Category: Sermons

Christmas Eve – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see– I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

In the name of the God of light and creation, whose loving care surrounds us on this night…Amen. Grace and Peace to you, and welcome, one and all, to Holy Family on this Holy Night! I especially want to extend greetings to those here tonight visiting family and friends. We are blessed by your presence among us, and we welcome you on this Christmas Eve.

“But Mary treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart.” The beauty of this passage from the last part of Luke’s narrative has remained with me for several days. Perhaps this is because our Advent preparations have asked us to be more intentional about cultivating a sense of wonder at the mystery of the season. We, too, have pondered in our hearts the coming Incarnation and its meaning for our lives here, and now. Indeed, the beauty of Luke’s narrative never fails to draw me in with its rich images and moving and mysterious story. We recall the timeless images of this infant in a humble stable, the shepherds’ arrival, and the images of Joseph and Mary huddling together, being present with their son. As is so often true with Gospel narratives; however, Luke’s story of the birth of Christ is not limited to what we first hear or see.

In this season of wonder we need only use our imaginations to fill in some of the gaps in the narrative. Luke doesn’t mention the pain of childbirth, for example, or the radically life-changing event that has occurred in the lives of this young couple: the cries of the infant, the exhaustion and anxiety, the fears that both parents must have felt. And then there are the shepherds. In our mind’s eye we tend to romanticize about them, don’t we—and perhaps the author of Luke does too. We do well to remember that shepherds were not at the pinnacle of society in the day of Jesus’ birth. It’s not as if these guys dropped in from a party at the local Country Club to see the infant who in just a few years would certainly be joining the membership roles there. No, they were marginal, nomadic folk, eking out a subsistence living on the land. They showed up at the stable of Jesus’ birth at the suggestion of angels, no less, and I wonder what Mary’s response might have been. Was she concerned about their earthy appearance? Did she feel moved to shelter the child from these strangers? But the angels did choose them to be the first witnesses of God being born into the world. And we might wonder about this, too. We might ponder in our hearts, as Mary did in hers, that the least in society would be chosen to proclaim a mystery that would transform millions of lives and change the course of history. And I found myself thinking about Joseph, and identifying with him, perhaps most of all. I imagine Joseph worried over many concerns as these events unfolded: his fears about what others were thinking and saying about this child born out of wedlock, what this might mean for the honor of his family as he returned to his ancestral birthplace; and, moreover, the disturbing questions of finding a safe place away from home for the birth to occur—and ending up after all in a stable.    

And then there is this whole business of being “registered,” because the Emperor Quirinius decreed that it be so. Several years ago, I found myself at the local county tag office, standing in a long line that stretched outside into the cold, waiting to “register” my car. I found myself irritated at having to wait, angry that because of a glitch in the system our attempt to do this by mail had failed and feeling that I was somehow above this use of my time. I looked around at my fellow sojourners in line and I began to watch and listen. Most of them were speaking Spanish, and so I could only make out some of what they were saying. Partly because of the language barrier I felt a little isolated and lonely, even in this crowd of people, and I found myself wondering about this. Here, only 4 or 5 miles from my home, I felt like I was in a different world. I thought about the dislocation Mary and Joseph must have felt—the fear and anxiety. I wondered if Joseph was angry about the emperor’s census decree: the seeming arbitrariness of it and the great imposition it had on his young family. I recalled how frightened I was when our first son was born. Vicky and I were both graduate students, living in a new city, poor and scared. Our plans had been radically altered by this new life. And we took our son back to the small house we rented off-campus, and we knew that our world had changed forever. I thought about all of this as I waited there in line, waiting to be registered, and I tried to imagine the exponentially greater sense of fear and dislocation Mary and Joseph must have felt. And Mary treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart…As Mary watched the world, one already radically altered, become stranger by the moment and filled with mystery—there seemed no end to the ways that God was turning their lives upside down. So even in “reading between the lines” we find that this story, one that we hear year after year, brings good news into our midst, wherever we may be, regardless of what’s going on in our lives. For some among us the light and warmth of this space on this evening may seem a sanctuary amid stressful and storm-tossed lives. At times Christmas may occur in our reflection on the long memories of youth, and relationships gone by. For many, this is a time of gathering with friends and family, sometimes in joy, sometimes with anxiety and trepidation: often with a mixture of both.

And what of Joseph… a different kind of father in that culture, to be sure. A friend of mine reminds us that Joseph is the father who braved the ridicule of his society for this child and the boy’s mother. Instead of simply being ‘a righteous man’ by refusing to ‘expose her to public shame,’ Joseph was a just man who refused to ‘dismiss her (and her child) quietly.’ Rather than the standard formulas about female virtue, he trusted a dream that overwhelmed the categories he had been taught about women and men, virtue and righteousness. Having your categories upended, like who’s a sinner and who isn’t, my friend says, is always a good hint that the force we often call the Holy Spirit might be present. The Bible calls scrambled categories metanoia, having your mind changed, often translated ‘repentance.’ I like to think that Jospeh played a big role in teaching Jesus the glory of connection with others and the joy of intimacy.

As I see so often in my clinical work this season can, at times, be one of depression, loneliness, and fear. Regardless of where we are, we can hold on to the wonder of this new birth among us, and in us. This is the mystery and miracle of the Incarnation: God being born into humanity—into each of us: no matter where we find ourselves. And we are reminded in the Gospel of Luke, if we use our imaginations and think of similar instances in our own lives, that this birth doesn’t happen only when the house is in order. It doesn’t happen when the mess has been cleaned up in anticipation of guests, and our world is a tidy place. Rather, Jesus is born into a world as messy and difficult and broken as ours may be at times. He is born into a community and a family that experiences fear and anxiety, torn by conflicts, transitions, and uncertainty, waiting to be “registered” for reasons that are not always clear indeed, reasons that may have to do with the arbitrary indifference of the powers and principalities. The Christ who is Incarnate among us demands that we resist giving in to despair. He is born into a place where those who first bear witness to who he is and what he represents are not those with political power, nor are they scholarly professors or the debutante crowd. Rather, they are those living on the margins of society. And like Mary, we are called to treasure all these words, and with a sense of wonder, to ponder them in our hearts.

Well, recently a group from Holy Family visited a local long-term care and rehabilitation center, where we sang seasonal songs, shared Christmas cookies, and distributed gifts to the residents. There was some confusion about the time and date of our arrival due to some administrative changes at the facility, but despite this initial anxiety all went well. During our visit, I recognized an elderly resident whom I met last year; let’s call her “Susan” to preserve confidentiality. She says very little, and she walks a lot, but when she does talk her refrain is “I need help.” At first, I would sit next to her and ask, “Susan, how can I help you.” Inevitably, she did not answer. But this year, I finally realized that what she most needed was for someone to “see” her, to pay attention to her…to sit alongside her. And so, finally, this year, I got it. The real help Susan needed was for someone to simply show up, and be present, and acknowledge that she existed. This year I simply sat down next to her on the sofa in te atrium, and I was quiet. Silently, she reached out and took my hand, and she was quiet too. This is the antithesis of simply being “registered.” When we allow ourselves to imaginatively enter into this story of the Incarnation we find that it shines light into all the dark and scary places of our lives: lives lived in relation to a God to whom all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hid. The coming of Christ breaks open the darkness, rearranges our perceptions of the world, and invites us to live our lives in response to a deeper truth. Here’s the truth of the message of the Incarnation: Let the Word of Christ dwell in you. Most of us, most of the time perhaps, think of the Word as being in a book, rather than the Word of Christ being in each of us. A newborn life radically changes the lives of any family—as it did for Mary and Joseph. An encounter with a stranger in need can change our lives and invoke life-giving compassion for all. Tonight, we celebrate the Word made flesh, dwelling among us. Like Mary and Joseph, we are called to be co-participants in the transformation of our lives, and the lives of those whom we encounter. We have indeed seen a great light. As we treasure all these words and ponder them in our hearts, let that light shine forth in each of us. I pray that it may be so for us all. Amen

Fourth Sunday of Advent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day:

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Lesson:  Micah 5:2-5a

You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

from ancient days.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time

when she who is in labor has brought forth;

then the rest of his kindred shall return

to the people of Israel.

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,

in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great

to the ends of the earth;and he shall be the one of peace.

Canticle 15:

The Song of Mary

Luke 1:46-55

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; * 

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: *

the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him *

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, *

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

The promise he made to our fathers, *

to Abraham and his children for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: *as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Hebrews 10:5-10

When Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body you have prepared for me;

in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’

(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The Gospel: Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. I bid Grace and peace to each of you. And a warm and heartfelt welcome to Holy Family on this Fourth Sunday of Advent. There is a wonderful image in the texts during Advent that is evocative of so much, for me, as we journey to the manger. It has to do with the willingness of Joseph to remain steadfast, to be present in the fullness of the moment at hand, and to abide in relationship with Mary, and soon with Jesus, and ultimately, with all of us. He does so in the face of much ambiguity and several contested narratives, and as such, he provides a role model both for fatherhood, and for leadership.

