Lament, Learn, Change.

As we begin another season of Lent, I could not help but consider that this one is much different than others I've experienced in my lifetime. 

Because this one feels as though the nation needs to be putting on sack clothes and sitting in ashes. The staggering amount of corruption in the Epstein Files, the violence of sexual abuse perpetrated on children and young women.

And all of it tied to the very monied and powerful of the world: the ones now being called "The Epstein Class."

Not just rich. Rich and depraved.

This brutality is not new. It has been in the world forever. And it's time for it to end. 

All of that was on my mind as I looked at the first reading assigned on this Ash Wednesday. 

See what you think.

Texts: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

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As I stand here tonight…at the start of another season of Lent…I have to say it feels as if we’ve already been living in this Lenten season.

It feels as if we’ve been wandering around in the wilderness for quite some time.

These several months have seen crisis after crisis at the national level.  All of it…filtering down into our local communities with people living in an almost constant state of irritation, agitation, and fear.

I measure some of this by observing people’s driving behavior.

I spend a lot of time on the road between here and Tallahassee.

And while I have found the driving culture in Florida’s capital city always to be erratic at best…it seems recently to have become devoid of obeying any traffic laws at all.

I have seen drivers weave around other cars and blow through a red light.

Stop signs are now merely suggestions.

The overly aggressive road rage feels as if it mirrors the same reckless disregard and amoral attitudes pervasive in this country where officials refuse to answer questions and programs to help with health care and food supplies get cut or frozen.

Where we spend billions on retrofitting warehouses as prisons…and separating families…while killing anyone who dares to question this brutality.

It makes the words of a fifth century BCE prophet such as Joel sound like a modern-day writer when he talks about:

“…a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes;

their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.”

Even though things might have felt dark and gloomy lately…the truth is this hasn’t even really been a moment of living into Lent.

Because if we really were living into the meaning of the Lenten season…we wouldn’t be focused on the darkness surrounding us.

We’d be engaged in that latter part of our Joel reading:

The part about returning to the Lord…and lamenting over the things done and left undone.

And we’d be rending our hearts and not our clothing.

To rend is a strong verb.

It implies violently ripping apart.

Back in the days of the prophets…it was common practice for those in the Biblical narrative to rend their clothes when things were going awry.

Kings and whole populations would see their misfortunes as God punishing them for not following commandments.

They’d rip up their clothes…put on sackcloth…and sit in ashes…seeking forgiveness from God for whatever wrongs they’d done.

We don’t do that anymore.

But these past several weeks have been exposing a lot of the ugly truths that we have tolerated for too long.

We have not taken care of children and women the way we should.

We have not punished perpetrators for their criminal and abusive behavior.

We have not addressed the concerns at our borders…or met the needs of those in the system who have cried out for a fair and thoughtful way into this country.

And we’ve buried our heads rather than admit that economic injustice has been the engine driving us down the path of more racism…and classism…and division in this country.

Time to rend our hearts…and open ourselves to acknowledge how these failures happening at the 30-thousand foot level have been raining down on us here in the valley.

This Lent might be the time to not just look inward at our own lives…but to see the breaches that have happened in our public life…and commit to repairing those broken places.

We may not see the end of poverty in our lifetimes…but we must still do our part to alleviate that suffering by becoming conscious of the decisions that we make.

Where do we shop…and what are we buying?

How much do we need…versus’ how much do we want?

We each have a part to play in making things better for others and we are each going to fall short of getting it right 100-percent of the time.

And that’s not a failure.

It’s a learning experience.

As our collect this evening reminds us…God does not hate us.

Jesus’ life…ministry and mission…was all about showing us the extent of God’s abounding love toward us….and inviting us to join him…and be part of his team in extending that love to everyone.

What we’re to remember is that when we find ourselves losing our way…and following the path of self-centeredness…there’s always a way back to Love.

And that road is always there and available…especially when we come with tears and regret.

On this night…we retrace that invisible blessing of the cross that was made on our foreheads at our baptism with the visible sign of an ashen cross.

We are reminded that we only have so much time in this mortal life to make a difference.

So before you wash away these ashes…take time to look into the mirror…and think about the meaning of that cross.

Consider how it signals our commitment to work toward mercy…compassion…and justice for all.

What might each of us do to turn away from those things that seek to divide us…so that we can more fully embrace that commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves?

