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.
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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.

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.

All Saints Observed - Consecration Sunday

Sermon for Consecration Sunday at Nativity Cathedral, Bethlehem, PA 11-2-08 The Reverend Patrick J. Wingo

I am very glad to be here with you to speak about Stewardship on your Consecration Sunday.
I suppose some of you might think it odd for a good ol’ boy from Alabama to come so far North for this event.
The short answer to this is that Tony is my friend and the last time I was here was for his wedding in 1993, so it’s high time I came back.
But since I brought up this North/South subject let me start today with a story about a businessman from the North who went South for the first time.
He flew into Birmingham, rented a car, then drove out to Bug Tussle, Alabama, which has since changed its name to the more respectable Wilburn.
He found a little motel and went to bed for the night.
The next morning the man went to Bubba’s Diner for breakfast, and because he was very hungry he ordered something called the Trucker’s Breakfast.
When the waitress brought his plate it looked wonderful—beautiful sunny-side up eggs, big hunks of sizzling bacon, a huge stack of pancakes.
But with the delicious breakfast there was also a large blob of white goo.
He said to the waitress, “what’s this,” and she replied “grits”.
The man said, “But I didn’t order grits.”
The waitress looked at him and said, “Honey, you don’t order grits—grits just comes!”

I will get back to that story in a minute, because believe it or not it goes to the heart of what I want to say, but for now I need to acknowledge that I speak today in the context of many other events.
I think it was Paul Tillich who said that preachers should preach with the Bible in one hand and the New York Times in the other.
Just a cursory glace at the New York Times tells me that we currently go about our daily business with an economy in shambles, with a war that has been going on far too long with far too many casualties, and with a very important election just a few days away.
It also occurs to me that in coming to be with you from Alabama, while there is a significant distance between us in miles, and perhaps a small bit of cultural and culinary difference, there is no difference in us as human beings:
I have a family to take care of as many of you do.
I have elderly parents, financial concerns, and many of the same joys and sorrows as you.
Those are some things on my mind, as I suspect they are on your mind.

Yet there is something else on my mind as well, because today in the church calendar we celebrate the Sunday after All Saints’ Day.
It is the day we remember all the saints who have gone before us, and all the saints with whom we live, who give us a glimpse of God by the way they have lived.
It is a day when we are reminded that in spite of our failures, we are beloved of God, and God is making us all into saints.
It is a day in which we are reminded that life is pure gift.
I was reminded of that gift in another way not long ago.

My family and I took a trip out to the Grand Canyon last summer.
My wife and I have three daughters, ages 17, 12 and 10, and this was a trip we had been planning and looking forward to for a while.
We stayed inside the Grand Canyon National Park, just a short hike from the Canyon rim, and we had a wonderful time.
On our last night there, around dusk, we had been following an elk around trying to get a decent picture of it (we never did), and when we got back to our room my wife and I waited until it got completely dark outside, and then told our kids to put on their sweatshirts, because we had one more thing to show them.
Since they had started to settle in for the night and were tired from a long day of fun, there was quite a bit of complaining, but we didn’t back down.

There’s a very long road that runs along the rim of the Grand Canyon, and every so often there are places to turn into a parking lot and get out and walk along the rim.
That last night of our visit we drove down that road until we were far away from the hotels and restaurants and other fun places, and we came to one of the turn-ins and drove into a parking lot, which was dark and deserted.
This was in early June, and as we got out of the car the wind was whipping around us and it was really cold.
The kids complained some more, but I brought out a small flashlight, and we walked up a path to the rim of the canyon.
We walked through a stand of trees to a sidewalk next to the canyon, and told the kids to close their eyes and lie down on their backs on the pavement.
I turned off my flashlight, told them to open their eyes, and there before them, on that cold, clear night lying on the ground next to one of the grandest places on earth they saw the grandeur of the heavens, more stars than they could have ever imagined existed.
“Wow,” they kept saying over and over. “Wow!”

It is one of my fondest memories, and what I remember about it was not only that it was fun and beautiful, but it was also more stars than I ever imagined could exist.
I also remember that as we lay there in the dark while my children exclaimed their sheer awe, the words of Psalm 19 kept running through my head:
“The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament displays his handiwork.” Wow!

I would submit to you that we can’t truly begin to understand what God asks of us as Christian stewards until we get a glimpse of the glory of God.
Stewardship begins with having the eyes to see the awe and wonder of God in our lives.
It’s not about giving our fair share.
That’s great for the United Way, but it’s not Christian Stewardship.
It’s not about paying our dues.
That’s fine for the country club or the PTA, but it’s not Christian Stewardship.
Christian Stewardship is risky because it begins with the understanding that the God who made the Universe, the God who made those millions of stars that my children saw only when we took them to a place where it was possible to see them, is the same God who made me, and you, and has given us the blessing of life itself.
It’s risky because we have to go to a place where we can experience the awe and wonder of God, and sometimes that place can be uncomfortable.
Yet that is where Christian Stewardship begins.

Since we can’t go to the Grand Canyon every day, and since the awe and wonder of God can be found anywhere if we have the eyes to see it, I believe we can best go to that beginning place as Stewards right here as we worship God.
The word ‘worship’ literally means, “to give worth.”
In other words, we worship what we most value.
We are making a profound statement when we come here every week to worship the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ.
We are saying that worshipping God in Christ is worth it, that we value our relationship with God and we take it seriously.
Now, I know that we value other things as well.
We value our families and our friends, certainly, and we value material things—our homes, our cars and, in my case, college football season.
Becoming a Christian Steward, however, means that we take the risk to prioritize everything in our lives, and it means that we are willing to admit that we give more value to some things than they deserve.

It means that we have the audacity to approach the God who made the heavens and the earth, and realize that this Holy One cares about us, so much so that he gave us the gift of life, and even knows the number of hairs on our heads, according to the Bible.
What is our response to that gift?

Here’s what I think that response should be:
we look honestly at how we give our time, our talents and our treasure to God through the work of God’s church, and we make a commitment that our response to God’s gift will move up our list of priorities, starting now.
Some folks will examine their lives and decide that their response to God is pretty significant in the grand scheme of things—that’s great.
Make a commitment to keep it there.
Others may decide that they are so far from responding to God as a priority in their life that they’ll never get there.
That’s why stewardship has to be a journey.
Look specifically at your financial gift to God’s work through the church as a proportional gift.
Figure out what percentage you give and then make a commitment to make that percentage a half percent higher this year, and then maybe one percent higher next year.
I guarantee that as you begin to honestly take an account of your life in this way, your priorities somehow find themselves falling into their proper place, and the result is joy.

When people hear the word “Stewardship” they think “OK, they’re going to try to shake some money out of me now.”
But that’s not stewardship at all.
That’s fund-raising.
Fund-raising in the church deadens the soul;
giving as a response to God’s generosity is joyful.
How do we learn that lesson?
How does it come to be a part of our being?

I mentioned earlier that today is the Sunday after All Saints’ Day.
This day is always important to me because of my grandmother’s influence in my life.
She was a saint, who died in 1975 at the age of 79, and in her own quiet way, I think she had more influence on my understanding of God than anyone else.
Every summer when I was a kid I spent every Saturday at the baseball field, and then would walk over to my grandmother’s house to eat dinner and spend the night.
My dad would have taken my clothes and other things over to her house earlier, so while Granny fixed my dinner I would shower and get ready for a night of playing canasta, watching Perry Mason re-runs and being doted on by someone who loved me extravagantly.
We would stay up late having fun, and then the next day my dad would pick us up for church.
Every Sunday my grandmother, my dad and I would slip into the fourth pew from the back on the right side of All Saints’ Church in Birmingham, and my grandmother would kneel to pray.
And when my grandmother prayed, you could just tell God was listening.
She had very little money, but every week she put a check in the offering plate, and, as children often do, I saw how important that act was for her.
As I grew to be a teenager, she told me over and over again that when I was confirmed, she wanted to be the person who gave me my first prayer book.
Even though it’s a 1928 version, I still cherish that book.