We recall that in the version of this story from Luke appointed for today, Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth, who had her own challenges around the birth of their son John—she and Zechariah—and Elizabeth says that upon hearing Mary’s greeting the child in her womb leaped for joy. This is such a lovely image indeed, and it appeals to both the neuroscience nerd in me and the pastoral theologian side of me. John Gottman, a researcher and Marriage and Family therapist in Seattle, has created a program called “Bringing Baby Home,” in which he gets expectant mothers in their third trimester and their spouses or partners together with other couples for parenting groups. This is especially geared for young fathers who may feel disconnected from both mother and baby after the baby’s arrival. Among the research results were these findings:

• Both fathers and mothers who took the program (compared to those that did not) showed greater sensitivity and responsiveness to their infant’s signals. This was particularly true for fathers. In some cases grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others also took part.
• Several indicators of father-infant attachment security were rated more positively in families who had taken the program.
• 1-year-old babies in the workshop group were rated as responding more positively to their fathers’ soothing (this is likely to reflect something about father-baby interaction quality as well as infant temperament).
• Fathers who took the program reported being more involved in parenting and feeling more satisfied and appreciated for their parental contributions.

Well, you get the idea, and what this tells us, among other things, is that something is happening at the level of neurochemistry and neuroplasticity—changes in the infants’ brain in utero—which is life-giving for all. We are hard-wired it seems, for connection and community, in ways that are incarnational, embodied, and deeply human. And connection, relationships of deep meaning that are supportive and nurturing, are at the heart of our readings for today. Relationships give birth to empathy, and compassion, and this gives meaning to our lives.

The astounding legacy of our combined evolutionary status as mammals is the power to impact the lives of people we love and whose lives touch ours, as our relationships activate certain neural pathways, and the brain’s inexorable memory mechanism reinforces them. Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom and what we love. Elizabeth loved her cousin Mary, and she loved what her intuition told her about the fulfillment this new life would bring to fruition. In Matthew’s Gospel we see demonstrated so well that Joseph loved Mary, and chose to remain steadfast. This is a model for us all, whether we are parents, grandparents, cousins or kin of some other kind, or not, as we seek to remain faithful in times of uncertainty, transition, ambiguity, and difficulty.

When we get to this wonderful drama in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, dear ones, the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, and Joseph’s role in the narrative are fundamentally about this “leap of joy,” and about staying in relationship rather than needing to be right. And these are narratives of abundance of which we can partake, and pay forward. Both Mary and Elizabeth had remarkable experiences surrounding their pregnancies, and they share the awareness of Divine involvement. Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat, rings down through the centuries, a fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy, and the validation of a God who cares for all creation and loves it into redemption with justice and grace.

The early Christian church used the story of the visitation in Luke as a foundation for the Incarnation. Luke includes it as part of the birth narrative because the church was seeking to explain and affirm that the birth of Jesus was not just another one of those “virgin births.” Many rulers had claimed similar origins to justify their deification. The forming church wanted to clarify the God incarnate, human and divine, as an affirmation of humanity, and that is what begins to attract people to this remarkable gospel and to Jesus. And Joseph is a reminder to me that my role as a father is a calling—a vocation in the deepest sense of that term—which is a sacred gift. My sons are grown now, and Vicky and I now have four grandchildren, so the circle of life goes on, and my role as father has grown to include being a grandfather. I am so very grateful for all that my sons have taught me. The times when I have been most at risk as a father have been those times when I was tempted to privilege being right over staying connected…staying in relationship. Because you see, it is possible to do both. Joseph taught us this, and in order to do this he had to suspend disbelief long enough to see the miracle of the Incarnation unfold. I pray that we might do the same, especially when we are scared, and feeling vulnerable, and alone.

This last Sunday of Advent gives us a brief time to reflect upon and kindle within ourselves the light of the incarnate Lord. The foundation is laid for what we will find at the manger. Now let us prepare to join the shepherds and the angels in great joy over what God has done for us. Who knows how this may shape us, and at what levels, in the year to come? The Incarnation is finally about being present here, and now, and as fully as we can to what the world offers us. In one way or another, every wisdom tradition I know says that we can cultivate a mindfulness of being present to this moment. It’s just a matter of opening our eyes and appreciating what I call “secrets hidden in plain sight.” But we can’t do that when we’re obsessing about the past or the future, or about what we don’t have, or allowing a thousand distractions to prevent us from noticing the gift of “here and now.” Imagine where we might be had Elizabeth, or Joseph, or Mary…or Jesus, had not been present to the moments at hand.

Here’s a poem from William Stafford that reminds us to pay attention to such simple gifts as what the present might offer, respecting and receiving them for the gifts they are. Look around, he says, “starting here, right in this room,” and see what we’ve been given. He’s not advocating passivity. He’s advocating receptivity and gratitude, without which life becomes hollow, and without which the Incarnation is only a possibility we have not lived out in our own lives.

You Reading This, Be Ready

by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. The interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life—

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

I am so grateful that Elizabeth, Mary, and yes, Joseph too, found ways to be present with the gift of the Incarnation. It is indeed a gift that keeps on giving, then, now, and always, all wrapped up into this moment of mystery, grace, and transformation. Amen.

Third Sunday of Advent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this third Sunday of Advent. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians appointed for today, we witness as a lovely thank you note from jail morphs into a teachable moment to a congregation in conflict. Paul was never one to let an opportunity to instruct his fledgling congregations pass by. So he tells them “stand firm, rejoice, pray and do not be afraid to ask for what you need; be grateful, and show gentleness. “Do not be anxious,” he reminds them, “the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” As hopeful as they are, these can be difficult words to hear, especially in light of recent world events and the fear, anxiety, and suspicion they engender. I’m sure some in Philippi were shaking their heads, too. And yet, his letter is not unmindful of the realities of suffering and conflict. Indeed, we know that Paul was in jail when he wrote it, and a visitor brought him news of conflict amidst the congregation back in Philippi, which must have seemed to Paul so very far away. Political and religious polarities were everywhere then, too. The readers of the letter were experiencing persecution and had begun to disagree and argue among themselves.

Out of context, the exhortations of Paul connote an unrealistic attitude toward life, a Pollyanna religion that ignores the harsh realities of being human and perhaps a more realistic call for a stoic like serenity. But as my erstwhile New Testament colleague and friend Charlie Cousar has said, “Paul’s call for gratitude and peace emerge from and are directed to what some would call the dark side of human experience.” And yet, they end in hope. To that end we might ask of the text some tough theological questions: How, exactly, is the Lord near as Paul assures us? Is God coming soon, or is God already present – or both? How can we possibly not worry? Is prayer the antidote to worry? And what, exactly, does it mean to have the peace which passes all understanding? How do we know it when we see it, or more to the point, how can we find it? Can we cultivate this, and is it the same as happiness? William Alexander Percy, in his hauntingly lovely Episcopal hymn, says “The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod; yet let us pray for but one thing — the marvelous peace of God.” And John the Baptist, who cannot be cleaned up and sanitized for any family Christmas card, gives us a dose of prophetic tough love in today’s Gospel that is anything but peaceful yet ends in hope. What might these paradoxical messages mean, especially during this season of hopeful anticipation?

Well, I may have dug a theological hole out of which I cannot extricate myself, but let’s find out. I actually find Paul’s message to the Philippians to be, in part, a meditation on the relationship between gratitude and the kind of peace to which he refers, and with which our dismissal blessing sends us out each week. We pray that we might embody that peace which passes understanding, to serve others as the Body of Christ in the world, respecting the dignity of every human being. The mystic Meister Eckhart once said that if the only prayer we pray is one of gratitude that would be enough. I believe there is a clear, compelling correlation between gratitude and the kind of peace for which Paul asks us to pray. I believe that what theologians might call transcendence—or a kind of otherworldly peace which we can experience here, and now—is deeply connected to gratitude—or to what Paul in this passage is calling “thanksgiving.”

Recently, one of my favorite authors, the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, died of cancer. He was 80 years old. In a remarkable series of brief essays published in the New York Times, he shared coming to terms with the end of life, and his deepening sense of gratitude. Sacks has been described as a Copernicus of the mind and a Dante of medicine who turned the case study into a poetic form, and this was demonstrated through his writing over the course of his long and fully lived life. He managed to embody Donald Winnicott’s autobiographical prayer: “O God, my prayer is that I will be fully alive when I die.” The essays have now been published in a lovely volume entitled, simply and appropriately, “Gratitude.” In the first essay he writes:

At nearly 80…I feel glad to be alive… I am grateful that I have experienced many things — some wonderful, some horrible — and that I have been able to write… to receive innumerable letters from friends, colleagues and readers, and to enjoy what Nathaniel Hawthorne called “an intercourse with the world.” I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at 80 as I was at 20; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done.

And here, he writes in a way that echoes the tone of Paul’s wonderful and mysteriously complex letter to the Philippians:

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

Such intensity of aliveness, Dr. Sacks observes, requires a deliberate distancing from the existentially inessential things with which we fill our daily lives — petty arguments, the stark polarities of politics, the news, which so often seems to repeat itself. With his characteristic mastery of nuance, he points to a crucial distinction:

This is not indifference but a kind of Holy detachment — I still care deeply…I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the young doctor who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.

