Tag: season after epiphany

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. 

The Pinnacle Epiphany: A Sermon on Transfiguration

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Readings here

Early last week, I wrote an entire 1,200 word sermon.  

But this weekend was Diocesan Council. And it wasn’t just any Council Meeting. This year, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas is celebrating 175 years. 

Over 600 of us – lay and clergy – listened to story after story of lives being changed, and people doing incredible things in the name of the Gospel, over the Diocese’s 175-year history.  

  • Three religious leaders who blocked the bridge to Galveston to keep the KKK from rallying there.  
  • A white Episcopal priest who risked being lynched to stop the lynching of a Black man.  
  • The first woman priest ordained in Texas, at nearby Epiphany, in spite of a protest in the middle of the service.  
  • And then, the recent news, of millions of dollars being distributed to support scholarships, health access, and community programs.  

These were stories of people putting their bodies on the line, and their money where their mouth is. 

— 

I don’t know how y’all have been feeling lately, but I really needed to hear stories of hope. 

I had a breakdown on Thursday night, thinking about the death toll in Gaza, and the drowned mom and kids at the border, and all the other scary, terrible, evil things humans do to one another.  

I kept asking:  

  • What should I do?  
  • How should I act?  
  • How will I know when God is calling me to risk everything for the sake of what’s right?  

I was thinking of all those heroes and martyrs who came before me.  

The Christians who hid Jewish families during the Holocaust, the Civil Rights leaders who persisted through death threats.  My neighbors in Charlottesville who held the line in the face of white supremacists.  And even the Hebrew prophets, who yelled and yelled the words of God, even when everyone called them crazy.  

Sometimes I worry that my practice of religion is too sanitized.  

That I’m too comfortable.  

I can talk the talk, but what good is that, if I’m not living like a person who believes in resurrection?  What good is sound theology if I’m more worried about my reputation than the new creation?  

I don’t think I have a martyr complex, but I do revere the martyrs.  I do think there are things worth risking everything for.  

But what does that matter if I’m not the one willing to put my own body on the line? 

I say all this to give you some taste of the real agony I was feeling.  The guilt, the inadequacy, that sense that I want to do the right thing. But I’m not sure how to even know what the right thing is.  

When are we called to be prophets? When are we called to be pastors? When are we called to be…people? 

— 

With all this in my head, I listened to these diocesan stories, of lives being changed and people doing incredible things in the name of the Gospel. 

And during Hour 5 of yesterday’s 6-hour meeting, I realized I would need to re-write my sermon.  You could say I had an Epiphany about an Epiphany. 

— 

The Transfiguration reading we just heard is the bookend to the Season of Epiphany, that begins with the Wise Men finding the human God in the form of a toddler in a working class family. 

This first Epiphany is that God came down from glory and became human. Not a king, but a carpenter. 

Then, in the Transfiguration, we follow this human God up a mountain for another surprise.  This time, the man Jesus is revealed as the glorified Christ. The eternal Son of God, shining with an other-worldly glow. 

The Transfiguration is generally thought of as a pre-cursor to Christ’s final appearance after the resurrection. Here, in the middle of his earthly ministry, Jesus has invited three of his most trusted disciples to witness the full truth of his nature. 

Some scholars suggest that the optics of the Transfiguration are so similar to Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection, that this event was actually written back into the story after the fact.  

— 

But there’s a more interesting story to tell about the similarity between the Transfiguration and the Resurrection. 

While the Gospels don’t name the mountain Jesus and his friends climb, we often assume it’s Mount Horeb, which is the same as Mount Sinai.  

Christians associate the Transfiguration story with Mount Horeb, because of the text’s mention of Moses and Elijah:  

  • Moses encountered God and received the Ten Commandments on Mount Horeb. 
  • And Elijah flees to Mount Horeb to escape his call, when God shows up and speaks to him in a whisper. 

My friend Ora explained to me that, in Jewish theology, these encounters with God on the mountain are thought to exist outside of time, in God’s eternal timelessness. 

This means that you could think of every divine encounter on Mount Horeb as simultaneous events. God is always present there and always speaking – and the message is always the same. 

So, in this passage, when we are invited to encounter Jesus on the mountaintop, what we are witnessing is neither a story about a past event nor a pre-cursor to a future one.  

In a reality beyond our understanding, the Transfiguration is, and has always been, happening, now. 

When we bear witness to the Transfiguration, we are having an epiphany in the truest meaning of the word. 

  • We are “perceiving the essential nature of a thing.”  
  • The thing, in this case, being God.  

We are seeing the full glory of the eternal and always resurrected Christ, who was and is and is to come.  

Our eyes are fixed on hope incarnate, in the flesh. On the living sacrifice.  On the Word who spoke Creation into being, and still whispers new creation all around us. 

“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” 

This is the Epiphany to end all Epiphanies. The pinnacle epiphany.  

Not only that God was a baby in a manger, or a man on the move.  But that God, in Christ, is bigger than the whole human story. And yet, he is an eternal and ever-present part of the human story. 

— 

The Epiphany I had during Diocesan Council was that you and I ask a lot of very good questions about the world’s suffering, and our responsibility to alleviate it. 

But the answer doesn’t arrive in words. It arrives in an Epiphany.  

It arrives in God made flesh, and flesh transfigured as God. It arrives as the person of Jesus Christ. 

— 

If we want to do brave and risky things for God, we already have the action plan we need.  

“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” 

If we don’t know what to say or how to act or when to do risky things for the Gospel, we look to Jesus.  We might be asked to follow stars or hike up mountains – to take beatings, leave our nice things behind, and journey to places far beyond our comfort zone.  

But we’ll know when it’s right, because we’re looking to Jesus.  We have witnessed him there, in the timeless place of God, in his full resurrected glory.  We are assured that he is with us, has always been with us, is present in primordial winds that still blow through the streets. 

