The Third Sunday of Advent

Today, on the third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday) I served at Christ Memorial Church in North Brookfield. The readings for this day can be found here. I preached on the second reading, from Thessalonians. 

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The Church existed before the New Testament. Is everybody with me on this? Let me say it this way: Jesus didn’t carry around a King James Version of the Bible with all of his lines in red! It also means that when Jesus or Paul or Mary Magdalene referred to the Holy Scriptures, they meant the Old Testament.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples gathered in Jerusalem and then on the fiftieth day—Pentecost—the Holy Spirit came to empower the Church for mission. (At least that is the way that Luke tells the story.) The community of people who were followers of “The Way” of Jesus began to spread around the Mediterranean Sea, taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. They weren’t reading about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They were remembering the man they knew and re-telling his stories to others—all those stories about lost sons and mustard seeds and about how when you were with Jesus there always seemed to be more than enough bread, with plenty of leftovers. They remembered his stories, the sermon on the mount, but mostly they remembered that the powers-that-be killed him, but he did not stay dead. 

As this movement spread, there were some key moments along the way: perhaps none bigger than when Saul, a persecutor of this community, was blinded on the road to Damascus. By God’s amazing grace, Saul finally saw the truth and became a new man on a new mission, this time “a mission from God.” With a new name to go along with his new mission, Paul begins to spread the good news to the Gentiles. One of his first stops was Thessalonica, where he founded a church, as he also would in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus and elsewhere. And then he wrote them letters. His letters weren’t yet the Bible; they were…letters! Decades later, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John would finally write their gospels. And only later would all of these documents become part of the Bible. 

So that is what I mean when I say the Church exists before the New Testament: under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the early Church creates the New Testament.

All of this little introduction to the New Testament is a bonus, and simply by way of saying this without anyone scratching their head: First Thessalonians is the oldest document in the New Testament. It is the earliest of Paul’s Letters, written around the middle of the first century—less than two decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus—and almost two decades before Mark’s Gospel was written. These words give us a glimpse into the earliest years of what life was like in those Christian house-churches of Thessalonica. 

In the opening words of this short epistle, Paul writes:

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)

 Faith, hope, and love—did you hear that? The very same words that Paul will famously unpack in a later letter to a conflicted congregation in Corinth. Michael Curry famously reminds Episcopalians in our time that if it’s not about love it’s not about God. But a long time before St. Michael there was St. Paul, telling first century believers that if it’s not about faith, hope and love, it’s not about God – it's just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

The believers in Thessalonica thought that the end of the world was coming soon (and very soon)—that Christ’s return as king of kings and lord of lords was imminent. So this short letter is dealing with questions about how the community can “keep alert” and stay ready for that day. (That is why it makes such good Advent reading.) How to do that?  By waking up to a life of faith, hope, and love.

Those early Christians were a people of expectation who were waiting for Christ to return and to establish the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. They were waiting for God’s peaceable kingdom—that day when lion and lamb would play together and you no longer had to worry about your child being bitten by a poisonous asp. A day when they would no longer hurt or destroy on all of God’s holy mountain; a day when swords would be beaten into plowshares—which is just a poetic way of talking about a lasting peace dividend—a vision of the day when there is plenty of money to feed the hungry and the Pentagon is having bake sales!

So this was the primary theological question those early Christians wrestled with: how to live as a people who were prepared, a people of expectation. The answer to that question suggested by St. Paul was to live with faith, hope, and love “in the meantime.”

At the beginning of chapter five of First Thessalonians, Paul writes:

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 bit more to say. But this is important: it’s not to put the fear of God into them. That is sometimes how we hear the preachers on television and in some other places talking about the end of human history: as fire and brimstone, as threat. You better repent or you will be left behind! You better accept Jesus or you’ll end up on the naughty list and not the nice one! But that is not where Paul goes with this. Instead, he offers a word of encouragement. Because you are children of the day, act like it! Since you are children of light, make sure you walk the walk! And then these words:

•  respect one another
•  esteem one another
• be at peace with one another   
• admonish the idlers
• encourage the fainthearted and help the weak
• be patient with everyone
• don’t repay evil with evil; instead, respond to evil by doing good!

Those words are in turn followed by the verses we heard today, verses 16-24 of the fifth chapter of First Thessalonians:

•  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

 These words are like a mission statement not only on how to be the church on the third Sunday of Advent but throughout the year. Always with God's help, as we live "in the meantime." 

As we pray for this parish family, I feel a lot like I imagine St. Paul felt about the first-century Christians in Thessalonica: so grateful for the ways that you are already doing these things and wanting just to say: keep it up! Keep respecting one another and esteeming one another and be at peace and rejoice always and pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances. Do not quench the Spirit! Hold fast to what is good! And as you practice these things here in this building, let them spread from this building into your homes and streets and community…

On this day we have lit the third candle in our wreaths: the rose candle. This third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday – from the Latin word that means “rejoice.”  This season is about joy—it’s not something we have to wait until Christmas to talk about, or to experience. If we try to do Advent without joy we miss the point. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel! Soon enough we will be singing, "Joy to the World!" 

Advent gives us a chance in the midst of a crazy month to reflect on what it means to be the Church and why it matters not only for our sake, but for the sake of this broken world. It gives us an opportunity to ask: how can we keep growing into the full stature of Christ? And I say to you, by way of St, Paul, that if we keep doing these things—rejoicing, praying, giving thanks—then we will be ready enough to receive the gift that is Christmas.

The B*I*B*L*E

Growing up I learned a song somewhere along the line. It may have been in Sunday School at the Hawley United Methodist Church. Or in Vacation Bible School at the same place. Or it might have been taught to me by my grandmother who was a member of Cole Memorial Baptist Church. I can sing it to this day, but this is a family blog so let me leave the singing to someone else. (Feel free to sing along!)

As an adult, however, I find the theology problematic. The B*I*B*L*E part - "that's the book for me" - I'm ok with that. It's the "I stand alone" part that (even with much respect for Martin Luther) I find more challenging. I have learned over many decades since first singing that song that I don't read the Bible alone; not ever. I read it in community. Jews have historically understood this better than Christians, but my own awareness that this was the only way to come to Scripture was heightened sometime in the 1980s when I first encountered The Gospel in Solentiname. The book was created from recordings of faithful (poor) people in Nicaragua who gathered in base community meetings to reflect on the Gospel Reading for the week. Basically it's simply transcripts of the profound conversations. But it also heightens the idea that WE stand on the Word of God.  Together. We are never alone but part of a great cloud of witnesses and those gathered in Solentiname have a word to offer - even forty years later - to a first-world Church that has too often lost it's way. 

