Another Year of Grace

I wrote this as a blog post for All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester. It is shared here on my own blog with some very minor edits. Happy New Year! 

I grew up and learned about the love of God in Jesus Christ as a United Methodist. My parents had grown up in Baptist and Lutheran churches, but in the early 1970s our family joined Elm Park United Methodist Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. When our family moved (back) to Hawley in 1973, we joined The Hawley United Methodist Church. My mother and brother and one of my sisters continue to worship there to this day. That congregation sponsored me for ordination in the United Methodist Church in June 1988. I remain grateful.

As a United Methodist pastor, my first position was to serve as the Protestant Campus Minister at Central Connecticut State University. Campus Ministry allowed me to be free on Sunday mornings and soon Hathy and I were worshipping at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Britain. Although I had been flirting with The Episcopal Church for some time (and even worked in an Episcopal congregation during my senior year of seminary) I made it official in 1993 and have never looked back.

I never once felt that I needed to “renounce” the Methodist Church in that long journey, however. I felt grateful that they had formed and shaped me to a point in time. And then, before my 30^th birthday, I became clear that I would have a better chance to “grow into the full stature of Christ” as an Episcopalian. It helped that both John and Charles Wesley are remembered in the Episcopal Church on March 3, as Anglican priests. Neither of them had never renounced Anglicanism; they were just trying to reform it at a time when it needed some reformation. I felt as if I was “coming home.” It helped that I could bring the spirituality of the Wesley boys with me, since it was already there! To this day, every time I sing a Charles Wesley hymn from The Hymnal 1982 my heart is strangely warmed!

I share this piece of my own spiritual autobiography for a reason. One practice I brought with me into The Episcopal Church was the practice of praying John Wesley's Covenant Renewal Service at the beginning of each new year. I have been doing that for my entire adult life, in two denominations. If you click on that hyperlink you can join me in so doing this year. It won’t turn you into a Methodist – don’t worry! But there is some very good theology there, including this invitation:

Let us gathered here before the Lord now in covenant commit ourselves to Christ as his servants. Let us give ourselves to Him so that we may fully belong to Him. Jesus Christ has left us with many services to be done. Some of these services are easy and honorable, but some are difficult and disgraceful. Some line up with our desires and interests, others are contrary to both. In some we please both Christ and ourselves, but then there are other works where we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.

What gets me every year is this reminder that the Church’s one foundation really is Jesus Christ, her Lord. That the words “my ministry” should never cross our lips – whether the ministry to which we are called is ordained or lay. It does not belong to us; ministry is all about God. Each of us possess gifts, given by the same Spirit. Sometimes ministry is really fun and energizing and the Spirit empowers and equips us; as Frederick Buechner once put it, “our deep gladness meets the needs of this broken world.” It’s amazing when that happens. But sometimes we are stretched beyond our abilities and must rely on sheer grace to do what needs to be done, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, at the end of our rope. On those difficult days we do well to remember that the ministry which we share in and through Jesus goes by way of Golgatha. Even now, in the midst of the Twelve Days of Christmas, we know that this child we have come to adore will die on a cross. And that he calls upon each of us to take up our own cross.

The ministry does not belong to us; it is God’s work in the world and we are simply entrusted to be stewards of that work. The late Verna Dozier once wrote these words: 

If I believe that there is a loving God, who has created me and wants me to be a part of a people who will carry the good news of the love of that God to the world, what difference does it make when I go to my office at 9 o'clock Monday morning? What difference does it make in my office that I believe there is a loving God, that God loves me, and that God loves all human beings exactly as God loves me? What different kinds of decisions do I make? What am I called to do in that office? [i]

It’s a good reminder that ministry isn’t only (or even mainly) about what we do in our church buildings. It’s not just about the ministries required for liturgy to work well: being in the choir or on the altar guild or serving on the altar or preaching. All of these ministries matter and they may bring us great joy. But in the end, we are sent into the world. All of us. The worship ends and the service begins in the neighborhood, where we are entrusted to be salt, and light, and yeast. The decisions we make in our homes and in our workplaces need to reflect this commitment, this covenant that knits us together as members of the Body of Christ, so that the world will know we are Christians by our love.

Most years there is some sense of ambiguity when the calendar turns to a new year. But this year I suspect we are all ready to be done with 2020. Even so, in any new year there is some amount of reflection and even of resolutions. I’ve never been that into resolutions, but Wesley’s Covenant Renewal Service shapes my reflections and my commitments as I begin each new year. I pray that it may be helpful to you as well as we begin another year of grace, always with God’s help.

[i] Dozier, V. J. (1988). The Calling of the Laity: Verna Dozier's anthology. Washington, DC: The Alban Institute (p. 16).

 

 

Rejoice Always!

Yesterday, on The Third Sunday of Advent, I preached at St. Andrew's Church in Longmeadow, MA. The service was live-streamed here: 

What follows is the manuscript for the sermon I preached. 

St. Paul was a pastoral theologian. He’s trying to find where God is in the midst of particular places at a particular time around the Mediterranean Sea, where the good news was spreading and taking hold. That happens a little bit differently in Rome than in Corinth or Galatia. He’s not trying to set forth an abstract theology that is true-for-all-time and places. He’s in the weeds with the conflicts and alliances: Apollos and Chloe and others are a part of the narrative. There is therefore more than a little irony that we lean in and listen for a “word of the Lord” when we hear these letters read in our own day.

What I mean to say is simply that context mattered a great deal to Paul. And context continues to matter to us. It matters that we are gathered here at St. Andrew’s virtually because of this pandemic, in this year of our Lord, 2020. We aren’t in Williamstown or Worcester; and it’s not 1954. We are here, now on this third Sunday of Advent as we near the shortest day of the year in this hemisphere, when the darkness seems to envelope us. We are here, in this time and place. And so is the risen Christ, because wherever two or three are gathered, he is in our midst.

St. Paul models something for us, I think, by responding to very specific challenges within those particular faith communities, each with their own gifts and shortcomings. Because while it’s true that wherever two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name he is in the midst of them, it is also true that wherever two or three are gathered together there will be all of the interesting challenges of our common humanity. He comes to his work and to each letter with some core principles that take shape differently as that congregation seeks and serves Christ and tries, with God’s help, to love God and to love neighbor.

