and soul, the basement of Sayre Hall was transformed into a sanctuary from the cold for a number of God’s people who otherwise would have been on the street. The next night St. Andrew’s in East Allentown followed suit, and a van ran from the Cathedral transporting folks, lastnight the Unitarian Church became that pleasant land, tonight St. Andrew’s again, tomorrow back here at the Cathedral.
What difference does it make? I wonder if one of our guests after a night off of the street might help us with that answer.
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
II Epiphany
I Samuel 3:1-10
A boy, rabbinic scholars tell us probably 12-15 years old, living thousands and thousands of years ago, is slumbering warmly in his bed, protected from the elements of the outside when he is rudely interrupted by a voice calling him! Samuel, Samuel! Thinking wrongly the voice is but a rude interruption or even a call for help from his mentor Eli, who he shares the space with, he rises from the warmth of his bed, and travels through the dark house and asks, What do you want! It’s not me calling, go back to bed! Good news! We all love to go back to bed. Three times that voice comes and three times the young boy finds himself confused and yanked out of bed! Finally Eli, the mentor discerns the voice must be coming from God and with simple wisdom and some fear for his own place in the world, Eli says, it is God, Just lay there and listen! Imagine the twelve year old boy and the context of his world. These were ancient times where the people of Israel in their journey with Yahweh have not yet developed into a nation governed, ruled, and protected as other people’s were at the time. Many of their powerful neighbors were established as a monarchy, ruled by a King. Israel at this point in their history are more of a confederacy of sorts, organized as tribes scattered throughout an ancient land, worshipping a unique God. This people would daily be challenged by influences of competing for “prosperous” and generous farm lands. They would compete with a diversity of people’s and nations for the same land, and would be influenced by other customs, ways, and even Gods! How do these tribes stay unified, protected, and how do they make for themselves an “economy”? For Samuel, the young boy, he will be called by God to stand in line as a “JUDGE” and a Prophet”. A Judge as is the name given to those “holy men” called to be leaders of this “confederacy” of tribes, to hold them together, unified in purpose, in devotion to Yahweh, and as competitors to foreign influences and challenges. For Samuel, the young boy, you have to wonder as he contemplates the complex enough question of who he is becoming as a young man, how he might identify himself as a young man in complex world. If he is to Listen to God, what could it all mean for his life? If he is to listen to God and even make his way through the complexity of his context to discern this call, he has to be asking what difference can he make at all should he respond to this call?
I don’t know about you, I don’t know how you listen to God’s voice. I don’t know if God’s voice wakes you from your sleep, or slips into your daily conversations, or comes to you in prayer. I know what wakes me these days is the stark contrast of the cold outside and the blessed warmth of my bed. What wakes me these days is the strange juxtaposition of life that puts me in the warmth why others are on the street in the cold. I know what wakes me is the middle of the night is the thought and challenge of waking my way to the next piece of my daily routine, how and when the juggle of schedule will lead to all that needs to be done get done. I know that at times when I am awakened in the middle of the night I give in to the bad habit of turning on my television and there I see the complexity of the world I live in. I know you see it too: war, economic tenuousness, disease, famine, crime; you know the list. These things of my context I confess I sometimes get a helpless feeling, as I consider what it is that I am to do about any of it.
The complexity of the pace of life and our place in it is a challenging enough task. We consider our place and future in our vocations, employment, our relationships, and in our household. It is plenty complex as rise and face our own identity, strengths and weaknesses in the human condition. It is even more complex when we consider the struggles of our local governments, our nation, and the world.
I suppose what I mean to say is that when we start each day, just trying to figure out who WE ARE, What we will BE, WHO we will be in the everyday, this seems like enough of plenty, BUT when on top of it then we may find ourselves reflecting on a world and even struggling to pray for a world that is war torn in many places, where there is suffering and hunger in so many places, where there is financial and economic tenousness and even ruin in so many places, this sometimes seems overwhelming!
We listen for God’s voice the scriptures reveal to us, yes Lord, but How can we even consider taking our place in this sometimes overwhelming world? Where do we look for that voice? How can we hear that voice? Most importantly, if we do hear that voice, that call, and if we get to a point of responding, are you sure its going to make any difference at all?
Sometimes in it all we may find ourselves caught up at times in history, where the smacking of justice catches up with the ticking of history. We may see glimpses of calls heard and responded to that break in to our daily lives in tangible and significant ways. I pray we note the significance of his profound historical moment in our country as we witness an African American being sworn in as President of these United States. This is particularly poignant as this act occurs just a day after we recognize the life and witness of Martin Luther King who, having heard God’s voice of call, responded in such a way that led to the sacrifice of his very life in the name of Justice and equality for all of God’s people. I pray this sacrifice by not only Dr. King, but so many ordinary people who marched and sacrificed and died in dark remote forests in the middle of the night, to public streets in cities like Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Chicago. These brave actions made so such a moment in history possible. Regardless of our political positions and persuasions all of in this moment of history want what is best for our country. We hope against hope that the difficulties of our country and the world can be faced with integrity and faithful action by those we elect to help lead and invite us into faithful actions of resolve in the face of our challenges.
Thank God for such a witness and response to God’s vision for equality that would lead us to see tangibly that equality is possible.
Yet still, for you and for me, trying to figure out our place in this world, even so, we may be wondering how we take our place in this equation of life in a way that can make any difference at all? Let’s face it, for the majority of us here today, and certainly with some exceptions, we will not be the ones sitting at tables of influence charting forward a plan for economic recovery, or for finding resolution to peace in the middle east, or creating a systematic approach to eliminate hunger and disease, around the world. Its complex enough isn’t it, trying to figure out how we will stay alive in our marriage, Be alive as a parent, sustain ourselves and provide for ourselves and our families.
So as we rise in the darkness of each day, grateful we pray for the gift of another day, but I confess as we engage the boy Samuel and the story of his calling, perhaps each us deep down asks the question, so if I can after all Listen for God’s voice calling me, what difference will it make anyway even if I figure out how to respond?
Madeline L’Engle in her book “Glimpses of Grace” quotes a poem her Grandmother used to recite to her:
“Little drops of water,
Little grains of Sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.
She goes on to say, “ I believe the Kingdom is built on little things that all of us do. A single drop can’t even make a puddle, but together, all our drops and God’s planning can make not only a mighty ocean but a mighty difference”.
It’s easy to be overcome by the bigness of the complexity of the world’s needs and easy to be in a place to wonder, if we are able to hear God calling, What difference will it make anyway. It’s understandable that we may stand afar and be thankful that Samuel answered his call to Yahweh and became a prophet of integrity and a Judge who would lead the tribes of Israel strongly against foreign invaders. He would call people into faithful relationships with Yahweh, and he would “begrudgingly” give in to the cry for a Monarchy and anoint Saul as the first King of Israel.
Its understandable that we would stand grateful that a young boy from Atlanta would hear a call from God that would lead him to lead a movement that would work toward equal rights and we would give thanks for that sacrifice for justice.
But given most of us will not lead a nation, or a movement, though indeed I am banking on the fact that some out there may, we still ask the question to God, what difference can we make.
Sometimes God’s opportunity to “make a difference” begins with a simple email naming small realities. For example this week, an email came from across the river, It’s cold outside, dangerously cold, and the small but deserving homeless population in Bethlehem have no shelter. Like drops of water combining together to make a mighty ocean, or in this case, like grains of sand coming together to create a pleasant land, the pieces of a puzzle began to come together in response to a call! Here on Thursday night, blankets and pillows began to arrive, soup and cereal, bread and water, bodies and souls, coming together, and with heart and soul, the basement of Sayre Hall was transformed into a sanctuary from the cold for a number of God’s people who otherwise would have been on the street. The next night St. Andrew’s in East Allentown followed suit, and a van ran from the Cathedral transporting folks, lastnight the Unitarian Church became that pleasant land, tonight St. Andrew’s again, tomorrow back here at the Cathedral.
What difference does it make? I wonder if one of our guests after a night off of the street might help us with that answer.
Monday, January 12, 2009
1 Epiphany ~ The Baptism of Jesus
January 11, 2009
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
“Today the Lord comes to be baptized, so that humankind may be lifted up; today the one who never has to bow inclines himself be-fore his servant so that he may release our chains; Today we have acquired the kingdom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.” (excerpt from the Orthodox Liturgy, Feast of the Theophany, with thanks to Suzanne Guthrie)
And so it came to pass long ago and not so far away…
One sunny, early summer morning on the bank of a lake in western Massachusetts where my parents lived, our family was gathered for the baptism of my brother’s firstborn son. My brother had asked me to baptize him in that place where we all had been together so many times as a family. We had some pre-baptism conversations that sufficed as instruction.
We had also spent time discussing the theological ramifications of blessing the water of baptism – that would be … the lake. From that time forth would all those who dipped themselves into those waters be… Well, you can carry on that conversa-tion yourselves.
I stepped into the lake water with the parents and Godparents and the child. The prayers were offered, the blessing of the waters invoked, and I took the child in my arms and immersed him in the cold, dark waters.
At which point my brother lunged forward with a look of abject terror on his face, as I raised the sputtering child. Three times he was plunged into the dark depths and lifted into the light in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And my brother saw that his firstborn son was not sputtering, he was laughing, giggling, burbling with joy, with pure, utter joy! That day he acquired the kingdom of heaven that has no end. And, by the way, so did my brother.
But, there is a reason why the lectionary begins this day with the description of the very beginning and the dark chaos when the wa-ters covered the face of the earth, and then God brings forth -- Light!
Today we celebrate “God’s will to flood the entire world” with Light. We celebrate God’s will to bring each and every creature out of chaos, out of darkness, out of the depths, loosed from bind-ings into the light of life and love and freedom lived in God.
That is what we celebrate today and every time a person comes through the waters of baptism into the light of a life lived in God. [and that is what is going to happen with these 3 young children who will be baptized today.]
+ + +
James Weldon Johnson says that before God started creation, eve-rything was “Blacker than a hundred midnights/ down in the cypress swamp.”
Have you ever visited that dark place? I have. I have even inhabited it -- for quite some time. So did Jesus. In a time of wondering and confusion, his wandering brought him to the bank of the river where he was drawn into the dark, swirling waters, in the midst of the chaos of humanity drawn there for the same reasons. Down he went into the water, plunged by John under the waters, and lifted up into the light of God’s presence, now knowing that he was God’s Beloved Child.
Herbert O”Driscoll has told the story this way:
“And so he came to the place, a stranger as all Galileans were in this hot blazing valley leading to the Dead Sea. Their eyes met and the longing for certainty in Jesus eyes is mirrored by the ambiva¬lence in John's. … they move into the water...
“When he comes up from that transitory burial under the water, it seems as if his world ignites and shines with validation and certainty. He is right! The journey has brought him home! Wave upon wave of peace and wholeness descend on him, calming, resolving, dovelike. Thundering in his consciousness are the intimations of the truth about himself and his vocation. He feels the affirmation and the terror of being in the presence of him by whom he is called My Son, my Beloved.”
A short three years later, he again found himself in that dark place when he was in the Garden at Gethsemane. Darkness and chaos and the evil powers of the world surrounded him, and he ques-tioned, he agonized, over all that he had held so dear, for which he had labored so hard, given so much, travelled so far.
And again, from that darkness he was lifted up, high upon the cross, so that you and I and all who come to God in some sem-blance of faith, with some miniscule modicum of hope, but who come nevertheless – he was lifted up so that we can live in the light of God’s kingdom. Now He lives in the presence of God, He reigns in the kingdom of God, and He lives in the hearts of God’s people.
+ + +
Before God’s Incarnation, before God’s Epiphany, the world was sunk in deep darkness, and so it is again in our day and time. I will not afflict you with a litany of the darkness of the world today. You know it well. You live it, too. You contend against it, too. You want to rise from, as well. It is ever before us on CNN and the nightly news: local, national, and international. We know it in our neighborhoods, in our circle of friends, in our families, in our own selves. Darkness abounds. Darkness abides, Darkness would cling to us forever.
It seems to me that from the very beginning of beginnings, and from our own beginning coming through the waters of birth and the darkness of the birth canal into the light of life, from before time and forever, the journey toward light has begun in darkness.
But we don’t have to live there. It doesn’t have to end there.
What we read of Jesus’ baptism; what we observe in the baptism of an infant; what we dream of in those long night hours is true. God is in this life. God’s spirit is upon us. God’s love is constant. God’s power is ours. And God has given us a reason, a purpose, a life to be lived.
It is possible to live in this life, missing the light of God, missing the presence of God, missing the empowering, comforting Word of God's love, missing the light of God’s love. It was possible for Jesus to have stayed in Nazareth; he didn't have to go down to the Jordan.
We have those choices, too. We can decide to stay in our anxiety, to stay in our ambivalences, to remain trapped in uncertainties, to live in darkness. Or we can decide to leave our Nazareth, and make ourselves available to the word, the light, the love of God and to let God’s spirit work in us.
All of us are, each of us is, Beloved of God – the God in whose love and by whose power shown to us in Jesus – life can be lived, purpose can be discovered, hope can be found, and love can be known.
As the Orthodox liturgy affirms, “… we have acquired the king-dom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.”
Amen. And amen. And amen.
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
“Today the Lord comes to be baptized, so that humankind may be lifted up; today the one who never has to bow inclines himself be-fore his servant so that he may release our chains; Today we have acquired the kingdom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.” (excerpt from the Orthodox Liturgy, Feast of the Theophany, with thanks to Suzanne Guthrie)
And so it came to pass long ago and not so far away…
One sunny, early summer morning on the bank of a lake in western Massachusetts where my parents lived, our family was gathered for the baptism of my brother’s firstborn son. My brother had asked me to baptize him in that place where we all had been together so many times as a family. We had some pre-baptism conversations that sufficed as instruction.
We had also spent time discussing the theological ramifications of blessing the water of baptism – that would be … the lake. From that time forth would all those who dipped themselves into those waters be… Well, you can carry on that conversa-tion yourselves.
I stepped into the lake water with the parents and Godparents and the child. The prayers were offered, the blessing of the waters invoked, and I took the child in my arms and immersed him in the cold, dark waters.
At which point my brother lunged forward with a look of abject terror on his face, as I raised the sputtering child. Three times he was plunged into the dark depths and lifted into the light in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And my brother saw that his firstborn son was not sputtering, he was laughing, giggling, burbling with joy, with pure, utter joy! That day he acquired the kingdom of heaven that has no end. And, by the way, so did my brother.
But, there is a reason why the lectionary begins this day with the description of the very beginning and the dark chaos when the wa-ters covered the face of the earth, and then God brings forth -- Light!
Today we celebrate “God’s will to flood the entire world” with Light. We celebrate God’s will to bring each and every creature out of chaos, out of darkness, out of the depths, loosed from bind-ings into the light of life and love and freedom lived in God.
That is what we celebrate today and every time a person comes through the waters of baptism into the light of a life lived in God. [and that is what is going to happen with these 3 young children who will be baptized today.]
+ + +
James Weldon Johnson says that before God started creation, eve-rything was “Blacker than a hundred midnights/ down in the cypress swamp.”
Have you ever visited that dark place? I have. I have even inhabited it -- for quite some time. So did Jesus. In a time of wondering and confusion, his wandering brought him to the bank of the river where he was drawn into the dark, swirling waters, in the midst of the chaos of humanity drawn there for the same reasons. Down he went into the water, plunged by John under the waters, and lifted up into the light of God’s presence, now knowing that he was God’s Beloved Child.
Herbert O”Driscoll has told the story this way:
“And so he came to the place, a stranger as all Galileans were in this hot blazing valley leading to the Dead Sea. Their eyes met and the longing for certainty in Jesus eyes is mirrored by the ambiva¬lence in John's. … they move into the water...
“When he comes up from that transitory burial under the water, it seems as if his world ignites and shines with validation and certainty. He is right! The journey has brought him home! Wave upon wave of peace and wholeness descend on him, calming, resolving, dovelike. Thundering in his consciousness are the intimations of the truth about himself and his vocation. He feels the affirmation and the terror of being in the presence of him by whom he is called My Son, my Beloved.”
