Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Tonight at 5 pm we’ll celebrate an Advent Evensong, followed by a little party across the street. I hope that many of you are able to come back for that, when we will begin to say our goodbyes as priest and congregation and get ready for what comes next here at St. Michael’s and in my own retirement from full-time ministry.

But this morning there is work to be done on this Second Sunday of Advent. I suspect that across this diocese and even nation, most sermons today in Episcopal congregations and beyond will focus on John the Baptist. I like John a lot and I’ve preached many of those sermons over the years. But I feel like we know John, and he’ll be back again next Sunday when he’ll send a word to Jesus from prison. So this year I’m going to let John the Baptist be.  

For those who don’t focus on John the Baptist today, Isaiah seems like the logical place to land. Someone said in our Revelation Bible Study a week or so ago that they felt a gap in their theological formation when it comes to the prophets. It’s not because that person wasn’t paying attention! It’s because we Christians have historically not done a great job with teaching the prophets, even though you can’t really get what Jesus is up to without understanding what Isaiah and Amos and Micah and Jeremiah were up to. Keep in mind the prophets were not fortune-tellers. They were not looking into a crystal ball and predicting the future. Rather, they were more like social critics. They looked at the world around them and invited a closer look, from the bottom up. They judged the politics and economic policies of their day based on how they impacted on the lives of those struggling, not those who were thriving. They take us by the hand and ask us to see and hear things we would prefer to ignore.

Like all the prophets, Isaiah uses his imagination – can you imagine a peaceable kingdom where the lion and the lamb lie down together? It can sound like a children’s story but Isaiah is quite serious: that peace on earth can never be limited to our hearts, even if it begins there. Rather, the peace of God that passes all understanding changes the neighborhood and ultimately the world. So I commend Isaiah to your prayers this week and beyond, as you find your way through these December weeks.

I want, instead, to do something you’ve probably realized by now after we’ve spent fourteen and a half months together that I don’t do often, and that is to preach on the epistle. The reason I’m going to the epistle today is that it feels like it’s the most relevant to our situation right now. I’ve been reflecting on this for a while now and hope you’ll hang in there with me. So that we don’t lose our way, let me repeat that last sentence we heard today once more: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Romans was probably written from Corinth, but it’s addressed to people that Paul has not yet met, although he does tell them he would like to get there someday and that he thinks about doing so often. Clearly, Paul knew something about the Church in Rome and they knew something about him. Even so, Romans is a kind of letter of introduction. Some scholars have even described chapters 1-8 as Paul’s “theological last will and testament.” Paul is telling them how the gospel has changed his life and changed the way he sees the world; and he is suggesting some ways that it might change them also. 

Enough, for now, about Paul. Let’s talk a bit about the people at the receiving end of this letter, living in first-century Rome: the imperial, administrative, and economic capital of the world. Think Washington, DC and New York City wrapped up into one. The people who came to be followers of Jesus there, setting up small house churches that included both Jewish and Gentile Christians, still lived and worked and were educated in this Roman context. They were shaped by Rome—not Tarsus, not Bristol.

The Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians there coexisted in a rather uneasy relationship that often involved misunderstanding and stereotyping of the other group. First-century Jews had been taught to divide the world into basically two groups: Israel, i.e. God’s chosen people, and everybody else—the nations, the goyim. Usually the “everybody else” tended to be bigger and stronger nations like Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and most recently, Rome. When you tend to divide the world into “us” and “them” and when you are weak and they are strong, that brings with it a whole worldview that is hard to let go of.

Gentiles also tended to divide the world into “us” and “them” but the lines were drawn very differently. For Gentiles, the world was divided into civilized people, who were cultured and educated, and barbarians (which literally means ‘bearded’) who were not. These civilized folks tended to be more privileged with all that comes with that. The “them” included, but was not limited to, Jews.

So imagine for just a moment what it would be like to be a member of one of those first-century house churches in Rome: a congregation consisting of people shaped by each of these competing worldviews. Imagine Darius, a “civilized” Gentile- Christian who has been raised to look down his Roman nose at those uncultured barbarians, sitting at a brown-bag lunch and eating his totally un-kosher prosciutto on ciabbata bread sandwich. Next to him sits Moshe, whose grandmother would be turning over in her grave if she knew he was sitting next to a goyim. Imagine them and their family members trying to plan the menu for the annual parish picnic, make decisions together on vestry, or choose music for worship, and you are quickly relieved of any naïve sense that the early Church was free of conflict where everyone sat around holding hands and singing “kumbaya!

Diversity (in the first and twenty-first centuries) holds within it the seeds of radical transformation, to be sure. But working through old prejudices is difficult and challenging work and we should never underestimate the very real challenges that these Christians in Rome faced. When Paul tells the Church in Rome that there is no longer Jew or Greek, he means it; but he’s talking to people who know just how hard it is to live into that reality. Paul’s theology is not the abstract systematic theology of a tenured religion professor—not that there is anything wrong with that! Paul’s theology is always contextual: scripture, reason and tradition intersect with a particular context, in this case those house churches in first-century Rome. He is a pastoral theologian; his theology is rooted in the everyday challenges of congregational life, of trying to live into the call to be “in Christ.”

“Romans was written to be heard by an actual congregation made up of particular people with specific problems.”  If you sit down and read Romans from beginning to end you’ll get a sense of what I’m talking about. The gist of it is that Paul reminds them of the love of God and that nothing in all of creation can separate us from that love. He challenged them to confess that “Jesus is Lord” and then to live that way.

On my commute from Worcester to Bristol, Route 146 becomes more tolerable when I listen to music or podcasts. Lately I’ve been doing more podcasts and one of my favorites is Freakonomics. Last week I listened to a podcast entitled: “how can we break our addiction to contempt?” (You can listen to that episode here.)

The scholar being interviewed distinguished between anger, a hot emotion, and contempt, a cold emotion. He said we can deal with anger, but contempt is much more challenging because we dismiss the other, we roll our eyes, we treat them with disdain. He says that social media and cable news move us all toward contempt even more than anger. They encourage us to divide the world into “us” and “them” and the problems we see are all because of “them.” I got thinking about Moshe and Darius in first-century Rome and how hard it was for them to break through contempt to love. And, I got to thinking about the persons here who get their news from Fox and those who get their news from MSNBC and how contempt “sells” but also keeps us from living the second commandment to love our neighbors. 