So today’s epistle reading is addressed to those early followers of the Jesus movement in Thessalonica, the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. The notes in my New Oxford Annotated Bible begin with these words to help frame that context:

First Thessalonians is a friendly, exhortative letter of encouragement. Paul extends affectionate praise for the audience’s steadfast hope and consistent behavior.

Now this kind of praise might have come as quite a surprise to the Corinthian Christians, with whom Paul was far more combative. That’s because they were a very conflicted congregation that has been fighting about just about everything; Paul suggests at one point that they sound like noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. By the time he gets to the thirteenth chapter of that much less friendly and affectionate letter, what’s he’s really saying is: get it together gang! Knowledge puffs up but love builds up! This is what it’s about: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.

So let me not put too fine a point on this: being with you, St. Andrew’s, feels a lot more like coming to Thessalonica than Corinth. You are one of our shining lights in this diocese. When I last spent time among you it was during a clergy transition as you said goodbyes to Derek and his family. I vividly remember meeting in this space and hearing your genuine concerns about the future. Would there be life after Derek?

And then an interim period which included lots of good work, and some challenges as well. And then a whole faithful process of exploration, of learning and listening, of writing a truthful profile and then interviewing candidates. And then a call to Charlotte and her family who got here, ready to get to work. Well done!

And then COVID-19.

Through it all, I’ve seen resiliency and adaptability and hard work continue. I see your wardens and your new rector showing up at diocesan town halls. Like Paul and the Thessalonians, I have nothing but affectionate praise for your steadfast hope and consistent behavior.

The letter to the Church in Thessalonica is earlier than Corinthians. In fact, it is almost certain that this letter is the oldest document in the New Testament, about twenty years before the earliest of the gospels, Mark, was written: Yet here, too, Paul is thinking about how faith, hope, and love are the marks of authentic Christian community. They are always his core principles. But here it’s because he notices what happens when communities do put these at the heart of their mission and purpose.

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before God your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope… (I Thessalonians 1:2-3)

Paul believes that the end of the world is coming soon, that Christ’s return is imminent. So this short letter is dealing with questions about how the community can “keep alert” and be ready for that day. That is why it makes such good reading in Advent. How do we live in a way that is prepared for the end of the world as we know it? Again, the Thessalonians have their act together:  

Now concerning the times and the seasons, you do not need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves know very well that the day of   the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (I Thessalonians 5:1-2)

Paul being Paul, of course, he does have a little bit more to say. But once again it is a word of encouragement. “Because you are children of the light,” he tells them, “you know to put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of hope.” There is that trio again: how do you get ready for the end of days? How do you prepare for the coming of Christ into the world? That answer is the same in good times and in bad times: by living with faith, hope, and love! And then, these incredible words of advice:

• respect one another
• esteem one another
• be at peace with one another  
• admonish the idlers
• encourage the fainthearted
• help the weak
• be patient with everyone
• don’t escalate conflicts by repaying evil with evil; respond to evil by doing good!
  
  
  It’s a short letter. I’ve already gotten to the words we heard today. Let me return to those:
  
  
• rejoice always
• pray without ceasing
• give thanks in all circumstances
• do not quench the Spirit
• do not despise the words of prophets
• test everything
• hold fast to what is good
• abstain from evil

Whether the end of the world as we know it is imminent or thousands of years away, on this third week of Advent in this incredibly difficult year for our nation and the world, I do hear a Word of the Lord here, thanks be to God. And I pray you hear it with me. The world is in tough shape right now on so many fronts. But it is in times like these that it is most clear why we need the Church ourselves even if we must gather virtually, and just as importantly why the world needs for us to be the Church even when our use of the building is limited. We need you to keep on keeping on with faith, hope, and love. As you have been…

Things will get better. I won’t say they will return to normal and that’s not really the goal. But God is definitely doing something new among us and you, St. Andrew’s, have been early adaptors to that new reality. And even with the doors closed you have remembered that Longmeadow Loves. Faith, hope, and love – but especially love.

So this weekend we light the third candle in our wreaths: the rose candle. This third Sunday of Advent is often called Gaudete Sunday – from the Latin word that means “rejoice.” That is our liturgical work, today: to rejoice. It’s in that short epistle reading: rejoice always. That may seem easy for Paul to do with his beloved friends in Thessalonica, but you will remember that in another time and place – a different context – he writes the same words to the followers of Jesus in Philippi: rejoice, again I say, rejoice! And in that letter, he’s writing from a prison cell. I think we practice rejoicing without ceasing, so that whatever may come our way it’s become second nature to us.

The late Joseph Campbell once said, “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” It’s a reminder to me that joy is not really a synonym for “happy.” We can feel happy or sad and a whole array of emotions. But joy is not an emotion. Joy is a commitment to being fully alive – of knowing God-with-us. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel! O, Longmeadow!  

It’s been a hard long pandemic and that no doubt shapes this Advent 2020, as we prepare not only to celebrate our dear Savior’s birth but also to get ready for a long, hard winter. But lighting this rose candle- and speaking of joy today is not an act of denial! It is an act of resilience, and a commitment to faith, hope, and love. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. And give thanks in all circumstances.  

Preparing a Way

The word for this coming Sunday, The Second Sunday of Advent, seems to be prepare. (Since this Sunday falls on December 6, some parishes may opt for the St. Nicholas readings - but that's another post for another time!)

Five hundred years or so before the birth of Jesus, the people of Israel were tired and worn-out. They had laid up their harps by the waters of Babylon, for how could they sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? They cried out to the Lord, sometimes in anger, sometimes with tears, sometimes with seeds of hope in their hearts. But for a long time nothing happened. By a long time I don’t mean hours or days or months. I mean decades. I mean that a whole generation wondered: “What will become of us? Will we ever go home again? Do we have a future?”

And then a voice cries out, the voice of a prophet from Jerusalem:

                   In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
                       Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Prepare the way! That time of preparation marked a new beginning. It still would not be easy or instantaneous, but there is something about taking that first step in a long journey that gives you faith that maybe, just maybe, something new will happen. With Isaiah’s pronouncement a page was turned and the work began. The prophet imagines it (by way of God's imagining it) so that the work can begin. Prepare the way!

