The Fourth Sunday in Lent - John 9:1-41

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

How do you tell the difference between a First Class Miracle and an everyday miracle? That’s a tough question, maybe too tough to start. Let’s start with a more basic question. How do you know when a miracle is a miracle; when something happening is miraculous?

Is it simply something out of the ordinary, an exception to one’s day-in, day-out experience? Something unexpected? Or is it a miracle when something good happens if you have been expecting something bad? Or maybe some thing or some event is a miracle when it aligns with what we believe to be signs of God’s kingdom, signs of God’s presence, signs of God’s action.

That works for me. I think a miracle happens whenever we see a sign of God’s presence, God’s activity, God’s purpose, God’s way, God’s kingdom in the everydayness of our lives.

How do you spot a miracle? We are told in the song that miracles happen every day. Where? When? I don’t see them everyday in my life. How about you? See them every day, do you? Have you seen a miracle any day in your life? What if that is the problem, that we don’t see, we don’t notice, we don’t look, we don’t expect?

Was it a miracle that Samuel found a God-ordained boy named David to be the new king of Israel? In hindsight I think it probably was, but not a first class miracle. (I wasn’t actually present when Samuel found David.)

How about in the gospel lesson from John? Was it a miracle that Jesus healed the blind man? Absolutely it was a miracle, to my mind and my faith. First class? I don’t think so.

Did you think it was a miracle when you heard this in the first verse of the reading? “As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.”

When all the others in the story had seen a blind beggar by the side of the road, as they crossed to walk on the other side of the road, when they had only seen a beggar, Jesus saw a man, a man, a man born blind.

I think that is the first class miracle. Jesus saw a man, a man born blind who had been forced to beg by the side of the road in order to live. A man in desperate straits. A man in need. A man. And Jesus healed that man.

Jesus healed all the time. It was pretty ordinary for him, and for other itinerant healers, too. But Jesus first saw this blind beggar as a man, as a man in need, to be sure. But he knew him first as a man, a person, a child of God, a brother, a human being. And only then, as a person in need and then he was moved to act. A first class miracle in my book.

Perhaps the most damning point in this gospel story is that to the others in the story he was only that blind beggar. As I have not seen others from time to time.

I want to tell you another story of a First Class Miracle, told to me by my good friend, Bud Holland. Bud worked for many years at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. These are his words about another man named Richard.

“I met Richard on my way to the Church Center. Over the years we became good friends and prayer partners. When I met him he said that he was "special." He had two first names: Richard Jeffrey. He and I laughed. I brought people to meet Richard. Initially I said my name was Bud. It is Bud as in Budweiser. He laughed. Later I introduced Jerry Drino to him. He had not heard the name Drino before so he decided to call Jerry "Heineken." Again we laughed.

“I often wondered what he was about on that corner of 38th and 3rd Avenue. He did have a cup to receive money but it was such a passive way of asking for money. He never verbally asked for money. Then over time I realized that he was bartering love and he became for me a prayer partner. He always remembered the people I asked him to pray for. When people passed him on the street they would greet him by saying "hello, Richard." So he was known by so many others. Knowing folks who work on the street by name is unusual to say the least. It bears witness to his witness and faithful friendship over the years.

“When I told him that I was not going to be working in the city and would therefore not be seeing him very often, he rose from where he was sitting, tears filled his eyes, and he uttered these words: ‘It will be all right. God closes the distance between us.’ By the way, I was recently in the city and did not see him at the corner. In a very special way I believe we will always be in each other's prayers.”

In my words, a First Class Miracle.

When we truly see a person we could easily pass by as a neighbor, as a man, as a woman, as a brother or sister in Christ, as a person, with a name and a face which bears the light of God’s presence in our meeting, we will truly see. And we will know at that moment that we have been part of a First Class Miracle. Today, Jesus shows us the way.

Third Sunday in Lent - Samaritan Woman at the Well

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Samaritan Woman at the Well

It appeared each morning and evening outside the door of my humble accommodations in the Bishop’s residence in Romogi– a large container or two of water for me to wash each day, on a long journey in a strange land without any of the conveniences of home. A hot sticky, uncomfortable slim bed, food that was difficult for my palate, the only water to drink in bottles, warm, the long days with people speaking a different language– what a gift this water outside my door was as it met my physical need to wash the hot sticky smell of a long day or the sweat of a hot night of difficult sleep.

From the wells of Romogi I came to realize that the women of the village, like generations before them, gathered each day and night at a watering place. But the water, poured on my body, lovingly heated, came from the wells of Romogi–bore holes drilled by prayers and actions of a people here in Bethlehem I had been called to serve. It is a generation of exile giving way to these women gathered at this well, their songs, their children in tow, their disappointments and pain, and now their hope for a future. They go there for their physical need of water, to drink, to cook, to wash, to feed their children, and water their gardens. These are physical needs, yet it is their songs, their community, their smiles, and their hope in a future that seems to transcend. It is their stories of faith in the midst of war, their grace in extending hospitality to me, a stranger, that transform the action at a well in Romogi from meeting a physical need to presenting a spiritual experience of Salvation.

I cannot help but feel I am living in John’s story of the Gospel as I reflect on the wells of Romogi. Like Nicodemus in chapters past, I draw near to Romogi as the learned man of the religious establishment who struggles to understand this simple faith of the people in whose midst I am. The experience and practice of hopefulness, given the grim conditions and oppressive history of these people, seems to have difficulty penetrating my mind and soul and my physical needs in the midst of my discomfort.

Yet like the Samaritan woman at the well who encounters Jesus, I, an “outsider,” seem to have been offered water that will transcend my physical needs and invite me to come alive to the experience that is before me. Like the Samaritan woman, I just have to stay with the experience of those standing before me, listen to them, engage them, and receive their gifts.

I listen to their songs, I delight in worship with them, and I listen to their stories and meet their children. I hear of brave decisions not to flee villages targeted for destruction and I embrace dreams of rebuilding a faith, a church, a village, a country, and then I realize my concerns for my own physical needs have dissipated and I am fully alive in a strange land, with new friends whose stories have gripped my heart and shaken me awake! Like the woman at the well with Jesus, I AM in the presence of Salvation!