The scholar in that podcast was compelling. His name is Arthur Brooks and he teaches at Harvard, both the  Kennedy School and the Business School. You may surmise from that that he’s a liberal but in fact he was the eleventh president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. So he’s complicated. An economist by training, but before that a professional French horn player. (Did I tell you how much I love Freakonomics?)

Brooks says we don’t change people’s minds or hearts with logical rational arguments that try to convince them how misguided they are. He says that we change ourselves and others and the neighborhood with love. He says we need to make space for authentic relationships. If I could have invited him to be here today to preach this sermon I would have done so. I want to simply hold him next to St. Paul today and encourage you to check out the podcast. Hold the first-century Church in Rome side by side with the twenty-first century Church here in Bristol, and take in these two little candles we’ve lit in the midst of a world that teaches contempt, and then pray that God will change all of our hearts, and through that transformation the neighborhood and the world.

This isn’t wishful thinking or denial. It takes us to our core values as followers of Jesus: abounding in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit gives us the will and the courage to love God and love our neighbor as if the world depends on that. Because it does.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The Second Sunday of Advent

Please note that I've done something relatively rare for me. This sermon was written and "queued up" here on Thursday morning. It is ok, I think, even if a little academic in the beginning. But it didn't sit right and it didn't feel like the "right sermon" for this December Sunday. The nice thing about blogging is that I can still share it here and maybe there is a word of good news for readers of this blog. But early this Saturday morning I started over and the sermon I'll preach tomorrow at St. Michael's is totally different, and focused on Romans. I'll try to get the time early next week to upload that one here - but there's lots going on today and tomorrow at St. Michael's so I won't get to it on Sunday afternoon. You can ponder this one in the meantime. 

I hope that many of you are able to come back tonight when I can reflect a bit on what my time among you has meant. Like George Washington sings in Hamilton at the end of his second term, we’ll teach them how to say goodbye!

But for this liturgy on this morning of the Second Sunday of Advent I want to stay focused on the work of the day as we light that second candle on our wreath.

There is a common Christian misperception that has been repeated so many times that people sometimes assume it must be true. In fact, when a second-century theologian named Marcion began saying it, the Church rightly declared him to be a heretic (which is simply to say, wrong. You don’t need to burn heretics at the stake to simply say they got it wrong!)

Marcion believed that the God of the Old Testament was a god of judgment and the God of the New Testament was a god of mercy. If he had had his way, we would not claim the Old Testament to be “the Word of God.” Yet the core testimony of ancient Israel, in what we call the Old Testament, is that YHWH is the maker of heaven and earth and that creation is good. We are created of the earth and God says we are very good. That very same God is a God of steadfast love and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. These claims are repeated over and over again in the prophets and in the psalms, because over and over again it is Israel’s experience that that when they fall short of the mark and fail to hold up their end of the bargain, God responds with amazing grace.

I’m not saying that there isn’t violence and judgment in the Old Testament or that God isn’t sometimes portrayed anthropomorphically as getting impatient, hurt, and even angry. I think we do drive God to vertigo sometimes. I simply want to say that these things are in the New Testament as well, and the reason for that is that both Testaments are not about a fantasy world, but real life.

The core testimony of both Old and New Testaments is of one God who is steadfast and merciful: the one whom Israel called Creator of heaven and earth and that Jesus called Abba. The Nicene Creed gets this right, of course, and sets the contours of orthodoxy over and against our Marcionite tendencies: We believe in one God…We believe that the Abba, the Father Almighty, is the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen; which is to simply to say that we believe the Creator we meet in Genesis 1 is the very same God who is “with the Word” in the first chapter of John’s Gospel.  

Are you with me so far?

Some of us here, especially those of us raised in more Protestant traditions, were taught to contrast the “law” of the Old Testament with the “grace” in the New Testament. We have some un-learning to do when we approach the Scriptures, because only in un-learning that false dichotomy can we begin to truly embrace the Old Testament in all of its richness. After all, what we call the Old Testament was the only Bible that Mary and Joseph and Jesus and the disciples and Paul ever knew. Jesus learned to call God “Abba” from the Law and the Prophets, the Psalms and the Writings, and it does us some good every now and again to be reminded that he did not carry around a leather-bound King James Bible that had all of his lines written out in red.

All of Holy Scripture was written for our learning, and both Testaments are meant to point us to the living Word—to Jesus the Christ.  The Bible is one drama, told in two acts. I don’t need to belabor this point, but Advent is as good a time to remember this as any because in Advent we seem to get readings intended to subvert our Marcionite tendencies. Two weeks in a row now, we have heard extraordinarily “good news” from the prophet Isaiah, which some Christian Biblical scholars have nicknamed “the fifth gospel.” And, as it happens, both weeks the gospel readings seem to have a sharper edge to them: winnowing forks and axes and judgment and wrath to come…

The vision given to the prophets, including Isaiah, is of God’s shalom: of a peace that passes all understanding. It’s not just an inward spiritual peace, but a yearning for the restoration of all creation and the healing of the nations. Last week we heard about how swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and I tried to suggest that this language inspires hope that unleashes energy that allows us to roll up our sleeves and to do the work God has given us to do. This week we hear once again from Isaiah, now speaking of the peaceable kingdom, of predators and prey living together in shalom.

If you want to look for differences between the two Testaments, that difference is not about the nature of God. God is one. But there is an important difference worth noting and it has everything to do with the readings before us today: it’s about verb tenses. It has to do with how we tell time. Isaiah lived in very difficult times: a time of war and rumors of war. In the eleventh chapter, he is looking toward the dawn of a new day. But he sees that future on a distant horizon. He looks to a day when the wolf will lie down with the lamb and the leopard with the kid. But all of his verbs, notice, are future tense and given the realities of his day that is understandable: it doesn’t seem like it will be anytime soon:

• A shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow;
• …by righteousness he shall judge the poor;
•   …the wolf shall live with the lamb;
• …the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
•  …a little child shall lead them;  
•  …they shall not hurt or destroy on all God’s holy mountain…

Someday. But not yet. It was the same with last weekend’s reading from Isaiah: “in days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established…” In those days, people will study war no more. (Isaiah 2:1-5) Someday. But not yet. In the meantime, we live in the “real” world that seems bent on destroying itself, sometimes even in the name of God.