More than five hundred years later, in the midst of a different kind of exile, the Jewish people were occupied by the Roman Empire. Another voice in another wilderness place breaks the silence when John the Baptizer appears on the scene. He, too, is all about preparing the way of the Lord and making straight a highway in the desert for our God. His words and his life work remind people of the prophets of old and in particular Isaiah’s preparations in the wilderness all those centuries before. Perhaps once again a new day is about to dawn. Prepare ye the way of the Lord…

In both Greek and English this word literally means to “make ready.” So if the word for the day is to prepare, then the question for the day is what needs to be done to help make us ready for Christmas? And not just any Christmas, but this Christmas 2020 - nine months into a global pandemic?

In more normal times, almost thirty-five years into our marriage, Hathy and I have become pretty good at preparing for parties together. We enjoy having friends over and we each take on different tasks in getting ready that have become more defined over time. We each have our routines. Mostly, I cook and she cleans. It's a kind of parallel play. It is toward one end that we learned early on in our marriage: we don't want to spend all of our time in the kitchen when our guests arrive. We invite them over because we want to visit and enjoy their company. So the preparing that comes first is all towards that goal. Even if there are last minute things to do to prepare a meal it is helpful to have everything chopped and diced and measured and to have the table set and so on and so forth. We do that reasonably well, I think and find enjoyment in the whole process leading up to the time together.

On the other hand, every member of my family will tell you I'm a lousy painter because apparently you are supposed to do some prep work before you just open a can of paint and stir and grab a brush. I tend to skip over the prep work. 

Each of us have positive examples of when our preparations have been mindful and productive and “of a piece” with the whole. And I assume, as well, that we all have also had our “learning experiences” from times when our preparations were neglected or disconnected from the goal we had in mind. One can never prepare for all contingencies or surprises, but if you are ready then you can adapt if necessary as events unfold.

So if Advent is a time for preparing, it helps to know what it is exactly that we are preparing for. It helps if Advent leads us to Christmas! To do that, however, we need to peak to the end of the story. (And that's honestly okay, in spite of what the "liturgical police" like to say: Jesus has already come to be among us - we are not required to pretend we don't know where we are headed!)

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. The main reason that governments register people is so they can either make them into soldiers or tax them. The world hasn’t changed much on that front. But this is a reminder that the story we tell on Christmas Eve is not a “once upon a time” fairy tale; it’s an event that takes place in human history. It's political. It's cultural. It's economic.

Jesus is born in a very specific time and place. That is at the heart of what the Incarnation is all about. The theologians sometimes call it the “scandal of particularity.” It always amuses me when I hear someone say they don’t believe in Jesus. It’s like saying you don’t believe in Abraham Lincoln or Charles Dickens. Jesus definitely existed. The faith question is about who he was and what his life meant and specifically if he was the One; whether or not he was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. That's the theological question. But that a rabbi from Nazareth lived and died: that's historical. It's not fake news; it's good news! 

In these uncertain days of a presidential transition and a global pandemic, we do well to remember that Advent preparation calls on us to be attentive to the world around us—to specific places and events both globally and locally that make up our unique context in this time and this place. We do not prepare for Christmas by escaping from the challenges of the day: we look at those challenges as opportunities for ministry and as places where we will encounter the living God, if only we know how to look. 

The story on Christmas Eve continues…Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Jesus is not born among the rich and famous in Rome or Jerusalem, but among the poor. If we want to find Jesus then we should begin our search there. Advent preparations might therefore include putting ourselves in places where the most vulnerable members of our society can be found. This is not to suggest that God loves the poor more than the affluent or that if we are rich we should feel guilty. It is to say that we very often discover courage and perseverance and hope among the those whose lives feel very precarious, and only have God to turn to. 

Usually among the more privileged (among whom I count myself) the great social challenge in December is that we tend to look towards those we feel have more than we do and when we do that it is normal to feel envious. This year, however, we could probably all do with a Blue Christmas celebration. Some are hurting more than others, to be sure. But all of us have suffered from a kind of social dislocation and spiritual disorientation. The death count from COVID alone is now at 276,000 with daily rates soaring.

There were shepherds out keeping watch of their flock, when suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors. But if we are too loud and too frenetic we will miss their songs. So we prepare ourselves by slowing down and being quiet. Most years that seems like an impossible challenge, when there is so much to do, and so many social events to prepare for. I am already grieving the loss of the Christmas Revels (a decades old tradition in our family) and extended gatherings with family and friends and bringing in the new year with our BFFs. This Advent seems to have fewer distractions and while I am not one to sugar-coat that, perhaps there is learning to be had in the midst of it for us. Perhaps there is invitation to transformation in all of that. To prepare differently.

Advent is a season for new beginnings. When we do stop and listen for the songs of angels we hear them singing about peace on earth. You don’t have to be a news junkie to know that we are a long way off from that: violence around the world and in our neighborhoods threatens to destroy us all. I remember an old Simon and Garfunkle recording of “Silent Night” which was juxtaposed with the seven o’clock news that was reporting all of the troubles of the day. We live, still, within that tension, not so different from the days when that decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world must be registered, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Yet peace on earth really does begin with us. Peace on earth begins when men and women and children say, “here I am Lord, make me a channel of your peace.” Governments don’t create peace. They may get us to cease-fires, which represent a start. There may be better leaders who appeal to our better angels and worse ones who fan the flames of hatred and violence. But peace on earth requires that ordinary people do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. As Christians we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation and people who love one another and who work with people of good will from every tribe and language and people and nation to start beating swords into plowshares.  

This is the work of the Church from generation to generation. This is the work of Advent: to prepare ourselves and the world around us. And not just our hearts, but our minds and our bodies. We get ready for Christmas from head to toe. If the Incarnation means anything at all, it means we have to learn to pray with our bodies and begin to heal the body politic, and the Body of Christ. 

When we make time to prepare the way for these things, we can be assured that we will be prepared for Christmas.

