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Eternal Word, New Beginnings

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Readings here

Today is the first Sunday in Advent.  The word Advent means arrival. But we’ll get back to that later. Today also marks the beginning of a new year for the church.  So, Happy New Year! 

When we think about typical new year’s festivities, we probably imagine raucous celebration. The ball drops, couples kiss, and fireworks go off around the world.  People crowd into streets, bars, and houses in sparkly clothing. And strangers drink and even sing together like old friends. 

The next day, people make and eat special New Years’ food, thought to bring good luck: black-eyed peas, tamales, goose, and even pickled herring make the list.  In my family, we eat corned beef and cabbage. 

All of these traditions seem to be a way to conjure optimism out of thin air. They encourage us to perform reckless and unjustified hope. The drinks and debauchery help us literally forget the old year, with its old sorrows and annoyances. And in the hazy glow of midnight, we can look forward to a limitless future. 

We tell ourselves: this year is gonna be different.  We’ll finally become who we always wanted to be. We’ll finally get the job, mend the relationship, make the move, start the workout, and get the good news.  

We have no reason at all to believe any of these things are influenced by the fact that it is a new year. But, we decide to believe things will change…at least until the end of January. 

— 

In Christian tradition, our Advent new year is also a season of hope.  But our hope looks a little different. And, unlike new year’s resolutions, it’s a pretty bad conversation starter at holiday parties. Because, Christian hope is apocalyptic. Which is to say, it has a lot to do with the end of the world. 

By now, we are well-acquainted with the apocalyptic literature of the Bible. Our scripture readings have been tracking with the apocalypse for a couple of weeks now. In Daniel, Jeremiah, Revelation, the Gospels, and even the Psalms, we have heard prophecies proclaimed about the end times. Today, we hear news of a mysterious “Son of Man” who is coming to judge the world. 

These apocalyptic predictions are kind of like New Year’s Resolutions – in that they help us imagine the future. But there’s one big difference: these scriptural resolutions are not about hoping for things you can put on your resume or brag about on Facebook. 

And they are not about forcing unjustified optimism that only lasts a month. At their core, they seek to legitimize and justify hope, and to make it more than a game of personal willpower. 

On its surface, apocalypse can seem grim. But it’s not supposed to be traumatic. It is meant to be just alarming enough to wake us up and turn us around, so we can see the big picture. 

It draws us into the mystery of our faith. And this mystery dwells in paradox. Appearing to be about the future, predictions of the final judgment are actually the story of everything, reaching back to the farthest past.  

They compel us to look forward to the final days, but when we do that, we end up being drawn back to the very beginning, when the breath of God moved over the waters before time began. With a word, God created the world. And at the end, the same Word, the Word made flesh in Jesus, “will come to judge the living and the dead.” 

The creative presence of God imbues all things, at all times and in all places. This is big news! And it is the cause for our hope. 

— 

But still, the fact remains that we are in the middle of things, and the middle is an unsettling place. What do we do with ourselves in the present tense? How do we read the signs? How do we know that Christ is coming near? 

Let’s take a closer look at today’s reading from Luke: Jesus starts with a pretty typical apocalyptic message.  There will be weird shifts in the planets, eclipses, weather events, and terrible tidal waves. A collective sense of foreboding will fall upon the face of the earth. Then, the “Son of Man,” the long-awaited Messiah, will descend from on high.  

We assumed all these signs were pointing to a terrible end. But it turns out, this Son of Man, Jesus, has come to redeem the world. 

And what does redemption mean? It means someone pays all of your debts and sets you free from bondage and obligation.  It means everything that was taken away is now given back to you and you have everything you need. 

Jesus clarifies his words with a parable… 

‘”Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.’ 

Jesus says, this is how you know that Christ is coming near: the things you took as signs of death are being transformed into new life. 

Like fig trees sprouting new leaves, just in time for summer.  You’ll have delicious fruit to eat by August. 

The signs of Christ’s coming, even when they are foreboding, are not intended to be understood through a lens of death and destruction. Like winter turning into spring, signs of death ultimately lead to new life: the branch springing up, the new leaves on the fig tree, freedom and fresh starts. These signs of life are already present with us, and they’re just as real as death. Christ is already near. 

It is good for Christian apocalypse to be central to our faith, because it is an antidote to atrophy. We don’t accept death as the end of the story. And this means we live our lives with persistence., taking care of our neighbors, praying for restoration, and abounding in love for another. 

— 

The trials and tribulations endemic to this world wear on us. We are tired and afraid. We’d like to forget about our troubles for a little while. I think people have probably felt this way since the world began. 

But Jesus shouts, now is not the time!  Now is the time to “be alert” and pay attention!  If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss the buds on the branches. You’ll miss the joy of the sweet, sticky figs. 