In these lovely essays Sacks, like the Apostle Paul, demonstrates deep self- awareness, an appreciation for his own shadow—that is, for the parts of himself he would rather remain unconscious and hidden—which now he has integrated into a healthy and whole self. Writing as he does from the prison of his own suffering and impending death, he reaches beyond the walls of that imprisonment to a peace—a kind of transcendence—and evinces hope borne of gratitude. He also demonstrates, as does Paul’s letter to the Philippians, what Ignatian spirituality refers to as “Holy Indifference,” or a kind of clarity about what is most important without trying to manage the outcome. Theologian Richard Rohr calls this capacity for gratitude, amidst ambiguity and suffering, a significant developmental achievement. And so it is. Ultimately it is the birthplace of Paul’s peace that passes all understanding. Rohr writes: The study of neuroscience and brain development indicates that we are wired for transcendence, for the ever bigger picture, but it is all highly dependent on being exposed to living models and personal nurturance as we move from one stage to the next. Rohr says that we all need living models and we can cultivate gratitude. And this cultivation can literally rewire our brains. I suspect this is what sustained Paul in his prison cell. He discovered, in gratitude amidst suffering, an aliveness that no prison cell could contain. I find two of these living models in Paul, and Oliver Sacks!  Richard Rohr reminds us that this is a good argument for some form of church community—for what we are celebrating and cultivating right here, in this season of Koinonia.

We all need living role models of gratitude. How important we are for one another! To gather enlightened, transformed, loving people together, Rohr says, is essential, so they influence and transform one another. Beyond models, we also need nurturing: mothering and fathering, loving, and partnering at the critical transitional stages of our lives. ”Hopefully,” Rohr writes, “life and God bring new opportunities–through experiences of great suffering and great love–to “rewire” our brains.” Paul knew, and demonstrated in his letters from prison, that we need one another in community, and we need opportunities for gratitude. Some of you have heard me talk of my maternal grandmother, whose farm was a sanctuary for me in so many ways, and who taught me to cook. My football buddies teased me about knowing my way around the kitchen. But I said to them, “You don’t get it. When I imagine God feeding us, I see my grandmother.” I’m not sure this helped my cause with them. But the last time I ever saw her she insisted we bake her pound cakes together. Two weeks later she was gone. And I still love to cook. Forgive me the Eucharistic overtones, but her recipe for pound cake was a gift of hope, and gratitude, and a heavenly slice of transcendence. The gifts that emerged from her kitchen were an extended love letter to God. They came from her own suffering and were an Incarnational embodiment of the outward and visible signs of gratitude. Mary Oliver says in one of her lovely poems, “Someone once gave me a boxful of darkness. It took me years to realize that this, too, was a gift.” Paul is saying the same thing, as is Oliver Sacks, as was my grandmother, who did not have an easy life. Each is telling us that out of human suffering, and the prisons we so often create for ourselves and one another, hope abides, and transcendence—the peace that passes all understanding—is born. It does not come from us, but we can experience it, and we can cultivate it, and give it away. William Alexander Percy was right. The peace of God is no peace like we understand in earthly terms, because it is not of this earth. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it, as we are reminded in John’s lovely prelude to his Gospel. In what remains of this Advent season, I invite each of us to write our own letter, perhaps out of our own awareness of struggle or suffering or our own human limitations—perhaps in spite of something that would imprison us—and find in it—out of it, rather some hope, and thankfulness, and send it out into the world, perhaps to someone in particular, perhaps simply a letter to God that no one else ever sees. In so doing we will cultivate the light of gratitude, and hope, and nothing can overcome that light. Not if, as Paul suggests, we stand firm, rejoice, pray, and are not afraid to ask for what we need; if we are grateful, and show gentleness. “Do not be anxious,” he reminds us, “the peace that passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” I am in gratitude for this community and for each of you, Amen.

Second Sunday of Advent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day: Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Luke 3:1-6    ¹In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ²during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. ⁵Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; ⁶and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all, Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Second Sunday of Advent. Advent’s familiar themes of waiting and hopeful expectation have a different ring this week. Is it possible that sometimes we in church make of Advent an aesthetic: a carefully rendered “experience” that is beautiful, tasteful, and moving while missing or at least masking its intimate, immediate connections to our sometimes messy, broken, world?  Traditionally, Advent contained elements of penitence and reflection much like that of Lent. In fact, a perusal the 1928 Prayer Book will reflect this in ways that I find compelling.

The penitential aspect of Advent helps, I believe, to balance a season co-opted by those who desire only sweetness and light, often for marketing purposes. In fact, as a clinician I find this to be the single most salient cause of the holiday blues: the season demands too much of all of us, and depression, as Carl Jung taught us so well, can sometimes be a sane response to untenable demands. Advent captures the grand sweep of history, and I love the juxtaposition of the passages from Isaiah with those from Matthew. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” And thankfully, John does show up.    

Indeed, Advent is a tone poem in two parts. Early on, the season directs us toward the future: the second coming of Jesus—the ascension in reverse. We watch and pray for the consummation of the whole cosmos in Christ: history redeemed and fulfilled. No more tragedy, numbness, grief and loss. No more terrorism. No more injustice. No more seasonal depression. As Isaiah put it, “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Creation, finally and fully, will be healed. Yet, as the season progresses the second movement of the tone poem emerges. We are directed by the Church to turn our gaze to the past—to the first coming of Jesus. We exalt Emmanuel—God among us and with us—as the saving event of human history. And it happens right where we live, in the messiness of our daily lives and, indeed, the unfolding of history.

Then we hear the Gospel for this morning and the image shifts, doesn’t it? We find ourselves on the banks of the River Jordan face to face with John the Baptist, this earthy free-range prophet who crashes our joyful Advent gathering like an unwanted guest at our proper Advent party. And, what’s worse, John doesn’t tell us to rejoice. He doesn’t mix and mingle in tasteful Episcopal fashion, drinking hot cider and eating Christmas cookies. No, he tells us to repent. He stands in the middle of fellowship hall, during coffee hour, tracking mud, flotsam, jetsam, and leaves onto our carpet, and smelling of sweat, honey, and the river water dripping from his animal hides and sandals. Paul told the Philippians, and by extension tells us, not to be anxious about anything. John tells us to flee from the wrath to come. And, quite understandably everyone in the Gospel is asking, “What shall we do? What has to change if we are to survive the events that lie ahead? We are told that the axe is already laid to the root of the trees, and fire is prepared for the burning of the chaff. Where are Johnny Mathis and Mel Torme when we need them? What about the Yuletide carols being sung by the fire and folks wrapped up like Eskimos? John’s message to “repent!” is very different from “rejoice!”

So, I began to think about times when I have received wonderful gifts—word of acceptance to college, say, or a “yes” to proposal of marriage…the births of my sons; the word that I would soon begin a new job as a professor, and the moment that Bishop Alexander and my colleagues from the Diocese and Emory and Columbia all laid hands on me and my brother Thee at our ordination. These were moments of both rejoicing and repentance, because with these gifts came new life and new, responsibilities.

So you see, dear ones, part of what the new life of Advent means is that the old life just won’t work anymore. Becoming a parent or a grandparent, accepting a new job, receiving the gift of baptism or the gift of the Christ child—each of these means both rejoicing and change—repentance, if you will—from our old ways of being in the world. Rejoice! Repent! These are the words that come with the new territory of all great gifts. In one of Mark Twain’s short stories the Mississippi River shifted one night, during an earthquake at the New Madrid fault, cutting through a narrow neck of land. Those of you who have been to West Tennessee know that Reelfoot Lake, a birdwatchers’ paradise, was formed by this very event. It is said that for a time the Mississippi ran backwards, so great was the upheaval of the earth’s crust. In the story, an African-American man who went to bed a slave in Missouri woke up to find himself east of the river, in Illinois, a free man. He had been granted a new life. I imagine we each have stories of being granted a gift of some kind that changed things forever, and if we think about it, we will recognize that with that gift came a new set of responsibilities. John the Baptist offers some suggestions in terms of what to do with the remarkable gift of baptism—and with the anticipation of the new life in the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit—the One whose birth we anticipate, and of whom Isaiah spoke: “Look at who you are, and where you are,” John says; “begin there.”

As Wendell Berry says in this lovely poem:

“The Wild Geese”

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer’s end. In time’s maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

—Wendell Berry

Rejoice, and Repent. They do go hand in glove this time of year, my friends. Don’t wait to be somewhere else, or to be someone else, or to be doing something else. What we need is here. Let’s begin with the Advent road we are on, and walk that road, and so allow God to transform the real lives we are living right now. John did not tell even the despised tax collectors or the hated and feared Roman soldiers that they had to go somewhere else to begin. Those occupations were no barriers to change, to repentance. Because you see, repentance and rejoicing are—in light of the gift of the Child for whom we wait—one and the same. Both have to do with transforming the life we are already living. Rejoice and Repent, and be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. As it is so often with so much, this is our response to the ambiguity of the world around us. Rejoice, for what is happening is wonderful. Repent, because from now on, everything will be different. Amen.