Look at that cross and ponder the question posed by the poet Mary Oliver:

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Listen to Him

The more I sat with the readings for this Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the more I kept thinking that the operative phrase spoken from the cloud on that mountain top was "Listen to him!" I mean, if those who claim to be Christians would just listen to what Jesus says and then do those things, we'd be a lot better off.

But instead, we have the likes of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had the gall to sport a gold cross on her necklace as she sat before the House Judiciary Committee, and rather answer questions, berated the Democratic members as they asked her simple and legitimate questions regarding the lack of information coming out of her department about the child sex trafficking ring once run by the late Jeffrey Epstein. Worse, when asked to turn around and apologize to the survivors of Epstein's sick and criminal activities, Bondi refused. Her callousness and coarseness make a mockery of that cross she wore around her neck and what it stands for.

Clearly, Pammy Jo doesn't listen to Jesus. She listens to only one person: the president who appears in the Epstein files over a million times from some accounts. 

Shame. 

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

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I want to start with us taking a moment…each one of us…to do a thought exercise.

You can close your eyes if you wish or just soften your gaze.

Try to remember a time when something happened that made you stop in your tracks.

An event or an occurrence that left you transfixed by the wonder or the awe of the thing.

Do you remember the sounds in the air?

Any colors that you associate with that moment?

The sense of time and space: were you standing or sitting or lying down?

Are there certain aromas or other smells that you associate with whatever this moment is?

These sorts of sensory details live on in our memories long after a major event.

Often…we associate them with tragedies.

Whenever we come up to the anniversary of some catastrophe…there are always retrospective reports and people asking each other on social media,

“Do you remember where you were when “x” thing happened?”

And usually…people share in vivid detail.

There was no Facebook or X or Instagram on the day Jesus led his friends Peter, James and John up that mountain.

But as we heard in the account in Second Peter…the vision of seeing Jesus almost exploding with light…flanked by Moses and Elijah…the cloud descending around them and that voice booming, “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased: listen to him!”…that all left a pretty significant impression on those witnesses.

In this moment…God is pulling back the veil and showing these three disciples that Jesus is not merely the Son of Mary.

He is God’s Beloved Son…the one sent to bring salvation to all the world...

Listen to him.

The lead up to this moment of the transfiguration is important.

 In the chapter before this morning’s reading…Jesus had quizzed the disciples about his identity.

“Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?”

And they give him lots of answers.

“Well, let’s see…Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist…”

“Yeah, OK, but who do YOU say that I am?”

And…that’s when Peter pipes up with saying Jesus is the Messiah.

But when Jesus tells them what being the Messiah means…that he will suffer and die in Jerusalem and then rise on the third day….Peter doesn’t like that idea and tries to tell Jesus to come up with a different ending.

And Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”

He also reminds all the disciples that to follow him…to be on Team Jesus…means to experience suffering.

It will mean sacrifice.

But he assures them that there is more to gain in losing their life….that false sense of security… for the sake of following him …because there is a better more abundant life if they live into his Love-ethic of compassion…mercy…and justice.

That brings us to today’s reading when they ascend the mountain…and have this mountain top moment with Jesus…and that voice:

Listen to him!

Listen to what he has told you:

“Those who want to save their life will lose it…and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

We may not be standing on a mountain top in the territory of the Golan Heights.

But on this Last Sunday After the Epiphany… I want to suggest that we are in the same spot as Peter…James…and John.

We have had five weeks to hear…read…mark…learn…and inwardly digest the words of Jesus.

We have had time to consider the call that God is making on our lives…to align our day to day living in such a way that others can see something in us that makes them think, “I want to know that person. There’s something about them that says, ‘I am kind. I am trustworthy. I will see you.”

We’ve been reminded that it’s the people…the ones who don’t have all the power…or the answers to the biggest questions…who are blessed…who are the salt…and the light.

It’s the ordinary ones who have within in them what is needed to make things right in the world…and to do the work of repairing the breaches in society.

These five weeks have been building to this moment where we are now…the moment of this foreshadowing of the risen Christ…a brilliant light shining into the darkness of a world marked by violence and corruption.

We are summoned here to this instance…to fix the eyes of our hearts on this transfigured Jesus.

We’ve been brought here to prepare ourselves for the next step.

Because as wonderful as it might be to hang out on a figurative mountain top…basking in the light and delighting in the awe of it all…the truth is this is just a moment. 

There is still work to be done in the valley.

And indeed…the next scene in the Gospel that follows Jesus’ transfiguration is a father asking Jesus to heal his possessed child because Jesus’s disciples couldn’t do it.

Seems that once they are back in the valley…away from the mountain top…. they become people of “little faith.”