Notice, however, what happens when John the Baptist arrives on the scene in the New Testament: he proclaims that a new day is about to dawn. John declares that “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” He insists that “the time is at hand.” No longer is it a distant future. There is a sense of urgency in John’s message, because the time is Now. And then notice what happens when Jesus comes on the scene. All the verbs become present tense: 

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, for theirs IS the kingdom of heaven; (Matthew 5:1-12)
• When Jesus walks into the synagogue one Sabbath day to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, about good news being brought to the poor and release to the captives, about recovery of sight to the blind and the oppressed going free his commentary is simple: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-21)
• St. Paul picks up this same theme in his letter to the Church in Corinth: he too quotes from Isaiah and then says, “NOW is the acceptable time; NOW is the day of salvation.” (II Corinthians 6:2)

What has happened? One might be tempted to think that the world somehow changed overnight when Jesus stepped on the world stage, that in first-century Rome all of a sudden there was a regime change and no more chariots were built; instead there was a lasting peace dividend and swords were beaten into plowshares. But of course we know better than that. The world was probably not much better or worse in the time of Jesus than it was in the time of Isaiah, and probably not much better or worse today than it was in either of those two times.

It’s tempting to make it all spiritual: since we can’t ever have peace on earth, we can have it in our hearts. Since we can’t have true community on earth, at least someday we’ll all die and go to heaven. But this, too, is in the spirit of Marcion. This is heresy. This too, discounts the entire witness of the Old Testament; not to mention the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray: thy Kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. God’s shalom is cosmic and material; not merely spiritual.

Jesus teaches us to live today as if the Kingdom of God is already here. To live today into our calling as Baptized people by becoming salt and light and yeast that not only bear witness to the world but that begin to transform the world by making it saltier, lighter, and yeastier. We are called to become the change we yearn to see, to become the change that God yearns to see. As we light that candle for peace, the very next words on our lips, St. Francis taught us, need to be for today: “Lord, make us instruments of your peace…”  When we pray for peace on earth, we pray, “let it begin with me.” Let it begin now.

To be the Church means to be part of a community that dares to live against the grain of the dominant culture, right now in this moment. Not someday. It means that we live as if the time is Now; because we believe it is. It’s precisely because we live in the midst of warring madness, that we not only ask God to cure that warring madness, but that we also pray for the strength and courage to embrace our calling to make peace wherever we are. Not someday, but right Now.  

If we mean to follow Christ, we will do it Now. We can help move ourselves and others away from fear by building trust. We can begin to live more peacefully now as we faithfully use and claim our power, not as lions who eat lambs but as people ready to live and act as servant-ministers. We cannot afford to delay until someday; because it is this day that the Lord has made and it is on this day that God means for us to follow Jesus, and it is on this day that we are called to love God and neighbor.

In Greek there are two different words to capture these two different notions of time. Chronos, from which we get our word chronology, is about linear time. Something happened yesterday or it happens today or it will happen tomorrow. History is chronological, even when it repeats itself. Kairos captures a different aspect of time: sometimes we speak of the fullness of time, or of the moment arriving: it’s the right moment, the moment of fruition, the time when something significant happens. We live, of course, with both aspects of time, even when we only have one word for it in English. Advent unfolds chronologically, over the four weeks that lead up to Christmas. But at its core, Advent is about kairos time. Advent is about present-tense verbs: it’s not about hope and peace and joy and love “someday”—but about embracing these signs of the kingdom in our midst right now, proleptically, even if only as tiny mustard seeds or as four little lights shining in the darkness.

The First Sunday of Advent

One of my favorite songs on Bob Dylan’s album, Time Out of Mind, is entitled “It’s Not Dark Yet.” Since you may not all be Dylan fans (and even if you are, he can be notoriously difficult to understand)—I’ll just remind you how it goes. Consider it a fourth reading for today. Ready?

          Shadows are fallin' and I've been here all day
          It's too hot to sleep and time is runnin' away
          Feel like my soul has turned into steel
          I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
          There's not even room enough to be anywhere
          It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

          Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
          Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
          She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
          She put down in writin' what was in her mind
          I just don't see why I should even care
          It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

          Well, I've been to London and I’ve been to gay Paris
          I've followed the river and I got to the sea
          I've been down on the bottom of the world full of lies
          I ain't lookin' for nothin' in anyone's eyes
          Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
          It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

          I was born here and I'll die here against my will
          I know it looks like I'm movin' but I'm standin' still
          Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
          I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
          Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer
          It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

I love that song in a haunting sort of way. And I have had moments in my life when I’ve felt that way, as perhaps you have, also. If you pray through the psalms, you will find that the same feelings and emotions being expressed in Dylan’s poem can also found in many of those psalms of disorientation where the poet feels alone, afraid, and in trouble. For example:

• Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. I am sinking in deep mire, and there is no firm ground for my feet. (Psalm 69:1)
• My spirit shakes with terror; how long, O Lord, how long? (Psalm 6:3)
• My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? (Psalm 22:1)

It can, paradoxically, be a first act of faith to cry out to God when we are in pain: we dare to cry out to God about our awareness of God’s absence precisely because we yearn for and need God’s presence. The cry “My God why have you forsaken me?” is the cry of a faithful person who needs to be assured of God’s presence with them when they are in trouble, not the cry of an unbeliever.

So when Dylan sings that he can’t “even hear the murmur of a prayer” he is, in the true spirit of Biblical spirituality, actually beginning a prayer. When we pour our hearts out to God—even in desperation—that is prayer. When it is dark out (or dark within) crying out about the darkness is the murmur of a prayer.

Turning the calendar from November to December can be a time when many among us feel this way. Perhaps we suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder or depression. Or maybe we are grieving the loss of a marriage or a loved one or a job, and while everyone around us seems to be dreaming of a white Christmas and humming “have a holly, jolly Christmas” that frivolity can feel like someone is rubbing salt into an open wound. Sometimes it helps us in those times to know where to find those complaint psalms, so we can get it out of our systems, so we can cry out. And if the psalms aren’t handy, then perhaps we can sing along with Dylan: while everyone else is roasting chestnuts over an open fire we can sing: I don’t even see why I should care; it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting’ there.

