Up a High Mountain

There they stand, hundreds of them, in southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras: massive limestone pyramids, flat on top, with stone staircases up one side. They were built by the ancient Maya people, mostly between 250 and 900 AD. Many of them reach almost 200 feet in height. They stand in complex cities that once contained as many as 3,000 buildings. The people who built these massive structures were literate – they had a hieroglyphic writing system, similar to that of the ancient Egyptians, although using different characters. They also had a complex calendar, an astrological system, and a unique mythology. Their writings tell us that their massive buildings were temples, used for many different religious ceremonies. The people considered these temples to be mountains that would allow their priests who conducted the many ceremonies on top of them to draw near to the gods.

Were the Mayas right? Do we need to climb mountains to draw near to God? Certainly our own Scriptures are full of stories of people having mountain-top encounters with God. Strange things seem to happen on mountains. Almost every time Scripture mentions a mountain, we know that there will be an encounter with the Divine, a terrifying, mysterious, cloud-shrouded, ultimately inexplicable experience of nearness to the Holy One.

In our reading from the book of Exodus, Moses is summoned by the Holy One, the God whose name is only a form of the verb “to be.” As Moses ascends the mountain, he enters into a “cloud of unknowing,” a mysterious space where all is shrouded in mystery. It is from this space, this space of encounter with God, that Moses receives the tablets of the Law, the Law that will define Israel as a nation, the Law for which Moses will forever be named transmitter and interpreter.

At the end of his life, Moses has another, a different kind of mountain-top experience. As we hear at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses knows that he is close to death. He has blessed the people whom he led through the wilderness and prepared Joshua to succeed him. Again God leads Moses up a mountain. As Deuteronomy tells us, “Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain – that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees – as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants;”’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command.”

In our gospel reading for today, we hear of yet another kind of mountain-top experience. In the passage before today’s reading, Jesus has heard Peter declare him to be the Messiah, God’s Anointed. Perhaps to clarify for Peter and his other friends just what “messiah” means, Jesus then warns his friends that he is heading to Jerusalem, and that he will die there.

“Six days later,” we are told, Jesus leads three of his closest friends up an unnamed mountain. On this mountain the three also have an encounter with the Divine, a mysterious, inexplicable, even terrifying experience. They see Jesus in all his glory, they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the Law of Moses and the promises of the prophets, and they hear that Jesus is the one on whom they are to model their own lives.

Throughout the centuries, in our own tradition, and in the traditions of other faith communities, saints and others close to God have had similar experiences, similar encounters with the Divine. Some encounters have been on mountains, some in other “thin places,” as Celtic spirituality calls those places where the veil separating heaven and earth becomes “thin” enough for us to get a glimpse of the divine reality that grounds our lives.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of deep prayer. Throughout his life he struggled to discern God’s will. As he endured attack dogs, fire hoses, and angry, rock-throwing mobs, he often sought reassurance in prayer that he was on the right path. One night he was sitting alone in prayer at his kitchen table. He heard what he called an “inner voice” telling him to do what he knew was right. From then on, he felt sure that God was leading him, and he was able to courageously lead his people to face what lay ahead.

King’s trust in God’s leading led him eventually to Memphis, to participate in a strike by city sanitation workers. In his speech on April 3, 1968, he encouraged the workers to persevere in their struggle and to remain united. Then, echoing Moses, he said, “Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Twenty-four hours later, King was cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

Do these mountain-top encounters mean anything to us? Often such experiences are mysterious, even indescribable. Yet those who encounter God this way, who have this kind of epiphany, come down from the mountain transformed. They are not the same people! After his experience of receiving God’s Law, Moses had a deeper relationship with God and was a stronger, more effective leader as the Israelites journeyed to the Promised Land. Jesus’ friends caught a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature, an inkling of his glory. As they descended the mountain they were able to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, perhaps reassured that they had made the right decision in staying with him. Like Jesus, Martin Luther King continued to work with the sanitation workers, despite his premonition of his approaching martyrdom.

And we ourselves? Yes, strange, even terrifying, things may happen on mountain tops and other thin places. But we need these mountain-top experiences. We need these times when God comes near, to reassure us and to challenge us. With the old spiritual we may sometimes sing, “Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain….” Then we need God to reassure us that we are on the right path in committing our lives to Jesus’ way – just as his friends did. We also need God to challenge us, and even to transform us. We need God to help us change the way we see the world. Trust me, once you have had an encounter with the Holy One, once you’ve glimpsed God’s future as it is revealed in Jesus, it cannot be business as usual. You are not the same person. Having glimpsed his reality and seen his glory, you have to come down the mountain wanting to follow him more closely and wanting to share with others the love and compassion that he embodies.

And so where do we encounter God? Do we need to climb to the top of a Mayan temple to encounter God? Do we need to go up Mt. Nebo with Moses? Do we need Jesus to lead us up the unnamed mountain of his transfiguration? Where are the “thin places” in our lives?

The truth is that there are “thin places” everywhere if we could but see them. Mountains – or Mayan temples – certainly give us a sense of God’s infinite grandeur. But we can also encounter God in more mundane places – at the kitchen table as did Martin Luther King, in the woods, or our own backyard, or in our own room. Wherever and whenever you can pull apart from our noisy, 24/7 world, wherever and whenever we can quiet down, wherever and whenever we can engage in silent, contemplative prayer, then and there there’s a chance that God might show Godself to us, that God might speak to us in the silence of our own hearts, that God might move us to deeper compassion and service. For, when we let God get a word in edgewise, there’s no telling what can happen. Is that why most of us shy away from prayer and silence?