I tell you about my grandmother because even as a little boy I knew how important her relationship with God was to her.
Of course I could not have articulated that, but what I felt was the abundance of her of love for me, and in small ways I learned from her about the extravagant love of God.
I still miss her and think of her often.
I know that she is one of those saints gathered around the throne of God, of which we heard about today in our reading from the Revelation to John.
I also know that her love for me, as overflowing as it was, is just a glimpse of the love that God has for me, and for each of us.
She gave me a glimpse of God’s love, and something in that glimpse made me want to respond.

We get glimpses of God’s love every day.
If we truly had the eyes to see it clearly, we might only say “wow” over and over and over again.
As it is, the very best way we can respond to God is to be self-giving, making love of God and neighbor our first priority, committing ourselves to God because we have discovered that God’s love is the most valuable thing we have.
It is in that love that we also discover that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor, or make more it abundant.
God’s grace and love is like grits in the South.
You don’t order it. It just comes.

Proper 25 October 26, 2009 "Cooler Heads Prevail"

Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 25 Sunday October 26th
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 22:33-46

We all have had people in our lives who have influenced us. Sometimes we’re fortunate enough to recognize years later that a bit of wisdom along the way passed on by one wiser then we, may have stuck and even become a bit of the fabric that is woven into who we are. Such I believe is the greatest complement to those who take on roles in our lives that lead to our betterment. A teacher, a parent, family member, Priest, coach, etc.. Dan Novey was my high school English teacher and coach of the basketball team. In the face of the competition and in life he taught me a foundational piece of wisdom I recognize I strive to live out as part of my fabric. When forces in life, wether on the basketball court or in our daily lives, when things are aligning to confuse, get the better of us, stir our anxieties and fears, provoke the worst in us, his mantra: “Cooler heads prevail”.
“Cooler heads prevail”, stay focused, calm, remember who you are, what you are made of, and move forward with integrity, clarity, and intention! “Cooler heads prevail”! This certainly would have been the mantra for Jesus as he engages a multitude of opportunities designed to confuse him, get the better of him, stir his anxieties and fear, and potentially provoke the worst in him. In the sections of Matthew’s Gospel we have read the last few weeks, we find Jesus fully engaged and at the crescendo of his earthly proclamation of the Kingdom he is enfleshed to usher in.
Remember the engagement! He enters the temple in a fit of anger, he cleanses it, and begins to teach by telling parables that seem to be pointed directly at the authorities of the day, reminding all faithful people of the promise God has entrusted them with to live faithful, compassionate, and just lives, particularly remembering to care for the broken, downtrodden, and despairing of God’s creation! He reminds them through parables about vineyards, and wedding banquets, that God’s craving desire is to have God’s creation live in dramatically just way, and that those who may believe they’ve inherited a place in that equation, just may be missing or have forgotten the essential truths of that promise!
Jesus then finds himself tested, repeatedly (and understandably) by the authorities of the day! First the Pharisees bating him on issues of politics, How do you feel about Rome, and the taxes asked of us to pay. A political question designed to get him either in trouble with the authorities of the day or with those among his audience who may be offended by the tax altogether.
The Sadducees in a part of this progression not included in the lectionary, seek to trap Jesus in a theological conundrum. If one is married and his spouse dies, then remarries, in the resurrection, to whom are they married! The Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection, but Jesus keeping his head, takes the opportunity not to take the bate on the ridiculous notion of having to establish a family court in heaven, but to remind his engagers the Scriptures clearly speak to the “amness” of God, the God of the living! In this life and the next, the very nature of God invites relationship with the living, in this life and the next!
Finally, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is approached by a lawyer, a technocrat and interpreter of the law, who invites Jesus into the opportunity to declare which ONE commandment is the most important! “Cooler heads” prevail in this final engagement as Jesus refuses to take the bate and hang on ONE commandment but cuts to the heart of the matter of God and God’s Kingdom, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind, and Love your Neighbor as yourself!” One these two commandments Jesus says, you will find the prongs from which all of the law and all the writings of the Prophets hang! It is these two commandments that uphold it all in other words!
So, Cooler heads prevail, and out of the engagement the fabric upon which Jesus mission hangs emerges and there becomes that from which all things hang! And so it is for us!
Out of this encounter Jesus leaves those who would follow him and us with the wonderful simplicity of a clear way to live a faithful life! Simple? Love the Lord your God with every piece of your fiber and Love your neighbor as yourself! Seems simple enough, at least until we actually try to live it out! On these two commandments everything else hangs! Oh my.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this life Jesus invites us into as followers of his way. I’ve been thinking of the promises we are asked to make and then try to live! I am mindful that when I preside at wedding for example of the high bar that is set when two people in love dare to set their union in a Christian context! I am more and more mindful of just how ridiculous and demanding the promises are that two Christians make in public as they enter into marriage! Those of you who are married, you remember don’t you? Will you love, comfort, honor and keep, in sickness and in health, and forsake all others along the way. Will you pursue these promises holding them from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, loving and cherishing! Oh to do these things, when things are good, when things are bad, not just when everything is rosy, but even when everything is not so rosy. All the time I’ll pursue these promises, not that there won’t be other offers that come my way, but I promise to forsake them, and not only will I do it when I want to do it, but even when I don’t feel like doing it at all! Oh my! Oh and by the way, this promise we make, is not just for the next 24 hours or even 24 days or months, but until we are parted by death! RIDICULOUS!
And then there is the Baptismal Covenant! What promises we make there! Seeking and serving Christ in ALL persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. Respecting the dignity of EVERY human being! We promise to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, and respect the dignity of EVERY human? Are you kidding me? We promise so in following Jesus and such promises seem a high bar to meet at least and RIDICULOUS at best.
All would seem very ridiculous out of context, but we do have a context! The context of course is the context in which God chooses to Love us! Ridiculously! We begin our journey into the mystery of faithfulness to God’s dream for our lives and dare to make audacious promises ONLY when we begin to encounter the way God loves us!
Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote of this mysterious love when she said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. Isn’t that the Christian mystery! To be in relationship with God through Jesus Christ is to understand that as we love one another as God has loved us we are invited into the paradox of Love! Think about it! The deepest places of your hearts entrenched with those you most deeply love. I am guessing that this love has invited you on more than one occasion into places of hurt! The deeper you love the riskier it is. WE Know the deepest Loves we experience sometimes hurt, because it touches the deepest places of our hearts and souls. A piece of us is given away, and that sometimes hurts, but when we take the risk to put the chips of love on the table for the growth , betterment, and well being of another, love grows, and the hurt is pale in comparison.
God knew this as he risked in love in Jesus Christ who with us would suffer so that love would have its way!
Frederick Buechner in his work, The Magnificent Defeat, speaks of this ridiculous love this way:

The love for equals is a human thing – of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing – the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing –to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.
And then there is love for the enemy – love for the one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.

