All Souls

The Resurrection Window from All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church

A sermon for All Souls Day, November 2, 2009. The scripture readings are Wisdom 3:1-9, Psalm 130, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 , and John 5:24-27.

There are several versions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. But especially during the American Civil War, Whitman visited the battle front and wrote about the wounded. At one point he searched the various hospitals, looking for his brother. And eventually, Whitman made his way to Washington, working in various capacities and volunteering as a nurse, visiting the wounded and dying.

In one section of Whitman’s Song of Myself, his experience informs his poetry and a question arises. The question comes from a little child, a child who (in the poem) has fingers-full of fresh, new, green grass.

A child asks, “What is the grass?” And Whitman meditates upon the answer. “How could I answer the child?” Whitman reflects. “I do not know what it is any more than he.” But he continues wondering,

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. [. . . . ]

And then the poet imagines who might be buried in such graves.

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps. [. . . . ]

And then the great question comes, the question that seems so right for this night of All Souls, a question we each must have asked before,

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

What becomes of those we love, when they die? What happens to us, when we die?

There are, of course, as many ways of answering the question as there are of asking. Some would suggest that when death occurs, that is it. The body, the mind, the soul… of of it, simply dies. Some religious might suggest that a part of the persons remains and perhaps returns in a different form. Those who continue to be influenced by Greek philosophy might imagine that while the body dies, the soul continues on to be reunited to its source. The Christian belief is that there is no splitting of the soul and body. Both die completely, but because of faith in Jesus Christ and the miracle of his resurrection, we too are raised with new spiritual bodies, again the body and soul are not separated. We call this new state of being “heaven,” understanding that it is not a geographic place, but a spiritual one.

The Church, through the ages, has also spoken of an in-between place, some have called purgatory. Especially in the Middle Ages, the idea of purgatory could seem literal and physical. The picture of a fiery purgatory in which people are perfected before being admitted into heaven was good for the business of getting people to behave, not to mention of raising vast sums of money, as offerings were made on behalf of the dead.


But if God’s grace is truly unending, if God is always working on us, drawing us to himself, why should we think for a second that God’s grace ends just because our bodies may die.

What becomes of us, when we die? Our scriptures tonight give us some answers.

The Wisdom of Solomon assures us that the “souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, an no torment will ever touch them.” Those who have died in faith are in the hands of God, and remember what those hands look like—they are hands that bear the scars of nails, hands that have withstood death on a cross, hands that offer peace, and extend love, and wipe away all tears.

In the Epistle, Saint Paul writes to a church that believes that Jesus is going to return soon and raise up everyone together. And so part of the community is worried about those who have already died, worried that they might not be raised along with those who are still living. Paul assures the church that time and sequence are overcome, and we will meet one another again, in the presence of God.

And in the Gospel, Jesus puts it plainly that whoever hears and believes has eternal life. It’s that simple. The judgment of Christ is judgment only in that calls the name of the those who have loved him, and in that calling, we recognize his voice through faith, and we respond. There is life, and there is life eternal.

When Walt Whitman asks the question about the people who have died, when he asks, “What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?” He then goes on to answer (in his way)

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Whatever our own particular belief about life after death, I do believe that “to die [will be] different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

Especially on this day, we offer our prayers for the faithful departed. It is not a matter so much of their needing our prayers. After all, if we strain our ears, we just might hear them praying for us. But we add our prayers to theirs, to join in the unending song of God’s love and purpose of love unending. May we be strengthened by the communion of Saints. May we feel their presence and know their love, even as we live and move and have our being in the eternal love of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

All Saints

Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven, by Fra Angelico, 1428-30 Tempera on wood, 32 x 63,5 cm National Gallery, London

A sermon for All Saints' Day, November 1, 2009. The lectionary readings are Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9, Psalm 24, Revelation 21:1-6a, and John 11:32-44. (The sermon is unusually brief because of a baptism and the reading of the names of the Faithful Departed.)


The great food writer, MFK Fisher once said that an appetizer is like an “overture to an opera.” It is a small amount of food that whets the appetite for what is to come. It alerts the palate, it readies the stomach, it wakes up the soul as if to say, “something really wonderful is about to come your way.”

All Saints’ Day is like an appetizer to a great meal. We have in the liturgy, in the music, in the readings from scripture, in the sharing of sacraments small signs of what is to come. Today is like an overture to a whole, grand, eternal life lived in the love of God.

The Gospel gives us a foretaste of the Resurrection. Lazarus has died. He has been Jesus’ friend; he is Mary and Martha’s brother, and he has died. Though the story is a rich one, and one that often comes up again for us in Lent, just before Easter, its placement on All Saints’ Day works with the rest of the liturgy to give us a foretaste of what is to come. Lazarus was resuscitated from death, but presumably he would still undergo a physical death at some point, hopefully as an old man, having lived a rich, long life. But the raising of Lazarus sets the stage for the raising of Jesus Christ. And his resurrection opens the heavens to us all.

