John 1:1-18: Let's Play "Guess the Present!"

Merry Christmas! I have a confession to make to you this morning. This is only the second time in my life that I have ever been to church on Christmas day. Yes, I know. It’s strange. A priest has only been to church one time on Christmas day. Well, my family custom on this day was to wake up, check out our stockings, eat our traditional breakfast, and then tear into our presents. Typically by this time in the day, as a child, I was well on my way to playing with whatever toy or game I had received. In that spirit, I actually want to play a game with you all this morning. I know. It’s strange. Playing a game in church on Christmas day. This is not why you came, but I think you might enjoy this.

Now, this game is actually an adaptation of another game. My friend, Nathan Carlson, a member of St. Thomas down in Birmingham, taught me his game a few years ago. Nathan is a teacher and soccer coach at Homewood High School. He’s creative, he’s funny, and he’s caring. The game he plays is called, “Guess What’s Underneath My Shirt!” As baffling as it might be, the game is simply played by guessing what is underneath Nathan’s shirt. He might hide a toaster oven and the objection of the game is to guess toaster oven. Maybe you get to keep the object, but probably you just get the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

Well, this morning I want to play the Christmas version of this game entitled, “Guess the Present.” I imagine you might already be pretty good at this. We all tend to look at the presents underneath the Christmas tree and we make a guess at what’s underneath the wrapping paper. Well, the game is played in much the same way. I will hold something up and you guess what is held within the packaging. If you guess correctly, then you have the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

Round:
1. Lamp shade

2. Clock

3. Mystery Present

In this third package it could really be anything. It just looks like a box. Who knows what it could be inside this mystery present? While we are thinking about what is held within this paper, I wonder why it is that we give one another presents at this time of year. Why do we give gifts at Christmas time?

Perhaps it has something to do with St. Nicholas. He was the 4th Century Christian bishop of Myra who supposedly would go around to poor families and pay their daughters’ dowries leaving money and sometimes food in a family member’s shoes that would have been left on the outside of the house. Some still celebrate the tradition in early December as they put their shoes out and wait for presents to fill them up. Actually if you leave out a stocking you are in some way celebrating St. Nicholas. Still I don’t know if this is the real reason why we give each other presents now. I wonder what is in the mystery present.

But why do we give each other presents? Maybe it is because we like each other. We appreciate one another, and we want to show that gratitude in giving one another a gift. Perhaps… Really, I have to know what is in this mystery box! If it could be anything, what do you wish it is? A picture of a beloved relative? A gift card? Keys to a new car? A check for a million dollars? Alright, I cannot stand it anymore… I am going to open this present!

There is nothing inside, just some gold paper. I wonder why there’s nothing in it. Sometimes we cannot sense with our sensory perception the gifts we are given. We may not be able to see, touch, taste, smell, or hear a gift, but that does not mean it is not given to us. I believe this is the case with the gift that we receive in today’s gospel.

The good news of John opens with a mysterious song that focuses upon the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehend it not.”

God, in His infinite abundance, goodness, and love created all things by speaking things into being through the Word. All of this that we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear has been made and made good through the Word of God. Yet, like a mysterious present that we cannot figure out, sometimes we do not understand this present that we have been handed. “He was in the world and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him,” John says. I believe that we give each other gifts at this time of year to take part in God’s abundant gift giving. We attempt to show one another our appreciation by participating in God’s gifting.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” The gift that we have been given is that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. When God came into the world through the Word of God we were given the clearest gift of God’s abundant love for us. Through God becoming incarnate all of creation and we ourselves were made holy vicariously.

God’s Word also brought true light into the world. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” This light was brought into the world through the Word of God. It enlightens us all. In this the darkest time of year for us in the northern hemisphere we are reminded that the true light enlightens us all. We have this light within us. Each of us has this light within us. The Christ light burns inside.

So as we go forth from here celebrating Christmas, celebrating the Word of God made flesh and dwelling with us, let us also take with us the light of Christ. When we meet our family, our friends, and our neighbors that light burns within us, and it burns within them as well. Remember that all whom we meet have been made holy by God’s coming to be with us. Remember that God has given us all the gift of coming to be with us. Remember that we all possess Christ’s light within us. Amen.

Matthew 1:18-25: I Can't Do It Becomes I Can With God's Help

“I can’t do it,” said the little voice. I looked down at the six year old boy from which the words came. The genuine perplexity with which he said, “I can’t do it,” made it just about impossible for me to get upset. Of course, it was only the first day of camp. Pretty quickly though, I learned that whenever I asked this child to put on shoes, to get ready for pool, to make up his bed, to brush his teeth, or whatever else a hut leader asks her or his campers to do the reply was always the same, “I can’t do it.” By Tuesday my feeling that this was a cute child of God had melted into thinking that perhaps this was a Job situation and I was being tested by the God Almighty. Only 15 years old I did not yet have a grip on my emotions, so as the camper kept saying, “I can’t do it,” my patience wore thinner and thinner.  To top it all off though, not only was one camper saying, “I can’t,” the entire cabin of twelve 6 to 8 year olds responded to any request with the negative words.

Kevin Denson was the other leader in my cabin. We had been campers together for a few years. As we sat down on Tuesday night, he looked as tired as I felt. So I asked him, “What should we do?” His response was as malicious as it was brilliant, “Maybe we could use a devotion.” Of course, I thought, “We could turn to the Word of God to force misbehaving children into shaping up.” I know, I am not proud of what I did, but desperate times, like this, call for desperate measures.

That very same night we turned to a couple verses in Scripture to illustrate our point, namely God does not want us to respond by saying “No, I can’t,” rather we are to say I can… “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) and “For God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27). We hammered home our message by saying, instead of telling us I can’t do it, say I can. God helps us to do all things. Really, even though we had bad intentions the message was a good one. And, perhaps it was our brilliant message, but probably it was that by Tuesday all the activities (hiking, horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, games, and singing) wore the campers out such that they all fell quickly asleep. At least that is what Kevin and I thought happened.

Sometime around two o’clock in the morning, the boy who had been saying “I can’t do it” all week long came and knocked on my door. Half awake, I sat up in my bed. “Buddy, what do you need? It’s really late.” He responded, “I can. I can go to the bathroom.” By which, he meant I can’t go to the bathroom, at least not without a leader coming with him. I just about started crying there and then. He had tried his best to understand our message. He tried to stay positive and to say I can with God’s help, even if he could not.

So often we think of Advent as Mary’s season of “yes,” but today’s gospel depicts Joseph as a profound model of “I can do this” with God’s help. Joseph is a paragon of faith, an example of trust, and one righteous man! Yet to dig a little deeper reveals that this story is not just about Joseph affirming God’s call, it is about us all taking part in the YES!

Betrothal, like the one between Mary and Joseph was a legal and binding contract that was made between the elders of families. Mary and Joseph probably did not have much of a voice in this process. Then, when Joseph discovers Mary is with child, he would have been in the right, according to the book of Deuteronomy (22:23-27), not only to dismiss his betrothed quietly, but also to put her to death, as she had broken the contract. YIKES! Yet, Joseph was a righteous man, so he planned to say, “I can’t do it,” in a more subtle manner. Then, all of a sudden something changed.