I once preached a sermon, many years ago, where I reminded the congregation that the Word of God is not the Bible, however. The Word of God is Jesus Christ - the Word-made-flesh. We do not follow a book; we follow a crucified and risen Lord. When I preached that sermon I did not think I was saying anything new or controversial. But I got a lot of feedback - from some who loved this idea and found it helpful and from some who were not sure I was right. But in both cases the sermon generated conversation and I hope the possibility for new meaning. I do stand by that sermon. The Bible - that collection of ancient documents - point us toward the risen Christ. We don't follow (or worship!) the bible; we follow the incarnate Word. 

This Sunday, the penultimate Sunday of the long season after The Feast of Pentecost, the collect for the day goes like this: 

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

This remains one of my very favorite collects in The Book of Common Prayer, and it's very densely packed theology. (And to my more "conservative" friends, it's not progressive theology - it just happens to be right!)  Whatever we may believe about divine inspiration of Holy Scripture, I think that a wide spectrum of Christians can affirm that the One to whom our prayers are addressed has given them "for our learning." Moreover, they are not immediately accessible. The gospel reading for this Sunday is the parable of the talents. There will be many sermons preached this Sunday on trying to get underneath meaning - to get there preachers (and some small groups) will be reading, marking, learning, and "inwardly digesting" the parable in order to find hope - in order to find Jesus. 

The collect challenges the theology of my youth and offers a theology I can embrace as an adult: the B*I*B*L*E is still the book for me but it is that precisely because it creates a community around it, giving us a language to speak of our faith, and pointing us always to the living Christ. 

Labor Day Weekend

These reflections are a slightly edited version of a previous Labor Day post, slightly edited. 

Labor Day is a creation of the labor movement, intended as a holiday for workers. It’s unclear whether it was it first suggested by Peter McGuire, General Secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners or Matthew Maguire, a machinist who later became Secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J. What we can say is this: the first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City and the idea spread. By 1885, Labor Day was being celebrated in many industrial centers of the country. 

This day isn’t about remembering a particular moment in Jesus’ life. It’s not a Christian holiday, but a national day like Thanksgiving or Independence Day. Even so, The Book of Common Prayer gives us readings and a collect for all three days. Just as we focus on gratitude at Thanksgiving, and freedom on Independence Day, so, too, there are some theological themes worth pondering today. The collect appointed for the day goes like this:

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Our lives are linked together. We need each other. Ayn Rand was...wrong. I can't do surgery. I suppose I could kill and de-feather a chicken if I had to, but I’d rather not. I can sew a button on a shirt, but I couldn't make my own clothes if my life depended on it. Each of us need other people to do the things that sustain us, even if we don't know their names: farmers and ranchers and fashion designers and textile workers and teachers and that person at the other end of the phone trying to help us fix our computer problems. So Labor Day gives us an opportunity to reflect on community, on why we need others and why they need us, too - and why the work we do matters. 

As the calendar turns to September, what would it look like for us to each be more intentional every morning as we take that first sip of coffee or tea about being more mindful of these connections, and giving thanks for those others who make our lives possible?  

Our lives are linked together. Who started saying anything other than this? Who started spreading the lie that we are self-reliant and that we need no one but ourselves? We need each other because this is how God has made us. We don't all have to know how to fix the electricity or rebuild the levies after a hurricane. But somebody needs to know how to do that, and they need to do it well and faithfully because the rest of us are counting on them. Whether we preach, teach, mop floors, care for the sick, dig ditches, or run multinational corporations, we are called to do the work that God has given to do not only for our own sakes or to earn a paycheck, but for what these days may sound almost old fashioned: for the COMMON good.

“In the beginning,” we are told in the Book of Genesis, God’s plan for human beings, male and female, was to tend the Garden. Work in that narrative is not a punishment, but an invitation to be co-creators with God. That is an awesome invitation: to share with God in the work of caring for this fragile earth, our island home.  It is true that according to the story, labor (in every sense of that word) gets harder after Adam and Eve violate God’s prohibitions and eat of the forbidden fruit. But that doesn’t make work itself a punishment. 

So this weekend also gives us a chance to reflect on the Christian notion of vocation—or calling. No one probably helped the Church do this better than Martin Luther, who insisted that it was not only clergy who are “called” to ministry, but all of God’s people. One of the challenges is that we tend to limit our idea of work to what we get paid for. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get a paycheck for our work. But unfortunately, our pursuit of money can also get in the way of really attending to the work that God would have us do. How many of you know people who are stuck in jobs they find unfulfilling for a paycheck, who even have chosen not to pursue their true calling, because it was too risky or because it didn’t pay enough? 

As our young people return to college campuses this week and we pray for them, I hope we will all pray that they will be discovering their own particular gifts and talents and ultimately pursue work that allows them to use those gifts, work that allows them to discover their true calling: that place where their great joy meets the needs of this world. 

Whatever work God gives each of us to do—even what we love and maybe especially what we love—we still need to be careful that it is not all that we are. 

Hathy and I have dedicated the past 32 years to being parents together. (The work is very fulfilling even if the pay isn't great.) And I know that work is never finished. It doesn't end when you drop them off at college. In fact, our family is growing. We've welcomed two extraordinary women into our family and in November, we anticipate the birth of our first grandchild. We've grown from two to four to six and soon seven. Wow!

In the collect for Labor Day we also pray for those who are unemployed. Even as some suffer from an addiction to work and too much on their plates, others are looking for work. Right now we talk about full employment and how hard it is to find people to do manual labor - to pick fruit, to wash dishes in restaurants and so forth. So maybe we need to remember not only the unemployed, but the underemployed. Those working three jobs just to put bread on the table.

I was taught from a very young age that work matters and that we should do every job well, no matter how seemingly menial it may be and whether or not we happen to be paid for it; that there is an inherent dignity in a job well done. But even so, it is still what we do, not who we are. I know nurses, and teachers, and plumbers and craftsmen and musicians and business people who are as blessed as I am to actually get a paycheck to do work that they love. Even so, I am clear that being a priest is not the equivalent of my whole vocation. Every spiritual director I have ever had (three so far) has reminded me more than anything else that my vocations as husband and father and son and friend and as a beloved child of God are as much a part of the work God has given me to do as being a priest. They remind me of this because they know that too many clergy forget this, and that too many spouses and children of too many priests end up resenting the church when clergy do forget. I suspect that politicians and business people and others may also be prone to this same problem.