I began this sermon with the mantra “Cooler heads prevail”. Jesus invites us into an opportunity to see clearly the Kingdom so difficult to be faithful to. The way in which God loves us gives us the context in which we come to understand and believe we can possibly live into an experience of being loved and loving in powerful ways.
It is the last Sunday in October! The beautiful light on the trees, the crispness in the air, and the multitude of letters and wonderful witnesses also have brought you into an awareness that it is our annual stewardship giving campaign time. This day is “supposed” to be your stewardship sermon. I pray that you have ears to hear that it is exactly that! The heart of the stewardship matter is being invited into a ridiculous love that emboldens us to live ridiculously!
I leave you with the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta as we continue this journey of faith and dare to live in love of God and neighbor.
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.
Amen.

Proper 24/Pentecost 23

October 19, 2008

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

Isaiah 45:1-7 ~ Matthew 22:15-22

 

Let's review for a moment what was going on in the time of Cyrus and in the time of Jesus. A littler review won't hurt, will it?

 

The Isaiah passage is the part of the Isaiah prophecy known as Second Isaiah and it was written in the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the people of Israel. For generations Israel has been captive in a foreign land, held completely at the mercy of a foreign power. They had lost whatever self-confidence, self-assurance they had as a people, as a nation and now were living at the mercy of these foreign powers, forced to live lives foreign to their own ways. They were at the mercy – and there was none.

 

Into that situation Isaiah speaks a word of hope that their deliverance will surely come and it will come from a direction they never could possibly have imagined. Common wisdom was that if, indeed, Persia was going to conquer Babylon, the only change for the Israelites would be at whose mercy they now would be forced to live; a change in masters only. Isaiah prophesizes that Persia, and Cyrus in particular, will be the means of their deliverance into freedom and return to their homeland.

 

So don't lose faith. God is God and has not and will not leave his people bereft.

 

In the time of Jesus, Israel is once again in the grasp of a foreign power, living at the mercy of Rome; Roman governors, Roman soldiers, Roman tax collectors, Roman judges. Living at the mercy of other's power, as were their forbearers, except this time it is in their own land.

 

The Herodians, known to us as King Herod and his brothers and cousins, were Jews who governed on behalf of Rome. The Pharisees were strict constructionists of Jewish faith, life and law, but were not above cooperating with the powers-that-be to protect themselves. And so we have the trick question in today's gospel.

 

The context of their encounter is the hopelessness of living at the mercy of foreign powers, with no hope of deliverance, no great warrior on the horizon; blind to the possibility that ultimate deliverance, true freedom would be brought in the person of the carpenter from Galilee – in Jesus.

 

So there you have the Cliff Notes summary of today's scripture and the question remains, "What has that to do with us?"

 

Let's look at some current context for our lives today. How did you feel when gas prices were racing up in cost to $4 and $5 dollar levels? Did you feel able to change the course or did you feel at the mercy of international and corporate powers?

 

How did you feel when the mortgage crisis hit and the culpability of banking institutions in the housing collapse was made known and clear to be appallingly malicious and rapacious? Did you feel able to make a difference or did you feel at the mercy of institutional powers?

 

How did you feel when you realized that we were going down the slippery slope of recession and none of our leaders would own up to it and the policies that brought it about? Could you do anything or did you feel at the mercy of uncaring governmental powers?

 

How are you feeling in the rollercoaster debacle of the worldwide stock market, and the collapse of credit, and what it means for life today and for the foreseeable future? Do you feel in charge of your destiny or do you feel at the mercy of powers?

 

The Associated Pres reported this week, "The world's poorest people will be hungrier, sicker and have fewer jobs as a result of the global financial crisis, and cash-strapped aid agencies will be less able to help… The charities that provide food, medicine and other relief … say cutbacks have already started, but it will take months or more before the full impact is felt in the poorest countries…"

 

Sorry. When I began writing this sermon I didn't set out to be depressing, and I may have achieved that with some of you. But I do want us to realize that we, too, all of us, live at the mercy of powers beyond ourselves as our forbearers did in their day; powers mediated by individuals, institutions, computer buying and selling programs, governments, etc; many of whom operate solely in terms of their own self-interest.

 

We are all at the mercy of powers beyond ourselves, we all live at the mercy of forces outside ourselves, so "What do we do? Do we wait for deliverance? Do we give in to the cynicism of the age? Do we buy into the Greed Creed of the powerful? Despair? Hope? Look in the usual places for a savior who will make it all better, make it all like it was? Or do we go back to the basics, to what we know and believe and have bet our lives on day in and day out until this very day?

 

In the church calendar we are creeping up on Advent, just a few short weeks away when we prepare to cele­brate the Incarnation. Remember that God did send the Messiah. That God did redeem the world. That the baby grew up, that he gave his all for us, and that he is coming again to judge the world – with a judgment of light, not of darkness, a judgment of hope, not despair, a judgment of life, not of death. It is a judgment of rejoicing, not of weeping, a judgment that "none shall hurt in all my holy mountain…" It is the judgment of the God who is Creator, Savior, and Power of Life.

 

So where do you look for the power to claim your life, the power to live your life, the power to share the stuff of your life your life with those in need?

 

Look to the One who is faithful and will deliver and keep on keeping on; doing what you know and believe is good and right and just and true; and sharing some of what you have that others may have some too. And God who is faithful and just will deliver.

 

Proper 22- October 5, 2008 "Money"

Sermon: Sunday October 5, 2008 Proper 22 year A Matthew 21:33-46
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

I recently visited a website, www.pennyearned.com.” Perhaps this was a giving in to two days of stock market collapse and the media focus on such. I could not escape the reality of giving in to the temptation of focus on MONEY! “Money makes the world go ‘round” is one of the oldest of sayings, and right now there seems to be a whole lot of uncertainty about how well the world may be going ‘round, particularly if one approaches the world with such a view that money is the primary thing that makes the world go ‘round. So, I visited such websites and found there are 15 top songs of all time written on the subject of money. I share the top 5:
Take the Money and Run, Steve Miller Band
Why don’t you get a Job, Offspring
Can’t tell me nothing, Kanye West
Money for Nothing, Dire Straits
Money, Pink Floyd