When we baptize Jude in just a few minutes, we are reminded of our baptisms, but as we recall the salvation imagery in the baptismal prayers and as we receive holy water, we get a little bit of what is to come. The baptism we are about to celebrate gives us a sign of God’s promise to cleanse us from all sin, and to raise us into new life, clean, renewed and glistening with God’s love.

In Holy Communion we share bread and wine, transformed by prayer and mystery into the Real Presence of Christ, the gifts of God for the people of God. They are holy appetizers, whetting our appetite for that heavenly banquet where everyone gets enough to eat and there’s always more room at the table.

When I was in high school I played the bassoon and the saxophone, and each year would end up being a part of the pit orchestra for whatever musical our high school had decided to put on. I loved learning and playing the overture, because it gave creative musical snapshots of all that was to come. Maybe that’s one reason I love Sundays—because each Sunday as we say our prayers, as we use our minds to try to understand God through scripture, as we open our hearts more to follow Jesus, as we allow the Holy Spirit to perfect us… we rehearse for the big number where we are joined with a cast of thousands, of millions, really—with us are all the saints, martyrs, angels and archangels, matriarchs, patriarchs, friends, enemies, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, everyone-- all of us together in one joyful, unending song of praise and joy in God.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” For now, it’s only a taste, but it is the taste of things to come.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Between seeing and believing

A sermon for the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, October 25, 2009. The lectionary readings are Jeremiah 31:7-9, Psalm 126 , Hebrews 7:23-28, and Mark 10:46-52.


The old phrase has it that “seeing is believing,” and in the real world where we live, that’s often the way we go about things. As politicians spin and promise, we might say “well, seeing is believing.” When a friend says she’s going to give up caffeine (and we know her to be a six-cup-a-day person), we might say something encouraging to her but think to ourselves, “well, seeing is believing.”

Sometimes we feel like we have to see the result, the promised end, the activity completed, before we can believe what has been promised. But today’s Gospel challenges us to do something else—to believe, first. It encourages us to step out, to move forward with belief, and then to trust that our belief will take us to a new place of seeing.

The story we heard a few minutes ago about Bartimaeus takes place as Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. It is near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. All this time, Jesus has offered his disciples an extended lesson on seeing and believing, telling them that the kingdom of God is in their midst, if they will only see it. He tells them about God’s love for all people, if they will just see it. Jesus tells them that they (and we) will all see God, one day. But the disciples keep scratching their heads, trying to understand, trying to make it all fit together, trying to make sense out of what Jesus is doing in their midst. The disciples are like the person who sees a rainbow, but then runs inside to get the camera. By the time they’ve returned, the rainbow is gone. Over and over again the disciples miss the miracle because they’re reasoning, or arguing, or trying to predict Jesus’ next move. While Jesus talks about taking up one’s cross, and Jesus shows them a little child as the example of what it means to serve others, the disciples are wondering who will be the greatest when Jesus comes into his power.

There is some biblical irony when the disciples (who often are blinded by their own arrogance, their own egos, their own hopes, even), encounter this Bartimaeus, who is really blind. And yet, even with his blindness, Bartimaeus sees Jesus for who he is. Bartimaeus lets his faith take him forward, lead him into the presence of Jesus, and risk by asking Jesus for the thing he wants.

He hears Jesus approaching and yells, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” His words must have played right into the disciples’ highest hopes for Jesus, hopes that Jesus would be recognized as the Messiah, the rightful heir to the kingdom of David, and that by popular demand, the Romans occupation would be overthrown and Jesus would be chosen as king, Son of David. Mark the evangelist, when he wrote down this story, plays with the various kinds of blindness, of seeing and not seeing, of understanding and not understanding. Here Bartimaeus gets it partially right: Jesus will be crowned king, but it will look far different from what anyone expects. Even though Bartimaeus is blind, even though he only partially understands who Jesus in, nothing keeps him from calling out.

Jesus hears the faith in Bartimaeus’s voice. Jesus hears his desperation and his suffering. Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus says, “let me see again.” Jesus says that the man’s faith has made him well, and so sends the man off. Bartimaeus regains his sight, but instead of going off, he begins to follow Jesus, instead.

But healing in our world doesn’t always come that quickly or easily, does it? Too many of us, too many we know, have wrestled with illness or grief or addiction for too long, and perhaps have asked for help with just as faithful prayers as Bartimaeus. And yet, the healing hasn’t happened yet.

The people who heard Jeremiah’s words so long ago, words we heard in our first reading this morning, must have been a little cynical. What evidence did they have that God was truly going to help them return home? Uprooted, robbed of home and livelihood, a people turned into refugees, how should they hear these happy words of Jeremiah?