Work requires some sense of balance, and a need from time to time to step back. There was this cartoon a few years back in The New Yorker: two people are lying on a blanket at the beach. There is a sailboat on the horizon. The woman is reading a book (the old-fashioned kind since the cartoon is pre-Kindle.) The man has his laptop open. The caption says, “I’m not a workaholic. I just work to relax.” 

In our day, especially, work can be all consuming. With our smartphones we are rarely disconnected. In some cases this is a good thing: it can allow us to work from home or even the beach. But there is a downside and that is that we never get unplugged. Work increasingly intrudes into every moment of our lives and the emails may come 24/7. 

And so we neglect to take Sabbath rest.  Somewhere along the line we got the notion, especially in Protestant circles, that Sabbath was about all the things you cannot do. But Sabbath is meant for play: to be together with God and with each other. It is meant for being, rather than simply doing all the time. 

So maybe this Labor Day weekend is a chance to recommit ourselves to a more natural rhythm of life, the rhythm the ancients knew was built into creation itself. After all, even God took a break after six days. If we are in fact made in God’s own image, then we need to find that same rhythm of work and rest. Our bodies need it. Our souls need it too.

Lead us not into temptation

Yesterday I wrote a post on Quietly Courageous: Leading the Church in a Changing World. You can find that post here.

I wanted to share two stories/metaphors/images that I find very powerful and inspirational: the story of the courage it took to cross the Red Sea and the little boy whose mother told him to follow the light. 

But I perhaps should have added the three temptations Rendle sees that keep us from such quiet courage. The are real - and if we don't name them it's easy to falter. In short, these three are: (1) The Temptation to Play it Safe (Nostalgia); (2) The Temptation of Christian Empathy; and (3) The Temptation of Tiredness. 

A brief word about each of these. 

First, nostalgia. We've know in the mainline denominations for some time that we aren't going back to the Eisenhower administration - back to full Sunday School classes and all that the early years of the Baby Boom meant, for better or worse. But we also know we aren't even going back to 2019. There is only forward. Step into the water. Follow the light. Keep moving forward. 

The third one, next. I keep hearing how tired our clergy are - and I know that's how they feel. I do get it. But the way to resist this temptation isn't about more sleep, is about renewed purpose. I got an email just yesterday from an ordained person I adore who just completed a continuing ed opportunity that has her all jazzed up. It unleashed something real. And when we are following our true purpose the work can be hard but it's also usually energizing. When we are "too tired" we miss those invitations, however. 

I put that one first because since the pandemic began, not a week has gone by when I haven't heard that said to me. I felt a bit of it myself, I will admit - but fortunately a year ago I got a much-needed sabbatical and I did learn (re-learn) for myself that it wasn't more sleep I needed but perspective. I think we overcome the "temptation to tiredness" by learning to pray Neibuhr's famous prayer about the courage to change the things we can change but also acceptance of that which we cannot change; and the wisdom to know the difference. 

I am a natural empath, and in my diocesan work, which includes being a pastor to clergy, I realize that the greatest of the three temptations for me personally has been the temptation to empathy. And empathy sounds so good - especially in a world where there is seemingly so little of it. It's even the kind of thing that makes people like you!

But Rendle says (and I think he's right) that "unchecked empathy favors relationship over purpose." The late Rabbi Ed Friedman addressed this in A Failure of Nerve and Rendle acknowledges his dependence upon Rabbi Friedman in his own work. I'll conclude this post with a quote from Rendle that speaks to me almost directly, as I try to find the quiet courage needed in this time and place - and to resist the temptation to overuse empathy. 

Empathy unchecked, I will argue, can lead to paralysis. Unchecked empathy for the pain that is seen in strained denominational systems and communities can easily become a Christian strength practiced to the point that it becomes a missional weakness. As noted in Chapter 5, strengths overused become weaknesses. Empathy overused, while continually rewarded, will lead to weakness in mission. 

We need, in this time and place, to be reminding one another that God needs for us to be the Church, to do our jobs, to be faithful witnesses to the good news made known in Jesus.  

Courage

I  just finished reading a book called Quietly Courageous: Leading the Church in a Changing World, by Gil Rendle. Several friends whose judgment I trust greatly on these things had recommended it to me, as I now recommend it to you. 

Rendle focuses on the adaptive challenges that face the Church today; this is not a "how-to" on technical fixes. He begins by unpacking a metaphor for the kind of "quiet courage" he seeks, a story that comes from our Jewish cousins by way of midrash. I think we Christians have so much to learn from Jews about how to read Scripture. Too many of us in the Christian tradition have learned to read the Bible dogmatically in order to "prove" what we already believe. But Jews tend to read Scripture as way to generate conversation and questions and cultivate imagination.

So you know the story of the Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea as Moses and a band of slaves escape Egypt. Midrash simply means an oral tradition that emerges in conversation with the text. It’s a bit like the Sunday School curriculum Godly Play, learning to ask questions like: I wonder…

The midrash that Rendle shares in Quietly Courageous goes like this:

When the Hebrews got to the water’s edge they sat down and argued about who would step into the water first. Keep in mind the Egyptian army is in pursuit. Finally Nashon, son of Amminidab gets up. This talking could go on forever – he steps into the water, up to his ankles. Nothing happens. He keeps going, up to his waist. Still, nothing happens. Up to his chin but still the waters don’t part. Finally, when he takes the step that puts his nose under water, the waters part.

Rendle suggests that quiet courage is like this and the Church could use a double portion these days. He says that what Nashon remembered was why they were there in the first place. He remembers purpose and promise and knows that what is required is to trust in that and keep moving. How are we going to be the church in a changing world? Likely it won’t be something that the Bishop or a Canon or a General Convention does. It’ll take lots of Nashons with quiet courage. 

We are at the Red Sea, and the only way to go is forward, through it. And we may have to walk beyond our ankles, beyond our waists, up to our noses before the waters part and we move into the wilderness for forty years or so, in search of the Promised Land. The journey ahead will be a long one. It’ll require quiet courage, not just from Moses but from the Nashons who may or may not be ordained leaders. 

I take heart in remembering the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s traveling companions. This post is about courage, the gift the cowardly lion was seeking. We also need heart, and brains, for the journey that lies ahead but those are posts for other days.