In each of these “masterpieces” of music, various world views about money are shared! Everything from the reality that to make your way in the world with security you need money, to the abuse and ill effects of having too much money, to the sometimes seeming absurdity of who gets money for seemingly trivial acts, to the fantasy of landing more money than we ever dreamed or imagined as a goal in life, and finally one song even raises the possibility of the interplay between God, our money, and responsibility. (“Can’t tell me nothing” by Kanye West.) One thing can be said for sure, as a people we do actually need some money to make our way, and to another extreme we often are invited into a world view that money actually can bring us happiness, security, well-being and utopia.
We are entering the season of our annual stewardship program! This you will hear much about in the coming weeks! For some, this season invites us inevitably into a conversation about money, for after all, an unavoidable reality of such a program is asking us to look once more at money! For some, one approach to such a conversation can be “cut and dried.” Money makes the church’s mission go! It is true we need money to make the church’s life go! To some this is a seemingly easy conversation with some difficult money realities. Here at the Cathedral, for example, the treasurer reports to us that as per our last year’s budget, we allocated $954,000 to carry out our mission, pay our salaries, fund our programs, pay our utilities, maintain our buildings, and take our part in diocesan and national church life and missions. Where did this money come from? From the faithful and generous response of parishioners, $634,000 came through pledges, direct contributions and open offerings! This, by the way, is an amazing increase of 20% since 2005, when this same number was $532,000. Thank you and thanks be to God! Where else does this money come from? Because of generous and thoughtful stewards, $216,000 comes to us through estate and planned gifts that generate income from interest on reasonable endowment monies that can be used to help carry out our mission. Another $104,000 comes from principal of endowment monies, which of course is a mixed blessing. This figure does not account for other withdrawals to meet unplanned emergency maintenance items. The blessing of this $104,000 being many churches do not have such funds to draw from. The challenge is the more you take the quicker that money is exhausted, the lower the principal, and the less interest income generated that you are relying upon for other parts of the “pie” to make up the total budget.
Money! If the first part of that conversation is “cut and dried,” then in terms of the conversation for some rests reasonably in a world view that to rely on principal means that “we do not have enough” money long term to do things the way we are doing them, or “we do have enough” money to do what we are doing, but not without long term consequences. From a “money” standpoint then, as we take seriously the challenge of proclaiming God’s Kingdom, our challenge is to figure out how to fund our cause and/or cut our costs and do so in such a way that we do not find ourselves having “stopped being the Church” Jesus calls us to be! It is just that “clear cut.”
NOW, if Stewardship were just about money, this lengthy sermon would be over! If I believed for a second the “cut” really is that “clear,” I would move on, no literally move on. But lest I fail you as a priest and we fail one another as sojourners on a spiritual path, let us remind one another about what the scriptures reveal to us about money and the Stewardship of our resources! Stewardship is about spirituality! It is about our relationships, our relationships with an abundantly generous God, and our relationships with one another! The practice of our stewardship is our opportunity to walk a holy walk where our spirit is lifted because we are walking a path that draws us closer to God and to one another! If we do not hold out that spiritual truth, we are missing the point of God’s dream for his creation. If we do not lift this spiritual truth up for one another, we are missing an opportunity to lift one another up!
The parable of the landowner who carefully invests in establishing a superb vineyard with heavy investment in the finest of soil, most solid fence to protect it from corruption, a state of the art winepress to ensure fine quality, and a watchtower to secure it long term, reminds the listeners of the day of the great investment God has made to the keepers of his promises. The investment is sincere, of great quality, and is created in the hope of the finest of fruit being produced. The responsibility then becomes those who are entrusted to work with the promise, the struggle for the listeners of the day would be Jesus clear reading that those entrusted with the promise had lost sight of the gracious investment. So blinded had they become that they themselves could not even see clearly enough to recognize the owner’s son in their very midst! They had lost sight of the sound investment! Instead of responding to the investment with taking care and part in producing the finest of fruit, they instead produced violence and prejudiced. How then do we respond to the fine investment entrusted to us that is God’s graceful dream for us and for the world?

The Bible states a specific obligation to “tithe” — that is, to give back to God one-tenth of what we have received from God. One–tenth! Ten percent! The Bible sets the bar very high — maybe too high for most of us to think about at first. This is an Old Testament standard that reminded an agrarian people that the first fruits (that is the best of their harvest) were to be given in thanksgiving to God for, after all, that which they reaped were gifts from God, that which we reap are gifts from God. This spiritual practice is a life practice, and one that we can step toward and maybe even beyond.

Jesus’ engagement with the young rich man serves as an invitation to further examine our hearts. The rich man is smart enough to see in Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom a taste of wholeness for himself in heart, body, and soul. He wants to be, desires to be a follower who can give his heart to the cause of God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ challenge for him to divorce his heart from his possessions is too much for him, he at the last cannot let go, his things are HIS things. Jesus is empathetic, his heart literally breaks because he knows the young man seems to have a foretaste of the rewards of participating in God’s Kingdom of abundance, but cannot tear himself away from his possessions! Jesus, it seems, wants his followers to understand that all of it, every last thing we have, is gifted to us by God. Maybe the rich young man didn’t think Jesus’ promise of God’s abundance was enough for him to be able to let go of the security of what he thought was enough. When we believe it is ours alone, our hearts are torn! Perhaps you feel this way sometimes; I know I do.

When my son Dillon was a toddler and being introduced to the practice and experience of receiving communion, he once approached the altar area to receive. Peeking into the chalice as it was coming near he noticed the chalice was almost empty. I am certain his young mind jumped to an obvious and concerning conclusion as he expressed loudly, “There’s none left, it’s empty!” His fear, of course, was that there wouldn’t be enough for him! As the acolyte filled the chalice in front of us, I was so grateful to know in my heart and to be able to whisper to him, “See Dillon, there’s more, and there’s more where that came from!” God’s love is like that.

As you enter this time of stewardship for our annual giving program, may I suggest we cannot ignore the realities of money, but more importantly such times are ripe with opportunities to ponder God’s abundance of grace experienced in our personal lives! Time and time again, Jesus reminds his disciples of the magnanimity of God’s abundant grace! We are reminded time and time again that just when we think we’ve got God figured out, we quickly realize the box we’ve sought to put him in just may be a bit small! It’s never a worry in God’s Kingdom that there will never be enough, enough grace, enough forgiveness, enough love, enough! You see, there’s more where that came from! God is like that.

Proper 21/Pentecost 20

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

One of the pleasures in ministry I was afforded when I was with you full-time was to celebrate the annual Altar Guild Eucharist. In May 2006 I spoke to the members about a woman who was an altar guild member at Christ Church in Corning, NY, where I served for nearly seven years.

In the narthex of Christ Church, which is a dark shadowy place, there are some small stained glass windows memorializing, remembering certain parishioners. One window, if my memory serves me, contains a vase of flowers and some altar linens. As you might imagine the window was given to honor the work of the Altar Guild. It was given by a woman who had served on an altar guild for 65 of her then 75 years.

It symbolized her own vocation and the ministry of all members of the altar guild, who carry out the tasks of setting the table, doing the dishes, and arranging the flowers, making the sanctuary beautiful for God and for the people of God.

It is interesting to note that she was a woman of enormous wealth, who in her own home, paid others to set the table, do the dishes, and arrange the flowers. But for the ministry of the altar, for the sacramental ministry of the community of Jesus, no task was too menial, no job too humble. For 65 years she polished, prepared and then put away Holy Things.

I spoke to the altar guild in that little homily about the integral work of the altar guild which is to make sure the linens are cleaned and pressed, the vessels are cleansed, polished and in place, the sacramental bread available, the wine ready to be poured, and the vestments laid out – and in that work there is a privileged discipline, a commitment of time and energy, and a gift of love.

I was reminded of that woman and the service of the altar guild, as well as the service and ministries of so many others in this parish and elsewhere, by the parable in today’s gospel lesson of the two brothers and what it means to do the work of a disciple.

What is it that they say? Something like, “The world is run by those who show up?” Well, the work of a disciple is showing up to do the work of Jesus: feeding, clothing, housing, visiting, holding, praying… touching the lives of those who need them touched – just as Jesus did.

We heard the Apostle Paul write in the Letter to the Philippians, Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross.

Most of what you and I are asked by God to do will keep us far, far, far away from death – even death on a cross. But we are asked to show up and serve – serve God’s people, serve the needs of the kingdom, serve for the sake of the Gospel. It may require a little death of self – selfish interests, needs, and wants, but probably it will not require much more than that.

Roger Lovette, a Baptist minister, tells of the time that his son sent him a bulletin from the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. One Sunday he stood in a long line of visitors to listen to Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school. He stayed for the worship service and sent his dad the service leaflet. There was a notice in the bulletin: Rosalynn Carter will clean the church next Saturday. Jimmy Carter will cut the grass and trim the shrubbery.