You’ll miss the fact that the Word of God is speaking into darkness, and always doing a new thing. 

— 

And that’s what Advent is really about. Whether we’re looking back to creation, or the incarnation, or looking ahead with fear and trepidation, God is always interrupting time to do a new thing. 

Advent means arrival, after all. And what is arrival but an interruption, an abrupt end of one thing and the start of a new thing? The arrival of a baby that will save the world. The arrival of a King that will make our winter spring.  

In Advent, timelines merge, worlds collide, and life on earth takes on the afterglow of Heaven. Here, darkness is always muddled with light, and endings are always new beginnings. 

Here, hope is always justified by the glorious, persistent goodness of the eternal Word, surprising us with redemption, over and over again. Happy New Year! 

Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth | Christ the King

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Readings here

On November 11, 1918, World War One finally ended, after four long years. World War One is often called the first modern war. The National Park Service says: “Machine guns, poison gas, rapid-fire artillery, aerial bombardment, tanks, and submarines were all new innovations that brought about horrors never before seen on the battlefield.” 

As many as 22 million people were killed, more than any war in recorded history, up to that point. That kind of destruction doesn’t just impact one family or one community – it affects the world. The result was one big existential crisis.  

Many people asked: How could God permit this suffering? There was no easy answer. 

By 1925, countries long-considered “Christian nations” were allowing new worldviews to take root. In the communist Soviet Union and fascist Italy and Germany, God was no longer part of the equation. God was too abstract and too far away. The people wanted a king.  

Or, rather, they wanted a strongman, a no-nonsense politician who could lead people, scarred by modern war, to a modern promised land. This promised land wasn’t concerned with peace, and it wasn’t imagined through a lens of hope.  Hope was frivolous in times like these. 

Instead, it was all brute force, brute speech, fear of foreigners, scorn of minorities, fences, and locked doors. 

In large numbers, the people of Europe decided that liberty and justice for all was an old-fashioned value after all.  They had become accustomed to rationing, casualties, and adrenaline coursing through their veins.  And the strongmen told them these things were good, and right, and true – signs of their virtuous endurance. 

It was within this context that Pope Pious the Eleventh began a new tradition of the church: Christ the King Sunday. Within a few years, many other denominations had taken up the cause, including Episcopalians. 

Declaring Christ as King in that particular moment was not random. Pope Pious was making a subversive political statement against the politicians and dictators vying for the world’s thrones.  

He was reminding the church that they already had what, and who, they needed, in the person of Jesus Christ. And he was declaring that God still had something to say in these modern times: The Kingdom of God had not died on the battlefield.  God had not gone AWOL. 

Against the powers and principalities, Christ had not been moved, and would not be moved: 

His dominion is an everlasting dominion 
that shall not pass away, 
and his kingship is one 
that shall never be destroyed. 

Christ was and is and will be on his throne. 

The world’s rulers might win the day, but they had no power to bring about the kind of promised land their citizens were really looking for, beneath all their fear and despair. 

I like doing a deep dive into history, because it reminds me that the trials of our current day are not greater than those of the past. In many generations and many places, the people of God have struggled with existential crises. In hard times, we have wondered where God is. And we have desperately looked for someone to save us. 

It is hard to answer the questions of our suffering. The world’s corruption can’t be justified by trite reminders that “God is in control.” 

And, I’m sorry to say that I have yet to find a justification for suffering that provides a quick fix. 

But what I can say – because it is what our Scriptures say – is that there are spiritual realities bigger and wilder than we can understand, here on the ground. I can say that the Kingdom of God is breaking through the cracks of earthly decay, showing up now in flashes, but ever-growing toward the ambient light of paradise. 

I can say that, if the world is actually doomed, it has no business being as beautiful as it is, and people have no reason to be as kind as they often are. 

I can also say that, in my darkest moments, when I have asked God “why?” the answer has not always come in words.  But in time, hope has, eventually, come.  

And isn’t that also worth asking about? How is hope still a possibility in a suffering world? How is hope still alive? 

Our scriptures tell us hope is alive because Christ is alive. Even now, he is situated as King on his throne.  

But what makes this king so different from the crude and failing rulers of this earth? And where is the evidence of his kingdom in the middle of life’s sorrow? 

The answer arrives in the life and person of Jesus… 

In his weekly newsletter on the Gospel reading, scholar Andrew McGowan talked about the dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate, the Rome-appointed governor of Judea. 

McGowan says: 

‘Pilate already knows the answer to the first fateful question, “Are you the King of the Jews?”, at least on his own terms.  This question is verbally identical in all four Gospels, which is remarkable. There is no serious possibility, however, that the homeless Galilean itinerant Jesus, is a “king” of any kind, at least in the sense that Pilate would understand that term—or how we would, normally.’ 