I think they were able to hear them with faith. There is a place—a holy place, in fact—that exists somewhere between seeing and believing. That middle place is the place of faith. With faith we wrestle, we listen for God, we cry, we might yell and scream at God. But we also notice, and we begin to hear, little by little, the whisper of God’s voice. We feel the nudge of God’s hand reaching for our own, to pull us into some new place.

For Bartimaeus, faith made him well. For us, faith can keep us alive in God especially when we can’t quite believe, and especially when we can’t quite see what God would have us see. Faith makes us well.

The Letter to the Hebrews (not in today’s Epistle, but in chapter 11) reminds us that, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Of all the things that help us with faith, laughter is one of the most important. Frederic Buechner brings laughter into the idea of faith. He remembers the old story of Abraham and Sarah, when the three angels tell Sarah that she’ll have a child, at the age of ninety. Abraham “falls on his face and laughs.” And Sarah laughs too. And so, when she gives birth to a son, it’s no wonder that she names the child “Isaac” or, “laughter” in Hebrew.

Buechner says that faith is surely the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” but faith is also about laughter at the outrageousness of God’s work in our world.

When people hear some of my hopes for this parish, their first response laughter. Where will we get the money? Where will we get the leadership? When we begin to dream not only of an elevator and universally accessible bathrooms, but begin to imagine a building that is updated, energy efficient, and fully open to the community, then laughter comes. Sometime the laughter is followed quickly by tears, as we acknowledge the meager resources around us. But that’s where the faith comes in. I have tremendous faith that God wants us to be good stewards of being a church with a parking lot, near a Metro stop, in Washington, DC. With laughter, and with faith, our belief in God’s goodness and love for all people will help us get to a place of seeing change and growth.

And so we live between seeing and believing, in the place of faith, grateful that it is also a place of laughter. It is filled with laughter because God is doing amazing things among us, and if we allow our faith to move us forward, we will come to that place where we laugh together, we laugh loudly, and we laugh with God into eternity.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Which cup?

A sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 18, 2009. The lectionary readings are Isaiah 53:4-12, Psalm 91:9-16, Hebrews 5:1-10, and Mark 10:35-45.

At yesterday’s wedding the smallest of the flower girls looked like she was going to make it. Though at her first entrance, there was a slight detour as she circled the baptismal font and almost headed off down the other aisle, she was turned around and directed toward the altar. She made it down the aisle, tugging at her dress, fussing with the bow, carrying her little bouquet of flowers, and also carrying a bright pink “sippy cup.” Who knows what she had in her sippy cup, but whatever it was, it was prized stuff. Once she got to the front of the church, she spoke to her mother, who was a bridesmaid, and then she was collected by her father. And then the screaming began. At first it seemed like she was upset not to be up front, or upset to be separated from her mother. But then in the middle of the bawling and howling, two words could be made out: “sippy cup.” It turned out that somehow the valued cup was with mom, and little Jossilyn didn’t care so much about the pretty dress she was wearing, the flowers that were hers, or even the attention she was getting. She wanted her cup. (As you might imagine, she got her cup, and things sort of settled down.)

In many office kitchens, most church kitchens, and just about every religious retreat house you can find, if you want a cup of coffee or tea, you’re faced with a question: Which cup do you choose? Different colors, different sizes, and most having on them the name of a product, mission, a school, or a church. Most people, whether consciously or unconsciously, tend to choose a cup they want to be identified with. If you’ve chosen it with care, your coffee cup says something about who you are, where you’re from, or what you’re interested in. Not long ago I was in such a place, and we all chose our cups. One person found a cup with angels on it. Another picked one advertising his alma mater. I found one from the church where, years ago on a cold and rainy All Saints’ Day, I heard Duruflé’s Requiem for the first time, live. I was happy to be identified with that church and happy to drink from that cup.

In today’s gospel Jesus asks James and John if they are sure they’ve chosen the right cup. They have left their former lives; they’ve begun to follow Jesus. But he asks them, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” “Are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” These brothers, who Jesus nicknamed “sons of thunder,” thunder forth and respond, “Yes. We are able.”

In today’s Gospel and in several other places, Jesus uses the cup as a symbol, as an image that holds within it a number of different things. The cup from which Jesus drinks holds suffering. It is layered with service and sacrifice. But finally, it is a cup that overflows with joy.

In the Garden of Gethsemane we see the cup of suffering. Jesus prays in agony. His friends fall asleep. The authorities are coming. And he prays to the Father, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Through his acceptance, through his prayer and through the love that he continues to show others, Jesus begins to transform the cup of suffering into a cup of redemption.

We need to say one thing for certain: and that is, that suffering is not always changed into redemption. Suffering, itself, is not to be glorified. Children who die of AIDS, women who die from abuse, the elderly who die alone and forgotten—this kind of suffering is pointless. There is no redemption in it and we blaspheme if we in any way suggest that it might be a part of God’s will. Rather, it is the will of God to redeem, to bring to life, to restore and we are most faithful when we do everything we can to lift one another out of such suffering.