In some congregations there is a Blue Christmas celebration to acknowledge sadness and grief. I’m not against those, and I get the pastoral instincts that lead to those gatherings. But my own preference is to make sure there is room within our Advent and Christmas services for depth and acknowledging pain. We don’t sing “have a holly jolly Christmas in this room; not ever.” We do sing and yearn for Emmanuel to come to a people who mourn in lonely exile. At our Thursday morning services we’ll offer prayers for healing in December because we can all use a little healing in body, mind, and spirit. That's simply by way of saying that we can and I think must leave enough room in our December gatherings for all the complexities of our lives. And, truth be told, it's already there if we let God meet us through the texts and the hymnody of this holy season. 

The First Sunday of Advent always catches me a little off-guard. I know how Lent begins: with that stark reminder that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In Lent we are invited to contemplate our own mortality as we journey for forty days toward the good news of Easter morning and abundant, resurrected life. Along the way we are meant to re-discover that nothing—not even our own dying—can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Advent begins in a far more cosmic vein with these reminders that the whole cosmos is dust. Especially in this northern hemisphere, in late autumn, there are signs of endings all around us. This gospel reading about the end of human history hardly seems designed to put us in the Christmas spirit as we generally understand that. It seems scary. And I think it’s normal to worry that if there are two in the field and one is taken and one is left, we may not be even completely certain which we’d rather be, especially if the one we are with in that field is someone we love deeply. I dare say that none of us experience glee in imagining others being “left behind.” Whether the world ends with a bang or a whimper, such thoughts usually come into our minds when it feels like “our soul has turned into steel” and “our sense of humanity has gone down the drain,” when we feel like “every nerve in our bodies is naked and numb.”

It’s not dark yet, but it sure feels like it’s getting’ there.

Here is the thing, however, and we don’t want to miss this. Notice what St. Paul says to the Church in Rome—in Rome at a time when the best days of the Roman Empire were clearly in the past and the future looked very bleak indeed. Usually Paul goes on and on. But today’s epistle reading may be the shortest one we get all year. Yet it packs a punch, inviting us to see the world through an entirely different lens. Paul says in the thirteenth chapter of Romans: “You know what time it is.” And then he suggests not only in the middle of the first century in Rome but here and now, on this first Sunday of Advent 2025 in Bristol, not that it is nighttime but morning. Advent I is the moment to “wake up.”

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day…

He may as well have simply said: It’s not light yet, but it’s gettin’ there.

Paul invites us to live and to walk as children of the light. We are called to be light shining in the darkness by allowing that light of Christ to shine through us. The world needs that from us now more than ever. In noticing the darkness, we are called as our collect for today puts it, “put on the armor of light.”

Eschatological literature takes on a whole new meaning once we begin to realize that it is really a wake up call to get busy living. “Everybody wake up, if you're living with your eyes closed!” (That’s Dave Matthews Band, which is a very Adventy thing to sing.)

This is not the time to turn off the lights and go to bed, but a time for sleepers to awake. Advent marks the dawn of a new day; and it begins not with despair but hope. As followers of Jesus we are called to light our lamps and let them shine for all the world to see. “It’s not light yet, but it’s getting’ there.”

On this first Sunday of Advent, we gather together still sleepy from too much tryptophan. It is time, however, to wake up. We gather in a world that is worried about many things, a world that can feel very dark. We come apart to light our candles of hope, and love, and joy and peace. As we do that, we begin by contemplating cosmic endings, knowing that all created things are born and die—not just people but buildings, institutions, economies, nations, and even stars. And yet, with signs of endings all around us we remember the core of the gospel, answers the question: “can it be that from our endings, new beginnings you create?” with a resounding, Yes. Alleluia! As Christians we acknowledge endings not to instill fear but to rekindle hope.

And so we begin a new liturgical year together by remembering that only God is God. We begin where we do because rather than curse the darkness, we light one solitary candle and then another and another and another until the birth itself lights up the world. We will not be afraid of the dark, because we do know what time it is. It’s time to wake up! It’s not light yet, but it’s getting’ there! 

Let's end this sermon where the readings today began, with the prophet Isaiah. 

In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths."

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

Let us also walk in the light of the Lord as we move through this holy season, St. Michael's. It's not light yet. But it's getting there.

The kirkin' of the tartans

According to tradition, the Kirkin' o' the Tartans originated in Scotland. After defeating Jacobite forces in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden, the British government outlawed Highland dress. Legend has it that during this period, Scots would hide small pieces of tartan fabric on their person while attending church services. When it came time for the blessing, they would touch the bit of cloth.

However, there is no credible source for this tale. Sorry to be the bearer of this news if it is news to anyone here. It's true the English did not treat the Scots well and the story is credible, for sure. But it most likely didn't happen exactly that way.

Even so, Scottish Americans have been gathering as we are today to celebrate their heritage. What began among Presbyterians in New York City has spread and I’m grateful to be celebrating this the second time around here at St. Michael’s.

We tell stories so that we know who we are. Sometimes those stories literally happened. But whether or not they happened that way, they convey meaning and a sense of purpose. The story we tell today doesn’t have to be literal to be true. It speaks to the resilience and hope of a people even in the face of persecution. It speaks of resistance and clarifies identity. 

When I read The Little Engine That Could to my grandson, the point is not to insist that there was a little engine that did. It is to encourage him as his life unfolds to trust that you don’t know what you can do if you don’t try, and that often we discover that we can do lots more than we initially thought. 

In the reading we heard from the 65th chapter of the prophet Isaiah, the hope is that one day there will be peace in Jerusalem and its people a delight. No more weeping. No more distress. No more children dying. Old people dying after full lives. 100 years! They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity.

There’s no credible source in all of human history for this tale either. Jerusalem is often a mess, and sometimes a hot mess. Yet we stake our hopes and dreams on the possibility and the yearning for peace on earth and good will to all, We stake our hope on the idea that God’s plan is for the lion and the lamb to feed together and “they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.” 

Next year, in Jerusalem.

Things do not have to have literally happened for them to be true. We share a dream and when we speak of that dream we are empowered to live toward it. To be instruments of God’s peace here on earth as it is in heaven. As we respond, with God’s help, we make the story true.

This is how holy scripture works. Today we prayed one of my very favorite collects in the Prayerbook. We Episcopalians are not Biblical literalists. We are not fundamentalists. We believe, as we prayed, that holy scripture needs to be chewed on. We need to inwardly digest it. We need to sit with it, argue with it, pray with it, to find meaning. And the stories don't need to have happened to be true. 