A short three years later, he again found himself in that dark place when he was in the Garden at Gethsemane. Darkness and chaos and the evil powers of the world surrounded him, and he ques-tioned, he agonized, over all that he had held so dear, for which he had labored so hard, given so much, travelled so far.
And again, from that darkness he was lifted up, high upon the cross, so that you and I and all who come to God in some sem-blance of faith, with some miniscule modicum of hope, but who come nevertheless – he was lifted up so that we can live in the light of God’s kingdom. Now He lives in the presence of God, He reigns in the kingdom of God, and He lives in the hearts of God’s people.
+ + +
Before God’s Incarnation, before God’s Epiphany, the world was sunk in deep darkness, and so it is again in our day and time. I will not afflict you with a litany of the darkness of the world today. You know it well. You live it, too. You contend against it, too. You want to rise from, as well. It is ever before us on CNN and the nightly news: local, national, and international. We know it in our neighborhoods, in our circle of friends, in our families, in our own selves. Darkness abounds. Darkness abides, Darkness would cling to us forever.
It seems to me that from the very beginning of beginnings, and from our own beginning coming through the waters of birth and the darkness of the birth canal into the light of life, from before time and forever, the journey toward light has begun in darkness.
But we don’t have to live there. It doesn’t have to end there.
What we read of Jesus’ baptism; what we observe in the baptism of an infant; what we dream of in those long night hours is true. God is in this life. God’s spirit is upon us. God’s love is constant. God’s power is ours. And God has given us a reason, a purpose, a life to be lived.
It is possible to live in this life, missing the light of God, missing the presence of God, missing the empowering, comforting Word of God's love, missing the light of God’s love. It was possible for Jesus to have stayed in Nazareth; he didn't have to go down to the Jordan.
We have those choices, too. We can decide to stay in our anxiety, to stay in our ambivalences, to remain trapped in uncertainties, to live in darkness. Or we can decide to leave our Nazareth, and make ourselves available to the word, the light, the love of God and to let God’s spirit work in us.
All of us are, each of us is, Beloved of God – the God in whose love and by whose power shown to us in Jesus – life can be lived, purpose can be discovered, hope can be found, and love can be known.
As the Orthodox liturgy affirms, “… we have acquired the king-dom of heaven: indeed, the kingdom of heaven that has no end.”
Amen. And amen. And amen.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Feast of the Epiphany Observed
Sunday January 4, 2009
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 2:1-12
At my house, the star that shines atop my Christmas tree has been dimmed! How quickly we have taken the journey of ritual that by its very definition as ritual invites us into an opportunity to become aware of God’s presence in our lives as miracle, hope, light, justice, peace. Our journey has led us from the expectant waiting in darkness to the rejoicing of God’s promise in flesh! The rituals of songs, prayers, symbols we participate in through our church year cycle bring awareness to my soul of my God who is my Companion, lover, friend, and strength.
The Christmas tree is my nod to the adoption of pagan symbolism and ritual into my own spiritual life. The Christmas tree that bore the light of a star on top of it, in the corner of my living room has now become a fainted symbol. The star, once beautifully and brightly lighted atop of that tree has come down. The victim of a golden retriever’s curiosity and wicked tail, the star could not survive the fourth tumble of the season to the floor. The needles of a dried out tree and a broken bulb signaled perhaps it would be best to remove the tree. The tree removed indeed and not lost on me is the reality that with the removal comes full recognition that in such simple symbolic things is great investment of emotion! The excitement of the promise of God’s hope and light is wrapped up in such symbols for me! I hate to take down a Christmas tree because it indicates to me the end of the full immersion in the season that leads us from our great expectations as we wait in darkness to the hope and promise of God’s “Emmanuel”! It was not lost on me that as I removed a broken star from the top of a dead Christmas tree, recognizing the removal of such also indicates the transitions that occur in my home! Back to school, back to the regular rhythms of work schedules, school schedules. That “special time” of rejoicing with family and friends, giving way now to the regular rhythms of our daily lives! But more than that, it was not lost on me the challenges of our spiritual journey in a difficult world as I also listened as CNN described yet one more unfortunate chapter of Middle East violence and dis-ease! The contrast of the promises of the season with the events all too familiar unfolding once again before all of us! When? When O Lord will we glimpse the fullness of your promise? Arise, Shine, your light has come, the prophet announces to us! “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you, nations shall come to your light!” O Come, O Come Emmanuel! Be with us God of peace, of compassion, of Reconciliation! Surely, the symbol of star I pick up from my living room floor is a star that leads the people he has made to the potentiality of something different than one more chapter of violence and despair! Shall we put away our things from this season, count it as over, and move on?
Not so fast! Let’s live into the fullness of the ritual that is set before us! The star on top of my Christmas tree may be dimmed but a star is followed today curiously by three strangers of the East, who catch a glimpse of it! This is the Epiphany journey we are invited to follow today! This is a story for the poet’s heart, the artists rendering! Our primary actors in this story today are in the scriptures nameless! Who might they be? Visitors Matthew tells us, Magoi! Though scholars throughout the years have tried to decipher just who these Magoi might be, “magician’s, or Zoroastrian Priests, it seems a reasonable conclusion that these “wise men” of the East at the least dabbled in astrology, and capturing a glimpse of the skies find themselves on a journey toward something clearly compelling enough to warrant a plan of action to embark on this journey!
Most importantly for Matthew’s Gospel, they are gentiles, and their recognition of this new born “King” tells us of God’s plan of salvation for all of the world and sets the stage for the drama that Matthew desires to tell of those within Israel struggling to accept the fullness of God’s Kingdom promise and God’s longing to shine a light of salvation for all of the world!
The scriptures do not tell us who these men are, but Christian tradition would name them, Melchior, king of Persia, Gaspar, King of India, and Balthazar, King of Arabia! Their following of this star would lead them to the presence of a new King, unlike any they had ever encountered! They would bring gifts worthy of a King, Gold of course! Frankincense and Myrrh, fragrance and oil worthy for the anointing of a King!
The promise that lies under this star is unlike any other King these brave travelers would know! This promise is clothed in humility and would stand in stark contrast to the “powers of oppression and abuse” of worldly monarchs, and instead declare a Monarchy whose powers would seek to transform a world through the powerful tools of forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion! These powers are a far cry from missiles of provocation and devastation, and ground assaults of doom and blood.
And so it is for us! Our ritual pulls us into the fullness of what lies under the star! Particularly as the symbols of the season are slowly packed away and the world continues to present its challenges to another way of living, perhaps Epiphany is the ritual that rightly leads us with certainty back into our daily lives! THE EPIPHANY is God manifesting God’s light and goodness in the world through us. We stand in stark contrast to the darkness of the world and know that peace and reconciliation begins in an individual’s heart. Who full of God’s presence finds their fingers on a trigger? Who full of God’s presence finds in themselves an order for missile attacks? Who full of God’s presence can help but respond to violence with prayers and pleas for peace?
Lest we put away too quickly the symbols and rituals that invite us to the “isness” of God, let us become actors in this Epiphany drama! Like our main actors in this drama, shall we be compelled to follow a star? Let us bring gifts to the one we find there. Let us discover in our following that perhaps the gifts we bring are the same gifts given to us: forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion.
Sunday January 4, 2009
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 2:1-12
At my house, the star that shines atop my Christmas tree has been dimmed! How quickly we have taken the journey of ritual that by its very definition as ritual invites us into an opportunity to become aware of God’s presence in our lives as miracle, hope, light, justice, peace. Our journey has led us from the expectant waiting in darkness to the rejoicing of God’s promise in flesh! The rituals of songs, prayers, symbols we participate in through our church year cycle bring awareness to my soul of my God who is my Companion, lover, friend, and strength.
The Christmas tree is my nod to the adoption of pagan symbolism and ritual into my own spiritual life. The Christmas tree that bore the light of a star on top of it, in the corner of my living room has now become a fainted symbol. The star, once beautifully and brightly lighted atop of that tree has come down. The victim of a golden retriever’s curiosity and wicked tail, the star could not survive the fourth tumble of the season to the floor. The needles of a dried out tree and a broken bulb signaled perhaps it would be best to remove the tree. The tree removed indeed and not lost on me is the reality that with the removal comes full recognition that in such simple symbolic things is great investment of emotion! The excitement of the promise of God’s hope and light is wrapped up in such symbols for me! I hate to take down a Christmas tree because it indicates to me the end of the full immersion in the season that leads us from our great expectations as we wait in darkness to the hope and promise of God’s “Emmanuel”! It was not lost on me that as I removed a broken star from the top of a dead Christmas tree, recognizing the removal of such also indicates the transitions that occur in my home! Back to school, back to the regular rhythms of work schedules, school schedules. That “special time” of rejoicing with family and friends, giving way now to the regular rhythms of our daily lives! But more than that, it was not lost on me the challenges of our spiritual journey in a difficult world as I also listened as CNN described yet one more unfortunate chapter of Middle East violence and dis-ease! The contrast of the promises of the season with the events all too familiar unfolding once again before all of us! When? When O Lord will we glimpse the fullness of your promise? Arise, Shine, your light has come, the prophet announces to us! “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you, nations shall come to your light!” O Come, O Come Emmanuel! Be with us God of peace, of compassion, of Reconciliation! Surely, the symbol of star I pick up from my living room floor is a star that leads the people he has made to the potentiality of something different than one more chapter of violence and despair! Shall we put away our things from this season, count it as over, and move on?
Not so fast! Let’s live into the fullness of the ritual that is set before us! The star on top of my Christmas tree may be dimmed but a star is followed today curiously by three strangers of the East, who catch a glimpse of it! This is the Epiphany journey we are invited to follow today! This is a story for the poet’s heart, the artists rendering! Our primary actors in this story today are in the scriptures nameless! Who might they be? Visitors Matthew tells us, Magoi! Though scholars throughout the years have tried to decipher just who these Magoi might be, “magician’s, or Zoroastrian Priests, it seems a reasonable conclusion that these “wise men” of the East at the least dabbled in astrology, and capturing a glimpse of the skies find themselves on a journey toward something clearly compelling enough to warrant a plan of action to embark on this journey!
Most importantly for Matthew’s Gospel, they are gentiles, and their recognition of this new born “King” tells us of God’s plan of salvation for all of the world and sets the stage for the drama that Matthew desires to tell of those within Israel struggling to accept the fullness of God’s Kingdom promise and God’s longing to shine a light of salvation for all of the world!
The scriptures do not tell us who these men are, but Christian tradition would name them, Melchior, king of Persia, Gaspar, King of India, and Balthazar, King of Arabia! Their following of this star would lead them to the presence of a new King, unlike any they had ever encountered! They would bring gifts worthy of a King, Gold of course! Frankincense and Myrrh, fragrance and oil worthy for the anointing of a King!
The promise that lies under this star is unlike any other King these brave travelers would know! This promise is clothed in humility and would stand in stark contrast to the “powers of oppression and abuse” of worldly monarchs, and instead declare a Monarchy whose powers would seek to transform a world through the powerful tools of forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion! These powers are a far cry from missiles of provocation and devastation, and ground assaults of doom and blood.
And so it is for us! Our ritual pulls us into the fullness of what lies under the star! Particularly as the symbols of the season are slowly packed away and the world continues to present its challenges to another way of living, perhaps Epiphany is the ritual that rightly leads us with certainty back into our daily lives! THE EPIPHANY is God manifesting God’s light and goodness in the world through us. We stand in stark contrast to the darkness of the world and know that peace and reconciliation begins in an individual’s heart. Who full of God’s presence finds their fingers on a trigger? Who full of God’s presence finds in themselves an order for missile attacks? Who full of God’s presence can help but respond to violence with prayers and pleas for peace?
Lest we put away too quickly the symbols and rituals that invite us to the “isness” of God, let us become actors in this Epiphany drama! Like our main actors in this drama, shall we be compelled to follow a star? Let us bring gifts to the one we find there. Let us discover in our following that perhaps the gifts we bring are the same gifts given to us: forgiveness, reconciliation, and compassion.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas Day 2008
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
If you have been fortunate enough in your life to have made the trek to London, you of course will have had the experience of making use of London’s fine public transportation subway system affectionately known as “The tube”. You’ll remember riding the tube that as trains begin to make their way into a tube station and you are invited to embark or disembark from a train you’ll hear a lovely accented voice telling you to “mind the gap please”. The voice is there of course as a voice of safety and hospitality bringing you into an awareness of the gap that exists between the train itself and the platform of the station. “Mind the Gap” means, pay attention to it, become aware of it and in this case, try to avoid it!
Christmas day, this day, we celebrate the feast of the Incarnation! And on this day as we greet the words of John’s Gospel, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. On this day I suggest that we might “mind the gap”, become aware of it, pay attention to it, and unlike the intent for which is repeated on the tube in London, I suggest that instead of avoiding it we are to open our eyes to living in it and discovering there a companion whose name is Jesus. I believe John’s poetic summary of God’s action in the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, is precisely God jumping into the gap with us! The Gap of course is life, its struggles and its possibilities, real life, real lives. For Christian folk, this intersection of God’s presence in our lives is where the rubber hits the road, for we believe, in fact we stake our belief on the truth that God is present with us in our daily lives and that God’s presence took on flesh in the person of Jesus, in a time in history, who acted in salvivic ways and gave birth to a community of faith that celebrates this presence even now in our own day!
Parker Palmer in his recently updated introduction to his original work of thirty years ago entitled “The promise of Paradox” suggests that it is exactly in the Gap that we come to know the fullness of God’s promise for us and to the possibility of that promise taking flesh. To stand in the gap he suggests challenges us to avoid the alternatives of standing too firmly on one side or the other of life. On one side of life we may be too rooted in the harsh and hard realities of it, overwhelmed by its struggles and given to the darkness of cynicism. On the other side of life we may be seduced by the thought of too much possibility defined by irrelevant and unrealistic idealisms more accurately described as utopianism.
Dr. Palmer writes, ““The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” I believe this poetry describing God’s action in Jesus names what we are called to do, that is wrapping our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives.” The first century reader of John’s gospel understood the challenges of life on either side of the Gap. The hearers of this word would easily have been challenged by the dim and corrosive realities of life. Certainly not all, but many of the hearer’s of John’s word knew disease and famine, unemployment and disempowerment, sickness and death, poverty and injustice, not for all of course but for many. Equally available would be the false promise of sanctuary and safety, security offered in a Roman occupier whose image depicted on coinage suggested that all that was needed would suffice in the person and protection of Caesar, “Son of God”. Still other factions promised restoration of majesty and dominion, independence, and self-rule by the promised restoration of a monarchy in Israel. Still other communities of faith promised fullness of life by living apart in the dessert, removed from the challenges of everyday living in first century Palestine, and praying for a new day of Yahweh’s reign.
Overwhelmed by life or hoping for an idealized promised society, into this Gap the word becomes flesh, born of an unassuming virgin peasant girl. Into this Gap the embodiment of God’s word in the person of Jesus, a Nazarene, and he would live, breathe, love, bleed, cry, laugh, celebrate, proclaim, preach, heal, march in civil disobedience, and give his life in pain and sacrifice so that those residing in the Gap with him might do the same and bring new life in real people’s lives, living in real communities as a people of faith! This “word becoming flesh” would physically tap those who would listen and invite them to follow and him and become a new community that would stand for love, forgiveness, justice and compassion! This new community would bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and their witness would spread throughout the world! Here we are today as a result, real people, living into the Gap with real struggles, real hopes, and living real lives dwelling in God’s presence.
Dr. Palmer asks of us, Can we wrap ourselves, our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives? Can we stand in the Gap with the Word that dwells with us choosing not to let darkness and cynicism have its way, and not getting lost in a utopian ideal that robs us from investing our selves, our souls, and our bodies in action to God’s hope for the world?