First Sunday of Advent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: Luke 21:25-36

Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin a new year in our liturgical calendar. Advent is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ from two different, but related perspectives. It offers those gathered as the Body of Christ an opportunity to share in the anticipation of the nativity of Jesus, and to be alert for his Second Coming, as we hear in the lovely and prophetic words of Jeremiah, “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” And Luke, in today’s Gospel, writes of “the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Today’s readings seem to take on heightened meaning given the uncertainty of our times, including our own season of transition between rectors at Holy Family. These changes and uncertainties can add to our anxiety about the present, and our wish to know what the future will bring. How can we be prepared? What are the signs of today that carry the seeds of what will be tomorrow? And perhaps at the heart of this for many of us, what is, and is not, under our control? Businesses, governments, and educational institutions, including the institution where I taught for many years—hire consultants to predict what is to come, and offer advice as to how best prepare for it. This desire to predict the future is what prompts horoscopes and palm readers, and I recently saw an ad for a brand of watch which read “connected to eternity.” I am not a Greek Scholar, but I do know that chronos—or sequential, chronological time—and Kairos—which is the appointed time in the purpose of God, or sacred time under the aspect of eternity—are not the same kind of time. It is the former with which we are often confronted in this busy, sometimes hectic season, and the latter with which our liturgical season of Advent is primarily concerned. Sometimes in our cultural, chronological anxiety we begin Christmas right after Halloween, and we confuse Advent with Christmas, which is, in a way, like skipping from Palm Sunday to Easter without observing Holy Week. We forget to wait, and pay attention, and we risk losing the only moment we have, which is this moment, here and now.

Amid our anxieties about the future, there’s probably no Christian teaching that’s caused more excitement and confusion than what is often called the “second coming of Christ.” And sometimes I wonder if we confuse that Advent with the beginning of Advent we observe today. They are related, but not the same. In one of my favorite Peanuts comic strips, Linus and Lucy are standing at the window looking out at the rain falling. Lucy says to Linus, “Boy, look at it rain…What if it floods the whole earth?” Linus, the resident biblical scholar for the Peanuts gang, answers, “It will never do that…in the ninth chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow.” With a smile on her face, Lucy replies, “Linus, you’ve taken a great load off my mind.” To which Linus responds, “Sound theology has a way of doing that.” Yes, “sound theology,” the teachings of scripture and the Church, rightly understood, can help ease our anxieties about this doctrine. And sound theology can also be the occasion for us to think about hope, and waiting, and especially about what we can and cannot control. We need not worry unnecessarily, but we do have some responsibility to watch, and wait, and hope, and pray; and, to work for justice and peace. That’s the Advent we observe today.

Scholars call passages like this one from Luke 21 apocalyptic literature. It was a style of writing that used vivid, striking images to convey a message of hope and faith. It was used especially during times when God’s people were being severely oppressed. The Book of Revelation, for example, was written at a time around the end of the first century after Christ, when Christians were being persecuted by Rome. John, who wrote it, was on the isle of Patmos, exiled there by the Romans because he refused to deny his faith. So he writes to his suffering churches, using words and images he understood and his readers would understand but that the enemy would not understand. It’s a kind of code, really, and it can be confusing to us in our context. But when you put it all together, it’s saying, “No matter how bad it looks, don’t give up the faith. Hang in there, for God is in control. So watch and work and pray. God is with us now, is both here, now, and is coming again.” That’s Kairos time. That’s Advent time.

It’s so human to get confused in our anxiety about what the future will bring. In fact, many claim to know too much about it. I believe this is one of the problems at the heart of some religious views that claim to know, and have more control over those events, than is possible. It’s not a bit confusing or mysterious to some, when and how things will end, which impacts choices made here, and now. And yet of that day and hour, Jesus said in Mark 13, the angels do not know, nor the Son. And when he was asked in Acts 1 when the end times would take place, he tells them, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. Here’s what you are to know. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come.” I don’t know about you, but I am wary of religious claims in our context that promise more than Jesus himself said he knew. The other mistake the church makes is in treating this teaching too lightly or dismissing it altogether. Some see it as an outdated doctrine that causes more trouble and confusion than it’s worth…suggesting that it’s no longer relevant for us. Both of these extremes make for questionable theology. As is often the case, there is a wonderfully inclusive both/and at work here, and it can assist in our observance of Advent.

The Grammy-award-winning singer Mary Chapin Carpenter recently suffered a health crisis. As she reported on NPR, she was admitted to the emergency room after experiencing chest pain. A scan revealed blood clots in her lungs. People told her that she should feel lucky because a pulmonary embolism can be fatal. But instead of feeling lucky, she fell into depression. In her essay, “The Learning Curve of Gratitude,” on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Carpenter said,

“Everything I had been looking forward to came to a screeching halt. I had to cancel my upcoming tour. I had to let my musicians and crewmembers go….I felt I had let everyone down. Burt there was nothing to do but get out of the hospital, go home and get well. I tried hard to see my unexpected time off as a gift, but I would open a novel and couldn’t concentrate. I would turn on the radio, and shut it off. Familiar clouds gathered above my head, and I couldn’t make them go away with a pill or a movie or a walk. This unexpected time was becoming a curse, filling me with anxiety, fear and self-loathing. All the ingredients of the darkness that is depression.”

For those of us who are members of Christ’s body in this place, dear one’s, the season of Advent affords the opportunity to begin again, with hope, the next leg of our journey as believers in faith, to see even challenging times as in their own way, a new beginning. It is an opportunity to think about the future by paying attention to what is here, and now, in this moment. In his Gospel, Luke writes of a time when nations are perplexed at the signs in nature and its awe-inspiring power, when men “faint with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” The reading ends with the sprouting of the fig leaf as a sign of an upcoming summer—the season of growth and life that springs forth and is in stark contrast to the dead of winter. These days as I run in the woods, now almost winter-like in appearance, I am reminded that the tender green buds of the leaves that will adorn these same trees in spring are already there, just visible to the eye upon closer inspection. Indeed, it is the gentle push of these new leaves to come that causes the autumn leaves to let go.

Gratitude can participate in healing—the Latin root of which is salve—from which we get our word “salvation.” Gratitude can “save us” from ourselves and heal those things that keep us separated from each other, and from God. As it happened, Mary Chapin Carpenter found healing and restoration through gratitude, at the grocery store check-out line:

One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic, also told me to enjoy the rest of my day. I looked at him, and knew he meant it. It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and sat in my car and cried. What I want, more than ever, is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow and hopefully the days beyond that. I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude. I don’t want to say “have a nice day” like a robot. I don’t want to get mad at the elderly driver in front of me. I don’t want to go crazy when my internet access is messed up. I don’t want to be jealous of someone else’s success. You could say that this litany of sins indicates that I don’t want to be human. The learning curve of gratitude, however, is showing me exactly how human I am.

What a lovely phrase this is—the learning curve of gratitude—and how deeply it resonates with the Good News. This earthly sojourn, dear friends in Christ, takes place between illness and health, Samaria and Galilee, Egypt and that land over Jordan, in campground. It is lived between those places where we live most of our lives and where we are all at home. We are, all of us, as the song says, sovereign wayfarers, “just going over Jordan, just going over home.” We suffer most from those things that would separate us from others, from ourselves, and from God. Yet Christ bids us draw near, makes us whole, and restores us to life with others and to God in reconciling us to all. Gratitude is one means by which this happens. Meister Eckhart, desert father and mystic, once said that “If the only prayer we ever pray is one of gratitude that will be enough.” Learning curves of gratitude indeed.

The prevailing cultural narrative in this season makes it so hard for us to wait, and we are so often in a hurry. I am among those who struggle with this. In Spanish, the verb esperar means both “to hope” and “to wait.” A gardener friend tells me that the Esperanza plant flourishes in harsh conditions, and blooms in gold and orange—hopeful waiting indeed. Waiting in silence and creating sacred space for hope to grow, and compassion to blossom, is a practice we can cultivate. As the old song goes, building upon a passage we heard in Luke’s Gospel just a few weeks ago, “Got my hand on the Gospel plow, won’t take nothing for my journey now. Keep your eyes on the prize…hold on, hold on.” Already and not yet, present moment, and the prize to come, Advent now, and Advent not yet arrived.… find a vantage point, somewhere in the midst of things, from which you might watch, and wait, and prepare. Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a time for reflection, preparation, and waiting—in anticipation of Emmanuel, God with us, here, now, already, always, alleluia. Amen.

Last Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Proper 29, Year B

The Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 18:33-37Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

In the name of the God of creation who loves us all… Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Last Sunday in Pentecost, also known as Christ the King Sunday. It is now late November, and the Winter Solstice is only a few weeks away, as the days get shorter, and the nights grow cooler. As we know, the Celts built great bonfires during this season to ward off the growing darkness and cold. It is in one sense “in-between” time…and yet has an air of Last Things about it… the last Sunday in the long season of Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year and this year, the last Sunday of Year B, in our three-year liturgical cycle.