I would suggest to you that this is the primary reason we come here week after week. To remember that dream in a world where it is so easy to feel discouraged and despairing about the future. We gather to strengthen one another and encourage one another to do the work God has given us to do. We gather in hope.

Those small pieces of tartan cloth were like sacraments in the story remembered today: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. Touching that cloth was a defiant act of insisting that the government doesn’t own us; we belong to a higher power, that in this place we call God; the creator of heaven and earth, the “abba” of Jesus.

We come here to taste and see with bread and wine that God is good, and that God’s plan for us and this planet is peace on earth and good will to all.

We live in the meantime, of course. We live in a world that too often feels like a scary place, a world where division and polarization and fear seem normal. But those are not normal. Those keep us from becoming who God means for us to become. We come and eat our little pieces of bread and sip the wine to remember that we are called to love God and to love neighbor; all of them. No exceptions. We come here to reclaim our identity as living members of Christ’s Body.

Today, we are all Scots. It’s worth remembering that although the word “Anglican” easily slips from our tongues, there would be no Episcopal Church without the Scottish Episcopal Church, because after the Revolutionary War it wasn’t England who was prepared to consecrate an American bishop-elect. Yes, we are part of something called the Anglican Communion. But our debt to the Scots is great and their influence on our Prayerbook is also noteworthy. 

When Samuel Seabury sailed to England to be consecrated, he could no longer promise allegiance to the king. So off he went to Scotland, specifically Aberdeen. And there on November 14, 1784, he was in fact consecrated as the first bishop of Connecticut and the first Bishop in the Episcopal Church. Two hundred and forty one years and two days ago.

Bonnie Scotland. May we give thanks today for all things Scottish: Bobby Burns, bagpipes, kilts, haggis, a wee dram of peety single-malt whisky, and shortbread all top the list of reasons I'm grateful to celebrate this day with you all. 

Witnesses, not Victims: A Sermon on the Book of Daniel for All Saints Sunday

Unfortunately, the Book of Daniel gets very little “air time” in the Episcopal Church. It’s a bit like the Book of Revelation in this way and for similar reasons. But it is our privilege to get this bizarre little text today, as we celebrate All Saints Sunday, welcome a new “saint” into the Body of Christ through Holy Baptism, and gather in and bless our financial pledges to support this parish in 2026. All of this and I’ll try to do it in the usual amount of time. Ready?

The Book of Daniel is almost certainly addressed to a Jewish community in the second century before Christ. The unknown author is a pious Jew living in a time of severe persecution. The goal is to encourage fellow believers by telling six stories and sharing four visions about what it means to be a person of faith living through very troubling times.

The interesting (and at first somewhat confusing) thing is that those stories and visions are set in a much earlier time in history. More than 400 years earlier, in fact; during the days of the Babylonian exile. The writer, in other words, is making an analogy. So it’s “once upon a time” there was this guy Daniel, a guy who lived during through difficult times, without compromising his faith. You, too, can do the same, the narrator argues; you too can live through these troubling times with the same kind of courage, perseverance and trust that Daniel showed.

Sound relevant?

For those of you who may not be familiar with the stories, I’ll remind you very briefly of my three favorites. First, there’s the story of Daniel and his friends, who get a scholarship to attend the King’s College. They are the brightest and best in their generation. But scholarships like the one they are offered by a foreign king come with a price. The danger of nice Jewish boys studying in the halls of Babylonian imperial power is that they will be co-opted by “the system.” The danger is that they may well forget where they came from and in the process forget to love God and neighbor. Their scholarships are a full-ride that includes a wonderful meal plan: the king’s best wines and richest foods. But Daniel and his friends opt out of that meal plan and instead choose a vegan diet. It’s a small act of resistance. But it’s a way for them to remember who they are, and whose they are. And they thrive. In fact they are stronger, healthier and more vibrant than the Babylonians. God takes care of them, in other words, and rewards their fidelity.

Then there is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; three Jewish boys who refuse to worship a golden image that Nebuchadnezzar wants everyone to pay homage to. For their disobedience they are cast into a fiery furnace. But guess what? They do not burn up. They are unscathed, protected by a God who rewards fidelity.

And then a law is passed that prohibits the practicing of Jewish faith. Daniel is set up: his room is bugged and he is caught praying. His punishment is to be fed to hungry lions. But guess what? When Daniel is tossed into the den, the lions somehow lose their appetite. Like Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego he is kept safe and no harm comes to him.

So we have these children’s stories, perhaps stories some of you remember from Sunday School, especially if you grew up in a more evangelical tradition. The message, however, is very “grown up.” Do not give up the fight! Do not be co-opted by imperial power. Do not be frightened away from keeping the faith in difficult circumstances. Resist!

Along with the stories there are also four visions, visions that sound much like the language and visions of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They are somewhat difficult to understand, but we keep on the right interpretative track when we remember that the message is the same. The text we heard today marks a shift in the narrative, away from the tales and into the first of the visions.

Daniel has a nightmare. It’s about these “beasts,” which is just Biblical code language for abusive political power. Initially the dream causes “Daniel” no small amount of anxiety: it “troubles” his spirit and “terrifies” him. Yet the interpretation of the dream is this: don’t let your nightmares get the best of you, because God is faithful—and God is strong—and God is bigger than any beast.

The message to Daniel (and through Daniel to those Jews suffering persecution in the second century before Christ) is that they must not let their fear get the best of them. They must not give in to terror and anxiety, to their worst nightmares. Rather, God’s people are called to trust: called to a non-anxious presence. To remain resolute, determined, and steadfast, even in the face of persecution. The holy ones, the saints of God, will receive and possess the kingdom forever and ever, Amen.

Over the centuries, and especially in anxious times, some people have spent a great deal of energy trying to “figure out” who the beasts are, here in Daniel as well as in Revelation. But it isn’t really the point. As I said, the beast is all corrupt political power that destroys the creatures of God. It does that by instilling fear and exerting control rather than governing in a way that brings about real community. 

One of the most powerful liturgical books I’ve ever read was written by a scholar named William Cavenaugh. It’s about Chile in the 1980s, under the dictatorship of General Pinochet, entitled Torture and Eucharist. The human rights violations under Pinochet were brutal. Cavanaugh’s thesis is that torture, especially state-sanctioned torture that becomes a matter of policy is bigger than the pain inflicted on individuals. It creates a society that uses fear and terror to control people, because you never know who is working for whom. You don’t know who to trust. And so community is destroyed. People are isolated one from another and scared, all the time.