Some have written that Salvation is an experience first and a doctrine second. I know this to be true. The experience of Salvation is to lose yourself in a moment only to realize you are more fully yourself than you ever have been before! It is like getting lost in a special moment where a performance transcends the seeming boundary of a theater in which you may be sitting and you suddenly become aware that you have been united with the gifts and spirit of those who are offering their gifts. Suddenly you are lost, but more fully aware of yourself in a way that leads you to want to conquer the world, a performance transformed. It is like losing track of time, commitment, hunger, need, or when standing with a friend whose heart is broken by life and suddenly your heart breaks. You lose yourself, your own needs, and you are one with your friend in their pain—Salvation.

Who knows when and where we will experience Salvation. All of us have stories when we realized we were into the event to the roots of our hair! It might even be the moment we come to fully give thanks for the day we were born, in all understanding, the moments when “I” didn’t matter so much, because of getting lost in the “WE.” In losing the “I,” we discover more of the “who I am”— Salvation.

From the wells of Romogi has come Salvation.

The Second Sunday in Lent

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

The passage we read today from John’s gospel is rich in coded language-

The very setting of the scene is cloaked in mystery- Nicodemus, a leader of the Pharisees, comes in the night to praise the work of Jesus, who has been shunned by the religious establishment until now, and will continue to be.

On its face this makes no sense, and only ten or so chapters later, after the crucifixion, when Nicodemus comes forward in the light of day with an extravagant amount of spices and herbs with which to prepare Jesus’ body before it is placed in the tomb, do we understand that he has been a follower of Christ, a secret disciple since this early appearance in John’s gospel.

Our confusion about Jesus’ late night meetings with high placed officials is nothing compared to Nicodemus’ own bewilderment in the conversation that takes place on this night-

He comes to pledge his faith to Jesus and instead is told that in order to truly believe he must be born again from above. A practical man, Nicodemus is completely lost, trying to understand the physical reality of how being born a second time would work- but willing to ponder what would be a ridiculous proposal, and Jesus continues to offer non-explanations- a meditation on the wind, talk of Moses and serpents, even some gentle mocking.

In case you think this is one of those passages in the bible where our unfamiliarity with the context or the culture of the time is to blame for our inability to parse the language, know that what Jesus is saying sounds like nonsense to Nicodemus as well, and we never are told if he gets what Jesus is saying, or if he walks back into the night shaking his head, hoping that everything will eventually come to make sense for him.

Beyond the coded language in the passage between Jesus and Nicodemus, some of the words and phrases used here have come to be code words of their own, to carry their own secret meanings two thousand years after they were spoken that identifies them with particular groups or movements.

In our culture as 21^st century Americans, we are used to seeing John 3:16 in very public places, held aloft on posters and banners at baseball games, and we can probably all recite the verse from memory in a way that we never could, say, Acts 2:12. In preparing for this sermon I considered simply putting on a curly rainbow wig and unfurling a John 3:16 banner from the pulpit. I reconsidered, since I really do love my job here, but a parishioner offered to make the banner for me.

We’ve seen John 3:16 cited on billboards along the highway, Tim Tebow’s grease paint, and other unlikely spots. The numbers of chapter and verse have taken on an evangelical meaning in their own right, and sometimes represent a sort of protest by some Christians who feel marginalized in an ever more secular world.

Whether it is fair or not, “born again” carries even more coded meaning- having been raised as a Baptist in the deep south, for me being “born again” has a very particular meaning. It conjures images of an adult profession of faith resulting in baptism, stadium revivals and emotional altar calls. In a more social sense, being asked whether someone is “born again” can also be a way of figuring out exactly where that person falls on the fundamentalist/evangelical spectrum, whether he or she is “Christian enough,” and sometimes whether his or her politics and social views are “conservative enough.”

I imagine this coded meaning of being born again carries psychological weight for some of you as well. It’s the kind of language that can turn folks off immediately, shut down a conversation, because of the many different meanings it carries. I think that as Episcopalians, too often, we stop short of sharing our faith stories, of engaging in our call to share the good news of Jesus Christ, because we are afraid of being thought of as one of “those people,” the kind that wield Jesus as a weapon, preach a gospel of hate, and picket funerals.

We probably don’t realize that by keeping quiet as progressive Christians, we inadvertently support the belief in the secular world that “those people” represent all Christians. We keep quiet the fact that we too are believers who have been born again in our baptisms, who are born afresh every day as we live out our baptismal covenant, who believe that John 3:17- "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" is just as important as the verse that precedes it.

Most of us no longer spend Lent flagellating ourselves for our sinfulness, abstaining from any pleasure in food or entertainment, and instead take on a discipline of daily prayer, study, mindfulness, or service. I think that we could add becoming more familiar with our baptismal covenant to the list of healthy, meaningful ways to mark these 40 days. Where the Nicene Creed gives us the theology of our faith, the baptismal covenant gives us a plan of action, and the two are equally vital. If you get a chance, grab a Book of Common Prayer, flip to page 304, and read over this pledge that was made on your behalf at your baptism, and that you have renewed at every baptism that we have had here at the cathedral, that we renew periodically throughout our church year even if we have no babies to welcome into the body of Christ with water and the Spirit.

It is hard to read these words, for me, without getting a little excited about this church that we are part of, this life of faith that we are living. I always find myself feeling proud when I read through the phrases, the promises, particularly the pledge to respect the dignity of every human being. It is difficult to meditate on this pledge of faith and action without being reborn a little bit, without becoming refreshed, and shaking off the insecurity, the fear of being pigeon holed as a “crazy Jesus person”, and sharing the message of love of God, and neighbor, and self.

We can reprogram code words; we can make them our own; we can take back their meaning. And each and every day, we can all be born again.

The First Sunday of Lent

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Let me begin by acknowledging that I am certain that at least a bit of what is on your hearts and in your minds this morning are the people of Japan. Indeed, we keep the people of Japan in our hearts and in our prayers. In this, in my memory, unprecedented time of natural disaster, we once again rise up with the people of Japan, in this case, as they respond to this disaster. We, in the world community as we respond to this disaster, have yet one more opportunity to discover what we are made of. I will say a bit more about Japan at the offertory, but I want to talk about this discovering what we are made of on this first Sunday of Lent because not only our Lenten journey, but actually our Christian and human journey is about discovering and finding our place in the order of things and discovering what we are made of.