We are on the cusp of Lent. Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday. The church gives us the gift of forty days in which to examine our spiritual lives more closely. During Lent this year, I invite you to ask yourself: where are your “thin places,” your mountain tops, the places where you get a glimpse of Divine life? And then, what is more important, how is God inviting you to change?

So here is my prayer for you, for all of us. God be with you and grant you to stand in “thin places,” where the Presence is deeply known and Mercy abounds and Wisdom flourishes. Amen.

Seek and Serve Christ in All Persons

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? People: I will, with God’s help.

On the morning of January 2, students and faculty arrived at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati to find a swastika painted on the entrance sign to the campus. For 140 years, HUC-JIR has peacefully co-existed with its neighbors. Those who saw the swastika, both Jews and non-Jews, instantly recognized it as a reminder of the profound evil visited on Jews, gays, gypsies, disabled people, and other marginal groups during the Holocaust. The next day, about twenty-five people gathered at the sign in freezing temperatures. Many of them were members of Call to Action, a progressive Roman Catholic organization. Faith Kemper, the organizer of the event said that her father had fought in World War II, and that for her the swastika represents leaders who are power-hungry and hateful. She was joined by several members of her St. Monica-St. George Parish, whose church is on nearby McMillan Avenue. One carried a sign that said, "We support our Jewish neighbors."

Reflecting on the vandalism at HUC-JIR and other similar events, another participant wondered whether the recent presidential campaign had suggested that such acts were OK. Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said, "I am deeply offended and disturbed by these actions. The City is committed to using all of our resources to bring these criminals to justice. As we work to build a more welcoming and inclusive City, we will not stand for this intimidation." Alan Dicken, a Disciples of Christ pastor, went further. In a letter dated January 5, Dicken reminded his fellow Christians of what their response to such acts of vandalism should be: “I can reach out to those who need to hear a gospel of love and acceptance,” He wrote. “I can do my part to show the world that the Christ that I follow, who for the record was Jewish, [was] a leader of love and a prince of peace. I can listen to my friends who are rabbis and leaders in the Jewish community and respond in ways that they feel would be helpful and supportive to them. It may not seem like much, but it is a hell of a lot more than doing nothing. Doing nothing gives permission for this culture to continue.”

Twenty-eight hundred years before the events at HUC-JIR, an Israelite prophet reflected on the state of his people. They were no strangers to violence and desecration. Their holy city of Jerusalem had been overrun by the Babylonians, and their sacred temple had been destroyed. The elite of the country had been forced into exile, while the peasants were left to scratch out a living in a drought-ridden land. And yet, as the prophet reflected on the fate of his people, he heard God whispering a new message to him, one of hope, rather than despair. He heard God promising that the community would have a new leader, indeed that the whole community would be a leader among the nations. Led by the new leaders, they would be loving servants, who would treat all with gentleness and compassion. They would follow a leader who would “not cry or lift up his voice,” who would “faithfully bring forth justice,” and who would help them to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

Eight centuries later, another prophet reflected on the state of his people. Like his forebear in faith, John beheld a people suffering under the oppressive rule of both the Romans and their local collaborators. He saw religious leaders focused on punctilious observance of sacrificial ritual and not the welfare of ordinary people. He called people of all walks of life to change their way of life. To reflect their commitment to change, he invited them to undergo a traditional Jewish ritual of cleansing, through immersion in flowing water. Into this scrum of people gathered on the banks of the Jordan, walked an itinerant rabbi from Galilee, who asked his cousin John to administer the ritual cleansing to him. As the writer of today’s gospel tells us, John demurred. He knew there was something special about his cousin. But Jesus insisted. “Do it,” he said. “God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.

As Jesus came up out of the Jordan, he experienced a deep sense of acceptance by God, a sense of God’s affirmation of him as God’s own beloved. He knew himself to be empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. Almost immediately after his baptism, God’s Spirit drove him into the Judean hills for a period of reflection and discernment. During those weeks in the wilderness Jesus knew that he had to forego all forms of coercive power. Reflecting on the Scriptures that he knew so well, i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures, he came to understand himself as the leader foretold by Isaiah, as the one who would not break a bruised reed or quench a dimly burning wick, who would bring forth justice and release those in prison. In his first recorded sermon in the gospel according to Luke, Jesus reminded his hearers of those words of the prophet. He read from the scroll of Isaiah, “God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!” Then Jesus said, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” The evangelist even echoes Jesus’ self-description. Further along in the gospel of Matthew, the evangelist uses this very passage from Isaiah that we just heard to describe how Jesus was doing what God expected of him.

Since 1963, volunteers in the Simon Community in the UK have been ministering to homeless people on the streets of London. They provide two houses with shelter for the night and a day center to connect homeless people to available social services. In addition, every night volunteers carry flashlights into the dark corners of the streets to bring soup and sandwiches to those who, for whatever reason, do not want to come to the shelters. Young and old, representing all ethnicities, church members and non-members, these volunteers seek out the needy in derelict buildings and back alleys, on the streets, and under bridges and overpasses. They keep in touch with the latest news on the streets, and monitor how many people are sleeping outside at different times of the year. They also keep in close contact with as many people as possible, and respond as far as they can to people’s needs. They recognize that each homeless person has different needs, but to all they offer hands of friendship and welcome without judgement. Many of the volunteers work with the community fulltime. They receive room and board but no stipend. Why do they do it? A volunteer named Joe Bailey described why he marched with the community in support of help for the homeless. “In the face of diminishing availability of support accessible to vulnerable people,” he said, “we see the effects of austerity measures run deeper and deeper into society, and it can make us feel helpless. But albeit a small shout out in protest, there is hope in the work that we do, and we are not alone in our dedication to offer support to those who need it.”