I think what the lion learns in The Wizard of Oz (or at least what we learn as readers) is that courage is not the absence of fear. That’s not possible. Those who studied French will remember that the French word for heart is coer and that’s the root in courage which is not about the absence of fear but about facing our fears and doing it anyway – doing what we need to do like that lion, like Nashon. We may need some outward and visible signs – as the lion does – to remind us but in truth it’s inner work, it’s quiet work. It’s not about negating fear, it’s about facing it head on.

If we spend all of our energy trying to keep things the same, trying to save our lives or the life of what we value and know, it’ll be a losing cause. What Jesus says is that those who follow him by way of the cross may lose their lives, lose their bearings, even get lost – but in so doing they will find new life. That is the mystery of cross and empty tomb, of death and resurrection.

At the end of this book Rendle tells another story - this one about a young boy who lived on a farm. He was instructed by his mother to go out on a pitch-dark night to make sure the barn door was closed and locked. He left through the back door but immediately returned, telling his mom it was too dark. She handed him a flashlight and told him to try again but again he came back pretty quickly. He said the flashlight was too weak and he couldn’t see the barn. His mother said, “you don’t need to see the barn…you just need to walk to the end of the light.”

So it is with us as well. We may not yet see the Promised Land. We may not even yet be across the raging waters of the Red Sea. But we can walk to the end of the light. We can take the next steps, with God’s help. As followers of Jesus we keep our eyes on him, who illumines the path for us to grow as we go.  

Paul's Letter to the Church in Rome

 The past two weeks I have been a bit more in "lecture mode" in my preaching - and began with some apologies for doing so. I was at Christ Church, Fitchburg on Trinity Sunday and basically "preached" on the Nicene Creed - since the Trinity is not a Biblical idea. And then this past week I did an overview of Romans at Church of the Atonement in Westfield.

In both cases I got a lot of "compliments" at the door. Now some of this is attributable to kindness and hospitality, I realize. But I also have long wondered whether we could do with more "teaching sermons" at a time when people are hungry for something beyond what they got in Sunday School. While this won't become my "go to" style soon, perhaps this overview of Romans will help preachers and parishioners alike to hear the epistle in new ways over the next fourteen Sundays. 

One of my favorite collects in The Book of Common Prayer will come at the very end of this long season after Pentecost, twenty-three weeks from now. It goes like this:

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

This is a core-value for Episcopalians – a part of our DNA. We don’t tend to say things like “The Bible Says.” Rather, although more cumbersome, we believe that we approach meaning when we hear and read and mark and learn and digest – AND also that Scripture points us toward the living Word of God, Jesus.

Over the course of a year we read a lot of Scripture in our worship. And we do so with a sense of purpose, with a plan. We are in the midst of Year A, when the focus is on Matthew’s Gospel. Over these summer months, however, we also will be reading from Genesis for a while and from Paul’s Letter to the Romans for even longer. In fact, today marks the first of fourteen weeks in a row – that takes us well into the fall – of reading from Romans. This sermon will be a little bit different than most I preach and probably from most you are used to hearing. It’s a kind of preview on how to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest those epistle readings in the weeks ahead, regardless of whether or not Sandi chooses to preach on them. My hope is that as you hear this letter unfold, today’s sermon will give you some help in hearing “good news” from this first-century document and maybe even, by God’s grace, to encounter St. Paul again as if for the first time. That begins, for me in seeing Paul in his context: as a faithful Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, from Tarsus.

Think about the impact of place on your own life, especially during your most formative years. It makes a difference whether you grew up in a small town in northeast Pennsylvania or the south-side of Chicago! How has that particular place shaped the person you are today, and left its mark on you? How does it continue to shape the way you see the world?

Tarsus no doubt left its mark on Paul. It was at the crossroads between the eastern and western worlds, making it pretty cosmopolitan. Located near the Mediterranean, it was a thriving place where hard work was rewarded. And it was a kind of college town: think Northampton or Amherst. We might say that you can take the boy out of Tarsus, but you can’t take Tarsus out of the boy; and it seems clear that Paul remained pretty comfortable with multiculturalism, was extremely hard working, and was also highly educated. [1]

Paul alludes in some of his letters to a recurring problem; what he calls a “thorn in his side” that stayed with him his whole life. Scholars have long speculated about what that might have been, often telling us much more about themselves in the process than about Paul. Most of us deal with our own “thorns,” so projection is easy enough to understand. But it seems to me that a theory at least as credible as any I’ve read is that perhaps Paul suffered from chronic malaria, since malaria was rampant in Tarsus. The recurring symptoms would have included profuse sweating and fevers and vomiting and severe headaches that would have come and gone over the course of Paul’s entire lifetime. We can’t know for sure, but as a theory it reveals a “shadow side” of being from Tarsus.[2]

If I were to give you a quiz today, and ask you about Paul’s “conversion,” my bet is that most of you would tell me something about the story we get second-hand from Luke in Acts: Paul became a changed man on the Road to Damascus. Right? He had been persecuting the Church, but then he had this dramatic encounter with the risen Christ. He was blinded, but then he saw. He repented, and then became a Christian; going on to then write all those letters, including Romans.

But when Paul tells us about his faith journey in his own words, in a first-person narrative in the eleventh chapter of Galatians (1-17) —his autobiographical version turns out to be a lot less dramatic than Luke’s story. After his encounter with the risen Christ, he tells us that he went away to think and ponder and pray about what had happened to him for three years. He then emerged to have a heart-to-heart with Peter and James in Jerusalem, and then he goes away for another fourteen years before beginning his public ministry. My point here is not that you can’t integrate these stories, but rather that Luke tends to focus on the dramatic event (and we do too) while Paul’s own story seems to focus on the lengthy period of discernment and trying to sort it all out and live into it.[3]  Even if there was a sudden, dramatic turning—an “epiphany” that occurred at a datable moment in time—conversion happens over a much more extended period of time.

Paul was a “church planter.” He would go and start a new congregation in a place like Corinth or Thessalonica and then organize them into house churches, educate them for ministry for a year or so, and then move on to the next city where he would do the same thing all over again. From time to time he’d correspond with these communities and send along his greetings and pastoral advice, especially when things started to get out of hand. Paul had a lot of experience with church conflict. All of his other letters in the New Testament were written to congregations that he knew, and that knew him; and you see this in the informal parts of his letters when he says things like, “tell Chloe I said hey!”