Today we have two very familiar pieces of scripture. First we have the story of the garden. We learn of this story in Sunday school. I still remember sitting in Sunday school, hearing the story for the first time, and beginning my life-long journey of trying to figure out exactly what’s going on here. In the story of the garden and in the story of Jesus’ temptations in today’s Gospel, we have two of the most fundamental stories of our tradition. We find these stories formulating classic Christian theology, the stories that have shaped our existence forever. In fact, since the 300 ADs, one Augustine of Hippo developed for us the doctrine of original sin reflecting on this story of the garden. Indeed, what the story is about is humanity trying to figure out its place in the order of things. Whether you have read Augustine or not, this classical teaching of theology is implanted deep inside of you. It is from the story we get that our nature in Adam and Eve in humanity their inability to live in the simple law of the garden. Basically the law in the garden is do not trespass and, indeed, Adam and Eve just can’t help it. What we draw from this story from classic Christian theology is that we discover the limitations of our human nature, and we recognize that we do rely on God at every stage of our life. This is classic Christian theology.

In Romans today, St. Paul begins to spin out his experience of the risen Jesus, the Christ, who, as we discover in the Gospel lesson, is one who is able to live into who he is, able to withstand temptation, and through it he lives into what he was made of and for. St. Paul reminds us that the new Adam that is in Jesus, we get a breath of hope that through Christ and a relationship with Christ, where we fall short Jesus can redeem and make us new. This is classic Christian theology. Where Adam and Eve could not get it right, Jesus gets it right. Christ is tempted in the wilderness shortly after the Holy Spirit has named him for who he is, the Son of God. He takes his baptismal identity into the wilderness and it will be tested. He spars with Satan who offers him relief of the basic human needs of hunger and the basic human inclination to grab for power and have control. Jesus sticks to who he is, digs deep for what he is made of and, indeed, then lives out his mission as the Son of God, that identity that would lead him with courage to Jerusalem where he would offer himself up, where he would be crucified, and where God would do a mighty thing on behalf of all humanity.

Does all this sound right- classic Christian theology? So we get it. We rely on God and through the person of Jesus, we discover the true nature of God, and we find hope. Today I want you to park just for a few minutes, that life-long piece of your DNA that has taught you this Christian classic theology. Because I think that, as we discussed in Bible study this week with the Bishop, it is easy for us to go on automatic pilot then and say, OK, we’re never going to get it right, Jesus gets it right, and all will be well at the end of the day. But I would submit to you that there is more going on here, that it really is up to us to find ourselves in the story, to bend ourselves into the story, particularly on this Lenten journey, and to ask the same questions that Jesus was being asked in the wilderness which is “what are you made of,” discover what you are made of. That is what this journey is about, and we don’t have to be Adam and Eve and God knows we are not Jesus, but there is something in this for us if we bend ourselves and ask what we are made of.

So I share with you the true story of Ruby Bridges. Some of you may know this story. My daughter has been hounding me for months, because she has studied the story of Ruby Bridges, to sit down with her and actually watch the short Disney video that tells the story of Ruby Bridges, the six-year-old little girl in 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana, who was ushered by federal marshals into the all-white school each day. It was her mother’s dream and hope that she would get a decent education. Some of you may remember well those early days of integration. Ruby Bridges, this six-year-old girl, would discover what she was made of in this experience. Her experience was that of many and in her little school, she was the only black child whose mother insisted that she go, and you know how that story goes. The first day she arrived, ushered and protected by federal marshals, one by one the parents of the young white students came and removed their children from school. Each day, as the day went on, surrounding the outside of the school, Ruby Bridges walked through crowds of people protesting the integration of that school. Day by day, Ruby heard things and witnessed things that she never would have imagined as a six-year-old girl.

As she tells the story, not as Disney tells the story, but if you’d like, Netflix, as she tells the story she says I learned that there were people in the world who hated and there were people in the world who loved, and it didn’t matter what color their skin was. She said that each and every day she would walk to school, and she did what her mother taught her to do, that was pray for God’s protection. Each day she would get up, she would say her prayers and she would ask for God’s protection as she walked through the angry mobs that were there each and every day, all day long. As the story goes, there was a psychiatrist, Dr. Coles, who, knowing the story and being deployed locally in the military, and being concerned for her emotional and mental health came to the family and asked if he could be of support. They finally agreed, and day by day they established a relationship. Working with her each day, he was concerned about what she was doing with all of that which was coming at her. He also witnessed that day by day she was growing less and less verbal. He worked with her and he said you need to bring those feelings to speech. You need to articulate to the people who are shouting hateful things to you. You need to let them know how you feel. Each and every day she walked through those crowds saying her prayers, until one day finally, as she tells the story, “I forgot to pray in the morning, so when I was walking past the angry crowds, I stopped and I turned, and I began to move my lips.” Dr. Coles, who stood in that crowd every morning in support of her, was feeling she was finally going to speak to the crowd, tell them how she felt, but he couldn’t hear her over the shouts of the crowd. All he saw was this little girl’s lips moving. He asked her later, “Ruby, I saw you bring to speech. What were you saying to the crowd?” She said, “I forgot to say my prayers, so I was praying for God’s protection, and I was praying that God might love them, too, and that God might forgive them.”

You see, this is really the stuff that we are made of. A six-year-old girl, discovered in the midst of what the world had to throw at her what she was made of, and she discovered that there are two types of laws that we live with. There is the law that tells us not what to do: Do not trespass, and there is the law of God’s nature, which is like the law of gravity. It just is. It’s a law of grace and love. It’s a law that calls us to discover what we are made of and when we dig deep to discover that law, that love can transform anything. So this is our Lenten journey, to discover that which we are made of, to dig deep as we live in a world that throws things at us, to live into the law, the law of God, which is love and grace, and can transform anything.

“Twenty plus one plus one” is a movement many churches, beginning in Christ Church, Warwick, New York, our brothers and sisters at Trinity, Bethlehem, and now growing among many churches. Twenty plus one plus one: 20 minutes a day in prayer, reflecting on who we are and what we are made of. One hour a week in worship, or a little more, coming together with each other, bringing our differences, bringing our hopes, bringing our prayers, bringing our thanksgivings. One hour a month in service so that others out there might know what we are made of: 20+1+1.

Amen.

The Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

Today in our readings we have many beautiful images that are being painted with words for us. In Isaiah, we have the image of God as mother and Zion as child. God, in this metaphor, is described like a pregnant woman and creation as her child, moving in the womb. God can no more forget us than a pregnant mother can forget the child that lives within her. Isaiah restates this and said God is like a nursing mother, unable to take her mind off of the child that she must feed every hour or two, her very body protesting if too much time goes by between feedings. A number of my girlfriends have been having children lately, so I know from being around nursing women and any of you who have been a nursing woman, there is a sort of second plane of existence that happens when you are responsible for nourishing another being. You really can’t ever take your focus off of what’s going on with that baby.

