Category: sermon

Word of Truth | Sermon

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Through the written word,
and the spoken word,
May we know your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Savior.
Amen.

The prayer I just prayed was written specifically to introduce the sermon. It comes to us from the Church of England. I found it once through a Google search, but when I tried to find it again, it seemed to have disappeared. When I arrived at Good Shepherd, I was surprised to discover that Rev. Paige uses the same prayer. She can’t remember where she found it either.

In any case, I was attracted to this prayer because of the way it makes a theological connection through the concept of “word.” “Through the written word” refers to the Scriptures; “and the spoken word” refers to the sermon; “may we know your living Word” refers to the “word made flesh,” which is to say, Jesus.

That phrase, “word made flesh,” comes to us from the Gospel of John. You might be familiar with the ancient Christian hymn that introduces the Gospel of John. Here’s a translation of it by scholar Francis Moloney:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was turned toward God; and what God was, the Word also was. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. What took place in him was life, and the life was the light of humankind…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the fullness of a gift that is Truth.”

John provides some of the densest theology about the nature of Christ in the entire Bible, and this passage is no exception. John uses the word, “Word,” to characterize Christ through the ages. You might call it word-play.

I want to explore this a bit because it’s related to today’s readings…

So, what’s the deal with all this Word talk? The idea is that, in the beginning of time, God created the whole world with words: God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

It wasn’t physical force or the wave of a magic wand, it was Word that created and originated all that is, and it was Word that named creation as good to God.

John argues that this Divine Word was not like human speech. Moloney says that the tense used in Greek suggests that this Word exists “outside the limits of time and place.” It is not bound in any way by the limits of human communication, and it doesn’t manipulate or lie.

This Divine Word is completely liberated. It can never be miscommunicated or misunderstood. This Word is eternal, and will always be the absolute Truth.

And this is where the wordplay comes in. The Greek word for “Word” is “logos.” The ancient philosophers used logos to refer to the kind of words that conveyed a fundamental truth.

When John says that “the Word is the fullness of the gift that is Truth,” he is overtly drawing the connection to the deeper meaning of logos. And then, he is telling us that this Word – this fundamental Truth – is not only found in Jesus, but is Jesus.

“In the beginning was the truth, and the truth was turned toward God, and what God was, the Truth also was.”

Jesus is the Word God breathed over the water at the beginning of time. He became the “word made flesh.” Truth was crucified on the cross, Truth was resurrected, and now Truth lives in and among us, through the Spirit.

In Christ, we are children of the Word that is True. This means that the world’s transformation is dependent on our tireless proclamation of the truth…

Today, in our reading from Second Timothy, we encounter a teaching that is best understood within the theological concept of Jesus as the Word that is Truth.

The scripture cautions:

“Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.”

In this passage, there are two instances of the Greek word, “logos”: there’s “wrangling over words” and “word of truth.” These are being set up as opposing kinds of communication: one of them is good and the other one is, as scholar Benjamin Fiore puts it, “good for nothing.”

In Timothy’s day, the church was trying to establish itself. And part of that was understanding what they believed: about God and about how they were supposed to act.

Arguments were widespread. And theological disagreements could become very ugly, even to the point of physical violence.

It is clear in this passage, and in other New Testament letters, that arguments over theology and practice were threatening to rip the early church apart.

They were arguing over: the exact amount of divinity and humanity that Jesus had, whether or not they could eat meat, whether you had to convert to Judaism first before becoming a Christian, about ritual cleanliness and sacrifice, if women could be church leaders, if they should keep their belongings or sell them all, if they should welcome people from other religions, whether they should get married, when Jesus was coming back…and the arguments went on and on.

People used a lot of words, but these words were not the liberated Word of Truth made manifest in Jesus. They were, too often, manipulative, confusing, and distanced from their original purpose. But the worst part about them was that they made it hard for anyone to find common ground, or act on the good news.

Whether they were “accurate” or not was almost beside the point. Because their communication had ceased to be a tool that pointed them to the Truth.

Just like those first Christians, we live in a time of “good for nothing” words. We turn on the news and the pundits are lying. We read social media comments and people are fighting. We are compelled to say the exact right thing or risk being “cancelled.” And all around us, relationships are ending over political disagreements. Because we are sharing and digesting words that don’t point back to the only thing that matters, which is the Truth.

Our scriptures compel us, in the name of Christ, to tell the endless chatter around us to “shut up already.” We’re wasting our time! We can’t keep turning the world’s empty and distracting words into false idols.

The Word that created the world and then saved the world is calling us to be co-creators of his good creation: to renounce evil, to trust God, to love, to serve, and to respect the dignity of every human being.

That’s the Truth, and that’s the only Word that matters.

You and I, and your family member and your neighbor, might have a difference of opinion. We might be very different people, shaped by different experiences. We might see the world through a drastically different lens, or argue for different kinds of solutions.

And that’s ok. As long as we understand that those little words of disagreement don’t have to be worked out before we live into the unifying Word that is Jesus himself.

When it comes to the world’s arguments, we don’t have to choose the lesser evil. We only have choose Jesus. Because we can be united under the banner of Jesus, no matter what other people say. We can live out his call to never give up on love, and to never give up on one another. Because we know the Truth, and we have already been saved by it.

“The word of God is not chained.” It is always creating, always transforming, always telling the truth. As proclaimers of the living Word, that is what we are called to do. Amen.

—

References:

  • Moloney, Francis J., Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of John.
  • Fiore, Benjamin, Sacra Pagina: The Pastoral Epistles.

“Convicted”: Lazarus and the Rich Man

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a man lies on the street with a clothesline in the background

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I grew up in an Evangelical denomination. My husband, Daniel, grew up Lutheran. When Daniel and I first met, it’s like we spoke a different language of faith.

One day, while eating lunch together in the Student Union, I told Daniel that “I felt convicted” to make a certain change in my life. As I kept describing what I had been thinking about, I could tell he was no longer able to listen. To my surprise, he blurted out, “what do you mean, you were…convicted?”

“You know, convicted…God ‘laid it on my heart’ to understand something differently than before. For example, to forgive my roommate, to give money to an important cause, to trust in God more.”

Daniel was struggling, not with the concept, but with the word itself. Because, if you’re not coming from a faith context that uses that word, the only place you hear the word “convicted” is in a criminal context. And no one on a police procedural is being convicted to give money to the poor. They are being convicted of… murder.

Why was I taught to apply such serious language to relatively minor circumstances of my faith? Couldn’t I have used softer, more positive language? Couldn’t I have said that I felt the Holy Spirit guiding me to do something good, rather than “convicting” me about what I wasn’t doing?

One reason I joined the Episcopal Church was because of that shift in tone. Instead of feeling like a moral failure all the time, I could rest in the assurance that God didn’t see me that way. Instead of wasting away as a “convict,” I could be guided and led, like a little sheep, to better pastures, by the Good Shepherd who had sought me out. It’s amazing what one little shift in language can do…

Still, looking back on that conversation with Daniel, in light of today’s Gospel reading, I wonder if there’s something salvageable in the idea of “being convicted.”

Not always, but sometimes…

Today, Jesus continues his teachings on wealth and the Kingdom of God by sharing another parable, a fictional story meant to convey a moral reality. Like I mentioned last week, parables are often “multivalent.” This means they can have multiple interpretations, values, and meanings. While there might be a central theme, your life experience, and the way you place yourself in the story, impact what you get out of it.

That’s what I love about Jesus’ parables. They never get old. Every time we encounter them, there’s an opportunity to think differently.

In this parable, we learn that a poor man, Lazarus, has spent years outside the well-appointed gates of a rich man’s house. Covered in sores and on the edge of starvation, he sits among the dogs, He survives on the rich man’s trash. Meanwhile, the rich man wines and dines, thinking nothing of Lazarus or his circumstances.

Eventually, both of the men die. While Lazarus goes to paradise, the rich man goes to “Hades.” While Hades doesn’t perfectly map onto our modern sense of Hell, there is no question that Jesus is making a clear judgment call. The poor man Lazarus, who suffered all his life, now receives comfort among the angels and the patriarchs of the faith. The rich man, who had access to every creature comfort, now suffers in the afterlife.

Over the years, he distanced himself from the “riff-raff” on the streets; and in doing so, distanced himself from the central tenets of his faith. Now, there is no one who can come to his aid. There’s no other way to put it: the rich man was “convicted” of his past wrongdoings – in the literal sense.

Of course, we remember that a parable is a fictional story that speaks to a moral reality. And this story is a warning for the crowd – very much still living – that surrounds Jesus as he tells it. Jesus’ audience is “convicted,” in the spiritual sense now, toward right action, faithfulness to God, and love for their neighbors. They are reminded that the God of Abraham and Moses commanded these things, not to punish, but to protect, in order to lead them to a rewarding life in the here and now, that continues for eternity.

The moral of the story isn’t just about personal, financial giving – though that’s certainly a part of it – but about seeing our fellow humans through the eyes of God, and then acting on that vision. The rich man failed to see Lazarus as a person – he was just another dog on the street. And both of them suffered from that affront to human dignity. The life God calls his people to is one where physical, spiritual, and relational suffering is acknowledged so that it can be alleviated.

But I am also struck by another lesson:

And that is: “You already know how to live righteously.”

The rich man begs Abraham to send word to his brothers about their coming fate…

‘He said, Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house– for I have five brothers– that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'”

The rich man argues that only a supernatural intervention could convince his brothers to live in the promise of God. But Abraham sees this for the misguided notion that it is. He says that the ancestors in the faith have already conveyed the truth. With the authority of God himself, they proclaimed God’s love and justice. They proclaimed, like the Psalmist, that God is the one who saves. They proclaimed, like Jeremiah, that those who suffer are held in high regard by their Creator, and restored to lands of abundance.

