Category: Sermons

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined.” 

The theme of darkness and light stood out to me this week and although I tried to write my reflection earlier in week, I ended up not sitting down till last night to put into words what has been heavy in my heart. At the onset, my initial reaction was, kind of feels like where we are right now, in a dark time for our country and for the world. Yet it isn’t for everyone. Although in my social media algorithms and communities there is outrage at the actions of ICE in Minnesota and across the country, I know that is not the case for everyone. 

I know that there are people who believe the actions of ICE are appropriate and possibly not enough. That the reason they are not able to succeed is because there are immigrants, others who have taken away their opportunities, have caused them harm. That this is the path of righteousness and it is their right to protect their way of life – and for some their god given way of life. And for them this is their light, the end of their darkness.

And that reality is hard to sit with. To know that for someone else, because I am a refugee, an immigrant, that to them I am a foreigner and have no place in this country. Regardless of whether or not I was sponsored legally as an infant, or have spent my professional career as a public servant, or am a fellow Christian, I am not welcome. It is not new, this sentiment, as a minority, an outsider to not be welcome; it has existed through the ages from the stories told in the bible scriptures to those reported on the news today. It is why the scriptures continue to hold their weight. 

“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

The current darkness and division that exists is not just among us as a country, however as Christians as well. There are Christian families who have members that are ICE officers and there are Christian families who have members in detention centers. I think of the ones in the detention centers this week, the ones who saw the opportunities to work and provide for their families now living in fear for their future and those they were taken from. I think of the children torn from their parents or taken with them. The ones who are in literal darkness. And I think about when we look back at history, how do we know that we will be on the right side? 

What can we take from Jesus’ teachings that continue to resonate to this day. We know there are those that are still oppressed, those that are poor, and those that are hungry. Where do we stand as Christians whom Jesus has saved. Where do we turn in our times of darkness? How do we find light when we may feel like we’ve been cast away? Who will help us now? Who will answer the prayers of the oppressed? How do we break the rod of the oppressor? 

A lot of questions and not a lot of simple answers or solutions even. Yet I can imagine, for the faithful, even in their darkest hour they still turn to prayer and the Lord. Have you ever, when in times of despair or heartache turned to prayer? I know I have. And I can imagine that there are those in the detention centers who are turning to their faith, because even in their darkness, they know that their salvation is still in the Lord. 

And that faith, that is the light. That light continues to move through the generations so that there are always those willing to fight the oppressor, willing to speak out and act. And just as there is darkness and light, there is still injustice. 

That is a hard reckoning, that injustice has existed through the ages and will likely continue. Because just as there are those that are willing to fight the oppressor, there are those who believe that they are superior and have the right to control others. From the days of Pharaoh’s enslavement of the Israelites to the enslavement of Africans in the United States, there has been darkness. Yet through those dark times, there was light and some freedom, albeit hard fought. 

For many who feel that this is a dark time, you are definitely not alone. It can be easy to dwell in, and it was hard these past few days to see where there is light, which is part of what felt so hard about this reflection this week and especially yesterday. And just as I was writing about the current darkness, I got a little sign of light.

In a group chat, a friend sent pictures and videos of him and his daughter holding a small candlelight vigil with a sign that said “Honk 4 Alex, Renee, Keith, Parody and Silverio.” In the video, his five year old daughter with a childhood seriousness mixed with joy let us know that she had gotten 7 honks and one thumbs up. It pains me to think that at such a young age she is learning that bad things sometimes happen to good people and that she has to do something to fight against it. Yet it is in that teaching of the next generation and reminders as we listen to the weekly scriptures that Jesus stood up for the oppressed and weak. That as long as we are willing to believe and act in good faith for the least, then we are staying true to the Lord’s message. 

“the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

While sitting in darkness, let us continue to seek the light. Let us care for each other and for those unable to speak up for themselves. There will always be those who seek to oppress others and we must continue to live Jesus’ message to care for the sick, weak, and oppressed. For where there is darkness, we must hold and shine our own lights.  

To paraphrase the Christian mystic and civil rights leader Howard Thurman: Do you believe that life, your life – is not finished yet? That you are potential. Regardless of your age – that you are potential. That life is dynamic and always presenting newness. Do you believe that? 

Because the hard thing when you get old is to keep your horizons open. The first part of your life everything is in front of you, all your potential and promise. But over the years, you make decisions, you carve yourself into a given shape. Then the challenge is to keep discovering the green growing edge.