On Christ the King Sunday, the church proclaims that this Jesus, this homeless man, is the only true and wise king. In his humble ministry on earth and in his arrest, trial, and death, he exhibits few signs of kingship: 

He isn’t charming, he doesn’t grandstand, and he doesn’t make political alliances. He doesn’t rally his followers to take up arms, surround himself with “yes men,” or bribe Roman representatives to cut him a deal. Any gift he has received he has already given away. He has no possessions and no permanent home. 

Neither an effective politician nor social reformer, Jesus provides the one thing no earthly ruler has ever been able to offer without coercion: the Truth, unburdened by moral and mortal decay. 

In his humble life, self-sacrificial death, and shocking resurrection, the Son of God reveals himself as the answer to all our questions. The Truth is that worldly power will not save us – only love beyond our reckoning will save us. 

And God is Love. And Christ’s kingdom is “not from this world.”  And this is why we can have hope. 

As McGowan goes on to say:

‘“…the love of God…is the real order of the universe.  

To celebrate Jesus’ kingship is not to look away from the world we know, but to see it as it might be, ruled by the true power of love.’ 

No matter what they tell you, the kings, presidents, bishops, and rulers of this earth will never bring us to the promised land. We are not one election, one war, or one succession away from a resolution to the trials and griefs of this life. 

But, as we are reminded throughout our Scriptures, and in our history books, we are not the first generation to confuse brutality with hope. We are not the first people to be duped into believing we needed a strongman.  

We want our earthly rulers to take care of us, so we don’t have to work so hard to take care of one another. We want them to fix things for us. And too often, we accept the lie that fixing things means some people will stay broken. 

But, when we expect these things, we give them too much power. We cannot afford to make them kings, because we risk making them gods. And these false gods – these earthly rulers – will never be able to bring about the life-altering, darkness-shattering, hope-bringing, joy-giving transformation of the world we long for.  

Only Christ can do that.  Only the Kingdom of God can do that.  

Even in these modern times, in our deepest despair, the light of Christ is breaking through. In defiance of all who would justify cruelty, violence, and dehumanization as means to an end, we proclaim love as our salvation, because Christ is the only true king. Amen.

Our Times are in God’s Hand: A Sermon on Apocalypse

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

Readings here.

The year was 2002. I was 13 years old.  The country had recently survived Y2K, a contentious presidential election, the September 11 terrorist attacks, 4 major hurricanes, and dozens of tropical storms, one of which was a direct hit on my home. My dad had just lost his job and had to start commuting nearly four hours roundtrip for his new one. My grandpa died. 

And then, one day in the spring, I was home alone, when the sliding glass door on my house began to shake. Suddenly, I heard a deep, resounding BOOOMMM coming from far away. I looked outside and didn’t see a soul on my cul-de-sac, even though the workday had ended. 

I came to the only, logical conclusion.  It was the end of the world. And all the Christians had been raptured – taken up to Heaven before the Great Tribulation on earth. All the Christians. Except, of course, for me. 

The apocalypse was here.  

Things had not gone as planned. Maybe I had prayed a prayer wrong, or maybe my pastor had failed to seal my Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Whatever the case, here I was, the last member of my family still earthside.  And all I could do was wait for the violence and destruction to begin. 

“There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.” 

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” 

A half-hour later, the kitchen door opened, and my mom and sister walked in. My dad got home from his new, faraway job, just a little later than I expected.  A neighbor called to ask if we had heard the “sonic boom,” when the space shuttle reentered earth’s atmosphere, on its route back to Kennedy Space Center. 

Ohhhh…so it wasn’t the apocalypse after all. Just a cascade of disorienting circumstances that had sent my anxiety into a tailspin. 

—

After hearing today’s scripture readings, maybe your heart rate went up a little, like mine did on that day in 2002. 

Our Daniel and Mark readings are undoubtedly “apocalyptic.” They prophecy a chaotic and violent end and warn their readers to stand at the ready for all that is coming. It is tempting to avoid these passages, because they are disorienting. They stress us out and make us feel bad.  And worse than that, they make us feel obligated to prepare for a future of unthinkable difficulty.  

What does apocalypse have to do with Christian hope? 

Well, I think we have often misunderstood the apocalypse. So, let’s talk about what it means for something to be apocalyptic… 

In informal conversation, when we say “the apocalypse,” we’re most likely referring to the final and complete destruction of the world, or at least, the inhabitable world. 

Scientists might speak of climate apocalypse, politicians of institutional apocalypse, and Christians throughout history have read into wars, storms, recessions, and generally bad vibes as signs of the impending final judgment. 