“Just when Joseph resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him.” God speaks to us in so many different ways: in Creation, in stillness, in relationship, in song, in Scripture, in worship, and even in dreams. What Joseph hears spoken to him is actually of profound importance to us as well. The angel identifies Joseph, as Son of David, which puts some historical perspective around this. The God of all Creation has sent a messenger who knows exactly who Joseph is. God does not mistake Joseph calling him by the wrong name. God knows the number of hairs on his head. He knows exactly who we are too. God knows us, the number of hairs on our heads too. He knows our hearts, our minds, and our emotions…

The messenger then tells Joseph, “Do not be afraid.” Someone once told me, “Fear is a great place to visit, but it’s certainly not a place you want to live.” I can imagine that if I were in Joseph’s position and an angel came to me in a dream I would be pretty scared. Yet, the angel’s message of not being afraid is really an invitation to be open to what is coming from God. We too are asked to be open to what God is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be. The angel then lets Joseph know that this child is not some “illegitimate” son, but conceived from the Holy Spirit within Mary. The Holy Spirit comes to bear life in Mary in a very special way. Once his fear subsides, Joseph can hear that God is bearing something profound within his betrothed. We too are invited to put down our fears, so that the Spirit can bear life with Christ in us.

Joseph then discovers that he is to name this child Jesus. This is nothing all that new in Jewish history, as Ishmael, Isaac, Solomon and Josiah all had their names revealed to their family in dreams. Yet, the Angel’s last note stands out in particular! Jesus will save his people from their sins. The child within Mary will wipe away the perceived disconnection, the wrongs, and the hurt that keep people from God. This is good news. This is a good dream, but we cannot live merely in dreams.

What is remarkable about this dream though, is that Joseph wakes up! This is the season when we hear “Sleepers Awake!” Joseph does wake up and all that told to him becomes true! The “I can’t do it” in the nighttime turned into “I can” of the morning. Matthew tells us that all of this happened to fulfill a prophecy that we would know Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” WHOA! God is coming to be with us! When I really stop to think about it, I can hardly believe this. The God of all Creation wants to come and be with us? Certainly God has made Himself known through Creation, through the prophets, through wisdom, but now God is going to fully show us that God is with us! We are called to respond like Joseph.

Joseph, could have said no to this dream. Who knows what would have happened? Certainly God could have intervened in other ways, but Joseph could have put shame upon Mary, Joseph could have even had Mary put to death. Yet, he listens to what the messenger says in a dream. Joseph says I can do this with your help God! And the way in which God responds is by coming to be with Joseph, coming to be with us!

Advent is a season of Mary’s yes, but it is also a season of Joseph’s affirmation. A time for dreaming and for listening. A chance for us to wake up. We are called to say yes to God! Even when the consequences seem hard to believe. How will “I can’t do it” turn into “I can do it with God’s help”? How will you dream? How will you wake up? How will you see that God is with us?

Matthew 24: 45-51: Jesus is Coming, Act Un-busy

Do you ever find yourself completely distracted by people’s bumper stickers? I am not talking about “My daughter is an honor roll student” ones, particularly I am thinking of religious bumper stickers. They tend to induce an emotional response in me, which I am surprised has not gotten me into an accident. Sometimes boiling down a complex theological tenant into a simple phrase leaves something to be desired, to be discussed, to be explored. I guess that is one point of having such a sticker affixed to the back of one’s automobile, while I might not keep driving the same roads as this person, her sticker is going to make me think for miles and miles to come.

One of my friends in seminary had a sticker on her car that read, “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” I chuckled the first time I read it, but I still wonder about that question today. Other phrases might not cause as many questions, like one that has recently faded off the back of my car. “Blessed to be an Episcopalian,” read the sticker, but the “to be an” was in very small lettering, so it looked like, “Blessed Episcopalian” from far away. A little presumptuous, I know. Another statement I once read on the back of a minivan has hung with me in an eerie way, it simply stated  Jesus is Coming, Act Busy.” I did not ever get to meet the people in this van, so I do not know if it was said tongue in cheek; however, regardless of the amount of sarcasm attached, this phrase pokes at a deep seeded dilemma within me and within today’s gospel.

The difficulty within leaves me wondering, how hard do I have to work for Jesus to accept me into his Kingdom? Act busy for Jesus is coming and you better be doing something when he gets here. That is the default tendency somehow innately programmed within me.

In today’s gospel, Jesus uses a household from his day as a parable. He explains, “Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.” What I hear is this message of act busy the master is coming! At this time of year when we have so much going on around us, I believe that we might get swept up in this message too. We might believe that our worth in not just our own eyes, but our family’s eyes, and even God’s eyes is determined by how much we do. Yet, if all we take from today’s message is the bumper sticker, “Act busy, Jesus is coming,” then we miss the point.

In this parable those who are wicked are the ones who know the master is delayed in coming and instead of taking care of one another, they get drunk and act violently towards one another. Both drunkenness and violence are addictive distractions of power. They tend to make us believe that we are more powerful than we are and they distract us from that which the good servants are focused: relationship. Those who are wicked are not wicked just because they are drunk or violent, they are wicked because they have substituted the healthy relationship with something that is distracting, demeaning, and destructive. The good servant on the other hand is “hard at work,” but not in the sense of being “busy.”

“Act busy, Jesus is coming,” might be just as dangerous as drunkenness or violence. This is the superficial message from today’s gospel that leads to bumper stickers being printed. Instead, the “work” that God gives us, his servants to do, focuses upon being in relationship with one another, taking care of one another, and not getting distracted by the many things that might make us think that we have “power.”

In today’s somewhat distracting reading from John’s Revelation, we hear of “the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside.” Day and night without ceasing they are singing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” These creatures who have sight within themselves as well as outside of them, are aware enough to just be with God. Their focus is upon praising God, night and day. They do not get distracted by addiction or power, instead, they continually hold their intention as praising God.

God is continually faithful to us. Our charge is to be wise and faithful servants of God. To do this does not mean that we act busy, rather it is for us to be un-busy. I do not mean that we all quit meaningful work to sit around and sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” all day long, but in this season of Advent while we wait for God’s coming there are many distractions. The work we are given to do is to prepare space for God to come; to slow down, to be quiet; to stop, to listen; to be present to the God who is coming to be with us. Jesus is coming, act un-busy.

Matthew 1:18-25: Defying Our Own Good Intentions

This week's gospel (for Advent 4, Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary: Matthew 1:18-25) opens in a very matter of fact manner, "Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way." Then, unlike the Gospel of Luke, which our Nativity-focused culture tends to love, we hear about Joseph and not Mary. The Eastern Orthodox Church calls Mary theotokos, or God bearer, and with them I heartily rejoice in her willingness to continually say "yes" to God, which is so beautifully described in the Third Gospel's stories. Yet, when I put myself in Joseph's shoes I find his own response to Christ's coming into the world another complete act of Faith in God's working among us.

Joseph was a righteous man, we discover from Matthew's words, and he was going to do the noble thing when he found out that Mary was with child. He was to "dismiss her quietly" from their engagement. Ending a proposed marriage in a small town, like Bethlehem, would hardly be a quiet act, but Joseph set about accomplishing this before he lay down for sleep one night. Joseph held as his intention that no shame be brought unto Mary, and this points to the virtuous way in which this son of David lived his life. Today, we still have disparity in the way in which men and women are treated, especially around issues of sexuality and "illegitimate" pregnancy, so for Joseph to do as he was planning was indeed outstanding and righteous! Yet, all of Joseph's good intentions were dwarfed by what God had in store for him through the Holy Spirit and his partner Mary.