And I don’t believe he was just talking to 60, 70, 80, 90-year-olds – The challenge to keep discovering the green growing edge is for 30, 40, and 50-year-olds as well. 

As an adult of any age, it’s very easy to cave to the shape our previous decisions have carved into us – to continue, day by day, making similar decisions to those we made yesterday – and so gradually close down our horizons and shave off those green growing edges without ever even seeing them. 

One of the things I love about being a liturgical church is that our calendar routinely puts in front of us opportunities to re-look at who we are, and to find those growing edges and move, maybe ever so slightly and awkwardly, but continuously in those directions.  Here’s what I mean: 

Advent is the beginning of our liturgical year. It is the four weeks prior to Christmas, and year after year, we encounter the surprising and frankly fearful ways God entered Isaiah’s life and John the Baptist’ life, and Mary’s and Joseph’s lives. In Advent we encounter God or life disrupting plans and catapulting ordinary people in new directions. 

In the twelve days of Christmas, we encounter the awe of newborn life, the wonder of God coming to us in flesh and blood and mess and joy. This is a time to go out under the night sky and stretch your imagination to hear angels singing in the heavens. 

Epiphany stirs curiosity and action. What if you joined the wise men who saw a star and didn’t just wonder what it might mean but took the next steps of going to find out. What if you joined the Magi who when they found the newborn King – fell down in worship and offered their resources to fund this new life. The gold they offered most likely helped save the life of the Holy Family as they fled violence and joined the stream of refugees seeking safety in another place. 

And now here we are – in the season after Epiphany.  This is a time we remember that God is constantly continuing to reveal God’s self to us. 

And on this first Sunday after Epiphany, we are stepping into the baptismal river water with Jesus. We hear God reveal how beloved he was, and how much pleasure his Divine Father took in him.  That was enough affirmation to set Jesus off into a very public very bold ministry that continues to reverberate through the centuries. So here is this season’s question – how is God revealing God’s self to you now?  What is the green growing edge for you? What is stretching your horizons? 

And I don’t care if you are 90 or 19 – I believe that God wants to encounter you this morning – in worship or coffee hour or in the store doing your weekly shopping afterwards. And I’m speaking to those of you joining us online as well. 

Maybe it is to prod you forward or sideways, or encourage you, or comfort you, or challenge you. Maybe it is to bring something or someone to mind for you to forgive, or ask for forgiveness, or say thank you to, or simply call and be in touch and maybe renew a friendship with. Maybe it is to participate in some work of justice or mercy or maybe just set down your phone and go outside more. Maybe it is simply to encourage you to sit and wait – which can be the hardest thing of all. 

Because here’s the thing – it’s quite possible for that voice of the Lord to speak through silence. For there to be no message that you can pin down or put any kind of shape to. Darkness and the silence, my friends, is also the voice of the Lord. It doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong. It is simply part of the path. A hard part of the path. 

Because it is hard, particularly with all the quick fixes and loads of distractions – it’s hard to be silent. To admit that we don’t know. To not be able to Google  “what is God revealing to me?” or “where is my green growing edge?” To not have any heavenly Siri we can ask. 

Without any technological crutches – we are asked to stand up and walk again and again into our Baptism. Into Beginnings. Into Listening – maybe to something. Maybe to nothing. We are asked to listen to that baby thing just beginning to form – that might just be a feeling of discomfort at what is, and maybe an intuition of what might be. 

And of course, beginnings are exciting, but they are also anxiety producing – so here is the good news. The same foundational wisdom the Heavenly Father gave to Jesus as he emerged from the baptismal waters is given, through Christ, to us as well: You are God’s beloved – God is well pleased in you.

All green and growing edges arise out of this Jordan River voice. You are God’s child, God’s beloved, deserving of love and respect. God will use you to change the world. 

 

 

If thou wilt foil thy Foes with joy, then Flit not from this Heavenly boy!

This verse is the last line of an English Renaissance poem by Robert Southwell. It’s part of a Christmas song cycle: a Ceremony of Carols, by Benjamin Britten: The choir sings this carol so fast, that for years I missed this final line: 

If thou wilt foil thy Foes with joy, then Flit not from this Heavenly boy!

It shows a militant spirit, fitting if we think about ourselves in a spiritual struggle.

I heard a sermon preached last year over at All Souls, where Joni and I worship most Sundays. It was the Sunday after Donald Trump was elected as our President again. The preacher was their young associate Emily B., and she anticipated that many of the parishioners were sad and disoriented.