Waiting and Longing

Today, I offered the opening prayer at two Zoom meetings. Each time, I shared a prayer from Walter Brueggemann's Prayers for a Privileged People entitled "Waiting and Longing,"  on reading Daniel. 

I guess it works "on reading Daniel." But for my money, it's a pretty solid Advent prayer. Especially in this time of pandemic. I share it here (I hope legally) and include a plug to buy the book for someone you love this Christmas. It's filled with other excellent prayers by a very good pray-er. 

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Waiting and Longing

God of the seasons, 
God of the years, 
God of the eons,
   Alpha and Omega,
   before us and after us. 

You promise and we wait:

we wait with eager longing,
we wait amid doubt and anxiety,
we wait with patience thin
  and then doubt,
  and then we take life into our
                    own hands. 

We wait because you are the one and only one.
We wait for your peace and your mercy,
for your justice and your good rule. 

Give us your Spirit that we may wait
obediently and with discernment,
caringly and without passivity,
trustingly and without cynicism,
honestly and without utopianism.

Grant that our wait may be appropriate to your coming
     soon and very soon,
     soon and not late,
     late but not too late.

We wait while the world groans in eager longing. 

Gratitude

The Gospel Reading for Thanksgiving Day is Luke 17:11-19. 

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

Luke has organized his gospel in such a way that Jesus and his disciples are "on the way" to Jerusalem from Galilee, and along the way they have various encounters that  reveal something about the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim and establish.

In the seventeenth chapter, however, we seem to have taken a detour. 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. It’s a bit like saying that on the way from Worcester to Boston, they stopped in Providence. It’s out of the way! There are three possibilities for such a detour. One is that Jesus has gotten lost, which is possible but unlikely. In fact, since faithful Jews aren’t supposed to be anywhere near Samaritan soil, it seems Jesus is making a point here. 

A second possibility is that Luke doesn’t have a very good sense of first-century Palestinian geography. Since all of the gospels, including Luke, were written decades after the events being recounted, it is in fact possible that Luke has gotten his geography wrong. 

But most scholars think there is a far more likely third possibility, and I agree with them: that both Jesus and Luke know exactly what they are doing and a serious theological point is being made here. Jesus is stepping into a boundary where ethnic and religious tensions are palpable. Think about a detour to beyond the wall in Israel to the West Bank, or to Belfast when tensions were highest between Catholic and Protestant Christians there or to Charlottesville, Virginia after the murder of George Floyd. Or maybe to those cages on the US- Mexican border.  Luke is putting us on notice: while we are still “on the way” to Jerusalem, something important that reveals something about the Kingdom of God is going to happen in this little village…

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 to the part of town where when you hit a red light you don’t stop. 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 2 x 4 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 healthy 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 translates pretty easily 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 seem to have tunnel vision: must get to priests! Only one of them takes the time to turn back and say, “thank you!” 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. It's been a long and difficult year during this pandemic. Yet even now, we are surrounded by miracles and you would have to be blind to live in New England in autumn to not notice. We experience, even on the most difficult of days, blessing upon blessing. The one who turned back, takes us to the very heart of the gospel. Ten were healed of their leprosy: their skin got better and they were all presumably soon 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 been 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 suggests that we take hold of that new life. We really are made whole when we cultivate gratitude in our lives. That part, at least, of this reading is really very simple. 

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 or get to class or get to the doctor or even get to church. We need to get supper ready or do the laundry. All these things matter but if we aren't careful we begin to live our lives focused on the next thing rather than the thing we are doing right now. And too often we forget to stop and 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. Anne Lamotte 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, she prays: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Those are both really good prayers. And they can take us a long way down the path of being made whole, if that is what you seek. They can take us a long way toward embracing the saving love that is in fact already ours as beloved of God. Happy Thanksgiving.

Advent Hope

This Sunday will mark the beginning of a new liturgical year as we celebrate the First Sunday of Advent. The readings appointed for this Sunday can be found here.

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The first words of this Advent season and a new liturgical year come from the prophet Isaiah, a desperate cry for help addressed to God: O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…

Have you ever prayed such a prayer or stood with someone who has? Perhaps it was at the grave of a loved one who died before their time. Or maybe you have gone through a rough divorce or lost your job right before the holidays. Perhaps you have just been watching the news. 

When I served as as Associate Rector at Christ and Holy Trinity Church in Westport, Connecticut, I developed my own confirmation curriculum. My work focused on youth and formation work and at the time I found the materials that were available to be dismal. I ended up keeping and annually revising those materials which paired confirmands with adult mentors throughout my tenure as Rector of St. Francis Church. (Ask any kid who was confirmed at St. Francis between 1998-2013 and they will tell you about the red binders!)

In those materials, there was an assignment intended to expand the confirmands' repertoire of Biblical metaphors for God. The Bible has far more metaphors than our liturgies tend to avail themselves of, and I wanted them to explore that a bit. It was also a chance to channel my inner Baptist grandmother by having them find their way around an actual Bible rather than those fancy little Scripture inserts we Episcopalians are so fond of. (And this was in the days before Google!)

One of the texts that I had them look up comes from the tenth chapter of the Book of Job, where Job suggests that God is a lion. (Job 10:16) But Job isn’t using that image in the flattering way that C.S. Lewis does with his great Christ-figure, Aslan. You will remember that Job is suffering from incredible loss and is in incredible emotional turmoil. But worse than all of his spiritual pain is that he has come to see God as the cause of all of his suffering. When he says that God is a lion, it’s because he feels like a wildebeest that God has hunted down and chewed up and spit out. He is asking a haunting question: why are you doing this to me, God?

It’s hard enough when your life is coming unglued. But you can pretty much get through anything if you feel that God is with you, if you feel that God is your rock or the good shepherd who walks with you through the valley of the shadow of death. Even if we know it will be another six months or a year that we have to face chemotherapy or until we find new employment or love again, or until this pandemic ends, we can make it if we have hope. We can make it if we feel that God is on our side and working through it all to bring about something good. 