The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him not to be afraid of taking Mary as his wife. Upon awaking Joseph who was so convinced by the vision that he did as the messenger told him. Yet, we must be careful not overlook the riskiness of this move from a societal perspective. If anyone found out that Mary's child was not Joseph's own, he would have been scorned, shamed, and humiliated by those around him. One's status in Jewish society in the First Century would have been correlated with her or his moral credibility. Joseph's livelihood depended upon the respect of others. So for Joseph to go from a quiet dismissal, which would have been in and of itself risky, to something that could have led to complete societal isolation himself shows just how profound Joseph's faith in God was after having this dream. So what does Joseph's faith show us?

I believe, as strange as it sounds, that Jesus really was born of the Holy Spirit within Mary. I believe that an God truly spoke to Joseph in a dream. I believe that Joseph was indeed a righteous man intending to do what was least shameful to Mary, yet God's will can defy even our best intentions. God's salvific (salvation-focused) work does not typically happen in a manner that appears logical to us. Remember from this last week's gospel, Jesus referred to the great John the Baptist saying, "the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he," and elsewhere that even the wisest on earth are fools in the kingdom of heaven. So even those who appear to be most "godly," "righteous," or "Christ-like" and even we who work towards the best laid plans can often come up lacking. This does not appear to be very good news on the surface: even my best intentions, even my righteous ways, and even my best attempts are not always in line with what God is doing.

However, good news rests just beneath the surface, or better yet, just behind our sleepy eyelids. In a season when we are warned to keep awake (for we know not when God will come like a thief in the night), the good news for Joseph appears ironically when he is sleeping. For Joseph his ways are righteous, but they are not God's most abundant will. God's work sometimes will come in such a way that we cannot even believe it, nor understand it. This is so hard for me as a rational, intellectual, and heady person. How can Mary be a virgin? How can Joseph stand by her? How can God actually come into the world? The difficulty is in resisting the urge to attempt to explain away God's Mysteries. Maybe that is an unsatisfying answer, but God's will brings comfort in that we do not have understand everything, that we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Mary's virginity, Joseph's dream, or Jesus' divinity. Leaning into the mysteries of God, withholding our attempts to explain away God's ways, and living into Faith allows for the gift of grace to transform our own righteous intentions into God's miraculous working in the world.    

Ordination Day Reflection: I Am A Man Of Unclean Lips, Yet God Calls Me

The historical prophet Isaiah had a vision in the Temple. The Lord was sitting high and lofty on a throne, the hem of the Lord's robe filled the entire space, the pivots shook, the house filled with smoke, and seraphs with six wings floated around singing to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

To be certain, I have never seen quite a sight as this. In yesterday's post I described a very holy moment in my life in which I finally felt God's call to the priesthood reverberating within me. Others had heard it in me earlier in my life, but it took a profound moment for me to let God's bidding sink deep into my soul. When Isaiah experienced the overwhelming presence of God in the Temple his response focused at first upon his inadequacy, as he spoke, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!"

At first, when I heard God's call spoken by others I felt the same way as Isaiah. Within me there is sin and separation. Sometimes I feel disconnected from my neighbor and from God. Often I focus on my needs and not the concerns of those around me. Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. Yet, there is more to what Isaiah says and I think more to a call from God than our inadequacies.

Even in his unclean state, Isaiah says, "My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Yet, God does something to relinquish this feeling in Isaiah of uncleanliness. Isaiah openly admits his state, "I am a man of unclean lips." His sinful nature is located within his mouth and the way in which he is cleansed is through a fiery coal delivered by a messenger of God to precisely where his separation is housed. By his mouth he sins, and by his mouth he is cleansed. Once the sin departs, Isaiah is able to hear the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" With his once sinful lips and tongue, Isaiah responds to God, "Here I am, send me."

This is a great reminder for me on my ordination day, and it is a wonderful call for all of us, as we serve God. God comes to us in tremendous fashion, sometimes in an overwhelming manner with flowing hems, earthquake, and coal bearing seraphs. Other times the coming of God is in the stillness or in our darkness. We may believe that we are not worthy to serve with God, I am often guilty of this, yet God is always seeking to reconcile us to Godself. Most clearly we see this in the Incarnation of God within the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In his coming, his ministry, his death, his Resurrection, and his Ascension we are, like with the seraphs from Isaiah, relinquished from our separation and fitted for ministry with God. All we can do, and all I want to do today is to respond, "Here I am, send me."

Our God is Persistent

When I was twelve years old Mrs. Sallie Lowe stopped me after a service of Holy Eucharist in which I had served as an acolyte. She said to me, "Seth, you will make a great priest one day." My mom who was standing nearby says the look on my face did not hide my emotions. I was both bewildered and annoyed by the thought of spending my life working in the Church. Sure, I loved going to worship God on Sunday. Yes, I enjoyed being an acolyte. Certainly, I possessed a deep fascination with the mysterious words we prayed together at worship, but a priest? COME ON! As a pre-teen, I thought I would always love God, but being a minister in the Church was far from my ideal life path.

Seventeen years later, the clock ticks down the seconds until Tomorrow night, December 11th at 5:30 when I will be ordained to the sacred order of priests in God's one holy catholic and apostolic Church. How did this happen? Simply put, our God calls is persistent. Yet, I have found that ministry with one another and with God requires that I must slow down, be quiet, and listen to what form that ministry will take.

In the years after Mrs. Sallie prophesied at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church about my future vocation, I attempted to follow other passions to see where they led. For a while, I wanted to be a professional soccer player or a sportscaster, but when career day came around I decided to follow around my priest. On that day I allowed myself to wonder if working in God’s Church could be more appealing than I had initially thought. Mrs. Sallie’s words were echoing in my heart.

During college I joined every Christian group imaginable, but by my junior year I struggled with my belief in God. What if God does not exist? What if God does not care about me? What if? After a difficult breakup, I felt emotionally raw, and I hurled accusations at God. I questioned God’s presence in my life all those years growing up. “Could it have all been a lie?” I asked my mentor, the Rev. Annwn Myers. “Even when you slam the door shut in God’s face,” she told me, “leave the back door open or at least leave a crack in the window, so the breeze of the Holy Spirit can blow through.” I tried desperately to disconnect from God and the Church.
I stepped back from commitments at the college chapel. I attended atheist lectures. I tried my best to become a secular person. All the while something within me was drawing me back to God, like the undertow in the Gulf of Mexico on a red flag day all my struggling against the tide only seemed to pull me deeper into life in Christ. Yet, as I approached God, who was there with me the whole time, I felt a new gift of freedom. Instead of “having to believe” the same things as family or friends, I was able to experience God authentically from my own point of existence.

Through this freedom I felt called deeper into ministry with God in the Church. After college graduation, I applied for and received the position as the lay chaplain for undergraduates at Sewanee. In this placement I was able to “try on” ministry for three whole years. During this time I reaffirmed my baptismal vows at the Great Vigil of Easter, which was where I finally fully heard and accepted my call to the priesthood that Mrs. Sallie foretold ten years earlier.

At the Great Vigil I reaffirmed my baptismal vows and served as a Lay Eucharistic Minister. After receiving the bread and the wine I took my silver chalice to distribute this gift from God. As I approached the first person, I realized it was none other than Fr. Francis Walter, my childhood priest. He smiled the same grin that I remember from when he first gave me communion as a child. Pulling back the chalice after serving him I saw in the cup’s reflection all of the people gathered around the altar. “We are the chalice,” I thought, “We make up the Body and the Blood of Christ. We are Jesus Christ.” Whoa! I almost fell over with this simple, lighting bolt of God’s inspiration. Those gifts at the Table are important because we are important.


