THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT
December 14, 2008
Ss. Peter & Paul – 8 A.M.
+++++
Today, the third Sunday in the season of Advent, is known in some places, like this one, as “Gaudete Sunday.” The Latin is “Rejoice” and comes from the beginning word of the Introit – or introduction – to the Latin Mass of this Sunday: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4).
At the risk of being perceived as quite mad – today’s weather [at least predicted by meteorologists as treacherous], the market, the auto-industry, the Governor of Illinois, the cheating on Wall Street, the loss of jobs, the dismal economic outlook – I say to you: there is cause for great rejoicing today. Because whether you or I feel like it or not, the joy of God is with us, and always with us. We really have nothing to do with that joy, other than to find it at times in the most unlikely places.
So, what does it mean to rejoice? It seems rather obvious. But things need sorting out in the harried euphoria of this season, when we sing about joy but many face staggering depths of depression. Our culture generates a kind of frenzy, and the church can do some sorting out.
We may observe that joy spoken of here is not the same as pleasure, nor
satisfaction, nor even the emotional high we call happiness. It is rather a steady assurance of the resolution of all kinds of things that don’t seem to “fit”, an assurance that those contradictions may be blown off by what is about to happen. This is not delight in possession of something, but in passionate anticipation for what is not yet.
We may see that joy is not a mark of our culture. We can discern that by watching folks, especially in this season in the pushing and shoving – even the crushing-to-death – of a shopping mall or any other place where people have their guards down. Most people look bored or distracted or just plain tired. And boredom, distraction, and fatigue are not helpful conditions for joy. Joy is an active enterprise linked with dance and song, not an emotion of the bored or exhausted. So, our texts today are addressed to a social setting in which real joy is a rare practice among us.
The community of faith, a minority community, is invited to the scandalous, subversive activity of joy. This community is authorized to do something the dominant culture is unable or unwilling to do. While the large community prefers its sorry weariness, this community is invited to an alternative way in the world. Joy, genuine Christian joy, undermines frantic activity. It shakes us free from the world that controls us by keeping us tired. And the ground for this alternative action is that something special, not yet widely known in the world, has been disclosed to us. There is announced to us a fundamental transformation of reality. That is the reason for joy. That’s really the center of the Gospel, what John announced, what the path was to be made straight for.
And on this Sunday nearest the 38th anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the church of God, it is what makes me joyful. Being an innate pessimist and a “regretter,” I now am invited to look, in the spirit of Gaudete, at what is “good and beautiful and true” in those 38 years. Like John the Forerunner, I have tried to make the path straight for those who followed me in the various places I was called upon to serve God and the Church. While it is sad to hear that one little mission closed its doors, and another parish where I served as assisting priest and musician suffered an arson fire, and yet another has “joined the Cone” of disenchanted former Episcopalians, I rejoice that another is doing creative outreach when at one time there was practically none. Another now houses a growing Hispanic mission, alongside the “Anglo” one; my last parish before coming to Oregon is in an interim place now with fine, talented lay people holding forth in the absence of clerical leadership; and Ascension Parish here in Portland continues with a fine music program inaugurated by the musician I hired and encouraged, and their outreach has expanded, and this in a place where one of my predecessors had put it down huffily.
So, in the words of our epistle-reading today, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
[The preacher, Fr. Phillip, is indebted to Walter Brueggemann for his notes in the Advent-Christmas portion of Proclamation 3, Series B, published by Fortress Press, 1984.]
archived musings and preachments
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Feel the gift
3 Advent B 2008
(Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; Canticle 15; 1 Thess 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28)
Sometimes we just can’t believe in a gift.
My oldest brother Hank was born in 1939 and came of age during World War II. Times were hard even though there was work for my father. The babies kept coming, and fear in the news went hand-in-hand with ration cards and shortages.
For Christmas each kid got to ask for one special gift. One year Hank’s wish was for a real leather football. That was a big deal on my father’s salary. Christmas Eve came and Hank, about age 7, was in bad shape. It took several tries to get Hank to sleep. Finally Mom and Dad had some space to get things arranged in the living room. In the midst of exhausted Christmas prep, my parents heard a sound. Looking up, they saw what they described as a pale ghost of a 7 year old boy, staring and swaying, sound asleep, muttering something about a football. In desperation Mom and Dad let him feel the football through the wrapping paper. Only then could they coax Hank back into bed.
As I recall Hank had no memory of waking up and feeling that football on Christmas Day. But I guess when he was asleep and lost in his anxiety, feeling was believing.
Feeling is believing today. Today we wake up from our anxiety and doubt. Today on 3 Advent we reach out to touch that which is truly real.
Roses can be touched. Joy can be touched. Beneath the paper-thin veneer of our lives today we feel the solid shape of the gift to be given to us, the Christ, the gift who is already here.