And beyond proclamation, the history of God’s people revealed the truth of God, over and over again. In slavery, exile, and persecution, God remained with his people, asking only that they remain with God, and see the face of God in all people.

If the rich man’s brothers can’t understand the proclamation of patriarchs, poets, and prophets – and the history of their own people – then a divine intervention won’t change their minds now.

In our own struggle to live faithful lives, how often do we find ourselves hoping for a divine intervention?

When I’m trying to make a decision or solve a complicated problem, I know I have asked for signs and miracles. I have complained to God that the path forward is unclear. I have insisted, with great drama, that I can’t move forward without the confirmation of a booming voice from Heaven.

But Jesus now proclaims:

“You already know how to live righteously…”

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
 and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
 and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

If we are convicted, let us be convicted of this:

We don’t have to wait for God to tell us how to be, or how to live. Because God has been here all along, waiting for us. In scripture, history, and experience, we have all the proof we need of God’s faithfulness. We have all the knowledge we need to make faithful choices that lead to abundant life, in the here and now, and for eternity.

We don’t need to fear Hades. We don’t need to wait for God to tell us what to do. In every generation, our call is the same:

Run into the arms of the God of mercy, who is not far away. And remain in his grace, showing that same mercy to others.

Amen.

Heaven Smart: The Dishonest Manager

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Here at this parish, my fellow priests and I have the great fortune of doing a weekly Bible Study together. Every Wednesday after staff meeting, the five or six of us take turns reading the Sunday scriptures and chatting with each other about what they are saying, and what they might mean for this congregation in our time. As we read this week’s Gospel passage about the quote-unquote “dishonest manager” who is, nevertheless, said to “act shrewdly,” we were puzzled.

In this parable of Jesus, only found in Luke, the rich owner of a big farm operation threatens to fire his business manager for incompetence. So, the business manager goes to everyone who owes the company money and cuts them a deal. After all the deals are made, the manager reports back to the owner, and the owner is quite pleased with him.

The manager may not have made back all of the money that was owed, but at least he had done something, and it likely benefited everyone involved: the debtors got a discount, the manager got in their good graces, and the owner got some of what was due.

The story itself makes sense, I think. But what’s confusing is this word “dishonest.” The manager is called a “dishonest manager.” And when Jesus inserts his own commentary, he says:

“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

Uh…what? Where exactly does dishonesty come into play, and what does this have to do with Jesus?

Are we supposed to be “con artists…for Christ?”

As you can imagine, this set the clergy Bible Study on edge. We were abuzz with anxious energy…

“Maybe we’re not getting something about the ancient world?” one priest suggested.

“Maybe I’ll just stick to the Jeremiah reading this week,” another priest said.

“…Good luck with that, it’s pretty bleak,” I muttered under my breath.

Meanwhile, in my notebook I was making notes about junk fees and commissions and kickbacks, desperately trying to find a hook that could make meaning of this story, and Jesus’ seeming suggestion that we should do sketchy business dealings for the sake of the Gospel.

It turns out that even the most learnéd scholars are unsure of the complete meaning of this parable. One scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, even suggested that true meaning is, quote, “irrecoverable.” Unable to be recovered.

Fortunately, others, like Andrew McGowan, don’t think the situation is that dire. His commentary reminds the reader that, while every parable, or moral story, of Jesus contains metaphors meant to relate to some aspect of the Kingdom of God, not every parable is an allegory.

This means that, while the story references an aspect of Jesus’ ethical framework, it doesn’t mean that every single part of it maps perfectly onto reality. To understand the underlying ethic of this story, we can’t just pull out a couple verses from it, and call those things the plain truth.

We have to look at the story as a whole: who the people are, what they are doing, their underlying motives, and the impact of their actions. We have to enter their world.

So, let’s try…

The first thing to note is that the Greek word for “dishonest” translates to something closer to “unrighteous” or “unjust,” and the phrase, “dishonest manager” is more like “manager of injustice.”

Basically, the manager isn’t uniquely “dishonest” – he is as unjust as anyone else forced to do business in an inherently unjust context: where luck and ambition determine who gets to live well. That means that the gist of this story isn’t that the business manager is “dishonest,” it’s that he is living within a society run by money. And that means he has to make difficult and imperfect choices in order to get by.

As a middle manager, his job was to collect the rent from land that was cultivated by tenant farmers. This was not a profitable business for the renting farmers, but merely a way to survive. Hopefully, after rent was paid, they would have enough left over to take care of their families.

In order for the manager to make money, he would need to take the rent that was owed to the owner, his boss, and add an additional fee, which he would then keep as his own income.

Apparently, the manager had not been doing this successfully. The story implies that he had failed to collect the rent at all. Under pressure from the owner, he finally does go out and collect the rent, but he offers such a large discount, that it doesn’t seem like he’ll have any take-home pay.

He undercuts himself to the benefit of both the tenant farmers and the owner, in hopes that this will foster positive future relationships when the money runs out.

On paper, the manager is kind of bad at his job. And yet, the owner praises him for finding an imperfect solution in an unjust system.

When we take a look at the story as a whole, we see a bigger truth that resonates with our world today…

We are still caught up in a social and economic system that forces us into lifestyles of injustice. We are all victims of institutions and businesses that exploit our work while diminishing our humanity.

And we are all exploiters ourselves. We do what it takes to feed our families and have a roof over our heads, at a cost to someone else, whether it’s a factory worker in Bangladesh or a minimum wage worker in Austin.

Because we are caught up in the middle of things, we may not be able to fix the whole system, but that’s not the point…of this parable, at least.

The point is that we can make choices about how our money moves, even when we don’t have much power. We can make choices about how we see ourselves in the middle of everything – choosing to use our limited agency to solve a problem, even if imperfectly.

We can repent for the ways we have let money make decisions for us, instead of leading with our values. And we can determine to choose lasting relationships over monetary gains.

We can let money be a tool for a good life instead of a solution in itself.

And this leads us back to our Collect…

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.

Heaven – shorthand for the Kingdom of God – is a very different kind of business venture. The point isn’t what you can show for yourself. It is how you show up: on the path of Christ, in the community of the faithful, and in the world Christ longs to draw to himself.

The Kingdom of God is about who you are and who you are with, a ragtag group of rich and poor, owner, manager, and tenant, all members of the household of God. As Christians, we cultivate friendships and communities that are heaven smart, not business smart. We find pathways and build bridges, not by force, but through humble, risky, self-sacrificial connection.

We live in an imperfect, unjust system of “dishonest wealth” that we cannot ultimately count on. The only thing we can count on is God, and one another. So, we open our hands and let go of what binds us. We grab our neighbors’ hands, and we pass the peace and pray. We commune together, and we take care of one another.

And we are drawn more deeply into the broken and healed Body of Christ, who binds up the broken things in us – the injustice, the indignity, past wrongs – so that we can find a home with one another.

Amen.

–

References:

Rules are What Make Things Fun?

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There was a time, back in the day, when living in Florida came with one very special advantage. At any theme park in the state, from Disney World to Adventure Island, you could get deeply discounted annual passes. When I was a pre-teen, my parents invested in four of these passes, getting unlimited entry for the whole family, to Busch Gardens in Tampa.

One Saturday morning, at the break of day, I woke up to my mom by my bedside, practically bursting at the seams with excitement. She and my dad had decided to surprise my sister and me, by planning a fun day at Busch Gardens.

I’m sure she expected me to cheer: to jump out of bed, give her a hug, and hurry off to get ready. But, as soon as the good news came out of her mouth, I was angry. “Absolutely not!” I responded. I simply couldn’t do it. I had already planned my day. I had written things down in a neat row in my planner. I had thought through my leisure activities: when I would read, scrapbook, and play with my cat. Guidelines for the day had been set, and now they had to be accomplished.

In the words of comedian Amy Poehler: “Rules are what make things fun.” And I lived by that statement.

I regret to tell you that we didn’t go to Busch Gardens that day. In fact, my parents never tried to surprise me again. On that Saturday 25 years ago, meeting expectations was more important to me than a happy surprise. Even good news was bad news, if it meant I had to think outside the box.

On a different Saturday, 2,000 years ago, we encounter another occurrence of expectations conflicting with a happy surprise: A woman is healed. And as soon as it happens, someone is angry about it. Of course, the events of today’s Gospel reading are far more serious than a day at the theme park. But what exactly is happening here? And what does it tell us about human nature, and about Jesus?

First, let’s talk about the setting of the story… Luke tells us: “Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.”

Sabbath is the Jewish day of rest. It starts at sundown on Friday evening and ends at sundown on Saturday. The word sabbath comes from the Hebrew word, shabbat, which literally means “rest” or “ceasing.” Sabbath is mandated in the Ten Commandments. And, according to the Bible, has been a central part of Jewish life, since the beginning of the world.

Work is not done on shabbat, especially work associated with using your hands. Things like shopping, cooking, cleaning, mending, and plowing are forbidden. And attention is turned to God: in a shared meal, worship, study, and thanksgiving.

Sabbath finds its earliest example in the rest of God after the creation of the world. And it is reemphasized in the context of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. In Deuteronomy 5, God says: “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”

So, sabbath is a day for Jewish people to become free from their hectic lives, and from the obligations that distract them, So that they may be brought nearer to the God who created them and freed them from slavery.