Since that moment on that Easter Vigil night I have been open to accepting the call to be a priest in God’s church. I finally heard what others had heard long before I did. After much discernment within myself, with committees, with friends, with family, with the Church, and with God, I am ready, or as ready as I will ever be for anything in my life. Tomorrow night I will kneel before Bishop Santosh to be ordained in God’s Church. I ask for your presence and your prayers. I will be made a priest, but the service is about us as a Church and God’s people. We are entering into a new ministry together and I hope that you will be there to celebrate.

Matthew 3:1-12: More Than Just "Do This, Do That"

Have you ever played the game called “Do This, Do That”? It’s not all that popular, so maybe you have never played it. But the leader of the game, does actions (kinda like this) and while saying, “Do this.” Those who are playing the game mirror the leader’s actions. The game keeps going on in this fashion until the leader says, “Do that.” And whatever action the leader does while saying “Do that,” is the only thing that gets players “out” of the game. So basically players copy the leader’s example while she or he says “Do this,” but as soon as she or he says “Do that,” one ceases to follow the leader’s motions. So let’s play one round, shall we?

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was really good at this game. Not because I was super quick and had instinctive hand-eye reflexes, but rather the opposite was the case. I was slow and so I was always a move or two behind. When everyone was “oohing” and “awing” because the leader said, “Do That!” I was a step late and could stop in anticipation of what was to come.

The season of Advent is a prophetic season that often comes off sounding like, “Do This, Do That.” We look ahead to Christ’s coming both in the person of Jesus 2,000 years ago and the future advent of Christ. It’s a season when we are eternally looking ahead. Often we may hear the prophets telling us as we wait to “Do this and do that,” or better yet, “Do this, and don’t do that.”

We can hear John the Baptist this morning as the king of “Do this, Do That.” John is out in the wilderness saying “Come on out… Do this,” “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near, turn around, do this,” “Come into the waters of Baptism, do this.” Of course, the game of “Do This” changes suddenly to one of “Don’t Do That,” as soon as the Pharisees and Sadducees enter into the waters of the River Jordan.

Starting off the conversation calling the Jewish leaders, “You brood of vipers,” makes it seem as though the deck is stacked in this game. Yet, I can see a wry smile on the face of the Baptizer, as he asks, “Who warned you of the wrath to come?” John sees these hyper-religious men as people who rely so heavily upon their rituals that they have forgotten that it is not religion that they worship, but God. He warns them that entering into these life-giving, renewing waters is no empty gesture. True baptism to the prophet is shown in the good fruit it produces. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he says. Do not cling to your ancestor’s merits for God can raise up stones to be children of Father Abraham. Then, John gifts us hearers with two images that at first appear to be dichotomous, either/or, “Do This, Do That,” yet they provide a subtle way for us to prepare for Christ’s coming both as a community and as individuals.

On the surface, we hear either, “you will be a tree bearing good fruit” or “you will be cut down”; “you will be wheat” or “you will be chaff.” There was a tree in the backyard of my childhood home, a great, beautiful apple tree. When I was in elementary school I would excitedly run outside almost every autumn morning to pick fruit from its branches. Then, I would put it in my lunch bag and proudly pull out some homegrown good produce at school. Yet, as the years went on and on, the tree grew older and older, and it bore less and less fruit. Eventually, this once fruitful apple tree slowly started to decay and die. While this saddened me, what I learned from watching this little backyard ecosystem was that even in the process of dying this dying tree was continuing to grab nutrients from the soil and its branches were blocking the sunlight from other smaller seedlings.

John’s warning about the trees bearing good fruit can be taken as a warning to “be good,” whatever that might mean, but maybe what the Baptist is crying about is a need to make way for new growth within our religious communities. I do not intend to pick up an axe and start chopping down dying ministries within our church, nor do I want to light fires to our tradition, but perhaps we together can see where pruning and maybe even hacking is in order to allow for something fresh to sprout. Where is the good fruit in our church? Where are those decaying things that take up our energy? What is blocking good new growth from happening? John’s cry is for us to dream something new together to bring it about and not to cling too tightly to the old ways. Yet there is another image.

One is coming who is more powerful than John, and his baptism is with the Holy Spirit and fire. The image that John uses for this fiery one to come is an agricultural image. The messiah will come with a winnowing fork in hand, as Lucy McCain said in centering prayer this week, there is grace in that he is not carrying a shovel. Yet the end of this image of the messiah seems a bit scary: the wheat is kept in the granary and the chaff is burnt up in an unquenchable fire.

I am not a great farmer, and we have many green thumbs in our church, so if what I am about to say is wrong, please correct me: Wheat is made up of grain and chaff. The chaff is that which protects the nutritious grain from bugs and the elements until the time is right for the grain to be harvested in the granary. John’s image is not asking us to think, “In the life to come do you prefer smoking or non-smoking?” as some church signs read. Rather, we are the stalks of wheat. We have a part of us that protects us from being fully vulnerable with one another and with God. Christ’s call is to shake off that chaff. Let the part of us that is keeping us isolated, alone, and “safe” be burned up in the unquenchable fire. Now I know this sounds scary, but we cannot live fireproof lives. We do not possess flame-retardant spirits. Part of us, that bit that separates us from one another has to be torched.

Once we let that chaff go, then we can come together. We can enter into the granary. As our grains come forth we are pressed together and turned into that flour that makes the bread of life. This is the good news hidden within the “Do This, Don’t Do That” game that John seems to be calling out in the wilderness. Once we move beyond our initial panic of believing that the Baptist is speaking of heaven and hell we can hear this truly difficult, yet fully inspiring message. With God we are called to cut down that which is dying and not bearing fruit in our community in order for new growth to happen and to shed the chaff providing us false security, so that we can come together to form the bread of life. In this season of Advent when we are asked to slow down and be quiet, to watch and wait, to stop and listen, God is coming to be with us. It is not a game of “Do This, Do That,” it is a time of discernment to prune our hearts and ministries, to shed the chaff so that God can bear in us good fruit and form our grains into the Bread of Life.

Matthew 3:1-12: John the Baptist Is a Weirdo and A Pyromaniac

This morning I had the gift of sitting with several members of St. John’s parish to practice Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. For the latter exercise, we read this coming Sunday’s gospel lesson, which is Matthew 3:1-12. In this passage we hear about John the Baptist who is crying out in the wilderness, as Isaiah foretold someone would. John, if you don’t already know, is a weirdo by today’s standards, or at least that’s what so many people say. He spent his time out in solitude, ate bugs and honey, and wore camel hair clothes with a leather belt. COMPLETE WEIRDO RIGHT?

Well, I’m not so sure. Prophets are supposed to be a little outside the box. If someone is swept up in the culture of the day, how could one actually say anything prophetic? One has to even step outside of one’s own home, one’s own town, one’s own immediate culture to have a resounding prophetic impact. Later in Matthew, Jesus himself will attest to this saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (13:57). I think John decided to step way, way outside of the predominant culture, so that he could gain some perspective. Thus John gives us phrases like, “You brood of vipers” (3:7), “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees” (3:10), “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (3:12), and my personal favorite “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” (3:8).