Isaiah sung about it. The promised one is here among us, and he is here to release prisoners, speak good news to the poor, to lift up any who are bowed down. He is coming, but in God’s topsy-turvy way of doing things he is already here. He is here, in Sacrament and Word, in our flesh and lives. He is here when we give him our hands and minds to allow him to do his liberating, healing work. The poor and the captives and the mourners and those who cry out are not forgotten. They are heard, we are heard, and salvation is at work in our midst.
Mary sung about it, in that wonderful startling song where she repeats Isaiah’s promises and makes them deeper and more immediate. As she sung her song she felt the solid life of Jesus within her, moving, awakening, here and yet to come.
And John the Wild Man brings it. Today again we meet John, the Wild Man of the desert. He speaks in the old way that God always spoke, through the lips and the lives of wild men and wild women who stormed out of the desert with their faces and eyes aflame. He speaks of one who is to come. He will himself be the living Bath that will strip away our old life and give us a Life that is always new. Today we welcome the Wild Man of God, because he tells us that the promises of God are wild and untamed, and to follow the way of the Gospel is to live a wild life free in the very wind of God.
Is this life possible and real? Or is it just Advent poetry spoken by one of the more eccentric Episcopal clergy in town? Try and see. Feel the gift beneath the thin paper of what we think of as our lives. Feel the new life awakening in our own flesh and in our midst.
Today claim the gift that is given us by God.
(Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11; Canticle 15; 1 Thess 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 19-28)
Sometimes we just can’t believe in a gift.
My oldest brother Hank was born in 1939 and came of age during World War II. Times were hard even though there was work for my father. The babies kept coming, and fear in the news went hand-in-hand with ration cards and shortages.
For Christmas each kid got to ask for one special gift. One year Hank’s wish was for a real leather football. That was a big deal on my father’s salary. Christmas Eve came and Hank, about age 7, was in bad shape. It took several tries to get Hank to sleep. Finally Mom and Dad had some space to get things arranged in the living room. In the midst of exhausted Christmas prep, my parents heard a sound. Looking up, they saw what they described as a pale ghost of a 7 year old boy, staring and swaying, sound asleep, muttering something about a football. In desperation Mom and Dad let him feel the football through the wrapping paper. Only then could they coax Hank back into bed.
As I recall Hank had no memory of waking up and feeling that football on Christmas Day. But I guess when he was asleep and lost in his anxiety, feeling was believing.
Feeling is believing today. Today we wake up from our anxiety and doubt. Today on 3 Advent we reach out to touch that which is truly real.
Roses can be touched. Joy can be touched. Beneath the paper-thin veneer of our lives today we feel the solid shape of the gift to be given to us, the Christ, the gift who is already here.
Isaiah sung about it. The promised one is here among us, and he is here to release prisoners, speak good news to the poor, to lift up any who are bowed down. He is coming, but in God’s topsy-turvy way of doing things he is already here. He is here, in Sacrament and Word, in our flesh and lives. He is here when we give him our hands and minds to allow him to do his liberating, healing work. The poor and the captives and the mourners and those who cry out are not forgotten. They are heard, we are heard, and salvation is at work in our midst.
Mary sung about it, in that wonderful startling song where she repeats Isaiah’s promises and makes them deeper and more immediate. As she sung her song she felt the solid life of Jesus within her, moving, awakening, here and yet to come.
And John the Wild Man brings it. Today again we meet John, the Wild Man of the desert. He speaks in the old way that God always spoke, through the lips and the lives of wild men and wild women who stormed out of the desert with their faces and eyes aflame. He speaks of one who is to come. He will himself be the living Bath that will strip away our old life and give us a Life that is always new. Today we welcome the Wild Man of God, because he tells us that the promises of God are wild and untamed, and to follow the way of the Gospel is to live a wild life free in the very wind of God.
Is this life possible and real? Or is it just Advent poetry spoken by one of the more eccentric Episcopal clergy in town? Try and see. Feel the gift beneath the thin paper of what we think of as our lives. Feel the new life awakening in our own flesh and in our midst.
Today claim the gift that is given us by God.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
That's Advent
1 Advent B 2008
(Isaiah 64: 1-9; Ps 80: 1-7, 16-18; 1 Cor 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 24-37)
Advent makes me remember stories from when I was young.
They’re not tales of snow and Red Ryder BB guns. The stories I remember are edgy, moments of fear and of truth.
One tale I remember each Advent was when my best buddy and I played in the forbidden abandoned car. The doors locked, and we could not open them ourselves. My big brother Rick heard our seven-year old cries and tore the door open with brute teenaged force. Trapped in the hot dusty car in July, knowing we’d gotten ourselves in there, helpless to open the doors ourselves—that’s Advent. Someone strong coming to save, the sound of that door tearing open, the rush of cool air and the feel of the free earth as we tumbled out free—that’s Advent.