The “sabbath” talked about in the Bible is shabbat – it is not the same thing as Sunday worship in a Christian context. Since the first generation of Christians were converts from Judaism, they participated in both Saturday and Sunday religious gatherings, Sabbath on Saturday and “The Lord’s Day” on Sunday. The Lord’s Day was a complement to sabbath study, specifically centered on the resurrection of Jesus. Over time, as more people from other religions converted to Christianity, the Lord’s Day became an official day of rest for Christians, and gradually Christians stopped observing the Jewish sabbath.

But, in our Gospel story today, the important thing to know is that sabbath was a religiously and legally required practice for Jews; It was mandated by God himself. And, mostly, it was a blessing to the community that there were rules and regulations for the sabbath, because it ensured that people could justify walking away from their tasks and focus their attention on God, finding restoration along the way. This is the context in which Jesus gathers with the community and begins to teach.

Luke tells us that, right as Jesus begins speaking, he notices a woman who is suffering from a serious physical condition. Moved with an innate sense of compassion, he immediately shouts to her: “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Then he touches her, and she stands upright and begins praising God. This miracle, like all of Jesus’ miracles, is astounding. It defies medical expectation and crosses social barriers. Like so many of his healing miracles, it shocks the crowd. And the healed woman immediately recognizes that she is in the presence of God.

But the center of this story is not about a miracle…

We are not encouraged to linger on this happy surprise of hope and healing. Instead, a religious leader immediately interjects, and proclaims that Jesus has made so grave an error that it is an affront to God. The man suggests that when Jesus raised his hands to touch the woman, he was using those hands for labor. Jesus’ action, miracle or not, was just the kind of work that was forbidden on the sabbath day. Jesus has broken the rules. He has rejected the guidelines. He has acted against expectation!

But Jesus reminds the gathered crowd that sabbath finds its meaning, not in meeting expectations, but in the freedom of God. And no one can doubt that this woman is free, for the first time in 18 years. Jesus declares that his action wasn’t work – it was worship. He didn’t just follow the rules, he followed them perfectly, by fulfilling the ideal of sabbath. Jesus acted against expectation, and the result was more than a happy surprise: it was a miracle.

As Christians living in the twenty-first century, there are parts of today’s Gospel reading that we can’t fully inhabit. Our tradition doesn’t practice shabbat in the Jewish sense. And I’d bet many of us are not taking a sabbath day of any kind.

But, we can still understand how this story mattered for the first Christians. It revealed, not that “rules are meant to be broken,” but that rules aren’t ends in themselves: they are always intended to help us live up to our ideals.

And we can still see how that matters to us. Jesus shows us that worship is intended to re-form the gathered community around a vision of wholeness, freedom, and rest. He shows us that his mission, and thus the church’s mission, is about using our liturgies, creeds, and traditions for the sake of a wider and fuller embrace, not for policing one another’s holiness.

To follow Jesus is to get comfortable with the fact that he loves to defy expectations. He will wake us up and proclaim good news, even if it’s not the good news we wanted. And, at times, this will make things messy, disruptive, and challenging. Our choice is to embrace it as a happy surprise, or refuse it. We can always refuse it. We can always choose the comfort of narrowly defined rules and expectations over the freedom of the ideals they lead us to. But would that really be worth it, in the end?

If I could visit my preteen self, I would tell her this: Don’t let your expectations get in the way of rejoicing when there’s something to rejoice about. Lord knows life is hard enough – embrace the miracles in your midst. Amen.

Jesus Has Stepped Out of Line

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Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. Amen.

On Friday, Daniel and I went to see the re-release of the Shin Godzilla movie. The film begins with a mysterious disruption in the water. A boat sinks and a circle of red fluid marks its downward path. Steam rises from the bay and cracks appear in the bridges and tunnels that cross it.

The setting shifts to the inside of a government building, where the audience is introduced to dozens of government officials. They are assistants, chiefs of staff, military personnel – even the prime minister – and one hundred nameless others. The whole group of officials, all wearing matching black suits, moves together into bigger and bigger boardrooms with more and more people. They seem to think that the sheer number of people present at the meeting will solve the emerging national disaster. In the biggest boardroom of them all, each official sits in their assigned seat and takes a turn reading their theories off of little notecards. “It’s an earthquake!” “It’s a submarine.” “It’s a creature!” someone finally suggests. No, that’s preposterous, the room responds! The meeting continues, with great order and great civility, as befits a democratic nation.

Meanwhile, out in the streets of Tokyo, a monster called Godzilla has emerged from the water and is making its way onto land. As it moves through the streets, it leaves a trail of utter devastation in its wake, then finally returns to the sea.

After it retreats, the government officials must decide how they will prepare the country for Godzilla’s inevitable return. But they are faced with a steady stream of bureaucratic concerns: How will they be perceived on the international stage? How will they stay in the good graces of military superpowers like the U.S.? How will they keep the economy afloat? What bills have to pass before they can invest in recovery efforts? Meanwhile, as they sit in conference rooms and wring their hands, worrying about the optics of any given choice, Godzilla is out there, recharging, and preparing himself for another attack.

In the face of a Godzilla-sized problem, the people in charge respond with matching suits, conference rooms, and little notecards. They respond with calls to “keep the peace” and present a united front. But false unity will not save the day. Instead, it is the ones who are willing to agitate that bring about true peace. Evil is only defeated when one person steps out of line and says, “Enough.” And eventually, others follow.

Today, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus reveals himself as the agitator in the story of good and evil. He says: “I came to bring fire to the earth!… Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Jesus is like fire that burns away the underbrush and fertilizes the soil, so new things can finally grow. He rejects false unity in favor of true and lasting peace. When Jesus shakes things up, there is discord – not because he’s being mean or trying to start a fight, but because people, by their nature, don’t like to be disturbed. As a group, we don’t like to do things differently. We don’t like to have to change our habits, opinions, or beliefs. But Jesus says that healing requires an intervention. So, he offers something beyond civility, something different than traditional family structures and political regimes. He proclaims freedom, love, and belonging for all people.

And this disturbs the way things are. But it is only by disturbing the shadows that light comes into the world.

In this time of urgent, monstrous problems, we often end up looking like all those officials in suits in the Godzilla movie. We strive to keep the peace, follow the chain of command, and maintain a sense of civility. But if we’re not willing to confront the urgent, monstrous things, we will be stuck inside debating our little problems while evil gains power in the world around us.

Jesus’ call to “love God and love our neighbor” is not a call to civility. It is not a call to sit calmly and behave, to “wait and see.” It is a call to step out of line and be bold; and to say: I know who I am and whose I am, and I know what Jesus requires of me: to go where his fire burns.

We are living in a world of urgent, monstrous problems. One of them, in particular, has had an impact on our church, in Austin and across the country. Our immigrant neighbors, families, and friends are being terrorized. Regardless of their legal status, they are being imprisoned without translators and housed without beds and adequate food. Just a few weeks ago, the daughter of an Episcopal priest in New York was arrested by ICE agents after going to a routine hearing, as part of her student visa process.

Over a dozen Episcopal parishioners in various parts of the country have been imprisoned, and some are still in ICE custody. In early July, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe called the church to account: “When religious institutions like ours enjoy easy coexistence with earthly power, our traditions and inherited systems can become useless for interpreting what is happening around us… Churches like ours… may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness. To do so faithfully, we must see beyond the limitations of our tradition and respond not in partisan terms, but as Christians who seek to practice our faith fully in a free and fair democracy.”

For too long, I have been afraid to talk about the monster of the immigration crisis from the pulpit. I have been trying to be civil, so I chose false unity over true and lasting peace.

But Jesus came to bring fire, and through the Holy Spirit, that fire is all of ours to own. So, I will own it. We must be willing to tell the truth “in the present time” or else, all is lost. We must be willing to step out of line, to be agitators for good, right, and holy causes: causes of love and compassion for our neighbors.

Immigrants are neighbors we know personally, and neighbors that are themselves part of the Body of Christ. Immigrants are us. If we can’t strive for their safety, we will have to admit that we’re the false prophets, hypocrites, and fools that Jesus reprimands.

The Gospel, which means “Good News,” must be good news for everyone. And the good news is that freedom, justice, mercy, and love are the guiding ethics of the Kingdom of God. It is not enough to say that, and then do nothing about it. We must be willing to be agitators for the most vulnerable among us, even if it causes division, and puts us at odds with people we love. Because, when something monstrous is outside, you can’t solve it with civility. Evil is only defeated when one person steps out of line and says, “Enough.”

Jesus has stepped out of line. The choice is ours: will we follow him or not? Amen.

Freedom, Flesh, Fear

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One of the most frustrating things about being a human, at least for me, is that you don’t just get to a point where you have everything figured out. You can check off a lot of your goals, but at the end of the day, you’re still just a little creature flailing around. Deep down, you’re still just that little kid asking big questions about the world and how you fit into it.

My husband, Daniel, and I have been talking about this recently. More specifically, we’ve been reflecting on the core values that guide the decisions we make. I like to think that, deep down, I am driven by virtues of kindness, peace, love, and joy. And those are real values I hold.

But Daniel very astutely pointed out that I am also driven by a less positive value: I am deeply afraid of getting in trouble. I am a card-carrying, life-long rule follower. Not because the rules always make sense. Not because I always agree with them. And certainly not because I think rules are somehow innately virtuous and always there to protect us.

(In fact, I do have a radical streak in me. In my 20s, I tried to bring about significant reforms at the retail stores and factories I worked at. It didn’t work.) But I have to admit that fear is always at play, making me doubt myself and making it harder to live into those virtuous core values. After months of reckoning with this fear, I encountered today’s epistle reading, and something shook loose.