This is powerful stuff that we’re getting today. This is beautiful, tender stuff. We are told that not only can God not forget us, but God inscribes our names on the palms of his hands so that we are always comforted and held within him. These beautiful pictures go on into Matthew’s gospel with the lilies and the birds. I can’t read this passage without thinking of a hymn that was sung to me as a child and I think everyone knows it, even if you weren’t Southern Baptist at one time. It’s about how God’s eye is always upon us. “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free. His eyes are on the sparrow, so I know he watches me.” It’s such a beautiful sense and a wonderful sense of how important we are to God.

God’s eye is always upon us. He cares for the birds of the air so how could he possibly forget us? We are told not to worry about what we will eat because God feeds all of his creatures, even those who don’t sow or reap, or store up in barns. We are told also not to worry about how we are clothed and where we will find clothing. We are told to look to the lilies of the field that are clothed in the purest white and cloth of gold, clothed even surpassing the lavishness of Solomon but, like the grasses, they only wither and die. So how much more must God love us, whose lives are longer than a thousand lilies?

We are given all of this beautiful reassurance throughout the readings today and then we are told, don’t be anxious. This is one of those questions or one of those statements that Jesus makes throughout his Gospel that catches us off guard, if we are really listening. This part of Matthew comes right after the Beatitudes, so we are still in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gives these wonderful comforts and then says, so don’t be anxious. I think for most of us, on one hand we can weigh those beautiful comforts, but on the other hand we can still have a lot of anxiety because everything we see every day is telling us to be anxious. You can’t get on the Internet or open a newspaper or call your mother, in my case, without being reminded of all the things that we should be worrying about.

So how do we live as a non-anxious presence in an anxious world? I don’t think that Jesus is telling us today that we shouldn’t worry about where things come from, that we shouldn’t plan ahead, that we shouldn’t try to make sure that we are covering our future needs, but I think what he is telling us is actually we shouldn’t let that worry become so central to our lives, so much a part of our being, that we are paralyzed by it. We are anxious because we have reason to be anxious. There are many frightening things going on in the world today. We have many more worries – we have to worry about college funds, retirement plans, bank bailouts, all of these things, but all of this anxiety serves to keep our focus on ourselves, and ultimately to keep our focus off of our neighbor and off of God.

How do we live a non-anxious life? I think the only answer that we have to this question truly is prayer. Prayer is the only real balm that we have. There is a school of thought that defines sin as distance from God, and I think that anxiety can fall under the same definition. When we are so anxious that we can only focus inward, we can only focus on our own immediate needs, we can’t focus outward. We can’t make room for God to come in and hold us with the palms of his hands, and comfort us, and give us his strength. So how do we pray? I think ultimately prayer, at its essence, is learning to be comfortable with our silent selves and in that way, becoming comfortable with God. I think this can only be achieved through constant steady conversation with God. If we have a prayer life, then we have a foundation for an examined and non-anxious life, and a life that can then be turned over to the work of God rather than anxiety.

How do we pray? We pray in many ways. As Episcopalians, obviously we come together corporately on Sunday mornings, on Wednesday mornings, on Saturday evenings, and we pray together. We know that we can find God and hear God in the midst of our community. We also pray individually. For me, silence is key in this. Now you can pray on your knees, you can pray on a walk, you can pray on a comfortable chair, looking out the window or sort of sitting in that place that’s in between waking and sleeping, but I think the important aspect is that it is intentional. We intentionally give ourselves a moment to stop, lay aside the worries of the day, clear our heads, clear our minds, give ourselves over to God, and give God the opportunity to be present in our lives, to be present in us. We must empty ourselves so that we can be filled with God’s love.

So prayer is intentional and prayer is self-examining, but ultimately, I think, if we keep at it, we will find ourselves in a place where we will know with certainty that, just as God’s eye is on the sparrow, he is always watching us, and our anxieties will leave us at last as we remember that we are inscribed on the palms of God’s hands always, and he can never forget us.

Amen.

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Stephen Bayne, a wise bishop and saint of this church, wrote many years ago:  God put freedom into his created universe in order that the universe could respond to his love with an answering love of its own – given out of its freedom. That’s Life.

The scripture appointed for this day lays before us a stark and clear presentation of a choice. “… today I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him…”

The choice is to align one’s life according to God’s way and know the blessings that will come in the doing or to follow in some other way and reap what is sown down that path.

As I was driving around the Lehigh Valley the other day, I saw a church sign that read, “God’s message doesn’t change”. I believe that to be true. The core truth is the core truth. But who hears it changes. The era in which it is heard changes. The culture through which it is heard changes. The time in the life of the person who hears it changes.

One time I heard God’s message was as a newly ordained person Then I drove around in a car left over from a more frivolous time of my life. It was a hot, little orange/red Fiat convertible sport car that wore a bumper sticker that declared, “Choose Life!” (Actually it is kind of fun to remember those days when “father” would drive up in it to parishioners’ homes.)

But this was not some adolescent hippie exclamation, nor was it an anti-abortion slogan. It was more basic than that. It was more of a primal shout! What I wanted to say to the world in my youthful enthusiasm was “Choose LIFE”. Choose a way of life that leads to joy and exuberance and love, and provides a pathway through the tough times of life that come to one and all regardless of stature or status. Choose life that ultimately leads to living in God’s blessing and returns to God and the people among whom we live a love that answers God’s love given in our creation.

It is, I believe, the deep desire of God’s heart that we make the choice for Life. It is as we pray in the Eucharistic prayer, Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace. Claiming God’s love, receiving God’s love, and living in God’s love is the “way of freedom and peace.”

It is not the way to a problem-free life, it is not a way to escape the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it is not a way to dodge all the stuff that life throws at us, it is not the way to skip the pains of aging or adolescence or sexuality or any kind of hard time. But it is a way through them.

Those times are part of life, but they don’t define our lives. They are part of us, but they don’t define us. We have been created for freedom, and peace, and love and if we are faithful in our living, steadfast in our doing, then we will know freedom, we will know peace, we will abide in love.

There are forces that would draw us away from these, take us down other paths, seduce us into other ways, try to make us a different person – some of those forces come from outside of us and some come from within ourselves.

But we know, too, that within us and within all of humankind there are stronger powers drawing us toward the love of God and toward the God given right of freedom and peace and life lived in tranquility with family and neighbor alike.