But in the ancient world, apocalypse had a more nuanced meaning.  The word itself comes from the Greek word, apokalypsis, which means “to uncover or reveal.” That definition ties the apocalyptic tradition to the prophets, because prophets are God’s messengers, revealing God’s active participation in human affairs. 

Not all prophecy is doom and gloom, but much if it is a warning that God’s people need to get back on track. And that’s where apocalypse comes in. While apocalyptic stories often carry a sense of foreboding, their purpose is not to make us freeze in fear and await our fate. 

As John Collins puts it: apocalypse “is intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority” (1).

In other words, apocalyptic proclamations reveal the perils of losing sight of God in the short term, while declaring God’s ultimate power over all things in the long term.  In contrast to doom and gloom, they should encourage us to stay the course and carry hope through all of life’s trials.  As we say in our birthday blessing, “our times are in God’s hand.” 

It’s also good to remember that the dark future foretold is not so different from the ongoing fear and violence of our present reality. The drama of these stories casts a spotlight on the worst of the human condition so we can see it for what it really is. And in the process, we can see who we are, and who God is. 

— 

Today’s scriptures bring the trials of living, breathing, suffering people into the context of God’s power. 

They reference many cataclysms and many terrors we ourselves can recognize – when human apathy and wills to power lead to bloodshed, institutional collapse, hunger, and collective trauma that would span generations. 

This is demonstrated well in the book of Daniel, which occurs in the midst of a cycle of terror… 

At one time, the Hebrew tribes were split into two nations: the Kingdom of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South. In 732 BCE, war broke out in the Northern Kingdom when Assyria invaded, killing thousands, including women and children. 

After the initial bloodshed, those who survived were systematically deported and displaced. The goal was forced assimilation of the Hebrew people, which would make it harder for them to retaliate against the Assyrian kingdom, by reducing their sense of shared identity. 

During this period, Assyria took part of the Southern Kingdom, but they didn’t gain complete control. But in 597 BCE, Babylon took the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Known as the Babylonian Exile, this period saw several phases of forced displacement of the Hebrew people, led by King Nebudchanezzar the Second.  

The war ultimately resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587 BCE. Some of the Bible’s most hauntingly beautiful literature is written about the Babylonian Exile, including the books of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations. 

For those whose lives had been burnt to the ground by invading armies, this was surely the apocalypse. This was surely the end of the world.  

Yet, it was within this hopeless context that Daniel’s prophecy rang out: “But at that time, your people shall be delivered.” 

The world of the ancient near east may have been consumed by “war and rumors of war,” but the people of Judah would survive. Their times were still in God’s hand. 

Fifty years later, the Judeans were permitted to go back to their homeland. They rebuilt the Temple. They rebuilt their lives. And God was with them the whole time. 

In Mark, we hear Daniel’s words echoing in the voice of Jesus. Jesus tells his followers there will be destruction and bloodshed, terror and chaos.  

And within the first months and years of the early church, Christ-followers would indeed face persecutions, executions, false prophets, and false narratives. They would be blamed for things they didn’t do, and pushed ever further to the margins of society.  

Just as in Daniel, Jesus’ words are not foretelling some distant, future darkness beyond imagination. They are a clarion call and a comfort in the present darkness. Christ followers can rest assured, in all these trials, that the good news is still worth living out, and that God will sustain them in the end. 

This is what apocalypse should teach all of us: God remains steady in the midst of our chaos, pain, and existential despair – in the very center of the worst thing that we can imagine. God doesn’t ignore evil, doesn’t celebrate injustice, and doesn’t revel in our suffering.  

Our hope comes from a deeper well than the brutality happening around us and to us.  And hope can be sustained no matter the circumstance, because it comes directly from the Creator of all things. 

If you feel today that you are standing at the edge of apocalypse, consider this: maybe it’s not the end. 

It may very well be the end of certain assumptions, communities, families, relationships, and ways of being. It may be the end of the world that you imagined, but it is not the end. 

When the chaos of this world feels apocalyptic, we can see that disorientation for what it is:  a clarion call to live like Jesus, to endure in the struggle, to love self-sacrificially, to pay attention, to rest in the care of one another, and to look for the life of the world to come.  

We do not need to fear the apocalypse. With hope in our hearts, we keep moving forward, held steady in God’s hand. 

1. Collins, John J. (1984). Daniel: With an Introduction to Apocalyptic Literature. Eerdmans.

The Saints of God are Just Folk Like Me

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Proper 26, All Saints’ Sunday 2024 – Readings here

I was 23 years old before I celebrated my first All Saints’ Day.  

Growing up in an Evangelical denomination, we were allergic to the word, “saint.” We weren’t really into people and their stories. We were into doctrines and rules by which we could measure ourselves and others. We were determined to cast off the baggage of centuries of tradition in pursuit of a clearer, more consistent, more relevant Christianity. 