When John stepped out into the wilderness he left his kind and gentle turns of phrase back in civilization. As a result of the two thousand years of dissonance (in culture) and distance (in time and space) between John and myself, I tend to tune out what this great prophet said. I retain a bit of my childhood impatience and choose to skip over the hard message of Advent of which John is the head spokesperson. I want Christmas to be here already, so I create a more sterile version of this season of Advent. Primarily, from John’s message I run away, hide, and hope that I am not about to get axed and tossed into the unquenchable fire.
So I felt a bit squeamish at first hearing Matthew 3:1-12 multiple times this morning during Lectio Divina. Yet, sitting with the parishioners and John the Baptist enabled me to hear something new. This prophetic message from this strange man in the wilderness actually is a message of hope.

As stinging as his message is hitting our ears, John the Baptist truly was preaching good news about repentance, the forgiveness of sins, and the kingdom of heaven coming near! The Rt. Rev. Claude Payne in a meditation for today says that Advent is the season of the Old Testament, by which he means that it is the season of anticipating what the prophets are saying. We get to slow down, be quiet, and listen with hopeful ears for what is coming to us.

The Baptist’s message allows for us to dream how it is that the Christ’s coming will bring with it the Holy Spirit’s unquenchable fire. A fire that consumes our sins and our separations and melts away our distance from God and our neighbor. A fire that rips through our dying forests and dead tress to open up a new grove of growth. Fire is not easy to stand, nor is it easily controlled, but as we wait and watch for Christ’s coming the burning clears space for new life to blossom. John’s words burn like the fire that Christ brings.

Let the words into your heart. Let the fire consume you. Let Christ come into the world.

1 Peter 2:1-10: God Called You Out of Darkness into Marvelous Light

When I was sixteen years old I could not wait for summer time to come. With my driver’s license in hand, I felt a new sense of freedom and that would only be compounded by the summer job I was taking at camp. For the first half of the school break at Camp Winnataska all of the sessions are girls’ camps, and the only boys out at camp are the college-age staff members and three high school males who wash the dishes after every meal. This was to be my post for two weeks. To make things even better I was going to be serving with two of my best childhood friends, Alex and Brooks.

It might sound like difficult work, washing dishes for about two hundred people three times a day for a couple of weeks, but I still think of it as one of the best jobs I have ever had. We would wake up right before breakfast, eat, then wash dishes, take a nap, wake up in time for lunch, eat, then wash dishes, take another nap, go lay by the pool, go to dinner, eat, then wash dishes, and then stay up all night. Pretty soon I had completely switched from being an early riser, who loved the day time, to a night owl, who could not wait for the sun to go down.

Mostly at night we would keep to ourselves, but a few times we used the shade of night to play pranks on the male staff members or to go steal kisses from the girl leaders under the shadow of the moon. As Alex, Brooks, and I had grown up at camp we knew most of the trails like the backs of our hands, but learning how to maneuver them in the darkness was this daunting, yet invigorating task. On one particularly dark night, we had been out past our curfew and were headed home when we saw the flashlights of the directors searching through the woods nearby. Fearing being caught out too late, I sprinted away without any thought of leaving my comrades stranded in the woods. Running down old familiar trails in the moonless, cool night air I felt freer than I had ever felt in my entire life.

When I arrived back at the lodge where the dishwashers resided, I waited for what seemed like an eternity for Alex and Brooks to return. Almost immediately after my heart stopped pounding, the guilt began to weigh on my soul. I had left my friends alone in the darkness. After waiting and waiting and waiting. They came sneaking in about twenty-five minutes after I did without having been caught by the directors. After breathing a sigh of relief we sat around for a spell and I kept thinking of what it would have been like to have been blinded by the beam from a flashlight. My eyes hurt just thinking about getting caught in that ray of light. A few hours later when we were all still too excited to sleep we sat out on the porch and watched as the darkness slowly dissipated and the light of the sun crested over the horizon of pine trees enveloping all of camp in its warm embrace.

After two weeks of nocturnal living as a dishwasher, I had a tough time adjusting to being a citizen of the light again. For the entire week break between girls’ camp and co-ed camp I felt so tired that all I could do was sleep and eat. Eventually I did recover, but the contrast of being blinded by a flashlight and sitting peacefully watching as the sun peaks over the trees sticks with me. Today’s reading from the first letter attributed to Peter allows us to think about ourselves as God’s chosen people who are “called out of darkness into his marvelous light.” As we move towards the quiet, dark season of watching and waiting known as Advent, I ponder how it is Christ comes to us and how it is that we share Christ’s light with those around us.

In all my sneaking around at summer camp I never was tied down by a ribbon of light shining from a director’s Maglight. Thank Heavens! Still on a few occasions a friends did catch me in the face with a flashlight. It was not fun. I walked around stunned for a few minutes stumbling. Ironically that light, the thing which helps us to see more clearly, can also be the thing that blinds us.

This can be a difficult time of year for those who have lost someone dear to them or for those who celebrate this season quietly. With so much jolliness around us, it is easy to be swept up into gleaming the light of Christ wherever we are going. Yet, that light and that joy when used like a flashlight often feels overwhelming to those who are not yet ready to step into the light. I know that when I meet those who are walking around in darkness, I often want to so quickly drag them into the light, but I believe when I do this I am denying God’s gift. It is like me sprinting from my friends and leaving them alone, stranded in the darkness.

Instead, if we were to sit together in the darkest part of the night, and we were to study a sunrise we would find that the light does not come all at once, as one stream of light drowning us with overwhelming brightness. Instead it wraps around the darkness slowly, allowing for the night to say its farewells and to kiss the dawn at its arrival. Genesis 1 description of God’s light overcoming the darkness can make us believe that God does not sit with us in the night. Yet, Matthew’s gospel from today reminds us that for God all things are possible.

God is with us in our dark times. Christ Jesus walks with us during those times of doubt, depression, and dimness. Yet, when we are called out of those times of darkness it can be startling to immediately step into the light. Instead of rushing into the fullness of Christ’s light, we can stand still right where we are, feeling the holy light within us and the Holy Spirit whipping through our hair as we wait in the stillness. It is here, in the darkness, that we begin the season of watching and waiting. Let us not be too quick to blind one another with our flashlights of Christ and instead may we, with God’s help, be patient and wait for the coming of the Son.

Luke 23:33-43: Christ the Messiah Sunday

Mustaches, Zombies, and Jesus' View of the End

Sermon Audio: here

Sermon Notes: here

Luke 21:5-19: When Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

"So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict."

"Practice makes perfect" is one of those sayings that I took to heart from an early age. I was never the tallest, the fastest, the most athletic, or the best skilled player on any of the soccer teams that I played on as a kid. So what I lacked in ability I tried to make up for in effort... AND PRACTICE (Sorry Allen Iverson, I'm talking about practice). I practiced and practiced and practiced. Everyday of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year, I practiced. Through that time I was urged on by the thought that if I practice hard enough, then I will be prepared to play a perfect game.
Sometimes this mentality creeps up in me as I prepare for something upcoming in the life of the parish. In particular, I think, "If I can practice hard enough, then I will preach a perfect sermon and everyone will walk away saying things like, 'Wow, I really want my spiritual life to grow!' and 'I can't wait to serve at St. John's Church more often!' and maybe even, 'That Seth really can preach!'" Yet, this upcoming Sunday's gospel from Luke describes a very different vision than practice makes perfect.
One day, according to Jesus, the religious and political structures will begin to fall, and wars and earthquakes will shake the earth, and famines and plagues will encircle the globe. At that point those who follow Jesus will be given an opportunity to testify. Well, the truth is our earthly systems continue to fail, wars and natural disasters continue to cripple nations, and food shortages and disease kill thousands every day. All that Jesus has said is going to happen is already happening and has been happening since he ascended into heaven. We have the opportunity RIGHT NOW to speak in his name, so what is stopping us?