The other tale I remember was when another brother, his friend, and I were caught out on Long Island Sound with the steep waves that built effortlessly with a northeast wind. We had to beat it through miles of open water before heaving to off the harbor mouth. We finally made the one risky turn and rode the breakers past the savage jetties, coasting slowly to a stop on the still waters of the protected harbor—that’s Advent.
Advent is when I realize how I’ve run myself into tight spots like the inside of an abandoned car. Advent is when I realize I need to be brought into a safe harbor. Advent is when I have deeply mixed feelings about what the larger culture calls “the holiday season.” I understand Charlie Brown who, in the vintage cartoon, takes a long look at all the Christmas busyness, sighs and says “Rats.” He’s looking for something real, something worthy of his trust and his joy. He’s not settling for something cheap.
Good friends in God, let’s not settle for anything cheap. The good news is, we do not have to. And we cannot afford to. We don’t have time. Today, Jesus in his teaching ends with one of the clearest commands in the Gospels—“stay awake.”
I wake up and realize that I’ve been expecting the wrong things from my life and from God. I’ve been waiting for complete financial and professional security, for “enough money.” And as time marches on, I’ve been waiting for assurance that I really will not begin to slowly acquire medical issues, that I’ll live nearly forever, completely healthy.
And then I wonder why I sigh and say “Rats.”
Save me God from my messed-up desires. Save me for thinking, for even a moment, that I am not like every other human being on this earth. Save me from thinking and acting like I can control that which cannot be controlled. A storm on open water is less treacherous than the storm I create in my own conflicted heart. An abandoned car is less of a trap than the trap I make for myself.
“Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”
In the darkening of the year, Isaiah’s mighty voice rolls out with the deepest cries of our hearts. Come, you our God who has been hidden in the confusion of our world and in our lives. Come, find us where we have hidden ourselves from you and from our own deepest truth. Come, tear open all doors of despair and darkness and gloom, come bring us to safe harbor. Come, make our souls boil with new hope. You are faithful, do this for us. You are wondrous, dazzle us with your wonders. Heal, forgive, raise to new life, as you have done for your faithful people of old, do now for us for we are yours. Spin us again on the pottery-wheel of your creative love. Re-make us as only you know how.
(Isaiah 64: 1-9; Ps 80: 1-7, 16-18; 1 Cor 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 24-37)
Advent makes me remember stories from when I was young.
They’re not tales of snow and Red Ryder BB guns. The stories I remember are edgy, moments of fear and of truth.
One tale I remember each Advent was when my best buddy and I played in the forbidden abandoned car. The doors locked, and we could not open them ourselves. My big brother Rick heard our seven-year old cries and tore the door open with brute teenaged force. Trapped in the hot dusty car in July, knowing we’d gotten ourselves in there, helpless to open the doors ourselves—that’s Advent. Someone strong coming to save, the sound of that door tearing open, the rush of cool air and the feel of the free earth as we tumbled out free—that’s Advent.
The other tale I remember was when another brother, his friend, and I were caught out on Long Island Sound with the steep waves that built effortlessly with a northeast wind. We had to beat it through miles of open water before heaving to off the harbor mouth. We finally made the one risky turn and rode the breakers past the savage jetties, coasting slowly to a stop on the still waters of the protected harbor—that’s Advent.
Advent is when I realize how I’ve run myself into tight spots like the inside of an abandoned car. Advent is when I realize I need to be brought into a safe harbor. Advent is when I have deeply mixed feelings about what the larger culture calls “the holiday season.” I understand Charlie Brown who, in the vintage cartoon, takes a long look at all the Christmas busyness, sighs and says “Rats.” He’s looking for something real, something worthy of his trust and his joy. He’s not settling for something cheap.
Good friends in God, let’s not settle for anything cheap. The good news is, we do not have to. And we cannot afford to. We don’t have time. Today, Jesus in his teaching ends with one of the clearest commands in the Gospels—“stay awake.”
I wake up and realize that I’ve been expecting the wrong things from my life and from God. I’ve been waiting for complete financial and professional security, for “enough money.” And as time marches on, I’ve been waiting for assurance that I really will not begin to slowly acquire medical issues, that I’ll live nearly forever, completely healthy.
And then I wonder why I sigh and say “Rats.”
Save me God from my messed-up desires. Save me for thinking, for even a moment, that I am not like every other human being on this earth. Save me from thinking and acting like I can control that which cannot be controlled. A storm on open water is less treacherous than the storm I create in my own conflicted heart. An abandoned car is less of a trap than the trap I make for myself.
“Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”
In the darkening of the year, Isaiah’s mighty voice rolls out with the deepest cries of our hearts. Come, you our God who has been hidden in the confusion of our world and in our lives. Come, find us where we have hidden ourselves from you and from our own deepest truth. Come, tear open all doors of despair and darkness and gloom, come bring us to safe harbor. Come, make our souls boil with new hope. You are faithful, do this for us. You are wondrous, dazzle us with your wonders. Heal, forgive, raise to new life, as you have done for your faithful people of old, do now for us for we are yours. Spin us again on the pottery-wheel of your creative love. Re-make us as only you know how.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Find and Seek
Christ the King 2008
(Ezek 34: 11-16, 20-24; Ps 100; Eph 1: 15-23; Mt 25: 31-46)
Butch the Lutheran is pastor of a church seven blocks from here. I asked him once, before entering his church to celebrate another great feast, what that feast meant. Butch the Lutheran gave me a long level look. He said, “To seek out the lost.”
Today is Christ the King, a different feast. But seeking out the lost is on the agenda again. Today we hear in the Hebrew Scripture that God will search for the lost, will seek them out, will find them wherever they have gone. I’m glad, because I get lost a lot. I get lost in my own fears, my own anger and impatience, my own lack of faith and trust. What should be most precious to me gets lost too—my call as a baptized Christian, my call as a priest, my flock, my family and friends. Above all my God gets lost. I get lost in my false self and lose sight of the God who is always before me, about me, within me.
Today, on the feast of Christ the King, we are all invited to approach the altar because we’re glad we’ve been found. We’re glad that there is a patient and passionate God who seeks us out in whatever blind alley we’ve run into, who reaches into every corner and dead-end we’re wandered into. We are the scattered who are gathered together. We are the lost who are found.
Ironically, we’re found first by the one for whom we were searching. Ephesians says “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”
We have been found by God, not just to stay quietly at home, but so we may exult, we may search further, we may grow and deepen. Another wise young friend of mine says that her call, and the call of her church, is “to love and explore Christ.”
We are those who have been found by God. We are those whose desire has been kindled to “love and explore Christ.” And I pray that we become more deeply just this sort of community—grateful that we have been found, eager to love and explore Jesus Christ, Christ whose feast proclaims him King.
But will we know this King when we meet him?
Today’s Gospel tells us that all people have one thing in common. None of us recognize the King when we meet him. This story tells of radical incarnation—the King whom we proclaim is truly within the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, those on the edge. The King of the Gospel is the hidden King—hidden within the flesh of those wounded and in greatest need.
Thank the hidden King that we have been found. Thank the hidden King that our desire and longing has been kindled to seek his face. And thank God that the hidden King has given us this clue, this tale of where he may be found. Know him who has first known us. Seek him who has searched for us in every corner in which we have hidden. See and welcome him within people whose pain and struggle are his throne and his crown.
Welcome today, as our pledges and offerings commit ourselves to seek and serve the hidden King who has first found us and gathered us here. Welcome, as each of us brings the unique gift of our lives to help us all, all Saints Peter and Paul, become more deeply who we truly are.
(Ezek 34: 11-16, 20-24; Ps 100; Eph 1: 15-23; Mt 25: 31-46)
Butch the Lutheran is pastor of a church seven blocks from here. I asked him once, before entering his church to celebrate another great feast, what that feast meant. Butch the Lutheran gave me a long level look. He said, “To seek out the lost.”
Today is Christ the King, a different feast. But seeking out the lost is on the agenda again. Today we hear in the Hebrew Scripture that God will search for the lost, will seek them out, will find them wherever they have gone. I’m glad, because I get lost a lot. I get lost in my own fears, my own anger and impatience, my own lack of faith and trust. What should be most precious to me gets lost too—my call as a baptized Christian, my call as a priest, my flock, my family and friends. Above all my God gets lost. I get lost in my false self and lose sight of the God who is always before me, about me, within me.
Today, on the feast of Christ the King, we are all invited to approach the altar because we’re glad we’ve been found. We’re glad that there is a patient and passionate God who seeks us out in whatever blind alley we’ve run into, who reaches into every corner and dead-end we’re wandered into. We are the scattered who are gathered together. We are the lost who are found.
Ironically, we’re found first by the one for whom we were searching. Ephesians says “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…”
We have been found by God, not just to stay quietly at home, but so we may exult, we may search further, we may grow and deepen. Another wise young friend of mine says that her call, and the call of her church, is “to love and explore Christ.”
We are those who have been found by God. We are those whose desire has been kindled to “love and explore Christ.” And I pray that we become more deeply just this sort of community—grateful that we have been found, eager to love and explore Jesus Christ, Christ whose feast proclaims him King.
But will we know this King when we meet him?
Today’s Gospel tells us that all people have one thing in common. None of us recognize the King when we meet him. This story tells of radical incarnation—the King whom we proclaim is truly within the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the imprisoned, those on the edge. The King of the Gospel is the hidden King—hidden within the flesh of those wounded and in greatest need.