It’s not always the one who talks or preaches or teaches or has power who reflects the work of Jesus. Sometimes it is the one who shows up on a hot Saturday afternoon to dust the pews, take out the trash, cut the grass, cook at the meal center, or hammer a nail in a flood home, pray for someone – making the world a little better for Christ’s sake.

And we don’t show up for what we want to get out of showing up and following through on our personal “Yes, Lord.” It would be easy to get that wrongful idea from the Philippians passage, “Therefore God highly exalted him…” There is to be no quid pro quo, no “I’ll do this if you do that.” No, no.

All there will be is the deep down knowledge that we have done no more and no less than what we ought to have done. We have shown up for the Gospel’s sake, shown up for the welfare of God’s people, shown up for building of God’s kingdom, and we have done some of the work of Jesus. We have allowed, for this moment in time, the same mind to be in us that was in Christ Jesus. And that is all we are asked to do, and all that we are able to do will be sufficient for the day.

This is how we will work out our own salvation, because God is at work in us.

But, you know, we are human. We’re not perfect. We have so many demands on us. We have so much for which we are responsible. Sometimes it just feels impossible to show up. Too busy. Too tired. Too worried. Too stressed. Too, too. And we don’t go. Sometimes even if we have said that we would, we don’t. Kind of like that brother. We’re only human, right? There is only so much of me to go around. It’s a matter of prioritizing…

Actually, it is all about prioritizing. Life is about prioritizing. Discipleship, too, is about prioritizing. And we do have the ability to say “No”, don’t we? A God-given ability to make a choice.

Stephen Bayne, a wise bishop and saint of this church wrote: God put freedom into his created universe in order that the universe could respond to his love with an answering love of its own...He put into the created universe a principle of choice; and He paid a two-fold price for that. First, He limited his own freedom to have things his own way. Second, he committed himself to having to win out of freedom what he could easily have commanded as a right. Why did he do this? He did it because God is love and because love needs an answering love of its own.

God’s love of you seeks a freely given answering love. What will you answer? When God calls will you choose to show up?

Pentecost 18/Proper 19

Matthew 18
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

The Rev. William Miller in his book, “The Gospel according to Sam, Animal Stories for the Soul,” tells of an experience he witnessed while on a mission trip with a youth group he was leading in Galveston, Texas. He tells a story of taking his youth group to a miniature golf range after a long day of service projects. There in front of them is a five year old boy with an older man, perhaps his grandfather. The man whose face is weathered perhaps suggested a man of the seas, a fisherman or shrimper. The boy proceeded to play his game, hacking repeatedly on a weathervane-themed hole. The object to get the ball through a passageway in the weathervane, coordinating your strike so that the arms of the vane would not impede the ball! Well, time after time, stroke after stroke, the unforgiving weathervane knocked the ball back to the little boy! The group of teens grew impatient when finally the little boy got the ball onto the other side! Finally! Yet on the other side, the horror continued. The boy slapped and hacked at the ball! Off of a bench, innocent bystanders, and finally off of the plastic Octopus gunslinger mounted on a nearby hole! Finally, the boy picked up the ball, put it in the hole, threw his putter into the air and declared, “A two!” The weathered face of the gentlemen with the young boy tightened and he said, “Now you know you didn’t get a two.” Bill Miller writes, “At that the boy looked right up at him recognizing the mess he’d made of the hole, a bogey to the fourth power, as close to par as a distant galaxy is to earth, and asked, “Won’t you give me a two?”

Miller continues, “I believe it was Jung who said, “the brighter the halo, the smellier the feet,” for even the best among us have gone to the dogs. If the truth be told, we’ve made a mess of most of the course, and we missed the mark more often than not. There’s no use pretending we even belong at the tee. Nonetheless, for some strange reason, God can be trusted to look down and write on the only scorecard that matters – an undeserved, unmerited, unbelievable par. God cheats on our behalf and gives us a two. “My grace is sufficient,” God has said.

In today’s Gospel lesson according to Matthew, we pick up our theme of last week, where Jesus is in the midst of teaching his disciples about the cornerstone on which God’s Kingdom is to be built – that is the cornerstone of forgiveness. You’ll remember that last week Jesus, that while giving his disciples a mechanism to reach out with intention to forgive those of the church who had aggrieved them, he also set as a foundation that to be disciples of the kingdom was to have a heart and world-view that seeks at all costs to forgive! Forgiveness, Jesus seems to be saying, is the power that holds together, that union with God and with one another is far more powerful than alienation. So, how hard do we go about the business of forgiveness? Very, very hard! So hard that even the most difficult and alienated among us are worthy to be treated in Kingdom principle as the mission field (a Gentile or tax collector), for God’s preference is for the lost!

In today’s scripture, Peter, who once again seems a step behind the action, in a follow up question, naively, or maybe even stubbornly begs the question…“now Jesus, tell this again? How many times do we forgive someone who has offended? Seven? (That seems a lot). No Jesus says…….seventy times seven! Now, Peter’s question, through the lens of a human sense of justice, seems reasonable. Perhaps you are aligned with Peter in this thought process about one who repeatedly offends and seems undeniably resistant to a path of forgiveness. First, like us, experience probably has taught Peter that there must be limits to patience with misbehaviors! How many times does this person get away with this after all? Okay perhaps Peter thinks to himself…seven times seem a reasonable limit!

Or – perhaps one has to ask if it is in my best interest to seek forgiveness when it seems clear to me that my brother’s and sister’s repentance is suspicious at best, and a path toward change seems iffy at best!

This, we all would agree, is legitimate questioning on Peter’s behalf! Particularly in a human experience that leads to a worldview and understanding of justice that may even lead to our need to “count,” keep score as it were!

When I asked a friend recently, tongue in cheek, “How many times are we to forgive? Seven?" The response, was, “I think a lot more than that and I am pretty sure my spouse is counting!” When it comes to forgiveness, however, Jesus’ response does not address Peter’s concern with an “economy of counting,” instead Jesus’ response takes the conversation from the sphere of ordinary human relationships to the mysterious realm of the holy.

For the kingdom followers, the cornerstone of forgiveness will not be found in such an economy of counting, but rather on a radical, unprecedented, even seemingly irrational ethic of forgiveness! One which will challenge them and challenges us deeply in the human sphere! For at the heart of the matter lies a reality that in God’s world-view, a world-view of mercy, even the most undeserved will find new life through pardon!

C.S. Lewis wrote, “The essential act of mercy is to pardon; and pardon’s very essence is to recognize guilt and the ill-dessert of the recipient!”

To live in the Kingdom is to come to grips that God’s heart is a merciful heart, there is no economy of score that makes any traditional sense, for the unforgiving courses of life, where we my be hacking above what any scorecard would hold, “God indeed seems to cheat on our behalf!” Par…or even better sometimes “My grace is sufficient.”

This radical merciful forgiveness seems to be what Jesus invites his followers to understand and to form a heart for! Not only will God’s grace be sufficient, but it is beyond understanding, especially when understanding is built upon a system of human expectations and an economy of justice built upon “counting.”
The parable of the unforgiving servant provides the theological framework that grounds forgiveness at the center as we engage the astounding magnanimity of the King!

After all, as a King decides to be faithful about his business and in his accounting of all his transactions, he calls to his court all those who have been entrusted with the workings of his Kingdom business (slaves and servants).