This mindset was influenced by a few major ideological shifts: the anti-Catholic sentiment of the Protestant Reformation, which saw the saints and all their associated celebrations as superstition at best, and idolatry at worst; the optimism of expanding imperialism and the industrial revolution, which directed people in the Western world to leave behind the past, in order to forge ahead to a limitless age of progress; and the rugged individualism of American culture, which made religion a personal practice rather than a collective one, and measured each person by their ability to prove themselves worthy of God’s love. 

The saints simply didn’t fit into the picture. They were funny, old relics of medieval Catholicism. Their stories and experiences, so often tied up with struggle, were quite frankly embarrassing to our self-sufficient, modern ears. They were messy and weird, hard to manage, and rarely fit within the norms of fundamentalism. 

My faith story was one without a prologue, because it lacked the stories of the saints. As a result, faith was like a path that had never been trod before. It was dark and mysterious, an unknown venture that I had to endure on my own. No one, besides, perhaps, my parents and my pastor, could offer wisdom for the journey. It was often a lonely place. 

But many years later, I found myself in an Episcopal Church on the occasion of All Saints.  

Still wary of more “Catholic” traditions, I had nevertheless found hope and healing among the people in that big, neo-classical building across from University of Virginia’s campus. They had held me, watched me cry, and let me sit with my grief after leaving the Evangelicalism I was raised in.  

I had left because it turned out that, in addition to saints, they were allergic to women in leadership. But this Episcopal Church hadn’t put pressure on me to contort myself into an “acceptable” version of a woman or a Christian. They didn’t seem to believe that Christianity was about proving myself worthy of God’s love.  

And they didn’t act like the Christian journey was a thing I should do on my own. In fact, through the liturgy, they had carried me along in the faith when I was too spiritually weary to utter the words myself. 

These ordinary, holy people had started to help me feel like Christianity was much bigger and more vibrant than what I had grown up with. Because it wasn’t about me, sitting in a dark room alone with an exacting God. It was about us, wherever we found ourselves, walking together toward the light of a loving God. 

Still, on All Saints, I wondered what the long-dead saints, with their fantastical stories, could possibly teach me about the good news. And then, we sang a silly, little British song about the saints of God. 

To my mind, today’s sequence hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God,” is perfectly composed. In the first two verses, we encounter abbreviated, and basically anonymous, tales of the formalized saints of our tradition: 

  • Doctors, like St. Luke and St. Hildegaard 
  • Queens, like St. Helena and St. Margaret of Scotland 
  • Shepherdesses, like St. Bernadette of Lourdes 
  • Soldiers, like St. Martin of Tours 
  • And too many priests and martyrs to name. 

There is something jarring about the juxtaposition of the sickly-sweet little children’s tune and the harrowing realities of these ordinary, holy people who walked with God, so often to their own death. 

The jaunty little melody and the laundry list of unnamed saints work together to suggest that the saints, even while being worthy of veneration, are nothing to get worked up about. They’re everywhere, in every generation. There are so many, the song doesn’t even have time to name them. 

And then, what is, at first, subtle in the song’s composition is made concrete in its closing words – 

They lived not only in ages past; 
there are hundreds of thousands still; 
the world is bright with the joyous saints 
who love to do Jesus’ will. 
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, 
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea; 
for the saints of God are just folk like me, 
and I mean to be one too. 

For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.  

When I was 23, red-eyed from crying, but surrounded by Christian love, I sang a song of the saints of God, and I finally understood the saints. 

It’s right there in our church’s catechism: 

“The communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.” 

It turns out, the saints aren’t just long-dead people with nothing to offer. Both living and dead, they are exemplars of ordinary, everyday holiness, who shore up our faith in turbulent times and show us the way in the midst of life’s uncertainty. 

The church can’t afford to ignore 2,000 years of saint stories because we think they’re old or weird, or mystical or uncool. Because the church is nothing without the saints: the named ones and the anonymous ones, the ones we find acceptable and the ones we find confounding, the ones who died in glory and the ones sitting here in this room. 

All of them have something to teach us about the path of Christ. All of them, in their own time and place, lit up the world with a little bit of good news. 

Our faith rests on the legacy of the saints.  

Because of this, it finds its shape and meaning in a rich and never-ending web of relationships, spanning from ancient times to the far-future. These relationships reveal God’s unbroken chain of love in a broken world.  

Through the example of the faithful in every generation, we understand who the Triune God is, in eternal relationship with Godself. 

Through relationships with our fellow disciples, we learn what it means to live into the greatest commandment to love one another, without worrying about the outcome or the cost. 

And these relationships inform our relationship with the world – with the downtrodden and alienated, displaced and forgotten, hated and misunderstood, immigrant and citizen, rich and poor. 