If one is fighting for their life with cancer, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you and with every tear, every struggle, every pain, every treatment, every fear, God is fighting with you!
If one is fighting for life afflicted with an addiction, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you, with every craving, cramping, impulse and compulsion, God knows and is in your struggle and dares to birth with you something new.
If you are fighting for the justice of individuals or group in our communities, our country and this world, mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells there with you, knows the fears that might hold one back from marching or speaking up, knows the pain of being judged or rejected by the standards of others,
If one’s gifts and abilities are called to build, to feed, or to show compassion to the “least of these”, Mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells with us as our hands put flesh on God’s grace for those as nails are driven to build shelter, meals are prepared for hungry stomachs and hearts, and the lonely are lifted by a smile, a word, and dignity respected.
Finally, if we find our own lives lost too far on one side of the Gap or the other, overcome by the difficulties of life, or removed and lost in a false sense of utopia, MIND the GAP! We have to believe that God knows the pain of despair, and the distance created by promises of magic that cost us nothing. God joins us in the Gap and knows the way bring life out of the darkness and distance.
Bill Llewellis, the diocesan communications officer recently shared a parable told on an episode of the popular television program “West Wing” a few years ago. The program entitled Noel depicts a member of the president's staff who is told he has post traumatic stress disorder. He worries that he will lose his job. Leo, the chief of staff, an alcoholic in recovery, tells Josh this story.
This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it in the hole and moves on.
Then a priest comes along. "Father, I'm down in this hole. Can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it in the hole and moves on.
Then a friend walks by. "Hey, Joe. It's me. Can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down her."
The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."
Such is the gift and scandal of the Word becoming Flesh! Mind the Gap!
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
If you have been fortunate enough in your life to have made the trek to London, you of course will have had the experience of making use of London’s fine public transportation subway system affectionately known as “The tube”. You’ll remember riding the tube that as trains begin to make their way into a tube station and you are invited to embark or disembark from a train you’ll hear a lovely accented voice telling you to “mind the gap please”. The voice is there of course as a voice of safety and hospitality bringing you into an awareness of the gap that exists between the train itself and the platform of the station. “Mind the Gap” means, pay attention to it, become aware of it and in this case, try to avoid it!
Christmas day, this day, we celebrate the feast of the Incarnation! And on this day as we greet the words of John’s Gospel, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”. On this day I suggest that we might “mind the gap”, become aware of it, pay attention to it, and unlike the intent for which is repeated on the tube in London, I suggest that instead of avoiding it we are to open our eyes to living in it and discovering there a companion whose name is Jesus. I believe John’s poetic summary of God’s action in the birth, life, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, is precisely God jumping into the gap with us! The Gap of course is life, its struggles and its possibilities, real life, real lives. For Christian folk, this intersection of God’s presence in our lives is where the rubber hits the road, for we believe, in fact we stake our belief on the truth that God is present with us in our daily lives and that God’s presence took on flesh in the person of Jesus, in a time in history, who acted in salvivic ways and gave birth to a community of faith that celebrates this presence even now in our own day!
Parker Palmer in his recently updated introduction to his original work of thirty years ago entitled “The promise of Paradox” suggests that it is exactly in the Gap that we come to know the fullness of God’s promise for us and to the possibility of that promise taking flesh. To stand in the gap he suggests challenges us to avoid the alternatives of standing too firmly on one side or the other of life. On one side of life we may be too rooted in the harsh and hard realities of it, overwhelmed by its struggles and given to the darkness of cynicism. On the other side of life we may be seduced by the thought of too much possibility defined by irrelevant and unrealistic idealisms more accurately described as utopianism.
Dr. Palmer writes, ““The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” I believe this poetry describing God’s action in Jesus names what we are called to do, that is wrapping our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives.” The first century reader of John’s gospel understood the challenges of life on either side of the Gap. The hearers of this word would easily have been challenged by the dim and corrosive realities of life. Certainly not all, but many of the hearer’s of John’s word knew disease and famine, unemployment and disempowerment, sickness and death, poverty and injustice, not for all of course but for many. Equally available would be the false promise of sanctuary and safety, security offered in a Roman occupier whose image depicted on coinage suggested that all that was needed would suffice in the person and protection of Caesar, “Son of God”. Still other factions promised restoration of majesty and dominion, independence, and self-rule by the promised restoration of a monarchy in Israel. Still other communities of faith promised fullness of life by living apart in the dessert, removed from the challenges of everyday living in first century Palestine, and praying for a new day of Yahweh’s reign.
Overwhelmed by life or hoping for an idealized promised society, into this Gap the word becomes flesh, born of an unassuming virgin peasant girl. Into this Gap the embodiment of God’s word in the person of Jesus, a Nazarene, and he would live, breathe, love, bleed, cry, laugh, celebrate, proclaim, preach, heal, march in civil disobedience, and give his life in pain and sacrifice so that those residing in the Gap with him might do the same and bring new life in real people’s lives, living in real communities as a people of faith! This “word becoming flesh” would physically tap those who would listen and invite them to follow and him and become a new community that would stand for love, forgiveness, justice and compassion! This new community would bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and their witness would spread throughout the world! Here we are today as a result, real people, living into the Gap with real struggles, real hopes, and living real lives dwelling in God’s presence.
Dr. Palmer asks of us, Can we wrap ourselves, our whole selves around the truth given to us and live it out in our embodied lives? Can we stand in the Gap with the Word that dwells with us choosing not to let darkness and cynicism have its way, and not getting lost in a utopian ideal that robs us from investing our selves, our souls, and our bodies in action to God’s hope for the world?
If one is fighting for their life with cancer, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you and with every tear, every struggle, every pain, every treatment, every fear, God is fighting with you!
If one is fighting for life afflicted with an addiction, Mind the Gap. Know that God dwells with you, with every craving, cramping, impulse and compulsion, God knows and is in your struggle and dares to birth with you something new.
If you are fighting for the justice of individuals or group in our communities, our country and this world, mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells there with you, knows the fears that might hold one back from marching or speaking up, knows the pain of being judged or rejected by the standards of others,
If one’s gifts and abilities are called to build, to feed, or to show compassion to the “least of these”, Mind the Gap. We must know that God dwells with us as our hands put flesh on God’s grace for those as nails are driven to build shelter, meals are prepared for hungry stomachs and hearts, and the lonely are lifted by a smile, a word, and dignity respected.
Finally, if we find our own lives lost too far on one side of the Gap or the other, overcome by the difficulties of life, or removed and lost in a false sense of utopia, MIND the GAP! We have to believe that God knows the pain of despair, and the distance created by promises of magic that cost us nothing. God joins us in the Gap and knows the way bring life out of the darkness and distance.
Bill Llewellis, the diocesan communications officer recently shared a parable told on an episode of the popular television program “West Wing” a few years ago. The program entitled Noel depicts a member of the president's staff who is told he has post traumatic stress disorder. He worries that he will lose his job. Leo, the chief of staff, an alcoholic in recovery, tells Josh this story.
This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it in the hole and moves on.
Then a priest comes along. "Father, I'm down in this hole. Can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it in the hole and moves on.
Then a friend walks by. "Hey, Joe. It's me. Can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down her."
The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."
Such is the gift and scandal of the Word becoming Flesh! Mind the Gap!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas Eve 2008
Sermon, Bishop Paul Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Merry Christmas to each of you. Some years it is easier to say that than others. This year we are in an anxious time. We are deeply aware of the instability the economy in general. Beyond that, everyone now knows the words “Ponzi scheme,” a knowledge that brings another level of anxiety and even mistrust to some minds. Each of us in this room knows somebody who has lost a job, some of us are that person, and many of us who have been patiently growing retirement funds over the years know we are going to have to work a good deal longer than we anticipated, and that brings a sense of weariness, even betrayal.
What does faith say in times like this? Oddly enough, we say that Christians and Christianity are at their very best when they move heroically and confidently through difficult times. We say that this feast called Christmas celebrates the generosity of God, and entering that generosity is the key to keeping our spirits up when times are down.
Think about it. Why did Christianity grow so fast in its early years? It wasn’t because the emperor Constantine semi-converted in the year 313—Christian numerical growth had already happened and he merely bowed to that fact. It wasn’t because Christians all had one set of clear doctrines—they were centuries away from agreeing about to talk about God [Chalcedon], and centuries away from deciding what books were in their scriptures. Yet in the midst of its religious imprecision, the Church grew. How come?
The top social historians of our day agree that Christianity grew so fast mostly because Christians were known for their unusual compassion for those around them, especially toward those who were not members of their faith. From the Book of Acts on, they raised money on one continent to aid those on another continent, never for a moment presuming to think that mean little thought, that charity begins at home. They knew that charity does not begin at home. It begins with helping the people you don’t know and might not care for, just as the Good Samaritan did, just as Jesus did by leaving his heavenly home for our sake.
The first Christians let the gospel train them, as St. Paul says in our epistle tonight, to be a people who were zealous for good deeds. That’s a religious way of saying that they were really and truly into serving the world, the whole world. They knew that God’s taking flesh in Jesus for the sake of the whole world wasn’t an event in the past. It was the pattern for their own lives every day. What did that look like?
In about the year 250 a plague struck Alexandria, Egypt, and actually killed more than half of the population. People with resources got as far away from town as they could—except the Christians. In a time of panic and danger, they stayed in town and cared for the sick and dying, and some of them paid for that generosity with their lives. People joined the church.
Throughout the empire, Christians were known to patrol the garbage dumps, but they weren’t looking for antiques. Those dumps were where people placed infants they didn’t want, and the church got a reputation for saving lives that others had put in the trash. People joined the church.
Again, in the Alexandrian community, those who lived on the church’s dole would often go entirely without food one day a week so that they, too, would have something to give others. People joined the church. That is why I decided to give the children money instead of chocolate—so they would be able to have the corporate experience of giving to those in need out of what they have been given. It is a way to know the heart of the incarnation.
Let’s leave ancient history. I have seen many, many lives change because of participation in our New Hope project. From the little girl who ran a yard sale of toys she was done with to the retired lady who went back to work so she could make a major contribution, I have shed tears to see love expressed so unselfishly. A fourth-grader recently handed this [a teddy bear] to a friend of mine asking that it go to a child in Sudan.
And let’s come right to your doorstep. I often comment on Nativity’s practice of giving away its Christmas and Easter offerings to care for those in need. Those are the two largest offerings of the year. Many churches count on those offerings to survive, but your vestry puts mission concerns before survival concerns. At this time in history, when financial concerns are acute even for churches, your continuing to send money away from home is a bold statement that you accept Christianity’s mission of being to people what Jesus was when he walked this planet.
In doing so you follow the rich tradition that gave Christianity its growing potential. People in an age of anxiety were attracted to a religion whose adherents could dare not to follow the culture, but to transform it.
The epistle also says that in being zealous for good works we are training ourselves to renounce some things that stunt our souls. When times are difficult, we can overdo our natural inclination to self-protection. What happens then, as Ebenezer Scrooge reminds us, is that we shrivel inside. But when we reach out to others in the midst of our own worrying, we change, we are liberated for the subtle joy of knowing ourselves to be united with Christ. Science tells us we are hard-wired for that selfless giving we call altruism; Jesus shows us how to achieve it, and in achieving it, have life in abundance.
So the opportunity each of us has when anxiety enters our lives on any level is to grow our souls by doing what Jesus did, caring harder for those around us. The opportunity that we have corporately is the same, with the added possibility that what happened in the ancient world will happen again: people around us can be attracted to a community that continuously gives as Jesus gave, sacrificially and out of love.
I think the best Christmas gift we could give ourselves is to double the amount we were going to put in the plate tonight. It won’t go to me, it won’t go to the parish; it won’t even necessarily go to Christians. It will tell some people that the Cathedral Church of the Nativity loves them, that God loves them. And that may be the biggest thrill, the major moment of liberation from anxiety and spiritual uplift for us on this holy night. After all, it worked for three wise men.
Sermon, Bishop Paul Marshall
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Merry Christmas to each of you. Some years it is easier to say that than others. This year we are in an anxious time. We are deeply aware of the instability the economy in general. Beyond that, everyone now knows the words “Ponzi scheme,” a knowledge that brings another level of anxiety and even mistrust to some minds. Each of us in this room knows somebody who has lost a job, some of us are that person, and many of us who have been patiently growing retirement funds over the years know we are going to have to work a good deal longer than we anticipated, and that brings a sense of weariness, even betrayal.
What does faith say in times like this? Oddly enough, we say that Christians and Christianity are at their very best when they move heroically and confidently through difficult times. We say that this feast called Christmas celebrates the generosity of God, and entering that generosity is the key to keeping our spirits up when times are down.
Think about it. Why did Christianity grow so fast in its early years? It wasn’t because the emperor Constantine semi-converted in the year 313—Christian numerical growth had already happened and he merely bowed to that fact. It wasn’t because Christians all had one set of clear doctrines—they were centuries away from agreeing about to talk about God [Chalcedon], and centuries away from deciding what books were in their scriptures. Yet in the midst of its religious imprecision, the Church grew. How come?
The top social historians of our day agree that Christianity grew so fast mostly because Christians were known for their unusual compassion for those around them, especially toward those who were not members of their faith. From the Book of Acts on, they raised money on one continent to aid those on another continent, never for a moment presuming to think that mean little thought, that charity begins at home. They knew that charity does not begin at home. It begins with helping the people you don’t know and might not care for, just as the Good Samaritan did, just as Jesus did by leaving his heavenly home for our sake.
The first Christians let the gospel train them, as St. Paul says in our epistle tonight, to be a people who were zealous for good deeds. That’s a religious way of saying that they were really and truly into serving the world, the whole world. They knew that God’s taking flesh in Jesus for the sake of the whole world wasn’t an event in the past. It was the pattern for their own lives every day. What did that look like?
In about the year 250 a plague struck Alexandria, Egypt, and actually killed more than half of the population. People with resources got as far away from town as they could—except the Christians. In a time of panic and danger, they stayed in town and cared for the sick and dying, and some of them paid for that generosity with their lives. People joined the church.
Throughout the empire, Christians were known to patrol the garbage dumps, but they weren’t looking for antiques. Those dumps were where people placed infants they didn’t want, and the church got a reputation for saving lives that others had put in the trash. People joined the church.
Again, in the Alexandrian community, those who lived on the church’s dole would often go entirely without food one day a week so that they, too, would have something to give others. People joined the church. That is why I decided to give the children money instead of chocolate—so they would be able to have the corporate experience of giving to those in need out of what they have been given. It is a way to know the heart of the incarnation.
Let’s leave ancient history. I have seen many, many lives change because of participation in our New Hope project. From the little girl who ran a yard sale of toys she was done with to the retired lady who went back to work so she could make a major contribution, I have shed tears to see love expressed so unselfishly. A fourth-grader recently handed this [a teddy bear] to a friend of mine asking that it go to a child in Sudan.
And let’s come right to your doorstep. I often comment on Nativity’s practice of giving away its Christmas and Easter offerings to care for those in need. Those are the two largest offerings of the year. Many churches count on those offerings to survive, but your vestry puts mission concerns before survival concerns. At this time in history, when financial concerns are acute even for churches, your continuing to send money away from home is a bold statement that you accept Christianity’s mission of being to people what Jesus was when he walked this planet.
In doing so you follow the rich tradition that gave Christianity its growing potential. People in an age of anxiety were attracted to a religion whose adherents could dare not to follow the culture, but to transform it.
The epistle also says that in being zealous for good works we are training ourselves to renounce some things that stunt our souls. When times are difficult, we can overdo our natural inclination to self-protection. What happens then, as Ebenezer Scrooge reminds us, is that we shrivel inside. But when we reach out to others in the midst of our own worrying, we change, we are liberated for the subtle joy of knowing ourselves to be united with Christ. Science tells us we are hard-wired for that selfless giving we call altruism; Jesus shows us how to achieve it, and in achieving it, have life in abundance.