But there is another kind of suffering. Suffering that is on behalf of others is of a different quality. It is a different cup altogether. In today’s first reading Isaiah sings of a Suffering Servant. In words we also read on Good Friday, we typically see Jesus as the one who has “borne our infirmities and carried our diseases. . . by whose bruises we are healed.” But the interpretation of Isaiah by faithful Jews before Jesus (and after) is also relevant. Israel understood itself as the suffering servant. As the nation suffered but remained faithful, others would be see and would be brought to God. Through the suffering of a remnant, the whole world might be saved. The idea that redemptive suffering is communal rather than individual may sound odd in a culture as self-focused as ours. But I think about it for a minute, it invites me to worry less about what I, alone, might accomplish. It encourages me to think and pray about what we might all be called to do together. In what ways might we be called to suffer so that others might know redemption and life? (Not a popular question, and not a question easily answered.)

When Jesus asks James and John if they are able, he is asking if they are able to endure suffering. He is also asking if they are willing to live a life of service. Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of God is not built on power or greatness, but on serving one another.

A few years ago Richard Meier wrote a little book called, “one anothering.” He reminds us of how often Jesus uses that term: “love one another,” “bear one another’s burdens,” “submit to one another,” and “encourage one another.” Our faith comes alive when we are able to serve one another—not just in volunteering or being busy or performing tasks—but really letting down our guard, allowing the other person closer, and even being open to being changed by the other. The cup of service is one the disciples drink from. They share this cup and they pass it on.
We continue to pass it on. After every Eucharist we pray that we might be sent into the world to love and serve God. Well, we accomplish that “loving and serving” not in the abstract, but by loving and serving those made in God’s image.

Jesus drinks and shares a cup of suffering and a cup of service, but the cup he lifts highest and offers to all is, in the end, filled with joy and celebration. It is, for lack of a better term, a victory cup. It is beyond any hope of a Holy Grail because as we share this cup of the blood of Christ, we really drink in everlasting life, here, together and everywhere the Mass is celebrated.

In this Gospel where Jesus explains that greatness comes through service, and honor comes through sacrifice, he also asks if the disciples are truly able to undergo a baptism like his. Just as Moses led people through the water from slavery to freedom, baptism with Jesus submerges us in death. It is a death to sin. A death to the power of the world. A death to the demands of the devil. It is a death to self and a dying to selfishness. But we are brought out of death into new life. Baptism changes us, it changes everything and we are made new. We are born again and enabled through confession and forgiveness to be born again and again and again. If we choose it, that is.

We have many choices, of course. Too often we begin trying to live a good life, giving occasional attention to God, but gradually drinking more and more of this world. Before we know it we are satiated with ourselves, with work, with relationships, with success, with our goals and plans and schedules. We loose our sense of taste for things holy. And so, to sip of religion can at first seem bitter and strange.

Austin Farrer describes this taste as “God’s goodness” on our palates, a taste with a “new and unthought-of flavor”. “God’s goodness,” Farrer writes, “which we taste in wine and in bread, in friendship and in every blessed thing, is the love that died in agony for our salvation. That is where the taste of it comes out; yet it is not a bitter taste; it is the wine of everlasting joy.” (The Brink of Mystery, p. 67)

And so, the suffering, the service, and the sacrifice, are all poured into one cup, one cup that overruns with everlasting joy. Which cup will we choose? Strengthened by the risen Christ, may we choose wisely, with faith and with love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Who can be saved?

Detail from the All Souls Window, All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church, Washington, DC

A sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 11, 2009. The lectionary readings are Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, and Mark 10:17-31.


“Who can be saved?” the disciples ask.

Who, indeed, can be saved?

Though we may not always use that kind of language, and though we may even be a little embarrassed by the vocabulary of “the saved,” and the “not saved,” we should be also be honest, I think. We do want to be saved. Salvation is the goal. That’s why we’re here.

Salvation looks like many different things, depending on our perspective.
For some, salvation looks like eternal life;
for others, it looks like healthy children.
For one or two, salvation might be like a day without pain, given a chronic condition that seems not to respond to medicine, or careful living, or even prayer.

For others, salvation has more communal characteristics, it is saving on a more global scale. Salvation may look like equal rights, regardless of race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or income, or physical or intellectual ability, or anything else.

And for still yet others, “being saved” might be as simple as moment or two that are worry and burden-free—not worried (for the minute) about the aging parent, no longer worried about the child who can’t quite fit in, no longer worried about the spouse who is looking for work, just no longer anxious, or preoccupied, but alive.