Our deepest fear comes when we are no longer certain that God is with us. But if you believe God has abandoned you, or worse still that God is the source of your pain (a lion who has hunted you down) it is too much to bear. Like Isaiah, Job prays for God to tear open the heavens and come down. He is a desperate man who wants his day in court; he wants to be heard. (Actually, what he wants is to make his case against God.) If only God would tear open the heavens and show His face…

For Isaiah, it isn’t personal suffering like Job’s, but a national tragedy that gives us these first words of Advent. He speaks on behalf of an entire nation, out of the pain of the Babylonian exile and a feeling of having been betrayed by God. Isaiah poses a profound theological question, perhaps the most serious theological question any of us will ever ask. Given God’s past marvelous deeds, where is God now? If God could do all those wonderful things “back in the day” (like bring the slaves out of Egypt and defeat Pharaoh) then why isn’t God doing something about the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar now? It is in line with Isaiah’s words that we ask why God didn’t intervene to stop six million Jews from being killed in the middle part of the twentieth century. 

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…

It may seem like an odd way to begin Advent, but maybe less odd in 2020 than in previous years, as we sort through the many messes we are in on this fragile earth, our island home. It is so tempting to replace authentic hope with cheap grace and wishful thinking. People want easy answers to hard questions, at least some days. 

Yet, if you are in a place where you can identify with where Isaiah or Job are and find yourself yelling at the heavens, and your friend says, “there, there” or "there is some reason for this" they are not much of a friend. This prayer expresses extraordinary grief and loss and a sense of betrayal that grow out of Isaiah’s first-hand experience and he needs to take that to God, whom he feels has been M.I.A. He needs to be heard and acknowledged before he can get to hope. 

So the question before us as we light that first candle of hope this Sunday is simply this: what do we do with that? One commentator on this Isaiah text says that “God hides in order to deconstruct a distorted faith.” Now that sounds like the kind of thing a theologian would say, doesn’t it? But I want to suggest that leads to very good theology. God hides in order to deconstruct a distorted faith.

God is beyond all of our language, beyond all of our images. I don’t mean only the false idols. Of course God is not a golden calf or a little statue or a 401-K. But I also mean that God is beyond even the most helpful of icons: beyond “father” and “rock” and “light” and “lion.” At the burning bush when Moses wants to know God’s name, God insists, “I am who I am.” At best all of our words and images for God—even our very favorites—can only point us toward the Inscrutable One who is beyond our understanding and comprehension, the One Tillich called “the God beyond God.” We need human words. But we must always be careful about confusing our words for God with God; they are not the same. God is always bigger. This is where I wanted the conversation to go each year after confirmands and mentors had found all those Biblical images and we gathered together, to recognize that God is and is not any and all of those things.  

So when someone tells me that they don’t believe in God (which tends to happen for the first but not last time for almost all kids right around confirmation age) I never panic. I just ask them to tell me about this god they no longer believe in. And usually if they are willing to humor me and talk about it, what I discover is that they are actually beginning to deconstruct a distorted faith. Or to say it another way, I don’t believe in the god they don’t believe in either! They need to let go of an old image that is keeping them from encountering the more mysterious but living and real God. Their crisis of faith is real, to be sure. But every crisis represents not only danger but an opportunity and in this kind of experience there is a very real opportunity to discover God anew. And I think that is why these words of Isaiah may be a very good place to start our Advent journey.

Let me be specific. We talk of “father God” so much we may actually begin to think that God is an old man with a gray beard sitting up in space. We go along, often unquestioning, because as long as life is good it’s just fine for God to be “the big guy up there,” not all that different from Santa Clause or a kindly old grandfather. Until one day chaos breaks in and we find ourselves really hurting. Sometimes it takes an exile, or a crisis in faith, or a pandemic to bring us to our knees: we find ourselves vulnerable and frightened and we cry out for God to make it all better by putting a band-aid on our boo-boos or to fix the ozone layer or clean up the oceans or to zap away weapons of mass destruction or to bring about peace on earth or to end this pandemic. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

And when nothing happens, we start to convince ourselves that we are atheists, since God clearly hasn’t done what we asked. We stand with Isaiah and Job at a crossroads in that moment however, and what in fact needs to go is not our faith but those old images we’ve been carrying around that are now keeping us from encountering the true and living God. That can be very hard work. And most of us don’t like that place of unknowing, that place of painful uncertainty and anxiety. We just want God to fix it. 

If we are willing to work though all of that, however, we may find that out of a deconstructed distorted faith, something new is born. Here is the thing though: the process of giving birth is always painful, isn’t it? (Or so I am told anyway!) If it is about nothing else this season is about birth. Certainly the child whose birth we are preparing to celebrate but also the new birth that each of us must go through to discover authentic faith. We prepare ourselves for a king of kings and a lord of lords, a messiah who would rule the world. And what we get is a tiny little baby who needs his diaper changed. We find ourselves kneeling before a manger and a child who needs to be fed and cared for and loved.

What if, as my scholarly friend says, such moments represent an opportunity rather than an obstacle to faith: an invitation to deconstruct a distorted faith in order to become free to reconstruct a more Incarnational faith? So that Immanuel can meet us where we are. Or more accurately, what if Christmas invites us to stop looking up to the heavens for a magical God who fixes things and to open our eyes to see God-with-us redeeming and healing things? A God who says, “I’m right here, now …wherever and whenever two or three gather together.”  

The irony of this prayer is that it has been answered: the heavens have been torn asunder and God has come down to dwell among us, very God of very God, begotten not made. The Word that was with God and was God has become flesh to dwell among us and we have beheld his glory, full of grace and truth. But not as we expected.  The God we get comes to us as a little child who grows up and dies on a cross. Easter life emerges only out of risk and loss and death. Christ’s initial appearance will lead to new and more profound questions before it offers us easy answers, questions like the ones Brian Wren raises in one of his provocative hymns: 

Can this newborn mystery, an infant learning to feed, defeat the grim and chilling powers of domination, death and sin?

Well, can he? Is this little baby the best God can do? This One with the tiny little hands and fingers—He is going to defeat the powers of domination, death, and sin? Wren’s poem is (as the Church has come to expect of him) very good theology. But let me give away the ending: yes. The mystery of this newborn child, this infant learning to feed, is that he is the Way and the Truth and the Life, and that he is victorious over the chilling powers of domination, death, and sin. No matter how bad this week was for any of us, that is good news. Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ beside us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us. Christ here and now, among us. Don’t look for the skies to be opened up. Just look around you.