Evil creeps in, but it can’t win. Because we have seen Christ’s glory face to face.  

We know what hope looks like and no one can convince us otherwise. 

When we get back down the mountain, we’ll know what to do.  Because the Transfiguration is the pinnacle epiphany, eternally revealing the truth of things.  

And maybe the world will kill us for it. It killed Jesus, after all. 

But God whispers an epiphany on that mountaintop that echoes through eternity: 

Have you not seen? Have you not heard?  

We’re a resurrection people. 

Amen. 

Sermon: Beatitudes & Heptapods

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A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Readings available here

If you were to rank Bible passages by popularity, I’m pretty sure the Beatitudes would be in the top 5, after the Golden Rule, Psalm 23, John 3:16, and maybe Paul’s reflection on love in 1 Corinthians. 

It’s not surprising that this passage is popular. On its face, the Beatitudes are comforting words. They’re a reminder that Jesus has blessed us in our lowest places. Even when the world is cruel and punishing, we know that God can see what we’re dealing with. 

But I think the Beatitudes have become so commonplace that we can easily forget that these words are more than words: they are literally revolutionary. They change the world. 

This is because Jesus’ words are not wishful thinking. They are true. When Jesus speaks, he makes them true. 

Let me digress for a moment…For the last month, I’ve been reading the collected works of science fiction author, Ted Chiang.  

One of my favorite stories is called The Story of Your Life. It was adapted into a movie called Arrival.  

The story follows a linguist as she encounters the language of aliens. 

These aliens, called Heptapods, don’t use speech the way humans do. Their sentence structure isn’t linear. It doesn’t make a series of connecting points all in a straight line. 

Instead, it’s a three-dimensional web, with parts of meaning interconnecting and going off in many directions. In order to write down the sentence, you have to know where the sentence is going from the first pen stroke.  

It’s hard to visualize, but what it means is that, in order for the heptapods to communicate anything, they have to have the complete picture already. To begin a thought, they already have to know how the story ends. 

Humans use sentences to arrive at meaning, eventually. But because heptapods already know what the end of their sentences are, their language isn’t about thinking through things or negotiating meaning.  

The narrator concludes that the only reason the heptapods use language at all is because their speaking is a “form of action.” 

This concept is a real one used by linguists. It’s called speech act theory. Let me quote from the story for a second: 

“According to speech act theory, statements like “You’re under arrest,” “I christen this vessel,” or “I promise” were all performative: a speaker could perform action only by uttering the words.  

For such acts, knowing what would be said didn’t change anything. Everyone at a wedding anticipated the words “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” but until the minister actually said them, the ceremony didn’t count.  

With performative language, saying equaled doing.” 

Ok, now back to the Bible. What does speech act theory have to do with the Beatitudes? 

It turns out, everything. Because when Jesus speaks of blessedness, his speech is an action. He is speaking the Kingdom of God into existence. Don’t just take my word for it: Biblical scholars point out that the Beatitude form and syntax are associated with prophecy. 

Like heptapod language, one scholar says that “the Beatitudes are written as unconditional performative language. They do not merely describe something that already is, but bring into being the reality they declare.”  

In other words, they are true because the God who knows the end of the story has declared them. 

When Jesus speaks of Beatitude, he is turning the world upside down. These are not words of comfort – they are a challenge to every assumption we make about who is blessed and who is not.  

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the innocent, the weary, the angry, the ones who keep trying to make the world a better place even when they can’t see any proof that it’s possible. 

It’s not the wealthy, the happy, the attractive, or the powerful who are blessed. It’s the ones on the margins. The ones who are heavy-laden. The ones who are at risk of being gunned down and beaten.  

The ones who carry each other’s burdens. The ones who aren’t sure a better world is possible, but know without a doubt that the one we’re living in isn’t nearly good enough. 

The Beatitudes are not just words: they are Christ’s action, now and forever. 

And this isn’t just a theory.  

We can see the fruits of this action. Because of the words of Jesus, we have churches and monasteries, hospitals and charities. We have liberation theology and Black Civil Rights movements. We have martyrs and civil disobedience and civil war.  

We have light in darkness and hope where hope has no business showing up. 

Political regimes have fallen because people with no earthly power took the Beatitudes seriously. 

Jesus speaks, and the whole world changes. Jesus speaks, and the Kingdom of God breaks through. 

– 

The mistake we make in reading the Beatitudes as comforting is that we turn Jesus’ eternal and irrevocable blessing into something closer to the saying, “Bless your heart.” 

But, unlike those who say “Bless your heart,” Jesus isn’t frowning and shaking his head in pity for people who suffer in this world. He’s not merely letting us know he cares about us.  

Like God’s voice booming into the void at the beginning of time, Jesus’ voice is the voice of creation. 

The Beatitudes make hope possible. Which means they show us the way. 

They are Christ’s vision of new creation. To live into them, we need to follow his gaze.  

Our job is to notice where the kingdom breaks through. Not in places of glory, but in places of neglect. Not in places of calm, but places of chaos. Not in places of wealth, but in places of poverty.  

The cracked and broken places of this world are where the light of the Kingdom is breaking through. 

So, no matter where you see yourself in the Beatitudes, I encourage you to remember that Jesus is already acting. Jesus has always been acting and creating and renewing, and he will never stop. 

Thanks be to God! Like the heptapods, we already know the end of the story, too. And because of that, we are empowered to speak and act without fear of the future. We walk the path with God, by faith, with assurance that every small act of justice, mercy, kindness, love, and solidarity makes the Kingdom a little more visible. 

Jesus has covered us in blessedness, in beatitude.  

Where do you see the light of his kingdom breaking through? 

Amen.