I often wonder, what does it mean then to testify to God? Does it mean that we have to rehearse some Bible verses that we shoot at unsuspecting passersby? Maybe. Does it mean that we memorize some passionate narrative about turning away from a life of sin? Perhaps. Does it mean participating in dramatic debate about all of the signs (earthquakes, wars, famines, etc.) pointing to Jesus' impending return? Probably not. I think to testify is to engage in honest conversations and instead of "preparing [our] defense in advance," we leave our defenses down.

When we come in defenseless we can more honestly engage with those whom we might see as enemies. God already gives us words and wisdom if we would just slow down enough to listen to what is being said within our hearts, minds, and spirits. If we come in having a practiced script we might be too tied up in spitting out what we want to say. We might miss that our supposed opponents are just like us. We might miss that God removes those things that stand in the way of connecting with our opponents. We might miss that no division exists in God's reality, they are merely our own fabrication.

There are certainly things to practice in this world. Yet, there is one area where not practicing leads to perfection. When we talk to our "opponents" leave the memorized monologues behind and rely upon taking down our defenses, so that we stand together on the sacred ground that we share in interacting with one another. Christ will give us the words to say, but only if we first remove our shields of apprehension, fear, prejudice, doubt, and hatred.

Loving Father, you constantly give us words and wisdom, I ask that You help us to remove anything that we build up between each another, that we might see that Your Kingdom is that space that exists between us, and that we are the ones who are charged with revealing it to one another. All this we ask through the loving example of Jesus your Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

I Mustache You A Question

Standing outside of church Sunday morning I expected a few comments, but I thought they would be about my sermon. In my time here as curate, I have looked forward to hearing comments about my preaching, as people walk out the red doors and into the world. Often the feedback I receive allows me to adapt my sermons, so that I might better interpret the Word of God with all of you in mind. However, this Sunday many comments were not about my sermon at all, and instead, almost everyone asked about a patch of hair that is growing above my upper lip.

When some eyes drifted down to stare at my newly growing mustache, I wanted to say, “Excuse me, but my eyes are up here.” Perhaps it was because some could not believe it was real, maybe it was a result of seeing Evan so cleanly shaven, or it could have been the thought, “Who wears a ‘stache these days?” Whatever the reason, I could tell that after church there was a fascination with my newly sprouted “soup strainer.” Of course, this is not my first facial hair rodeo, and I have been waiting for when some would say, “I mustache you a question… about your mustache,” and I enjoy the question, “What is that growing on your face?”

I affectionately know the eleventh month of the year as Movember (Mustache + November = Movember). Yet, why grow a mustache for the month of November? Well, each October all sorts of organizations, sports teams, and individuals sport the color pink in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month; however, many may not realize that November is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Instead of sporting a certain color, many men (including me) don some “handlebars,” “the walrus,” or “the dali” to raise awareness for men’s health issues. This is precisely why I have grown a ‘stache the last few years throughout the month of November. Well, that and because they look so awesome!

Many men have difficulty opening up and admitting when they are sick, in pain, or suffering. The culture around us often pushes men to believe that they always must be strong, that any form of sickness can be overcome by determination, and that to be vulnerable is to be weak. I would argue that in Jesus we have the opposite example. God become human in the person of Jesus. While Christ Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, God emptied himself upon the cross. To me the crucifixion shows that there is no weakness in vulnerability rather that is pure strength!

Maybe it is a little bold to equate opening up, being vulnerable, and going to the doctor with the example of Jesus. Yet, this month I urge everyone, both women and men, to take steps towards living an open, a vulnerable, and a healthy life. There is no weakness in being like Jesus, and of course, he had a mustache. If you feel like supporting prostate cancer research and the Movember movement, check out my webpage:  http://us.movember.com/mospace/3708981

Luke 20: 27-38: Start Living in the Resurrection

For the Gospel lesson link click here
For the Sermon audio click here

I have not often had the misfortune of walking into a room mid-confrontation. Once or twice, I have walked in to hear friends fighting over something that had just happened. Tension filled the air, yet most often they were arguing over a video game. This morning we get dropped into a heated debate about marriage, or is it about the Resurrection? We will come back to this in a moment. Right now, let’s try to understand how we got plopped into this debate. We hoped over an important detail when we took a detour last week celebrating All Saints’ Sunday. Just before this morning’s gospel story, Jesus came into the Temple, expelled those who were trying to make a profit from this holy place, and won a few arguments with the spiritual elite of the day. Jesus has been embroiled in a series of similar contests between Pharisees and scribes, but now we focus upon his conversation with the Sadducees.

Why are Sadducees so named? Well, the Sadducees are sad-you-see because they do not believe in the resurrection (BWAHAHA). That bad joke is brought to you by Evan’s 2nd grade Sunday school teacher, Miss Dot. We do not know too much about Sadducees because they became extinct by the end of the first century. What we do know is that they were connected to the wealthy people of the day, they wanted to know just what they could get away with and still be considered good people, and they did not believe in the resurrection. They actually sound like some Episcopalians I know.

The Sadducees, a group not mentioned previously in Luke, are on some level really wondering what Jesus’ response will be to their question, but there is also a desire to prove that Jesus does not know about the Scriptures. Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees often come off looking like the bad guys, but initially they served as foils for Jesus, sparring partners that made it easier to make one’s point more clearly. The Sadducees address him, perhaps mockingly, as “rabbi” or “teacher,” then quote a strange law attributed to Moses, “If a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.” Sadducees insist that there is no resurrection because they think that their legacy, their livelihood, and their life itself is passed on through their children. In Deuteronomy and Genesis Moses has made it clear that if one brother dies before bearing any children from a marriage, the hope of him “living on” is passed on to his brother.

Before going any further, let me say, this is a brutal system that completely neglects the position of women. In this chauvinistic, patriarchal society women are seen as nothing more than a way to pass on a man’s legacy. Continuing the name of the deceased came before the needs and desires of women in this society. The Sadducees do not seem to care about the woman from their example, as they continue full speed with their quest to prove the resurrection incompatible with Scripture.

Amplifying their example, they say, “Now there were seven brothers; the first married and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” It almost seems comical, SEVEN marriages! Really?! SEVEN! This is EXTREME! Isn’t it? Yet, it is a good question, who are we going to marry and be married to in the resurrection? Or maybe asked more generally, what is it going to be like in the resurrection? I wonder about this sometimes, “Am I going to get to see my family? Am I going to have a body? Am I going to get to watch a movie of my life?” Yet the Sadducees’ attempt to prove their beliefs right through Moses’ law and our attempts to understand “heaven” are out of focus with Jesus’ description of the resurrection.

Jesus did not let the Sadducees’ question reverberate too long in the temple. Perhaps worn a little thin from arguing with Pharisees and Scribes all day long, Jesus sets up a contrast between this age and the next, as those whom he has already contested eavesdrop wondering if Jesus will slip. There is a difference that exists between those who are focused on “this age” and “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection.” Those of this age are concerned with marrying and being given in marriage, both men and women succumb to the temptations of this life. Those in the age to come do not worry about such things, not because they do not care about their earthly relationships, but because they have begun to act out of deeper Truth. Those in the age to come Jesus says, “are like angels and are children of God being children of the resurrection.” They have adopted the characteristics of resurrection life. They live in the Truth that the resurrection is already underway.