We do want salvation. And so, there’s a part of us that perhaps can relate to person in today’s gospel. He runs up to Jesus, excited, asking, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus has him reflect on the commandments, the basics. The man says, “oh yes, well, I’m pretty good with all of those.” “I haven’t killed anyone, I honor my parents, I don’t steal.” But then, Jesus says to the man, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man hears this and is shocked. He goes away, grieving.

But that’s not the real point of the story. The story continues.

The disciples see this and they’re confused. Here is this very good guy, who keeps all the commandments. He does exactly what the whole tradition has taught. He keeps the Sabbath day, he doesn’t lie, he certainly doesn’t murder. But then Jesus seems to reinterpret everything. He changes the rules. He broadens the perspective. In some ways he blows apart the whole idea of what it meant to follow God.

It’s almost like another story in scripture, the story of the Prodigal Son. You remember it’s where there’s an older brother who has done all the right things, followed all the rules, stayed at home and worked hard, dedicated his life to the father and the farm, and then there’s this younger brother. The younger brother is the cut-up who goes out, plays hard, and squanders his inheritance. He returns home humble, like a beggar. But it’s for the younger brother that the father throws the big party, gives all the attention, and makes the special feast. The older brother feels like the rules have been changed on him. He’s angry, he’s bitter, and (I bet) he’s more than a little bit jealous.

Both the older brother in the Prodigal Son story and the rich man in today’s story hear what should be good news from Jesus: that one cannot buy or earn the love of God. And they, these characters are so invested (and I use that word on purpose)—they are invested in all that they have imagined they are doing for and giving to God, and so they want their return. Jesus shows that the economics of God’s love work very differently.

The disciples ask Jesus, “Ok, then, who can be saved?” But as someone has pointed out, Jesus doesn’t answer this question. Instead, he poses the real question: Not, “who can be saved,” but “Who can do the saving.” And that question, Jesus answers.

It is God and God alone who does the saving. In God’s own way, in God’s own time, in God’s lavish self-giving, self-offering, overflowing love.

God saves us. God saves us from ourselves. God saves us from becoming too attached to our possessions, to our ideas, to our friends, to our family, even to our own sense of ourselves.

In both our reading from the Prophet Amos and our Gospel, there’s an aspect of the reading that follows an expected pattern, but then there’s some ambiguity at the end. There’s some room within what some might see as a forgone conclusion. There’s room for us to move toward God. There’s room for God’s grace to move in us.

Amos thunders about injustice and oppression. His words often indict the people, and he predicts the culture’s crumbling in, upon itself, because of its greed, because of its selfishness, because it ignores the way of God. But then Amos has these words,

Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said.
Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate;[and] it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

“It may be,” says Amos. In other words, the future of those who seek God is not set in stone. It is open for change, for growth, for repentance, for (dare I say it) salvation.

Likewise, in the Gospel, one reading can have story of the rich man and Jesus end in a pretty sad way. Jesus says to the man, “You lack one thing, go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and follow me.” And we’re told that “when [the man] heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” It’s not that he was rich, that was the problem. The rich are not better nor worse than the poor. What is the problem is that this man is reluctant to follow Jesus, to let loose of the things that weigh him down, and to move toward salvation. He went away grieving. But I don’t think the story really ends.

We don’t know if the man turned around and met up with Jesus the next day. We don’t know if later, after hearing about the amazing events in Jerusalem: Jesus’ crucifixion, his death on the cross, his rising again in glory… that the man may have yet had a change of heart and decided to follow Jesus. The story leaves room for us to imagine. It leaves room for grace, just as our own lives—no matter where we might be in our own calling to follow Jesus, no matter what might currently stand in the way of our being more faithful disciples of Jesus, not matter what might seem to be in our way of living freely--- there is room for us to respond to God. There is room for God’s justice to smash the barriers, God’s mercy to forget all sin, and God’s grace to break through and bring us closer.

From time to time, in train stations and in public places, we may meet those earnest believers who look at us and ask, “Have you been saved?” I have a friend who has a great answer. He looks these people dead in the eye, smiles, and says, “Every day, friend. Every day, I’m saved.”

The good news of Jesus Christ is that God is eager to take away whatever burdens us, whatever makes us sluggish to follow him, whatever keeps us from love. God offers to empty our hands, to take whatever we cling to, and gently lay it aside, so that our hands may be empty—our hands and our hearts, so that we might receive the love of God for this live and the next.

With God, all things are possible. Who can be saved? Every single one of us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Adam, Eve, You and Me

Adam and Eve, Sadao Watanabe, (1913-1996)

A sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 4, 2009. The lectionary readings are Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12, and Mark 10:2-16.


If I were a smart rector, this is one of those days when I would have had an assistant or a seminarian preach on these readings from scriptures. Alas, I’m not a very smart rector.