Our nation is based on this belief, is based on these truths. Our Declaration of Independence boldly states what could not be seen and was not known in the lives of the people at that time in this place, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And to bring those things that are ours by divine right into being, we ordered ourselves as a nation. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

A people claimed their heritage as God’s creation and wanted the ability for themselves and their children to live in peace, justice, and freedom. That’s what God intended in the beginning and that’s what our forebears brought into being. They chose Life.

And it is amazing to me that in my adult life I have seen the same choice made by the people of Poland and Czechoslovakia, Latvia and Estonia, and East Germany and in each of the countries of the Soviet Union. The choice for Life was made by the people of South Africa, the choice for Life was made by the people of Southern Sudan, the choice for Life was made by the people of Tunisia, and in these last days the choice for Life was made by the people of Egypt.

The people claim the promise that predates even God’s Covenant with Moses. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

Our president declared on Friday, “This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied. Egyptians have … (put) the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence. For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence -- not terrorism, not mindless killing -- but nonviolence (the) moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.

“And while the sights and sounds that we heard were entirely Egyptian, we can't help but hear the echoes of history -- echoes from Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesian students taking to the streets, Gandhi leading his people down the path of justice.

“The word Tahrir means liberation. It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom. And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people -- of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.”

We stand in awe and we kneel to give thanks to God that “we have seen the hand of God at work in the world around us” once again when God’s people have chosen LIFE. It is the deep desire at the heart of God that we Choose Life.

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

In the world of Biblical criticism and scholarship, there is a constant tension between two ways of approaching scripture.

These are Exegesis v. eisegesis.

Exegesis (from the Greek meaning “to lead out”) is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The goal of Biblical exegesis is to explore the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance.

Exegesis includes a wide range of critical disciplines: textual criticism is the investigation into the history and origins of the text, but exegesis may include the study of the historical and cultural backgrounds for the author, the text, and the original audience. Other analysis includes classification of the type of literary genres present in the text, and an analysis of grammatical and syntactical features in the text itself. Most modern, or post-modern, commentaries on the Bible take exactly this approach, and you will find endless footnotes telling you the subtleties of the translation or giving you historical context so that one can better wrap one’s mind around the words on the page.

Eisegesis (from the Greek meaning “into”) is the process of misinterpreting a text in such a way that it introduces one's own ideas, reading into the text. While exegesis draws out the meaning from the text, eisegesis occurs when a reader reads his/her interpretation into the text. As a result, exegesis tends to be objective when employed effectively while eisegesis is regarded as highly subjective.

This sounds pretty black and white- but anyone who has ever translated something from one language to another knows that it is very much a grey area, words in one do not have exact correlatives in the other, choices are made that result in one shade of meaning over another, and the end result is always somewhat subjective, which is exactly why we have the practice of exegesis in the first place.

I mention all of this because the Gospel passage we heard today is probably one of the most exegeted, and most eisegeted, in our canon. We’ve read this passage as a formula for getting into God’s grace, a set of instructions for how to become a child of God, instead of an affirmation of our belovedness from before we were formed in the womb.

The phrase “salt of the earth” has come to mean something quite different than what it would have meant to the Gospel writers- where we hear it as meaning good, simple, and honest, two thousand years ago, when salt was the only spice widely available and was used not only for preserving foods but also for enhancing their flavors, it would have meant something special, something that made common things greater.

In the same way, the strength of light in a world before electricity is perhaps something we can’t wrap our minds around- it is hard now to get away from light, one must go far from populated areas to see the night sky without ambient brightness from streetlights, cars, humanity. So the power and promise of a single lamp doesn’t quite impact us, I think, with the weight it is meant to have.

Fred Craddock, writing in the Christian Century, says this about today’s Gospel: “For the first context, Jesus offers affirmation, warning and instruction. The affirmation is in two vivid images, “You are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” Notice “You are” not “You ought to be or should try to be.” Both salt and light are so basic and essential to human life that Jesus felt no need to spell out what this meant. However, having introduced the existence of hostility toward the gospel, Jesus does elaborate on what can happen to God’s people under persecution and sustained opposition. Salt can lose its integrity, its identifying quality as salt. This does not occur suddenly, of course, but so gradually that those to whom it happens do not perceive themselves as changing and cannot identify later a single time or place when their faith ceased. Certainly the loss was not intentional; it was more a matter of drifting away…

“Or, says Jesus, how easy it is to lose initiative in mission and take up a posture of protection and defense after one suffers verbal, physical, social or economic abuse for one’s faith. For example, building a city on a hill is sound strategy for self-defense, but the increased visibility attracts even more hostility. Or again, putting a lamp under a bushel certainly reduces the chance of having it blown out, but the price for such protection is darkness. In other words, the way of Christ is mission: witnessing and benevolent intrusion into the life of the world.

There is no way that Christ’s cause can be converted into an individual or community lifestyle of self-interest, self-protection and defense against vulnerability. To do so is not to interpret Christ differently, but to abandon him. The way of Christ is to take the initiative and rather than hide from the world, let the light shine in the hopeful trust that the praise of God will be increased.

This is perhaps easy to hear but more difficult to live. We are constantly assailed by messages that we could be better, do more, work harder. Instead, Jesus is telling us, we should strive to be faithful above all else.

This is a tough message to hear, particularly for us, right? As Americans, as a country of folks founded on the notion that, like a character out of a Horatio Alger story, anyone being able to pull themselves up by the boot straps and become wildly successful with enough hard work, and for us as Protestant, Reformation Christians, who have heard these passages used for generations to reinforce the notion of righteousness by works, that if we just work hard enough, pray correctly, God will admit us to his love.

The message today is radical- our place in the kingdom is assured, has been since our creation, and our responsibility is to live out the power of that assurance, the confidence that is only possible through God's wide embrace. This isn’t something we can do. This is something we have to be.

Jesus said he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, to complete it- and by living into the spirit of the covenant God made with us In our births, into the gifts that God has given us, we spread the light of God’s love in the dark places we encounter, we spread our saltiness in all that we undertake, and finally we rest in the knowledge that if all that we do is grounded in Christ, it will have been well done.

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Matthew 5:1-12

There is chaos and violence in the streets of Egypt. The ancient city of Carthage, known to us today as Tunisia, has seen similar oppressive violence as a response to voices protesting for democracy, equality, and economic opportunity. In Uganda, political tensions are rising, and recent attacks on activists for the rights of gays and on humanitarian workers seem to be an outgrowth of highly-charged political diatribe. In Sudan, the people of the south remain hopeful that voting for secession from the north will hold peacefully, yet violence has erupted and lives lost near the north/south border. Voices in the south clamor for peace and freedom, and in the north, carefully measured statements about a new Sudan are heard. In our own country, a new year brings again the voices of a path continuing forward in difficult times as we continue to struggle economically, and continue to live in a time where our country is at war.