Romans is different, though. This letter 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 thinks about doing so often. (See 1:11-15) 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 wrapped up into one. The people who came to be followers of Jesus there, setting up small house churches composed of both Jewish and Gentile Christians, still lived and worked and were educated in this Roman context. They were shaped by Rome—not Tarsus, not Westfield. 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. That latter group included, but was not limited to, Jews.[4]

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 more like “theological reflection” that is rooted in the everyday challenges of congregational life, of trying to live into the call to be “in Christ.” The language and metaphors for this reflection are rooted in Paul’s life as a faithful Jew, trained as a Pharisee. (Remember that for Paul, “the Bible” means the Old Testament, period; not the gospels which would be written later and not these letters of his which it would be hard to imagine he saw as on the same level as “the Law and the Prophets.”)

“Romans was written to be heard by an actual congregation made up of particular people with specific problems.”[5]  Over the course of these fourteen weeks, see if you can find the time to simply sit down and read the whole letter in one sitting. And then as these readings that come to us from Romans, over time, try to see our way beneath the texts to those real people. Paul reminds them, and us, of the love of God and that nothing in all of creation can separate us from that love. He challenged them, and us, to confess that “Jesus is Lord” and then to live that way.

For today, that is likely more than enough. Let me conclude just by re-reading a portion of today’s epistle reading again, and let it sit. A normal sermon would have started here but as promised this isn’t exactly a normal sermon and I’m out of time. But maybe you can close your eyes and see Paul, and see that house church a little bit, and imagine them listening to these words for the first time:

Hoping against hope, [Abraham] believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what [God] had promised. Therefore [Abraham’s] faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 

---

[1] See here, too, Borg and Crossan.

[2] Borg and Crossan.

[3] See Brother Kevin Hackett’s sermon at: http://ssje.org/sermons/?p=856

[4] See A. Katherine Grieb’s The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness. I am profoundly indebted to Dr. Grieb for many of the thoughts and ideas of this sermon.

[5] Grieb.

It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive

Barclays Center, 4/3/23

"For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside, that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive..."  (Bruce Springsteen, "Badlands.")

I first encountered Bruce Springsteen through The River, which was released when I was a junior in high school.  Although this was Bruce's fifth album (and I'm sure I'd listened to songs from the previous four albums earlier than 1980) it was the album I listened to in my room over and over and over again. It was the one that hooked me. 

I worked my way backwards from there to Greetings from Asbury Park, and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and Born to Run, and Darkness on The Edge of Town - which is the one that "Badlands" is on. 

I first saw Bruce in concert for the Born in the USA Tour at RFK stadium in 1985. In between The River and Born in the USA, Nebraska had been released - minus the E Street Band but with songs that still haunt me to this day. After 9/11, The Rising helped me and millions of others find hope. It's been a long career with a lot of amazing music - and not too many clunkers. 

Bruce is 73 years old; I just turned 60. His music has been the soundtrack to my life's journey in so many ways. I've seen him over twenty times in concert including his stint on Broadway. Earlier this week I saw him in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center, with my younger brother, Jim. Bruce has aged, but he's still got it.  

Now you don't need to be a fan of Springsteen to keep reading, especially if you've made it this far. No person or artist connects to everyone. We have different tastes in music, for sure; that makes the world go round. But for me, Bruce has been more than a musician. He's been a spiritual guide. His music is poetry, and poetry is a close cousin to theology. He has, over my lifetime, been a part of my growing up. And he keeps growing up as well. This latest tour included some reflections on mortality - on being the last man standing of his original band, The Castilles. There was (as there always is) a word about Clarence, the Big Man, even in the midst of so much joy on this tour. And Danny. 

I don't think it overstates things to say that Bruce remains shaped by and even haunted by the Catholicism that was a part of his growing up - in fact he talked about that on Broadway and ended the show with The Lord's Prayer. How many rock and rollers can say that? He has never claimed (to my knowledge) to be a "Christian" artist but that's a narrow field: Christian imagery permeates his music. And his concerts often feel like going to church - or at least what going to church could be like. 

Springsteen has been open in recent years about his struggle with depression and about his father's depression which as he says "he didn't understand for a very long time." But it's there from early on in songs like "Growin' Up" and "Independence Day." Springsteen has covered the gamut of human emotions and yet a recurring theme for me is this notion that "it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." In spite of the mess of the world we live in and of our towns and families, there is joy. 

I think of that great line from Irenaeus of Lyons, one of the early church fathers, who said "the glory of God is the person fully alive." Springsteen is fond of a call-and-response at his shows where he keeps asking, "is anybody alive out there?" I think Irenaeus would approve. 

Before I go further let me say how deeply aware I am of the pain of this world that can bring us all down. It's tempting to think that joy, and being alive, is an act of denial. But I think it's an act of faith to be alive in a death-dealing world. At 60, I've had my share of hard times - even in the midst of a pretty privileged life. And I've been a friend, and pastor to many who really struggle - who seem to get way more than their share of pain. Life is hard. 

But life is also good. We have been created in the image of God. 

Another poet, Maya Angelou, has written: "Love life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it." To which I say "amen" and I think Bruce would also. 

I think that what attracted people to Jesus of Nazareth - and also scared the powers of sin and death - was that in his full humanity he was fully alive, and loved life with a passion. He taught by word and example that "it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive" - ultimately even in death, and beyond death to new life. We can and should enter deeply into the world's pain and nothing I've written above should imply a kind of "prosperity gospel" in which faithful people are immune from life's unfairness. But I wonder if, in the end, the way to become more than just "against injustice" is to glimpse justice - to know it's for all. I wonder if the way to navigate this world, whatever may come our way, begins with the bold claim that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive. 

Jesus' Last Week

This is my tenth Holy Week serving on the Bishop's staff as Canon to the Ordinary. For twenty years prior to that, first as an Associate Rector in Westport, Connecticut and then as Rector in Holden, Massachusetts, the week was like running a marathon. (To be very clear, I've never run a marathon; it's just a simile!)

Over these past ten years, I've participated more often than I had expected but never with the full array of liturgies. I've subbed in for clergy on sabbaticals or family leave; I've preached Maundy Thursday or offered a reflection on Good Friday. I've preached also at the Clergy Renewal of Vows/Chrism Mass on the Tuesday of Holy Week. In other words, I've had some connection or other. 

But this year is different. I'll be in the pews all week long. I'm ready for that. I'm also thinking about what I won't have a chance to say from the pulpit. This post replaces that as a panorama of the entire week. 