So the opportunity each of us has when anxiety enters our lives on any level is to grow our souls by doing what Jesus did, caring harder for those around us. The opportunity that we have corporately is the same, with the added possibility that what happened in the ancient world will happen again: people around us can be attracted to a community that continuously gives as Jesus gave, sacrificially and out of love.
I think the best Christmas gift we could give ourselves is to double the amount we were going to put in the plate tonight. It won’t go to me, it won’t go to the parish; it won’t even necessarily go to Christians. It will tell some people that the Cathedral Church of the Nativity loves them, that God loves them. And that may be the biggest thrill, the major moment of liberation from anxiety and spiritual uplift for us on this holy night. After all, it worked for three wise men.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Advent IV Sunday December 21, 2008
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pa.
Luke
One may recall Andrew Lloyd –Webers musical about an improbable and complicated love story between a young man emerging into adulthood and a young professional starlet, taking place sometime just after the second World War. A young man touched by Love, pursues and entices the woman of his interest, begging her to say Yes, say Yes, to the Love he feels. The headline song of this production speaks something of the improbable, the complicated, the difficult, the irrational, the joyous, the eye and heart opening, the life changing Aspects that saying Yes to love bring…… the truth of the matter stated by the evolving aspect of Love, Love changes everything goes like this, (Maestro, Hit it!)
Love,Love changes everything:Hands and faces,Earth and sky,Love,Love changes everything:How you live andHow you dieLoveCan make the summer fly,Or a nightSeem like a lifetime.Yes, Love,Love changes everything:Now I trembleAt your name.Nothing in the World will ever Be the same.Love,Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.LoveWill turn your world around,And that worldWill last for ever.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.OffInto the world we go,Planning futures,Shaping years.Love,Bursts in, and suddenlyAll our wisdomDisappears.LoveMakes fools of everyone:All the rulesWe make are broken.Yes, Love,Love changes everyone.Live or perishIn its flame.Love will never,Never let youBe the same.
Today we are invited to the miraculous, wondrous, complicated, faithful epic truth of God’s announcing to the world that Love will come into the world anew, and indeed it will change everything!
Similar to the story found just prior in Luke’s Gospel account, the story of God’s announcing through the angels to Elizabeth in the sixth month of her pregnancy that the child she carries will enflesh part of God’s action in the world for salvation by bearing the Son who will prepare the way, John the Baptist, we hear again that the angels are busy at work, doing what angels do. The angel comes bearing a message that God is up to something big and with a pastoral word, “fear not”! This time the angels’ big news is for a young virgin girl. The news is that she will be what she never could have imagined for her own life, a player in God’s saving action for an entire world and its inhabitants. The young girls response would be to become an obedient servant of God trusting in both the big news and the pastoral word, “Fear Not!”. Well, yeah, right, we all know how that goes, God shows up, we take it on faith, trust in the pastoral word to not be afraid, and move on! All of us love when God shows up!
Perhaps you and I know a it better than this cleaned up version of Luke’s presentation of this story that connects God’s plan of of salvation for the world to the human birth through the most innocent and vulnerable! Indeed between the lines you and I know that God’s showing up is often upending, interrupting, and unexpected and can disorient, and even take us off track for a bit. “Fear not” the angel says, “Fear not indeed”!
The scriptures tell us that Mary pondered these things in her heart!
Ponder indeed!
What will she say? How shall she respond? How could this be? How improbable, How complicated, How difficult, How irrational, How eye opening, How inconvenient!
Certainly she must have pondered, What if I say yes? Can I say No? Either way, Life will never be the same! But how will it not be the same?
For Mary, this encounter with Love will change everything. If she says yes, glory will be brought into the world, shame will certainly come to her from those who cannot see God at work, certainly nothing of her life or the life of the world will ever be the same.
For Mary, this encounter with Love will bring her long days and nights, the words of the angel will take on more and more meaning as she parents the one who grows in her womb, she will know the depth of loving, the pain and promise of sacrifice.
Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.
God interrupts and Mary ponders the interruption! Love chooses the most interesting people and places to invite a yes from. Disorienting and disruptive as it may be, a yes to God is a yes toward redemption. A young peasant girl, the most powerless of powerless, is invited to say yes! She would ponder these things and she would say yes, and Love would change everything.
Mary’s yes, would bring God’s plan of Salvation into the world! Freedom! Freedom to Say Yes to Love and dare to accept what Love would bring!
What Mary’s yes would bring would be the word made flesh and the name of Mary’s child would be Jesus. In Hebrew, his name is Yeshua, which means, “Yahweh or 'God' liberates.” Mary’s yes would be a yes to God’s promise of freedom! Freedom from all things physical, spiritual, and emotional that hold hostage!
In our journey toward Christmas, today we join Mary and I ask you to ponder, what is God asking us to say yes to that might change everything? What new thing might we experience when we join Mary in a yes to serve?
I submit to you that when we say yes, when we are willing to serve God and do what God asks of us, we will find that yes is freeing. To say yes, means we have navigated our way to our yes, through the very human questions. “What do I get out of this anyway? How does this help me? What is the payoff? ” Finding our way to the yes by daring to fall in love, promises to change everything. A yes, is indeed a yes to freedom.
In the rear of our very Cathedral sits a resource table with the marvelous book written by Madeline L’engle entitled, “The Glorious Impossible”. This book captures Mary’s moment of yes in these words.
Possible things are easy to believe. The Glorious Impossibles are those things that bring joy to our hearts, hope to our lives, songs to our lips
The birth of Jesus was a Glorious Impossible. Like love, it cannot be explained, it can only be rejoiced in
Mary’s Yes changes everything, how bout yours?
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pa.
Luke
One may recall Andrew Lloyd –Webers musical about an improbable and complicated love story between a young man emerging into adulthood and a young professional starlet, taking place sometime just after the second World War. A young man touched by Love, pursues and entices the woman of his interest, begging her to say Yes, say Yes, to the Love he feels. The headline song of this production speaks something of the improbable, the complicated, the difficult, the irrational, the joyous, the eye and heart opening, the life changing Aspects that saying Yes to love bring…… the truth of the matter stated by the evolving aspect of Love, Love changes everything goes like this, (Maestro, Hit it!)
Love,Love changes everything:Hands and faces,Earth and sky,Love,Love changes everything:How you live andHow you dieLoveCan make the summer fly,Or a nightSeem like a lifetime.Yes, Love,Love changes everything:Now I trembleAt your name.Nothing in the World will ever Be the same.Love,Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.LoveWill turn your world around,And that worldWill last for ever.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.OffInto the world we go,Planning futures,Shaping years.Love,Bursts in, and suddenlyAll our wisdomDisappears.LoveMakes fools of everyone:All the rulesWe make are broken.Yes, Love,Love changes everyone.Live or perishIn its flame.Love will never,Never let youBe the same.
Today we are invited to the miraculous, wondrous, complicated, faithful epic truth of God’s announcing to the world that Love will come into the world anew, and indeed it will change everything!
Similar to the story found just prior in Luke’s Gospel account, the story of God’s announcing through the angels to Elizabeth in the sixth month of her pregnancy that the child she carries will enflesh part of God’s action in the world for salvation by bearing the Son who will prepare the way, John the Baptist, we hear again that the angels are busy at work, doing what angels do. The angel comes bearing a message that God is up to something big and with a pastoral word, “fear not”! This time the angels’ big news is for a young virgin girl. The news is that she will be what she never could have imagined for her own life, a player in God’s saving action for an entire world and its inhabitants. The young girls response would be to become an obedient servant of God trusting in both the big news and the pastoral word, “Fear Not!”. Well, yeah, right, we all know how that goes, God shows up, we take it on faith, trust in the pastoral word to not be afraid, and move on! All of us love when God shows up!
Perhaps you and I know a it better than this cleaned up version of Luke’s presentation of this story that connects God’s plan of of salvation for the world to the human birth through the most innocent and vulnerable! Indeed between the lines you and I know that God’s showing up is often upending, interrupting, and unexpected and can disorient, and even take us off track for a bit. “Fear not” the angel says, “Fear not indeed”!
The scriptures tell us that Mary pondered these things in her heart!
Ponder indeed!
What will she say? How shall she respond? How could this be? How improbable, How complicated, How difficult, How irrational, How eye opening, How inconvenient!
Certainly she must have pondered, What if I say yes? Can I say No? Either way, Life will never be the same! But how will it not be the same?
For Mary, this encounter with Love will change everything. If she says yes, glory will be brought into the world, shame will certainly come to her from those who cannot see God at work, certainly nothing of her life or the life of the world will ever be the same.
For Mary, this encounter with Love will bring her long days and nights, the words of the angel will take on more and more meaning as she parents the one who grows in her womb, she will know the depth of loving, the pain and promise of sacrifice.
Love changes everything,Brings you glory,Brings you shame.Nothing in theWorld will everBe the same.Love changes everything:Days are longer,Words mean more.Love,Love changes everything:Pain is deeperThan before.
God interrupts and Mary ponders the interruption! Love chooses the most interesting people and places to invite a yes from. Disorienting and disruptive as it may be, a yes to God is a yes toward redemption. A young peasant girl, the most powerless of powerless, is invited to say yes! She would ponder these things and she would say yes, and Love would change everything.
Mary’s yes, would bring God’s plan of Salvation into the world! Freedom! Freedom to Say Yes to Love and dare to accept what Love would bring!
What Mary’s yes would bring would be the word made flesh and the name of Mary’s child would be Jesus. In Hebrew, his name is Yeshua, which means, “Yahweh or 'God' liberates.” Mary’s yes would be a yes to God’s promise of freedom! Freedom from all things physical, spiritual, and emotional that hold hostage!
In our journey toward Christmas, today we join Mary and I ask you to ponder, what is God asking us to say yes to that might change everything? What new thing might we experience when we join Mary in a yes to serve?
I submit to you that when we say yes, when we are willing to serve God and do what God asks of us, we will find that yes is freeing. To say yes, means we have navigated our way to our yes, through the very human questions. “What do I get out of this anyway? How does this help me? What is the payoff? ” Finding our way to the yes by daring to fall in love, promises to change everything. A yes, is indeed a yes to freedom.
In the rear of our very Cathedral sits a resource table with the marvelous book written by Madeline L’engle entitled, “The Glorious Impossible”. This book captures Mary’s moment of yes in these words.
Possible things are easy to believe. The Glorious Impossibles are those things that bring joy to our hearts, hope to our lives, songs to our lips
The birth of Jesus was a Glorious Impossible. Like love, it cannot be explained, it can only be rejoiced in
Mary’s Yes changes everything, how bout yours?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Advent III ~ John 1:6-8, 19-28
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
It's dark these days. It's dark when I wake up about 6:00 in the morning, and it is dark on those rare days I get home at 6:00 in the evening. Some days it is even dark all day long. Those are the days with the heavy leaden, gray skies. No rain, no snow...just dark gray days. Advent takes place in a time that is cold and dark.
Not only the meteorological environment is dark, so is the human one, too. The evening news is full of stories about the natural disasters afflicting humanity. The news, too, is full of stories of human disasters political disasters and diplomatic disasters, both potential and actual. Israel, Palestine, Iraq, the Sudan Afghanistan, Mumbai. The horizon dark gray with possibilities for terrorism. People of the world living in cold terror, their futures dark with the potential for destruction.
The City of New York is sheltering on cold nights more than ten thousand homeless souls. Bethlehem and Allentown and Easton are sheltering more than ever. Food kitchens are feeding more people than ever and more families than ever. Volunteer resources seem to be drying up though. Some neighborhoods are tired of having all those depressing people hanging around all the time. It seems to be going on forever and ever.
Many, too many people live in the cold and the dark. The hearts of others are being turned cold and dark because they are tired and the need never seems to diminish, only increase. It’s Advent.
In this litany, let me mention one more condition of our time, which is that so many of us seem to be in a perpetual "long dark night of the soul." People who are questioning the meaning, value, purpose of their lives. Nothing ahead but more of the same. Futures dark because of past expectations unfulfilled. We live in biblical times.
The fear of the dark begins in early childhood. The child who is afraid of the dark used to be you and me. Afraid of the creak in the floor, afraid of the shadow on the wall, afraid of the nameless faceless one who could come through the window, afraid of the shapeless thing that might be looming in the closet.
My son Tyler as a very little boy went to bed with a volleyball. For months. He said it kept the elephants away. And you know, he was right. Not one elephant came by in the night the whole time he slept with that volleyball.
We grow up. We learn not to be afraid of the dark. We learn that fear is seen as a sign of weakness, so we don’t speak out loud of our fears…even to ourselves. Of course, it is an untruth to say that we have no fears.
There is in most of us some darkness that casts a chill, a shadow onto our adult heart. The telephone ringing at 2 a.m. Fear of the day that the body being lowered into the ground belongs to the one we can’t live without.
We fear being old without the strength or the will to protest being left alone all day in front of a flickering television. We fear being at the mercy of medical machines.
We are afraid of loss, of helplessness, of old age, of abandonment, of adult kinds of dark. Advent begins in the dark.
I once knew a woman who was beautiful, witty, intelligent, with a devoted husband, two fine children and a lovely home, who was so paralyzed by fear that she could not get out of bed in the morning.
I once new a man at the top of his profession – doors were opened for him, drinks poured for him, Wall Street bowed to him, women admired him, men feared him. Yet his life was so stunted that he could count on no one but himself as he was faced with the issues of life and health that come to us all.
In his address accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer said, “No technological achievement can mitigate the disappointments of modern man… his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror.”
Meg Greenfield once wrote in Newsweek magazine, “…The desire to follow a charismatic leader, the blindness to evidence that our heroes may be weak…the fantasy of escape into another place… the contained yet real promptings to violence that we have all felt. These are not the vices of some cult. They are the dark impulses that lurk in every psyche…”
Advent takes place in the dark – darkness without and darkness within; the fear of darkness and the darkness of fear.
It was into a real world that John came testifying to light that he saw coming into this dark world. Jesus. It was into the fullness of human life and experience that God came.
And it is only in the reality that is human experience, our experience that we can hear, appreciate, accept, and respond to this incredible act of God that we prepare to celebrate in the Advent season.
If we confine Jesus to the warm glow of a stable birth surrounded by family, shepherds, wise men, lowing cattle; then we will never know, truly, what this birth means to the world, and can mean to you and me. It is in the shadows and darkness of human experience that God would make his presence known to us.
One of the collects following the Prayers of the People says of God, "Almighty God, to whom our needs are known before we ask..." God knows. AND it is through the Incarnation...the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we know that God knows. God knows what it’s really like, knows what we really are going through in our lives, knows how much we need to know his presence with us, knows how much we need the assurance of His love and His future.
One of the Eucharistic prayers points out this common bond we have with all humanity when the priest says, “joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope..."
It is a paradox that the darkness of human experience is penetrated by the tiniest of lights. Night hovers over Advent, as it hovers over human experience. The coming of the light reveals just how dark the night can be, and it also reveals how powerful that light is. It has prevailed against all the powers of darkness. The light continues to shine, and no darkness – no darkness of any kind – shall overcome it.
It's dark these days. It's dark when I wake up about 6:00 in the morning, and it is dark on those rare days I get home at 6:00 in the evening. Some days it is even dark all day long. Those are the days with the heavy leaden, gray skies. No rain, no snow...just dark gray days. Advent takes place in a time that is cold and dark.
Not only the meteorological environment is dark, so is the human one, too. The evening news is full of stories about the natural disasters afflicting humanity. The news, too, is full of stories of human disasters political disasters and diplomatic disasters, both potential and actual. Israel, Palestine, Iraq, the Sudan Afghanistan, Mumbai. The horizon dark gray with possibilities for terrorism. People of the world living in cold terror, their futures dark with the potential for destruction.
The City of New York is sheltering on cold nights more than ten thousand homeless souls. Bethlehem and Allentown and Easton are sheltering more than ever. Food kitchens are feeding more people than ever and more families than ever. Volunteer resources seem to be drying up though. Some neighborhoods are tired of having all those depressing people hanging around all the time. It seems to be going on forever and ever.
