The Third Sunday of Advent

Yesterday there was a yet another tragic mass shooting at Brown University. I learned after this sermon that there was also another mass killing in Australia. The Bishop of Rhode Island sent an email to clergy which is where we began our worship – his email was also before we learned of what happened in Australia. Here is what he sent and I read as we lit the third candle on our Advent wreaths.

As we gather today, following a mass shooting event in Providence late yesterday afternoon, I ask that we pray for all the victims of this violence, all those whose lives have been impacted and the first responders and medical personnel. I offer this prayer, written by Bishop Rob Hirschfeld:

Give us courage for the facing of this hour. Guide us by the bright vision of your Heavenly Realm where no weapon is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love. O Christ, show us your mercy as we put our trust in you.

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The connection between these two texts, one from the Old Covenant and the other from the New Covenant seems pretty unmistakable, doesn’t it? It seems so nice and tidy! We hear a word from the prophet and then while his words are still ringing in our ears we hear it happening in the ministry of Jesus: the eyes of the blind are opened and the deaf hear. Who could miss it, right?

From the prophet, Isaiah the 35^th chapter:

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble (tottering) knees! Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

And then these words from the eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel:

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

Anybody who reads the Old Testament knows that when Messiah comes there is supposed to be peace on earth and goodwill to all people and the lion is supposed to lie down with the lamb and swords will be beaten into plowshares. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. All that good stuff we’ve been hearing about now for three weeks in Advent from Isaiah. So what went wrong?

Jesus is born and is baptized by John in the Jordan River and teaches people about the Kingdom of God. He heals the sick and he’s a great preacher. All good stuff. But then things start to unravel. First John, the one who baptized Jesus, is arrested and put into prison. You all remember how that ends, right? Certainly not with a stay of execution! And one can already see the writing on the wall for Jesus: he, too, will come into conflict with the religious and political authorities and be arrested and tried and executed.

Good Friday is less than four months away.

So John’s question is legitimate. There isn’t yet peace in Jerusalem, let alone on earth. Not when he asked the question and not today. We can’t even get good will in Washington, DC!  Most nations continue to spend way more on swords than plowshares in their national budgets, and lions still eat lambs for lunch. So if Messiah is supposed to do all those things, then who, John asks, are you? And what are you up to, Jesus? Why are kids getting killed at Brown?

It is a fair question, and it takes us on this third Sunday of Advent to the very heart of our faith. We are still waiting expectantly And that is what Advent is all about—not only waiting for the first coming of baby Jesus, but for the second coming of Christ the King. For new heavens and a new earth. For the New Jerusalem, and the new Providence and the new Bristol. For the new St. Michaels’ to shine as a light for all of the East Bay.

Waiting is hard. And it’s tempting in the meantime to ease our anxiety by spiritualizing the good news of Jesus Christ. This is not some temptation that comes from a so-called secular society; we do it to ourselves. We turn this holiday season into fuzzy sentimentality. Or we postpone all our hope until the day when Christ comes again.

But here is the thing: the prophets imagine God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven. And when Jesus sends word to John the Baptist in today’s gospel reading, notice that he isn’t talking in the future tense like Isaiah was. He now speaks of what is happening: the blind are receiving their sight, the lame are walking, the lepers are being cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

So Jesus is a great teacher, a healer, the kind of guy everybody wants to eat supper with because wherever he is, it’s a party and everyone keeps hoping he’ll do that thing again with the water and the wine. But how do we really know he is the One? That is John’s question today and it lingers in the air. John has been out there proclaiming that the One who comes after him is going to usher in that reign of God—justice and peace and all the rest. I imagine as he sits in that prison cell that John was as confused as anyone and maybe even a bit angry, because the One whose sandals he knew he wasn’t fit to carry is out there doing good work to be sure—important ministry. But in a macro-cosmic sense the world looks pretty much the same as it always has. When are the prisoners really going to go free? That’s an existential question for John who is sitting in a prison cell and hoping it happens soon and definitely before his head ends up on a platter.

So how do you know? If you are a good Jew waiting for Messiah to come or a good Christian waiting for Messiah to come again—if you live in the first century or the twenty-first—if you are sitting in a prison cell or in a church pew—how do you know when it is God at work and that Messiah has come?

“Go tell John what you see and what you hear,” Jesus says. It is such classic, vintage Jesus. Notice that he doesn’t directly answer the question. He never does! He just encourages people to open their eyes and ears. But the problem with that is always the same: when you see, can you see what I see? When you listen, do you hear what I hear? When you listen to the evening news: is the world being made new or is it coming unglued? Is the light shining in the darkness, or is it just getting darker.