My own thinking about the meaning of the week and especially of Palm/Passion Sunday was transformed by reading The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem. I commend it to preachers and hearers of sermons alike. 

This is NOT a review of that book which, to be honest, I read a long time ago. Rather, what I remember/learned from that book may be helpful for this post, which is really about faith and politics. 

In my work, even more now than in the parish where I had pastoral relationships with members of my congregation, I hear (almost always from the right) that the Church needs to stay "out of politics." Then they mutter something about "separation of Church and State" which almost always leads me to believe they have no idea what they are talking about. What they really mean to be saying is they don't like the politics they perceive as "liberal" or progressive that characterizes the Episcopal Church these days. What they mean is that they don't want the Church to speak up about racial reconciliation, or gun violence, or discrimination against the LGBTQI population. What they almost always mean (even when they say "stick with Jesus") is that they wish we would speak against abortion and stand for "traditional family values." They see their issues as "moral" issues and label the moral issues of gun violence, systemic racism, climate change etc. as "political."

They are wrong. 

I'll save a post about how "in those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered" for some Christmas. I will just say here (as I've said many times before) that IS a political statement if ever there was one. Jesus wasn't born anywhere. He was born somewhere - and even on the edges of Roman Imperial Power it was in the air he breathed and the water he drank. 

What I'll say about Jesus' final days in Jerusalem is that they were also political. Borg and Crossan make the compelling case that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem was a counter-demonstration against Roman Imperial Power "on the other side of town." Whether or not they are right about that, the language of the day is filled with politics: David was a king, after all, so what might a Son of David be? Hosanna in the highest! 

The tension in Jerusalem is thick in Holy Week, as it still can be in the City of Salaam - of peace. Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate. Whatever one might claim about his guilt or innocence, it's a political trial. His death is on a cross as a dangerous rabble-rouser. Crucifixion is the preferred Roman method of enforcing the death penalty. Regardless of one's theology of the atonement (what does it mean that Jesus died for the sins of the world?) the reality which is not mutually exclusive is that he was killed for the same reason that people like Martin Luther King, Jr and Ghandi and Steven Biko were killed: by the powers-that-be. 

I'm weary of people who use and misuse theology to spiritualize the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can argue about the best political responses but saying Christian preachers need to "stick with Jesus" is, to put it in the most charitable possible words, "ill informed." You cannot talk about Jesus apart from the politics of his day. And ours. 

I invite readers of this post who, like me, will be sitting in the pews this next week to pay close attention to the readings and hear them again for the first time. Recall that the liturgical context for even being in Jerusalem was that it was Passover. Don't Christianize Passover - please! Instead find a Jewish friend who will invite you to their table to remember another story from another empire, Egypt, and another emperor, called Pharaoh. Hear the story again, for the first time as the drama unfolds and we hear the Passion read aloud, twice if we go to church on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. 

And if you are a preacher, be not afraid. Allow the texts to speak to our context. Most definitely make it about Jesus. But don't make Jesus disembodied from the time and place and circumstances that led to his death on a cross, so that when God raises Jesus from the dead and the tomb is empty, we will have a deeper appreciation for what that means in this time and place. 

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

This Sunday I am preaching at Christ-Trinity in Sheffield, one of our "Lutherpalian" congregations. It's been a privilege to support them during their rector's sabbatical. Today's readings can be found here.

Over these past few weeks in Lent we’ve explored three very interesting encounters between Jesus and others. I was with you three weeks ago when we talked about Nicodemus. I was at Christ Church in Rochdale two weeks ago, where I spoke about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. I think Bishop Jack preached here then. Last Sunday was Jesus and the man who was born blind. I’m not sure who preached here. Peter?

So since we’ve been on a roll, one might argue that in today’s gospel we get a fourth encounter. But in some ways it is more complex and quite frankly it’s harder as a preacher to know which way to go with it. It’s not a simple one-on-one encounter. At first glance it might seem like this is an encounter between Jesus and Lazarus; after all Lazarus was dead at the beginning of our narrative and walking around in a daze by the end. Maybe. But here’s the thing: Lazarus speaks not a single word in this text.

We could come at this from the perspective of Jesus’ encounter with the disciples, and in particular, Thomas. Jesus has only a few days earlier “slipped away” from Judea where he was almost stoned to death. The disciples are completely aware of that and therefore are pretty anxious about going back. But Thomas bravely speaks up: “Let us go with him so that we may die with him.” This is one of those great disciple ironies that all the gospel writers love; the disciples never seem to get it. So Thomas is willing to go back to Judea with Jesus to face death. But the joke here is that in they are returning to see new life.

Or we could see this as an encounter between Jesus and “the Jews.” I need to say a word here before we go any further, and that is to just notice that this translation “the Jews” is unfortunate on so many levels. It is clearly not referring to all Jewish people then or now. That is obvious since Mary and Martha and Thomas and Jesus and Lazarus are all Jewish. They are not Christians!

What the phrase really means is “the temple leadership” in Jerusalem. They are nervous about Jesus, a northerner who doesn’t conform to their expectations about what the messiah is supposed to do (or even what a good rabbi is supposed to do for that matter.) Jesus is in conflict with that group. Yet there is nuance here we need to notice as well because when Jesus comes back to pay his respects to Mary and Martha we discover that they are already there to sit Shiva and that they have brought along hummus and feta and pita for the family to eat. These temple leaders, as it turns out, are pretty good at pastoral care and they are there for Mary and Martha in their hour of need. They are not bad people; but simply (as religious people are prone towards) a bit narrow-minded in their theological perspectives.

The second thing, however, to notice is that they are blown away by Jesus in this encounter and we are told that some of them did believe in him because of this sign.

So we could look at Jesus and Lazarus, or Jesus and Thomas, or Jesus and the Jews. But for me the energy in this encounter is in the exchanges between Jesus and his two friends, Mary and Martha. Sisters. We know from other texts about how they are pretty different, as sisters can be. Mary is reflective and interested in just sitting and talking while Martha always seems to be running around the kitchen. But in this text we see that they are also similar, as sisters can also be. Both confront Jesus with the exact same words, words that carry with them the hint of an accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Those words have energy for me because at some level they are words that many of us think (even if we do not utter them) when we lose someone we love, especially someone in the prime of their life. The text doesn’t say, but if all these friends are roughly contemporaries then that would mean that Lazarus is a young man in his early thirties when he dies. We know (as people a week away from Holy Week and as readers of John’s Gospel) that Jesus is not too far himself from meeting an untimely death. But in this moment, in this encounter, it is Lazarus who is dead. We aren’t privy to the coroner’s report. We only have these words of these two grieving sisters that if Jesus had been present, then this tragedy would not have happened.