We…too…face similar challenges when we leave this place each Sunday.

While we’re here…gathered together…we’re fed both with the Word and with the bread and wine…the body and blood of Jesus…at this table.

We may leave here with the last hymn still playing in our heads.

And then we face the circumstances of the world around us…the needs of our families…friends…and communities.

And our “little faith” gets put to the test repeatedly.

We pull back from others.

We stay silent when our voice is needed.

And instead of listening to Jesus…we listen to that nagging critic that tells us the lie that we don’t matter…we can’t change systems.

We forget that Jesus talks about having the faith the size of a mustard seed…and that we still can accomplish amazing things.

“Listen to him.”

Jesus keeps reminding us that we can’t avoid the difficulties of the world.

But…placing our faith in God…we have all that we need to make things better.

And we are to not hold back…but to give and share our Love…a love that comes from a God who loved us first.

That powerful light of God that was glowing through Jesus is the beacon for us…that lights the torch we are to carry into those times and places when things are look their bleakest.

Listen to him…and remember his words…and take this light out to others.

It’s the light to enlighten all nations…all peoples…and it will not be extinguished by any darkness.

In the name of the One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the Lord Requires of Us

After a month of January that felt like five years...we are now into February. Black History Month. The month of both my birthday and state-sanctioned marriage anniversary. And it seems only fitting that the first Sunday of this month...the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany...we are hearing the start of the Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes. 

And it happened to be paired with the start of Micah Chapter 6...and the dialogue between God and the prophet over God's lament that the people just need to "get on with it"...the "it" being to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.

So...here's what I did with all of that. See what you think.

Texts: Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12 

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The most familiar prayer for all Christians is the one we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” 

 No matter what our denomination …what language we speak…the prayer that starts with addressing “Our Father who art in heaven…” is the one that everybody knows. 

 And because we know it so well…and we repeat it so often…it can sometimes become too much of a habit…and we stop paying attention to the power and the particulars of that prayer. There is one phrase that I want to lift up this morning: “Thy kingdom…” God’s kingdom…” thy kingdom come…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

 God’s kingdom is an upside down world from what we might think of when we say, “kingdom.” Because it’s not a place with castles and standard bearers and lots of gold. 

 It’s a state of being…living into a reality where…as the prophet Micah says…we do justice…love kindness and walk humbly with God. And we aren’t there…yet. But we keep praying…hoping…wanting and willing that doing justice…loving kindness…and walking humbly with God…will be the new world…the new earth. 

A time when we will see that the politics of fear of the “other” will be cast down and perfect love…where all are housed…fed…cared for and respected…will be the rule and not the exception. We are a long way from that…but we pray…”thy will be done.” 

 They weren’t any closer to perfection in the days of Matthew’s Gospel…when Jesus ascended the mountain top and began his sermon…”Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.” We hear that Jesus was speaking to a crowd…and that crowd were the anxious, beleaguered and worn out people of Galilee. Like the disciples…they had heard something that made them want to find out who is this Jesus. Unlike Peter…Andrew…James and John…they hadn’t quite reached that moment of “Yes, I’m ready to go a different way!” But something inside them still made them want to find out if this guy is for real. 

“Does he really understand what I’m going through? Does he see the same hellscape I’m seeing…where life is just mere existence…and where anyone who dares to question the Empire will pay a price?” 

And what Jesus is saying to those who have gathered around him is, “Yes, I see you. God sees you. Because the fact that you are feeling this way is evidence that you are the ones who desire to see a different future. The fact that you are the ones who care…and are lamenting over the state of the world…it is through you that a new light will shine.” 

 In many ways…what Jesus is acknowledging for the crowd is that the world as they know it is not just. The powers of the world are takers and not givers. 

They see humans as having worth when they can be exploited. 

Investing one’s heart and soul and mind in that sort of a system is what’s crushing them. 

And so Jesus begins this sermon with looking at the now…and inviting the crowd to move in a direction of what will be…one that changes the world when they live fully into the Love of God. To do justice…love kindness…and to have the wisdom to allow God’s Love to be their guide. 

This all connects back to a moment that we hear about in the Gospel of Luke…a reading from chapter four of Luke…which incidentally…is often read on this particular Sunday of Epiphany in the years in which Luke’s Gospel is center stage. 

It’s that time when Jesus gets up in the Temple and unfurls the scroll to the words in the Nevi’im…the prophets…to the passage in Isaiah that says… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble, to bind up the wounded of heart, to proclaim the release to the captives, liberation to the imprisoned; to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor.” 