If you happed to hear The Splendid Table on the radio yesterday, then you learned what I learned about “diner lingo.” Diner lingo is that strange language that waiters and waitresses yell through a window into the back kitchen. Then, miraculously, recognizable food is brought out that in some mysterious way corresponds with the strange-sounding names of dishes. I learned yesterday what a ‘first lady with Bronx vanilla” is. It turns out that the “first lady” was Eve, and since Eve came from Adam’s extra rib, a “First Lady” is an order of spare ribs. Bronx vanilla is the term for garlic.

As funny as that vocabulary is, it becomes less funny when we realize that for some people, that is about as deep as their knowledge of scripture every goes. Genesis 2 (from which today’s first lesson comes) does indeed describe Eve as having come from Adam’s rib. But to believe that Eve was made from Adam (thereby implying a kind of order to the universe: male, first; female, second) is to ignore Genesis 1, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). If we lean too heavily on imagery from Genesis, or indeed, from the Old Testament, we will get a strange view of marriage (especially when we factor in the multiple wives of patriarchs and kings.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage recently, and the issue came up just last week at a meeting. I was at a meeting with a few faculty and administrators from Virginia Theological Seminary, the largest seminary of the Episcopal Church. The seminary was interested in meeting with a number of clergy from the area to help us know what’s going on with the seminary, and also to ask us how the seminary might be helpful to us in our parishes. Representatives from the seminary talked about the school’s mission and programs, and several of the clergy asked questions. When it came to me, I managed to somehow bring the conversation into a much more serious, complicated place than I had intended.

I said that I would be grateful if the seminary were to offer a little guidance or insight into the issues around marriage, around holy union, around two people coming together in love and celebrating that love in front of other Christians, and asking the Church offer its blessing. I explained to them that I find I’m spending a lot of time thinking about marriage. I am looking at scriptures, sorting through tradition, using all the reason I have and trying to discern what it might mean for two people to be in an honest, loving, responsible and mature relationship, and have that relationship blessed by the Church.

I speak out of my own reality as a parish priest. When couples who want to be married come to me —whether they are young or older, male and female, or male & male, or female & female-- we are usually confronted with the same problem. The Church offers Rite 1 or Rite 2 as forms for marriage, but often, the Prayer Book rites do not even remotely speak to the reality of the relationship that is presented. Male and female couples have often lived together for some time before deciding to be married legally, and take on the 1,138 benefits offered by federally recognized marriage. Same gendered couples are often looking to ensure as much as possible the safety of their child, or their home, or their rights to visit one another in a hospital.

With some states making it legal for same-sex marriage, with the District talking about it, and with many of our futures, perhaps about to be decided upon by the courts… I raised my question at that meeting last week because I think the Church needs to do some hard praying, and studying, and thinking, and talking about marriage. Not many people seem to be doing this, though a good start can be found in the essays published last summer by the Chicago Consultation, Christian Holiness and Human Sexuality: A Study Guide for Episcopalians.

Today’s scriptures seem to talk about marriage, but they also point out enormous problems for our being honest about what marriage is in our culture, in our time, and in our own lives. We have spoken of some of the complications brought up by the Genesis passage, but the Gospel, even though it seems as though Jesus is giving some clear indications of his opinions, also leaves us with questions.

The Pharisees are trying to test Jesus. They want to make him look foolish and they want to make him sound heretical. Rather than ask him a reasonable question, they go right to what was probably then (as now) a very emotionally charged topic. They ask, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus plays it cool. “What did Moses command you?” he asks. They repeat the law as their tradition kept it. But to comment on that law, Jesus adds, “Yes, that’s the law, [but it’s only there] for your hardness of heart.” Jesus then goes on to quote Genesis, as though to recite the law further, the basic facts, and the standard answer. But then Jesus adds, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Or, as our Prayer Book and many a wedding put it, “Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.”

In other words, Jesus wants to shift the conversation to be one about the quality of the relationship, one that truly celebrates marriage as the total giving of one person to the other. The two become one. Even when he’s put in a corner and feels like he has to speak about divorce, it doesn’t seem very much like Jesus’ heart is in it. We can also recall that whenever Jesus meets someone who falls short of the Law of Moses, Jesus’ impulse is to forgive, and to help the person look forward, not look backward.

Jesus is saying to the Pharisees that this is not just a legal arrangement. The state can take care of that part of things. But when it comes real marriage, we’re talking about two human beings, two children of God. When it is the will of God for two people to walk as one, this is a sacred bond—not the sort of thing for a bunch of old Pharisees to be arguing about in the square, but the sort of thing to bring two people into a silence before God.

That “silence before God” seems like the mark of a real relationship, a true marriage. I’ve had the great fortune of officiating at many weddings and blessings of relationships. One of the very best was with a man and woman who were 53 years old and 55 years old, respectively. It was the first marriage for both of them. The bride’s parents were there. The groom’s parents were there. And about 30 other people where there, in a small, un-air-conditioned chapel in August. The bride was crying, the groom was crying. I was crying. Because we—none of us—could explain the love that was overtaking us all. It was not of our doing. It was way beyond any doing of the state or any legal entity: It was of God. And we somehow, in that moment, had the sense and the wisdom to let it happen, to say thank you to God, and to receive God’s blessing.