Our Lenten journey began on Ash Wednesday when we remembered that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Whether we have had a lot of experience with death or only a little to this point in our lives, it is the one certainty even more real than taxes. For all of us. None of us will get out of this life alive. Yet very often death still catches us off-guard. Even though we know it is given only one day at a time as a gift, it sneaks up on us. Even when we have been living a good, long, and happy life it can happen, and that can feel unreal and unfair. These emotions are only magnified when someone dies before their prime.

My dad died suddenly when I was a freshman in college. He was 37. I suppose in my own way I wondered where God was when that happened and why my dad wasn’t spared. But I also remember being in the funeral home and thinking it wasn’t real, that my dad was just asleep and any minute Jesus might say, “Richard, come forth” and like Lazarus he would.

Of course it didn’t happen that way. He stayed dead, and the next day we stood around the gravesite in the Green Gates Cemetery in Hawley, Pennsylvania and I knew for sure by then that he wasn’t going to get up. And I think it’s only natural in moments like that to pray that half-accusing, half-desperate prayer: Lord, if you had been here my brother, my sister, my father, my friend, my child…would not have died.

There is at least some part of all of us that wants God to give us lives free from pain, free from those moments in the funeral home or standing at the grave of a loved one. We want God to just make death evaporate and disappear so that we don’t have to face it, so that it won’t happen to people we love and care about. We wish that we wouldn’t have to feel that much hurt and grief and sadness.

But that isn’t the God we get, my friends. Not on the fifth Sunday of Lent and not even on Easter Sunday. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, not the absence of death. All created things are born and die; that is simply what it means to be created and not the Creator. There is no “get out of death free” card! Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

But that isn’t the end of the story.

Next weekend your rector will be home. He has been changed by this time away, even if it was not exactly what he planned for. He is carrying his own grief, particularly that of losing his own father recently. I know you care deeply for him and his family; keep doing that.

But you have been changed as well. I’ve so very much enjoyed sharing some time with you and I am so grateful for Peter’s ministry with you over the course of these three months. I’m glad to be taking some time today to celebrate that. I think the plan here in Sheffield went very smoothly even if Erik’s plans did not.

Now what? Next week we turn the calendar to April and to Holy Week. You’ll hear the story of the Passion together, the story of how Jesus was betrayed and denied by his friends and put to death on a cross by his enemies. Jesus himself wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane about whether or not it needed to unfold this way. And as he was dying some people taunted him because they thought that if he really was the Son of God, then maybe he should pull out that “get out of death free” card. But it doesn’t work that way—not even for him.

“I am resurrection and life,” Jesus says to those two grieving sisters. And to us, across the centuries. Not I will be or I once was, but I AM. Christ is alive. That is our song not just at the empty tomb on Easter morning but it is our song whenever we encounter loss and grief and pain in our lives. Christ is alive! Let Christians sing! Not confined to ancient Palestine but here, and now. This is our song by the gravesides of those whom we love but see no longer. Even at the grave we make our song. You know how it goes – I’m not supposed to say the word quite yet but it’s on the tip of our tongues and we’ll be unable to hold those songs of praise in on Easter morning. The “a” word!

That song doesn’t immunize us from death. Rather, it allows us to not be so afraid of death (with God’s help) and then to see our way past death to new and abundant life. It allows us to trust that death will never get the last word. Never.

Mary and Martha mistakenly thought that somehow Jesus’ presence would remove death, that Lazarus wouldn’t have died if Jesus had been there. It’s an understandable feeling but it doesn’t work that way; Jesus’ presence doesn’t negate death, but rather gives us hope that when we die life is changed, not ended. Our dying and our grief and our confusion are never the end of the story, because we believe that love is ultimately stronger than death and that hope is stronger than fear and together they reveal new life, and new possibilities. When someone near and dear to us dies it does not mean the relationship ends. The veil between them and us is real, but it’s also thin.

If we dare to trust that, then Easter morning keeps breaking in on us. I won’t be with you on Easter morning but you know the bold claim that will be made. Why do you look for the dead among the living? He’s not here. He’s alive.

Indeed. He is resurrection and life, even now. And to the end of the ages. Thanks be to God. And thank you all for being such a fabulous community of faith.

First Sunday in Lent

Today is the First Sunday in Lent. The readings for today can be found here. I am preaching at Christ-Trinity in Sheffield, a "Lutherpalian" congregation. I realize as I post this that I've not posted on this blog since late October - over three months ago. I'm not sure why exactly. I've been preaching almost every week since then. Somehow I got out of the habit. But Lent is a good time to return to this practice. I've been struck by how many Ash Wednesday sermons I've seen posted that were focused on "we've had enough ashes." For decades now, and at least since the first time I celebrated Holy Eucharist in the Judean Desert early in the morning, I have tried to articulate a deeper understanding of Lent - along the lines of that "solace of fierce landscapes" model. Or to use a line I've used many times from The Shawshank Redemption, Lent is a time for us to "get busy living." Maybe my time has finally come as we emerge from a three-year global pandemic!  (RMS) Below is my sermon manuscript for Christ-Trinity.

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This weekend we embark once again on the Lenten journey. Actually the train left the station this past week, on Ash Wednesday. But today is a chance for those who were not able to receive the imposition of ashes on Wednesday to catch up, so that we can travel together on this pilgrim way of Lent.  

The dominant metaphor for this season comes from today’s gospel reading: Jesus heads into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights as Moses and Elijah did before him and as the Israelites spent forty years in the Sinai Desert journeying from slavery toward freedom. The wilderness is not a punishment. It may be scary but it also creates space for insight. Some of you may know Wendell Berry’s poem, the peace of wild things. It goes like this:

          When despair for the world grows in my
          and I wake in the night at the least sound
          in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be.
          I go and lie down where the wood drake
          rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
          I come into the peace of wild things
          who do not tax their lives with forethought
          of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
          And I feel above me the day-blind stars
          waiting with their light. For a time
          I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.

 Many years ago now I read a book by Belden Lane called The Solace of Fierce Landscapes. It transformed the way that I thought about Lent. Peter and I have broken bread together at daybreak in that same Judean wilderness where Jesus was tested and it’s holy ground to be sure. The peace of wild things. The solace of fierce landscapes. That is what this pilgrim way is about.