The Reign of Christ

It has been twenty-five weeks since we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost on the last day of May. Six months of what the Church sometimes calls "Ordinary Time." 

But these past six months have been anything but ordinary! This time of pandemic goes back to the beginning of Lent. So we have celebrated the Paschal Mystery: moved through Holy Week and the Fifty Days of Easter to Pentecost, followed by this long stretch of so-called ordinary time. This Sunday is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, traditionally called “Christ the King Sunday" and sometimes called “The Reign of Christ.” 

The icon shown on the left is of Christ the Pantocrator, Greek for "Almighty." It comes to us from the Byzantines. Talk about Jesus as king of kings and lord or lords can be confusing; we remember, after all, the crown of thorns and the way he was mocked in a purple robe. We remember that he comes among us as one who serves. And yet, lately my prayer has been drawing me to this part of the tradition, which also has roots in the Bible- especially John's Revelation. Lately, I've been trying, one day at a time, to put my trust in Jesus, the Almighty, the Victorious, who shall reign forever...

If you can read a newspaper or if you watch the news on television or if you have feeds on your various devices, you don't need me to tell you that it feels like we are a long way from the Reign of Christ. It seems that there is only one thing the right and left agree on: that the system is utterly broken. The world's oldest democracy remains under siege weeks after the most recent presidential election. Ordinary times? Not even close...

38.1 million Americans live in poverty in the United States of America, defined as an income of less than $33.26 a day. (That's about $12,000/year.) As I write these words, over 250,000 people have died of COVID in the United States alone. In the midst of this public health pandemic, 27.5 million people are without health insurance. There are currently 2.2 people incarcerated in this country, a five-hundred percent increase from forty years ago. A disproportionate number of those are people of color. 

It is a violent world we live in, and the evils perpetrated can give us nightmares. In the midst of this time of unrest, a record seventeen million guns have been purchased in this country.  Every time we seem to make some progress in the Middle East, it seems that there is a setback. We pray at Holy Baptism that every child of God will know the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. Yet a few broken and sick adults can do so much serious damage to that joy and wonder. 

But no one reading these words needs me to tell you about the violence and degradation of the world we live in. Ordinary time? Heaven help us. 

And yet, we dare to proclaim that Jesus is Lord. And that is a political statement. We are called to remember that, so that by God's grace we are empowered and equipped and encouraged to act as instruments of God’s peace: to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with God. We remember who we are in order to be awakened to the reality of what it means to be the Church in the face of so much pain, and to dream of a world where the Almighty reigns.

This year, the gospel reading appointed for this coming Sunday comes from Matthew 25:31-46. (You can read it here.)

In this particular text, on this particular day, the words from Matthew’s gospel are addressed to the nations, not just to Jesus’ disciples. And the criteria by which the nations are judged as either “sheep” or “goat” is not about a theological claim, but about ethics. And quite specifically: about how the poor and vulnerable are treated in any given society.

So it isn’t about whether a nation is, or claims to be, a Christian nation. (Many will say, “Lord, Lord.”) In fact, Jesus’ parable seems to presume a good bit of confusion among the sheep and goats about which group they belong in. Some say “Lord, Lord…we love you Jesus” but they are in truth goats masquerading as sheep. Why? Because they ignored the poor. And some may say, “Praise be to Allah” or “Namaste”—but if they do justice and love mercy and care for the hungry and the sick and those in prison, they discover in the end that they were really sheep. Karl Rahner called these folks "anonymous Christians" and while I'm not sure I agree with that way of saying it, his intent is rooted in an honest reading of this chapter in Matthew, especially. There are people out there who, even if they don't do these things in the name of Jesus, they are doing it to Christ himself. That is what the text says, after all. It is what Jesus says, or at least what Matthew records Jesus as having said.

In any event, our work is not to be the King or the Judge. That job is taken. We don’t get to decide who is a sheep or who is a goat: the Almighty does. But for people who do claim Jesus as Lord, we have an even greater obligation to listen to his words and to act according to his command. We have an obligation to behave like sheep in the meantime. 

For that is where we live…in the meantime. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being. in the meantime We are called to work for justice, in the meantime. We are called to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit those in prison, in the meantime. This work can feel discouraging when we see how great the needs are. Visiting those in prison is now 500 times harder than it was in 1970, The work can lead us to burnout if we think we are the only ones, the only hands and feet and hearts to do this work. There will never be enough... 

But the truth is, we do not do this work alone. It is among the many, many reasons, why we need each other: why we need community. We need ecumenical and interfaith partnerships and the "nones" who are willing to do justice and love mercy. This text reminds us that it is the work that matters, and that work (along with our confession of Jesus as Lord) defines who we are, and invites us to get clearer about being sheep who know the Good Shepherd rather than goats who simply mouth the words.

Today’s gospel reading can leave us feeling paralyzed and guilty. But by God’s grace, it can also awaken us to our true vocation as followers of Jesus, just in time for Advent, when sleepers are called to awake. 

Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, `Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

Bridesmaids

Today is The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost. (Two weeks to go in this long season of ordinary time and then we begin again, with Advent.) The gospel reading for today comes from the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, and can be found here. I am live-streaming today from St. Paul's in Holyoke, a congregation that recently was added to the list of congregations in transition. They will welcome a wonderful interim priest next weekend. 

Christian discipleship is about learning to live our lives in gratitude, as a response to God’s love made known to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is true regardless of what century we live in, or what country we live in. Or who is president. Or who is the priest of our congregation. Last Sunday, on All Saints Day, we remembered that we are part of the communion of saints that extends through time and is not limited by national borders. Here, we proclaim that Jesus is Lord. Here, now, we remember that Jesus Christ is the Church’s one foundation.