Thank the hidden King that we have been found. Thank the hidden King that our desire and longing has been kindled to seek his face. And thank God that the hidden King has given us this clue, this tale of where he may be found. Know him who has first known us. Seek him who has searched for us in every corner in which we have hidden. See and welcome him within people whose pain and struggle are his throne and his crown.
Welcome today, as our pledges and offerings commit ourselves to seek and serve the hidden King who has first found us and gathered us here. Welcome, as each of us brings the unique gift of our lives to help us all, all Saints Peter and Paul, become more deeply who we truly are.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Rat's Savings Plan
Proper 28 A 2008
(Judges 4: 1-7; Ps 123; 1 Thess 5: 1-11; Mt 25: 14-30)
I turned to the Truth section of the Oregonian yesterday for some financial news.
The Truth section is commonly called the comics. In one of my favorite strips, “Pearls Before Swine”, the Goat character, a bit of a yuppie who keeps his affairs neat and tidy, looks distressed. The Goat says to cynical Rat, “I put all my retirement money into an IRA five years ago and today I have less money than I started with.” Rat tells him he should have put his cash into a UTM like him. “A UTM?” “Yes, Under The Mattress” Goat looks even worse while Rat shouts, “I’m a financial guru!”
Rat’s UTM plan looks pretty smart these days. But the UTM plan doesn’t sit well with today’s Gospel. Or does it?
“A man” entrusts his property to his servants and leaves town. The story does not say that he left any instruction. Two of the servants do some trading, and when the man comes back they give him what they’ve managed to make. The third uses Rat’s UTM scheme and buries the cash. Maybe olive oil markets were tanking that year, who knows? The servant gives all the money back, no skimming off the top. This is another story that always struck me as uncomfortable and unfair. The guy didn’t LOSE anything, so why is he so upset? And I wonder what the owner would have said if the servants had made some bad investments, put the money in the sub-prime mortgage market, and lost it all? The story doesn’t say.
But I suggest that this story is about God’s economy. In times of fear and stress is makes more clear who different the economy of the reign of God is from the beast that the news and our hopes and fears call “the economy.”
In the world’s eyes, “the economy” is a faceless force that we may manipulate to our personal good like the “indolent rich” of today’s Psalm. O it is a force before which we feel powerless, as if it were a train coming down a tunnel. It may make us feel secure and powerful, perhaps even Godlike, or it scares us no end. In hard times it makes the Rat’s savings plan of UTM look wise.
But here, I suggest, is the economy of God according to this tale.
In the realm of God, nothing is impersonal. Anything we are given, money as well as our very lives and the time in which to live them, is given not by a What but by a Whom. All that we think of as “ours” is given in trust, without step-by-step instructions, by the owner.
We may do what we will. But fear and anxiety is not a good game plan. The UTM plan imprints our own fear and perhaps our own anger upon the good world and the good God who gives it. We may even find ourselves telling God by our actions who we think God is—“a hard man.”
Everything we have been given expresses who the owner is and who we are as a result. Our money as well as our very lives is meant to express the growth and increase, what one saint called the “greening power of God.” I don’t think she meant the green of a $20 dollar bill. I think she meant the green of new life for the world, for the community of God, for the poor, and for the greening power of God in our own souls.
Who gives us all that we have? What is that person like? Who do we wish to be in this world that is given in generous trust? The owner, after all, does come back to ask us how things have gone.
Maybe Rat and his UTM plan are not so wise after all.
(Judges 4: 1-7; Ps 123; 1 Thess 5: 1-11; Mt 25: 14-30)
I turned to the Truth section of the Oregonian yesterday for some financial news.
The Truth section is commonly called the comics. In one of my favorite strips, “Pearls Before Swine”, the Goat character, a bit of a yuppie who keeps his affairs neat and tidy, looks distressed. The Goat says to cynical Rat, “I put all my retirement money into an IRA five years ago and today I have less money than I started with.” Rat tells him he should have put his cash into a UTM like him. “A UTM?” “Yes, Under The Mattress” Goat looks even worse while Rat shouts, “I’m a financial guru!”
Rat’s UTM plan looks pretty smart these days. But the UTM plan doesn’t sit well with today’s Gospel. Or does it?
“A man” entrusts his property to his servants and leaves town. The story does not say that he left any instruction. Two of the servants do some trading, and when the man comes back they give him what they’ve managed to make. The third uses Rat’s UTM scheme and buries the cash. Maybe olive oil markets were tanking that year, who knows? The servant gives all the money back, no skimming off the top. This is another story that always struck me as uncomfortable and unfair. The guy didn’t LOSE anything, so why is he so upset? And I wonder what the owner would have said if the servants had made some bad investments, put the money in the sub-prime mortgage market, and lost it all? The story doesn’t say.
But I suggest that this story is about God’s economy. In times of fear and stress is makes more clear who different the economy of the reign of God is from the beast that the news and our hopes and fears call “the economy.”