Here we encounter one such worker of the Kingdom who seems to have held back profit for his own benefit! How much! Oh about fifteen years worth of salary! The legal consequences for such an action would of course be immediate death, but the King in a moment of anger, thinks to send him and his family into slavery. But the servant implores, begs for a deal! What comes next, of course, is the unheard of, unbelievable, even irrational action of the King! He pardons the act and sets him free! What he will do with this amazing, irrational, freedom from pardon, of course, is the teaching for kingdom followers. The unforgiving servant will squander it, ignore it, abuse it, and clearly not understand it! When in similar circumstance with roles reversed, one who owes him a day’s salary, he will follow the letter of the legal law and prosecute! The unforgiving servant has missed the opportunity for the heart of the matter! And so for Jesus’ listeners, they are implored not to do the same! For they live in a Kingdom where God’s Mercy of Pardon is at play! They know themselves they are undeserving of such grace and yet they receive it, and so they too must live with such a radical ethic of forgiveness!

Jesus understood the ethic of his day, the economy of counting, a justice system based where “the counting of things” often meant a “settling of scores.” The ethic of forgiveness is polar opposite the ethic of “settling scores,” or of revenge. So, Jesus implores, we’ve had enough of settling scores, you must work toward an ethic of forgiving from the heart!

And so you and I are invited to the magnanimity of God’s Kingdom! Cornerstone built upon forgiveness! The hard road of forgiveness calls us away from a scorecard of transgression! “God’s mercy is sufficient!” As we receive it, so we are open to the possibilities of freedom that comes through forgiving from the heart! Again, C.S. Lewis…“By remembering where we stand (with God’s ethic of forgiveness), by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” we are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint or exception, and God means what he says.

Pentecost 17/Proper 18

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

A middle aged woman, single mother! Faithful to her Church, active from her birth! Raising her two young boys and doing the best she can! Bright and cheerful, pleasant and lovely. This woman could be seen at any moment of time pouring lemonade or coffee at any given “coffee hour” at church. Or she could be seen leading the Sunday school children from Children’s Chapel into worship. Or she could be seen on Wednesday nights for bible study. Or she could be seen setting or clearing the altar for worship, preparing the altar with fresh cut flowers taken from her yard! Or she could be seen taking her part on the food ministry that provided young men dying of AIDS with a bit of nourishment and care.

A middle-aged woman, bright and cheerful, caring and compassionate servant, humble, everyday member of the Church! An ordinary churchgoer trying to live a life of Christian service some might say, a disciple of the community some of other traditions might say.

Then one day this woman takes a young seminarian into her confidence! Quickly revealed that behind the curtain of this model “church member” is struggle, torment, heartbreak, and longing for some sort of reconciliation with herself, one of her children, and the community of faith to which she belongs!

It seems one night her baby boy, whom she had raised in the Church, brought to Sunday school, served lemonade at church picnics and coffee hours, led from Children’s Chapel singing hymns of praise, brought to vacation bible school, her baby boy who she fed and clothed, loved and nurtured, protected and cared for, one night found himself high as a kite on drugs and in the wrong crowd at the wrong time. Her baby boy, in a drug deal gone badly, became the aggressor in a conflict and in a drug-clouded event committed violent crime that would land him in prison for the rest of his life!

We tried so hard when we knew he was going down this path! I begged and pleaded with him to straighten out his life, I couldn’t reconcile who he was becoming with the boy I thought I had raised him to be! He would not listen to me! I was desperate! I brought with me friends from the Church, his Sunday school teachers and confirmation mentors, we begged him to go to rehab, we shared with him how grieved and broken our hearts were that he was so tortured by his addiction to drugs and how his behaviors were destroying his own life and his relationships with those of us who love him! But he would not listen – he could not listen!

I prayed and prayed with my friends in Church, bringing it to prayer! We prayed and prayed at Church, and some of us still do! But we couldn’t save him!

A middle-aged mother now visits her son in prison, but struggles to find a way within her to find reconciliation with a son now alienated from those who loved, raised, and nurtured him, the alienation being a physical barrier, walls, a cell! Isolation from what he once knew! A middle-aged mother, a prayer group of church members, now pray to make sense, to reconcile who he once was with who he had become, how he became “lost” from the womb of the good Christian community that surrounded him!

And in the mother’s honest wrangle and lament is the ever-present force-filled struggle to continue to find a place of forgiveness and reconciliation! We pray together now! Once in a while I can take a friend from church and we pray together with him! In some ways he is my baby boy again, frightened, vulnerable, he needs me! But still my heart is broken, but my love cannot be broken, he is my son!

The struggle of human brokenness is one many of us know and are familiar with! The struggle of lives of faith, hope, nurture, and care, formation of lives of faith are what we in the Church hang our very being upon! An ethic of community creates for us the expectation of accountability and responsibility for one another! As Christian folk, part of that ethic hangs on our belief that to be witnesses to Jesus we must hold one another accountable to faithful lives and to an ethic of forgiveness. Jesus, when he invited his disciples to “pick up their cross and follow him,” knew that such a life was not an easy one, and to live it would mean a primal ordering of community! The disciples would need one another, just as we today in the Church NEED one another!

The Gospel lesson today speaks squarely to the degree of difficulty of following Jesus as a community of Kingdom Ideal followers! The listeners of Matthew’s Gospel, early followers of the way, were learning how to live together, how they needed one another, and in this section of Jesus’ discourse, they are learning how their need for one another would also demand of one another accountability and responsibility!

So what happens when one member of this community of faith (the church) offends another by not living by the ideal! First they are to be confronted, one on one! How absolutely uncomfortable for the 21st century reader who is a member of a community of faith! Confront one another! This is difficult at best! It is sometimes much easier first to gain another’s perspective by sharing with another the frustration and offense that we have endured. The hope is, of course, that the other will see things our way, show the appropriate display of hurt and maybe anger in a moment of sympathy, and if all things are equal perhaps even share that with someone else. But not for Jesus. His formula for accountability to one who has offended seems to ask us to consider first, the difficult (albeit uncomfortable) task of going straight on to try to reconcile our differences.

Second, Jesus suggests, that for the early community of faith living into an ideal of Kingdom discipleship, if this does not bring about reconciliation, indeed, take two or three folks from the community of faith with you! They, serving as witnesses, not to take sides mind you, but to be listeners, to help discern a dispute, to help make sense of it. And if you think ideally, perhaps having non-participant judgment, perhaps even as mediators. Risky! Somehow I don’t believe Jesus imagined a system like the people’s court, where we hand our differences over to an unemployed judge who makes millions by processing people’s disputes on syndicated cable television, but probably in the ideal, Jesus assumes those participating are participating in an agreed-upon value system of non-judgmental listening!

Third, if still it appears that a breach occurred and cannot be resolved, bring it to the Church, the community as a whole! Now the 21st century experience listens with great discomfort! Imagine airing our “dirty laundry” publicly! If one imagines a court of common pleas set up in Sayre Hall, this, I predict, would not be the case, at least not formally! However, for the early church believers, to have the strong ethic of the community being united in purpose and reconciliation is clearly of primary importance!

What will we do! How hard will we try! To what extent will we go to demonstrate the primary teaching of Jesus to be one in community and in purposes of living out the Kingdom Principles!

Now if that doesn’t work, treat them as tax collectors and Gentiles!

Again! How far will the early community of believers be asked to go to reconcile and be in agreement for purpose of living out Kingdom principles!

For the 21st century mind, we read quickly that Jesus teaches the believers to treat the unreconciled as tax collectors and Gentiles! Remember, this section of scripture is bracketed by the teaching of Jesus of the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the unforgiving debtor! The followers of Jesus have watched and listened to him spend a lifetime and a sacrificial death for the purpose of embracing the lost!

The punch line comes in Jesus’ response to Peter………how many times do we forgive one who has offended? Seventy times seven.