The Sadducees and the onlooking Pharisees and Scribes will not be sold without justification from Scripture, so Jesus recalls the story of Moses and the burning bush. God speaks to Moses saying, “I AM The God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob.” To Jesus this shows that God does not relate to dead people, but to living ones. God would not say “I AM the God of someone who is dead,” rather God is beyond the realms of time and space. To God all are alive. God is the God of the living not the God of the dead.

When Jesus finishes his argument an eerie silence hangs over the temple, our gospel lesson does not give us the full ending. The Pharisees and Scribes break the quiet and celebrate the Sadducees defeat in this temple debate, saying, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” No one dared to ask him another question.

Yet, what I take away from this contest is not that Jesus is really good at debate, or that we do not need to ask questions about what the resurrection will be like. What I take away from this gospel is that our charge is to start acting like the resurrection is already happening. We might be anticipating the cross in Luke’s gospel, but the cross and the resurrection have already happened. Jesus has already been raised from the dead and this means that we too are raised from the dead for we are buried with Jesus in our Baptism. We therefore are charged to start acting like the resurrection is all around us. We are called to look around with resurrection vision, to taste with a resurrection tongue, to smell with a resurrection nose, to hear with resurrection ears, to feel with a resurrection sense. This is our call. Not to get bogged down in the laws that we make up about ourselves. Not to get stuck in the rules that we think apply to us getting into heaven, but to act as though we are already walking with Christ in the light of the resurrection.
We do this by opening our hearts, minds, and spirits to Christ, by caring most for the least among us, by seeking forgiveness when we wrong someone else, by remembering the resurrection, and by coming back together as the Body of Christ.

There is a resurrection, the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, Jesus himself shows, and we show every week as the Body of Christ. Our task is not to prove this to others through law and rules, but to live this out in our lives as the truest of all realities. We are children of the resurrection, let’s start living like it!

William Temple: "The personality of every man and woman is sacred."

Archbishop William Temple (photo credit: http://satucket.com)

I have a confession to make. For as long as I have been a Christian, I have only been to church on Christmas one time. Whew, do I feel better! The year was 1993 and I wasn’t even ten years old yet. My family had been in London for most of the month of December on what was the best vacation of my childhood. Seeing so much history, culture, and art sparked within me an endearing love for all things English. To make thingseven better for Christmas holiday we traveled down to Canterbury to stay at a little bed and breakfast and to attend Christmas service at Canterbury Cathedral.

When my family walked in for church on Christmas day, I did not know the importance of the Cathedral: it is the center of worship in the Episcopal/Anglican world, it is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it is a historic site where Thomas Becket was martyred in 1170 and subsequently a place of pilgrimage. I did not realize all this on that Christmas morning. All I knew was that we were going into a very long service on Christmas day that was going to keep me from playing with my new toys. Yet, even as an overly-hyperactive child, I was blown away by what I heard and saw on that holy morning.

According to my mom, who keeps a meticulous journal, the 11:00AM service was a Mozart-Coronation-Mass Eucharist with Archbishop George Carey preaching. The choir was enchanting. The procession and the vestments were exquisite. The congregation was profoundly reverent. Even through the veil of my youthful inattentiveness I could tell that God was present, God had come to be with us.

One thing I do not remember well is the sermon from that day. In my memory I can see Archbishop Carey dressed in elaborate vestments, preaching with humble conviction, but I do not know what he said. Maybe he preached on the shepherds and the angels, or maybe he talked about Mary and Joseph. Probably though, he spoke about the Nativity Event, that is God comes to be with us.

Not too long before Archbishop Carey occupied the bishop’s seat at Canterbury, there was a man who not only talked about this, but also lived out his entire ministry showing to all whom he met that God became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. William Temple was the 98th (or 99th depending on what resource one consults) Archbishop of Canterbury, and today, November 6th, we remember him in the Episcopal Church. He served as archbishop in the tumultuous years of the Second World War, but throughout his life he was an inspiration showing that God comes to be with us.

To say that William Temple was a preacher’s kid would be an understatement. His father, Frederick Temple, was a bishop and became the Archbishop of Canterbury when William was 15. Perpetually a believer with very few doubts, though William never had a rebellious stage or conversion experience, but rather he lived out his faith from a very early age. Knowing that God had come to dwell with humanity enlivened his ability to relate to all whom he met. His brilliant mind also enabled him to empathize with those from very different backgrounds than his own. “He wrote that in Jesus Christ God took flesh and dwelt among us, and as a consequence ‘the personality of every man and woman is sacred’” (Holy Women, Holy Men 668). This belief permeated throughout all his interactions enabling him to bring people from different political and ecumenical backgrounds together.

As he rose to prominence in the Church of England, moving into higher positions of leadership it seemed inevitable that he would one day be a bishop. Yet, when he was the rector at St. James’s Picadilly, he retired so that he could focus upon helping the laity to achieve more power within the church. For eight months he worked tirelessly to get an Act of Parliament passed so that church members and not politicians made the big decisions in the church. After it was eventually passed, he went back into the church and soon became bishop.

When he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, England was at war with Germany. In a bold act during the summer of 1944 during Operation Overlord, Temple visited the Allied troops fighting in Normandy, being the first Archbishop to “go to battle” since the Middle Ages. He was not one to shy away from getting politically involved and often was able to bring two opposing sides together by summarizing their points better than either side could do on their own. He denounced Nazism as idolatry, but advocated for humane treatment of Germans preaching against vengeance. He was an advocate of negotiated peace, but gained criticism for not condemning carpet bombing in Germany. Archbishop Temple died of complications with gout from which he suffered his entire life, before the conclusion of the war.

In all things Temple was one who lived out of the reality that God came to dwell with humanity. He treated all as if they were Jesus Christ himself. We who celebrate his life today are challenged to do the same. God came to earth and that makes the personality of all sacred. Let us so live that we might see each other as the bearer of Christ’s light in this world.

Luke 20:27-38: A Tricky Question

This coming Sunday's gospel text (Luke 20:27-38) begins with a tricky word problem akin to some sort of religious standardized test (SRT). The Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, come to Jesus with a question about a woman. This is no normal woman, nor is it a normal question. They want to know the afterlife fate of a woman who subsequently marries seven brothers, presumably as they are all dying of natural causes, not being poisoned in their sleep. In this question scenario the woman bears no children and eventually dies herself. "In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?" the Sadducees maliciously ask (cackling with a sinister laugh), then state, "For the seven had married her." In this moment the Sadducees grinning from ear to ear are attempting to pin Jesus down with the traditional teachings of the Faith. In particular the rule that when a wife's husband dies she is to marry the man's brother who will take care of her is being questioned in light of the belief that in the resurrection marital relationships still exist.

Sometimes we make a lot out of the differences between Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Disciples, Apostles, disciples, etc. We have a modern analogy of our Christian denominations and how they differ, but I don't think that comparison works very precisely. Typically, I think when reading the gospel of Luke, I don't want to be like the Pharisee, but often times the Apostles and disciples are not doing any better. Instead of believing that Jesus wanted nothing more than to humiliate the Pharisees, or in this reading the Sadducees, it would be beneficial to see these religious leaders as foils, so subtract the sinister laugh from above and think that through the teachings of these others, Jesus clarified his own powerful message. 