My brothers and sisters, the waters that rolled over Jesus have also rolled over us. We too went down into the Jordan with Jesus, and we too came up out of the water with him. The baptismal font is our River Jordan. Whether we were brought to the font by someone else, or whether we came of our own free will, whether we were immersed or sprinkled, Jesus was standing beside us as those waters flowed over us. As we rose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended on us, and God proclaimed us to be God’s beloved sons and daughters. In joining ourselves to Jesus, we too are affirmed, empowered, and commissioned. And we are called to model our lives after his.

It is still God’s year to act – perhaps even more urgently now than in many other years. With Jesus we too are called to embrace Isaiah’s vision of compassionate leadership and a just and peaceful world. We too are called to remember and celebrate our solidarity with Jews, and also with Muslims, with Hindus and Buddhists, with all people of all faiths and no faith. We too are called to resist any attempt to demean, harass, or persecute people of any community, even if they are wearing a yarmulke or a hijab. We too are called to seek out the least, the lost, and the left behind, and to minister to their needs, whoever and wherever they are. We too are called to love God, love ourselves, and care for all those – all those – whom God has called beloved.

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? People: I will, with God’s help.

What's in a Name?

“Lord, you are in the midst of us, and we are called by your Name: Do not forsake us, O Lord our God.”

What’s in a name? The old English major in me couldn’t resist going back to the second scene of act 2 of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet has seen the conflict between her family, the Capulets, and the Montagues, the family of Romeo, with whom she has fallen in love. She asks herself this question in a poignant speech, unaware that Romeo is standing under her balcony listening to her. If you studied Romeo and Juliet in high school, or saw Franco Zeffirelli’s lovely rendering of it on film, you can probably say Juliet’s plaintive speech with me:

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot
Nor arm nor face nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.”

We might question whether we would actually dare to experience the sweetness of a rose if it were called a skunk cabbage instead. But Romeo can no sooner give up his name than Juliet can hers. For Romeo, his name, his identity as a Montague, is more than a title. Rather, his name reflects his place within a particular family, with their particular history, and especially with their history of conflict with other noble families. Sadly the play ends in tragedy, as the young lovers discover how difficult it is to shed the identities their names reflect.

What’s in a name? What’s in the name of today’s feast? If we were still using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, today we would be celebrating the Feast of the Circumcision. Using the same gospel portion that we heard today, the day commemorated Jesus’ circumcision after his birth, and his inclusion, according to the Law of Moses, in God’s covenant with Israel. This day became the Feast of the Holy Name with the adoption of our current prayer book. However, this is not a new observance. Actually, it was popularized by a 15th century Franciscan who was looking for a way to overcome the class struggles and family rivalries in the Italian city states. In 1721 Pope Innocent XIII extended it to the whole church, though it was celebrated on other dates. The change in our current prayer book from Circumcision to Holy Name reflects our recognition that in this gospel Luke’s emphasis is on Jesus’ name, i.e., the name affirmed at his circumcision, not on the circumcision itself.

What’s in a name? If we listen closely to our Scriptures for today, the answer is “a lot.” Just as “Romeo” and “Montague” embody the history and relationships of a family and suggest how the individual man Romeo fits into that history, so too does the name that we venerate today. What kind of a name is it actually? The name given the holy child derives from the Hebrew Yehoshu’ah, Joshua in modern English. It means “God saves or delivers God’s people.” The name became Yeshu’ah in Aramaic, the language of Jesus’ earthly family, iesus, in Greek, the language of the New Testament, and finally Jesus in English. In whichever language, the name recalls the many saving acts of God, and especially God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. We heard echoes of that history two weeks ago, in the angel’s instructions to Joseph in the gospel of Matthew: “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Luke’s mention of the angels in today’s gospel reminds us again of that saving history – and more. We hear again what the angel Gabriel said to Mary when he announced that she was to bear a son: “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Just as Romeo’s name proclaims his family history and identity, so for Luke and for us, Jesus’ name also makes a proclamation. Jesus’ name proclaims his place within a particular human family, i.e., as a descendant of royalty, his place within the Godhead, i.e., as God’s Son, and the hope of the Christian community to which Luke writes, for Jesus’ eventual consummation of God’s reign.

What’s in a name? We hear another answer to that question in Paul’s advice to the Christians at Philippi. Alluding to what may have been a hymn of some kind, Paul counsels the Philippians to venerate Jesus’ name. However, through the hymn Paul admonishes them that Jesus’ name also embodies the God who joined Godself inseparably to the human condition. Jesus’ name reminds us that this is a God who experienced all the limitations of human life, and especially all the worst that humans could do, even unjust execution and agonizing death. God as all-vulnerable and all-suffering, as Richard Rohr puts it. The glory and exaltation due to Jesus, the veneration of his name, comes from all that he suffered as a human person. And why has Paul taken such pains to remind the Philippians of the reason for venerating Jesus’ name? “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus:” they – and by extension we – are called to venerate Jesus by modeling our own lives on his model.

There’s yet one more promise embedded in our Scripture. In much of the Bible, God’s name is unknown or not spoken. You remember that, before the Exodus, Moses asks God for God’s name. God gives an answer that has puzzled us ever since: “I am Who I am.” The four Hebrew letters of that name were not pronounced as they were written. Pious Jews substituted another word, “Adonai,” and translated any passages with the original name as “the Lord,” not with the name revealed to Moses.