So she began her sermon with a lengthy and solemn recital of the Prologue to the Gospel of John — you know it well — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” These powerful verses recall the cosmic origin story from the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” John’s prologue continues: “The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, but the world knew him not.”

Over my lifetime of ministry and preaching, I realize that I sometimes mute the dualism I find in the Gospel of John. After all, after each of the days of creation, found so beautifully in our stained glass windows, God call the world “good.” And on the seventh day, God sums it all up as “Very good.”

But over this last year, I’ve shifted back to the insight of the duality in John’s Gospel —   He was in the world, and the world was made by him, but the world knew him not.” This hostile world was the context for Christ’s birth. The Roman empire decreed a census of the colonies, including Palestine. This census meant dislocation and a secular pilgrimage, catching up Mary and Joseph in its decrees.

 Their improvised shelter in a barn was only a prelude to the life of refugees, fleeing Herod’s mad decree when he sent soldiers to slaughter little boys. The power of the state was brutal and uncaring for the poor. Those who hoped to make their way in that world, conformed. Those opposed to it, died — as Jesus would do when his human life ended upon a cross.

If thou wilt foil thy Foes with joy, then Flit not from this Heavenly boy!

My pride as an American citizen is being tested daily — perhaps you feel the same. The richest man on the planet has pulled back the curtain on worldly power: Elon proclaims: “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” :|| Less than 1% of our national budget used to go to the “soft power” of aid for counties poorer than ours. Sharing our country’s abundant harvests helped make us proud to be Americans — the rich sharing with the poor.

On Day One of this administration, USAID was ended. Food sat in warehouses, medical aid was stopped, workers were fired — and of course people died. But you know all this. We can no longer rely on the state to do our Christianity for us. We have been brought up to see the face of Christ in the poor and downtrodden. The Gospels show us, in the teaching and deeds of Jesus, that God powerfully shows what liberation theologians call a “preferential option for the poor.”

In a unusual way, the “joy of giving” is now linked with showing that Elon is wrong about empathy. Our society, and our world, is stronger when people are fed, when medical aid flows freely to the sick — deadly epidemics are less likely to spread, and the resentment that the poor have toward the rich is greatly reduced.

If thou wilt foil thy Foes with joy, then Flit not from this Heavenly boy!

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Christian peasants in Central America had a saying: “Their tanks will rust; our songs will last.” That’s joyous! The hymnal of Israel, which we call the Book of Psalms, speak of the swords being made into pruning hooks, the wheel of chariots (those tanks of the ancient world) are being stopped.

Joni and I found solid joy in peaceful non-violence at a No Kings protest in El Cerrito, among hundreds of our neighbors just happy to be there together, greeting members of the El Cerrito Police as they walked among us, ensuring our safety. These nation-wide protests are a joyous celebration of peaceful dissent. Let the Speaker of the House claim that we are “antifa, illegals, Hamas.” Our government has, sadly, lied to us before — so we’re used to it by now.

This last year has refocused my hopes even more on the basics of my Christian faith. My modest generosity to those in need of assistance has a keener edge today — my exercise of empathy is (to use a 1960’s term) “counter-cultural!” Seeing Christ in the faces of the poor “subverts the dominant paradigm” of the state.

If thou wilt foil thy Foes with joy, then Flit not from this Heavenly boy!

 

Today is the first Sunday of Christmastide. And it is my birthday! Most years, my birthdate, December 28, falls on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. This year, however, the Feast has been transferred to tomorrow. Now, counting the day of my birth, I have visited this day eighty-one times. This means I get to say a few words about the Holy Innocents before turning to the readings for the first Sunday after Christmas.

I think you know the story. But I’ll summarize. (Matthew 2:1-18)

The Wise Men from the East came to Jerusalem and said they were looking for the child who was born King of the Jews. They had seen his star and were coming to worship him — not bow and scrape before him, but worship him. King Herod, who was really upset by the news, asked the chief priests and scribes where the child was to be born, and they said the Scriptures pointed to Bethlehem. Herod talked to the Wise Men privately and asked when the star had appeared. Presumably, they told him. So, in line with what he’d been told, he said they should go to Bethlehem to find the child. Herod was relying on the Wise Men to tell him where exactly the child was. He told them that he wanted to worship the child too. Right. The Wise Men did find the baby Jesus and gave him their gifts. Then, warned in a dream — or maybe just figuring the lay of the land — they sneaked away and returned home. King Herod was “exceeding wroth” at being tricked. (Matthew 2:16) He was left in a predicament: that is, the Wise Men told him when the star appeared and so he knew how old the special child was, but he didn’t know exactly which child to destroy. So, Herod, left high and dry by the Wise Men, ordered a deliberate overkill. That is, he had every male child in Bethlehem two years old and younger killed. Fortunately, the Holy Family had already left and found refuge in Egypt.