Today, Paul sets two “F-words” in opposition to one another: Freedom and Flesh. Christians have often misunderstood the way Paul uses the word “flesh.” He doesn’t mean it simply as the physical body. Rather, “flesh” is a way of thinking about our natural inclinations in a broken world. The “works of the flesh,” which we might call “sin,” are attitudes and actions driven by ego and self-protection. They are things that keep people divided, that cause schisms and disappointments beyond repair. They are habits that keep people chained in cycles of addiction and isolation. They are distractions that keep us from loving our neighbor as ourselves.

These “works of the flesh” are ultimately “works of fear.” Because they are motivated, deep down, by fear: fear that we are not lovable, that we don’t have enough, that we will be misunderstood, that there’s an unseen enemy lurking around every corner.

But the F-word that Jesus invites us to is neither Flesh nor Fear. It is Freedom.

“For freedom Christ has set us free.” I tried to figure out why the sentence was phrased that way, but that’s really what it means: Christ has set us free so that we can be free. In the original context, this meant that the early Christians were free from a rigidly interpreted Jewish legal code. But that idea can be expanded. For us today, the scripture suggests that we are free from the ideologies, expectations, and fears that don’t allow us to imagine a world beyond “flesh.”

Christ’s freedom is not the limited freedom of our patriotic songs, which ask us to prove our allegiance to one place and one people. It is not the violent freedom that we take by trampling on others, dividing people into categories of powerful and weak, ally and enemy. It is not the regulated freedom brought about by man-made laws, which by their very nature can only restrict the worst in us, not encourage the best in us. Christ’s freedom is certainly not the small, false freedom I achieve when I avoid getting into trouble.

It’s bigger than all of that. “For freedom Christ has set us free.” The freedom of Christ is different from anything we have ever encountered in this world of flesh, because it exists beyond fear. It rejects “brokenness” as the natural order of things and reveals “love of neighbor” as the natural order of the Kingdom of God.

As Paul told us in last week’s reading, there is no dichotomy that Jesus hasn’t already destroyed: “…there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

The freedom of resurrection life is so big that it cannot be defined against what it is not. True freedom doesn’t require haves and have-nots to define its own quality of freedom. True freedom is found in the flattening of hierarchies and abandonment of control. It is evident in our mutual relationship to Christ and one another, as we become a part of his Body in the world.

Theologian Kathryn Tanner puts it this way: “All our action is to be like that of the ministers at the Lord’s banquet table, distributing outward to others the gifts of the Father that have become ours in and through the Son” (Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity). We are free to give, free to receive, and free to luxuriate in God’s goodness in us, through us, and all around us.

“For freedom Christ has set us free.” What a profound and odd statement: to be free for the sake of freedom.

But if we could just lean into it, feel it, and let go of just a little bit of our fear, do you realize that the world would be an entirely different place? We would be governed not by things that divide, isolate, and shame us, but by the neighborly love of the Kingdom of God. Shaken loose, we would bubble over with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attributes would become infectious, leading us deeper into resurrection life and bringing the world with us.

When we follow Jesus, we are called to be radical in the original sense of the word—to “affect the fundamental nature of something.”

We are called, first, to believe that Christ made us for freedom, not for fear. Then we are called to turn this world of the flesh into a world overgrown with fruits of the Spirit. We do that by rejecting fear as a core value, by committing to love beyond man-made boundaries, and by letting go of control. And by practicing actions and attitudes that lead us back to communion with Christ and one another.

The day we finally understand that we are free, there will be so much fruit, the whole world will feast.

Amen.

The Light is Yours | Sermon for Pentecost

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For the citizens of Charlottesville, Virginia, the hot months of 2017 are better known as the “Summer of Hate.”

The previous year’s election had emboldened white supremacist groups to step out of their anonymous chat rooms into the public square. And they had chosen Charlottesville for their debut. On the evening of August 11, I was locked inside my church with 500 other people, among them Katie Couric and Cornell West.

As the interfaith prayer service began to wind down, the worship leader suddenly walked to the back of the church. He spoke quietly with someone, then headed back up to the front. That’s when he told us: “The Nazis are outside.”

The next few moments are hazy in my memory. But, someone must have told us we were in lockdown. It wasn’t safe to leave. Then the worship leader spoke again: “So, we’re going to sing loud enough to drown out their hate.”

We started to sing: This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…

Time seemed to stand still. As we drummed on the backs of the hardwood pews and stomped our feet to the rhythm, the candle flames danced on the altar.

Meanwhile, back in the narthex, unarmed priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams were guarding the doors. The Nazis had called in dozens of false emergencies to deploy the Charlottesville Police away from their tiki torches and hateful chanting, as they marched through the University of Virginia’s campus across the street from the church.

The only things separating us from terror that night was our clergy, the big red doors of the church, and “This Little Light of Mine.” In spite of it all, it felt like the Kingdom of God.

–

Last Friday, I led chapel at the day school, as I do every month.

The theme this month was Pentecost. We talked about the connection between God’s love for each one of us, and the love we share with others, as a response to that love.

Pentecost makes rich use of metaphors of wind and fire, and here in the sanctuary, candles are one of the best tools we have to talk about those things. So, I asked the kids to watch carefully as I lit the candlelighter, and then walked to each candle and lit a new flame. We counted the flames together: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6!

I asked them to notice how each time a new flame was lit, it didn’t take away the light from the first one. Every time light was shared, all it did was make even more light. At the cusp of having abstract reasoning skills, maybe the kids didn’t totally understand the metaphor.

But they understood this: We are loved by the God of the universe, and we can share that love with others. And when we share it, it doesn’t take anything away from us. All it does is make even more love.

Then we got to the good part…

We sang This Little Light of Mine, and the kids waved their hands in the air and stomped their feet. A group of girls joined hands and twirled around in a circle like contra dancers. And at the end of the song, a raucous cheer rang up to the rafters.

I am not exaggerating when I say it felt like a revival. It felt like the Holy Spirit had blown through the place and filled us with so much light, we couldn’t hold it in any longer.

We were safe and loved here in the sanctuary. And it felt like the Kingdom of God.

–

There’s just something about that song…

I asked the Head of School why the kids like it so much, and she thinks it’s because it offers rare permission for little ones to claim their own humanity, in a world that doesn’t give them much power. They get to move and shout, and they are encouraged to claim that something is “mine, and I have the power to share it.”

In the candlelight of that locked-down prayer vigil and the morning light of chapel, we sang This Little Light of Mine, and we became the church: the people of God, together in God’s kingdom.

Because we understood that we had been found by God, and made into light by God, we just had to let it shine.

–

It should be said that This Little Light of Mine isn’t a children’s song. It is an African American spiritual.

It was composed in the context of brutality and indignity worse than most of us can imagine. It was first sung in a place where hope had no business showing up, where God could have easily been mistaken as dead.

But, as God often does, and as hope often does, it did show up… and it wasn’t just a pining or passive kind of hope.

It was defiant hope – a refusal to take the oppressor at their word. To claim that something is “mine” and I have the power to share it is to reclaim your own humanity, to claim your own belovedness in the eyes of God, and to claim, further, that only the God who created you has a right to make those judgments about your worth.

With a clarity that pierces the heart and stirs the soul, the song captures the truth of the Gospel, and reveals the ultimate power of Pentecost.

–

When the Holy Spirit rushed in like wind and fire on that first Pentecost, the faithful began to speak in the languages of the world. And when they poured into the streets, it was the same as Christ reaching out his hand to diverse humanity and saying, “you all are mine and I love you.” And when they prophesied and announced the good news, it was the same as God calling every race, nation, and tongue “good.”

The Spirit of Truth announced that day: “all are welcome, no exceptions.”

In the presence of the Spirit, the Divine Advocate, every dichotomy by which the powerful retain control was made meaningless. And everyone – every class, age, gender, culture, language, and identity – was boldly affirmed as beloved by God. And everyone, hearing the good news in their own language, was welcomed into the Kingdom of God.

Those who heard the good news couldn’t help but share it. They were empowered to become advocates themselves: they cared for people in such a way that they could reclaim their God-given dignity. They cared for people without suggesting that something about them was too far gone.

There was light enough for everyone. And nothing was lost in sharing it.

If, for any reason, you have never been sure that you were deserving of light; and if, for any reason, you were told you were wrong to want it…

The church, on Pentecost, says otherwise. The good news is good news for everyone. The Spirit of God advocates for you. The Kingdom of God is here, and you’re a part of it.

On this Pentecost, Christ reaches out and hands you a candle.

This light is yours. And you have the power to share it. You’re already shining. Amen.

All That We Can Understand or Desire

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“O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding. Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire…” 

A few weeks ago, I was asked to join two other Austin-area priests in a panel discussion for the Episcopal Parish Network. The topic was “atypical church models.”  One priest leads a church that doesn’t have its own building. The other leads a colorful, LGBTQ-inclusive church that meets in a storefront. And, as you know, I’m the priest at a two-campus parish, one of only a handful in the Episcopal Church. 

The EPN group recognized that these models of ministry might represent the “growing edges” of the Episcopal Church, as it becomes less of an establishment institution and more of a missional one. 

They were especially curious about the way small congregations build an identity and ethos as the community adapts and grows. We talked about how a congregation grounded in prayer and discernment takes on a kind of personality that isn’t just one person’s preference, but a combination of tastes, ideas, and passions adding up to more than the sum of its parts.  

I like to think of the resulting context as the Holy Spirit’s personality, tailored to this time and place for the people who are here today and the people who will be here tomorrow. 