In the name of Jesus, we now have a name for God. We can be as it were on a first-name basis with God. As one preacher suggests, “The point here is not that we’re celebrating the fact that Jesus was named “Jesus” instead of, say, “Floyd” or “George.” Instead, today we celebrate the fact that God has again spoken his name to his people – and not just as a word, but as the Word made flesh. God has spoken his name to us a person.” Now we have a name for the great mystery that has made itself known to us in human form. Through that name we – all of us – are invited into deeper and greater intimacy with God.

What’s in a name? Is all this talk of Jesus’ name just interesting head-stuff, the kind of intriguing word-game that preachers like to play? Just as with Romeo, just as with us, Jesus’ name embodies an identity and a history. Jesus’ name is a kind of shorthand for who he was, who he is, and who he will be. As his followers, we dare to call ourselves by his name – Jesus and Joshua are still common names. We dare to proclaim ourselves as members of his family. We dare to pray in his name. We may even dare to use his name as part of our practice of breath prayer or centering prayer.

Today is the first day of a new civic year. As we go back into the world, into the places to which we have been called, into the places where we meet Christ in other people and other creatures, we are called remember in whose name we go, whose name we carry. We are called to acknowledge that our identity as his followers supersedes all our other identities, and that it is the most important identity that we have. We are called to imitate him in all that we do. We are called to remember that Jesus lived, died, and rose again for all us, and that we are all – each and every one of us – members of his family and therefore connected to each other. We are called to see him in everyone we meet. And we are called to open our hearts to him in deeper and deeper relationship.

What’s in a name? In the name of Jesus, all that we are, and all that we are called to be.

That We Might Have Hope

“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given 0us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Do you recognize this collect? If we had been following the collects in the Book of Common Prayer, we would have heard it on the next to last Sunday of the Church year. Because we are experimenting with an extended Advent season, we heard a new collect written for the second Sunday of extended Advent. However, in the former Book of Common Prayer, the 1928 Prayer Book, this prayer was heard today, i.e., what would have been the second Sunday of Advent. As a prayer, it actually dates back to 1549 and our very first Book of Common Prayer. It reminds us that study of Scripture must be an integral and ongoing part of our lives, so that we may truly understand what God has done and continues to do for us.

It’s not surprising that the church heard this collect on the second Sunday of Advent. As a prayer, it reflects the first words of the portion of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians that we just heard: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” The “scriptures,” that Paul mentions were the Hebrew Scriptures, since Paul’s letters antedate all the Gospels, and since the writings that we now call the New Testament were declared canonical, i.e., appropriate for followers of Jesus to hear and study, only in the fourth century. Here Paul is at the end of his letter. In his final exhortation to the Christians in Rome, Paul reminds them that, through Christ, the gentiles are now included in the covenants and promises that God made to Israel. More important, he tells them that diligent study of Scripture will enable them to maintain their hope of Christ’s coming, as they work out their differences and learn how to live in harmony with one another.

Paul challenges the Roman Christians to remember their scriptures by embedding references to those very scriptures in his exhortation. The “steadfastness” which he commends to them alludes to the endurance of Christ, especially his endurance of insults, shame, and death. In alluding to Christ’s endurance, Paul echoes Ps. 69:9, a verse that for Christians describes Jesus’ travail: “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” To emphasize God’s inclusion of the gentiles in God’s promises, Paul alludes to Psalm 18:50: “For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name.” He also quotes Psalm 117:1 “Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!” Finally, Paul quotes the end of the passage from Isaiah which we just heard: “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”

Paul’s insistence on the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures is echoed in the Gospel of Matthew. This Gospel was written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD and was most likely composed for a community of Jewish Christians. So it highlights the Jewish origin and identity of Jesus and his earliest followers. For Matthew, Jesus is God’s anointed. He is a teacher as exalted and as authoritative as Moses, who was considered to be the author of the Hebrew Law.

What is more important, Matthew takes great pains to show that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets, and that in him all of God’s promises are fulfilled. To drive home his point, Matthew opens his account of Jesus’ life with a genealogy that firmly establishes Jesus as one of David’s descendants, i.e., from the “stump of Jesse,” i.e., David’s father. Thereafter, he either directly quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures or alludes to passages from Scripture. In the twelve verses we just heard, Matthew has embedded references to Abraham, and to the prophets Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. Here are a few examples. He alludes to the prophet Isaiah to characterize John the Baptizer: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” With John’s ascetic lifestyle, wearing camel’s hair and eating honey, the evangelist alludes to Elijah’s way of life. His calling the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” is an indirect allusion to the passage from Isaiah we heard today, in which the asp and the adder were seen as former enemies of human beings. At the end of the passage, the “chaff,” an image for the destruction of the wicked in fire, is a recurring image in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Paul of Tarsus knew the Scriptures. The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew knew the Scriptures intimately. Do we? Do we have any sense of the historical contexts of our various books of Scripture? Have we encountered Jesus’ own understanding of his mission, as the Gospels characterize it? Do we know why the four Gospels are different? Do we know what the content of our hope as Christians really is? This Advent our Scripture readings have been suggesting what the reign of God might be like. Do we have any clearer picture of the “reign of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven,” that has now come near us? Do we know what Scripture has to tell us about living together in harmony? Do we have any clues about the contents of the Scriptures of other faith communities besides our own?

Scott Gunn, the editor of Forward Day by Day, tells us that a “recent study revealed that Episcopalians are about the most spiritually content people around.” For Gunn, this is not good news. People who are spiritually healthy, he suggests, are not content with what they learned of God in confirmation class, especially when that event was decades ago. Rather, he tells us, “People who are spiritually healthy want to grow and learn, to always look for the next step in their journey.” That includes us. You say you’ve already read the Bible from cover to cover? You say you’ve been going to church as long as you can remember, and you’ve heard these passages from Scripture hundreds of times? Scott Gunn reminds us – and I would strongly second his observation – that “every time I study any passage in the scriptures, even one I’ve read dozens of times, I grow and learn.”