Both politicians and preachers in our day have tried to make marriage into a stale convention of frozen roles and duties, baptized by middle-class values, and supposedly “protected by law.” But the biblical images for marriage are diverse and far, far messier. Those called into relationship with one another are also called into relationship with God, and when God is introduced into the relationship, he can sometimes seem like an unwelcome intruder. With God in my relationship, it means that I might have to look as some parts of myself I might rather ignore. It might mean that I have to talk to my beloved in a different way, that I might need to forgive, to show mercy, to be kind, and sacrifice for the other.

The courts and politicians will continue to try to sort out what they think marriage is. But as the Church, we need to do our own homework. We need to do some serious biblical work, some good theology, some deep praying, and some genuine listening to one another as we discern God’s spirit for our time and the future. We will continue to wrestle with issues around marriage and union, and what it means to live in holy relationship with one another. But as we enter into those conversations, as we pray about marriage and the way in which it might find expression in our culture, may we avoid the tactics of the Pharisees, and may we follow more truly the way of Christ, the way of ever-expanding, ever-enlarging, ever-overflowing Love.

May God guide us in love, in grace, and in truth.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Being Salty

A sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, September 27, 2009. The lectionary readings are Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29, Psalm 19:7-14, James 5:13-20, and Mark 9:38-50.


There was a Roman Catholic man in New York who would visit the church I served for all of the high feast days. He liked our music, he liked our friendliness, and he really like the food at our receptions. But at every reception or coffee hour, he would eventually corner me. It would have been fine to talk with him, except that he would only talk about one thing: he always wanted to tell me about something the Roman Catholic Church had done, or something a bishop had said, or the latest doings of the Pope. When I first met this man, I would simply say to him, “you understand this is an Episcopal Church, right?” But it didn’t matter. This man wanted to get my opinion on things and he wanted me to agree with him that such and such a statement was, indeed, wrongheaded.

I think of my acquaintance in New York when I read today’s Gospel. At the beginning of the Gospel, the disciples are all in an uproar—about other disciples. It seems that there are other disciples who are casting out demons in the name of Jesus, and yet, they’re not close followers of the present group. The disciples in front of Jesus want him to criticize the others, to condemn them, and to share in the outrage. But Jesus doesn’t go for it. Instead, he basically says that if someone is not against him, then it’s all right. They’re doing no harm. Don’t worry so much about them.

And then Jesus gets personal. It’s the things in your own life that you should pay attention to, Jesus says. What is it in YOUR life that causes you to sin? Take care of business at home, before trying to solve all your neighbor’s problems.

A similar problem happens to that early community of belief around Moses. Moses is overwhelmed. He complains to God about it, and God suggests he get some helpers. So Moses appoints 70 elders to serve as leaders among the people. But then there are squabbles. “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp,” a young man reports. Joshua buys into the anxiety and agrees that this is a problem. “My lord Moses, stop them!” But Moses says “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!”

This problem of losing focus on one’s own doings and starting to worry about others is not confined to the times of Moses or of Jesus. We continue to do this sort of thing both in our own church, among other churches, and outside of church.

At home, one group every once in a while begins to feel that another group is getting all the attention, or getting all the money, or getting all the volunteers, or getting the attention of the rector. More often than not, if the group that feels ignored would simply focus a little more on its own tasks, its visibility would rise, it would get a budget request in on time, and volunteers would be attracted to the group’s energy and fun.

As a Christian, it’s very easy for me to worry about what the Baptists are saying, or what the Roman Catholics are doing, or even what other Episcopalians are doing—the ones on the far left unnerve me every bit as the much as the ones on the far right. But when I’m at my most healthy, I worry less about what everybody else is doing, and I begin to focus on what we’re doing here at All Souls. Are we reaching out as we should? Are we including everyone? Are we paying attention to our neighbors? Are we giving our time, our money, our talent to God sacrificially?

And we all know this is not uniquely a religious problem. Wherever we work, or wherever we live, the coworker or the neighbor can sometimes draw our attention away from what should be our priorities. We worry about the money others make rather than trying to figure out how to enhance our own resume. We worry about the person down the hall who has gotten a promotion—even though we didn’t want the job, we think we would have had a better choice. And on and on the list goes.

Today’s Gospel ends by encouraging the disciples to be salty, to be distinctive, to stand out, and not to be stale, or just to fit in blandly. Too much salt can (of course) make everything taste the same. But with careful salting, all the other flavors are enhanced and brought to new life.