 Now…Luke slightly changes the wording of the prophet…and includes bringing sight to the blind…a metaphor for helping people see the needs of their neighbors. But this is what it means to follow those words of Micah….and what is the throughline of the beatitudes. 

This is the message to us in our time…and in the middle of such madness as we’ve been a witness to in this country…and especially as it creeps closer to us here in Lowndes County. Jesus is extolling us to sit down and listen closely to these blessings he’s bestowing on those who hear his words. 

 The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw in the Sermon on the Mount the truth of what it means to say that we are followers of Jesus. 

 And it wasn’t about being popular. 

On the contrary….Bonhoeffer clearly says that to read, mark, hear, and inwardly digest the words of the beatitudes…is to understand that following Jesus leads to the cross…a place of surrendering the comfort of going along to get along…and entering deeper into relationship with the suffering of those who aren’t the powerful. 

 It means letting go of our ego’s need to be liked…or loved…or even adored by the many and accepting that to follow Jesus puts us in the minority. 

And that’s not just OK…it is a far better place to be because it is the place where God working in us and through us can accomplish great things….greater than we can ask for or even imagine. 

Just as Jesus knew then that these disciples and this crowd needed to hear words of the truth of their present time with a forecast of an unseen yet hopeful future…we need to take in the beatitudes with that same sense that God is calling us in our weaknesses…and doubts…to see that we who believe in the freedom offered through Jesus can be peacemakers…seekers of righteousness…and merciful to others. 

Blessed be those who hear this call to follow in the way of Love as Jesus teaches us…to stand with those who are scared and afraid. 

Blessed be those who overcome the desire to be liked to speak the truth about the injustices being committed in our name. 

Blessed be those who…. placing their trust in Jesus… accept the consequences of what that means: Love is not always loved…yet Love…even love that gets bruised…beaten…and killed on a Roman cross…always rises and always ultimately wins through the work we do to bring justice and kindness into the world. 

Keep listening…keep working…and keep walking humbly with God. 

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

"Follow Me" is Risky Business

 

Memorial to Renee Nicole Good, Minneapolis, MN.

Every day, I find myself feeling usually one of three emotions: sad, angry, or depressed. Sometimes it's all of them all at once. And I blame our current regime for my constant state of agitation over anything. They are allowing federal agents to run amok on the streets of Minneapolis, kidnapping children, tear-gassing people, chasing Uber Eats drivers into people's homes, and shooting peaceful protestors at point blank range. 

And the current regime in the White House is not only doing nothing to stop the violence; they're telling these thugs that they'll be protected from prosecution. Go do your worst, boys.

The day before I was to preach this sermon was the day agents with Customs and Border Patrol shot to death a nurse who worked at the VA, Alex Pettri. Pettri was holding his cellphone and recording their actions in the street. One of the CBP officers pushed a woman down onto the icy Minneapolis sidewalk. When Pettri attempted to help her up, the agents swarmed him, beat him, and shot him. Within minutes, those in Washington DC were telling the nation that Pettri, who was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, had a gun and was planning to shoot federal officers and would have killed some but for their bravery to disarm him.

That was a lie. There are multiple videos to refute that.

And so a second person has been killed for opposing these raids in Minneapolis.

My sermon's first sentence remained the same.  But I stayed up late...trying to figure out a way to tell the above story...and where I should put it in the sermon. And finally my journalist self said, "It's the lead, silly!" 

And so, I made it the first two minutes of a 15:30 minute sermon.

See what you think.

Text: Isaiah 9:1-4; Matthew 4:12-23

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The philosopher George Santayana wrote those words in 1905.

It’s become an oft-repeated maxim…especially after events such as war.

It’s a phrase we should be paying attention to right now.

Because the worst parts of the world’s history are being repeated.

What happened yesterday in Minneapolis is contemptable…and sinful.

A 37 year-old man…Alex Pretti…an ICU Nurse at the VA…was shot ten times while he was on the ground after he had been pepper sprayed and beaten by six or seven federal agents.

His crime? Helping a woman up from the sidewalk who had been pushed by one of those agents.

This comes only 17 days after another federal officer shot and killed Renee Good…also 37 years old…American citizen…who was trying to back up her Honda Pilot to avoid the ICE agents when one of them shot her point blank in the face through the driver’s side window.

What’s been happening in Minnesota might feel like it’s a world away…but thanks to television and the internet…it’s closer to home.