Cavenaugh’s thesis is that the antidote to Torture is the Holy Eucharist. That Eucharist isn’t just a spiritual matter, something we do for our souls for an hour a week. That the celebration of Holy Communion is never a private matter, but a matter of coming together in community. Literally about forming Christ’s Body, with many members. The Table of our Lord is the place where fear is overcome by trust; where the suffering of a torture victim named Jesus brings healing to all people and unleashes hope and the courage to resist all other forms of torture and violence. Perhaps the most provocative line in Cavanaugh’s book is this one: “torture creates victims; Eucharist creates witnesses.”

Now if we can hold the Book of Daniel alongside Cavanaugh’s book, then I think we can begin to hear a “Word of the Lord” for us on this All Saints Sunday. It also opens for us a much more powerful way of understanding Sin, and the ways that it truly does “destroy the creatures of God.”  We will promise today, along with Cameron’s parents and godparents, to stand against Sin and with the One who calls us to new life.

“The beasts” keep changing. The issue isn’t that there are “four”—I bet we could come up with four hundred if we brainstormed a few minutes. It might be the Roman Empire that puts to death a rabbi from Galilee because he refuses to live his life in fear. But that isn’t the end of the story. Or Nazi Germany where people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who resisted even when it cost them their lives. “The beast” might be the South African apartheid government; where people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and Steven Biko did not give up hope or buckle under to fear and intimidation. “The beast” might be the Soviet government—imprisoning its artists and poets and visionaries in the gulags under the mistaken belief that if you send the poets away you will shut them up. Yet people like Alexander Solzeneitzen continued to write their stories and find a way to get them out. You can come up with way more than four examples, right up to the present day, of regimes that give us nightmares, of visions that keep us living in fear.

But that’s not the narrative around which we are called to organize our lives. We have another story to tell: the story of Daniel in the lion’s den and Shadrach, Mishak and Abednego in the fiery furnace. It’s the same story we tell each week in the Eucharistic Prayer and through the Sacramental life of the Church, where we are being called to organize our lives around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So that we are creating not victims, but witnesses.

There is no room in the church for denial. This is not a little “escape” from the “real” world. Rather, we gather in resistance—and even perhaps in defiance—across political differences and ideological divides, because we know that beneath and beyond all those other stories there is a deeper truth still. Not a “spiritual” reality but an incarnate reality; an embodied reality. For we have been claimed and marked and sealed by a God who is faithful. And we therefore need not live in fear. We have been marked as Christ’s own--forever. Forever.

That means that Holy Baptism is about so much more than finding an occasion to throw a nice party. It suggests that the baptized community that shares the  Eucharist together is bound together and knit together as an alternative reality in the midst of a violent world. So that at the Table we can be made into witnesses, not victims. We have been placed among a great cloud of witnesses, bound together across generational, political, ideological, nationalistic lines. By God’s Holy Word we are empowered to trust that God is with us, even in trying times, and especially in trying times. We need not be afraid…

Today as we celebrate Cameron’s baptism we renew our own commitments to live by those promises, to resist the Evil One and to love God and neighbor one day at a time. Before we share the bread and the cup we will gather up our pledge cards and bless them. They don’t represent joining a club or paying a tax. They represent our generous offerings used to build up the Body of Christ here at St. Michael’s, so that we might share this work to which we have been called in this time and place, blessed by the example of the witnesses who have gone before us.

We recommit ourselves on this All Saints Sunday to live by trust and not fear, to create witnesses, not victims. We get a foretaste of what is to come, by God’s grace. May our life together inspire hope and unleash courage and wisdom for the living of these days.

The Tenth Leper

When asked to describe the nature of true worship, Martin Luther responded succinctly: “the tenth leper turning back.”

Since celebrating the Feast of Pentecost eighteen weeks ago, we have been “on the way” in Luke’s Gospel with Jesus and his followers, making our way to Jerusalem. Luke has organized these encounters that Jesus and the disciples have “on the way” to reveal something about the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim and establish. Today, Luke reminds us that we are still “on the way” to Jerusalem but then adds that now Jesus “is going through that region between Samaria and Galilee.” We should pay attention to that.

That is, in other words, through the West Bank of the Jordan River. The more things change, unfortunately, the more they stay the same. Most Jews traveling from the north to the south would ahve crossed the Jordan and travelled along the east bank of the river - to avoid this territory. But Jesus goes there. 

Only Luke gives us that other famous Samaritan story, the one about the so-called “Good Samaritan.” For any self-respecting first-century Jew, of course, that phrase (Good Samaritan) would have been considered an oxymoron. Everybody knew that Samaritans represented that which was never good: that which was to be feared as unholy and polluted. Jesus has crossed the tracks and is in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don’t stop. (That’s a line from a Springsteen song, Johnny 99!)

He’s traveling through that region between Samaria and Galilee when they come to a village.

Now in case anyone reading Luke’s Gospel has missed the point, we get hit over the head a second time by a 2x4 when Jesus encounters a group of lepers there. Not only is he in a place considered unclean, but now there are lepers everywhere. People with leprosy were considered to be ritually unclean and not allowed to come into contact with “normal people.” Hence the leper colonies where they lived away from the community. They keep their distance because coming into contact with someone who had this ailment would make you ritually unclean. In fact, as you approached a leper, they were required to shout out: “unclean, unclean” as a kind of warning, just to be sure that you don’t walk up to them accidentally to ask for directions.

Imagine such a life: suffering not only from a terrible disease but being socially ostracized as well. And then notice that while they do approach Jesus, Luke makes it clear that they “kept their distance from him.”

Keeping their distance, they shout out to Jesus for mercy. And then Jesus sends them along to the priests, because the Torah says that before they can re-enter the community the priest must pronounce them ritually clean. As they turn to leave they find their skin disease is healed. But they still need that “ok” from the Temple authorities before they can re-enter society. They know that, and everyone with Jesus knows that; and besides Jesus has just told them to do that. So off they go.

But one of them turned back. Now it may be fair enough as you hear this to say, “Hey, cut the nine some slack because they are just doing what Jesus said to do.” But that really isn’t the point of the story. The point here is something that every parent I know tries to teach their children from a very young age. And even when you don’t know much about Middle Eastern geography or the ritual laws about leprosy, this part of the story easily translates from first-century culture to our own day: it doesn’t cost you anything to say “thank you.” They can get on their way soon enough. But their lives have just been radically changed. This is huge!