In the world’s eyes, “the economy” is a faceless force that we may manipulate to our personal good like the “indolent rich” of today’s Psalm. O it is a force before which we feel powerless, as if it were a train coming down a tunnel. It may make us feel secure and powerful, perhaps even Godlike, or it scares us no end. In hard times it makes the Rat’s savings plan of UTM look wise.
But here, I suggest, is the economy of God according to this tale.
In the realm of God, nothing is impersonal. Anything we are given, money as well as our very lives and the time in which to live them, is given not by a What but by a Whom. All that we think of as “ours” is given in trust, without step-by-step instructions, by the owner.
We may do what we will. But fear and anxiety is not a good game plan. The UTM plan imprints our own fear and perhaps our own anger upon the good world and the good God who gives it. We may even find ourselves telling God by our actions who we think God is—“a hard man.”
Everything we have been given expresses who the owner is and who we are as a result. Our money as well as our very lives is meant to express the growth and increase, what one saint called the “greening power of God.” I don’t think she meant the green of a $20 dollar bill. I think she meant the green of new life for the world, for the community of God, for the poor, and for the greening power of God in our own souls.
Who gives us all that we have? What is that person like? Who do we wish to be in this world that is given in generous trust? The owner, after all, does come back to ask us how things have gone.
Maybe Rat and his UTM plan are not so wise after all.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Wake up!
Proper 27 A 2008
(Wisdom 6: 17-20; Ps 70; 1 Thess 4: 13-18; Mt 25: 1-13)
“Breaking up is hard to do.” Waking up is even harder.
There used to be Tom Peterson furniture commercials, on TV about 11 PM. Tom literally knocked on the inside of your TV screen. “Wake up!” he’d shout. You may not have bought the furniture, but you remembered the commercials.
Today the church is the glass screen and the Bible is Tom Peterson. We hear Jesus repeating one of the most common “Biblical values,” far more common than anything the mega-culture shouts to us as it uses and misuses that term. The value is simply this: “Wake up!”
Today ten young women are part of a wedding party. Their job is to wait for the bridegroom, and then bring him into the celebration. They carry oil lamps, part of the ritual and also needed since the bridegroom may come after dark. They wait. They fall asleep.
When we wait, we fall asleep, in many ways. Yesterday I drove back from Salem after two days straight of church meetings. That alone would make a monkey on caffeine drowsy. On top of that, I stayed out til the wee hours with a group of younger people, church leaders who had a lot to say about their lives, the church, and the problems and hope they see. That was worth staying awake for. God is doing new things among us, and I hope I have the trust and courage to see God at work and support those in whom God is working. But the whole ordeal was too much for my middle-aged constitution, and I crashed when I came home.
We fall asleep when we are weary. We fall asleep when we are discouraged. No one can stay on the mountaintop for ever, no one can stay in the giddy rush of spiritual or emotional elation. We come down, into the reality of our lives, the seeming ordinariness or even boredom of our days. We fall asleep spiritually when faced with too much challenge or too much tension or too much disillusion. It’s human to fall asleep. Jesus seems to know that.
But he also tells us that the time will come to wake up. Hope will dawn, joy will dawn. Suddenly change and fulfillment and healing will seem possible, within grasp. “Wake up!”
But when we wake up, we’d better have enough oil for our lamps.
Today’s Gospel story always bothered me a little. I was raised to always share. Break the cookie in half, share the sandwich, share a lick of your ice cream. The young women who wouldn’t share their oil always struck me as selfish.
But I think the world of this Gospel says that our light is our own responsibility. We cannot carry someone else’s spiritual life. No one can seek God for us, no one can drink in wisdom and light for us. Our search is our own. It may seem cruel, but it is what it is.
Where can we look for fuel and light? The first reading holds the key. Ask for Wisdom—she is generous and always on hand. But we must ask and we must seek. Seek Scripture and prayer, worship and sacrament, service and a healthy spiritual discipline, and just listening, listening for the still small voice of God. Live as a partner of God’s, generous and open. In Gospel-life, we only get to keep what we give. Live closed and asleep both, and nothing but a cold dry wick on the lamp will remain. Holy Wisdom wants to flow into us and through us to the world. Ask Lady Wisdom for light and illumination, ask her now, and she will come, she will meet us, and when we do wake up we’ll have enough oil to light our way. We’ll even have enough oil to light the way for Christ.
When I wake up, will God find enough oil in me to strike a light?
(Wisdom 6: 17-20; Ps 70; 1 Thess 4: 13-18; Mt 25: 1-13)
“Breaking up is hard to do.” Waking up is even harder.
There used to be Tom Peterson furniture commercials, on TV about 11 PM. Tom literally knocked on the inside of your TV screen. “Wake up!” he’d shout. You may not have bought the furniture, but you remembered the commercials.