And you can hear the terror in the interviews of the city’s residents.

They say it’s like they’re living in 1930s Germany.

They’re scared…confused…angry…and sad.

One woman remarked that she’d learned about Nazi Germany in school. But she never thought she’d live to see her own government turn on its citizens.

Now…I said last week that there’s nothing new under the sun.

And what is happening now is nothing new…even for the Scriptures.

Peter…Andrew…James and John…lived at a time and in a place that was dark…and oppressive…and felt as if nothing was going to get better.

Jesus hears that John has been arrested.

John…who had baptized him….and was practicing a ministry outside the establishment…calling on people to repent and return to God…has been arrested by the puppet King Herod of the Roman Empire and thrown into prison.

John’s arrest puts an end to his public ministry.

And like a relay team…the baton is now passed to Jesus to begin his public work.

Jesus leaves his hometown and goes to the region of Zebulan and Naphtali…a major fishing and trading route with a large Jewish population in this Gentile region.

And it’s a place that has been scarred by turmoil.

We know from Isaiah that the people here have suffered many generations of social and political upheaval with the Assyrian Empire conquering them in the eighth century B-C-E…and now the Roman Empire is occupying the territory.

This history matters to Matthew.

Because Matthew is writing in the fervent belief that Jesus represents the catalyst to break this pattern of conquest and oppression.

Isaiah talks about a people who walked in darkness now seeing a great light.

But Matthew indicates that they’ve been sitting there…as if waiting for this great light to shine.

And now that Jesus comes into the region…calling on people to “Repent…for the kingdom of heaven has come near”…Matthew wants us to hear that finally…here… centuries later and with the people still living under the thumb of another brutal regime…the light has come to the people to lead them to freedom from this rod of their oppressor.

Jesus gets to work…looking for his first disciples.

And he knows this troubled region is likely to have people ready to break free from their life of hardship and misery.

Because there was nothing romantic about being a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee during the First Century.

The fish they caught weren’t for themselves and their family.

The Roman Empire had control over their daily haul.

And the authorities would charge taxes on their catch.

Sure…they’d make some money…but most of it was going to prop up the Empire.

It was an exploitative system.

So when Jesus says “Follow me…and I will make you fish for people” it wasn’t just about joining with him.

He’s disrupting the Empire…and throwing sand in the gears of the system.

Without fishermen…there is no daily catch.

No fish for Caesar.

No taxes to collect.

A blow to the economy of the Empire.

Jesus’s call to these men also turned their lives inside out.

“Follow me…and I will make you fish for people “forced them to wonder:

Do I want to keep doing this?

Is there something more than working to benefit the Empire?

Jesus’ call opened their eyes to see a life beyond their fishing boats.

His words moved them to leave behind their livelihoods…and seek a new way with absolutely no guarantees of success.

Just the promise that there was a different type of catch to be made. 

A catch of people.

A way of building community on a foundation of Love.

To drop everything and follow is a total act of faith and trust.

But something deep within them knew that this was the way out of the darkness of occupation and oppression that dominated their everyday living.

Jesus has a way of interrupting our lives in that way.

And he doesn’t do it by force or threat.

He does it by an invitation to go in a new direction.

Is it scary? Sure, it is at the beginning.

None of those fishermen knew what was coming next.

Jesus didn’t let them in on the details that they’d be on a journey to confront the Roman Empire…and shake up the status quo in Jerusalem.

And they had no idea the violent opposition their movement was going to encounter.

They hadn’t seen any miraculous healings at this point…or even witnessed the way Jesus used his skillful rhetoric to deal with his detractors.

And he hadn’t flipped over any tables or chased moneychangers with whips.

Still…

Those words Jesus spoke to them contained a vision of hope for an unseen future…one that wasn’t repeating the patterns of the past.

And a voice inside them said “Yes” to making an important change in their lives.

Amazingly…this process has been happening over and over for millennia.

Not just people who go the way of a religious life.

But people who respond to the call to turn away from their fears and things that are different…explore new paths…and take seriously the idea of loving neighbor as much as oneself.

Before this latest shooting this week in Minneapolis…clergy from Minnesota and all over the country gathered with about a hundred thousand people in the streets to denounce the actions of the federal government in its round up of men, women and children…regardless of their immigration status.

They prayed.

They sang.

They marched in subfreezing temperatures.

Businesses closed in solidarity with this action.

Despite characterizations about those who go to protests…it’s likely these demonstrators are not all of one mind ideologically on the question about how best to strengthen our laws on immigration.