Jesus is led into the desert by the Spirit to be tested; that is what the word temptation means. But it was for Jesus (and I pray will be for us as well) a time of grace as well. In the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness of the Sinai Desert they were given gifts for the journey: the gift of Torah, the gifts of manna and water, the gift of traveling companions. So, too, Jesus is led into the wilderness not as a punishment but as place where he gains clarity and insight and wisdom about his vocation as messiah. The wilderness can be a place to discover God and a place where we are ministered to by the angels. It can be like a vision quest. If you haven’t thought of Lent this way before I invite you to let this Lent 2023 be something like that for you.

 Lent is a time to look into the mirror and face up to our own shortcomings. Some people give something up, others add something. But mostly I think it is about doing a spiritual inventory and every Lent will be different because we are in a different space. How do we re-orient ourselves, get back on track again, find our way forward, get unstuck? I think this is what Lent is for as we get ready to embrace the paschal mystery again in April.

 In my personal experience and as a pastor, I have come to believe that most of us don’t sin for the joy of it. Remember that story that Jesus told about the two brothers, one supposedly very responsible and one supposedly “prodigal?” I’m always struck by the envy the older feels for the younger about that dissolute living – money spent on booze and women. That’s projection, but I bet if you talked with that younger brother he felt what the old man knew instinctively: he was lost. He was trying to find his way back home.

 Our sins are almost always rooted in our pain, in trauma, in places where we have been broken and are in need of healing. So I invite you to think of Lent as an invitation to healing those broken places in our own lives, in this community, in the body politic and in our world. I invite you to pray for those who are struggling with illness or addiction or feelings of shame or inadequacy. We pray for health: in body, mind, and spirit.

 When the cabin pressure on an airplane drops, we are reminded to put on our own oxygen masks first. I think that metaphor works for Lent and for repentance and for forgiveness as well: we confess our own sins; not the sins of our neighbors or our parents or our spouses. They may all may be part of our story and even of some unresolved pain; I get that. But the only person we can really change is ourselves. Lent can be a time to confront our own pain and weakness and insecurities; not with a sense of fear or shame, but confident of God’s steadfast mercy and loving-kindness.

 Lent is about entering more deeply into the truth made known at Holy Baptism; we are God’s own beloved. Each of us has been claimed and sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. Being marked with ashes is in that same place where we were sealed and marked and claimed with oil as Christ’s own. Forever.

 If you were in church on Wednesday you heard that invitation to a holy Lent, and how in the early Church this was the time to prepare catechumens for holy baptism. When I was a rector I ran a little water fountain at the font throughout these forty days. While I did notice more people had to get up and use the bathroom during my sermon, that gurgling water spoke to the deeper invitation of Lent than any sermon I ever preached. Remember your Baptism!

 Today’s reading from the second chapter of Genesis, and St. Paul’s theological reflection in Romans, invite us to reflect on the human condition. We are all caught up in sin. But what does that mean? I worry about the language of sin: on the one hand are those who are tempted to see human beings and the world as morally depraved, as having no good whatsoever within us. In reaction to those who are fixated on sin and the wrath of God, however, are those who think it is all a matter of will: a kind of boot-straps theology where we just need to say “no” to temptation and “no” to sin.

But as I said, my experience tells me that most of our sinning is rooted at a very deep level in our wounds, our brokenness, or dis-ease, our fears, our insecurities. The language of addiction is enormously helpful here because I think that most of the time when we “miss the mark” it’s not because we are bad, but because we are hurt.  And when we feel most afraid, most anxious, most vulnerable—very often that is when we can become paranoid—literally we are “out of our minds.” Lent is about metanoia – changed minds. Repentance. Seeing things from a new angle.

 Too many of us feel that we are not good enough or loveable enough, and sometimes it is out of that insecurity that we tear others down. We are called away from paranoia and into metanoia as we begin again.

 So I invite you as Lent begins to take a good hard look in the mirror—an honest look, a real look at where you are in your journey with Christ. Not to do that in a shame-filled way or in a despairing way but in a way that allows you to take stock of where you are and what you desire from this one wild and precious life that God has given you. Asking that question will help you to figure out what might make this season holy for you, this “tithe” of a year to try out some new things.

Too much of what passes for Lenten discipline is really unhelpful spiritually. I don’t think we glorify God by beating ourselves up. We need to linger at that mirror long enough to sing with the psalmist who wrote the thirty-second psalm:

         Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sin is put away!

 We need to pray that psalm until we believe it. Maybe it will be enough to pray those words every day for the rest of Lent. Our sins are already forgiven: that is the work that Christ has done. What we are invited to do in Lent is wake up to that reality.

 So we don’t need more shame this Lent. What we need to do is repent and in the Bible repentance is very concrete: it means to turn around. It means to change our minds. Metanoia not paranoia. It means that we need to get busy living, as forgiven and beloved people. The end of that psalm counsels God’s forgiven people to “be glad and rejoice in the Lord and to shout for joy.”

How does Jesus resist temptation in the wilderness? And maybe more importantly, how do we resist the temptations we face? It seems to me that Jesus knew who he was as God’s beloved Son and what the devil is really trying to do is to make him forget that. Keep in mind that the wilderness experience in the gospels comes right after Jesus’ Baptism at the Jordan River, which is where the voice from heaven says literally that: you are my beloved.

But the devil tries to make Jesus feel insecure in his true vocation and to settle for being simply relevant, or spectacular, or powerful. Each of the three temptations Jesus faced were not in and of themselves bad things. It’s not a bad thing to feed the hungry or to trust the angels or to use one’s authority to bring about justice. But the devil is crafty, and each of these temptations come to Jesus as ways that diminish his true and deepest calling.

 I suspect that many of the temptations we face work the same way, and in our own times of trial we are being invited to discover (and rediscover) who we are and where God is calling us to be in ministry. We aren’t Jesus, so our temptations will not be the same. None of us are called to be the messiah – that job is taken. So for us it won’t be about leaping off of tall buildings.

But we do get tested and how we respond to that testing leaves a mark for good or for ill.

We will make it through Lent to Easter morning by taking care of ourselves and our neighbor, and by tending to our souls, and by putting on our oxygen masks, and inviting God to be with us, one day at time, throughout these forty days. That may be long enough to develop some new habits that we can carry with us into the fifty days of Easter, but all of that in due time.