At the core of Jesus’ teaching ministry was what he called “the Kingdom of God.” He taught his disciples to pray for that kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. He said that those with eyes to see and ears to hear would be able to discern signs of God’s reign if we had enough imagination to know how and where to look for it. He said at one point that it is like a mustard seed that starts small and then grows into something much larger. Or like the yeast that a woman kneads into the bread to make the whole loaf rise. Or like a father who welcomes his lost son back home and serves up veal piccata for everyone.

Similarly…

There were ten bridesmaids: five of them were “wicked smart” and five of them “not so much.” They were all waiting for the groom to arrive for the wedding. This is code language in early Christian-speak to refer to the return of Christ.  But he was delayed, and they were all getting exhausted and they all fell asleep (because it doesn’t matter much whether you are smart or not, we all need to sleep sometimes.) But then in the middle of the night there is a shout: it’s time! The bridegroom has returned! But only five of them are ready when that shout goes out to go out to light their lanterns and meet him. (This is in the days before Duracell batteries so you had to make sure you had enough oil to light your lantern; but the dumb ones forgot to bring oil.) They want to borrow some from the others, but the smart ones said, “no way! We came prepared and you didn’t. Go get your own oil!” So the five wise bridesmaids go into the wedding banquet (early Christian code-language for the ultimate banquet and celebration at the end of days) while the others go out to Walmart to get their oil. But by the time they get back it’s too late: the door is shut and locked. There is no room for them. The end!

“So keep awake,” Jesus says to his disciples.

It’s an interesting ending since they were all asleep when the shout went out. We may expect Jesus to offer up the Boy Scout’s motto of “be prepared” but maybe that’s part of what being awake is all about. In any case, the crux of this allegory revolves around that oil. In all other ways, by outward appearances, the ten bridesmaids are the same. They are all dressed up for the party, all part of the community of the Church. All proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. In fact, this parable is a lot like the story of the wheat and the tares. It’s not about Christians over and against the world: it’s about how within the Christian community there are those who are wise followers of Christ and others who simply claim to be followers of Jesus but are really just along for the ride.

Now I’ll be honest: I’m not too crazy about this kind of parable. I get it and I believe it: we will all be judged. I take great comfort, however, in knowing our judge is full of compassion and mercy. So I think that the Church (and especially clergy) needs to be clear that the final judgment is in God’s hands, not ours. Moreover, my experience of people is almost never that they are either wise or foolish. The wisest among us sometimes do dumb things. And even a broken clock is right twice a day!

The thing is, for an allegory to work it has to paint the extremes: foolish and wise. It’s like that old Highlights Magazine duo some of you may remember, Goofus and Gallant. But most of us, I would submit to you, fall somewhere in between those two poles: we are far from wise but smarter than fools. We have good days and bad days.

Perhaps an allegory is intended to give us all a bit of a swift kick, a “wake up call”—and if that is correct then Jesus’ last words make perfect sense. Wake up! In any event, I think that the work of the Church is to invite everyone to the banquet and to proclaim boldly that “all are welcome.” I am pretty sure that Matthew’s community would have agreed with that as well, and quite confident that Jesus himself would do so. All are welcome here.

Even so, it doesn’t take long when you are part of a community to begin to learn that some really are along for the ride. Some like the bridesmaids’ dresses or the liturgical garb or the dignity of the liturgy or a certain style of music. But they have very little interest in actually taking up their crosses to follow Jesus. They want the outward signs without any inward transformation. They want discipleship without the costs. They want Easter Sunday without Good Friday.

So I’ll say it once more: judgment belongs to God—not the Church. But elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel it is clear what the criteria are that God will use: it’s not about who says, “Lord, Lord” (that phrase comes up here as it does in the parable of the sheep and the goats.)  It’s not about confessional statements or creeds. It’s about action and deeds. It’s about how we walk the talk. It’s particularly about how we care for “the least of these” among us: the hungry, the naked, the homeless, those in prison.

In the Old Testament, the rabbis saw oil as a reference to deeds of love and mercy, as a metaphor for obedience to Torah and specifically the two great commandments to love God and neighbor. So that’s probably important to Jesus, the rabbi.

We are so used to thinking about oil as a commodity: as that which we need to put in the tank to heat our homes this winter. And with commodities there is always a limited supply: if I have more that means you have less. The price can go up, or down.

But notice that this story is not about there being, let’s say, one gallon of lamp oil and the five wise ones keeping it all for themselves and not letting the foolish ones have any. The truth is that there is plenty of oil in this story. It’s just that the wise ones are ready and have it with them. The foolish ones left theirs at home or forgot to buy it.

Maybe one way into this story is to think about batteries, especially if you find yourself wondering why the wise ones don’t just share. Many of us have flashlights with batteries for when the power goes out. But they don’t do you any good if you are foolish enough to have dead batteries in your flashlights!

And if you’ve got two batteries in your flashlight that work, but the person next to you does not, then it does no good to try to take one battery out to share it with somebody else. You will both end up in the dark.

Whether or not that works for you, let me say again: the rabbis saw “oil” as a metaphor for being obedient to Torah which comes down to two things: loving God and loving neighbor. That oil is really about how you choose to live your one, wild and precious life and that is one thing that can’t be done for someone else. Not even those we love the most. The foolish bridesmaids have forgotten who they are: they’ve forgotten their calling to illumine the darkness. That is what it means to be awake and wait for Christ: not to sit around but to do justice and love mercy. They miss the ultimate opportunity and purpose of their lives. It is futile to go out and try to “get your oil” after the bridegroom’s arrival simply because it is simply too late then. You don’t get a do-over on life.

Each of us must decide what we will do with that which God has entrusted to us because God has given all of us “oil” that is meant to be used for the sake of God’s kingdom. That oil is intended as a gift that we are meant to use to lighten up the world around us. Some days we get that and are wise enough to let our light shine, and other days we are pretty foolish and forget what the point of discipleship is. But when we do let our light shine, then the world knows that we are Christians by our love.