Matthew closes the story with a quote from the prophet Jeremiah. “[There was] a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” (Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15).

So, what is this story telling us? Maybe it’s that King Herod is one of the first to believe in the Incarnation! Seen this way, the story presents a particularly savage view of the hatred for Jesus right from the beginning. This heralds how, later in his life, the authorities will seek a means to put Jesus to death. (e.g., Matthew 12:14; John 11:47-53) Death is always dogging Jesus’ steps. And, as we are made eventually to understand, it is his purpose. So, the story of the Innocents sets the stage for what will happen later in Jesus’ life.

But the story is also about babies and toddlers and how much we love our children. and how they are nevertheless not immune from the world’s violence. We have a visceral, fundamental, wordless love for our children. The massacre of the Innocents is an extreme example that points us to this love. It brings up a grief that, as Simeon tells Mary, the Blessed Mother, is a sword that pierces the heart. (Luke 2:34-35) The point is strengthened by the quote about the lamentation, weeping and mourning for children at Ramah. Grief is an odd but exceptionally powerful way to describe love. It makes us sensitive to a deep consideration: That is, maybe babies are really the only thing that matters to the human race. As Jesus said later in his life, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” (Matthew 19:14)

Now, let’s move onto today’s Gospel.

I find that the older I get, the more I examine what I learned, not as a baby, but as a child. And so I come to the Gospel passage for today. This is a passage that was read out over and over when I was a child. It closed every single Mass. At the same time, we were being taught to memorize The Apostles’ Creed and, eventually, we got to the Nicene Creed. Knowing from my childhood that these creeds and this Gospel passage existed is kind of exciting for me.

As for creeds, this year is the 1700th anniversary of the formulation of the Nicene Creed. I once read someone’s complaint that the Nicene Creed is a waste of time, that it is not “relevant” or does not connect to us. Well, I admit that, on the surface, it looks like a kind of a scholar’s document. But it was written by bishops who thought the big question it tries to answer was important and demanding enough for them to trudge great distances — not easy in the fourth century — and come together in Nicaea which is now in Turkey. This whole business was really relevant to them.

And as for today’s Gospel passage, John the Evangelist was answering the same question that the Bishops at Nicaea were trying to answer. In fact, John’s whole Gospel can be seen as giving an answer to the question.

So, what is the question that was so important to the Nicene Creed and to Saint John? This is a question that Jesus asked his Apostles and therefore asks us. We have all heard this question. The question is: “But who do you say I am?” (Matthew 15:16. Also Mark 8:29 and Luke 9:20) The Apostles had to answer this question. They were standing right there. The bishops of Nicaea had to answer it. They were standing right there. And we have to answer it because we are standing there too, basking in the happy light of the Incarnation.

Peter answers Jesus’ question with something like: “You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Son of the living God.” And therefore, through the Gospels, we know that Jesus is someone unique and special. This Gospel passage and the Nicene Creed is a declaration of Jesus’ everlasting existence and everlasting divinity. It is a declaration that everlasting divinity became incarnated as a human being of flesh and blood like ours and then suffered and rose from the dead purely for our sake. This is Jesus’ work, and he accomplished it. And he is coming again somehow, sometime. This is our hope, our blessed assurance, in what I will call the “between times” that we actually live in — that is, the time between the Annunciation and the Last Day. This is the point that Saint Paul emphasized over and over again in his letters.

Let’s not make what happens in these “between times” and what we are instructed to do during the “between times” to be the only things our faith is about or the only thing Jesus is about. What we do in the “between times” gets its foundation and its meaning and its commands only from the Incarnation and Jesus’ subsequent work of salvation. What I am trying to say is that, of course, we should clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the sick, help the poor, seek justice, and so forth. But that does not mean that Jesus is nothing more than a sociologist, or a do-gooder, or a protestor, or a social justice advocate. We do what he has told us to do by grace and with love in accordance with the gift of the Incarnation. We do them also with our eyes on the prize, as maybe Saint Paul who loved sports might say. (See, e.g., running and boxing in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27) We do them because Jesus is God and has done so much for us and promises us more. This is the bedrock of our good acts, our obedience, our love. This is the bedrock of our faith. Without this bedrock, nothing really has meaning.