In all of it, one can wonder and be lost, or even overwhelmed, in the dynamics of an unsettled time and unsettled world. In the midst of it all, we can respond to events as they impact our own lives and we can rightly wonder—what voices might we find clarity and action in following. One might also wonder, it all seems so big and we are just regular folk, what is my place in it?

This is the set-up I ask for us to live into this morning as we consider our Gospel today. In a world just as disrupted and challenged, I might suggest that common folk may have been asking the same questions. I am just a regular folk; what is my place in all this mess? Among the many voices crying out in this world, in which one might I find some clarity and action following?

Today we have the Beatitudes. Familiar to all of us, most scholars agree the beatitudes are the platform speech on which Jesus builds, inspires, challenges, and equips his followers to live into a new ideal for their lives and the world that is the Kingdom he has come to usher in. The symbolism in Matthew’s gospel is worth noting. Just as Moses ascended that holy mount to discover and deliver the law for the people of God, so Jesus sits on the mount to deliver the good news that God’s dream is actualized in Jesus, and to those who listen and believe in what he says, they must actualize his teachings in their behavior. In this way, God’s dream comes alive! “Blessed” is the English word we use to translate from the Greek “marikiori” which, more closely translated, may be “how fortunate” or “how fulfilled,” or in that sense, “happy.” “Blessed” are the ones who hear, believe, and live out this path that is not easy of bringing God’s dream to life in their lives and in the world.

This is a large and demanding voice with a call to big things. Who, then, is worthy of such a commendation? Who is there on that hillside? What about you? Can you imagine yourself on that hillside today? What is it that is being asked of them, of us? Surely those sitting there that day must have been spiritual heroes to actualize such behavior; surely this message today must be for the heroes among us.

Hear the words of Fred Beuchner as he responds to the questions, “What voices do I pay attention to, and how is it that a common folk like me fits into this? I paraphrase from his work on the Beatitudes found in his book, Wishful Thinking.

“We might be tempted to guess one sort or another of spiritual hero, (might be picked out to hear this special commendation that is beatitudes), men and women of impeccable credentials morally, spiritually, humanly, BUT we would be wrong.

“Jesus did not pick out the spiritual giants (to follow, listen, and to actualize) but the “poor in spirit,” the ones who spiritually speaking have nothing to give but everything to receive.”

“Not the champions of faith who can rejoice even in the midst of their own suffering, but the ones who mourn over suffering, and have the ability to mourn over the suffering of others.”

(Jesus did not choose) the strong ones but the meek ones, in the sense of the gentle ones, i.e., not like Caspar Milquetoast but like Charlie Chaplain, the little tramp who was stamped on by the world, yet is dapper and undaunted to the end, and somehow makes the world more human in the process.

(Jesus did not choose) the ones who are righteous but the ones who hope they will be some day and in the meantime, are well aware that the distance they have to go is still greater than the distance they have come.

(Jesus did not choose) the winners of great victories over evil in the world, but the ones who, seeing it in themselves every time they comb hair in the mirror, are merciful when they find it in others, and in being merciful maybe win the greater victory.

(Jesus did not choose) the totally pure, but the “pure in heart,” the ones who are as shop-worn and clay-footed as the next, but who somehow have kept some inner freshness and innocence intact.

(Jesus did not choose) necessarily the ones who have found peace in its fullness but the ones who, just for that reason, try to bring it about wherever and however they can, be it peace with their neighbors and God, peace and themselves.

Jesus saved for last the ones who side with heaven (on his account) even when any fool can see it seems to be a losing side in worldly terms. Looking into their faces he says, “Blessed are you.” “How fortunate you will be.” “Happy are you.”

Imagine them looking back at him. Now imagine yourself looking back at him. They are not a high-class crowd, peasants and fisher folk, on the shabby side, some of them, not that bright. It doesn’t look like there is a hero among them, Buechner reminds us. How about among us?

They are blessed—and they must know it as they go forward. It is not his hard times ahead he is concerned with but theirs. It is his own meekness, his own mercy, his own peaceful heart from which he speaks. It is their meekness, their mercy, their own peaceful hearts (and ours) that he seeks.

A final word on this day: If the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus delivering the platform of God’s dream and the opportunity is to hear the beatitudes as a commendation to actualize principles of mercy, meekness, peacefulness, and sacrifice, then we give thanks for Joel Atkinson’s ministry and person, for he is indeed “blessed.”

Amen.

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

The Rev. Canon Mariclair Partee

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to Israel, and I found that if you go on pilgrimage to Israel with a certain kind of company, you will have all sorts of Biblical experiences. You can step into the Jordan River and re-experience baptism, not exactly where Jesus did it because that’s in the middle of the desert and doesn’t make for a good photo, but in a more picturesque area where there are thousand year old olive trees. You can cruise in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. You can see something called the Jesus boat which is a 2,000-year-old fishing boat, dredged up from the lake floor, that could possibly have been the sort used by Jesus and his disciples. You can even stop in at one of the numerous restaurants on the shore and eat Peter’s fish, a particular sort of fish that the owners assure you was the kind that Simon Peter was catching that day when Jesus called out to follow him. It’s all very authentic, assuming Jesus and the disciples had their own deep fryer.

A biblical experience that has authentically survived the millennia is the one we hear described in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians today. The newborn Christian church at Corinth is divided. Factions are forming around different individuals, and power struggles are emerging. Paul begins his letter by summoning the Corinthians to live up to their identity in Christ. In particular, Paul calls them to unity. He appeals to them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and, as New Testament scholar, J. R. Kirk, points out, we must not skip over this too quickly. The name of Jesus is not only the authority by which Paul calls this church to account, it is the name that makes the Corinthians one church. When Paul later asks, “Were you baptized into the name of Paul?” the obvious answer is no. We were baptized into the name of Jesus. Accordingly, the very basis of his admonition, the name of the Lord Jesus carries with it the diagnosis of their problem and its solution.