We are not quite sure what to do with this time…not quite fall any longer, and not yet winter, between All Saints, and Advent…As I run these days I see this uncertainty all around me: Halloween decorations remain on some lawns, scarecrows now looking very much in character as the first frost and cold Canadian winds have given them a tattered and forlorn appearance. Other homes already display their Christmas finery, lights blazing and Santa and his reindeer riding on a sea of swirling autumn leaves. Even the heavens themselves seem seasonally unsure, with the last of the late summer and autumn constellations visible in the early night sky. Cassiopeia and Andromeda are giving way to Pegasus and Pisces, even as the brilliant winter constellation Orion is spinning into the picture for his long winter visit to our hemisphere. It is a season about which Shakespeare wrote in one of my favorites of his sonnets:

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold… when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold…bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.” The bard is saying to his beloved that at times he may display a side of his personality like the last days of autumn, “the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west…” but he reassures her not to be alarmed by this, for it is not the final word and, moreover, teaches them to have clarity about what matters most deeply between them… “this thou perceivs’t which makes thy love more strong… to love that well which thou must leave ere long.” 

The lovely Beech groves deep in the forests of our neighborhood, especially on longer runs where I reach the confluence of the trail leading up to Mt. Oglethorpe, are an opportunity to pause, and pay attention. And this in turn is an occasion to attempt what I’ve learned from many on my journey in Christian centering prayer and Buddhist mindfulness practice: show up; pay attention; speak my truth (and this can be a deepened, inner self-awareness); and let go of attachment to things I cannot control. The last step, as we know, can be in relation to an infinite variety of issues, including addictive behavior of various kinds, and is at the heart of any 12-step journey. It is at the heart of the Serenity Prayer.

Trail running in the woods near our mountain home continues to teach me to let go of attachment to things I cannot control, and this has in turn had application in many areas of life. These Beech trees, deep in the woods on the Womack Trail, hold on to their leaves until spring—a phenomenon known as “marcescence.” Usually, sometime in March, the leaves will fall, a kind of second autumn, and this is called “abscission.” Even the lectionary seems to reflect our uncertainty about this time… for it gives us two options for the Gospel reading for today. Jesus’ earthly ministry reaches its climax in the crucifixion, so a three-year cycle in any Gospel must bring us to an account of his suffering. Liturgically, such an account belongs at the end of Lent rather than on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. An alternative Gospel is permitted, therefore, that of Luke’s description of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Over the years today’s celebration has come to be known as “Christ the King” in many denominations, most notably Catholic, and Episcopalian, but also UCC, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian. There seems to be something about seeing Christ in this role as king that continues to be important to us Christians today, even across denominational boundaries. But this begs the question of what picture in our minds the word “king” evokes, and even though this is ambiguous. It is a very different picture for us than it was for the Jews of Jesus’ time or for the early Christians.

Our understanding of kingship today is somewhat romanticized, fascinated, as we are, with royalty. And let’s face it; for most of us these days, royalty is the stuff of tabloids and talk shows. And as we recall, George Washington was deeply suspicious of the monarchy, and hoped we would avoid any remnants of “kingship” in this country. We are uncertain, therefore, what to do with words such as king, kingship, kingdom, rule, and authority; words that often disturb us more than they comfort us. The associations are not hard to discern. A ruler, usually male, not elected by the masses, is removed from the day-to-day world by occupying a palace, living in opulence, wearing splendid clothing and having hordes of servants tending to his or her every need. They make the rules and enforce them at will. They are all-powerful and distant.

Such images can and do lead to what some theologians have called a “performance model” of Christianity. With God or Jesus understood as the ever-vigilant monarch ruling over his subjects as a distant, all powerful king, the Christian life boils down to “meeting requirements” or “measuring up.” Our eternal destiny hangs on how well we “perform.” The self, as a subject of the king, is continually on trial. Sin equals violating the edicts of the King, and propitiation for sin—seeking to appease the wrath of the angry monarch—becomes the focus of the Christian life. The emphasis on sin thus affects not only the way the whole Christian story is told but also confers an identity. It leads to the internal dynamic of thinking of oneself as primarily a sinner who needs to repent, and it defines repentance as feeling bad about oneself. It confuses God with the superego and the Christian life with life under the superego, that critical voice in our psyches that is the storehouse of “ought” and “should” most often heard punitively. We are never good enough. It reminds me of my high school football coach, endlessly replaying the tapes of the previous Friday night’s game, looking for mistakes I and my teammates made. Never good enough. No thanks. And thanks be to God, this is not the kingship of Christ. His is a total reversal of the roles usually assigned to royalty and servitude. His reign subverts our notion of kingship. He is the king who serves the other, dies for the other… is ridiculed, mocked and scorned. When we celebrate Christ the King, we hold up a king who is a redeemer, a reconciler, a servant. And we are linked in today’s gospel in both repentance and forgiveness, and God as king and lord becomes the subverter of systems of domination. Monarchical imagery subverts the monarchical model, as the God of compassion grieves with and takes the side of those who suffer under domination systems.

The theologian Paul Tillich once described God as the “Ground of Being” and “ultimate concern,” both images of radical dependence amidst radical freedom. In either/or, all/or/nothing cultures such paradoxes are difficult to tolerate, but this makes them no less true for their difficulty. Indeed, what we most deeply desire is relationship with God, and today we celebrate Jesus not as a distant potentate, but a loving parent in the fullest sense of that love manifested to us here on earth…as a God who is compassionate and who cares for all of God’s children and longs to be in relationship even when, or perhaps especially when, we stray.

I find Jesus’ words in this Gospel text deeply comforting, especially the part about listening to his voice. Think of those whom we love and trust the most, and of how meaningful it can be to hear their voices. This is a reminder of those deepest, early attachments at the heart of who we become, if those connections are safe, and dependable, and transcend our human mischief. I am reminded of the story of the eight-year-old boy who, angry with his parents, decided late one afternoon that he’d had it with them, and he was leaving home. The parents sympathized and watched him pack a few things into a bag. They told him how much they would miss him and bid him farewell. They watched discreetly from a window as their son walked away from the house and fell into playing in the cul-de-sac with some friends from the neighborhood. Before too long it was dusk, and dinnertime, and the boy’s friends headed off for home. The parents watched their son as he stood for a long while by himself, then for a long while by his little suitcase, and then slowly, dejectedly, began to walk back home. The parents were concerned about what would happen at their reunion. They saw shame on their son’s face, and they did not want to humiliate him further; and so they ended up making what is often a wise choice when one is not quite sure what to do. When their son returned, they remained seated, kept quiet, and offered the boy a compassionate, undemanding attention. They watched as he sat down in a chair opposite them, and then he, too, was quiet, pensive, self-absorbed. No one said anything. Finally, the family cat ran across the middle of the room. The boy looked up and said to his parents, “I see you still have that old cat.” Today we celebrate Jesus as pure Mother/Father love; as the patient, compassionate healer and transformer of life, who waits at home for us to return to relationship, remains steadfast in relation to us, with us, and who heals the sins of the world, for us and for our salvation. Amen.

The Collect: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 13:1-8

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, `I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. I bidGrace and peace to each of you, welcome, and good morning on this 26^th Sunday after Pentecost. With the holidays almost upon us, and the long green season of Pentecost ending, we hear this cautionary passage from the Gospel of Mark, and are given to wonder what it means, and how to place it in the context of Jesus’ ministry, and of our lives, especially with Advent just around the corner. This may seem to represent a paradox or an abrupt clash of seasonal messages, hearing this apocalyptic or eschatological language—which simply means prophetic talk of the end-times, common in both Christian and Hebrew scripture—just as we are turning the corner on the season of waiting and watching for the birth of Jesus.

And, yet I wonder. Is this simply an anomaly of the lectionary, or is there perhaps more in common with these themes than we might see at first glance?  Such language is not limited to religion, of course. Feeling that one is living in uncertain times and facing an ambiguous future is a theme found in literature from Lord of the Rings, to Harry Potter, to the Wizard of Oz. And we are in what some call the “postmodern age,” a time in which prevailing narratives such as science and religion, and even the truth, are contested and groaning beneath the weight of competing claims. Some have called this the “age of anxiety” for precisely this reason. As Jesus and the disciples leave the temple, the disciples gaze at the impressive stones and buildings, and suggest that they seem immovable. Jesus disrupts their worldview by saying that even the great stones that serve to create the temple will one day be thrown down, and this troubling vision understandably prompts questions. In our age, of course, we have seen the falling of the twin towers, super-storms of unprecedented ferocity, our neighbors in Western North Carolina experiencing a storm unlike any in history for that region, and other events, including political discord of epic proportions. What does one do in response to such events, and how might we hear Jesus’ response to the disciples’ anxious questions—and perhaps our own? To whom do we turn when the ground is shifting around us, and the times, as songwriter Bob Dylan said, ‘they are a changing’? To whom or what do we turn when we are lost, and do not know which way to go?