Like that middle-aged woman so devoted to the church and the church so devoted to her and her son, she seems to understand that, though broken-hearted and clearly aggrieved, her love poured out, inviting the community of faith she knows into that shedding of love, she and they fiercely seek reconciliation!

So it seems to be for the early followers of Jesus and so it seems to be for her and her fellow church members, and so it seems to be for us! An ethic of forgiveness and reconciliation is a worldview of forgiveness and reconciliation!

Jesus knew at all costs to hold one another accountable to the ethic is to have our hearts driven by it and by doing so, we fiercely and tirelessly pursue those who have become lost to us!

Jesus knew this as the antidote to alienation and isolation! We can know this too!

Amen.

Pentecost 15/Proper 16

The Ven. Richard I Cluett
Matthew 16:13-2

Two weeks ago I stood here discussing the passage where Jesus said to Peter, “You of little faith”, focusing on the seemingly puny nature of his faith, at least in that moment of water walking. Today we have Peter’s shining moment when he proclaims the true identity of this Jesus of Nazareth. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Of course, if we read the story all the way through we know that Peter didn’t really have a clue what that identity would mean for Jesus, or for the disciples, or for the world. Next week he will get it wrong again, and Jesus will say to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”

So perhaps it would be good to note that Peter is not the point here. It would be useful to remember, I think, that old definition of what a saint seen in a stained glass window is. “A saint is someone the sun/the Son shines through.” And Peter was a capital S Saint.

It is also a pretty good description of what a disciple is, whether she be an ordinary day-to-day disciple or a capital D Disciple such as Peter. A disciple is someone Jesus, the Son, shines through. Maybe that’s the point here. What can we see of Jesus, what can we learn of Jesus in this person named Peter, or for that matter in the one named Alice or Bob or Sally or Fred or Rick, or…You?

Jesus asked, “Who do they say that I am.” Of course, “I am” is one of the names of God. So how many names can you come up with for Jesus; the ways people over the centuries have identified him. In scripture alone there are more than 100 names. If you are so moved, you can Google or Wiki “names for Jesus” and come up with a wagonload filled to overflowing. I could use today’s sermon time, and more, simply by reciting the names that come easily to mind.

Names such as Emmanuel, the Good Shepherd, the Great High Priest, the Anointed one, the Messiah, the Beloved, the Lamb, the Bridegroom and on and on and on. Not to worry, I am stopping.

Then Jesus asks Peter, the big one. “Who do you say that I am?”

We have been hearing all week about the great “Spectacle at Saddleback Church”, wherein Pastor Rick Warren examined the faith of the two presidential nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama. He sat them down one at a time on the stage of the church, in front of a couple thousand evangelical Christians, and some millions more watched on television. And he asked them direct questions about their faith in Jesus and how it affects their lives and how it will affect their presidency and the policies they work to put in place. The core question from which all other questions flowed was, “Who is Jesus Christ for you?”

The media pundits have parsed each word and examined each phrase. Conservatives have used their litmus tests, the liberals theirs, and the libertarians, too. I would expect that Muslims and Jews listened carefully as well, even though their names for God, Allah and Jehovah, never did come up.
Others have debated whether the questions put to the nominees for President of the United States of America were more important than the questions about leading the nation and their ideas and plans to work on problems of economy, justice, and world peace.
But for us, for you and me, regular day-to-day disciples of Jesus, the core question Jesus asked of Peter “Who do you say that I am?” is also our core question. “Who do you say Jesus is?”

What do you say to that? Can you answer that without having to resort to formulaic phrases, or if you do use them, can you explain what you mean by them? Who is Jesus for you? Really.

By virtue of being a disciple you are also a saint, one of the saints of God, someone the light is to shine through. (Light is another name for Jesus, “He is the light of the world.”) By looking at you what do we see of Jesus? By listening to you, what do we learn of Jesus?

Now, there we have it. There’s the rub. It’s come down to this, today. Can you tell us who Jesus is for you, not what others have said, but rather who he is for you? What can you say Jesus means to you? What difference is that faith making in your life? Specifically. Practically. In your real life, your day-to-day life, your behavior, your attitudes, your way of looking at things, at the world, what you do and how you do it. What can you say of Jesus? What can we see of Jesus… in you?

To whom do you testify, to what do you testify? What can Jesus build on your faith, on your life? Are you a rock? Or have you built your house on shifting sand. Wow! It’s starting to get personal, isn’t it? So much for bible stories of long, long ago. What faith story is being written by your faith in Jesus Christ?
That’s a bit daunting, isn’t it? Maybe it is too big for this relaxed time provided by the dog days of August, the last days of a summer’s respite. A bit too serious for this season of books on the beach, or hikes in the woods, or little round white balls on the golf course. Maybe we can come back to this in the fall, after vacation is over, when the kids are back in school? Maybe we can tell Jesus, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Or not. Actually, it’s true that there is no time like the present, no moment better than the now.

Do you remember that parable in Matthew 25 about the ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom (one of the ways of knowing Jesus), about being ready for him when he comes, having their lamps at the ready, oil filled, wicks trimmed, ready to be lighted at a moments notice? When he came, some were not ready and lost out.

“And while they went to buy (the oil), the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut… Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matt 25:10, 13

Or in Luke 12:19-20 where the rich man says, “And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Some translations read, “… your soul is required of you.”

You get the point. The scripture brings us, today, this very day, to this question, “Who do you say Jesus is – for you?”

And how will you answer?

Pentecost 13/Proper 14A

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
August 10, 2008
1Kings 19:9-18 + Matthew 14:22-33

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Why, indeed.

All the evidence to the contrary – Jesus was right there on the water, and Peter doubted. That one little niggling doubt crept in and he was a goner – in the drink, floundering around, flailing away, and crying out in fear. Wanting to believe, trying to believe, believing that he did believe, still down he went. Dunked by doubt.

Anyone here identify with that sinking feeling Peter had? How many times has it happened to you? Why do you doubt? As the old song goes, “I don’t know why, I just do.”

You’re just sailing along in your life, secure in the faith that all is well, that all will be well, that whatever happens, even if there is a problem, it can be managed, it will be handled, you can take care of it.

But who are you fooling? Do you really know yourself to be that take charge guy, that supremely competent gal, that “come hell or high water” I-can-do-it person? Sure you are!

Or do you, deep down, have that cold, hard knot, or maybe for you it is instead a swirling, chaotic stomach churning mass, whichever it is, that area of doubt or fear that’s always there, waiting to creep in, right at the wrong moment, and there you go, down! Just like Peter. Dunked by Doubt.

Miracles are mysteries. We can profitably set our nets a little deeper to see what can be caught here. Let’s come at this story another way – through belief instead of doubt.

What do you mean when you say, “I believe…”? Are you saying that you believe and therefore your life will conform to that belief, and be guided by that belief, and that events will progress according to that belief, and all will be right with your world?

Or are you saying that you agree with or assent to a certain set of principles as in “I agree with Dr. Einstein that e=mc2”? And that life will follow along logically and orderly and well, based on that belief?

Or are you saying along with author Diane Eck that by saying “I believe…” you are saying, “I give my heart. I give my heart to God. I give my heart to this my beloved. I give my heart to Jesus. And because I give my heart to Jesus, I will do my best to live his way.”

Following Jesus gives us the best chance to live a life of meaning and purpose, and to be on the receiving end of mercy, forgiveness, grace, companionship, support and love. The more we follow him, the more we invest our heart, the more we are in his company, the more we walk in his way, the more we will experience the fruits of faith, and be able to trust the one to whom we give our heart.