This congregation knows what this process feels like. Since its founding, you have done deep and ongoing discernment to build this community and you are used to pivoting. It isn’t always easy, and sometimes, it has been discouraging,  

But, I believe that we are always getting more comfortable with letting the Holy Spirit guide us beyond our own imagination. As we continue in our strategic planning on this campus, this will be the key. Because, it’s just a fact that, when we ask God to help us be attentive to where he is leading us, we will always be surprised by the path we end up on, but we will be delighted, too. 

Because God’s promises surpass our understanding, and exceed all that we can desire. 

– 

But don’t take my word for it! There are stories of surprise and delight all around us… 

Here’s one: On Wednesday morning, acclaimed public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson preached at Seminary of the Southwest’s graduation.  

As the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson has dedicated his life to improving the justice system. He and his team have “won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row…” As one presenter noted, Bryan Stevenson has, quite literally, changed the world. But he didn’t plan it that way. 

Stevenson got his undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and then realized that no one would hire someone with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. With no real plan in mind, he went to law school. 

Early on in his program, he took a class that required him to go to Georgia and meet with a person on death row.  In his early 20s, with no expertise and no credentials, the proposition filled him with fear. But he showed up and entered the room. 

He spent the first several minutes telling the man he was sorry, because he didn’t know anything and couldn’t help. But finally, he said what he had been coached to say: “You will not be executed in the next year.” The man thanked him profusely, because that meant he could invite his family to visit him without fearing the worst news. 

Stevenson and the imprisoned man spent the next two hours talking to one another. They found out they shared a birthday and were the exact same age. By the time he left, they had become friends. 

Stevenson told us that the encounter left him changed in a way that would shape the rest of his life. He had entered the prison in fear and trembling – everything in him had resisted it – and he had left with a new calling. God had led him to places that surpassed his understanding, and there was joy by the time he got there. 

Because, God’s promises exceeded all that he could desire. 

– 

Today’s scripture readings are marked by similar encounters… 

In Acts, Paul has a vision that leads him to Philippi, in Macedonia. He doesn’t know why he’s supposed to go there, but he senses that God wants him to go. Once there, he meets a woman named Lydia. She is a successful businesswoman who makes her money selling expensive purple cloth. She is also a woman of sincere faith.  

At Lydia’s prompting, Paul and Silas baptize her and her household, and she becomes one of the major benefactors of the church, even hosting church services in her home. It becomes one of the most significant congregations of the early church. 

The fact that Lydia is a woman is significant. According to the norms of the day, there is no reason for Paul and Silas to take a woman seriously, even if she is wealthy. There is no precedent for letting a woman set the terms for her family’s conversion. And it was scandalous that Lydia offered herself as the host for these men who did not belong to her household. 

Paul, who had devoted his life to upholding rigid cultural norms, had followed the Spirit on a mission beyond his understanding, and now he had a woman for a ministry partner! What Paul had once scorned, he now delighted in.  

God’s promises exceeded all that he could desire. 

– 

In Revelation, John of Patmos is carried away to behold the heavenly city of God. Held in neglect in a prison cell, he is somehow encountering the bounty of Christ. Held in darkness, he is nevertheless surrounded by the ambient light of Christ. Left to die, he is brought into an understanding of eternal life. 

Though a prisoner in the eyes of the world, John is a prophet in the eyes of God. Though scorned, God delighted in him. God gave him visions that surpassed his understanding. 

God’s promises exceeded all that he could to desire. 

– 

In the Gospel of John, a man stands up for the first time in 38 years. All he wanted was for someone to let him get into the therapeutic pool called Bethzetha: “House of Grace,” He was only looking for temporary relief. 

But Christ calls him to stand. Risking embarrassment and disappointment, the man does. He immediately goes to the temple to worship God. Christ could see beyond the man’s self-understanding. 

God’s promises exceeded all that he could to desire for himself. 

– 

The life of faith doesn’t come with a map. We know this.

But, sometimes, fearing embarrassment and disappointment, we think that we’re not doing it right unless we know exactly where we’re going from the start. 

Other times, we believe the lie that following Jesus is primarily a practice of “fear and trembling.” That’s it’s supposed to be hard all the time. 

Sometimes, we fear the work itself. We don’t want to have to change our minds: about who we are, about who God is, and about who is worth listening to. 

But our Collect gets it right: If we commit to staying close to God, in prayer and discernment, fostering a habit of love, God will lead us to places we never thought we’d go.  

These places will “surpass all that we can understand…or desire.” They will be places where cultural norms need not apply, because the church is for everyone. They will be places where darkness is turned to light, and the prisoners become the prophets. They will be places where the impossible is made possible, just as we had settled for “good enough.” 

We need not fear or fret about where the road is leading…It is always leading home, to the surprising and beautiful paradise of Christ. And his home is a “house of grace.” 

Amen. 

Human, after the Resurrection

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In these last weeks of the Easter season, you can feel our readings strain toward the next part of the story.  We are now past the grief of Jesus’ execution, the surprise of the empty tomb, the hesitant hope of the disciples, and Christ’s multiple visitations after the resurrection. 

Now, with new urgency, we are looping back to what Jesus said before all of that. From here on out, our Gospel readings will carry us into the urgency of the early church. They will compel us to hold onto the teachings of this revolutionary man and his disruptive, remarkable life, so, that we can get a grip on what it looks like, feels like, and takes to follow him. 

We often call Lent the “season of preparation.” But it turns out, Easter is also a season of preparation. In this season, in the brightness of the resurrection and the refreshment of baptismal waters, we are being prepared to reaffirm our own resurrected life in Christ to be made new, and to strain toward becoming everything God made us to be. 

In other words, we are being challenged to “do something” about the resurrection. Today’s Gospel reading makes clear what the resurrection calls us to: following in the footsteps of the “Son of Man,” we are to “love one another.”  

“Love one another.” It’s basically the brand identity of the church. It is the mission statement and driving ethic of who we are as followers of Christ. The whole of Christian scripture hinges on these three words. 

It’s simple, it’s obvious, and it’s part of Jesus’ inherited religious tradition, stretching back to divine laws given to Moses. 

Specifically, Jesus is referencing God’s commands in Leviticus 19: “Love your neighbor as yourself; love the foreigner as a native-born, do not ridicule the Disabled, don’t privilege people based on their status, respect your elders, take responsibility for the safety of those around you, do not pursue vengeance or bear a grudge.” 

With this callback to Leviticus, we are to understand that the love that Jesus calls the disciples to is not selective, or limited to the 11 people in the room that day, Because, as our passage in Acts also shows, the movement Jesus is building is an unconditional and unbounded one. 

Followers of Christ are to be known, primarily, by their self-sacrificial love. This is not so much a brand-new commandment, but it does solidify a new kind of community. 

Unfortunately, as a whole, humans have never managed to live up to the mandate. If we’re lucky, we can say that we have loving friends, neighbors, and families, but rarely can we say we live in a loving society, even in a so-called “Christian nation.” 

It seems that part of the reason this theological mandate is so hard to follow is because we don’t really understand how to practice it.  If it’s just a rule to follow, we will always have to work up the energy to do it. Because practicing love will always feel like an uphill battle in a world run by Judases and Pontius Pilates and Herods. 

We will never be able to love like Jesus until we understand that he calls us – not to define, negotiate, and judge people against love –but to become love. We are to be transformed, so that our first impulse is care, invitation, and relationship, no exceptions. 

We have to figure out how love becomes innate in us, not just a thing that we put on. To do that, we have to understand who Jesus is, not just what he says. 

Fortunately, there’s a clue in the specific way Jesus identifies himself in this passage in John: Jesus is called the “Son of Man.”  

In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, the phrase would translate simply to “human one.” In Greek, the language of John, it would mean something like, “one who shares in humanity.” But the concept is originally a Hebrew one: “ben-adam,” Son of Adam: descendant of the one who is blueprint of humanity. 

In the context of the Old Testament, the phrase is used most often to talk about a person who is literally just a human. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that ben-adam “denotes mankind generally in contrast to deity or godhead, with special reference to their weakness and frailty.” 

So, when Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man,” the human one, he is highlighting, not his divinity, but his humanity. Which is to say, the quality of his being human: material, physical, emotional, relational. And, the quality of his being humane: caring about the wellbeing of others. 

Jesus, the son of God, of one being with Father, is identified by the fact of his being a human. He is not denigrated for it, but glorified within it. 

Therefore, Jesus reveals himself as the standard-bearer for what it means to be a human. He is the archetype and the blueprint of the human person. 

And what does it mean to be human? Jesus says: “Just as I have loved you, you should love one another.” In this passage, Jesus redefines the human person as “one who loves.” 

When Jesus calls us to love one another, he is not telling us to muster up the energy and repress the resentments, to put on a virtue that we can take off again when it suits us. In drawing attention his own, incarnate, humanity, he shows us what it means to be human, in light of the resurrection. He shows us who we are to become in the Kingdom of God he has already ushered in. 

If Jesus is the blueprint of the human person – and the human person is one who loves, then we are out of touch with our own God-given humanity when we are driven by fear and ego to act in ways that are not humane. The selfishness, isolationism, authoritarianism, racism, deceit, and hatred that plague our communities are ugly distortions of the humanity Christ exemplifies. And if we are not careful, we will let our lives be ruled by these distortions. 

If we fail to define the human person in view of Jesus, we will give away a little part of what makes us truly human, in exchange for false security and broken promises. We will let ourselves forget that Jesus calls us, here – enfleshed, mortal and imperfect – to resurrection life.  He calls us to come out of our tombs to become love in a world that has forgotten its humanity.