Many, too many people live in the cold and the dark. The hearts of others are being turned cold and dark because they are tired and the need never seems to diminish, only increase. It’s Advent.
In this litany, let me mention one more condition of our time, which is that so many of us seem to be in a perpetual "long dark night of the soul." People who are questioning the meaning, value, purpose of their lives. Nothing ahead but more of the same. Futures dark because of past expectations unfulfilled. We live in biblical times.
The fear of the dark begins in early childhood. The child who is afraid of the dark used to be you and me. Afraid of the creak in the floor, afraid of the shadow on the wall, afraid of the nameless faceless one who could come through the window, afraid of the shapeless thing that might be looming in the closet.
My son Tyler as a very little boy went to bed with a volleyball. For months. He said it kept the elephants away. And you know, he was right. Not one elephant came by in the night the whole time he slept with that volleyball.
We grow up. We learn not to be afraid of the dark. We learn that fear is seen as a sign of weakness, so we don’t speak out loud of our fears…even to ourselves. Of course, it is an untruth to say that we have no fears.
There is in most of us some darkness that casts a chill, a shadow onto our adult heart. The telephone ringing at 2 a.m. Fear of the day that the body being lowered into the ground belongs to the one we can’t live without.
We fear being old without the strength or the will to protest being left alone all day in front of a flickering television. We fear being at the mercy of medical machines.
We are afraid of loss, of helplessness, of old age, of abandonment, of adult kinds of dark. Advent begins in the dark.
I once knew a woman who was beautiful, witty, intelligent, with a devoted husband, two fine children and a lovely home, who was so paralyzed by fear that she could not get out of bed in the morning.
I once new a man at the top of his profession – doors were opened for him, drinks poured for him, Wall Street bowed to him, women admired him, men feared him. Yet his life was so stunted that he could count on no one but himself as he was faced with the issues of life and health that come to us all.
In his address accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer said, “No technological achievement can mitigate the disappointments of modern man… his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror.”
Meg Greenfield once wrote in Newsweek magazine, “…The desire to follow a charismatic leader, the blindness to evidence that our heroes may be weak…the fantasy of escape into another place… the contained yet real promptings to violence that we have all felt. These are not the vices of some cult. They are the dark impulses that lurk in every psyche…”
Advent takes place in the dark – darkness without and darkness within; the fear of darkness and the darkness of fear.
It was into a real world that John came testifying to light that he saw coming into this dark world. Jesus. It was into the fullness of human life and experience that God came.
And it is only in the reality that is human experience, our experience that we can hear, appreciate, accept, and respond to this incredible act of God that we prepare to celebrate in the Advent season.
If we confine Jesus to the warm glow of a stable birth surrounded by family, shepherds, wise men, lowing cattle; then we will never know, truly, what this birth means to the world, and can mean to you and me. It is in the shadows and darkness of human experience that God would make his presence known to us.
One of the collects following the Prayers of the People says of God, "Almighty God, to whom our needs are known before we ask..." God knows. AND it is through the Incarnation...the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we know that God knows. God knows what it’s really like, knows what we really are going through in our lives, knows how much we need to know his presence with us, knows how much we need the assurance of His love and His future.
One of the Eucharistic prayers points out this common bond we have with all humanity when the priest says, “joining with the heavenly chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all those in every generation who have looked to you in hope..."
It is a paradox that the darkness of human experience is penetrated by the tiniest of lights. Night hovers over Advent, as it hovers over human experience. The coming of the light reveals just how dark the night can be, and it also reveals how powerful that light is. It has prevailed against all the powers of darkness. The light continues to shine, and no darkness – no darkness of any kind – shall overcome it.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Advent II -- Isaiah 40, Mark 1
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem Pennsylvania
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
My father loves a parade. In fact, the love of parades seems to resonate through my entire family. A family tradition of late is to attend the Memorial Day parade in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where my father lives. Careful preparations are made to attend this parade. The necessary comforts of watching a parade are carefully placed into our vehicles, food, a soft chair, cool beverages. We then navigate the small town of Gettysburg working around a carefully prepared parade route which my Father has investigated with care, driving long ways round carefully carved off streets in order for the parade route to be clear and those in the parade ease of movement. We park our cars and with great excitement wait for the parade to begin to journey over hills, and plains, around the town circle and unimpeded down the cleared off parade route in front of the many gathered to receive them!
My father loves a parade, and the truth is I think most of us do. We in Bethlehem love a parade. I know more than my share this year that planned carefully to brave the confusion and congestion of New York City to attend the Thanksgiving Day parade. Now that’s some planning! Talk about careful planning to make a path straight in that city, to clear things out in such a way that those parading can parade!
Walter Bruggeman, Old Testament scholar, suggests that in ancient times, parade routes were established to create an ease of passage and opportunity for excited greeting of kings and great warriors. Paths would literally be created in the roughest of places! Hillsides would need to be lowered, crooked paths would need to be straightened out, and rough places on the road would need to be smoothed out, so that the easiest and straightest path could be created for the passage of these important figures!
Such is the imagery the prophet Isaiah uses to offer a word of hope to the people of God in the 5th century living under the occupation of the Babylonian Empire.
Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Make the paths straight, lower the hills and smooth out the rough places! In essence, let’s have a parade! People get ready for Yahweh has not forgotten you, hope is to be expected.
Living in a time of lost hope and despair, families of Israel have been split apart, many loved ones separated as craftsman and skilled workers are exported to places in the Babylonian empire where their skills could be put to good use. Those who remained home living under the direction and rule of an occupying government would fine a loss of freedoms, and little regard for their religious customs. The people of Israel wait having lost their hope and questioning deep in their being if in their losing their way, they also had led to their losing their God?
Into this reality Isaiah speaks a word, with a preamble that reflects literally the pastoral heart and of God with words of Comfort and promises of Care, Isaiah says, "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Prepare for the arrival of God’s Hope anew."
Certainly we resonate with this theme of Advent, this theme of preparing for and expectantly waiting for a word of hope to crash in particularly when challenging times seem to cry out for it.
A few centuries from the time Isaiah’s words of expectant hope are delivered, John the Baptist is heard delivering a word again to a people living in desperate times under an occupying force. John, son of Zechariah, a priest of the temple, takes on the family business as it were, and proclaims from the desert Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! One has to wander really how Zechariah may have felt – how he might have envisioned John’s life. If he ever could have imagined John’s ministry would have become what it did, an itinerant preacher with strange mannerisms zealously calling a community of believers into a dramatic relationship with a hopeful God by shedding themselves of hills and valleys, the twists and turns that would interrupt their relationship with their God. One wonders what his Father thought, yet it is John who announces a new word of hope and invites people to take their place on the parade route. He offers a wakeup call for the arrogant, a call for the despairing, and hope for all who would listen.
Well, isn’t this the God you and I rely upon! The God we look to and hope for, the God who bears present in life’s circumstances where redemption can happen at all times and in all circumstances.
The preamble of Isaiah’s message of hope is found is the words of Comfort! Comfort, Comfort Ye my people! Those beautiful words that will come to life this very night in this very place as Handel’s Messiah is offered to us. The beautiful message of hope in the midst of despair, redemption in all things.
Handel himself knew of this hope even as what has now become a valued and assumed treasure of art, it was not always. The beauty of this work came in the midst of one of the darker hours of Handel’s life. What was once a glorified professional life, full of accolades, success, and reasonable financial security, had been challenged by the time Handel was composing this piece of music. Once a prolific composer of opera, the companies Handel was associated with had closed, he himself has suffered a stroke, and in the late 1730’s and early 1740’s he found himself depressed and in debt. Handel found himself holding his breath, wondering if such despair could be transcended, transformed, redeemed, and probably without knowing what was happening to him, the Duke of Devonshire consented to sponsor a new style of music for Handel, and Charles Jennen had written the basis for the story of salvation that Handel would take 24 days held up in Jennen’s cottage to produce what would become what today we hold as the moving musical portrayal of God’s salvation history.
This second Sunday of Advent, we welcome an invitation to prepare the way of the Lord, in our lives, in our community and in the world. We light a second candle this day, a candle of hope, a hope that is powerful enough to smooth out the roughest of life’s circumstances. We set about the business of making room at the table, in our hearts, in our institutions, in our workplaces, and in our families for what God may do with those things that hold us down or hold us back from living into the full joy of knowing God’s presence in our lives. We hope against hope, for God fullness in our lives.
Frederick Beuchner speaks of this hope in this way, he says, “hope is ultimately hope in Christ”. The hope that he really is what for centuries we have been claiming he is- that is the hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he somehow conquers. The hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. The hope that in some time unforeseeable and in some way he will return with healing in his wings!
Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Let’s have a parade!
Bethlehem Pennsylvania
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
My father loves a parade. In fact, the love of parades seems to resonate through my entire family. A family tradition of late is to attend the Memorial Day parade in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania where my father lives. Careful preparations are made to attend this parade. The necessary comforts of watching a parade are carefully placed into our vehicles, food, a soft chair, cool beverages. We then navigate the small town of Gettysburg working around a carefully prepared parade route which my Father has investigated with care, driving long ways round carefully carved off streets in order for the parade route to be clear and those in the parade ease of movement. We park our cars and with great excitement wait for the parade to begin to journey over hills, and plains, around the town circle and unimpeded down the cleared off parade route in front of the many gathered to receive them!
My father loves a parade, and the truth is I think most of us do. We in Bethlehem love a parade. I know more than my share this year that planned carefully to brave the confusion and congestion of New York City to attend the Thanksgiving Day parade. Now that’s some planning! Talk about careful planning to make a path straight in that city, to clear things out in such a way that those parading can parade!
Walter Bruggeman, Old Testament scholar, suggests that in ancient times, parade routes were established to create an ease of passage and opportunity for excited greeting of kings and great warriors. Paths would literally be created in the roughest of places! Hillsides would need to be lowered, crooked paths would need to be straightened out, and rough places on the road would need to be smoothed out, so that the easiest and straightest path could be created for the passage of these important figures!
Such is the imagery the prophet Isaiah uses to offer a word of hope to the people of God in the 5th century living under the occupation of the Babylonian Empire.
Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Make the paths straight, lower the hills and smooth out the rough places! In essence, let’s have a parade! People get ready for Yahweh has not forgotten you, hope is to be expected.
Living in a time of lost hope and despair, families of Israel have been split apart, many loved ones separated as craftsman and skilled workers are exported to places in the Babylonian empire where their skills could be put to good use. Those who remained home living under the direction and rule of an occupying government would fine a loss of freedoms, and little regard for their religious customs. The people of Israel wait having lost their hope and questioning deep in their being if in their losing their way, they also had led to their losing their God?
Into this reality Isaiah speaks a word, with a preamble that reflects literally the pastoral heart and of God with words of Comfort and promises of Care, Isaiah says, "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Prepare for the arrival of God’s Hope anew."
Certainly we resonate with this theme of Advent, this theme of preparing for and expectantly waiting for a word of hope to crash in particularly when challenging times seem to cry out for it.
A few centuries from the time Isaiah’s words of expectant hope are delivered, John the Baptist is heard delivering a word again to a people living in desperate times under an occupying force. John, son of Zechariah, a priest of the temple, takes on the family business as it were, and proclaims from the desert Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! One has to wander really how Zechariah may have felt – how he might have envisioned John’s life. If he ever could have imagined John’s ministry would have become what it did, an itinerant preacher with strange mannerisms zealously calling a community of believers into a dramatic relationship with a hopeful God by shedding themselves of hills and valleys, the twists and turns that would interrupt their relationship with their God. One wonders what his Father thought, yet it is John who announces a new word of hope and invites people to take their place on the parade route. He offers a wakeup call for the arrogant, a call for the despairing, and hope for all who would listen.
Well, isn’t this the God you and I rely upon! The God we look to and hope for, the God who bears present in life’s circumstances where redemption can happen at all times and in all circumstances.
The preamble of Isaiah’s message of hope is found is the words of Comfort! Comfort, Comfort Ye my people! Those beautiful words that will come to life this very night in this very place as Handel’s Messiah is offered to us. The beautiful message of hope in the midst of despair, redemption in all things.
Handel himself knew of this hope even as what has now become a valued and assumed treasure of art, it was not always. The beauty of this work came in the midst of one of the darker hours of Handel’s life. What was once a glorified professional life, full of accolades, success, and reasonable financial security, had been challenged by the time Handel was composing this piece of music. Once a prolific composer of opera, the companies Handel was associated with had closed, he himself has suffered a stroke, and in the late 1730’s and early 1740’s he found himself depressed and in debt. Handel found himself holding his breath, wondering if such despair could be transcended, transformed, redeemed, and probably without knowing what was happening to him, the Duke of Devonshire consented to sponsor a new style of music for Handel, and Charles Jennen had written the basis for the story of salvation that Handel would take 24 days held up in Jennen’s cottage to produce what would become what today we hold as the moving musical portrayal of God’s salvation history.
This second Sunday of Advent, we welcome an invitation to prepare the way of the Lord, in our lives, in our community and in the world. We light a second candle this day, a candle of hope, a hope that is powerful enough to smooth out the roughest of life’s circumstances. We set about the business of making room at the table, in our hearts, in our institutions, in our workplaces, and in our families for what God may do with those things that hold us down or hold us back from living into the full joy of knowing God’s presence in our lives. We hope against hope, for God fullness in our lives.
Frederick Beuchner speaks of this hope in this way, he says, “hope is ultimately hope in Christ”. The hope that he really is what for centuries we have been claiming he is- that is the hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he somehow conquers. The hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. The hope that in some time unforeseeable and in some way he will return with healing in his wings!
Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord! Let’s have a parade!
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Advent I November 30, 2008
The Very Rev. Anthony Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Harry Pritchett, Former Dean of St. John the Divine in New York City, tells a story of his boyhood, growing up in Alabama, discusses a promised dinner guest. Having an ample fascination with early motion picture shows, he tells of going to the local theatre to pay his 5 cents to watch a famous movie actress, filled with glamour and beauty. It seems as if somehow, someway, his Father had come into the company of this famous actress and she was coming through town! It seemed as if she would be coming to dinner. His Father told his family to be on best behavior, she would be coming this very night. Excited and filled with expectation Harry, began to prepare for the arrival of this larger than life figure he had only encountered on the big screen, and he began to imagine what it would be like to meet her.
The day grew late and Harry grew concerned as there was no sign of the promised guest. His mother sent him to bed, promising that if she actually showed she would wake him. He did everything he could to keep himself awake, listening intently for a car, a door to open, a magical voice embedded in his ears he knew so well from the big screen to bellow from the bottom of the stairs. Stay awake, I must stay awake, he thought to himself.
Today once again the church cycle of calendar has brought us to the season of Advent. Advent from the Latin adventus means .The coming of or the arrival of something promised. You know the advent themes that run through our church and spiritual lives! The Scriptures, the music, the sermons, the prayers, the decorations, all of our “wares” will tell the tale of Advent themes, Get ready; anticipate the arrival of something promised! We’re invited in our lives to embrace a message to prepare with excitement for the advent of something incredible. We’re asked to be like a young boy waiting to meet a promised legend. Like that young boy we may find ourselves with a challenge in our waiting. We must be alert, stay awake, so that we might not miss such an opportunity!
I am guessing you are probably like me this time of year. We’ve rummaged through our attics, or our basements, or our crawl spaces, wherever it is we keep our “Advent stuff”. We are busy clearing out the boxes, dragging out our wares, our ritualistic symbols that lest we forget are there to remind and invite us into the Advent of God’s action in the world and in our lives! We’ve done it here at the Cathedral, looking deeply through our inadequate storage spaces and look what we have found! We’ve put up the Crèche, and we’ll fill it week by week with the figurines that will help us be reminded of what God promises in the birth of hope, justice, and love and Mercy enfleshed in the world. We’ve put our candles in the windows and around our wreathe and each week symbolically with light the way put lights light the way, so that we can easily see and prepare for the coming of that which is promised!