Today the church is the glass screen and the Bible is Tom Peterson. We hear Jesus repeating one of the most common “Biblical values,” far more common than anything the mega-culture shouts to us as it uses and misuses that term. The value is simply this: “Wake up!”
Today ten young women are part of a wedding party. Their job is to wait for the bridegroom, and then bring him into the celebration. They carry oil lamps, part of the ritual and also needed since the bridegroom may come after dark. They wait. They fall asleep.
When we wait, we fall asleep, in many ways. Yesterday I drove back from Salem after two days straight of church meetings. That alone would make a monkey on caffeine drowsy. On top of that, I stayed out til the wee hours with a group of younger people, church leaders who had a lot to say about their lives, the church, and the problems and hope they see. That was worth staying awake for. God is doing new things among us, and I hope I have the trust and courage to see God at work and support those in whom God is working. But the whole ordeal was too much for my middle-aged constitution, and I crashed when I came home.
We fall asleep when we are weary. We fall asleep when we are discouraged. No one can stay on the mountaintop for ever, no one can stay in the giddy rush of spiritual or emotional elation. We come down, into the reality of our lives, the seeming ordinariness or even boredom of our days. We fall asleep spiritually when faced with too much challenge or too much tension or too much disillusion. It’s human to fall asleep. Jesus seems to know that.
But he also tells us that the time will come to wake up. Hope will dawn, joy will dawn. Suddenly change and fulfillment and healing will seem possible, within grasp. “Wake up!”
But when we wake up, we’d better have enough oil for our lamps.
Today’s Gospel story always bothered me a little. I was raised to always share. Break the cookie in half, share the sandwich, share a lick of your ice cream. The young women who wouldn’t share their oil always struck me as selfish.
But I think the world of this Gospel says that our light is our own responsibility. We cannot carry someone else’s spiritual life. No one can seek God for us, no one can drink in wisdom and light for us. Our search is our own. It may seem cruel, but it is what it is.
Where can we look for fuel and light? The first reading holds the key. Ask for Wisdom—she is generous and always on hand. But we must ask and we must seek. Seek Scripture and prayer, worship and sacrament, service and a healthy spiritual discipline, and just listening, listening for the still small voice of God. Live as a partner of God’s, generous and open. In Gospel-life, we only get to keep what we give. Live closed and asleep both, and nothing but a cold dry wick on the lamp will remain. Holy Wisdom wants to flow into us and through us to the world. Ask Lady Wisdom for light and illumination, ask her now, and she will come, she will meet us, and when we do wake up we’ll have enough oil to light our way. We’ll even have enough oil to light the way for Christ.
When I wake up, will God find enough oil in me to strike a light?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Go much higher
All Saints A 2008
(Rev 7: 9-17; Ps 34: 1-10, 22; 1 John 3: 1-3; Mt 5: 1-12)
“Did the rabbi go up to heaven?” The question wasn’t even nice.
A Jewish congregation in old Europe had a very humble rabbi. Every Sabbath after the evening prayers, the rabbi would disappear and not re-emerge until the next day. The village was small and everyone knew everyone else’s business. So rumors flew. “He breaks the Sabbath and works for the Gentiles.” “He has a mistress and he goes to her.” “He drinks until he is drunk.” “Maybe he goes up to heaven,” whispered one innocent soul. The others howled with laughter. “Right, to heaven!” Finally they sent one young man to follow the rabbi after the Sabbath prayers. “See if he goes up to heaven.”
The young man followed the rabbi that Friday night as he left the synagogue and walked quickly down the darkened street. Once out of the village, the rabbi took one of the paths up the mountain. After a long climb, they came to a small clearing. The young man watched as the rabbi entered a tiny shabby shack. He crept close to the window and watched with wonder as the rabbi bent over an old Gentile woman, lying sick and alone on a straw mattress. The young man saw the rabbi stack wood for her fire, boil some soup, and feed her from a bowl he held close to her lips. When the rabbi began to clean up the shack, he crept away.
Back in the village a bunch of men were drinking wine and waiting. When they saw the young man, they shouted, “Hey! Did the rabbi go to heaven?”
The young man stood and thought in silence. Finally he said, “No, the rabbi did not go to heaven. The rabbi went much higher than that.”*
Today we know that we too are called to go much higher than heaven.
Today we heard the text that we call the Beatitudes. We hear who is to be called blessed in the reign of God. It’s an intimidating list: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful. Some people call Christianity the great untried idea, and today we hear why people may not even try. “Beatitude” is a churchy word. We could also translate it “happy.” Here is what will make you truly happy: to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to hunger and thirst for justice in an unjust world…Try turning them upside down and see if they work. Happy are the rich, happy are those who never know sorrow, happy are those who pay no attention to the suffering of others? The choice between the reign of God and the dark thoughts of this world are more obvious when we do that.