The disciples who were gathered in the room with Jesus that fateful night in Jerusalem did eventually get the courage to be human, in light of the resurrection. They figured out how to love, how to change their minds, and how to stop worrying about what everyone thought about them. 

And in response, the church grew like a weed. The outcasts were welcomed, the hungry were fed, the sick were healed, and young and old, rich and poor, worshipped together around full dinner tables.  

The empire was threatened by the humanity of it all. Ten of the disciples in the room with Jesus that night died as martyrs. They died, because they had decided to become who they really were in light of the resurrection – human and called to love. 

Our faith does not call us to comfort. It calls us to love. It is worth living this way, because only in risking love can we encounter our humanity as God intended it. And only in loving can we experience the joy and freedom of really being alive. 

Will we accept the risk of humanity, and follow Jesus in his way of love? Or will we stay in our distortions, never getting out of the grave? 

The resurrection dares us to do something. And now is the time to act. Amen. 

References:

Closer to Jesus, Closer to Each Other

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Readings here

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Jesus’ first sermon in the Temple. First, he read from the scroll of the Book of Isaiah: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he has anointed me 
to bring good news to the poor. 
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives 
and recovery of sight to the blind, 
to let the oppressed go free, 
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  

Then, he sat down and declared: “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson referred to this brief, but powerful teaching as a “programmatic prophecy,” an announcement of Jesus’ gameplan for ministry. 

Three weeks later (for us, not Jesus), now assisted by the twelve apostles, we are seeing Jesus put that “programmatic prophecy” into action. In today’s Gospel reading, which is often referred to as the “Blessings and Woes,” Jesus acts on the call of his life to “bring good news to the poor.” 

(It’s helpful to know that the word used for “poor” in Luke doesn’t just refer to financial lack. As Johnson explains, it refers to anyone without power in society, those without respect, and those who get deprioritized and ignored, because they are seen as embarrassing, burdensome, or even dangerous. 

And maybe most importantly, when Jesus refers to “the poor” in the Gospel of Luke, he means it literally – he is referring to the flesh-and-blood marginalized people of this world.) 

Jesus comes with very good news for these lowly ones: “Blessed are you.” 

Unlike saying “Bless you!” after a sneeze or “Bless your heart” to soften criticism, this blessing is not just a social nicety. The grammatical form of “blessed” suggests that these words, when spoken by God in Christ, actually bring about that reality at the very moment in which they are spoken. 

So, when Jesus declares that the poor, hungry, grieved, and hated ones – the ones without power and respect – are the blessed ones of God, he changes their station in life. Once rejected, they are now the earth’s blessed ones. 

At the same time, those who have always lived secure and respectable lives are now the ones asked to take a hard look at themselves and see whether or not they’re really following God. 

The divine words of Jesus turn the world upside down. Recalling his mom, Mary’s, Magnificat, “He has put down the mighty from their seat: and has exalted the humble and meek.” 

Of course, Jesus isn’t saying something entirely new. But, he is now making real the oldest promise of God to His people: that blessedness is determined solely by our identification with the image of God that is found in all people, not by popularity, status, confidence, or control. 

If this is really true, then it forces everyone gathered there to reconsider what, and who, they follow. Because it forces them to reconsider who is worthy of respect. 

So, let’s look at the people gathered there… Who is Jesus’ audience? Who makes up the crowd? And what do these blessings, and their opposites, mean for how they order their lives? 

“Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon…And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them….” 

He’s not in the Temple or the town square, and he’s not talking to a particular group of people who share his views, his status, or his ethnicity. Instead, he is standing on level ground on an open plain, eye-to-eye with the great multitude who have joined him there, jostling, chaotic, and pushing in on one another in hopes of touching him. 

Jesus literally and figuratively levels the playing field as he declares blessedness, as he prophesies and heals in and among a diverse crowd. 

In his book, “After Whiteness,” on the theology of seminary communities, Dr. Willie Jennings talks about “the crowd” that surround Jesus as the centering image that should inform our ethic and our lives as Christians. He says: 

“The crowd is everything. The crowd is us. People shouting, screaming, crying, pushing, shoving, calling out to Jesus: “Jesus, help me;” “Jesus, over here.” People being forced to press up against each other to get to Jesus, to hear him and to get what they need from him. People who hate each other, who would prefer not to be next to each other. Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots, rebels, insurrectionists, terrorists, murderers, tax collectors, sinners, all widows, the orphans, the poor, the rich, sex workers. Wanderers, magicians, musicians, thieves, gangsters, centurions. Addicts and magistrates, city leaders, people from all over the Roman Empire, all pressing to hear Jesus…The crowd is not a temporary condition on the way to something else. The crowd is the beginning of a joining that was intended to do deep pedagogical work” (After Whiteness, 18-19). 

I think Jennings is really getting at this: Though we are all different, the work of Jesus Christ is to gather us into the “great multitude of people” gathered around him. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, himself poor and marginalized, we push closer, seeking healing and wholeness. And, as we do, we find ourselves drawing ever closer to each other. 

Among the crowd, on level ground with Jesus and his apostles, we are on equal footing with rich and poor, friend and enemy, and we become something other than our worldly titles and status would suggest. We become a ragtag, misfit, diverse, and dynamic single entity: the crowd. 

And all of us are here because we are looking toward Jesus, as he centers us on words that turn the world upside down. This poor man Jesus, who will be rejected, ridiculed, and crucified by those he came to save, is the blessed one. And those like him are blessed, too. 

But there’s more. Like Jesus and the apostles, we who are here in the crowd become prophets compelled to proclaim that the poor and hungry have been the closest to God’s righteousness all along. And blessedly for us, we don’t have far to go to get close and learn from these righteous ones. They are here: they’re among us and with us in the crowd that follows Jesus. Perhaps they are us. 

But, if the poor and oppressed are not in the crowd that surrounds us – in our lives, in our churches, or in our communities – it is time to ask ourselves why not. And, if we are not living with and among those forsaken ones Jesus calls blessed, it is time to ask ourselves if we are actually following Jesus, or if we accidentally ended up in a different crowd, following someone else. 

Because Jesus always makes his home among the gathered people who yearn for healing, among the crowds, churches, and communities that are messy, diverse, and rough around the edges, where people disagree and figure out how to be together anyway, with people who have all they need, and people who don’t know what that feels like. 

Jesus longs for us to join him in finding that level ground, in finding that equal footing that leads all of us into the blessedness of God. Eye-to-eye with one another, pushing ever closer to Jesus and, therefore, ever closer to each other. 

Friends, I am thankful to be smushed into the crowd that contains such blessed ones as you. May we seek God’s blessedness together. 

Amen. 

Jesus’ Program

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Did you know that any service of the Episcopal Church that includes communion is required to have a sermon? The church reformers wanted to make sure that scriptures were not only read in church, but understood among the people of a congregation. 

The preacher’s job was, and is, to “make plain” the words of our scripture texts so that, when we are invited to share in Holy Communion with Christ and one another, we feel fully a part of the Body of Christ, and united in his purpose. 

This call to preach the Gospel has persisted in our tradition for nearly 500 years. But it finds its origin in the very earliest practices of the church, informed by Jewish tradition. Today, in fact, we encounter Jesus delivering his first sermon.  

Couched between his 40-day fast in the wilderness and an attempt by the congregation to throw him off a cliff, this scene is the calm in the middle of “many dangers, toils, and snares” throughout Jesus’ ministry. 

In the story, Jesus reads a bit of scripture, then sits back down, before preaching nine, carefully chosen words: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

In one small scripture text and just nine words, Jesus articulates a comprehensive vision for his ministry. I’ve heard people describe it in various ways: as Jesus’ manifesto, his statement of purpose, his strategic plan, and maybe most apt, his Inaugural Address. 

Biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson calls it a “programmatic prophecy.”  Which is to say, here, we get a preview of Jesus’ priorities, the ones that will guide his ministry and inform his tactics going forward. Here, we learn what kind of leader Jesus will be.

It’s important to remember that, in Jesus’ day, many people awaited a Messiah, a person anointed by God to carry out his will for transformation. But most imagined a politician, a king, or a war hero.  And many wanted a rabble rouser who would ignite a political takeover. 

This is why, even at nine words, Jesus’ sermon is provocative. In the same breath, Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah hoped for and outlines a surprising set of tactics for his reign. Instead of building an army to defeat the Roman emperor, Jesus turns his gaze to the downtrodden. 

During his reign, he will bring good news to the marginalized, impoverished, and forgotten ones, proclaim release to those trapped by prisons or circumstances, recognize the dignity of the Disabled, liberate and empower the oppressed, and declare the goodness of God for all time. 

He will reveal his power paradoxically, by ignoring and forsaking the world’s power networks, walking out of the spotlight, and sitting down in the crowd, among the people he has come to save. 

Jesus only needs nine words, because the real sermon isn’t what he says – it’s who he is. The real sermon is his own body. 

Jesus will use his heart and mind, his hands and feet – his very life – as the tools of transformation. He will use his own blood, not poured out on the battlefield, but shared at tables with friends and strangers, offered as sustenance for the world. 

Jesus’ program is not a strategic plan for domination, but a painstakingly personal, relational effort to care for each person according to their need. It is a blatant refusal of common sense, a waste of resources, and a brutally inefficient system. But that is the way of Jesus: Not a pitch, a campaign, or a policy, but a body, putting itself on the line for the salvation, redemption, and liberation of the world. 

Early Christians, understanding themselves as the Body of Christ, took this sermon very literally. 