We’ve put on our bright colors of blue with cosmic tone and design that most certainly accomplishes its goal, to grab our attention! These wares Beckon us to be awake, alert, and be mindful that our awareness of God’s presence is not captured only in our quaint remembrances of a beautiful babe in arms warmed in straw suckling at his mother’s bosom, or by a warm and gentle light flowing from a neatly arranged greened wreathe that is worthy of the front cover of any greeting card, But that Advent is the Promise of that which is to come in fullness and with great fanfare, annunciation, and even quaking! It is no less than God’s Kingdom, God’s full on reign that we prepare and wait for, and the fullness of it lived on earth! The promise of God’s tearing down structures and Kingdoms designed to oppress and tear down God’s people and the building up and empowerment of the powerless! This Advent theme is one that clearly Jesus bangs home with apocalyptic flare in his Gospel today, and the Prophet Isaiah proclaims in our Old Testament reading today.
The Advent theme of today is more a wake up call, a stirring and quaking of the might of God’s character advocating intensely for the poor, the helpless, the needy and advocating against the greedy, the power abusers, and the careless. Today’s theme is less captured perhaps in a beautiful quaint remembrance of a boy awaiting a promised fantasy, or a Crèche awaiting a suckling babe, or a Christmas card shining light from a picture perfect wreathe. Today’s theme is more like a Wake up Call that is like discovering for the first time after you’ve settled in a new home feeling secure and safe, comfortable that the fire whistle which screams for action of those in dire need jolts you out of bed. Today’s theme screams for you attention like the God awful sound that comes from a warning siren designed to let those within distance of nuclear power plants that they must pay attention to the delicate and powerful forces that exist within their reaches.
The Advent theme today reminds us that when God’s reign comes in full force it is like a power we cannot imagine! An African American spiritual speaks to this time expected to come among us, “My Lord what a morning! My Lord what a morning! My Lord what morning, when the stars begin to fall!” “You’ll hear the trumpet sound, to wake the nations underground, Lookin to my God’s right hand, when the stars begin to fall!”
The theme of this hymn captures the theme of the first Sunday of advent. Jesus promises the stars will fall, the moon be darkened, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory. The prophet promises the “heavens be torn apart in a way that would cause the mountains to quake”. In this fashion, the way is made for God’s reign on earth!
I.
This God is not docile and not quaint, this God is bold, and on this day we are asked to stay awake to his dreams coming in fullness and our actions in response to this coming should be no less robust.
Advent is hoping for and preparing for the fullness of the vision Jesus embodied and proclaimed to pronounce good news to the poor, glad tidings, sight the blind, healing for the lame. This Vision is what we hope for in its fullness and it is a robust proclamation for “kingdoms” and ways of being that must fall so that the just may rise.
We begin the advent journey together that will surely land us as witnesses to god’s dream enfleshed in the person of Jesus. It will be the vision lived in that flesh that we are to be alert to, awake to, boldly respond to.
Henri Nouen challenges us to live into this vision in the simplest but boldest of ways:
“Everytime we forgive our neighbor, everytime we make a child smile, everytime we show compassion to a suffering person, everytime we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to a tame or wild animal, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for justice and peace among people’s and nations- we are making the vision come true.
By the way, I believe she showed up!
The Very Rev. Anthony Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Harry Pritchett, Former Dean of St. John the Divine in New York City, tells a story of his boyhood, growing up in Alabama, discusses a promised dinner guest. Having an ample fascination with early motion picture shows, he tells of going to the local theatre to pay his 5 cents to watch a famous movie actress, filled with glamour and beauty. It seems as if somehow, someway, his Father had come into the company of this famous actress and she was coming through town! It seemed as if she would be coming to dinner. His Father told his family to be on best behavior, she would be coming this very night. Excited and filled with expectation Harry, began to prepare for the arrival of this larger than life figure he had only encountered on the big screen, and he began to imagine what it would be like to meet her.
The day grew late and Harry grew concerned as there was no sign of the promised guest. His mother sent him to bed, promising that if she actually showed she would wake him. He did everything he could to keep himself awake, listening intently for a car, a door to open, a magical voice embedded in his ears he knew so well from the big screen to bellow from the bottom of the stairs. Stay awake, I must stay awake, he thought to himself.
Today once again the church cycle of calendar has brought us to the season of Advent. Advent from the Latin adventus means .The coming of or the arrival of something promised. You know the advent themes that run through our church and spiritual lives! The Scriptures, the music, the sermons, the prayers, the decorations, all of our “wares” will tell the tale of Advent themes, Get ready; anticipate the arrival of something promised! We’re invited in our lives to embrace a message to prepare with excitement for the advent of something incredible. We’re asked to be like a young boy waiting to meet a promised legend. Like that young boy we may find ourselves with a challenge in our waiting. We must be alert, stay awake, so that we might not miss such an opportunity!
I am guessing you are probably like me this time of year. We’ve rummaged through our attics, or our basements, or our crawl spaces, wherever it is we keep our “Advent stuff”. We are busy clearing out the boxes, dragging out our wares, our ritualistic symbols that lest we forget are there to remind and invite us into the Advent of God’s action in the world and in our lives! We’ve done it here at the Cathedral, looking deeply through our inadequate storage spaces and look what we have found! We’ve put up the Crèche, and we’ll fill it week by week with the figurines that will help us be reminded of what God promises in the birth of hope, justice, and love and Mercy enfleshed in the world. We’ve put our candles in the windows and around our wreathe and each week symbolically with light the way put lights light the way, so that we can easily see and prepare for the coming of that which is promised!
We’ve put on our bright colors of blue with cosmic tone and design that most certainly accomplishes its goal, to grab our attention! These wares Beckon us to be awake, alert, and be mindful that our awareness of God’s presence is not captured only in our quaint remembrances of a beautiful babe in arms warmed in straw suckling at his mother’s bosom, or by a warm and gentle light flowing from a neatly arranged greened wreathe that is worthy of the front cover of any greeting card, But that Advent is the Promise of that which is to come in fullness and with great fanfare, annunciation, and even quaking! It is no less than God’s Kingdom, God’s full on reign that we prepare and wait for, and the fullness of it lived on earth! The promise of God’s tearing down structures and Kingdoms designed to oppress and tear down God’s people and the building up and empowerment of the powerless! This Advent theme is one that clearly Jesus bangs home with apocalyptic flare in his Gospel today, and the Prophet Isaiah proclaims in our Old Testament reading today.
The Advent theme of today is more a wake up call, a stirring and quaking of the might of God’s character advocating intensely for the poor, the helpless, the needy and advocating against the greedy, the power abusers, and the careless. Today’s theme is less captured perhaps in a beautiful quaint remembrance of a boy awaiting a promised fantasy, or a Crèche awaiting a suckling babe, or a Christmas card shining light from a picture perfect wreathe. Today’s theme is more like a Wake up Call that is like discovering for the first time after you’ve settled in a new home feeling secure and safe, comfortable that the fire whistle which screams for action of those in dire need jolts you out of bed. Today’s theme screams for you attention like the God awful sound that comes from a warning siren designed to let those within distance of nuclear power plants that they must pay attention to the delicate and powerful forces that exist within their reaches.
The Advent theme today reminds us that when God’s reign comes in full force it is like a power we cannot imagine! An African American spiritual speaks to this time expected to come among us, “My Lord what a morning! My Lord what a morning! My Lord what morning, when the stars begin to fall!” “You’ll hear the trumpet sound, to wake the nations underground, Lookin to my God’s right hand, when the stars begin to fall!”
The theme of this hymn captures the theme of the first Sunday of advent. Jesus promises the stars will fall, the moon be darkened, and the Son of Man will come with great power and glory. The prophet promises the “heavens be torn apart in a way that would cause the mountains to quake”. In this fashion, the way is made for God’s reign on earth!
I.
This God is not docile and not quaint, this God is bold, and on this day we are asked to stay awake to his dreams coming in fullness and our actions in response to this coming should be no less robust.
Advent is hoping for and preparing for the fullness of the vision Jesus embodied and proclaimed to pronounce good news to the poor, glad tidings, sight the blind, healing for the lame. This Vision is what we hope for in its fullness and it is a robust proclamation for “kingdoms” and ways of being that must fall so that the just may rise.
We begin the advent journey together that will surely land us as witnesses to god’s dream enfleshed in the person of Jesus. It will be the vision lived in that flesh that we are to be alert to, awake to, boldly respond to.
Henri Nouen challenges us to live into this vision in the simplest but boldest of ways:
“Everytime we forgive our neighbor, everytime we make a child smile, everytime we show compassion to a suffering person, everytime we arrange a bouquet of flowers, offer care to a tame or wild animal, prevent pollution, create beauty in our homes and gardens, and work for justice and peace among people’s and nations- we are making the vision come true.
By the way, I believe she showed up!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving Day-November 27, 2008
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem Pennsylvania
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. II Corinthians 9
We are gathered together this day in one of the most interesting of intersections of Christian reflection on what is by its very founding and existence a secular or civic holiday! Thanksgiving! The traditions of enjoying the symbols of our well established cultural experience are well entrenched by this point. For many of us, we will enjoy a hearty meal as a reminder of our thankfulness for a hearty harvest yielded to us by the grace of God. Many of us also will participate in the rituals that express our deep connection and thanks to those we love, our families, for health that we enjoy, for shelter and warmth. The surrounding cultural temptations will accompany our celebration; the propensity to overdo our abundance, too much food, too much dessert, too much football, the opportunity and invitation to accumulate more things, and the occasional possibility of too much family. I offer the last as tongue and cheek.
But lest we take too far a leave of the origins of this civic thanksgiving, I am reminded that indeed here we are in this house of prayer and we as Christians are invited to be mindful that the origins of this national holiday came into being in one of the most desperate times of our journey as a united people in America. Though regional, state, and community observances of days of thanksgiving were not unique in the early American experience, a national observance was. A quick re-capture of history I pray will invite us into this unique opportunity for Christian reflection on this secular holiday.
Steeped in the heat of a war torn country, where battlefields bore witness to the fracture of values and identity as a country; in the terror, destruction, and at the height of man’s inhumanity toward man, the leadership of our country, especially Abraham Lincoln seemed to have a deep sense that this brokenness was an abhor ration to the very character and nature of God.
In the midst of this time, and at the plea of others, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, delivered a proclamation authored by the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln,
With a pre-amble that recognized the bounty of farmers, the industry of a country that was inventive and industrious, the security of a nation from outside aggressor, and a hope for an expanded freedom for its people----even in and especially despite the fractious and violent conflict this people found themselves in, comes a call for a day of national thanksgiving directed toward a creator of abundance and mercy!
A portion of the proclamation reads this way:
A Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
The Rev. John Woart, Rector of St. John’s Church Norristown Pennsylvania on the very first national observance of thanksgiving in 1863 addressed his congregation with these words,
“This annual festival is, the present year, invested with peculiar interest. Not only are we called upon by the Governor of Pennsylvania to return thanks to God for customary, and also, for peculiar, benefits bestowed upon us, as a fractional portion of a great people, but the President of the United States sends out a request that the day may be observed in every part of our county with special reference to the peculiar favors of God.
The leading purpose of our assembling together is manifest, form the fact that we are gathered within a house of prayer. We meet to pray to our Father in heaven which includes the offering of thanks. Many people go hastily, and, of course, with but little serious reflection into the Sanctuary of God. With the thoughtful Christian, however, it is otherwise.”
Here is the intersection I seek to lift up on this Thanksgiving Day, this civic holiday, the intersection of Faith, the same intersection I believe our forebears were seeking! With a thoughtful heart we look at St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. We are reminded that the seeds of thanksgiving are gifted to us by God and as we plant them, the fruit of thanksgiving is one that multiplies in abundance!
History has so much to teach us. In this case the reminder that at an intersection of human experience that was filled with challenge and despair, that shines unfavorably on the human propensity to err in ways that lead to harm rather than do good, to destroy, rather than to build up, that even in such moments, deep inside all of us is a gateway to another way that can transcend the limitations of our humanity. A spirit of thanksgiving! Isn’t it God inspired that in the midst of a darkest hour a people would be called to look deep inside themselves to discover a primary dependence on a power greater than themselves, and recognize that all that they are, all who they are, all that they have is dependent in a sacred relationship Martin Buber would describe as I and thou, and to live in thanksgiving for it!
You and I live in interesting and challenging times! Yet as Christians we also live in no less challenging times than those faithful who have gone before us. Is it not a “peculiar truth” for us that it does seem to be that when times are more challenging, we are more apt to have a workable lens that allows us to begin to understand just how blessed we have been and what opportunity for a spirit of thanksgiving we might offer. Just how peculiar God is as we are pursued by his generous love particularly when things are messy at best. This does not suggest that life’s struggles and challenges are not real and are not worthy of our struggle, it does suggest however that the power of paradox is that in discovering a sense of thanksgiving lives once overpowered by despair instead find transformation in hope. The 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is thank you, that would suffice.” For Christian folk, a life well lived, begins and ends with a deeply integrated sense in our being of thanksgiving!
On this Thanksgiving Day, I leave you with inspired words of a preacher who found the intersection of Christian life with the secular and civic worthy of note, again, Rev. John Woart, on the first national observance of thanksgiving in 1863.
“Brethren! It is well for us to be in the House of God today! God has drawn nigh to us during the past year, and blessed us in our homes, and our neighborhoods—in our Commonwealth, and throughout the Union of which we are no unimportant part. Let it be our unceasing prayer of thanks, “that the Holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts!” Then will the world know us as Christians. We shall show forth our faith by our works, with cheerful hearts, and according to our ability. We shall be a light which cannot be hid!” Amen.
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem Pennsylvania
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. II Corinthians 9
We are gathered together this day in one of the most interesting of intersections of Christian reflection on what is by its very founding and existence a secular or civic holiday! Thanksgiving! The traditions of enjoying the symbols of our well established cultural experience are well entrenched by this point. For many of us, we will enjoy a hearty meal as a reminder of our thankfulness for a hearty harvest yielded to us by the grace of God. Many of us also will participate in the rituals that express our deep connection and thanks to those we love, our families, for health that we enjoy, for shelter and warmth. The surrounding cultural temptations will accompany our celebration; the propensity to overdo our abundance, too much food, too much dessert, too much football, the opportunity and invitation to accumulate more things, and the occasional possibility of too much family. I offer the last as tongue and cheek.
But lest we take too far a leave of the origins of this civic thanksgiving, I am reminded that indeed here we are in this house of prayer and we as Christians are invited to be mindful that the origins of this national holiday came into being in one of the most desperate times of our journey as a united people in America. Though regional, state, and community observances of days of thanksgiving were not unique in the early American experience, a national observance was. A quick re-capture of history I pray will invite us into this unique opportunity for Christian reflection on this secular holiday.
Steeped in the heat of a war torn country, where battlefields bore witness to the fracture of values and identity as a country; in the terror, destruction, and at the height of man’s inhumanity toward man, the leadership of our country, especially Abraham Lincoln seemed to have a deep sense that this brokenness was an abhor ration to the very character and nature of God.
In the midst of this time, and at the plea of others, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, delivered a proclamation authored by the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln,
With a pre-amble that recognized the bounty of farmers, the industry of a country that was inventive and industrious, the security of a nation from outside aggressor, and a hope for an expanded freedom for its people----even in and especially despite the fractious and violent conflict this people found themselves in, comes a call for a day of national thanksgiving directed toward a creator of abundance and mercy!
A portion of the proclamation reads this way:
A Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
The Rev. John Woart, Rector of St. John’s Church Norristown Pennsylvania on the very first national observance of thanksgiving in 1863 addressed his congregation with these words,
“This annual festival is, the present year, invested with peculiar interest. Not only are we called upon by the Governor of Pennsylvania to return thanks to God for customary, and also, for peculiar, benefits bestowed upon us, as a fractional portion of a great people, but the President of the United States sends out a request that the day may be observed in every part of our county with special reference to the peculiar favors of God.