We are called to this strange, intoxicating happiness, the joy of God which flips the world’s pleasure upside down. We are meant to find our joy where the world does not look.
But is it possible to live this life?
On All Saints a great crowd gathers that says “yes.” On Thursday night I asked, “Have you ever stood in this church by yourself and felt like you weren’t alone.” Benjamin LeBlanc answered, “Yes, and it feels a little weird.” Today’s weird, wonderful news is we are part of a multitude that has gone before, that is scattered over the wide earth now, and is yet to come. They are not all “people like us”: only a few are Episcopalians, or white, or North American. All colors and languages, all cultures and customs are represented. We are blessed that we are invited to join them.
And the best news of All Saints is that we can join them. We cannot follow Jesus with our own strength alone. To follow Jesus is a gift. That gift is freely given today.
John says that we are the children of God, through the Father’s love. We are part of the mystery, part of the multitude. There is a place for us. All we need to do is accept the gift, and in one another’s company start our own climb up the mountain. We may climb up our own ideals, or up our own weakness and frailty. It may be a path we choose, but it’s more likely a path that’s given to us. The climb may be seen by others, but it will probably be silent and secret, as secret as a hidden shack in a forest on a mountainside.
But we too may go much higher than heaven.
One writer said it all: “There is only one tragedy in life: not to be a saint.”
*taken from Welcome To The Wisdom Of The World by Joan Chittister
(Rev 7: 9-17; Ps 34: 1-10, 22; 1 John 3: 1-3; Mt 5: 1-12)
“Did the rabbi go up to heaven?” The question wasn’t even nice.
A Jewish congregation in old Europe had a very humble rabbi. Every Sabbath after the evening prayers, the rabbi would disappear and not re-emerge until the next day. The village was small and everyone knew everyone else’s business. So rumors flew. “He breaks the Sabbath and works for the Gentiles.” “He has a mistress and he goes to her.” “He drinks until he is drunk.” “Maybe he goes up to heaven,” whispered one innocent soul. The others howled with laughter. “Right, to heaven!” Finally they sent one young man to follow the rabbi after the Sabbath prayers. “See if he goes up to heaven.”
The young man followed the rabbi that Friday night as he left the synagogue and walked quickly down the darkened street. Once out of the village, the rabbi took one of the paths up the mountain. After a long climb, they came to a small clearing. The young man watched as the rabbi entered a tiny shabby shack. He crept close to the window and watched with wonder as the rabbi bent over an old Gentile woman, lying sick and alone on a straw mattress. The young man saw the rabbi stack wood for her fire, boil some soup, and feed her from a bowl he held close to her lips. When the rabbi began to clean up the shack, he crept away.
Back in the village a bunch of men were drinking wine and waiting. When they saw the young man, they shouted, “Hey! Did the rabbi go to heaven?”
The young man stood and thought in silence. Finally he said, “No, the rabbi did not go to heaven. The rabbi went much higher than that.”*
Today we know that we too are called to go much higher than heaven.
Today we heard the text that we call the Beatitudes. We hear who is to be called blessed in the reign of God. It’s an intimidating list: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful. Some people call Christianity the great untried idea, and today we hear why people may not even try. “Beatitude” is a churchy word. We could also translate it “happy.” Here is what will make you truly happy: to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to hunger and thirst for justice in an unjust world…Try turning them upside down and see if they work. Happy are the rich, happy are those who never know sorrow, happy are those who pay no attention to the suffering of others? The choice between the reign of God and the dark thoughts of this world are more obvious when we do that.
We are called to this strange, intoxicating happiness, the joy of God which flips the world’s pleasure upside down. We are meant to find our joy where the world does not look.
But is it possible to live this life?
On All Saints a great crowd gathers that says “yes.” On Thursday night I asked, “Have you ever stood in this church by yourself and felt like you weren’t alone.” Benjamin LeBlanc answered, “Yes, and it feels a little weird.” Today’s weird, wonderful news is we are part of a multitude that has gone before, that is scattered over the wide earth now, and is yet to come. They are not all “people like us”: only a few are Episcopalians, or white, or North American. All colors and languages, all cultures and customs are represented. We are blessed that we are invited to join them.
And the best news of All Saints is that we can join them. We cannot follow Jesus with our own strength alone. To follow Jesus is a gift. That gift is freely given today.
John says that we are the children of God, through the Father’s love. We are part of the mystery, part of the multitude. There is a place for us. All we need to do is accept the gift, and in one another’s company start our own climb up the mountain. We may climb up our own ideals, or up our own weakness and frailty. It may be a path we choose, but it’s more likely a path that’s given to us. The climb may be seen by others, but it will probably be silent and secret, as secret as a hidden shack in a forest on a mountainside.
But we too may go much higher than heaven.
One writer said it all: “There is only one tragedy in life: not to be a saint.”
*taken from Welcome To The Wisdom Of The World by Joan Chittister
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