So these words are addressed to you, St. Paul’s, at a particular moment in your life together. You’ve said goodbye to a priest-in-charge who was here for just three years. That may kick up a lot of emotional energy and some regrets, and some hurt. You now embark on a season of transition, an interim time for learning and reflecting and spiritual growth before the work of calling a new rector begins again. The temptation is to check out – to fall asleep – to wait and see. To “sit back.” But it is in moments like this where we are again invited to wake up, to light our lamps, to step up to the plate. Pick your preferred metaphor! You are blessed to have a fine, trained, intentional interim who will walk this next chapter with you. You are blessed to have a strong, capable leadership team. Together, with God’s help, it’s time to light up the lamps and enlighten this neighborhood. This city and this commonwealth and this nation needs for you and for all of us to be the Church, as light that shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not and will not overcome it.

The “oil” given to each of you and to this parish not as an end in itself. It is a means to an end. Our “oil”—which is simply to say all that we are and all that we have—is not for hoarding or leaving at home or saving for a rainy day. It is meant to be used in ways that make the Reign of God manifest in our world. That time is NOW. If you keep that in mind over the course of this time of transition, all will be well. So keep awake! Stay alert! And pray that this might be a congregation filled with lots of wise bridesmaids, with God’s help.

For All The Saints

The Four and Twenty Elders, William Blake

All Saints Day remains one of my very favorite days of the year. These ruminations are an edited version of a sermon I preached a dozen years ago on All Saints Sunday at St. Francis Church in Holden, where I was serving as rector at the time. The lectionary is on a three-year cycle, so the texts are the same this year as they were twelve years ago for this coming Sunday, including the one from the seventh chapter of John's Revelation.

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“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) If you sit down to read the Bible and start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!) then those are the very first words you will read. What follows is really a prayer; a litany that makes the theological claim that in spite of the chaos we sometimes experience in the world and in our own lives, God is still creatively ordering that chaos. God speaks the Word and worlds emerge: sun and moon and stars and oceans and deserts and mountains and wildflowers and trees and sparrows and turtles and whales and every living thing. And God saw that it was good.  And there is evening and there is morning, the first day; the second day, the third day…until finally there is a day of rest. And God pronounces that it is all exceedingly good.

At the other end of the Bible—in the final chapters of the last book of the Bible, we hear in the Revelation of St. John about a new creation: “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” John lived in the midst of a decaying Roman empire. The world around him was literally coming apart at the seams. He knew chaos! But contrary to the ways that this book is sometimes read and interpreted, John isn’t looking for the rapture. He isn’t looking for a divine rescue attempt that will beam him up to heaven. John of Patmos is a mystic who believes the prayer Jesus taught his disciples: “thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” At the end of days, as John imagines things, it is not human beings who will join God in heaven, but God who will join human beings on earth:

I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice…saying: ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them….

On the Feast of All Saints we read from the seventh chapter of that oft-misunderstood vision. John offers us a glimpse of his vision for community, a vision of heaven that is meant to challenge us here on earth.

After this I, John, looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

Like John of Patmos, we live in between that first good creation and that second new creation. We live in a world that sometimes feels like it is coming unglued and we sometimes live lives where the chaos threatens to overwhelm whatever order and pattern we may try to bring to our daily lives. The mystical vision shared with us in the last book of the Bible is not meant to predict the future like some reader of Tarot cards or palms might do. Nor is it meant to instill fear in our hearts. Or, worse still, to assure us that we are right and our neighbors who disagree with us will be tossed into some fiery lake or “left behind.”

Rather, this vision is given to the Church and shared down through the ages to encourage us to keep on keeping on. It is given to instill hope in our hearts by encouraging us to keep moving toward that New Jerusalem and that new Washington, DC and that new Massachusetts. We are meant to imagine that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us down through the ages cheering us on: Peter and Paul and Thomas and Mary Magdalene and Martha and Mary; Justin and Clement and Agnes and Irenaeus and Jerome and Augustine; Benedict and Dominic and Francis and Clare and Julian and Catherine and Columba and Cranmer and Luther and Calvin and Ignatius—right down to this present day.

When we die, life is changed, not ended. So those saints who left a mark on our lives are still with us today. For they lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still. The world is filled with the saints of God and you can meet them at work or at school or at play and even over tea (or a cup of coffee or a single malt scotch, neat.) This Feast Day is a wonderful celebration of what the Celtic mystics sometimes call a “thin place”—that place where the gap between the living and the dead feels smaller. Our annual All Hallows Eve celebrations invite us to ponder the great mysteries of life and death by remembering the ancestors who have gone before us and giving thanks for their lives and their witness. We feebly struggle while they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Alleluia! Alleluia!

We know how the story ends. Not the details, of course. The Book of Revelation isn’t some secret code that needs to be broken so we can be sure to be ready for Christ’s return on January 4, 2025 or October 16, 2027. It is a vision given so that we might not lose heart, a vision given so that we can become more faithful and courageous disciples in this time and place, by bearing witness to the new creation that God is bringing about. Above all else we are meant to remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ. Nothing. Not even death.

The Book of Revelation and this Feast of All Saints are given to the Church so that we will not be afraid to do the work God calls us to. This vision is given as a gift that allows us to peek at the end of the story so that we will be less afraid to live these days with courage and boldness. Those white-robed martyrs knew the costs of discipleship and some of them paid with their lives for insisting that Jesus is Lord. But now they sing because what else do you do in the presence of God but feel true joy? If you listen closely you can hear them singing with the angels and archangels, a heavenly chorus: Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!

That is the Church and that is what the Church is for: not a collection of individuals, each of whom stands alone, but a Body with many members stretching through time and around the planet. A choir of the living and the dead. We need each other to sing those rich, complex harmonies that God so adores. We need each other to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. We need each other because sometimes when life is scary, you need to hold on tight to someone’s hand to make it through.  

We are on a journey together toward that vision John has of a great multitude that no one can count from every language and tribe and people and nation. And our work is to get used to the fact that everyone in the Kingdom of God doesn’t look like us or speak the same language or sing the same songs or agree with our politics. Our job, as the Church, begins with the practice of hospitality and openness and love until we start to get it right, so that when we find ourselves among that cloud of witnesses we won’t be too surprised by the richness of it all.

We need the Church, not to be an institution that perpetuates itself or a security blanket, but to be a living Body with many members that is moving toward God’s new creation. We live between the Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, in the midst of extraordinary challenges globally, nationally, and locally. But we face those challenges with hope.