In the earliest years of the Jesus movement, Christ-followers became known for their intensely, egregiously gracious community values: 

  • Wealthy elites worshipped with enslaved people.  
  • Jews worshipped with Gentiles.  
  • Women and men alike served as community leaders (Ludlow, 17). 
  • Widows were so highly regarded that they became their own order of clergy (Ludlow, 19). 
  • Babies abandoned due to disability or poverty were adopted and raised by church members (Holland, “Charity”). 
  • Landowners sold all their property and gave it to the church (Acts 4:37).  
  • Congregations took up collections for the poor in faraway places, and built housing for them in their hometowns (Pauline epistles, Holland). 

And here’s a really wild one:  Some, according to first-century bishop Clement, even sold themselves into slavery to provide for the destitute (Ludlow, 19). 

In the 4th century, Emperor Julian shared his annoyance with Christians, which he calls Galileans, in a letter to the pagan priest of Galatia: “How apparent to everyone it is and how shameful that our people lack support from us when no Jew ever has to beg and the impious Galileans [Christians] support not only their own poor, but ours as well” (22). 

Early Roman persecutions of Christians are thought to have occurred, in part, because Christians were so bent on ignoring the social order. They were refusing to live according to the “way things had always been done.” They didn’t seem to care about hierarchies, cultural boundaries, and political mandates. They were using their bodies and their lives as tools of transformation, pouring themselves out for the sustenance of the world. 

Many of them died as martyrs, unwilling to forsake the call of Christ. And yet, their communities were characterized by joy. 

How can this be? While early Christians struggled with the same theological disagreements, life circumstances, and wills to power as everyone else, there was a clear goal: Everyone has a place at the table, and everyone is fed. 

Of course they were joyful! The early church was like an open-invite dinner party. 

And how can you be downtrodden at a dinner party? How can you worry when another course is on its way? How can you fear when everyone you love is here with you, with scars and struggles and stories to tell? How can you grieve when each face around you is shining in the glow of candlelight, lit like the glory of Christ? 

How can you be burdened by the risk involved in Christ’s program when you know that this program, his own body, is what got you here? Christ and his followers endured “many dangers, toils, and snares,” putting their bodies on the line for the sustenance of the world. 

And the most incomprehensible part of all of this is that he did it, and they did it, for you. You and I are here today because the early Christians took Jesus literally. And because they took him literally, they weren’t willing to give up on the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the disabled, the lost and forgotten ones. 

Because they took him literally, we, “who were lost, are found.” Together, we are one body with many members, trying to figure out how to be Christ’s body for the world. 

In a nine-word sermon shared while seated, Jesus calls to us, not from the stage but among the crowd, to become one body and one blood, poured out for the sustenance of the world. 

So, here’s my own attempt at a nine-word sermon: This is what it means to participate in Communion. 

References:
Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina Commentary Series: Luke
Morwenna Ludlow, The Early Church
Tom Holland, Dominion
“Crowd” language courtesy of Willie James Jennings (particularly After Whiteness)

In Your Light, We See Light

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Readings here

In our Collect and our Readings, the theme of the day is “illumination.” As I prepared for this service, celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., I kept coming back to a certain phrase in our Psalm: “in your light we see light.”  

It reminded me of Easter Vigil. At the very beginning of an Easter Vigil service, which occurs at sunset on Holy Saturday, a new Paschal candle is lit. 

The Celebrant says this prayer over the candle: O God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

The gist of this candle ritual plays out a little bit later in the darkened church when, at the Easter proclamation, all the lights are turned on, shocking sleepy parishioners into wakefulness, and making the church shine like a beacon in the dark midnight of Easter. People ring bells, greet one another other, and joyfully sing “He is risen.” 

If Christmas is about the light of the world becoming incarnate, then Easter is about the light of the world becoming permanent, refracting endlessly in the world’s dark night until everything is illuminated. Christ’s glory has been revealed for all time, and now the People, illumined by Christ’s Word and Sacraments, carry that light with them, beacons in the dark. 

“In your light we see light.” 

For as long as I can remember, I have loved Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a standard part of elementary school curriculum to talk about the Civil Rights Movement the week leading up to MLK Day. We learned how this one man stood up to bigotry, racism, and injustice with nothing but the strength of his ideals and a whole lot of persistence.  

Of course, as adults, we know that King’s story – and indeed, the reality of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century – was much more complicated. King was not a perfect saint – we know he had affairs. And, like anyone else, he made choices that didn’t always pan out and claims that weren’t always quite true. But those things can’t negate the power of his ministry, or the movement he was a part of. Because it wasn’t one man – it was a movement.  

Thousands of courageous people took a stand for their own dignity and the dignity of others, at great risk to their lives and livelihoods. They were united in their goals, but they weren’t all the same. Not all of them got along. Not all of them agreed on tactics, or were motivated by the same experiences. But all of them knew the stakes were too high to keep silent. 

Some of them, like Mamie Till, were simply proclaiming their child’s human sacredness in the midst of a culture of violence. 

In 1955, Mamie insisted on an open-casket funeral for her son, Emmet Till, who had been tortured and murdered by white men for allegedly flirting with a white woman. The men received no punishment for their crime. But the horrifying spectacle of Emmet’s funeral forced the world to confront the violence of racism. Mamie’s prophetic belief that injustice could not prevail is often credited as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

The light inside of Mamie lit a match that started a fire of justice. In Mamie’s light we see light. 

Among King’s followers was a young, white Episcopal seminarian named Jonathan Myrick Daniels.  

In 1965, he journeyed to Selma, Alabama to register new voters after the passing of the Voting Rights Act. While walking to a convenience store with a group of young, Black activists, a white man pointed a shot gun at 17-year-old Ruby Sales. Daniels pushed the man down and took the bullet.  He died on the scene.  

When King heard about it, he said, “one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.” 

The light inside of Jonathan burned so bright it saved someone’s life. In Jonathan’s light we see light. 

And, of course, there is King himself.  

A Christian, pastor, and preacher, King’s engagement in civic life was an extension of his faith and vocation. His commitment to non-violence stemmed from his desire to emulate Christ, who rejected a violent overthrow of the Roman government and insisted that revolution started with good principles and sound theology sustained and negotiated in a “beloved community.” 

King was an intentional movement builder, and he was good at it because he knew how to be a community and congregation builder. Following the example of Jesus, he understood that any movement must be built, first, on unwavering principles regarding the sacredness of human life. There could be no question that human dignity was an intrinsic and God-given right that applied to all people, equally. 

And second, King understood that successful movements require coalitions, of different kinds of people, from all walks of life, doing what they can where they can. United, but not all the same. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King wrote, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” That meant anyone bogged down by unfairness, want, and oppression could find a reason to join hands, link arms, and do the work. 

On the night before he died, King was giving a speech to striking sanitation workers in Memphis. Now known as the “Mountaintop Speech,” it reads like a sermon, conveying scriptural moments of deliverance and counter-cultural connection, and connecting them to the specific trials of the age. 

At the very end of the speech, it becomes clear that King knows there are credible threats on his life. He knows he might not live to see the end of the movement, or even the end of the strike.  

But he concludes with this: 

“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! I’m not worried about anything. And, so, I’m happy, tonight. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” 

The light inside Martin smoldered like incense. They could kill the body, but they could not kill the soul. In Martin’s light, we see light. 

Martin and Jonathan and Mamie saw the glorious light of God and refracted it out in so many directions, it began to overcome the darkness. Their lives became beacons, interrupting the dark night of the world. 

Two of them were martyred.  

Which forces the question, why does the world hate light so much? 

The glorious light of Christ that illumines his people is persistent, pervasive, and exposing. It eliminates the shadowy places where evil can persist. “It will not keep silent” when injustice rules the day. 

Symptoms of Christ-light include fearlessness, boldness, and an unwavering commitment to principles of human sacredness and dignity. This light insists on honesty above etiquette, inconvenience above order, and love above all else. 

It is agitating and loud and overbearing. It wakes up the sleepers and forces us out of our apathy. It makes us remember that everything God created he declared good, and we must declare it, too. 

Light cannot tolerate injustice – it must act, proclaim, and respond. And this means, the light of Christ is like a pebble in the shoe of injustice: Worldly powers and dominions hate people who challenge them on their ego trips and power grabs. Worldly rulers and their allies will kill to keep the world in darkness. 

But we are not like them. We are light-bearers. In Christ’s light, we see light. And we carry that light as beacons in the dark world.  

It is our task to be honest, and to speak up in the face of injustice. It is our duty to stay the course of our faith: to care for the poor, the orphan, the outcast, and the marginalized, to love our neighbors near and far, no matter who they are, and no matter what other people say about them. No matter the cost to our reputations, livelihoods, and maybe even our lives. And it is our calling to be bold and bright, to refract light until the whole world is covered in it. 

United but not the same, we bring different experiences and different skills for the movement that we might call Christ’s “way of love.” But we all have work to do. We all have light to bear. 

By God’s grace, illumined by Christ’s light, in the way of Martin, we will be able to say that we are not afraid, because we have seen Christ’s glory. And in our light, the world will see light.  

Amen. 

Not ‘Ordinary’ At All

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Father in heaven…Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. 

Among the many nerdy theological arguments clergy find themselves engrossed in, is a lively debate about what to call the season we’re currently in. 

Is it the Season of Epiphany or the Season after the Epiphany? The Feast of the Epiphany was Monday. Every year on January 6, we celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men bearing their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and announcing Jesus as the “King of the Jews.” 

Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas season and the return to “ordinary time.” While “ordinary,” in this case, means “counted,” in many ways, we are also getting back to “normal” until Lent begins. 