In communion with the saints, we find that the Kingdom of God “is closer than we know” (1).

And the path of Christ is not ours to walk alone. We are not left without history, tradition, exemplar or teacher. The air is heavy with the prayers of the saints. The streets are crowded with them. 

Like God, the saints are everywhere, always revealing God’s love in places where love has no right to exist. We are not alone.  

So why not rise to the challenge?  

Why not live like you and I could be saints, to someone? 

Why not act like miracles can take place through the mechanism of our ordinary, holy lives? 

Why not share our testimonies, so we can be reminded that love counts for something? That it changes hearts and moves the needle. That sometimes, it even makes enemies friends. 

I have seen the saints at work, loving me back into faith, changing the course of someone’s life, standing up for the vulnerable, overcoming their fears, taking responsibility for the wellbeing of strangers, turning ravaged places into gardens. 

It’s not so hard to find them when you start looking for them. 

As we approach a stressful Election Day, my prayer for all of us is that we look for the saints at work. And that we rise to the challenge, determining to be saints to someone, not worrying whether the love we live out comes across as weird or old-fashioned or even foolish. 

For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one, too. 

(1) On his deathbed, my Great Grandpa Camp told my mother: “Heaven is closer than we know.” In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”

Jesus, Our Neighbor (in the Buy Nothing Group)

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You open wide your hand 
and satisfy the needs of every living creature. 

Readings here.

Ever since the start of the start of the pandemic, I have been a member of my neighborhood’s “Buy Nothing Group.”  The Buy Nothing Project is a national organization with one goal in mind: forge community connections by giving and receiving, without exchanging any money. 

To join one, you simply find your neighborhood group on Facebook and verify with the admin that you actually live there. From there, you start interacting with your neighbors in a “gift economy.” 

During the pandemic, I was part of a large Buy Nothing group that included nearly all of New Haven, Connecticut, from scrappy grad students in falling-apart duplexes to rich people in Victorian mansions to residents in subsidized housing. 

In a Buy Nothing Group, none of these economic categories mattered. The only thing that mattered is that you were willing to give and receive without judgment. 

When we adopted a kitten who was destroying all our house plants, I gave them away to my neighbors for a better chance at survival. When my French Press coffee maker broke, a neighbor gave me hers.  And when we were getting ready to move to Texas, I was able to give away three bags full of groceries to a woman whose refrigerator had just broken down, spoiling all her food. 

But these were just the small things.  

Being in a Buy Nothing Group wasn’t just about what I could offer or receive.  It was about witnessing other people’s generosity. 

Someone offered up their car on loan so a neighbor could get to doctors’ appointments.  People painted each other’s houses, moved heavy furniture up and down third-floor walkups, and shared backyard garden harvests. They offered their skills, like carpentry, and their time as babysitters.  

In some ways, I think I mentally survived those dark days of lockdown because I was in a Buy Nothing group. That group gave me more than hope. It gave me proof that goodness was already in the world. 

In the middle of an apocalypse, we were still living in beatitude.

— 

At a basic level, the Buy Nothing Project is just a common-sense way to get rid of things you don’t want. But it’s transformative because it is principled – community connection matters more than transactional exchange. 

One of the primary principles is that: “We come from a place of abundance ~ not scarcity.” 

It asks its participants to behave as though there is more than enough to go around. 

Which is actually a big deal, considering our entire economic system runs on “scarcity.” The idea that “supply is limited” is good for business, because it convinces us that we should spend now and spend more to get what we want or need. 

But economic scarcity impacts more than the bottom line. It forms our social world, too. Scarcity thrives on a dichotomy between the haves and have-nots, and on the power differential between the “self-made” success stories and the naive poor.  It implies there’s not enough to go around. It makes every person on this planet our competition. 

Scarcity discourages us from being generous. Because we feel like we will never have enough. And in all this, it keeps us from building meaningful, dependent relationships with our neighbors and communities.  

We keep everyone at arm’s length, either to protect our assets or protect our pride. We can’t risk giving or receiving in a world of scarcity. 

— 

Over the years, I have often returned to an article written by Hebrew Bible scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann, entitled “The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity.”  

In the article, he rejects the idea of scarcity by tracing a theme of “abundance” in the Bible. He starts from the beginning, when God creates the lush and bountiful earth and all its creatures, calling it “very good.” 

He talks about God’s promise to the chosen people of Israel – how, even in hardship, war, and slavery, God ultimately provides for their need. 

  • God gives them manna in the wilderness, and quail when they complain it’s not enough.  
  • God promises them a land flowing with “milk and honey,” a phrase that points toward, not just sustenance, but an overabundance of good things. 
  • God raises up radicals and prophets who constantly remind them to turn away from idols and kings that promise them the world’s riches in exchange for their freedom.  
  • God folds foreigners, women, the poor, and the ostracized into the ongoing story of God and his people, widening the boundaries of the Kingdom of God. 