And these need not be events on a grand scale. Sometimes events that are harbingers of change happen on a much smaller, subtler, local level, and yet may profoundly affect the lives of those in their wake. For some 30 or more Thanksgiving mornings, for example, I ran the Atlanta half-marathon. The race-course changed a few years ago, however, and now makes a large and fascinating circle through the city, from Turner field to Georgia Tech, and from Atlantic Station to Piedmont Park ; to Sweet Auburn, and Oakland Cemetery. I always got a bit wistful, I confess, when we ran through Atlantic Station. When I was in college I worked each summer at the Atlantic Steel Company, located where shops, grand boulevards, homes, and gleaming office towers now stand. But for a season, this was a world unto itself, replete with a baseball team and field, a small hospital, company housing, and the fascinating, living creature that was a steel mill in full form, including the fire-breathing dragon at the heart of it all—the massive furnace. For a college kid, this was a wondrous place, filled with interesting men and women, and maybe best of all, excellent pay. It was my ticket to a wonderful liberal arts education after my father told me that if I did not attend UGA, I could pay for college myself. My job was that of a welder’s apprentice, assigned to the summer welding team, based in Warehouse #13, about where the Cirque du soleil tent is as we speak. The mill shut down incrementally in the summer, and we followed the steam cleaners and machinists as we worked through the mill repairing equipment and laying new beads of molten metal on miles of conveyers. I became attached to my co-workers, and to those men and women whom I respected, and admired. And, let me add here, welding is tough. The best welder on our team, far and away, was a Black woman who elevated welding to an art form and who adopted me as her friend.

She, and my supervisor, Gene Rainey, patiently tried to teach me the trade, but I never really caught on to it. During my third summer at the mill, as my junior year in college approached, Mr. Rainey lifted his welder’s visor one afternoon, paused, and said “William, you are not a very good welder.” “No sir,” I replied. “I am not.” “But you could be,” he said. “And it’s a good life. I see you reading these books all the time. Where will they get you? Do you know what you want to do with your life? Do you know where all this is heading?” I confessed that I did not. And what I knew, but did not say then, was that I, too, had questions about where college was taking me, and I had a home-town girlfriend, and things at home were, I knew, not on firm ground. I did not know where I was going, or where all that “book learning” as Mr. Rainey put it, was leading, and I was secretly thinking about staying home when school began…about taking some time off. “Stay here in September,” he said. “In 18 months, you can be a union member, and get your welding license, and I promise you’ll be making $60K a year. Think about it.” And I did. I thought about it a lot, and I prayed for some sense of direction, and I had to remind myself that, as a much wiser person than I once said, “All who wander are not lost.” In the end, in September, I went back to school. I still was not sure where all that book learning was leading, but I believed that I was somehow on the right course, and that if I focused on what was most important, I would find my way. I would find my vocation—my calling—my life. Several years later a Canadian company bought Atlantic Steel and moved the mill to Cartersville, and not too long after that, that gleaming new mill shut down. You can visit it today, a veritable ghost town, empty, its furnaces cold, and its men and women, most of who had too much seniority to find jobs elsewhere, out of work. I was not there the day they removed the last brick from Atlantic Steel, and I am glad I was not. But as a young man I could not imagine the wondrous place that had once been that mill would be gone, like the last, fading notes of a summer song.

And the economy that had built and sustained it was changing as well. The lives of those men and women were irrevocably altered, and some measure of my own youthful innocence, to borrow a phrase from Yeats, was gone with it. The steel mill had been thrown down, to use the language from today’s Gospel, and an era was passing away. Last November, at my 50^th high school reunion, a football teammate of mine who had joined the Marines out of high school and gone on to become a police officer referred to me as a “jock gone bad from too much education.” I told him that I had received a wonderful blue-collar education at Atlantic Steel on the way to a life-changing liberal arts education. He paused for a moment, took a sip of beer, and said “I’m sorry. I did not know.” These false dichotomies between blue collar workers and college graduates, and binary thinking, either/or thinking, are posing a tremendous threat to us all.  Perhaps it is the folly of humanity to seek permanence in the things of this world, and yet it seems to be our nature. The Roman Empire, responsible for killing Jesus because he was a threat to their agenda, lasted only 300 years. Perhaps it is our deep angst in knowing our own mortality that leads us to build structures of many kinds: buildings, ships, corporate businesses, political empires, steel mills, even families. When we half-marathoners enter Atlantic Station on the Northside Drive entrance there is one, lone reminder of Atlantic Steel Company in the form of a large steam engine turned sculpture, echoing the arch found a mile or so down 17^th avenue. I suspect that only a handful of runners know its history, or that of the steel mill now gone. God has placed in us a deep-seated need to create something that will transcend the finitude of our earthly lives. As the author David Brooks has written,

“About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. You often catch them looking after other people and as they do so their laugh is musical, and their manner is infused with gratitude. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all…When I meet such a person it brightens my whole day. But I confess I often have a sadder thought: It occurs to me that I’ve achieved a decent level of career success, but I have not achieved that. I have not achieved that generosity of spirit, or that depth of character…A few years ago I realized that I wanted to be a bit more like those people. I realized that if I wanted to do that I was going to have to work harder to save my own soul. I was going to have to have the sort of moral adventures that produce that kind of goodness. I was going to have to be better at balancing my life…It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love?

Begging the question, what will it be, those core values that transform who we are? And so, within the broader context of this chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that our work is to be faithful, patient and we are advised to keep awake, because God is working out the plan of salvation and has not abandoned us. All shall be well, as Julian of Norwich said, because God has promised that all shall be well. Christ promises us that things will be all right because when death on the cross appeared to be the end, God had the last word at an empty tomb.      

Throughout our lives, we will experience death and resurrection many times over as the neatly arranged structures of our lives are thrown down. These apocalyptic words of Jesus remind us to hang on, and to place our trust in something more than ourselves, our possessions, our stock portfolios, our relationships to the political agendas of the day, our health, our intellect. It is to place our ultimate trust in the One from whom all these things come. It is to accept our finitude and mortality in a radical trust of God’s unchangeable grace and goodness so that we might be freed from the captivity of anxious fear, and finally live fully and freely as God’s beloved children. Whether a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions, or a terrorist attack or wars and rumors of wars, or the loss of a young persons’ innocence and a radically shifting economy, our focus must be not on whatever signs may be evident, but on the one who is to come—and who reminds us amidst destruction that blessing is certain, and the center will indeed hold. And in the meantime, seek justice, do mercy, believe that the moral arc of the universe is long and bends toward justice. Who is leading us astray, to quote today’s Gospel, in our time? I leave that to each of you, and your own discernment based on your core values, to determine. Increasingly I am looking at the world through the eyes of my grandchildren. Who would I like to see them look up to, and emulate? How do I want my granddaughters to be treated as the young women they are becoming, and who in the public sphere is an example of this? Who is best approximating our Baptismal Covenant, especially the part about respecting the dignity of every human being? Who is speaking the truth? The best may lack all conviction, while the worst may be full of passionate intensity, as Yeats said, but those of us who watch, and wait, will still have good and faithful work to do. As Wendell Berry said;

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium.

Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest….Practice resurrection.                       Amen.

The Collect:O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Mark 12:38-44

³⁸As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces,³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny.⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen. Good afternoon, and welcome to Holy Family on this 24th Sunday after Pentecost, in this Season of All Saints. The Gospel reading for today is the story of the Widow’s Mite, with which we are all familiar. By the time this text rolls around in the lectionary, many churches will have already completed their fall stewardship drives. In some ways, it may seem to be a fastball right down Peachtree for a stewardship homily. If you like baseball metaphors, which I do, this may be a pitch too tempting to refuse—simply give like this poor widow—and give freely—and leave it at that. But the more I thought about this passage, the more I wondered what we are about today. If I were to write a letter to the widow in this story, it might go something like this:

Grace and peace to you. I hope this finds you and finds you well. We do not know each other. In fact, I do not even know your name. I decided to write to you, someone I have never met, because we read out loud the story of how you put all that you had into the treasury plate. I have some questions, though, about what this gesture meant to you, and I thought it might help me answer them if I wrote to you. Sometimes when I write I can figure things out. Maybe in the process I can learn more about you, and the church, and what it means to give.    Your story is read often this time of year to inspire people to give to the church. Often, the point of the sermon is to suggest giving in the manner that you gave—not simply to give a little off the top to God—or perhaps more to the point, to the church—but to dig deep, and give freely, all that one has.