The leading purpose of our assembling together is manifest, form the fact that we are gathered within a house of prayer. We meet to pray to our Father in heaven which includes the offering of thanks. Many people go hastily, and, of course, with but little serious reflection into the Sanctuary of God. With the thoughtful Christian, however, it is otherwise.”
Here is the intersection I seek to lift up on this Thanksgiving Day, this civic holiday, the intersection of Faith, the same intersection I believe our forebears were seeking! With a thoughtful heart we look at St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. We are reminded that the seeds of thanksgiving are gifted to us by God and as we plant them, the fruit of thanksgiving is one that multiplies in abundance!
History has so much to teach us. In this case the reminder that at an intersection of human experience that was filled with challenge and despair, that shines unfavorably on the human propensity to err in ways that lead to harm rather than do good, to destroy, rather than to build up, that even in such moments, deep inside all of us is a gateway to another way that can transcend the limitations of our humanity. A spirit of thanksgiving! Isn’t it God inspired that in the midst of a darkest hour a people would be called to look deep inside themselves to discover a primary dependence on a power greater than themselves, and recognize that all that they are, all who they are, all that they have is dependent in a sacred relationship Martin Buber would describe as I and thou, and to live in thanksgiving for it!
You and I live in interesting and challenging times! Yet as Christians we also live in no less challenging times than those faithful who have gone before us. Is it not a “peculiar truth” for us that it does seem to be that when times are more challenging, we are more apt to have a workable lens that allows us to begin to understand just how blessed we have been and what opportunity for a spirit of thanksgiving we might offer. Just how peculiar God is as we are pursued by his generous love particularly when things are messy at best. This does not suggest that life’s struggles and challenges are not real and are not worthy of our struggle, it does suggest however that the power of paradox is that in discovering a sense of thanksgiving lives once overpowered by despair instead find transformation in hope. The 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is thank you, that would suffice.” For Christian folk, a life well lived, begins and ends with a deeply integrated sense in our being of thanksgiving!
On this Thanksgiving Day, I leave you with inspired words of a preacher who found the intersection of Christian life with the secular and civic worthy of note, again, Rev. John Woart, on the first national observance of thanksgiving in 1863.
“Brethren! It is well for us to be in the House of God today! God has drawn nigh to us during the past year, and blessed us in our homes, and our neighborhoods—in our Commonwealth, and throughout the Union of which we are no unimportant part. Let it be our unceasing prayer of thanks, “that the Holy spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts!” Then will the world know us as Christians. We shall show forth our faith by our works, with cheerful hearts, and according to our ability. We shall be a light which cannot be hid!” Amen.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Christ the King ~ The Last Sunday after Pentecost
November 23, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
I don’t know about you but when I hear good news followed by not-so-good news, I tend to focus on the not-so-good news. It is what I remember, hold onto, and beat myself up with. Today’s gospel provides one more opportunity to do that.
We tend to assign goatishness to ourselves, thinking that we never have done quite enough to measure up to God or our own view of our best selves, and we are going to pay a penalty for that. We hear Jesus rendering a hellish judgment, rather than hearing him tell us how easy it is to claim our inheritance as God’s sons and daughters. So, I am going to reframe things a little bit this morning.
My children, over the years, have had a myriad of favorite songs. Some of them were a lot more singable than others. When they were very, very young, one of their favorite- and a favorite of mine, too – was a song sung by the Limeliters. It goes like this:
Move over and make room for Marty, He doesn't take very much space, Since Marty is one of our very best friends We surely can find him a place.
Move over, move over, And quick like a rig-it-ty jig, We'll always move over for Marty, For Marty is not very big.
He won't have to stand in the corner, He won't have to sit on the floor, For we can move over for Marty, And still there is room for one more.
Move over, move over, And quick like a rig-it-ty jig, We'll always move over for Marty, For Marty is not very big.
(Words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1954, renewed 1982.)
The songwriter wrote about the song: “One of the things children learn easily… is to make room for one another.”
We learn it early, we learn it easily, but we don’t always remember to make room for Marty, in whatever guise, in whatever shape, in whatever color, in whatever gender, in whatever economic status, in whatever condition Marty comes to us.
We are to make room for one another and to make room for the other. And there you have the nub, the core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and there you have the central teaching about the work of a disciple and the work of the church. And there you have the basis for judgment When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, when he sits on the throne of glory… to judge the world.
And judgment will be rendered on this basis: Did you, did I make room for Marty? Did we make room for him in our church? Did we make room for him at our table? Did we make room for him in our care and concern? Did we make room for him in our lives? Did we make room for him in our hearts?
It is also easy to unlearn that early lesson so easily learned. The world we live in teaches other lessons, has other priorities, holds out other promises, and exacts penalties for going against the world’s way. What matters to Jesus is not our status or achievements, but our continuing willingness to let the life of God be lived through us, concretely in our acts of love for others.
But we get so busy, don’t we? We have so many responsibilities. We have so many worries and anxieties. We have so much to contend with in our own lives, that the needs of others, indeed, the very fact of another’s existence can elude our attention, escape our notice and our care. We can so easily hurry on by and not notice what is right before us, who is right before us. I am sure that we don’t, by and large, do that on purpose. We are good people, with good hearts.
But sometimes our hearts are sore or bruised or fatigued or focused elsewhere or hardened that we become inured and unresponsive to the plight of others, and we miss the one God has placed before us for our care. That’s why the Apostle Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts will be enlightened.
The judgment of Jesus will deal with such things as: when I was thirsty in Sudan you helped me find water; when I was longing for something useful to do, you let me help; when I was forced to leave my homeland, you gave me sanctuary and made this place my home; when I was homeless and cold, you gave me shelter and warmth; when I was ill and in hospital you visited me as you could; when I was lonely, you came to see me. When I was young, you spent time with me. When I was in prison you prayed for me, cared for me and you visited me. When my clothes wore out you found me new ones. When I was feeling lost you stayed with me and helped me find my way.
These are not big things, these are not demanding of huge sacrifice, these do not require of enormity of effort, but they are signs of God’s love and presence in your life and in the life that has been touched by you because you made room in your life and in your heart so that God’s love could flow through.
In all my years of life and ministry I have been in a lot of hospitals, food pantries, clothing thrift shops, kitchens and dining rooms filled with the poor and hungry, church school classrooms. The people I have encountered in these places cooking, serving, sorting, visiting, consoling, engaging, teaching, welcoming, chatting – these people are really just ordinary people doing ordinary, mundane, and sometimes very menial tasks that just happen to enrich and enable the lives of others, and thereby they are rich and beautiful beyond measure.
Because they have moved over and made room in their lives and in their hearts to bring care into the life of another, they have warmed the hearts of those whose lives they have touched – as at the same time they have touched and warmed the very heart of God.
Most of them would say something akin to, “Aw shucks, I didn’t really do anything. I just sat a while. I just cooked a meal. I just sorted some clothes. It wasn’t much.”
It is to them that Jesus says, “Come you blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.”
If you have not yet done so or not done so lately, today Jesus invites you to move over and make room in your heart and in your life for those he has placed in our care. It is never too late.
Amen.
November 23, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
I don’t know about you but when I hear good news followed by not-so-good news, I tend to focus on the not-so-good news. It is what I remember, hold onto, and beat myself up with. Today’s gospel provides one more opportunity to do that.
We tend to assign goatishness to ourselves, thinking that we never have done quite enough to measure up to God or our own view of our best selves, and we are going to pay a penalty for that. We hear Jesus rendering a hellish judgment, rather than hearing him tell us how easy it is to claim our inheritance as God’s sons and daughters. So, I am going to reframe things a little bit this morning.
My children, over the years, have had a myriad of favorite songs. Some of them were a lot more singable than others. When they were very, very young, one of their favorite- and a favorite of mine, too – was a song sung by the Limeliters. It goes like this:
Move over and make room for Marty, He doesn't take very much space, Since Marty is one of our very best friends We surely can find him a place.
Move over, move over, And quick like a rig-it-ty jig, We'll always move over for Marty, For Marty is not very big.
He won't have to stand in the corner, He won't have to sit on the floor, For we can move over for Marty, And still there is room for one more.
Move over, move over, And quick like a rig-it-ty jig, We'll always move over for Marty, For Marty is not very big.
(Words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1954, renewed 1982.)
The songwriter wrote about the song: “One of the things children learn easily… is to make room for one another.”
We learn it early, we learn it easily, but we don’t always remember to make room for Marty, in whatever guise, in whatever shape, in whatever color, in whatever gender, in whatever economic status, in whatever condition Marty comes to us.
We are to make room for one another and to make room for the other. And there you have the nub, the core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and there you have the central teaching about the work of a disciple and the work of the church. And there you have the basis for judgment When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, when he sits on the throne of glory… to judge the world.
And judgment will be rendered on this basis: Did you, did I make room for Marty? Did we make room for him in our church? Did we make room for him at our table? Did we make room for him in our care and concern? Did we make room for him in our lives? Did we make room for him in our hearts?
It is also easy to unlearn that early lesson so easily learned. The world we live in teaches other lessons, has other priorities, holds out other promises, and exacts penalties for going against the world’s way. What matters to Jesus is not our status or achievements, but our continuing willingness to let the life of God be lived through us, concretely in our acts of love for others.
But we get so busy, don’t we? We have so many responsibilities. We have so many worries and anxieties. We have so much to contend with in our own lives, that the needs of others, indeed, the very fact of another’s existence can elude our attention, escape our notice and our care. We can so easily hurry on by and not notice what is right before us, who is right before us. I am sure that we don’t, by and large, do that on purpose. We are good people, with good hearts.
But sometimes our hearts are sore or bruised or fatigued or focused elsewhere or hardened that we become inured and unresponsive to the plight of others, and we miss the one God has placed before us for our care. That’s why the Apostle Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts will be enlightened.
The judgment of Jesus will deal with such things as: when I was thirsty in Sudan you helped me find water; when I was longing for something useful to do, you let me help; when I was forced to leave my homeland, you gave me sanctuary and made this place my home; when I was homeless and cold, you gave me shelter and warmth; when I was ill and in hospital you visited me as you could; when I was lonely, you came to see me. When I was young, you spent time with me. When I was in prison you prayed for me, cared for me and you visited me. When my clothes wore out you found me new ones. When I was feeling lost you stayed with me and helped me find my way.
These are not big things, these are not demanding of huge sacrifice, these do not require of enormity of effort, but they are signs of God’s love and presence in your life and in the life that has been touched by you because you made room in your life and in your heart so that God’s love could flow through.
In all my years of life and ministry I have been in a lot of hospitals, food pantries, clothing thrift shops, kitchens and dining rooms filled with the poor and hungry, church school classrooms. The people I have encountered in these places cooking, serving, sorting, visiting, consoling, engaging, teaching, welcoming, chatting – these people are really just ordinary people doing ordinary, mundane, and sometimes very menial tasks that just happen to enrich and enable the lives of others, and thereby they are rich and beautiful beyond measure.
Because they have moved over and made room in their lives and in their hearts to bring care into the life of another, they have warmed the hearts of those whose lives they have touched – as at the same time they have touched and warmed the very heart of God.
Most of them would say something akin to, “Aw shucks, I didn’t really do anything. I just sat a while. I just cooked a meal. I just sorted some clothes. It wasn’t much.”
It is to them that Jesus says, “Come you blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.”
If you have not yet done so or not done so lately, today Jesus invites you to move over and make room in your heart and in your life for those he has placed in our care. It is never too late.
Amen.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday November 16, 2008
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Sermon by The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Millennium Development Goals
Matthew 25:14-30
In 2000, leaders from the United States and 190 other nations came together to develop a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. To guide this critical work and measure its success, eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were created. At the 74th General
Convention in 2003, the Episcopal Church formally endorsed the MDGs. In 2006, at the 75th Convention, the Church voted to make the MDGs a mission priority over the next three years. Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) use the MDGs as benchmarks to measure our progress in fighting extreme poverty and disease around the world.
Today, we will pray and focus ourselves on the MDG’s as we commit ourselves to living out the Baptismal Covenant by working to achieve the MDGs. We see ourselves and the Church as on a pilgrimage in the world, journeying with each other toward the justice of the Reign of God as manifest in the goals.
Today we celebrate the opportunity and challenge of living into our baptismal covenant! To celebrate the gifts, the “talents” if you will that God has given to us to offer the world, to accept the challenge of the promises we make in our baptismal covenant, to seek and to serve, to be faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
Such I believe is the challenge Jesus puts forth in this difficult parable that on first read to 21st century eyes, seems like bad advice in a difficult financial market, but instead to an audience of early converts to a radical view to live for a new world order, is a sharp reminder to resist the temptation to hold fast, to play it safe, to be lulled into inactivity or to let inertia get the best of us. The challenge of course for any steward, first century or 21st century is to overcome our fear, our inertia, our anxiety, our comfort, our natural inclination to cling on to secure things, especially when things seem insecure. The challenge is to resist the temptation to hold fast to what has been given to our care, that is our gifts/ our “talents”, and instead challenge ourselves to use our gifts/talents, for the wild ride of living for others.
Each one of us in our baptism was given a wealth of love and an intimate experience of the presence of God. We renew that gift at each Eucharist, as we receive Jesus into our lives and join with the hosts of heaven in worship and thanksgiving.
On this day as we meet the opportunity and challenges of living into the MDG”s we begin with our baptism and our baptismal Covenant, and soon we renew them as we look to continue to greet the challenge of meeting the MDG’s.
Tertullian, an early Church Father reminds us that Christians are not born, they are made, that is as we turn our faith toward the challenges of our baptismal covenant we are more and more made into the image of Christ.
Turning with eyes of Faith then towards a pursuit of Millennium Development Goals we ask the pragmatic question, what are they, and how do we as Christians continue to pursue them?
What are the MDG’s?
You see above me the beautiful and brightly colored banners created by one of our own parishioners that are the “icons” to be our window into the eight goals established as a measuring stick to cut extreme global poverty in half by the year 2015. These goals invite us into prayer and action. They are:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development
How do we as a community of faith worshipping at this Cathedral pursue the MDG’s?
1. Participation in the New Hope Campaign- Our efforts as a Diocese to partner with our brothers and sisters in the Sudan to create educational structures, infrastructure, and economic development in the Diocese of Kajo Keji. This congregation has been faithful in prayer, financially supported, and physically visited with our brothers and sisters in the New Sudan. This I pray is just the beginning of a long and faithful partnership.
2. Waters flow from a well in Romogi, the growing cultural center in the Diocese of Kajo Keji. These waters were made possible by members and friends of this Cathedral called to serve Jesus Christ. The invitation was to drill one well, but an abundance of your generosity made it possible to drill two wells. Now, waters flow in the center of this village providing the waters of life for this community. These same waters carried across continents now mixes with our own baptismal waters as a symbol of our bond with our brothers and sisters in Kajo Keji.
3. There is a historic partnership with New Bethany Ministries that the Cathedral enjoys. We join in this critical ministry to the community around us that reaches out and offers opportunity by way of food, shelter, housing and employment training opportunities! Many of you prepare food, raise funds, contribute food items, and offer helping hands to neighbors in need.
4. It is no mistake that today we are inviting you to participate in the Living Gifts Fair. This unique opportunity to educate, inspires, and invites your participation in ministries that reach out locally, nationally, and globally. As these ministries do what they do, they clearly are in pursuit of Millennium Development Goals.
These examples I am humbled to say are but a few examples of both the needs of the world but also of the response of this Cathedral community. These are but some of the ways we corporately respond to the needs of others and by doing so pursue MDG’s.
In addition, you may wonder of other ways you as individuals may become involved in this noble and faithful pursuit. Ways in which you may bring your baptismal covenant to the intersection of the world’s needs.