In all this, God reveals that scarcity, with all its hoarding, boundary-making, withholding, and harsh judgment is not the ethic of the Kingdom of God. 

Today’s story continues that theme of abundance… 

The message of Jesus has been spreading, and now over 5,000 people are gathered to catch a glimpse of him. They have come for healing and hope. But right now, they are hungry. 

And apparently only one boy remembered to pack a lunch. And it’s the lunch of a peasant: bread made from cheap barley and two fish. 

Jesus begins distributing the food and miraculously, everyone is fed, with twelve baskets of food left over. Here, in the most obvious way, our Scriptures reveal that God is a God of abundance. He not only provides for the basic needs of those surrounding him, his generosity overflows. 

This miraculous act of feeding shows the 5,000 that God’s act of abundant creation in Genesis never stopped. Now, it is being lived out in the person of Jesus Christ. More than providing hope, it was proof that goodness was still active in the world. 

— 

But notice that this miracle of abundance was not solely an act of God.  

The Feeding of the 5,000 was kind of like a Buy Nothing Group, if Jesus was your neighbor. The people were hungry. The disciples facilitated. A boy offered what he had. Jesus opened his hands and spread it around. And the people willingly received. 

Giving and receiving required participation from the people in the crowd.  It required a willingness to try from the skeptical disciples, deep trust from the boy, and an honoring of that trust from Jesus.  

And it required a different economic principle – where the entire point was community flourishing. Each person’s open heart and open hand was acknowledged there on that hillside, and then multiplied exponentially in the hands of Jesus. 

Those who bore witness to the Feeding of the 5,000 – as we do now – were reminded that God’s economy is one of abundance, where even the passive desire to care for one another can lead to a miracle. 

— 

We live so much of our lives with our fists closed tight around what we have, afraid that if we lose it, we won’t have what we need. But our scriptures reveal a God who is continually working to gain our trust, and to pry our fingers open.  

God “opens wide his hand” and shows us how to live into abundance. True freedom comes when we trust him enough let go of our pride and accept the gift he is handing to us, take what we need, and then keep passing it on. 

Even the smallest act of letting go and receiving can destabilize the myth of scarcity that poisons our society. Even the most meager resource, offered with open hands, can meet the need and change the hearts of those who witness the exchange. 

And so, we pray that God will pry open our fingers and open our hands, to receive his abundant gift and to pass it on to others until the whole world is not only fed, but full.  Amen. 

Let Them Sing by Paul Gleason

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My friend Paul presented the Palm Sunday homily last weekend at our church. I really enjoyed it and I hope you do, too.

palm sunday

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-7; Luke 19:28-40

He’s finally here. Jesus has finally entered Jerusalem. His whole life has been leading him to this place. And he’s not the only one who knows it. For a year he’s been preaching in the country, gathering a multitude of disciples that’s following him now, into the city. And they have some pretty particular ideas about what this means. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. He’s finally here, the king of Israel is finally here. What’s he going to do? Who knows? But we can guess. Chase out the Romans, restore the ancient Kingdom of David, the possibilities seem endless. And the multitudes of his disciples and the people of Jerusalem who are throwing their clothes at his feet and waving their palms in the air are ecstatic. And they began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice. Luke tells us they are saying Blessed is the king, but joyfully with a loud voice? They’re singing. They are so full of joy and hope that they can’t help but sing, because he’s finally here.

It must be said that Jesus doesn’t exactly disabuse the multitudes of this notion they’ve got. That he’s here to kick some Roman keister. Earlier in Luke he told the twelve what’s really going to happen, about how he’s going to suffer and die on the cross. But of course telling a secret to the twelve was like telling it to a brick wall. Huh? Anyway, Jesus sends two of them ahead to find him a colt, so that he can ride into Jerusalem on horseback, like a king. And the people who saw him approaching must have immediately heard the words of the prophet Zechariah ringing in their ears.

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O Daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you,
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

He will cut off the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow shall be cut off.
And he shall command peace to the nations.
His dominion shall be from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

And there he is at last, riding on a colt. Surely the Roman chariots and warhorses will be routed. The victory of peace is at hand. The prophecy is being fulfilled before their eyes, and so they celebrate in the streets of Jerusalem. They start the party. They sing for joy.