But preachers and scholars can’t quite agree on the thematic details. Some feel like the broader theme of epiphany – meaning “sudden revelation or insight” – invades and permeates the scripture readings set for this season. They insist that we keep looking for signs and wonders of Christ’s action in the world. 

And I take their point. 

But personally, I am inclined to say Epiphany is done, and there’s nothing else to say about it. I think it’s just that I’m over the twinkly lights and the Christmas trees and the heightened sense of optimism, that our secular Christmas and New Year’s celebrations bring. I’m ready to put all that away and sink into my Seasonal Affective Disorder until spring. (Yes, I have been diagnosed.)

But in his weekly newsletter, Dr. Andrew McGowan suggested that we can’t say goodbye to “epiphanies” just yet. Because today, we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the sudden revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, announced by God himself. 

As a colleague put it, this moment in our Gospels is when the clock starts ticking on Jesus’ earthly ministry. He is baptized here, among the people he has come to save. He will spend the next three years with them, walking slowly toward Jerusalem, the cross, and the resurrection. 

In other words, Jesus’ baptism marks a spiritual, relational, and ritual transformation that will bond Jesus and this burgeoning faith community to one another for eternity. Jesus’ baptism, in a mystical and physical sense, is the beginning of the church. Because it gives form to a new religious movement that will eventually be called Christianity. 

That’s not ordinary at all. That’s an epiphany! 

This is why baptism has been so important to the church since the very beginning. And it is why we call it the “initiation rite” of our church… 

Our Book of Common Prayer describes Holy Baptism as “…the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” It was described by the early church reformers as “the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”  

While Christ can and does speak to us whether we’re baptized or not, our baptism welcomes us into new life, a life dictated not by the finality of death and brokenness, but by the last Word of eternal life, held forever in the hand of God. 

While we usually baptize at a font by pouring water on the person’s forehead, the early church preferred baptizing in a pool of water. These were inground pools built within the walls of the church. The person to be baptized would be brought into the room, descend down several steps into the pool, be immersed face first, and then step up and out of the pool, where they would be clothed in white.i 

The layout was significant to the meaning of baptism: Stepping down into the pool signified stepping into the grave, being immersed in the water signified death (and purification), and stepping back out to be clothed in white signified the resurrection. 

This ritual, an “outward and visible sign,” revealed what baptism actually is: becoming one with the Body of Christ in his death, and his resurrection. 

Just like those ancient Christians, our baptisms still make us one with Christ and with his Body, the church. Whether water is poured on our foreheads, or we are immersed in a pool, at baptism we participate in our own funeral, and our own homecoming.  

But we don’t do it alone. The Episcopal Church no longer performs private baptisms, because we understand that our faith is not only for ourselves, but for our community, and strengthened by our community. 

This is why infant baptisms are part of our practice. We believe that life in Christ is nurtured in the church, that we learn from one another and, in turn, teach one another what it means to be “born again.”  

Our initiation into the church through baptism prepares us for a lifetime of growing in the faith. And it helps us pay attention to life’s epiphanies that both reveal Christ’s grace and urge us to respond in kind. 

Baptism, Christ’s and our own, points us to who we are.  

We are “resurrection people.” Life in Christ, and in his church, will not protect us from the trials and horrors of this life – from the fires and floods and griefs. 

But we are a people called to run toward the challenges of this life in service of love, drawing from a deep well of hope in Christ that can’t be moved by the death, destruction, and decay all around us, because we know we are held forever in the hand of God. 

To use a Biblical term, we can “gird our loins” for whatever comes, because we know we belong to Jesus, we are led by the Holy Spirit, and we have one another as mentors on the Way. 

[As we prepare to say together the Baptismal Covenant, I encourage you to take some time to reflect on and pray with the words.  Consider how the Holy Spirit is leading you to more fully embody your baptism. 

Later, as you come up for Communion, I encourage you to place a finger in the font and make the sign of the cross on your forehead, as a physical reminder of your participation in the resurrected life of Christ and his church. 

We will now take a couple minutes of silence for prayer and reflection…]

Kid Jesus in the Temple, A Sermon for Christmas 2

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Today, after anticipating the coming of Jesus for four long weeks and celebrating his birth for two, we are suddenly encountering pre-teen Jesus seemingly ignoring his parents. 

After all that talk about “Silent Night,” it’s a real shock to the system! 

How did we manage to miss the last eleven years of Jesus’ life? You might be tempted to blame the sudden jump in the story on the Lectionary – which is the schedule of scripture readings we use in the Episcopal Church. But it’s not the Lectionary’s fault. We’re still only in Chapter 2 of Luke, after all.  

This is simply a consequence of Luke’s story-crafting.  He has a point to make and only so much time to make it. Cuts had to be made! 

If Luke were a movie, all we would have missed was a brief growing-up montage set to gentle string music, with a kindly voice reading verse 40: “The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” 

At the end of today’s reading, we actually get the bookend to that verse: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” Those two, brief summaries signal the swift passing of time.  

In the next verse, we will be propelled nearly 20 years into the future, to the time of Pontius Pilate and the start of John the Baptist’s ministry, which ushers in the final Passover pilgrimage of Jesus, from the Galilean countryside to Jerusalem, where he will die and rise again. This little passage in Luke is the only time kid-Jesus gets any airtime in the whole Bible.  

So, why tell this story at all? What does it tell us: about who Jesus is, about his parents, and about the promise of God? 

First, let’s think about the setting… 

It was the festival of the Passover, a time for commemorating God’s rescue of the Israelites from the tyrannical Pharaoh of the Exodus story. As practicing Jews, Jesus’ family traveled to Jerusalem to make sacrifices in the Temple, and join the community in remembrance and praise to God for their rescue. 

Though Passover was a religious obligation, it was also a family reunion: along with his parents, Jesus was accompanied on the journey by aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and people from his village he wasn’t even related to. They traveled together in a large caravan to share protection and resources on what would have been more than a 30-hour journey on foot. 

Once in Jerusalem, the family was hosted by extended family and friends, with everyone sharing responsibility for making sure the kids and animals didn’t go missing. 

Now, let’s think about what happens in the story… 

The sacrifices have been made, the feasting is over, and Mary and Joseph are packed up and ready to head back home. They can’t find Jesus, but they figure he’s with someone they know, so they walk a whole day before they begin to worry. But, the next day, after no word on Jesus’ whereabouts, they have no choice but to turn around. 

For three whole days, they search family homes, rented rooms, marketplaces, and streets for their son.  After nearly giving up, they go back to the most unlikely place to find a child by himself: the Temple. And there he is, talking like a grown-up and holding his own with the religious scholars.  

Mary is not having it. Now nearly a week behind on their journey home, Mary is not in the mood to ponder the blessing of this holy child, because, the fact is, this little blessing is acting like a brat. 

The parental desperation has been building up over the past 4 days, and has now given way to annoyance: “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Jesus, unbothered, replies: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 

What the…excuse me, Jesus? What a weird thing to say. You’re 12 years old.  And your parents were on their way home to Nazareth, to your father Joseph’s house.  

Oh, right. Jesus isn’t a normal kid. It’s all coming back now. 

You see, in spite of God’s repeated proclamations to Mary and Joseph – through angels, shepherds, and relatives – that Jesus isn’t a normal kid, the trials and stresses of daily living have lulled his earthly parents into a false sense of normalcy. 

In those first years of new parenthood – the fear, the anxiety, the annoyance, and the overwhelm – this “miracle baby” simply became a part of the mix of life, with all of its everyday distractions and demands. 

Gabriel’s angelic message and Elizabeth’s blessing were just surreal memories now, hazy and almost unbelievable after years of continued toil under the hardship of first-century life, the always-simmering oppression of Roman rule, and the realities of raising a kid, who was fully divine, but still fully human. 

Mary and Joseph didn’t get any special privileges for raising the Son of God, after all. Just like everyone else, they had family obligations, ailing loved ones, household chores, work obligations, and sacrifices to make at the far-away temple. Their lives were exceedingly, boringly normal. 

It is a harrowing fact of human nature that even a miracle as big as the incarnation could, in some sense, stop resonating, could stop sustaining hope. 

I think this is why Luke tells the story. 

Not only does the story of 12-year-old Jesus do theological work, by confirming Jesus’ divinity throughout every moment of his incarnate life. For his exhausted, distracted parents, it was a disruptive, inconvenient, and necessary reminder that God’s promise was still true after all those years. 

It was a reminder that Jesus isn’t normal, and life with him isn’t normal either. 

This child truly is the Anointed One. This child truly is the Son of the very God who dwells in the Temple, who rescued their ancestors from tyrants, from enslavement and exile and ruin,  who turned their mourning into dancing and their sorrow into joy. 

And this child, in a few more years, will manage to bring about the revolutionary salvation of the world regardless of his parents’ successes or missteps. 

And because of that reminder to his parents, it is also a reminder to us, that Jesus is who he says he is – always, at every point in his eternal life and at every point of our journey with him. He is our rescue and our hope – he is God’s promise come true. 

Even when we are distracted by our exhausting, confusing, dangerous, normal lives, the miracle is still a miracle, and God is still with us. And just as importantly, God’s promises aren’t diminished just because we forgot, or got distracted, or were too tired to say thank you. 

What a gift to have this story. What a gift it is to know that God can use anything, even disruption and inconvenience, to remind us that we are held in a state of grace. 

Our scriptures remind us that even our normal lives aren’t normal, because Jesus is still in the act of inconveniencing us in order to reveal himself to us, transforming hatred into love, sorrow into joy, and death into life. Like Mary, we can treasure all of this in our hearts, even when we don’t fully understand what Jesus is up to.