But what is driving them to protest is the moral clarity that says they do not want their neighbors…people who have lived side by side with them for five…ten…twenty years… citizens,  refugees and, perhaps, undocumented individuals who helped them cut their grass and raised their families together…they do not want those neighbors pulled out of their homes and sent miles away with no recourse.

These demonstrations also have historical roots in this country.

I recently heard an interview with Jelani Cobb…the dean of the Journalism School at Columbia University…talking about the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1800s.

He said when he teaches about this law that allowed for bounty hunters…the slave patrols…to go after runaway slaves…his students assume that those in the Northern states who protected these escapees were white abolitionists.

But he says…that’s not necessarily true.

He said some were…but not all of them opposed the system of slavery.

But what united them was the basic command: love thy neighbor.

That’s what Cobb says made two thousand people in Boston Massachusetts gather around a single black man and drive away the slave patrol pursuing him.

That’s what motivates people to gather in the streets of Minneapolis in frigid temperatures to demand an end to ICE raids…even at great personal danger.

The connection to the command to love thy neighbor is what has driven people of all walks of life…ages…and ideologies willing to take these risks to protect their neighbors.

It’s what motivates some to stand for hours…singing and praying in front of courthouses and state Capitol buildings across this country.

It’s what has people calling and writing their elected officials…sharing information online with friends…asserting what they believe in…what they see as the just and right way to treat human beings.

It’s what makes ordinary people respond to that still small voice that asks them to look at their lives and make the decision to do extraordinary… even… risky things for the good.

Following Jesus is an unpredictable path.

But it is the way out of the darkness of despair and into the way of light and hope.

It is a journey that takes us beyond what we think are our limits…and may feel like a bumpy ride…but is still worth the trip.

Epiphany is not only a season where we start seeing more of who Jesus is.

It’s also a time for us to start looking at who we are as followers of Jesus…and asking ourselves how we can keep lighting the way to Love in times of trouble and uncertainty.

Listen to that call…that voice within…and trust that the God of Love is leading the way.

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Shine On!

 

Text: Isaiah 49:1-7

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Music has a special place in our lives.

We probably all can remember certain tunes that we associate with a particular event or time period.

I realized I was getting up in years when the tunes on rotation in the supermarket were the songs that were popular when I was first learning to drive in high school.

Music sets the mood for movies and TV shows.

The right song can get us tapping our feet until we’re motivated to get up and dance.

It helps us to learn and make connections to language in our brains. Think about how we studied our ABCs to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

And I’ve been told…music lives in the part of the brain that is one of the last things to linger in our heads as our bodies begin to die.

Songs were what enslaved Africans used to communicate with each other as they worked under the watchful eyes of their masters.

The spirituals we sing in our churches contain coded messages about the way out of bondage…through the woods and crossing rivers to get to freedom.

In our First Reading today from Isaiah…we’re hearing a song sung to…and for… those who were living in exile and oppression under the Babylonian empire.

These people had been conquered once…and then again.

Their enemies had captured their best and brightest and taken them away to a foreign land.

This reading is a duet….a song between God…and “the servant”…and is the second of four such “servant songs” in Isaiah.

What we hear in this song is a calling…a remembrance…and an encouragement to action on God’s behalf.

The first verses of this duet belong to God….and we can hear God reminding the servant of God’s ways…working quietly in the womb almost like an alchemist or blacksmith…fashioning and preparing the servant to have a mouth “like a sharp sword.”

God is preparing and making one who can speak plainly and directly….a voice to cut through all the noise and the static of the world.

The womb…this safe and warm space pulsing with the sound of a mother’s heartbeat…was symbolic for our Biblical ancestors of the beginning of wisdom.

In here…God has formed and molded the servant to bring God’s glory into the world.

Then we hear the voice of the servant in the next few verses…and—wow—isn’t this a familiar lament.

Even though God has done all this work in the womb…given the servant all the wisdom needed to accomplish great things…the servant hasn’t lived up to the call.

“I have labored in vain.”

“I have spent my strength for nothing and for vanity.”

Put another way:

I am not worthy.

I am tired.

And it doesn’t matter what I do…nothing gets better.

How many of us make these same complaints…do this same self-critique… listen to that nagging commentator in our heads…that voice that reminds us how we have fallen short?

The tragedy isn’t that we don’t always measure up…or haven’t been successful in changing the world around us.

The tragedy is when we stare into that void which gathers all our mistakes…our failures and shortcomings…and allow that internal faultfinder to cause us to lose faith in God’s ability to take those broken parts of ourselves…polish them up…and use them for something even greater than before.