I think that a good definition of faith is the word “awe”. Awe is a mix of happiness, joy, and solemnity, of a smile that is just starting to form. Dear People, awe is wrapped up in today’s Gospel passage and in the Nicene Creed and in Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question. They are all about our practically dumbstruck aspiration as humans to know about God. The beauty of the Creed is the same beauty as in today’s Gospel. They are both aspirational and open-ended. They are attempts to put awe into words.

On the first Sunday of Christmas of the Incarnation, we too are challenged to answer Jesus’ question? “But who do YOU say that I am?” Actually we will wonder about how to answer this question our whole lives, while we are looking through a glass darkly. But we are impelled by awe, by faith, to wonder about the question even while we are doing the good things that Jesus has asked of us. For people of the Way, like us, this combination of wonder and awe and our deeds in this “between time”, while we wait for very much better times, is joyful.

The saint known as the Venerable Bede lived in the north of England in the 600s and late 700s. He was a writer of history and theology. He wrote a short prayer that I read on a placard placed on top of his tomb in Durham Cathedral. I think it tells about the joy of awe and faith as we wonder about things in these between times and wait for the better times. Let’s pray it.

“I pray, merciful Jesus, that as you graciously granted me to drink from the sweet Word which tells of you, so you will, in your kindness, grant that I may come at last to you, the fountain of all wisdom, and to stand before your face forever”. Amen

“Gym Culture, the Manosphere, and St. Joseph”

I have a new man in my life! He’s my first ever personal trainer and he’s kind and knowledgeable and he listens. I’ve enlisted him because I want to go on a walking pilgrimage and because I’m besotted with these grandchildren who continue to get heavier and more and more active and I want to keep up with them – as much as I can.

At our first session he asked me what I do. While he knows a lot about getting strong, the Bible is new territory for him so each week, he asks me what I’m preaching on the coming Sunday.

This past week, when he asked me, I said I was going to preach about Joseph, and the Christmas story more from the man’s perspective. So how’s that, he wanted to know.

Turns out that the whole Christmas story was sketchy for him, so I outlined the basics, Mary, Joseph, the manger in the inn, the shepherds, the angels. I thought he’d probably seen A Charlie Brown’s Christmas movie so I reminded him how Linus read from the Gospel of Luke, which is what all Christmas pageants begin with, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered… and while they were there, the time came for her to deliver her first born child. And she gave birth to her firstborn and wrapped in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” That rang a bell.

But, I said, there’s another gospel, and in that gospel, Matthew’s gospel, the whole story is much shorter and it features Joseph and his dilemma about what to do when Mary turns up pregnant, and he knows he is not the father. That baby is not his.

My trainer thought that maybe that her nose got cut off. I said no. But stoning was one approved option for adultery. However, Joseph was a kind man and decided that he would take the option of quietly divorcing her.

But then he had a dream where an angel spoke to him and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child she was carrying was holy. My trainer got excited. It was the Son of God! he almost shouted.

Yes! So Joseph, going against custom and expectation, married Mary and provided her child, Jesus with legitimacy, with a name, with a lineage. Joseph adopted Jesus and they became a family.

My trainer was into this story. What would he do, he wondered, if his wife got pregnant outside their marriage. What would he do? The answer was not immediately clear that he would forgive her and take the child on as his own.

And then he went in a direction I would never have thought of on my own – and I knew immediately that he was providing me with the seed for this sermon.

He began talking about what he called gym culture and the current climate of misogyny, although he did not use that word. He was quite animated about the immersion of men, young men, in a culture that defined masculinity in terms of muscles pumped up by steroids and supplements, and dominance over others.

His younger brother has fallen into the conspiracies associated with steroid supplements, raw milk, no vaccines, and completely outdated and unrealistic ideas about women. The result is that his brother, like many young men now, has trouble getting dates or keeping relationships going. And as his loneliness becomes more entrenched, he falls further into the “manosphere” – these online influencers, who are themselves, not in relationships, and financially benefitting from the sale of products designed to enhance these warped ideas about manliness.

We talked about how painful it is to witness this organized resistance against gender equality that plays out in real time violence against women and I pushed a heavy tractor faster and farther on the gym floor than I have before. One good outcome.

So this year, on this last Sunday before Christmas, we hear from the Gospel of Matthew, about Saint Joseph, who models a manliness that is needed more than ever.

He gets short shrift in Christmas pageants, where he is most often portrayed by an embarrassed young boy who doesn’t really have a role except to stand awkwardly at the manger while the spotlight is on Mary, as it should be.