It’s not just about whether we are constitutionally more optimists or pessimists as far as I can tell—although perhaps that’s a part of it.  It’s more than just “is that glass half-full or half-empty?”  We can look at the same thing—each of us, from one day to the next and see it differently. Is it an opportunity or a crisis? Is it something that will help us grow or will it be our undoing? Is God in the midst of it all or absent? One could ask all of these questions in a congregation that is going through a time of transition and people will see things differently, and do

So much has to do with where we are and that can change from day-to-day. If we are overtired or depressed or angry or confused—sometimes we just plain cannot see. I mean literally, we sometimes just cannot see what is right before our eyes. The optic nerves are working fine and delivering messages to the brain but we are blind. And sometimes it’s like those images where if you blink you see it one way and if you blink again you see something else: is that an old lady or a young girl?

Go tell John what you see and hear.  Sometimes people whose lives seem (at least from where I stand) to be so incredibly blessed still struggle with doubt and uncertainty about whether God loves them or even exists. And sometimes people whose lives seem (at least from where I stand) to be so incredibly sad are able to find faith and love and joy and hope in the smallest of life’s gifts. The externals don’t always dictate how we will view even our own lives, let alone the world around us. We can have it all and feel empty and sometimes that is exactly where we are in December. And we can have very little and feel like our cup overflows. And sometimes that happens to us in December as well.

What you see depends on how you look and also where you look. What you hear depends a great deal on who you’re listening to.

So two people stand on the beach and watch the sun rise and one of them is overcome with awe and wonder and filled with an awareness of the goodness of life and the benevolence of God. The other sees a ball of fire sending harmful rays that need SPF 30 to avoid cancer. And oh yeah, that ball of fire is burning itself out and every day we’re one day closer to a universe where the lights will go out.

So what are you seeing this December? Do you see weak hands and tottering knees being strengthened? Because where you see those things happening, I think Jesus is saying, there you see God at work. There you see signs of Messiah’s presence. And if once you were blind but now you see in amazingly different ways—isn’t that good news?  

We have to be intentional about looking for signs of God’s presence in the world. If we can find ways to put ourselves in places where we can get glimpses at least, of new life and new possibilities, then it becomes food for the journey. And as we learn where to look and how to look with eyes that see and ears that hear, then our faith is truly strengthened because we see signs of God’s presence where we never before even thought to look. And if we are really brave we begin to join in, to participate in that holy work, to spread the good news.

Who knows where that may lead? We might even find God in a stable, of all places…

 

An Advent Evensong: Farewell Sermon

We have three things to cover here before we reconvene across the street for a little party tonight. 

• First, Advent. 
• Second, the Feast of St. Nicholas of Myra.
• Third, the end of a pastoral relationship.
  

Ready?

Advent. It’s probably my very favorite season. Although I admit that I'm a bit like Erma Bombeck who famously told each of her children they were her favorite. I sometimes feel a little bit that way about the liturgical seasons. But we are in Advent now and I love it best. I love the flickering candles in the darkness of December days and nights. They remind me and all of us that no matter how dark it may feel in the world, a little bit of light is enough to go on. I love Advent because those candles remind us of God’s dream for this world, and the promise of peace, and hope, and joy, and love. We do not need to be afraid of the dark and we should never curse the darkness. We are little lights and we can let them shine in the darkness.

I love Advent because it’s all about the preparation, about getting ready. I love Advent because of John the Baptist, fearlessly preparing the way in the wilderness. John points to the one who is coming after him and I can relate, since we have known from the time I arrived here fifteen months ago that this day would come and that our work was in preparation of the next chapter.

I love Advent because of Mary, fearlessly saying yes to God and telling out with her soul the greatness of the Lord. I grew up a United Methodist, and in that little church in Hawley Pennsylvania we didn’t talk about Mary very much. She seemed too “Catholic” for our tastes. But over the course of my ordained life I have come to appreciate holy Mary, the mother of our Lord and let’s face it, without her “yes” there is no Jesus and we aren’t even here tonight.

Oh, and one more thing: I love the hymns in Advent. I’m told that some clergy get pushed by their parishioners to sing Christmas Carols before it’s Christmas. I have never understood that and frankly I’ve never been pushed. I’ve been fortunate enough to serve in parishes that “get” Advent. I have nothing against Christmas carols. But the Advent hymns, including the ones we selected for this night, speak to a deep place in my soul. They are so beautiful.

So it all comes together - the waiting, the preparation, the flickering candles, John and Mary, the music – to create a mood of hopeful expectation. And Lord knows we can use some hopeful expectation these days.

Second, St. Nicholas. Let me just confess that today is actually the feast of Ambrose of Milan. We were originally going to do this last night, on December 6, which is actually St. Nicholas’ Feast Day. Then we realized that the closing of Hope Street for the illumination of the Christmas tree required us to adapt our schedule. But I was already committed to St. Nicholas in my mind (nothing against Ambrose!) so let’s just go with that.