And yet they have tunnel vision: must get to priests! Only one of them takes the time to turn back and say, “thank you!” And that is what Luther meant when he said that true worship is to be like this one. Or as Meister Eckhart put it: “if the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you’ it would be enough.”

We all know this. But it takes practice. We are surrounded by miracles and you would have to be blind to live in New England in October and not notice. We are part of a faith community that nurtures and sustains our faith. We experience, even on the most difficult of days, blessing upon blessing. And so we gather here each weekend to share the Eucharist which means (literally) “thank you God.” We recite the ancient words that are rooted in the Passover story from Exodus, to thank God for bringing us out of the bondage of slavery and to the Promised Land. We gather to thank God for this good earth and the gifts of bread and wine. As I'll say on behalf of all of us in a few minutes:

It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.         

We come here to say our prayers in order to become more like the one who turned back, because it takes us to the very heart of the gospel. Ten were healed of their leprosy: their skin got better and they were all presumably pronounced ritually clean and allowed to re-enter society. But only one of them got well. He isn’t just “not sick” anymore; he’s been made whole. He’s alive.

Can I say it this way; “he’s saved?” That word makes Episcopalians squirm a little bit and I get why: it’s a little like the word “evangelism” or “stewardship.” Often when someone asks us whether or not we are “saved,” we may be tempted to run the other way. But that is in fact the Greek word used here: the root sozo literally means “to be saved” or “to be made well.” In the old King James Version it says, “Your faith has made you whole," which of course is what salvation is really all about.

Being saved isn’t about something that happens to us after we die. The abundant life that Christ promises begins here and now and this story before us today suggests that we take hold of that new life—we are made whole—when we cultivate gratitude in our lives. 

This story happens every day. It happens in the waiting rooms of ICU at our local hospitals; it happens around our dinner tables or picking apples on an autumn day. Miracles abound. That doesn’t mean life isn’t sometimes hard, although it’s hard to imagine a life any more difficult than being a leper in a small Samaritan village. But too often we’re too busy moving on to the next thing; the miracles are all around us but we must get to work, must get to class, must get to the doctor, must get supper ready, must even sometimes get to church. Focused on the next thing, it’s too easy for us to forget to stop and miss the present thing, and then say: “thank you, God.”

So I think Luther had it just right: true worship is the one who returned. Discipleship is about cultivating gratitude, until we learn to become givers ourselves.  

Let me then close with the words of one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamotte. She says that she has two favorite prayers that she tries to pray every day: one in the morning and one at night. When she gets out of bed, she simply prays: “Help me. Help me. Help me.” And at the end of the day, before her head hits the pillow: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Early on in my tenure here I spoke about her book with one other prayer: Help. Thanks. Wow.

Those are really good prayers. And they will take you a long way down the path of being made whole, if that is what you seek. They will take you a long way toward embracing the saving love that is in fact already ours in Jesus Christ.

Consider this truth, ponder it in your heart, as you reflect on your support of this congregation in 2026. This congregation is not God – but we are engaged in God’s work – and we need your time, your talents, and your treasurer to do what God has called us to do. Don’t give begrudgingly. Don’t give stingily. Give generously, with a grateful heart. Perhaps you will consider trying this – take a blank piece of paper and a pen and carve out just five minutes to write a gratitude list – to list all of the people, places, things, experiences for which you are grateful. From that place, consider what it means to share what you have for the sake of God and neighbor – not out of duty, or a tax, or so the treasurer can pay the bills, but because it is good for your soul. 

Seek the Welfare of the City

I'm a lectionary preacher. I have colleagues who are gifted at finding threads and themes in the readings for the day - which is especially intentional on the part of those who have put the lectionary together and especially with the Track 2 Gospel-related readings from the Old Testament. But in truth, I'm a one text at a time kind of preacher. I just need time to unpack the one. 

This Sunday as we begin to work on our fall stewardship campaign at St. Michael's, I am going to preach on the Gospel for the day: on the tenth leper, the one who came back to say thank you. The stewardship sermon literally writes itself, and I'll plan to post it here after preaching it. 

But for those who use Track 1 for the Old Testament readings (as we do at St. Michael's) this means skipping over the extraordinary reading from Jeremiah 29. So this is not a second sermon, it's literally just some ruminations on that text which I think is important for our time. It's the seeds of a sermon I might have preached and maybe will in three years. 

The lectionary readings for the day can be found here. The Jeremiah text can be found below. 

_______________

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining
elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar
had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from
Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage,
that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of
the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will
find your welfare.

________________

Remember that Jeremiah had a long extended ministry. Initially, his job was to speak the truth into a time when truth was in short supply. The exile was coming, and the temple would be destroyed and it was basically too late to change. 

That all happens just as Jeremiah "predicted." But remember that the prophets are not fortune-tellers. They are social critics who know that public policy matters and especially how a nation cares for the poor. The circumstances that led to the Babylonian Exile are geo-political; but the theological reasons that Jeremiah and others give is that Israel has been disobedient. 

So it all happens. Now the exiles are in Babylon. Time goes on. It's hard to live in exile. Beyond homesickness and despair and not knowing the language and missing the food from home, it can just be plain exhausting. And there is no end in sight. What lies ahead is a marathon, not a sprint. 

So the message that is sent by God through Jeremiah to the exiles is a hard word, maybe harder than the initial message that Exile was coming. It is that the Exile won't end anytime soon. It'll be decades. 

People cannot long live in perpetual crisis mode. So the word of the Lord here is to hunker down. Build and plant - we heard those words from Jeremiah at the very beginning. After plucking up and pulling down and destroying and overthrowing (deconstructing the old order) Jeremiah's ministry will be about building and planting. But everyone assumed that would be "back home" and eventually (it will be decades) that will happen. But in the meantime, Jeremiah tells the exiles to build houses and live in them and to plant gardens and eat the produce. IN BABYLON! He does further: survive. Marry and have kids and pray for the welfare of the city where you find yourselves. Extraordinary!

The reasons I'm bummed about not preaching a full sermon on this is that I think this is very much a "word of the Lord" for us. We are surrounded these days by so-called "Christian" nationalists who want the United States of America to become a fundamentalist theocracy. I will never (ever) sign on to that work. I choose resistance and the gospel of Jesus Christ who calls on us to be reconcilers and peacemakers. 