And it’s tempting to say, they’re deluded. They are deluded. Because they have no idea how bad it’s about to get. The ones who do are the Pharisees. So they try to stop the singing, end the party. They say, Teacher, order your disciples to stop. This isn’t just because they’re jealous of all the attention this new rabbi’s been getting. We don’t have to think of these Pharisees as part of that cabal of chief priests, scribes, and political leaders who are already plotting Jesus’ death. They’re worried about what the Roman response to this festival, to this sudden unexpected outpouring of worshipful, joyful song, is going to be. They are worried about what’s going to happen to them, to Jesus, and to all of the people of Israel, disciples of Jesus or not. And they are absolutely right to worry. Within a few days the king, who was finally here, will be gone. The disciples will be scattered. Rome will still stand and, within a few short years it will decide it has had quite enough of these annoying Israelites. Its armies will siege and sack their city. Its armies will burn their temple to the ground. The Pharisees, they can see it coming. And they’re right. They have taken an honest look at the world, they have seen it clearly, and they have concluded that there is nothing here to sing about.

And Jesus, he can see it coming, too. His own death, I’ve already mentioned that he knows about that. And Luke tells us, in the next chapter of his Gospel, that Jesus knows what’s coming for Jerusalem. But what must have been worse, or I think it must have been worse for him, was to know that while all of these people are throwing their clothes at his feet and waving their palms in the air, in a few days, an equal number going to be shouting for his death. He can see Rome and the scheming leaders of his day. He can see into the hearts of everyone around him. He knows how fickle they are, how many of his own disciples will abandon him. If anyone can see the reasons not to sing, it’s him.

And yet he turns to the Pharisees and says, I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout for joy. What I take him to be saying is that this feeling, this upswelling of joy in the people’s hearts is so powerful that it seems to be permeating the world around them. Like a failing dam if you stopped it up here it would just burst out over there. So what he says, in effect, is let them sing. Even if Rome won’t like it. Let them sing, in spite of their erring hearts. In spite of the fact that Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are coming, in spite of every good reason I can think of for them to stay silent, let them sing anyway.

Jesus, as Luke presents him in today’s Gospel, wants his disciples to feel joy and share it. And it is Jesus who brings that joy with him to Jerusalem and to all of his disciples wherever they may be. He’s finally here, and in Jerusalem like in Bethlehem he arrives unexpectedly and fills everyone around him with irrepressible joy. And here and now on Palm Sunday we commemorate and we share in that joy they felt in Jerusalem. The party finally begins, and then it is over, too soon. Thursday and Friday always come, so soon.

And it will be tempting to think that we in our joy were deluded, too. Lent after all is the time for reflection on our failures and shortcomings, the time in which we, like those Pharisees, are supposed to make an honest assessment of ourselves and our world. And there are a lot of reasons not to sing. If we’re particularly introspective, we might echo good old John Calvin, who in the second volume of his Institutes lamented that “No one can descend into himself and seriously consider what he is without feeling God’s wrath and hostility toward him. … All of us, therefore, have in ourselves something deserving of God’s hatred.”  If we find it easier to see sin in the world we won’t have to venture too far to find that, either. But the discovery will be no less painful. The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher understood original sin not as a sin that we are born with but as a sin that we are born into. He writes “…the sinfulness which is prior to all action operates in every individual through the sin and sinfulness of others … it is transmitted by the voluntary actions of every individual to others and implanted within them.” In other words, the sins we see in our society are our sins, too, transmitted to us, implanted in us, operating through us, even if it looks like they are somebody else’s fault. I don’t mean to frighten you a lot, but I do submit that there will always be good reasons for us not to sing for joy.

And yet we do. Not because we can’t see our broken world or our erring souls clearly. I think we can. But we sing for joy anyway, because as Christians we proclaim that the spirit of Christ is present among us, present at our table. And his presence can act on us like he acted on the people of Jerusalem. It can move us to joy. As Christians we are called to see ourselves and our world rightly. Jesus spends too much time in the Gospels naming the evils he sees for us to doubt that. But we must also be ready to sing for joy. We ought to be known for our joy.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard sermons that said Palm Sunday was a preview of Easter. And it’s true that Easter is usually the most joyful day of the year, when the fast of Lent is over, and spring is here, and the sun shines through the windows on the pews full of everyone in their brightest clothes. The brass choir plays and the people sing. He’s finally here, and it’s quite a party. Except, in the Gospels, he isn’t there on Easter.  Not like he was on Palm Sunday. He is risen, yes, but he doesn’t process through the streets of Jerusalem again. He appears elsewhere, in the country again, on the road to Emmaus. There was more confusion and awe and fear on that first Easter, if you ask me, than there was joy.

So perhaps on Easter we are actually celebrating like it’s Palm Sunday. Like he’s finally here. Like everyone on that road to Jerusalem we are hoping for that day when the chariots are cut off from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. We are hoping for the triumph of peace at last, and for the day when his dominion stretches from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. And whatever our doubts and whatever our failings may be, we are moved to sing with hope and joy. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!

He’s almost here. Amen.

image source here.