Before he was brought to this country by Dutch settlers and became jolly old St. Nicholas, he was a fourth-century bishop who likely took part in the Council of Nicaea. He is the patron saint of sailors and children. Well, I know some of you are sailors, and even if this parish doesn’t have many children in this chapter of its long life, we are all children at Christmas, right? So he’s our guy: he encourages generosity and gift giving and helps us all feel young at heart, even if we happen to be of retirement age.

This leads me to number three. As most of you know, before arriving here, I spent nearly twelve years serving on the staff of Bishop Doug Fisher as his Canon the Ordinary in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. Prior to that, I’d been the Rector of St. Francis Church in Holden, Massachusetts, a suburb of Worcester, for fifteen years. We raised our kids in Holden and when they went off to college, the newly elected bishop asked me to join his staff and I said yes. That was in 2013.

It was a good run and I was a decent-enough Canon to the Ordinary. But I missed some parts of parish ministry a great deal. That never went away. In fact during the pandemic I did a lot of walking on the Wachusett Rail Trail and I thought a lot about how I might return to parish ministry before retiring.

Don’t misunderstand; being a Canon to the Ordinary is a great gig in many ways. Some say it’s the best job in the Church. But my analogy was always this: if you love being a classroom teacher and then get made assistant principal, there is an adjustment and some loss. Or if you prefer a sports analogy, if you love playing the game and then become the offensive coordinator, it’s different. Early on I read a book called “Leading from the Second Chair.” The book itself was “just ok.” But the title described what I was up to for nearly a dozen years, zig-zagging across central and western Massachusetts to support the ministry of the guy in the first chair.

I have no regrets. But I became a priest to preach and teach. To baptize. To be at the bedside to anoint people as they lay dying and then offer them a Christian burial. To officiate at weddings. And you, St. Michael’s, have given me the chance to finish my active ministry by doing all of these things again. Thank you for opening your lives to me, for welcoming me to Bristol. It’s been a great run!

In the final prayer we’ll offer after this sermon, we’ll list the names of those I have had the privilege to baptize, and marry, and bury over the fifteen months we have shared together. All of those things and the life of a congregation that unfolds in between big events is about relationships. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for sharing your lives with me. I wanted to “go out” doing the parts of this calling that I love the most and you invited me to do just that over the course of the past fifteen months. Tonight my heart is full of gratitude.

You enthusiastically welcomed me and we worked together to get things back on track. You’ve done amazing work in the search process and you’ve called a wise and capable priest to walk with you in the next chapter of your life together. Well done. I know I’ve helped, and I’m proud of that. But I did not and could not do that alone. I’m so grateful for the staff – Alexander and Loretta and Steve and Betty. I’m so grateful for the officers of the vestry: Allison and Maryanne and Deb and Geoff, and for the others who serve on vestry, and outreach, and stewardship, and in worship. Even driving up and down 146 between here and Worcester has not dampened my spirit of joy at getting to be with you for this season in your long history.

The end of a pastoral relationship sounds very ominous. But it’s important to call things by their right name. It’s important to say goodbye and not just slip out the back door. Being a priest is an incredible gift. But always, and throughout this journey I’ve had, being a husband and a dad and a grandpa has taken precedence over my work in the Church. If you get to talk with Hathy and Graham and James, with Cara and Lindsay and Julian, tonight, you will understand very quickly why this is. I am the luckiest man on earth.

Until I ran into Bishop Kniseley at General Convention in Louisville in June 2024 I didn’t know anything at all about St. Michael’s or Bristol. I did not know about the oldest continuous Fourth of July parade in the country. Now I will never forget that. And I won’t forget you all.

When we turn the calendar to 2026, I will no longer be your pastor. You will have a new priest heading this way, driving up from North Carolina with her wife. I pray that you will welcome Ginny and Barbie as you have welcomed me and Hathy. I pray that you will open your hearts to them as you have to us.

In my previous job it drove me crazy when clergy would retire or leave and throw the diocese under the bus by saying, “I can’t talk to you any more because of the diocese.” So I’d walk into the parish a week later and get asked, “why do you have these stupid rules?”

The best practice is that we are here tonight to say goodbye so that you are fully engaged in saying hello to your next rector. We have a couple of weeks left, but we make it clear tonight that my time is very short. Saying goodbye and ending a pastoral relationship is not because of Bishop Knisley or Canon Dena. It is because endings lead to new beginnings, and because you will have a new priest and your energy and focus needs to be on cultivating that relationship. Please allow space for her to become your pastor. 

This does not mean I will forget you, and I hope you don’t soon forget me. But it does mean that things are about to change, and we don’t need to be afraid of change. Through it all, God is with us.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – be with us all.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Second Sunday of Advent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you with me so far?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First Sunday of Advent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The kirkin' of the tartans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next year, in Jerusalem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sound relevant?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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