Here are some organizations and resources to consider:
· Episcopal Relief and Development Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) works with Anglican and ecumenical partners in 40 countries worldwide. All ERD’s international programs address one or more of the eight Millennium Development Goals—helping vulnerable communities fight extreme poverty and disease.
» www.er-d.org/mdg
· » Anglican Women's Empowerment The Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE), as representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) Observer’s Office to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Woman (UNCSW), intends to be an effective and empowered Anglican voice for women at the United Nations (UN) and in the Anglican Communion and further commitment to worldwide reconciliation, right relationships and shared work for peace and justice.
· » Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation A network of lay and ordained economists, business people, students, social organizers, theologians, attorneys, labor activists, and advocates who commit to giving 0.7% of our personal budgets - and working towards giving 0.7% of our parish, diocesan, Church, and national budgets - to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals overseas.
· » Gapminder Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations.
· » The MDG Inspiration Fund The MDG Inspiration Fund is a new partnership between Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), Jubilee Ministries, and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church to raise $3 million to fight malaria and other preventable diseases.
· » ONE Campaign The ONE Campaign is an effort by Americans to rally Americans – one by one – to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is students and ministers, punk rockers and NASCAR moms, Americans of all beliefs and every walk of life, united to help make poverty history.
· » United Nations The United Nations initiated the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. This site provides updates on the work happening to meet the deadline of 2015.
var bcTitle="";bcTitle=" » MDGs & You"
In the making of Christians we are called to the wild ride that is life! This wild ride is also full of life, and we are strengthened by our close walk with the God who made, redeemed and sustains us!
I offer this Celtic Prayer to remind us of who we are as followers of Jesus and to help us live fully into the challenges of tomorrow.
Lord, help me to live into your call
Take me from the tension that makes peace impossible
Take me from the fears that do not allow me to venture
Take from me the worries that blind my sight
Take from me the distress that hides my joy
Help me to know that I am with you
That I am in you
That I am in your love
That you and I are one.
Amen.
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Sermon by The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Millennium Development Goals
Matthew 25:14-30
In 2000, leaders from the United States and 190 other nations came together to develop a plan to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015. To guide this critical work and measure its success, eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were created. At the 74th General
Convention in 2003, the Episcopal Church formally endorsed the MDGs. In 2006, at the 75th Convention, the Church voted to make the MDGs a mission priority over the next three years. Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) use the MDGs as benchmarks to measure our progress in fighting extreme poverty and disease around the world.
Today, we will pray and focus ourselves on the MDG’s as we commit ourselves to living out the Baptismal Covenant by working to achieve the MDGs. We see ourselves and the Church as on a pilgrimage in the world, journeying with each other toward the justice of the Reign of God as manifest in the goals.
Today we celebrate the opportunity and challenge of living into our baptismal covenant! To celebrate the gifts, the “talents” if you will that God has given to us to offer the world, to accept the challenge of the promises we make in our baptismal covenant, to seek and to serve, to be faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
Such I believe is the challenge Jesus puts forth in this difficult parable that on first read to 21st century eyes, seems like bad advice in a difficult financial market, but instead to an audience of early converts to a radical view to live for a new world order, is a sharp reminder to resist the temptation to hold fast, to play it safe, to be lulled into inactivity or to let inertia get the best of us. The challenge of course for any steward, first century or 21st century is to overcome our fear, our inertia, our anxiety, our comfort, our natural inclination to cling on to secure things, especially when things seem insecure. The challenge is to resist the temptation to hold fast to what has been given to our care, that is our gifts/ our “talents”, and instead challenge ourselves to use our gifts/talents, for the wild ride of living for others.
Each one of us in our baptism was given a wealth of love and an intimate experience of the presence of God. We renew that gift at each Eucharist, as we receive Jesus into our lives and join with the hosts of heaven in worship and thanksgiving.
On this day as we meet the opportunity and challenges of living into the MDG”s we begin with our baptism and our baptismal Covenant, and soon we renew them as we look to continue to greet the challenge of meeting the MDG’s.
Tertullian, an early Church Father reminds us that Christians are not born, they are made, that is as we turn our faith toward the challenges of our baptismal covenant we are more and more made into the image of Christ.
Turning with eyes of Faith then towards a pursuit of Millennium Development Goals we ask the pragmatic question, what are they, and how do we as Christians continue to pursue them?
What are the MDG’s?
You see above me the beautiful and brightly colored banners created by one of our own parishioners that are the “icons” to be our window into the eight goals established as a measuring stick to cut extreme global poverty in half by the year 2015. These goals invite us into prayer and action. They are:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development
How do we as a community of faith worshipping at this Cathedral pursue the MDG’s?
1. Participation in the New Hope Campaign- Our efforts as a Diocese to partner with our brothers and sisters in the Sudan to create educational structures, infrastructure, and economic development in the Diocese of Kajo Keji. This congregation has been faithful in prayer, financially supported, and physically visited with our brothers and sisters in the New Sudan. This I pray is just the beginning of a long and faithful partnership.
2. Waters flow from a well in Romogi, the growing cultural center in the Diocese of Kajo Keji. These waters were made possible by members and friends of this Cathedral called to serve Jesus Christ. The invitation was to drill one well, but an abundance of your generosity made it possible to drill two wells. Now, waters flow in the center of this village providing the waters of life for this community. These same waters carried across continents now mixes with our own baptismal waters as a symbol of our bond with our brothers and sisters in Kajo Keji.
3. There is a historic partnership with New Bethany Ministries that the Cathedral enjoys. We join in this critical ministry to the community around us that reaches out and offers opportunity by way of food, shelter, housing and employment training opportunities! Many of you prepare food, raise funds, contribute food items, and offer helping hands to neighbors in need.
4. It is no mistake that today we are inviting you to participate in the Living Gifts Fair. This unique opportunity to educate, inspires, and invites your participation in ministries that reach out locally, nationally, and globally. As these ministries do what they do, they clearly are in pursuit of Millennium Development Goals.
These examples I am humbled to say are but a few examples of both the needs of the world but also of the response of this Cathedral community. These are but some of the ways we corporately respond to the needs of others and by doing so pursue MDG’s.
In addition, you may wonder of other ways you as individuals may become involved in this noble and faithful pursuit. Ways in which you may bring your baptismal covenant to the intersection of the world’s needs.
Here are some organizations and resources to consider:
· Episcopal Relief and Development Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) works with Anglican and ecumenical partners in 40 countries worldwide. All ERD’s international programs address one or more of the eight Millennium Development Goals—helping vulnerable communities fight extreme poverty and disease.
» www.er-d.org/mdg
· » Anglican Women's Empowerment The Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE), as representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) Observer’s Office to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Woman (UNCSW), intends to be an effective and empowered Anglican voice for women at the United Nations (UN) and in the Anglican Communion and further commitment to worldwide reconciliation, right relationships and shared work for peace and justice.
· » Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation A network of lay and ordained economists, business people, students, social organizers, theologians, attorneys, labor activists, and advocates who commit to giving 0.7% of our personal budgets - and working towards giving 0.7% of our parish, diocesan, Church, and national budgets - to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals overseas.
· » Gapminder Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations.
· » The MDG Inspiration Fund The MDG Inspiration Fund is a new partnership between Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), Jubilee Ministries, and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church to raise $3 million to fight malaria and other preventable diseases.
· » ONE Campaign The ONE Campaign is an effort by Americans to rally Americans – one by one – to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is students and ministers, punk rockers and NASCAR moms, Americans of all beliefs and every walk of life, united to help make poverty history.
· » United Nations The United Nations initiated the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. This site provides updates on the work happening to meet the deadline of 2015.
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In the making of Christians we are called to the wild ride that is life! This wild ride is also full of life, and we are strengthened by our close walk with the God who made, redeemed and sustains us!
I offer this Celtic Prayer to remind us of who we are as followers of Jesus and to help us live fully into the challenges of tomorrow.
Lord, help me to live into your call
Take me from the tension that makes peace impossible
Take me from the fears that do not allow me to venture
Take from me the worries that blind my sight
Take from me the distress that hides my joy
Help me to know that I am with you
That I am in you
That I am in your love
That you and I are one.
Amen.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Pentecost 26/Proper 27
November 9, 2008
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Amos 5:18-24 + 1Thessalonians 4:13-18 + Matthew 25:1-13
What a momentous event we have experienced these last days in the United States of America! A black man elected to the highest office in the nation! Would you ever have thought that you would see that happen in your lifetime or the lifetime of your children? So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day.
In his election night speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, which itself had been the scene of great in-justice and violence, the president-elect spoke of Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106 years old black woman. He said, “…tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress” and today she “touched her finger to a screen and cast her vote”. Mrs. Cooper participated in the culmination of a dream that no one ever thought that they would see realized – the fulfillment of the promise of a just and full place in American society for people of color. It is a sign that even if not yet complete, it is well under way.
3000 years earlier, Amos, a dresser of sycamore trees, a shepherd and the prophet of the God of Israel stood on a wind swept hillside and spoke of the injustices of his time and God’s judgment. The names Ahab and Jezebel will forever live in infamy as symbols of the excesses that marked his time. Israelites were losing their land in droves and being sold into slavery. Wealth was be-coming concentrated in the hands of the few. And Amos spoke the Word of God. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
On an August day in 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, “I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed… and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Today some have seen that day; today some have seen the redemption of a people in the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States; today some have seen the fulfill-ment of the dream of independence promised of our forebears and of our God that all men are created equal. So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day. Today some have seen.
In the gospel today we have a parable from Jesus about the necessity of waiting and living in Hope; waiting for Kairos, waiting for “God’s Time”, waiting for God to accomplish God’s purposes; and in that waiting time Jesus says, we are to remain faithful; we are to remain vigilant; we are to remain ready; we are to keep working; and we are to keep hope alive.
Who among us has not cried at one or another time, “How long, O Lord? How long must I wait? How long must we wait?”
We live in the here-and-now as if what we hope for in the great bye-and-bye will, in fact, come to pass, and we work to be ready when that Great Day comes. We live in Hope. Hope is what tells us that life is worth going on.
Probably the greatest Oral Historian of our time was Studs Terkel who died a few days ago. For 60 years he has listen to, recorded, annecdoted, reported, and found meaning in the stories of people’s lives: work life, family life, love life, life-changing life, cataclysmic life, war-torn life, and life of epic and historic proportions.
He wrote Will the Circle Be Unbroken, his oral history about death. He finished what was to have been his last book when he was 90. But he didn’t die right away. Instead he learned that after death in the roster of human subjects comes the greatest subject of them all – and one well timed to every moment – Hope.
He had one more book in him, Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times. It is a re-minder that in good times, you can do nothing and still have hope, but in bad times, you have to act, take that first small step, in order to hope.
I have two preaching nightmares. One is that I will get to the pulpit and have absolutely nothing to say, and everyone will know that I have lived on borrowed faith much of my life. The second is that the church will be stone cold empty. And then I’ll have to face the questions, “Even if no one else believes, do I believe? Will I hold fast until God’s work, or my work, is done?” I hope so. I am trying.
Today's parable reminds us that it takes more than good intentions.
Many years ago Cornell professor Carl Sagan spoke at a Lehigh Commencement. He urged the graduates to embody – to body forth – what they knew intellectually. Speaking about the state of the eco¬logical environment, he said, "Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. Do something."
We who believe, who know, who have seen, and have been touched by the power of Christ in our own lives; we are to do something. We are to be signs of God’s presence here and now, the light of God’s presence here and now.
Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal on the death of her colleague Tim Russert, “After Tim's death, the … media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actu-ally need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life.”
Some signs I see of the kingdom right here and right now: children, youth & adults growing in their knowledge and love of the Lord; mission trips to care for others; food given to pantries that feed the hungry; people being present with others in times of pain, of sorrow and of joy; building schools and churches in Kajo Keji; gathering regularly for joyful, spirit-filled and empowering worship of God and on and on and on.
All of them, and each of them individually, bring light to the world, bring signs of God’s pres-ence and purpose to the world, and bring reason to hope to the world. May such hope never die and may this light never be quenched. Amen.
The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Amos 5:18-24 + 1Thessalonians 4:13-18 + Matthew 25:1-13
What a momentous event we have experienced these last days in the United States of America! A black man elected to the highest office in the nation! Would you ever have thought that you would see that happen in your lifetime or the lifetime of your children? So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day.
In his election night speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, which itself had been the scene of great in-justice and violence, the president-elect spoke of Ann Nixon Cooper, a 106 years old black woman. He said, “…tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress” and today she “touched her finger to a screen and cast her vote”. Mrs. Cooper participated in the culmination of a dream that no one ever thought that they would see realized – the fulfillment of the promise of a just and full place in American society for people of color. It is a sign that even if not yet complete, it is well under way.
3000 years earlier, Amos, a dresser of sycamore trees, a shepherd and the prophet of the God of Israel stood on a wind swept hillside and spoke of the injustices of his time and God’s judgment. The names Ahab and Jezebel will forever live in infamy as symbols of the excesses that marked his time. Israelites were losing their land in droves and being sold into slavery. Wealth was be-coming concentrated in the hands of the few. And Amos spoke the Word of God. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
On an August day in 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, “I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed… and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Today some have seen that day; today some have seen the redemption of a people in the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States; today some have seen the fulfill-ment of the dream of independence promised of our forebears and of our God that all men are created equal. So many have waited and hoped for so long to see such a day. Today some have seen.
In the gospel today we have a parable from Jesus about the necessity of waiting and living in Hope; waiting for Kairos, waiting for “God’s Time”, waiting for God to accomplish God’s purposes; and in that waiting time Jesus says, we are to remain faithful; we are to remain vigilant; we are to remain ready; we are to keep working; and we are to keep hope alive.
Who among us has not cried at one or another time, “How long, O Lord? How long must I wait? How long must we wait?”
We live in the here-and-now as if what we hope for in the great bye-and-bye will, in fact, come to pass, and we work to be ready when that Great Day comes. We live in Hope. Hope is what tells us that life is worth going on.
Probably the greatest Oral Historian of our time was Studs Terkel who died a few days ago. For 60 years he has listen to, recorded, annecdoted, reported, and found meaning in the stories of people’s lives: work life, family life, love life, life-changing life, cataclysmic life, war-torn life, and life of epic and historic proportions.
He wrote Will the Circle Be Unbroken, his oral history about death. He finished what was to have been his last book when he was 90. But he didn’t die right away. Instead he learned that after death in the roster of human subjects comes the greatest subject of them all – and one well timed to every moment – Hope.
He had one more book in him, Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times. It is a re-minder that in good times, you can do nothing and still have hope, but in bad times, you have to act, take that first small step, in order to hope.
I have two preaching nightmares. One is that I will get to the pulpit and have absolutely nothing to say, and everyone will know that I have lived on borrowed faith much of my life. The second is that the church will be stone cold empty. And then I’ll have to face the questions, “Even if no one else believes, do I believe? Will I hold fast until God’s work, or my work, is done?” I hope so. I am trying.
Today's parable reminds us that it takes more than good intentions.
Many years ago Cornell professor Carl Sagan spoke at a Lehigh Commencement. He urged the graduates to embody – to body forth – what they knew intellectually. Speaking about the state of the eco¬logical environment, he said, "Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. Do something."
We who believe, who know, who have seen, and have been touched by the power of Christ in our own lives; we are to do something. We are to be signs of God’s presence here and now, the light of God’s presence here and now.
Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal on the death of her colleague Tim Russert, “After Tim's death, the … media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actu-ally need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life.”
Some signs I see of the kingdom right here and right now: children, youth & adults growing in their knowledge and love of the Lord; mission trips to care for others; food given to pantries that feed the hungry; people being present with others in times of pain, of sorrow and of joy; building schools and churches in Kajo Keji; gathering regularly for joyful, spirit-filled and empowering worship of God and on and on and on.
All of them, and each of them individually, bring light to the world, bring signs of God’s pres-ence and purpose to the world, and bring reason to hope to the world. May such hope never die and may this light never be quenched. Amen.
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