My scholar colleagues, however, note that this use of the text may go against the way Mark’s Gospel originally intended the story to be heard. Indeed, by pairing the story of Jesus observing your offering with his pronouncement against the religious leaders in the preceding verses (12:38-40), perhaps we are invited to hear this scene differently than most usually preach it. In denouncing the scribes, Jesus says they “devour widow’s houses” (v. 40). When Jesus comments that the widow “out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (v. 44), he is less praising the widow and more condemning a religious institution that would take a “poor widow’s” last penny. You were no doubt on the margins of your society, both by virtue of being a widow, and simply because you were a woman in a culture where the rights of women were often overlooked or devalued. Many in my own culture, by virtue of circumstance, are also on the margins and, indeed, we are living in a time when women’s rights are once again being challenged. Though you never say a word in this passage, your actions speak volumes. So, while your story may indeed call for a stewardship sermon, perhaps its focus should not be on the stewardship of those sitting in the pews. Rather, I wonder if the focus should be on the church’s stewardship of money given on behalf of those who, like you, are on the margins of society. As a biblical representative of the marginalized and powerless, your actions call the church not to take from the poor but to provide for them. I am often confused when I flip through channels and see one televangelist after another preaching the prosperity gospel. “If you pray right, live right, and send me money,” they often say, “God will bless you with success, happiness, and financial security.”  

The Christianity they proffer is nothing more than a lottery—you pay a dollar and take a chance on winning more. And like the lottery, this kind of “stewardship” preys on the most desperate, the most anxious. It is the psychological equivalent of taking hostage those who are most vulnerable. While most churches and preachers in my time do not distort faith in this way, in our materialistic society, and for some, this message may seem to be an offering of salvation. I am grateful that the congregation I currently serve is dedicated to giving back to the community. May it continue to be so, and perhaps in some way your story is a reminder of the importance of doing exactly that.

It may be that we need to “un-hear” the usual message preached from your story to hear a more theologically appropriate interpretation. I wonder, if you were to speak, whether you might offer a positive model for how the church should care of the “widows” of today, and those who are marginalized, and suffering. I wonder if we can only really give things that are really ours. In other words, we must own before we can give. Stewards are managers, and managers are not owners. Managers are people who handle resources on behalf of the owner. Managers act in the interest of the owner, who is in this case God. Even the wealth of our households is not ours in any permanent sense. It passes through us. I think you understood this. I think you knew that the money you gave—those two coins—were in some sense not even yours. And so, the question is, did Jesus point to your example as a model for giving in this way? What might you have really been saying to us? Many of the scribes whom Jesus condemns in this passage probably thought, like me, that they were doing what was honorable, and good. Perhaps Jesus is calling each of us who are at risk of benefitting from systems of oppression to consider specific and sustained action by engaging in spiritual practices that challenge oppression and marginalization whenever and wherever we find them, especially in our own backyard. Maybe when you put those coins in the plate you were asking us to explore what it really means to give all that you have, to live in faith. Perhaps you were investing, if you will, in a kind of Ignatian “Holy Indifference.” This does not mean one does not care, but rather means a total openness to the will of God in one’s life. In other words, I will strive to discern my will in relation to God’s for the world. And I will do so without being attached to the outcome in unhealthy ways. As the poet Dante expressed it: “In God’s will is our peace.” Or, as Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

We are called to ministries of healing and reconciliation, ministering to the sick, the friendless, and the needy. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being.  I wonder if those two coins you gave represented these deep values. We are called to free people from anything that would separate them from God, from others, and from their most authentic, true selves. You are asking us to remember that the true meaning of sin is to “miss the mark.” Perhaps in pointing to your story, Jesus is not just celebrating your giving. Maybe he is also emphasizing that the giving was in the wrong direction.  Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. “Behold what you are…become what you receive,” St. Augustine said about the Eucharist. I think you understood that we do become what we receive, and what we give. In a sense those two coins symbolized who you had become, and who you were becoming. I remember Mildred, another widow who gave so much, and who was a resident on the Alzheimer’s Unit at Wesley Woods. She never said a word to me in the nine months I served as chaplain there, but she knew every word of every hymn we sang in worship. She had become the songs she sang in the little Methodist Church she attended all her life, and Alzheimer’s could not, would not ever rob her of this deepest core self. She sang with gratitude, and with joy. “Behold what you are…become what you receive.” Indeed, and what we give in gratitude, without thought of what we receive in turn, reminds us that through our participation in the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist we are transformed into the Body of Christ, to be taken, blessed, broken, and given for the world. Amen.

24th Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: John 11: 32-44

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen.

Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this 24^th Sunday after Pentecost, and a weekend when we observe the Feast of All Souls. Today we hear a Gospel passage about life abundant. We are called to consider the choices that may lead to a theology of scarcity, or abundance. And let’s remember that we will revisit the Lazarus story again during Lent, because the context of the passages for today eventually causes the council and the high priest to plot Jesus’ death. Indeed, in the Palm Sunday story we hear these words: “So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify…the Pharisees then said to one another, ‘You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” It is precisely this feeling of powerlessness in the face of a charismatic, potentially dangerous figure that impels the Pharisees to seek Jesus’ death. Indeed, it is the resurrection of Lazarus that leads to Jesus being killed. So, we find a theme that runs throughout these passages and the passion narrative from today, to Holy Week: the theme of ego, hubris, and pride versus self-denial and the death of ego.

This is the paradox that runs throughout the drama that unfolds this week. “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This paradox is not limited to agricultural examples. In my work as a pastor and therapist I see this remarkable truth borne out again and again. Persons whose egoism, pride, and selfish desires so obscure their true selves that they are trapped in a cage of “I, me, and mine,”—and are thereby cut off from God and others. As my colleague Walter Brueggemann from Columbia Seminary has said, we tend to view the world from the perspective of a theology of scarcity—we live as if there is simply not enough of God’s abundant love to go around. And so, we grasp at those things at hand to secure us in our anxiety—to make us feel whole, to tell ourselves that we can do just fine without relationship to God and others. The ways we seek to do this can often take seemingly benign forms. Indeed, we can often use the very tools with which we are taught to construct our lives, even in wonderful educational institutions. Academic excellence, athletic glory, talents of one kind or another are all good things, to be sure. But it is precisely the nature of the human to be at risk for misusing them—for construing them as ultimate—as enough to ground us in sacred ways—when they cannot. We see this paradox at work in the narrative that unfolds this week. The world is fickle. As Walter Brueggemann has reminded us, the world is often an unreliable place, neither its hostility nor its adoration can be trusted. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday will shout, “crucify him” on Friday. Jesus’ opponents will succeed in killing him, but their apparent victory will turn to dust as Jesus emerges from the tomb and begins to “draw all people to himself.” Death, in this story, paradoxically ends in relationship. The seed must die if it is to bear fruit. Those who rely too much on the trappings of the ego, and forego the path of servant-hood, are at risk. The paradox is this: to die to ourselves is to live fully, in relationship, with compassion. Indeed, arguably, compassion—a radically relational idea, is the cardinal virtue of the pastoral tradition, and it has a rich heritage in our Judeo-Christian tradition.

In Judaism compassion, or rachamin, is the first of thirteen attributes of God listed in Exodus 34:6. The Hebrew rachamin links compassion to the idea that all human beings are related, and connects compassion with justice and obligation in such a way as to emphasize action, rather than feelings. From the Latin, com-passio, means to suffer with the other. Thus, we accept God’s love for humanity and the intrinsic worth of every individual as a child of God. “Drawing all to himself,” then, God calls us into relationship, and compassion occurs precisely in the context of relationship. But we must get ourselves out of the way for this to happen. I am reminded of a wonderful short story, by Garrison Keillor, in which he recalls a game he played as a teenager, with his beloved Aunt Lois. “My favorite game was strangers,” he said, “pretending that we didn’t know each other. I’d get up and walk to the back of the bus and turn around and come back to the seat and say, “Do you mind if I sit here?” And she said, “No, I don’t mind,” and I’d sit. And she’d say: “A very pleasant day, isn’t it?” We didn’t really speak that way in our family, but she and I were strangers, and so we could talk as we pleased. “Are you going all the way to Minneapolis, then?” “As a matter of fact, ma’am, I’m going to New York City. I’m in a very successful hit play on Broadway, and I came back out here to Minnesota because my sweet old aunt died, and I’m going back to Broadway now on the evening plane. Then next week I go to Paris, France, where I reside on the Champs-Elysees. My name is Tom Flambeau, perhaps you’ve read about me?” “No,” she said, “I’ve never heard of you in my life, but I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt. She must have been a wonderful person.” “Oh, she was pretty old. She was all right, I guess.” “Are you very close to your family, then?” “No, not really. I’m adopted you see. My real parents were Broadway actors—they sent me out to the farm thinking I’d get more to eat, but I don’t think that people out here understand sophisticated people like me.” She looked away from me. She looked out the window for a long time. I’d hurt her feelings. Minutes passed, but I didn’t know her. Then I said, “Talk to me, please.” She said “Sir, if you bother me anymore, I’ll have the driver throw you off this bus.” “Say that you know me. Please.” And then, when I couldn’t bear it one more second, she touched me and smiled, and I was myself again.” Indeed. We become our true selves in the context of relationship. The Gospel of John reminds us of this truth. We must die to the messages of success that we receive so often in our culture—that the path to freedom lies in our self-motivated ambitions and accomplishments and that we are justified in doing whatever is necessary in achieving our goals. And alienation from self, other and God can result in many different forms of death. Jesus was a master at recognizing that relationships have the power to heal what is broken, even when we do not recognize it ourselves.