He is mentioned in only one relatively unknown Christmas carol in our hymnal, in the 1st half of the 3rd stanza of hymn 110. “Saint Joseph, too, was by to tend the child, to guard him and protect his mother mild. Venite adoremus Dominum. Venite adoremus Dominum.”

But unsung as he is, he follows in a long line of biblical men for whom power was meant to be exercised on behalf of others, for others, with others. Kings who understood themselves to be shepherds of their people, who protected the poor and the needy. Prophets who gave up their rights and privileges in order to carry God’s word of hope and direction to those in need of encouragement and guidance.

Joseph was a visionary man who listened to angels in dreams;

He was a brave man who did the right thing even when it went against culture and expectations;

He was a leader who fled to a foreign country to protect his family from a tyrant king bent on revenge;

He was an honorable man who supported his family through his labor and his craft.

Under his tutelage, Jesus would grow into a man who told stories about merciful fathers who welcomed home their prodigal sons with open arms, a man offered peace to his enemies and forgiveness to those who betrayed him, who taught that his Abba Father in Heaven was not exclusively his, but belonged to all of us, who made the sun to shine and the rain to fall for everyone, good and bad.

So this morning, the 4th Sunday of Advent, just three days before Christmas Eve, our attention is turned in gratitude towards this beautiful man who listened, who protected, who provided, who honored the woman he married and who loved and mentored the Prince of Peace, Son of God. Thanks be to God for St. Joseph.

And I encourage you this week to thank the good men in your lives with warmth and affection. To pray for boys who fall prey to militaristic caricatures of manhood and who are deeply and profoundly lonely as a result.

May your Christmas celebrations be joyful, and full of light and hope because unto us, friends, unto us, a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Last week Larry helped us wrap up the long season of Pentecost with his reflection on Luke’s account of the crucifixion.  Larry invited us to become the thief of the cross, joining there the King of Love.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the new church year – Year A in our three-year lectionary cycle.  In the weeks ahead – Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and then Pentecost – most of our Gospel readings will be from Matthew.

Almost as long as Luke’s Gospel, Matthew is the most difficult Gospel to make sense of.  As our sainted sister Patricia Elmore once said to me, “What is going on in Matthew’s Gospel?  Jesus just seems crazy.”

As difficult as Matthew is to understand, it is the book of the Bible that gives the account of the wise men who travel to visit Jesus and then Jesus subsequent escape to Egypt.  In Matthew, we also have the Sermon on the Mount with its famous beatitudes. 

There are several parables in Matthew not found in either Mark or Luke, including one parable that is perhaps the most misinterpreted piece of Scripture: the division of the sheep and goats at the last judgment with the mis-translated and mis-used line about “whatever you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters.”

What makes Matthew so difficult is that it was a story written for Jewish Christians two generations after Jesus after Jesus lived. In fact, that’s why, in the second century as Christians put the Bible together, it was placed as the first book in the New Testament – even though we know Mark was written first.  Matthew was seen as the bridge between the Old and New Testaments.

This Jewish Christian audience explains why it’s only in Matthew that we have the accounts of Herod spilling the blood of children, of Judas accepting blood money and then committing suicide, and of Pilate washing his hands of Jesus’ blood.  In Matthew, it is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that creates the New Passover Exodus, the blood of the New Covenant.

Echoing the Pentateuch, the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, Matthew is organized around five discourses or long speeches, the first of which is the Sermon on the Mount. 

Today’s Gospel reading is from the fifth and final discourse, the one Jesus gives to his disciples alone before he goes on to his crucifixion during Passover.  So, on the First Sunday in Advent, we’re actually back where we ended up last week, or nearly there.

Just as it seemed strange to end Pentecost with the crucifixion, it seems off-putting to begin Advent with today’s reading about the end of the world.   What we heard today is preceded by 45 verses of Jesus describing in gruesome detail the destruction of the Temple, political upheaval, and widespread violence.

But Matthew’s Apocalypse is our Good News.  Today, we are promised that even as everything seems to be falling apart and we don’t know what’s next, we can experience joy and live with hope.

That’s because Advent isn’t just about waiting.  It’s not simply looking forward to Jesus’ coming among us at Christmas or about Christ’s return at the end of time.   No, Advent is about preparation, about being ready.  It’s not enough to simply light the Advent candle and sit here, looking forward to singing Christmas Carols.