Advent – especially this extended Advent season -- is a time a think about the promises and prophecies that God has made to us and to all people, prophecies we hear first in the Hebrew Scriptures, prophecies that are restated in the Christian Scriptures, and prophecies that have parallels in the Scriptures of almost every other major faith tradition. Advent is a time to wonder whether and when the peaceable kingdom Isaiah describes will come to pass. Advent is a time to ask what the one more powerful than John the Baptizer will be like. Advent is a time to wonder how the Scriptures of other faith communities describe God’s promises about the future of history. Our understandings of Jesus, God, and the future of humanity should change and evolve as a result of our life experiences. Ideally, Advent is a time to take stock, and to see whether we are growing in an appreciation of God’s love and mercy, towards ourselves and towards all people. Advent is a time to make a fresh start and a new commitment, a commitment to renewing our cooperation with God and to hearing again what God is telling us through sacred texts.

So here’s my invitation to you: find a time and a way to grow in your understanding of Scripture. Can you find a regular time to read reflectively some part of the Bible – even a few verses at a time? Forward Day by Day is a good place to start – and it’s even available on line if you don’t take one of the paper copies we order for the parish. Or try reading a few verses contemplatively, then journaling about what they mean for your life. How about reviving the Wednesday evening Bible study that Deacon Carolyn was leading? If you would like a good commentary on the Bible, A.J. or I would be happy to suggest one. Are you interested in learning more about the parallels and differences between our faith and those of other faith communities? There are tons of good books on those subjects, as well as many different web sites.

Of course, studying Scripture is not an end in itself. We don’t get special treatment or brownie points from God because we can quote Scripture. The Sadducees could quote the Torah, and the Pharisees knew both the Torah and other writings. Even the devil could quote Scripture!

So here’s the good news. Our Scriptures are a gift from God! They were written, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to reinforce our trust in God. They equip us to live holy lives and to share the good news with others. Most important, they enable us to give voice to the hopes we have for God’s future. May God enable us to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” our scriptures, and may the Word that we hear become flesh in us.

Swords into Ploughshares

In the north garden of the United Nations building in New York City stands a huge bronze sculpture. The sculpture depicts a man with a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other. The man is beating on the sword, in order to convert the sword into the cutting edge of a plow. This arresting sculpture was created by the Ukrainian artist Evgeniy Victorovich Vuchetich. It was given to the UN by the then Soviet Union in December, 1959. Although at that time the United States and the Soviet Union were “enemies,” the statue is a powerful visual reminder of our human desire to end wars and to convert instruments of death into tools that bring forth life.

Vuchetich’s statue alludes to one of the most famous passages of Scripture, which we just heard: “… they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks….” This image comes from the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Really three books bound together, the first forty chapters of Isaiah were written in the 8th century BC, during a period of great political turmoil in Israel. The passage that we just heard presents a series of wonderful images that point us to God’s promises and God’s future, to what lies beyond our immediate earthly events.

Speaking through Isaiah, what does God promise us? We hear first of all that devotion to God will be what brings all people together. We hear that humanity – all humanity – will be happy to receive God’s direction and instruction. We hear that people will no longer be motivated by envy, greed, resentment, retribution, and fear. We hear that people will renounce war, and that they will turn their instruments of war into implements that enable them to nourish each other. And, lest we get too dreamy about all these promises, we hear a challenge from God: “O house of Jacob. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” Through Isaiah’s words, God invites us – not commands us, invites us – to share God’s vision and to orient ourselves towards God’s promises, just as we follow a beam of light.

What a vision! While much of the church has just begun Advent, we are in the fourth week of our extended Advent. During this season we are invited to continue sharing God’s vision of what will be. As Jesus’ followers we are confident that God’s reign has already begun. After all, Jesus began his ministry by calling out, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” As we wait in this mid-time for God’s reign to be fully realized, in this Advent season we continue to divine its shape. Two weeks ago, we heard that there are no scapegoats in God’s realm, no one who is “other.” In God’s realm all are included, a promise echoed in Isaiah’s prophecy in “all the nations” and “many peoples.” Last week we heard that, as people already living in God’s realm, we owe our highest allegiance not to any earthly authorities but to Christ himself. Today we are reminded that in God’s realm, there will be both diversity and unity: all the many nations and peoples of the earth will come together under God, and will live with each other in peace. As followers of Jesus, is God’s promise of peace so surprising? Didn’t Luke’s gospel depict angels announcing Jesus’ birth with the promise of “Peace to all men and women on earth who please him?” Didn’t Jesus himself promise, in the gospel of John, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you?”

So do we see any of Isaiah’s vision of peace and unity realized in our own world? I was born in 1943. I was too young to experience World War II. But I do remember the cold war and the threat of nuclear disaster: “duck and cover” under my school desk, bomb shelters, and Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. I remember Korea, Viet Nam, India and Pakistan, Bosnia, and Iraq. Now Syria is in ruins. Forty years after the 1967 war, Israelis and Palestinians are still not at peace.

And in our country? We have just come through a divisive election, in which both sides vilified each other. We heard that some groups among us are dangerous and unwanted. Even local elections proved divisive, causing conflict in families, among friends, even in parishes. Many people fear for the future of our nation, state, and community. Will we ever get closer to Isaiah’s vision of unity and peace?

What about in our own lives? Are we at peace within our families, with our friends, within this parish? Or are we estranged from someone? Is there someone with whom we need to reconcile? Are we are peace within our own hearts? Or are we fearful, worried, angry, feeling unloved, or even unworthy of love?