The problem is that they are claiming other peoples’ names as their identity markers. The solution is to be united in their common identity in Christ. To put it in another term, the Corinthians are plagued by party spirit. We get a hint at the divisions, even in the fact that one group is reporting to Paul about everyone else. Chloe’s people, who are, perhaps, Chloe’s household, or maybe those who meet for worship in Chloe’s house, bring word to Paul that the church is fracturing. Each group has rallied through a particular leader, and the debate in Corinth revolves around the knowledge and power that each of these teachers embodies. One group in Corinth has rallied to Apollos, an early leader under Paul and the Corinthian church. Elsewhere in the scriptures, Apollos is described as an eloquent man who is powerful in public debate, and such rhetorical force might have formed the rallying point for the Apollos party. It seems to lie behind Paul’s insistence that true proclamation of the Gospel does not require eloquence.

Then we have the place of Cephas, who is traditionally understood to be the apostle Peter, and his position is a bit murkier. It may be that Cephas or his followers introduced theological tensions in Corinth by bringing a sort of law-focused Christianity closer to its Jewish roots. The Corinthians, then, were flocking to smooth rhetoric that lived up to the days’ worldly display of wisdom and Apollos to a Jewish theology proclaimed by Cephas that seemed to have a stronger biblical pedigree, and to their own history, roots, and founder in Paul.

In response to this partisan bickering, Paul brings them back to the story that defines us all as the people of God, the crucifixion of Christ. Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? The answer is no, of course not. We are the people of Christ. Kirk reminds us that the cross transforms the value of our actions and our status. Because of the cross, we must learn to view the world differently. And so, as we start reading about the problems confronting the church in ancient Corinth, we will find ourselves invited to a conversion of the imagination, what Paul himself speaks of as being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Paul invites his readers to participate in the story of the cross, a narrative in which all that we think we know about the world, its values, its knowledge, its wisdom, its virtue, is reconfigured by God’s great act of salvation in Christ. The message of the cross, he is saying, is not something that only applies to becoming the people of God, something that can be compartmentalized and referred to only on questions of faith, or on Sunday mornings. It gives shape to the entirety of our lives and the entirety of our life together.

Now it was hard for me to read about the goings on at Corinth without immediately thinking of the state of affairs in our country and of the horrible events that occurred just over a week ago now in Arizona. Of course, no single public figure can be held responsible for the actions of an obviously troubled individual, but I think that there is something to the immediate blame that was placed on the tenor of our national debates. Every day, we are pulled in different directions by voices clamoring for our attention, claiming to represent the right beliefs, the correct way, the only truth. As divisions emerge in our political landscape, the rhetoric grows more passionate, more bombastic, and sometimes violent. Those who don’t agree with us are painted as lesser than us. Their humanity is stripped from them and they become a faceless enemy. It is any wonder, then, that this dis-incarnation can be taken to dangerous extremes, can provide a sense of justification for those who would inflict violence on those they despise.

As we are pulled in increasingly polarized directions by the voices of our politicians and commentators and critics and people in power, let our touchstone be the voice of Jesus in the Gospel today, calling out to us to follow him. Jesus did not eloquently call his disciples, nor did he promise them power or membership in an elite group. He simply invited these young fishermen to follow him, to pattern their lives on his commandments, to love God, and love neighbor, to have a conversion of the imagination, to be renewed. I think that invitation is before us again today. So let us follow him.

Amen.

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Surely you have heard that the entire world is off balance. You’ve heard that? As a matter of fact, folks are making lots of money right now writing books speaking to the reality that, at least on the level of the cosmos, we are in an unprecedented paradigm shift. Folks in church circles are also making lots of money writing books talking about what that means for the church. The truth of the matter is it is connected to the hole we have seen in the world in which we live to be living through a time of shift. This has never come so more evident than reading the front page of The Morning Call.

My element is the earth. My ruling planet is Saturn. The symbol of my life for 46 years has been the goat. My stone is garnet. As a good, old-fashioned Capricorn, my life pursuit has been to be proud of my achievements. My vibrant energy coming from the cosmos is powerful and resilient. My secret Capricorn desire is to be admired by family and friends, but who needed astrology to know that?

It seems that everything is off balance now. It seems my whole understanding of who I am, the signs that I look for in the sky, seem now to be pointing to a new truth. I am a Sagittarius, for God’s sake. I am not so sure about my element, the fire. I am so fond of Saturn as my guiding planet that I don’t know if I can give my allegiance to Jupiter. I have to tell you, there are some advantages to the archer as opposed to a goat, but my stone – I’ll never go turquoise. My life pursuit is to live the good life. I am not sure what that means, but it sounds good. The vibration for my new Sagittarian existence coming from the cosmos is overly expressive, leading to frequent burnouts. I have no interest in that. Ah, but my secret Sagittarian desire is to make a difference in the world. Maybe I’ll take that one.

OK, I’m making fun. For one thing, isn’t it amazing what one person in one small part of the world might decide on our behalf? That is that the cosmos has shifted and the paper publishes it all over, whatever. This is really a cheap way of taking astrology, that for which many look to the sky—you know what astrology is about. Astrology is about trying to find the signs that point to some piece of meaning in life. That is astrology. For some of us, it is frivolous and fun. For others, it is a bit more serious. For me, it’s frivolous and fun. My point, however, is that in all of humanity, we do share one thing. That is that we are all trying to make sense, find purpose, and find things with which we can align ourselves. We are often looking in places for the signs that will reveal these truths to us. This, I think, we all can agree on.

That is a long way of getting into John’s Gospel which, if you have ever studied John’s Gospel to understand what John is trying to tell us, revealed to us the truth that John is trying to convey to us. You have to understand that John is about signs. John’s entire Gospel is filled with signs. Signs, you know, are those things that point to something we cannot necessarily see or put our hands our hands on, but signs that point us to a truth about something. In today’s Gospel, we engage John’s first sign. That, of course, comes after his setting the stage, the theological and poetic stage. In those first 18 verses of the first chapter where John, in that beautiful poetry, tells us about God acting not only in the lives of individuals, but even more so, acting to come to redeem the entire creation, the entire cosmos. In John’s Gospel, God is hitting the “justify” button on the computer, resetting the stage. In today’s portion of that Gospel, John now translates that setting and begins to tell the real life historical story of how, indeed, God is pushing the justify button.