Trust follows experience. When in your life have you experienced that grace, that mercy, that forgiveness? Would you have known those things had you not been seeking Jesus, enjoying his company, and being in communion with him and with his community?

Does faith, does belief, does trust guarantee success? Not hardly.

Many of you know that Tony and I do some conference work in an organization concerned with the well-being of people who work in the church. The name of the program is Credo, the Latin word that beings the creed, meaning “I believe”. What we do in that program is provide some resources and models so participants can get back in touch with what they meant when they give their heart to God and committed their lives to helping build the kingdom and care for God’s people. The clergy and professional church workers are living proof that it is possible to lose from time to time what we desire and prize so highly. And also possible to find it again.

If it can happen to Peter it can happen to you. If it can happen to Elijah the greatest of the prophets it can happen to you. What do you think Elijah was doing in that cave other than having a dark day of doubt, thinking for a brief moment that maybe Baal might indeed be the stronger god.

Let’s take the heart image a little further. A function of the heart is to move the flow of blood, the power of being, up to our head and down to our feet and out to our hands and fingers.

Faith and trust also have to do with movement. They come from that act of giving our heart to another, and that movement that leads to another and another and another and faith is thereby strengthened and trust is thereby built and life is can be lived in a way that gives life and makes us willing from time to time to risk.

That trust, that willingness to risk stepping outside the boat, to move closer to the one to whom he has given his heart is how I think of faith. And Peter has that.

So why does Jesus address him as "you of little faith"? Peter has a little faith. Like you and me. I’ve got a little, sometimes it is not enough, but most times it is what my father called an “elegant sufficiency”. Most of the time it is enough, sufficient for the day, even if every now and then, it wavers, it shrinks, it flounders, it flails, even to the point of sinking. Most days it moves me along in his way, sometimes it moves me outside my little zone of comfort, moves me to risk on behalf of God, God’s kingdom, and Jesus’ followers who he also calls people of “little faith.”

So how much faith do you need to make a difference in your life, or even to change the world? Just a little. You don't have to talk yourself into absolute confidence that anything in particular will happen. That's a good thing, since none of us really knows the future, or the heart of another person, much less the heart of God. Faith isn't about knowing that, faith is about knowing our own heart.

Faith is willingness to risk. It's willingness to take that step out of the boat, whether you think you'll sink or swim. It proceeds from the kind of love that, despite all of the butterflies in one's stomach, makes a person willing to say “I believe.”

The good news of today’s gospel is that even when the seas rise so high we are in danger of sinking, Jesus is there coming toward us, saying, “it’s me; don’t be afraid”. Jesus is there in that place, in that moment to calm, to quiet, to strengthen, to restore, to save. And that is a first-class miracle.

9 Pentecost ~ Proper 8

Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Zechariah 9:9-12 + Romans 7:15-25a + Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Sounds nice doesn’t it? Pretty good news, right? Well, let me complicate it a bit for you, as it has been for me.

On June 22nd we heard Jesus say, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

On June 15th he said, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

A couple of weeks before that we heard, “Jesus said. "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven…”

And in the epistle lesson appointed for today we didn’t hear, we have even the great Apostle Paul burdened. “For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Does that sound like we would be wearing an easy yoke or carrying a light burden by following Jesus? Not on first hearing, not on second reading, or third… So let’s think about this for a minute to see if we can find that nugget of Gospel Truth, that Good News that Jesus says is “hidden from the wise and the intelligent and been revealed to infants.

After some serious pondering this week, where I have come to is this: This world we live in, you and I, is a tough place.

It can be physically dangerous. Some of us live in places in this valley where it is dangerous to be out and walking the streets at night. Our friends in Kajo Keji live, even today, with the constant threat of the violence of war invading their lives. In too many places and in too many lives physical danger is a daily fact of life.

Life can also be emotionally and relationally dangerous. Earning ones daily bread, providing for one’s family, is for many a boring or repetitious or incredibly stressful or dauntingly demanding or stultifying or seemingly endlessly taxing task. Never having quite enough.

Life seems to be getting too real, too earnest, too hard these days. Gas, heating oil, mortgages. Electricity rates are about to go through the roof. They will double or triple. The cost of living for so many people is rising from worrisome to burdensome levels. Life is hard and getting harder.

We learned this week that we are supposed to have 125% more income in our retirement than when we were working. For 99% of the people, good luck with that!

If getting to the top, or winning the prize in one’s chosen field is your goal, if grabbing the ring, if you are looking for that great payoff, that great payday, that golden retirement, that land of plenty that is just over the hill, just around the corner, this one or certainly the next or the next… if succeeding is one’s life’s goal… we know all too well that there can be huge costs involved.

These are burdens to be borne in the heat of the day. For those of us fortunate enough to be employed there are sacrifices that we will make, either intentionally or blindly. Often we will sacrifice our family at the same time as we try to provide the best we can for them. We deprive them of our very selves, their mother or father, husband or wife, our presence, our support, our care, our love. We are just not home. The kids bear the burden of growing up without us. They are taught by our drive to drive hard themselves to compete and to succeed.

Life is like that. Just ask the kids. How stressed are they? What burdens do they bear as they struggle to learn, to understand, to grow, to become competent, to fit in, to excel, to succeed? I think their burdens either meet or exceed that of their elders.

Are our elected leaders the right ones to lead us? It’s almost time for us in this nation of ours to take on the role of “The Decider.” Will new leaders take us into the Promised Land, or will they lead us deeper into conflict and contention with other powers and forces in the world, even more war, or deeper into economic difficulties? Will they work to preserve and protect and keep safe this generation’s young and the next and the next? To what yoke will they bind us as a nation?

On this 232nd birthday weekend of our country I turned to the counsel of our first president, George Washington, wrote in his Farewell Address, wondering as I read if our new leaders will hear it and attend to it. He wrote,

“Observe good faith and justice towards all … cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.”

Or will the new leaders continue the current policies that go in another way. Making these choices is no light matter. The burden of democracy, too, must be borne by those who prize its freedom. But bear it we must. Choose we must. And we better be right.

So, dear friends, it does not seem to me that it is the burden of Christ that is heavy and hard. Rather, it is life, itself, that can be burdensome, heavy, and hard, and complicated by our own human nature and our shortcomings.

It is Christ who can be the way and the truth and the light as we go through this life. It is by following him that we have the best chance to not only survive, but to thrive, living lives of purpose, possibility and peace, for one and for all. The yoke of Christ is the better, lighter, easier burden to seek and to willingly, even eagerly place upon ourselves.

A good priest named Dylan put it this way. “… we can say that Jesus' burden is easy and his yoke is light because it is. That I can opt out of the burdens my culture wants to place on me raises my hope that I might be able to opt in to something better, and the Good News is that the best option -- abundant, joyful life, freedom from anxiety, and real, deep, big-enough-for-the-world love is available to us in Christ Jesus.

“We bear (the yoke,) the Cross not as one person alone, but with the whole Body of Christ, and Christ's presence with us brings strength, courage, and peace. When we confess Jesus as Lord… even as we bear the Cross, (we are) restored and freed for eternal and abundant life in service and community with all whom God loves.”

And we can say with Paul, the Apostle “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

These new Christians, being baptized here today with their parents, friends, sponsors and Godparents have, themselves, discovered that way and decided to lead live in that same way.

How else will we make it through? We must take on willingly, even eagerly, that yoke, that cross, that love, and that Way of Christ.

Amen.