If we want to catch glimpses of the reality of God’s promises, perhaps we need to begin with ourselves. Perhaps we need to make peace within ourselves. Perhaps we are called to accept God’s invitation to walk in God’s way on a personal level. As your pastor, I invite you to take time, even during this busy “holiday” season, to sit in silence and encounter the true source of all that we long for, the true source of shalom, peace. Find that deeper relationship with God. Franciscan Richard Rohr reminds us that, “This might well be the essence of the spiritual journey for all of us – to accept that we’re accepted [by God] and to go and live likewise.”1 Can you know the truth of that acceptance by God in your own heart and share it generously with others? Perhaps this is the time to engage in self-examination, to look hard at our relationships with family members, friends, members of this parish, and members of other faith communities and organizations. Perhaps this is the time to pursue reconciliation wherever it is needed.

Perhaps “now in the time of this mortal life,” we might consider accepting God’s invitation to partner with God in making real God’s promises of unity and peace. Can we truly accept that there are no “others” in God’s realm? I want to share with you a poem that so perfectly expresses that acceptance. It is called “Shalom: Magnetic heart.” The poem begins with the lines,
You and I are “other” to each other,
foreign creatures,
locked in our independent skin.


You and I, we’re unnerved
when we’re together,
we’re fractured, disconnected,
thin as moth-wing.

And yet, the same stuff
that tears us from each other
gravitates us to each other,
and all along,
the earth keeps spinning
to help us shake the
regret-dust from
our shoulders.

The poem ends with these lovely images of unity within God’s Shalom:

Shalom– She knows us better.

Shalom– She binds together the
blistered souls,

and we quiet ourselves,

eyes locked,

all “otherness” dissipated
in a stream of
perfect light.2 https://kaitlincurtice.com/

Can we accept that we live in a diverse nation that embraces people of all ethnicities, national origin, faith community, and gender? Can you find that part of God’s realm that you are uniquely called by God to contribute to? Can you make common cause with others across ethnic and religious lines? Perhaps you want to see immigrants treated fairly. Perhaps you want to stop the death penalty. Perhaps you want to see to see the people who grow our tomatoes receive a fair wage and access to decent health care. Perhaps you want to help end the scourge of addiction in this community. Today we offer a diverse community of people a hot meal. Where else in this county are we called to bring people together in peace?

And world peace? “Not in my lifetime,” you say. Yet, all over the globe, Episcopal Relief and Development, the United Thank Offering, and many other organizations are showing us how we might make it possible for “all people” to come together. An example. For generations different tribes have fought each other in Kalinga, a region of mountain villages in the Philippines. The region struggles with chronic economic hardship. In November 2012, three Episcopal congregations came together to begin planting trees. In the face of climate change that has denuded their mountains and eroded their soil, these communities have overcome decade old feuds to undertake a massive tree planting. In so doing they have helped various ethnic and tribal groups to come together in peace and to advance themselves economically. Is ERD on your Christmas gift list? Perhaps it should be.

And just one more example. This coming February, the Rev. Abeosah Flemister, a priest of our diocese, will visit us and tell us about Partners in Ministry in Liberia, a mission of our diocese that brings diverse people together to provide education for children. Are we called to be one of the partners in this ministry?

In any of these activities we are doing no more than accepting God’s invitation to follow where Jesus led and to share God’s peace with all. And we engage in any of these activities not because we rely on our own strength, or our own political leaders, but because we believe God’s promises. We especially trust that the end of all things, as God’s seers have taught us, is God’s shalom, peace, justice, and well-being for all creation. May it be so.

1. The Divine Dance (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2016), 109.
2. https://kaitlincurtice.com/

O Wisdom from on High

Is it All Saints Day? We began our worship singing that glorious All Saints Day hymn, “For all the saints who from their labor rest….” Then our sequence hymn, the between the New Testament lesson and Gospel, called us to rejoice with the saints and angels. So is it All Saints Day? Yes and no.

No, it is not All Saints Day, which traditionally falls on November 1st. This year we observed the day by welcoming Haven Rose into the Body of Christ through baptism. But also yes. The Revised Common Lectionary, which gives us all our Scripture readings for our three-year cycle of readings, recognizes that most people will not observe a feast of the church that falls on a weekday, even a major feast such as All Saints. So the RCL allows us to celebrate the Sunday following November 1st as All Saints Sunday, which we have done in previous years.

So why is it important to keep All Saints day in some form? Why not just bypass it and read what’s appointed for the 25th Sunday after Pentocost? One reason we keep All Saints Sunday is that All Saints was traditionally the end of the liturgical calendar, especially in the English church. And you can see why. We have come full circle through the two cycles of the liturgical year. First we had the cycle from the birth of Jesus through his resurrection, i.e., Christmas through Easter, what’s called the incarnation cycle. Then came the long season following Pentecost, which emphasizes deepening our understanding of God and God’s purposes and strengthening our Christian community, including mini-communities like this parish.

On All Saints we celebrate the culmination of all that growth in the lives of real people. This includes all the people officially on the calendar of the church before the Reformation: the martyrs, teachers, and theologians of the early church and the medieval saints and mystics. We also remember those, since the Reformation, who especially modelled the holy life for us, and especially those in the English and American churches. But we also remember on this day all those whose lives are known to us and God alone, those who showed us more clearly what a holy life might look like. Hear a few lines of a litany by priest and writer Barbara Crafton, that gives us a glimpse of some of those people:

O Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall, pray for us. O Oscar Romero and Raoul Wallenberg, O Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Medgar Evers, O William Wilberforce, pray for us. O all you whose names we do not know, who lived your lives or gave your lives in the struggle for freedom and justice, pray for us that we will be worthy of your sacrifice.
O Thomas Merton and Dame Julian, O Father Damien and Mother Theresa, O Thomas Beckett and Li Tim-Oi, pray for us. Blessed Augustine of Hippo, pray for us. Blessed Paul pray for us and help us to pray.