May we learn to be salty people while not being bothered by the saltiness of others.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Distractions

A Vision of Hildegard of Bingen

A sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 20, 2009. The lectionary readings are Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22, Psalm 54 , James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a, and Mark 9:30-37.


In the Gospel this morning, Jesus tries to tell the disciples something vitally important, but the disciples are distracted. Jesus and the disciples are traveling and Jesus lays it all out to them as he says, “The Son of man will be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him; and three days after he is killed, he will rise again.” But the disciples aren’t really listening. They are distracted. They are thinking about, among other things, their own futures. They’re anticipating Jesus coming into power, maybe Jesus going into Jerusalem and taking over, and so the disciples are busy wondering about which of them will be the greatest. Which of them will have the responsible job? Which of them will be noticed, will be thanked, will be rewarded?

Distractions get the best of all of us sometimes, don’t they? Whether it’s in the middle of a project, while driving somewhere, while talking to a friend, or maybe (if not especially) when we’re trying to pray. Perhaps we are distracted now—the traffic, the person across the room, the light coming through the windows, unfinished conversations, things left undone. I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s hard for me to live in the present, in this very moment, without being distracted by either the past or the future. I love the past (as I have reconstructed it, of course). Dwelling in the past, I can hold on to old resentments, continuing to build the case to justify myself. I can replay heroic actions, like watching a videotape of me, again and again and again. Or I live in the future. Maybe you do that too—we live in that place where we finally have the right job, where we finally meet the right person, when we finally have the right apartment or house, or ------- you can fill in the blank. When I think of my own tendency to be so easily distracted, I can begin to understand some of what the disciples must have been dealing with.

Jesus dispels the distractions of the disciples with simple words. The drama of the past, the endless possibilities of the future all crumble as Jesus says, probably very quietly: “To be first, one must be the last of all. To be first, one must be the servant of all.”

And then Jesus takes a little child—probably much like any other child—helpless, vulnerable, and needy. And he says “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not [only] me but [also] the one who sent me.”

We miss the point if we romanticize the child. Children in Jesus’ day were not viewed as sweet and innocent and cute. They had no rights. They were not viewed as citizens. Some were viewed as useful, if they were able to help with work, but beyond that, they were mostly to be ignored until they grew up and could help with the work. As Frederick Buechner puts it: Jesus is saying that people who get into heaven are people who, like children, live with their hands open more than with their fists clenched. They are people who, like children, are so relatively unburdened by preconceptions that if somebody says there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they are perfectly willing to go take a look for themselves. Children can often tell the difference between a phony and the real thing. It is we who are distracted by appearances.

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not [only] me but [also] the one who sent me.” Somehow we find Christ in the midst of those who can give us nothing in return.

The first reading this morning also has something to say about distractions. From the Wisdom of Solomon, there is talk about the ungodly—but when you think about them, they’re really just people who are suffering from a major case of distraction. Not only do they enjoy the good gifts of God, they become distracted by them and begin to base their lives upon it. The ungodly become so distracted by their inflated sense of power and importance that they begin to grasp for more, and they oppress those who have less.

Greatness is a distraction. Importance is a distraction. The past can be a distraction. Dwelling too much in the future, can be a distraction.

If you notice in scripture, so often, as much as anything else, Jesus calls from distraction. He calls us to attention. He calls us to absolute attention. (Simone Weil would remind us that this, “absolute attention” is prayer.) Jesus calls into the present, the concrete, the real—the salty sea water underneath, the fresh, clean water from a well, the mud of the earth that becomes healing balm, the freshly caught fish – lunch for 5,000 or so. The bread, the wine, the water, the blood.

Teresa of Avila, the 16th century nun and mystic, knew the overwhelming force of distraction. As she put it in the Way of Perfection, she felt it her calling to offer a little guidance to those with “souls and minds so scattered that they are like wild horses no one can stop.” And so she offers a kind of prayer, a method of prayer, if you will, that has been called the practice of “recollection.” Teresa reminds us that the most important aspect of prayer—whether it’s at the beginning, it’s distracted and frustrated middle, and even at its ending—is to remember that God is near. God is very, very near.

Over and over again, if we allow it, the words of Jesus, the presence of Christ, will disrupt our distractions, and like the prodigal son, we are brought to ourselves again. The love and power of Christ works on us and in us both through distractions and attentiveness. It creates unity, and so through the Spirit we are oned with Christ, and with Christ we are oned with the Creator.

Jesus wants us to know fully and clearly what the Gospel of Mark sometimes casts as a great secret—Jesus will die and rise again. We, on the other side of Easter, know this not as a secret but as a truth to be proclaimed throughout the world, even in Washington. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Even with all our distractions, we, as his body in the world, already have his life in us. In him, we die and rise again, in faith, in life, and in life eternal.

May God speak to us even in our distractions that we may be brought again and again to the unity that is love eternal.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.