The story is told of the response of some in Denmark to the Nazi invasion of that country. I first heard this story in a history class at Rhodes College, but it bears repeating here for many reasons. Seems that in 1940, German tanks rumbled across the borders of the peaceful country of Denmark. The Nazi’s, already possessing control of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, encountered little resistance from the small northern nation. Soon, other countries fell to the German forces as well: Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. Vicky and I have recently returned from Paris, where many reminders of the occupation of that city by Nazi Germany remain. As part of their systematic method of intimidation and oppression, the Germans announced that every Dane of Jewish descent would be required to wear a yellow Star of David. They had done the same thing in Germany and other countries. Any Jew who failed to comply would be put to death. The Star of David, a proud symbol of the Jewish faith and culture, would be used to mark them as undesirable members of society—to rob them of their dignity, their possessions, and even their lives. The Danish government and its people were in no position to do battle against the powerful German army. But their leader, King Christian the 10^th, made a bold and courageous move. He called for all the Danish citizens to wear the Star of David, for every Danish household to stand in solidarity as partners with their Jewish neighbors. And remember, many leading theologians of the day used scripture to justify the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Tremendous fear must have gripped the hearts of those first Gentile citizens to venture forth from their homes the morning after the Kings’ announcement. Would they be the only ones to heed the Kings’ announcement? Would they be singled out, prosecuted and killed along with their Jewish brothers and sisters?  

What they saw was nothing short of a miracle. There were Stars of David everywhere. The Jews among them wept when they love and support of their fellow Danish citizens. And because the people stood together, the Nazi’s full plan of persecution of Jews in that country was never carried out. God calls us into relationship. And these relationships of accountability and transparency have the power to heal what is broken, to make whole our tendency amid a theology of scarcity that we alone have what we need to secure ourselves. And the great paradoxical truth is that to be fully in relationship, we must die to ourselves and give ourselves over to compassion. This is the great common denominator of the great religions of the Abrahamic tradition. There is plenty of God’s love to go around, and it is passed one to another in relationships like those I have described this morning. Drawing all to himself, Jesus asks that we die to self. In so doing we do not die to excellence in academics, athletics, art and drama—all the wonderful qualities that make this school the remarkable place that it is. Rather, we are asked to keep these goals in perspective, and remain vigilant, lest we lose sight of that which is most deeply human—that it is more important to be in relationship, than to be right—more important to die to self, than to live in the belief that the self is all we need. Yeats reminded us that without relationships of accountability and compassion “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Without dying to self, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” This season of All Souls reminds us that these categories are not mutually exclusive. We can be persons of conviction, embodying the Divine spark of compassion that is our God-given gift. God calls us into relationship, where we can become our truest, best selves—precisely when we lose ourselves in service and compassion. In this season of stewardship let us remember to give ourselves away, with gratitude, in relationship.  Amen.

23rd Sunday after Pentecost – Ted Hackett

Lessons 10: 6-27

Job and Evil

The last four Sunday’s Hebrew Bible readings have been from the Book of Job.

In those four readings we have pretty well covered the Book …

Hebrew Scriptures…our Old Testament…

Have four parts…

The Law…the first 5 books, the Prophets, and then pretty much everything else … called the “Wisdom Literature”…

Wisdom contains a lot of good sage advice about how to live….plus some stuff that doesn’t fit any particular category.

The Book of Job goes here.

You all know poor Job…and the saying : “The patience of Job”…and of course we have read selections from it over the past four weeks.

So basically…you know the story…

but let’s review…

It’s a very theological story!

Job is a good and righteous man…

He is generous…supporting widows and poor people…making civic gifts..

He is so well respected that when he goes to sit among the men of the community where they gather by the front gate of the city…that the other men do not speak…out of respect.

And Job was very prosperous…

Property, crops, livestock, Sons and Daughters

 And in his time and place…

According to orthodox theology…

Such success was proof of his righteousness…

A leader, a philanthropist…

Respected by all…

Job had everything…

And he deserved it!

Meanwhile…

In Heaven, God is sitting in his omnipotent majesty…

Looking down on Job with some pride!

Job is pretty much what God intended us to be…faithful and righteous.

But then…the plot complicates…

In comes Satan…

Satan….the “adversary”…the “accuser”.

Now, you may ask: what is Satan doing in Heaven… 

And how come he and God seem like pals?

Good question…

No one seems to have come up with a good answer as to why evil exists…

Why God allows it to exist…certainly I don’t!

But…there it is…

Evil is a reality!

Well…Satan has been, he says, patrolling earth…

Checking things out.

God asks if he has observed Job…

God is proud of him…he’s so good!

Satan says: “Of course he’s good…why shouldn’t he be…You’ve given him everything!” “But”, says conniving Satan… “take away his prosperity and he will curse you!”

God takes the bait…

He’ll strike him with all kinds of misfortune and bet Job will remain faithful.

And he does!

To make a long story short…

Job does not curse God in his misfortune…

Satan insists…hit him with more misfortune…

Take away everything except his life!

In this long agonizing process…Job’s friends and even his wife…give him advice…

The leading theory offered to Job is that he must be hiding some secret sin…

God knows about it and Job must confess! 

But Job is truthful…

He is not hiding a secret sin!

Even Job’s wife…who is tired of his misery…

Tells him: “Go ahead…Curse God and die!”

But Job has too much integrity to do that!

So, sitting on a dung-heap, in misery, scraping scabs off his body with a potsherd…

He dares God to meet face-to-face…

He asks God to explain his unjust suffering.

Now, Job is speaking for all humanity….

WHY IS THERE UNDESERVED SUFFERING? Why are innocent Palestinians and Jews dying?

Why are children starving?

Why do corrupt politicians get power and grind down the needy?…

For that matter…why are there natural disasters?

Earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, plagues…

Only part of this can be laid at the feet of such as humans misusing nature…

Job is wrestling with the problem Dostoevsky put this way: “The death of one innocent child refutes the goodness of God!”

So Job challenges God to a face-to-face meeting…

And surprise!…God agrees…which is unusual!

But when God appears…what happens?

God makes a power-play!

Who is Job… measly, powerless, just human, Job?

Did Job create the mighty seas?

The stars…sun, moon?

The vast array of animals and the

Other miracles of nature?

Next to God, Job is a puny moment.

Next to God…

Humans are like dust!

And of course, confronted with the infinite, omniscient power and majesty of God…

Confronted with glory of God…

Poor human Job cannot stand…

How does one argue with the omniscient creator and sustainer of all that is or ever will be?…

There is no way…

Job caves in and says:

“I see you and I repent in dust and ashes!”

God has pulled a power-play and simply overwhelmed poor Job…

But notice….Job has never retracted his complaint…

Job has submitted to power…

But he has not taken back his accusations…

He has been treated unjustly.

The final act of the Book of Job has God restoring him with even more goodies than he had before…more animals, more crops more children and more public esteem…

Seems it is “happily ever after”ending…

The idea is, God is fair and just after all…

Though I wonder about those dead innocent family members…

But probably a scribe added this ending to square with the theology of the time

Probably the original left things up in the air…or there may have been a less “Happy ever after” ending.

But the question in Job…which is our question too   is not answered…

How is it that bad things happen to good people?

That innocent children are bombed and their parents maimed or killed?

Job’s God has no personal experience of the plight of we little human beings…Of a mourning Jewish or Palestinian mother…

But Jesus was different…

God may have been moved by Job’s argument…and decided to share our human experience.    

We know he changed his mind and healed an unclean Gentile child.

Because he had compassion…

God changed God’s mind!

Think of it…

God changes the Divine Mind.

Of course in the Hebrew scriptures, God changes his mind all the time…

For instance when God is angry at Israel sometimes someone like Moses cleverly talks him out of destroying his people…

It happens several times…

God even repents…spares wicked Nineveh for instance…

But in most of the Old Testament God still acts like an all-powerful dictator.

But something happened around the time of later Judaism…

Around the time of Jesus…

God….who had been the omniotent ruler of all…

God…who conceived, created and sustains all that is or ever will be…

God who is infinite and above all the messiness of human life…

Decided…maybe after his encounter with Job…

Decided he really could not fully understand us…

Could not understand we humans…from the infinite distance of eternity…

So God….became incarnate from a human Mother…

For us humans and our salvation…

Became one of us….became human!

As Paul says:

“Emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born human…”

And then…He suffered and died…

Pinned to a criminal’s cross for hours of agony…

God knew…

God lived though human pain and doubt and fear…

And God…I dare say it.

God died our human death!  

So now there is nothing in our experience which God does not know from God’s own experience!

So…then…

Why doesn’t God “fix” it and get rid of sin and suffering and death?

I don’t know…

No one does I suspect…

But we do have a promise…

A promise from one who knows…personally…

What it is to suffer helplessly…

To die our death…                  

But then…to rise victorious…

God died a human…a human like you and me…

In order that we might become like Him…

And live forever in the fullness of love!

So now even in the face of death…

We can sing: “Alleluia! Alleluia….Alleluia!