After mentioning authors, musicians, artists, and scientists, Crafton then comes to her own family: O Mom and Dad, O David, and O my little David who never saw the sun, pray for us. And we could all add the names of those saints who have blessed our own lives, as we pray with Crafton,

We give you thanks, O God, for setting us among the community of the saints, and for allowing the grace they showed in their lives to continue in ours – for in your kingdom, nothing is ever completely lost.

So All Saints is important, even if, in most years, we have to observe it on Sunday. But guess what: today is also the first Sunday in Advent. And why, you might wonder, are we starting the new season so soon? On All Saints we are essentially looking back. We see what God has done in Jesus, in the church, and in the lives of real people. After All Saints, it’s as if the church turns around and begins to look ahead. The readings for the last three Sundays of the traditional liturgical year, i.e., the next three Sundays, have an eschatological focus. That is, they focus on the end times, on the fulfillment of God’s promises and the coming of God’s reign. This focus continues into the next liturgical year in the traditional calendar, until the Sunday before Christmas, when we begin to look forward to the birth of Jesus and the beginning once again of the incarnation cycle.

Since our readings already call us to look ahead, we have elected to join the Advent Project. Along with other parishes in this diocese and elsewhere – with the bishop’s permission – we are bringing together the two parts of the focus on end times into a single season, a seven-week Advent. In doing this, we are not trying to compete with cultural Christmas, which in most of our stores has already begun. And we are not sourpusses, who adamantly refuse to be part of the “Christmas season.” Rather, we are taking the time to focus on God’s promises to us and, through our worship, to express our hope that God will speedily bring in God’s reign.

So what will change? Not our appointed Scripture readings, which already look ahead. However, our sermons may reflect more clearly our hope for the coming of the reign of God. Our paraments, the colored hangings in the church, and our vestments, next week will change to blue, the color for Advent. The collect of the day and the prayers of the people will be different. The service music will be a little different, and we’ll chant the opening of the Great Thanksgiving, which we’ll practice right after the announcements. And we’ll put up the new Advent wreath. See if you observe any other changes, as we move through this longer Advent.

And what might change for us personally in this longer Advent season? Despite what the stores and web sites tell us, it’s not Christmas yet. It’s not even Thanksgiving! Actually, as twenty-first century Christians, we live in what one German theologian called, “das Mittel der Zeit,” in the mid-times, the in-between time. We live in between the time frames of All Saints and Advent, between the past of what God has done and the saints have modelled for us, and the future of what we hope for and pray for when the “eyes of our hearts” are open. We live in the already-not yet.

As we hope and pray for the fulfillment of God’s reign, we seek to continue to grow in our relationship with the Holy One. We seek to more visibly reflect our commitment to Christ through the way we live. And we seek to continue working for justice and peace, so that the reign of God might at last be fully realized.

This week we stand at a decisive moment in the history of our nation. As followers of Jesus who embrace the Anglican tradition, we know that it is always appropriate to pray for the leaders of our nation. Indeed, on page 822, the Book of Common Prayer gives us a prayer for an election. And as you know, every week in the prayers of the people, we pray for our nation and its leaders. And so, as we exercise our right to choose our nation’s leaders and our elected representatives, we pray for all who vote. We pray that all who vote on Tuesday will do so thoughtfully and wisely.

In the end, in this Advent season, we continue to remember the hope to which we press. We remember that we are citizens not only of the United States but also, and more importantly, we are citizens of God’s realm. Even so, for many of us, this has been a more difficult election season than we have seen in many years. And so, remembering whose we are, and whose kingdom we yearn to see fulfilled, I offer you another litany, this one by historian and theologian Diana Butler Bass. Join me in saying, “May it be so,” after each petition.

I believe God creates the world and therein good, even very good, no matter how far from that goodness human beings wander; may it be so.
I believe Love casts out fear, and that living with compassion is the path to joy;
I believe Gratitude threads all of the connections in the web of life;
I believe Wisdom dwells among us, embodying both divine insight and human intellect;
I believe Hope banishes cynicism, always drawing us toward a creative future;
I believe Awe opens us to an awakened life that reaches out to the world to restore and save;
I believe Justice flows all around us, like a healing river;
I believe All Shall be Well. May it be so.

I Must Stay at Your House Today

What made Zacchaeus so eager to see Jesus? In his world, he was perhaps the least likely person to be eager to see an itinerant rabbi? The evangelist tells us that he was the chief tax collector. That means that he was not only an agent of the hated Roman government in Jericho, the city that was the entry point for goods coming into Israel from the east, but he was no doubt also a supervisor of other tax collectors. Which means that he was able to not only extract from the people the taxes that the Romans demanded, he was able to skim off a portion of what those under him could extort from the merchants and petty farmers who were forced to pay the Roman taxes.

Zacchaeus was obviously good at what he did, since he was not only a supervisor but also rich. And he was also deeply hated by the entire community of pious Jews. He was not welcome in the synagogue, and he was probably also intentionally blocked by the crowds who had come out to welcome Jesus to Jericho.