I’m reminded of something that the director of my massage school used to say to us every time we had to take a written exam.

He never used the term “tests.”

He preferred to call them “learning experiences.”

These quizzes on our knowledge of human anatomy were meant as another teaching tool…not a punishment for what we didn’t remember from class.

Our mistakes were an opportunity to reinforce our learning…and keep us improving.

The same thing is happening in this song with the servant.

Despite the ways in which the servant has fallen short…God brings in a harmonic voice…singing with the servant “I am your strength.”

This is a turning point in this passage…where we see the importance of honesty and vulnerability.

The servant is feeling inadequate…trying to maintain faith in a world that doesn’t want to listen or care about things such as love of God…justice for those conquered…mercy for those suffering…and compassion for the needs of the people. 

And it’s into this place of honesty and vulnerability where God has an opening to act.

It’s when we drop our ego…our need to control and determine outcomes and allow ourselves to acknowledge our weaknesses that God moves closer to us.

In this space…God can bolster our spirits…put a new song in our throats…and to take us to the next level.

Because look what follows in this passage.

After the servant has opened up about feeling like a failure…God takes those dry bones and insists on putting them back together…with sinews and ligaments…to be something greater.

It’s not enough for this singing partner to just be a servant.

God is taking all those parts…the servant’s mish mash of joys and sorrows…doubts and all…and now this servant will be given as “a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Not just to the tribes of Jacob and survivors of Israel.

Not just those taken captive by the Babylonians and the ones left behind to mourn their losses.

This servant…who moments ago was kicking the dirt and looking down cast…talking about everything that he wasn’t…is now going to be the standard bearer to all people…the whole earth…that the God of Love has come near to them.

Instead of dumbing down the assignment…God is elevating the mission…and expanding it.

Again…this was a song of liberation…sung to a people who had felt conquered…defeated…and were living under a Babylonian authority they didn’t recognize.

This was a song for the exiles and the ones who had been left behind… a song of promise that they would again become one body…overcoming the adversity of their times…and that they would bring this mission of Love even further…to all.

As Christians…we know this as the same mission of Jesus…whose strength wasn’t in picking up a sword and dominating others.

Jesus came to live and die as one of us and showed us that the hatred and fear of an Empire could not contain the God of Love in a tomb.

As we heard a few weeks ago from the Gospel of John…”the light came into the world and the darkness could not overcome it.”

That mission of the servant…which was the mission of Jesus…is the still needed today.

There are pundits and columnists who remind us we’re living in unprecedented times of turmoil.

But on this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend…we should recall these words from the Book of Ecclesiastes,

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Eccl.1:9)

We have not always been a nation of E Pluribus Unum.

Dr. King lived in a time of violence and repression…in this country…and not that long ago.

Some of you were alive in the days of legal racial segregation.

Doctor King…a Baptist minister from Atlanta…certainly had his moments as a servant…struggling to keep singing that song of the glory of God while up against the unrepentant forces of division and hatred.

In 19-63…as King looked out over the mall in Washington DC…he spoke of a dream.

That dream was the day when all of us…blacks and whites…Jews and Gentiles…Protestants and Catholics…would all sing one song: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty…I’m free at last.

Free from violence.

Free from the economic conditions that kept too many people in poverty.

Free from the powers that sit in the skyboxes of society and have the majority of us trapped in a cage match of “us” vs. “them.”

An assassin’s bullet shortened King’s life…but that dream that he shared in August 19-63…was no less than the dream God has had for this world from the beginning of time….to have a people who shine a light to the nations that all might experience salvation.

We need more of those lights now.

We need to trim the wicks of our internal lamps and keep standing on the side of love…holding onto our faith…in the face of fear.

God is still calling to us…planting a servant song in our heads and our hearts: to see in ourselves that we can be the standard bearers of light…and love.

        Be the light of Christ…take that light out to others…and let it shine…let it shine…let it shine.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

Can't Go Back to Herod: An Epiphany Sermon

 

This is the first time we've done an Epiphany service at St. Barnabas since I've been there. Seems odd that we haven't celebrated this major feast before, but with me being part-time, living 80 miles away,  and no one insisting, we just haven't. But we did this year, chalking our door with "20+C-M-B-26."  We are not seeing any children in church right now, so there was no pageant as is sometimes a custom. But we did sing, "We Three Kings" which was the perfect starting point for this sermon...and had an important lesson for us in this time of authoritarianism.