The need to be ready – to be wide awake and on the move – is made clear by the three parables that follow today’s reading: the wise bridesmaids who made sure they had enough oil in their lamps, the steward who took the talents given to him and invested them, and then the non- citizens or undocumented aliens (“the strangers”) who showed hospitality to the disciples (“the least of these”) who were carrying out the global mission Jesus had given to them.

In this season of Advent, it’s not easy to stay awake and stay active.  What Jesus describes in today’s reading seems very similar to what we are experiencing right now.  Institutions and norms are being destroyed.  Thousands are being tortured and terrorized.  Hunger is rising, and our air and water are being poisoned. 

It does feel like the end of the world.  Our minds and bodies are exhausted with fear and anxiety. The sensible thing to do is to join those so-called foolish bridesmaids who took a nap while waiting. 

What scares the life out of us is that we don’t know how much worse this is going to get.  When will there be another pandemic?  When will the stock market collapse and the economy tumble into recession?  Torn by uncertainty and apprehension, the smart money is follow the example of the steward who buries his talent in the ground.

But Matthew’s Gospel urges us to keep our eyes open and our hands busy. 

And we are able to stay awake and be prepared because we trust that the Risen Christ is present among us.  And we are able to trust that presence because we have been given the gift of faith.

In Matthew’s Gospel – unlike Mark’s Gospel – the disciples are not complete idiots and fools.  Nor, as in Luke’s Gospel, are they heroes.  Rather, they are flawed and sometimes failing – even scattering and abandoning Jesus at his arrest. 

But the disciples – and we today – have followed Jesus and have been taught by him.  As disciples, we have been given a measure of understanding and a little bit of faith.  And that is enough.  Jesus grabs our hand when we – like Peter – are sinking in the sea, and Jesus pulls us into the boat.

Even our small amount of faith is enough to grow and bear fruit: to pray, to heal, and – most important – to forgive.

In Matthew’s Gospel, forgiveness – binding and loosing – is what makes it possible for the community of disciples then and now to flourish.  This practice of forgiveness isn’t forgetting or overlooking big and small sins.  Rather, it is the radical acceptance of our shared failures and weakness because it is for our shared life together that Jesus gave up his life.

The big promise in Matthew’s Gospel – from verse one to the final chapter 28, verse 20 – is that where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name, he is present among us. 

In this Advent season of waiting and watching, we are not waiting alone.  We wait with each other, basking in our shared forgiveness. Right here with each other – and the Risen Christ – our future is certain.  Amen.

It’s All Tumbling Down!

We have this morning such huge contrasts – this gorgeous vision from Isaiah – “I am about to create new heaven and new earth, the former things will not come to mind but be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating!”…

And then Psalm 98, “Sing to the Lord for he has done marvelous things. Let the seas make a noise!” Remember, at Christmas we sing Joy to the World? It’s is based in this Psalm – and it wasn’t originally written as a Christmas carol but as a response to this Psalm – Sing to the Lord a new song! Joy! In righteousness shall he judge the peoples with equity.

And then we come to the gospel…destruction!

And it is all of a piece. Because we don’t get to that joy and this new heaven and earth without going through some real chaos. Some real destruction. Jesus points to the temple of which they are all so gaga – you are not looking at the heart of this. The heart of this is rotten. It has been built on self-aggrandizing pride, and it will all come tumbling down.

So – he says, when you see all the chaos that unfolds as a consequence of rulers not doing what the scripture enjoins them to do – to care for the widows and orphans and welcome the stranger – but when you see them instead massing more and more power and wealth to themselves, there are natural consequences to that. And the consequences to that is that these structures come tumbling down, they cannot stand.

This temple that they are looking at was built by Herod, a Roman collaborator, and it is dedicated to God, but it is built with Herod at the center, not the people and not God. It is a glittering golden ballroom if you will. A kind of “make Israel great again” project.

Friends, there is such a through line between then and now…you can just connect the dots… and Jesus says, “it’s going to all come tumbling down.

These rulers that care only for themselves, these massive building projects that do not have the people in mind, but only the pride of the ones at the top, and then people say, “look! Look! How big and beautiful all of this is!” But Jesus says, “it won’t stand. It will tumble and there will be massive displacement and disorder as a result. But human pride, wars, insurrections, plagues, famines – these have happened repeatedly throughout human history, before Jesus’ time, during Jesus’ time, after Jesus’ time, our time.

So the framing that Jesus gives us when we see all the chaos and disorder that follow in the wake of human pride is to see all of this as an opportunity to witness, an opportunity to continue doing the good work that we have been given to do – feed the hungry, house the homeless, visit the sick and those in prison and those in need. Welcome the stranger. Keep doing those things. Keep doing those things. Keep your eye on the ball.