The sign that John gives us is, of course, in the person of John the Baptist. John makes the move to begin to tell the story of how the Word became flesh, it being rooted in the historical event in the person of one named Jesus, who one day walked across the wilderness and walked toward this figure, John. It is John the Baptist who John, the gospeler, chooses to tell us and point to the truth of what is happening. For John the Baptist, he will be the first signpost. You remember his words, not all that long ago in Advent and, of course, in Christmastide, when John says “I am not the light, but I have come to point to the light.” Well, today is the day. The light has walked into John the Baptizer’s presence, and he becomes the first witness in John’s Gospel because he sees the Holy Spirit descending and resting on Jesus like a dove. John points to the truth, he witnesses to it, and he announces to all who will hear it. What is this truth? This person is the Son of God. This person is the Lamb of God. John the Baptizer will be a witness and an announcer to a truth that is to be revealed, that God has come in time and in history, not only to redeem the cosmos, but also to deliver those who would hear him and receive him, and become children of God like him.

John’s Gospel announces to us today the code of discipleship that is to follow and bear witness to this Son of God, to this Lamb of God. To John’s audience, Son of God would have been a familiar term that they were expecting to hear and to see. It is one that they would hear, and know that God was acting in a particular way to bring a message of hope and freedom to a particular people. The Lamb of God, to an audience filled with Jews, certainly would have conjured up their knowledge and expectations that in that person, the way to freedom would be through sacrifice. This is the Son of God. This is the Lamb of God, and the entire rest of John’s Gospel would be about Jesus performing those signs, pointing to redemption. All those who would hear it would need to do is follow, and then witness to what they saw. So today in John’s Gospel, the sign points to that code of discipleship, to follow in witness the Son of God, the Lamb of God.

Here are the three things that I really want you to leave here with today. What does it mean to encounter this Lamb of God, this Son of God? These are the three things that I think it means that we are called to follow and then witness. Number one: All of us are in need of redeeming. All of us are in need of redeeming. Number two: We can’t do the redeeming. We just can’t pull off the redeeming. Have you noticed? Somehow, as hard as we might try, whatever program or campaign or statement or ideology we seem to come up with, we human beings, not just now in our time but forever historically, we can’t seem to get it all right. We can’t do the redeeming. Number one is admitting that we are in need of redeeming. Number two is that we can’t do the redeeming ourselves. The third thing is that once we encounter the one who redeems us, we must be a witness to that redemption.

Case in point: I was fortunate enough some years ago to spend a couple of days in study with Rabbi Ed Friedman, who was the incarnation of Family Systems Theory. (Actually he was the second generation of Family Systems Theory, but he is the one whom we knelt before to learn about Family Systems Theory.) In the class I attended, someone innocently asked Ed Friedman, “Rabbi Friedman, why do you think people come to church or to temple?” He said people come to church and to temple to show their home movies. Do you get that? What he is saying is that all of us take our humanity, we take our brokenness, we take our dysfunction, we take our sin, we take our failure, we take our hope, we take our joys, and we bring them to a safe place, and we show those movies on one another and on God. Sometimes that’s not so pretty. Sometimes it’s absolutely beautiful. You get it?

It’s been interesting to me to reflect again and to watch, which is what I do, reflect and watch our common response to the shootings in Arizona. If you pay attention to our national tragedies, if you pay attention to the home movies that are shown, isn’t the dialog that rises up around such events interesting? This isn’t the first time we have had a tragedy – it’s an awful tragedy, but it’s not the first time. If you pay attention at any tragedy, our response to it is to bring our home movies. That’s why, pastorally, when there are difficult things going on in our own personal lives, it is such emotional labor because all of our home movies come to be shown. Are you getting this yet? Isn’t it interesting that the dialog that occurs in the midst of a national tragedy raises things to which, perhaps, we need to pay attention? It’s not about what points people are making. It’s about what movies they are showing.

David Brooks, writing in his op ed piece in The New York Times in response to the shooting, showing his own home movies, perhaps offers us what I am really trying to get at. Making a statement about our common place that perhaps as a common group in our nation today, he is suggesting that perhaps what we need is to come to terms with our human limitations. Perhaps we are trying so hard to figure things out for ourselves that we are getting lost in our rhetoric and in our ideologies. Failing to name the reality, which is my point, a theological reality, we need redemption. All of us need redemption. We need to admit that we need redemption. We need to admit that we can’t do that redeeming on our own. We have tried, historically, and we have failed. When we come, you and I, into the realization that we hand our failure and our weakness and our sin over to a greater power than ours, then and only then, can we meet redemption. When we meet redemption, we need to witness to it.

David Brooks writes this about coming to that place of understanding our need for redemption: “Redemption is a tree with deep roots and without the roots, it can’t last.” So what are those roots? They are failure and sin and weakness and ignorance. I know it’s not Lent yet, but it seemed like today would be a good day to have it. We need redemption.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in our country. Tomorrow, in Sayre Hall, there will be a group from the Lehigh Valley who will gather in celebration, and I have been asked to say a few words at that celebration. The words that I have been asked to reflect on are about the progress of race relations in our country. I am not sure why I agreed to that, and I don’t know what I’m going to say yet, to be honest, other than we need redemption. All of us need a little redemption. We can’t do that redeeming by ourselves. For those of us who are people of faith, we must come to that place where we recognize the waters of baptism in which we have been baptized and know there is one who promises us redemption, and that admitting our weaknesses and our sin can only lead us to that place of redemption.

I tell this anecdote. As a young priest in Virginia in charge of my first congregation, somewhere in the mid to late ‘90s, you will remember that there was a rash of church burnings in the south, African-American congregations’ buildings being burned. I received a telephone call from an 80-some-year-old woman who was a member of the Presbyterian congregation down the road. I didn’t know her from Adam, but she invited me to a meeting at her house. Someone in my congregation advised me that this would be a good invitation to accept. So I went to the meeting and there I found myself sitting with three other clergy, me and this 80-year-old woman and three other clergy—myself, the Presbyterian pastor, the Methodist pastor, and the pastors and the deacons of the black Baptist church down the road. She looked at us and she said, “I have lived here all my life and I’ve lived in the south, and I’ve lived through much, and I’ve seen this movie before. They’re burning churches again. What are you all going to do about it?”

You see, we are in need of redeeming. We can’t do that redeeming by ourselves. When we come together, which is what we did, to name again before one another and God that we are in need of redeeming, that we can’t do that redeeming ourselves, and we invite the Lamb of God, the Son of God, to come with us and be with us, and to hand over our weakness and vulnerability, our prejudices and our sins, and ask for them to be redeemed. We are met there, by that Lamb of God, and then we are called to witness to it. In this scripture today, Jesus says to those who would listen, “Come and see,” just come and see. So I leave you with these words from Reinhold Niebuhr, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime. Therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe, as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.”

Amen.