See what you think.

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

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John Henry Hopkins lyrics to “We Three Kings” have set the stage in our imaginations for centuries about these three visitors from the East who followed a star to find the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Hopkins hymn has told us they were kings…and in the stanzas…he’s given each of them back stories.

And tradition has assigned them names based upon the gifts they brought...the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We assume there are three of them because there are three gifts.

But maybe there were two….or could there have been more?

Nah…that wouldn’t work.

That would totally mess up the manger scenes.

But then…our traditional manger scenes have already gone off track from the Gospel story.

There is no crib of hay in Matthew’s story.

In fact…these foreign magi enter a “house” to find Mary and “the child.”

And…given the account that happens a few verses later in this chapter of Herod’s jealous rage that leads to the deaths of Jewish boys in Bethlehem who are two years old…we get the idea that these magi have been following that star for a while.

 These “magi”…or as we have translated it…these “wise men” are “from the East.”

They may have been Zoroastrians…an Eastern religion of the Persian Empire…a monotheistic belief system that teaches ethical living and a constant struggle between good and evil.

 They may have been either astrologers or magicians.

And they are on a journey… a euphemism often used when one is talking about seeking God.

They’re following a star…chasing after this sign in the sky…hoping to find a child born King of the Jews…so that they might pay him homage.

In his book “Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts”…Episcopal chaplain Sam Portaro suggests that if these magi were magicians…they may have been something like traveling entertainers.

Portaro wonders how wise they might have been…since they went to Herod to ask where to find this child called “King of the Jews”…a title that Herod proudly had accepted for himself when the Roman Emperor Augustus conferred it on him.

Any wise person would have known better than to tell Herod about this child king given his reputation for killing his rivals.

Maybe they hadn’t fully discerned the politics of the region.

Maybe they were so fixated on following the star that they hadn’t paid attention to the way Herod shifted uneasily when they mentioned they were looking for another king of the Jews.

And Herod…regaining his composure…and in a manner we might see in a classic Disney villain…requests that these wise men serve as envoys for him…

“Oh…please do come back and tell me where I might find this child in Bethlehem so that I…too…may pay homage to him.”

It’s interesting that “paying homage” gets repeated here.

To “pay homage” suggests something more than a simple nod of the head and a “greetings and salutations.”

“Paying homage” is to prostrate oneself…kneel or lay down before an authority.

Herod said he wanted to pay homage to the Christ child…and he should have wanted to do that.

It’s what we say in our prayers of the people…that we look for leaders who will turn away from greed and a lust for power…and to govern from a place of justice and compassion.

To be like the king as described in Psalm 72…

“That he may rule your people righteously…and the poor with justice.” (72:2)

But…of course…he wasn’t sincere.

After all…he is not on a journey.

So when the wise men arrive…we hear that they were overwhelmed with joy.

And when they entered the house…and saw the child with Mary…they paid him homage.

These Zoroastrian strangers immediately see what the shepherds from Luke’s Gospel had seen earlier.

And like those shepherds…they too were amazed…and filled with wonder and joy.

And it brought them to their knees…lying face down on the floor.

Only then…did they remember to break out the gold…the frankincense…and the myrrh.

It seems the most important gift they offered was not the valuable “things” that they brought along in their treasure chest.

The primary gift was themselves….their bodies…and their desire to seek and find what this wonderous star was beckoning them to discover an incarnation of God’s Love into the world.

This was their epiphany…that moment of “a-ha”….that brought them to Bethlehem.

They have met God…the God that they recognize…the Holy One of Justice and Mercy.

They have found God in this Jewish child.

And God has shattered barriers between cultures.

God has demonstrated that Divine Love is able to reach past all borders…all religions…all labels…and differences to touch us so deeply as to overwhelm us with joy.

If these men weren’t wise before their journey…they are leaving greatly changed.

No wonder their dream told them to travel back a different way.

They are no longer able to go back toward the way of Herod…that world of domination and fear…and the need to have power over others.

They’ve been changed.

The same can be true for us too.

We…too…can travel a different road.

God’s desire for us is not about wealth…or titles…or our precious metals…or other expensive gifts.

The only thing God has ever needed from us is our willingness to open our hearts to God…and allow Love to transform us.

God’s intent is to set us on a road away from the self-centered path that seeks to control others and assert our dominance over other people.

The thing we must do is bring ourselves…our wise and foolish…our perfectly imperfect selves…to God…and be willing to be wowed and changed.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.