And when they haul you before the magistrates, because of your good works, don’t worry. I’ll give you what to say. You just stand firm, my flock, he says to those disciples and to all of us who come after.

Don’t be weary in doing what is right, as our letter from 2nd Thessalonians tells us. Don’t get weary. Keep doing what I have called you to do.

Now let’s turn to that 2nd letter to the Thessalonians – because it has been used in ways that are not helpful – particularly this line that has been plucked out of context and used against people like SNAP recipients and others. “Those who are not willing to work should not eat.”

So I want to talk about this for a minute. Because what has been happening with some of those to whom this letter is addressed is that they are in fact doing what Jesus warns against – They are saying, “the end is near! Wars! Famines! Chaos! All the signs of the end are happening! The rapture is here! And they are going around being busybodies instead of quietly doing their work. I know that’s a pejorative term, but Paul is pointing out that all this buzzing around spreading rumors and conspiracy thinking is not a faithful response to whatever is historically happening

And he says – no – just go do your work. Don’t get weary in just doing what is right.

He did not write this for 21st century United States to say that anyone who doesn’t or can’t work is not going to receive any benefits. So let’s just be scripturally clear — have scriptural integrity.

The key line for us, the through line for us is, don’t be weary. In good times and in bad times – just keep the scriptural traditions of attending to the needs of the poor and the stranger. We are in a particularly challenging time – but we see Christians in our own times standing firm, regardless of what stones are thrown, or what politically motivated arrests are made.

I want to lift up two current letters to the church – one is from the Roman Catholic Bishops and one is from our own Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, U.S.A.

The Roman bishops write:

“To the clergy, religious, lay faithful, and all people of good will engaged in acts of solidarity with migrants and refugees, even at your own peril, (remember Jesus said, “don’t worry when they call you before the magistrates. They did it to me. They will do it to you.”) we commend you and encourage others to undertake similar manifestations of Christ’s love for those in need. We must all resist the temptation to apathy and instead with courage and hope act to truly live out Christ’s love that transcends borders.”

It’s a beautiful statement. And it’s a challenging statement. And our own Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe follows suit when he writes to the American church:

“We did not seek this predicament, but God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all.

This is not the same kind of patriotism that has guided our Episcopal Church U.S.A., since its founding in 1785, but this July Fourth, it may be the most faithful service we can render — both to the country we love and the God we serve.”

These are leading lights in the faithful body of Christians in our time and I wanted to bring them to you because they are so in line with our gospel reading and all the rest of our scripture today – we shout for joy in God’s creating a new heaven and new earth – but we go through the way of the cross, the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows, the way of stones and rulers tumbling down.”

This is the next to last Sunday in the gospel of Luke. We’ve been in the gospel of Luke for the past year. Next Sunday will be the Feast of Christ the King. We are at the end of this gospel. November 30th will be the 1st Sunday of Advent, when we begin a year-long pilgrimage through the Gospel of Matthew.

So this is the end of the gospel of Luke with Jesus pointing towards these systems that are going to come crashing down, and it’s going to get bad. Really bad. This is the last thing he preaches before being arrested and crucified.

And because we are wrapping up this gospel, this is the final piece, I want to just take us back to the beginning of Luke, Luke Chapter 1, in which Mary says virtually the same thing as Jesus. Remember, Jesus was raised by a very revolutionary kind of mom.

Remember she has been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. She is in danger because she is pregnant and not yet married. She goes to the hill country to take refuge with Elizabeth, who is also pregnant, with John, Jesus’ cousin. And when Elizabeth sees Mary, she says, “The babe in my womb leaps for joy because of the Savior you are carrying in your womb! Blessed are you among women!”

And Mary responds by praising God who has remembered the lowly estate of her and her people. This is a portion of her song – and just tell me if it doesn’t sound like what Jesus says years later.

“My soul magnifies the Lord

Because he has remembered his people

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has brought down the rulers

And lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

But the rich he has sent away empty away.”

That’s the beginning of the gospel – and now at the end we hear this good news of God’s new heaven and new earth, through the lens of the cross.

We don’t get to go magically from here to there. We get there through the Valley of the shadow of death – but we don’t go alone. We walk it with each other. We walk it with that great communion of saints we celebrated in early November. We walk it with the faithful of every generation. We walk through the way of the cross, to the new heaven and new earth, where the seas clap their hands and the hills ring out with joy.

Thanks be to God!