The United States is not the Promised Land. Certainly not today but probably never. This weekend we remember the Indigenous Peoples who lived here before Columbus - the real story is not pretty. The rhetoric about becoming a city on the hill dismissed the fact that people were living here and this country was not "discovered" it was "invaded." But that's another sermon...

The point is that the United States is Babylon. It's empire. Everything is organized to keep power. And followers of Jesus rightly should resist and remember who we are. 

And yet...

It feels like we have lost our way, but finding our way back home is going to be a long journey. Maybe decades. So much has already been lost. It's easy to despair. 

A friend of mine recently told me that he is pessimistic in the short-run and hopeful in the long-run. I think that's a wise place to be and I think it describes where I am as well. In the long-run all shall be well. In the short-run, it may get worse before it gets better. We need to not only resist but survive to "fight" another day. 

If this is right then Jeremiah 29 might be helpful advice to us, living in perilous times. It may feel counter-intuitive at first, but once we realize we need to take the long view it begins to make perfect sense. Constant reactivity will burn us all out and make us crazy. We need to be clear about whom we serve but at the same time we can and should create lives here and now. We need to build and plant and seek the welfare of the city where we find ourselves. There really is, in reality, no alternative. 

Humility and Curiosity

According to Wikipedia, the Johari Window is a technique designed to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others. It was created by psychologists Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in 1955, and is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise. Luft and Ingham named their model "Johari" using a combination of their first names.

I first encountered it as a mentor of the Education for Ministry (EfM) program decades ago. It has stayed with me as a very helpful tool, but I admit I don't see it very often and have no idea if it's something still used or not. It's relatively simple to understand and straightforward, I think - the image makes it pretty clear. In the upper left box are things we know about ourselves that others also know about us. In the upper right box are things everybody else knows about us, but that we are blind to ourselves. In the lower left box are those things which we know about ourselves but keep hidden from others. And in the lower right hand box is the unknown. We are a mystery even to ourselves. Theologically, we might say "God knows" if we are so inclined. But in my experience this is a challenging one because if we don't know something and others don't see it either, how do we discover it so that we might be changed for the better? 

I'll leave that question for now, but hold this thought about Johari's Window...

I've been ordained for more than thirty-seven years, and have done hundreds of funerals over the course of that time. I still find it fascinating to sit and talk with family members about the deceased and even more fascinating when the circle expands and friends are included, or share a reflection at the funeral. Even the most integrated person has different relationships with different people. There are jokes we share with some and not others; ideas we share with some and not others - for a whole bunch of reasons. So an oldest child tells me that mom, who has just passed, was a strict disciplinarian. And then the youngest child, maybe number five or six, says that mom was a pushover - and let her get away with everything. 

You get the point, I trust. The goal for me is not to solve the mystery and figure out who is right. Rather, every time I have this experience I ponder anew what a great mystery we all are. There is only so much those in relationship can share - only so much that is known to them. Much is hidden and all is filtered through the particular nature of that relationship, and time, and place. 

I have been thinking a lot lately and trying to pray with the ways that "so-called liberals" and "so-called conservatives" knew Charlie Kirk. I put myself in the former group but have to admit I did not have the animosity toward him before his murder that some did, mostly because he wasn't really on my radar. For whatever reason, I knew very little about him. But what I knew (and what I have learned) made me believe that those on the other side who would make a hero of him in death - even a martyr - have been ill informed. 

But what if, even if there is truth in that. we literally heard and saw and felt different things based on our own self-understanding?  What we think we know is very limited - for all of us.

I was and continue to be fascinated by this post from a journalist I have a lot of respect for, Van Jones. If you've not seen it, please watch it. 

Are you still with me? This may or may not be a helpful post because I'm still working through all of this but what I find so compelling about Van Jones' reflections are that (a) he's not a friend and in fact (b) he strongly disagreed with Charlie Kirk on almost everything and (c) he shares a heartfelt story that affirms the claims about Charlie Kirk wanting to engage respectfully across difference and (d) he says that maybe this will help someone - maybe on the right or maybe on the left. 

It is a reminder to me that no one knew Charlie Kirk. Not even Charlie Kirk. Not even his wife. Not the person who murdered him. Not the people who showed up at the funeral/rally this weekend. Not Van Jones...

What Johari's Window ultimately taught me a long time ago is to be humble about what I know even of myself, let alone others. So much is hidden. Our lives are complex. Only God knows. 

The internet, however, and our current climate, are fast and furious. Some of my conservative friends were posting almost immediately about how liberals would not mourn the death of Charlie Kirk and yet without irony that when an elected official in Minnesota and her husband were murdered in their home, they didn't mourn or demand that flags be flown at half-staff. 

I'm weary of the posts - even the ones I agree with - that have come from this day. I've read that some people celebrated his death but no one I know did and liberals for whom I have great respect all condemned the violence and offered condolences for his family. Bernie Sanders was incredible. It's almost as if in some circles that was not enough, however. I don't know how, or if, we will sort through it. I don't know how, or if, we can tone down the rhetoric. 

But for me there is an underlying epistemological question of what we know and how we know it. Many of us, on the left and on the right, claim to "know" far more than we do. Other than Van Jones, most of the commentary I read comes from people who never met the man. We know far less about the clearly disturbed young man who killed him. But as best I can tell after a little time has passed, the simplistic polarizing narratives that were initially put out there have little truth to them. Life is more complex.

In addition to cultivating humility, I am praying that we can also learn yet another lesson from Ted Lasso: to be more curious. To practice staying open. In all those funerals I've presided over, through almost four decades of ministry, I have never once felt that I had to come up with the definitive eulogy about the deceased. I feel that same way about preaching Jesus. How to stay open, to listen, to learn, to be unafraid of complexity?  There is a reason we get four (canonical) gospels rather than one, and five if you count Paul's Letters taken together as a kind of fifth gospel. In truth as much as we learn about Jesus, we learn from the New Testament that we are hearing how Paul, and Matthew, and Mark and Luke and John felt about Jesus. 

It does seem to me that if we can cultivate these practices of humility and curiosity we will, in God's own time, find a way forward. And we may even learn, or remember how to  engage one another across differences as we seek to bind up the wounds of this nation.