Since he was s a rich man, in Luke’s account Zacchaeus was also not likely to be someone curious about Jesus. If you read the gospel straight through, you would notice that rich men resist Jesus’ call to acknowledge the nearness of God’s reign and change their lives accordingly. In fact, Jesus begins his preaching in Luke with the sermon on the plain, in which he shouts, “… woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Then Jesus tells two stories about rich men. One is about the rich farmer who built bigger barns to house his abundant crop, but as the barns are finished God demands his soul. The other, we just heard a few weeks ago, the story of the rich man who dressed in fine purple clothes and Lazarus, who lay outside his gate, starving and so ill that the dogs licked his wounds. And in the chapter just before this one, we hear of the pious young ruler who is so attached to his wealth that he sadly leaves when Jesus suggests he give his money to the poor. In fact, after the rich young ruler leaves, the disciples ask Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” Perhaps the story of Zacchaeus is the evangelist’s answer to that question. Yet, we might also wonder, is Zacchaeus’s response to Jesus likely to be different from that of rich young ruler?

And, more important, after all this, what does the evangelist suggest about what really made Zacchaeus so eager to see Jesus? What made him race ahead of the crowds that blocked him and do something he probably had not done since he was eight years old, something that was so unseemly and incongruous for a man in his position? Was he moved by mere curiosity? Did he perhaps want to see if he might gain some business advantage from seeing this rabbi? Or maybe, just maybe, something was stirring inside Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, God’s Holy Spirit had already begun to work in Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, God seized the initiative and started a process that would radically transform Zacchaeus.

And us? Why are you here? Just as was the case for Zacchaeus, there is no earthly social or economic reason for you to be here this morning. To be sure, if this were the Middle Ages or Puritan New England, you would be punished or fined for not showing up to church on Sunday. Even as recently as the 1950s in the U.S., there was strong social pressure to participate in some faith community. Now, we have come a full 180 degrees from those earlier eras. Church support and attendance have declined precipitously. The majority of Americans, especially those under thirty, identify themselves as “nones,” i.e., having no religious affiliation, or as “spiritual but not religious.”

So why are you here? Are you just curious? What will the preacher say today? Is coming to church “icing on the cake” of the good life for you? Are you afraid of God’s wrath if you don’t come? Or did something stir within you and push you, pull you, or bring you here?

Or take my own experience with my first week-long silent retreat four years ago. The longest silent retreat I had done before that was for two and half days. What impelled me to sign up for a retreat directed by the Spirituality Network, drive four hours on a Sunday afternoon, and stick it out for a whole week? Maybe, just maybe, God had taken the initiative, stirred something within me, and pushed me, pulled me, sent me to a retreat center in Fremont, Ohio for a week.

So there is Zacchaeus incongruously perched in a tree when he finally gets a glimpse of Jesus. Then the unthinkable happens. The rabbi stops, looks up, and addresses Zacchaeus by name. Even more unthinkable, he tells Zacchaeus to hurry down from the tree, and he invites himself to dinner. Wouldn’t you have liked to be a fly on the wall during that dinner conversation? While the respectable, pious people wondered if this rabbi were ignorant of his host’s way of life, or naïve, or worse, clearly something was happening to Zacchaeus. Once face to face with Jesus, something life-changing was happening to Zacchaeus. We might say that he had a conversion experience, from which he gained a new understanding of who God is, and, more important, a new understanding of how he needed to change his life.

For, as Luke makes abundantly clear throughout his gospel, repentance and faith do not mean belief in a set of statements about God. Repentance and faith do not mean acknowledging that Jesus is God’s anointed one. Rather, repentance and faith always have an ethical dimension. A deep experience of the reality of God must always produce a changed life. Having faith always means being transformed by God to live a life closer to God’s expectations, a life modeled for us by Jesus. So, unlike the rich young ruler, when Zacchaeus experiences the reality of God in his encounter with Jesus, he is led to giving up his previous way of life and offering recompense to those he has wronged, far above what the Law of Moses required. And maybe, as Zacchaeus stood there and said all this to Jesus, maybe his joy was so deep that he was the happiest man that day on the Jericho road. Perhaps he was finally free of his sin and isolation. Perhaps indeed health and wholeness, salvation, had come to his house.

In seeking out Zacchaeus, Jesus demonstrates God’s relentless desire to bring us back into community with Godself and with each other, to be in relationship with us, and enable us to be in relationship with each other, to transform us into the people we were created to be. So why are you here? Did you come seeking the transformation that Zacchaeus experienced? We don’t have to climb a tree to see Jesus. As we come to the altar he calls us by name, invites himself into our lives, strengthens our bond with him, and continues that same transformative process that he initiated in Zacchaeus. Maybe, just maybe, that experience of Jesus’ bond with us enables us to see our lives differently, to know our connection with God, with each other, with all creation. Maybe, just maybe, when Jesus dines with us, he enables us to deepen our commitment to treating all with justice, compassion, and love. Perhaps he enables us to better work to bring nearer the reign of God. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus’ food and drink strengthen us to do the work that only we can do.

And maybe, just maybe, when Jesus calls us out of our hiding places, as he called to Zacchaeus, perhaps he also calls us to examine our use of our God-given resources. As Zacchaeus did, are we called to examine our use of our money? Are we called to share our resources more generously with the rest of God’s people? Are we serving God’s people in ways that use our gifts of time, of memory, reason, and skill? Are we called to change our lives in a way that might astonish those around us?

My sisters and brothers, the truth is that God, through God’s Holy Spirit, relentlessly pursues us. God stirs in us a desire to seek God. When we respond to God’s stirring, when we climb a tree to better see Jesus, when we sit in God’s presence silently listening for God’s voice, when we come to church to be nourished by Word and Sacrament, God delivers on God’s promises. God nourishes us, and enables us to become the loving people we have been created to be. But, watch out! You and everyone around you might be surprised by what happens next!