In this Gospel, the Sadducees want Jesus to throw his hands up as soon as he hears this SRT question, but instead he expands the horizons of those asking the question. Immediately in his response Jesus turns the focus from marital relationships ("Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage") to a relationship with God ("those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead"). Jesus explains that in the age to come there are no earthly constraints, like marriage, upon resurrection relationships. For those who may love their spouse and enjoy the relationship of marriage this may be difficult to comprehend. "Why would God not want me to love my spouse forever?" one might ask. My understanding is that even the best relationships here on earth are not grand enough for post-resurrection life! In the resurrection there is no death or pain, so we who live in these mortal frames cannot fully comprehend post-resurrection relationships to make a marital commitment.

The Sadducees who relied upon Moses teaching were keen to use his words to show there was no resurrection, but Jesus turns the great Hebrew leader's words around to teach the Sadducees. Moses speaks of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, which points to their present existence and shows, "He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." This is both a comforting and mystifying ending to the gospel.

As I read Jesus' response to this tricky question, I attempt to standardize it into some sort of post-resurrection system. Yet, I think this is what Jesus was warning the Sadducees not to do. I pretty quickly let my imagination run wild with what is coming on the other side of the grave, and the problem with that is not that I am thinking too big a vision of what is to come, but rather that I cannot possibly imagine something loving and lovely enough. For God is the God not of the dead, but of the living; for him all are alive! God is always with us, even at that difficult moment when we let go of this world and these earthly relationships. 

Luke 18:9-14: We Need to be a Pharisee to be a Tax Collector...

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)
The first day of college orientation I shyly sat with very little hair on my face in a Guerry Auditorium with 366 of classmates. Dean Rob Pearigan, the dean of students at the time, asked us to raise our hands if we thought that we were going to make A’s and B’s during our first year at Sewanee. At least 367 hands shot skyward. For a moment Dean P let us sit there starring around at one another in our arrogance, before he said, “About eighty percent of you are wrong!” A strange sense of worry washed over the auditorium, as we all started grumbling. I believe Dean P was just trying to motivate us. Yet, it felt like a disappointed coach taking the mistakes of last year’s team out on the new recruits. Somehow his words got through to me. 

During the next nine months I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life. I read every page assigned to me, I took all my drafts to the writing center to be marked up so professors wouldn’t make them bleed red ink, and I even spent many Friday and Saturday nights in the library doing work. At the end of those two semesters, I looked back and thought, “I was right to hold up my hand in that auditorium on the first day of orientation.” The confidence I had been building over that first year was reaching a level of inflated ego that teetered on the verge of making me downright cocky. 
As I entered into my sophomore year, I took on a few more commitments. I was running varsity track and cross-country, serving as a sacristan at church, working on the dorm staff, making new friends, and still keeping up my grades. Noticing all that I was doing, my mom rightly felt a sense of parental pride. By the time Christmas Break came my quiet confidence had been melted away by an unhealthy amount of cockiness. So when my mom told me something like, “I am proud of you for all your hard work the last year and a half.” I responded, “I know. I am awesome!” 
While my remark to her was made somewhat sarcastically, she could tell that the naïve dedication of my first year had shifted into a sense of self-righteousness. Cutting through my own puffed up ego my mom looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Yeah, and you are humble too!” When I begin to rely a bit too much on my own ego I remember this story and it seems to be a gentle reminder. 

I am reminded not to avoid working hard, or striving for excellence, or even taking the time to recognize the things that I have done well, but rather this story helps me to recognize that I have a tendency to believe that on my own I have achieved something that makes me right, praise worthy, or awesome. I bet we all have a story from our life where we have thought a little too highly of ourselves. 
Even though I know this tendency that resides within me, I really want to put myself in the place of the lowly tax collector. I want to do this because I know that he, and not the Pharisee, is whom Jesus praises. Much more often I am in the place of this particular Pharisee. I think highly of myself because I follow the “rules” of being a Christian: I pray, I tithe, I give up stuff during Lent, I come to church, I do outreach. Is this not enough? I am doing all the right stuff. However, it is not really about what I do, it is about how I do it. We can see this starkly in the two characters from the parable: 

-The Pharisee is self-righteous; the tax collector is contemptible. 

-The Pharisee thanks God for making him unlike the thieves, rogues, adulterers, and even the tax collector; the tax collector begs God for forgiveness.

-The Pharisee tithes and fasts; the tax collector bows his head and beats his breast.
Based solely on the actions of these two characters the Pharisee is the one apparently doing the admirable things. Tax collectors in those days would take more than their share of their tolls, which would create enmity in his neighbors and separation between them. What I believe Jesus wants us to see is that it is not enough to just do the right action! It’s not about coming to church, it’s not about fasting, and (Evan close your ears) it’s not even about tithing! (Blasphemy in the pulpit during stewardship season!) God does not care about any of these actions. God cares about the intention! 
The sinful tax collector looks in the mirror and sees the wickedness he has committed so he goes up to the temple and standing away from others, he prays. He cannot bring himself to looking up towards God and even averts his eyes from catching anyone else’s in the temple. Beating his breast as a sign of his contrition, he prays a very simple prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” To this miserable one the only thing that will bring relief from the separation and destruction that he has caused is God’s mercy. God’s mercy is more than enough though to overcome the wrongs that the tax collector has committed and he is the one that walks home justified. He is the one that walks home in right relationship with God. He is the righteous one and not the Pharisee. 
Yet before you walk away thinking that I am saying go be like the tax collector, steal money from others, and one day turn back to God seeking his mercy think about what Jesus is saying to us. Neither of these men is complete. Both need God. One, the Pharisee, goes through the motions, while he appears connected he is walking in a spiritual wilderness. He is the one who seems to have it all together (nice car, big house, beautiful family), yet just beneath the surface he is cracking. He has relied upon himself for so long that he has turned himself into a God. God alone is merciful, justifying, and righteous! 
The other, the tax collector, knows he is far away from God and yearns for God’s mercy to overflow in his life, so that he will turn away from a life of swindling others out of money. Only the one who seeks God’s mercy is put in right relationship with God, but after turning from this life of taking advantage of others he needs reminders of God’s mercy. We need reminders of God’s mercy, God’s presence in our lives, God’s abundance in our world. 
This Pharisee is not wrong because he tithes, he is wrong because he does not connect his tithe to gratefulness for all God’s blessings in this life. He believes that what he has done has brought him into right relationship with God. Rather it is by tithing, serving others, fasting… whatever the spiritual discipline… that we are reminded that it is not us who is righteous it is God. 
We do not give money to the church so that we can boast about it or serve the poor so we can guilt others into it or fast just to feel more important than someone else. We practice these so that we can participate more fully in the life of God! To tithe our first fruits is to show our gratitude and our reliance upon God’s abundance. To serve the poor is to connect with the person of Christ Jesus in those who are around us. To fast is to help understand all that God gives us daily. 
When I hear today’s parable I don't want to be the arrogant college student or the Pharisee, I want to be the tax collector, seeking always God’s mercy which never fails. But, to do this I have to practice, like the Pharisee. The challenge is for us to avoid just going through the motions, and instead find practices that continuously draw us into the realization that we everyday we require God’s mercy! 

I am going to end with a prayer inspired by Peter J. Scagnelli’s Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C. Let us pray:

Silence our prayer when our words praise ourselves. Turn your ears from our cry when our hearts judge our neighbor. Raise always up to us spiritual practices that leave on our lips the prayer of the tax collector: “O God, be merciful to us who are sinners.” We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God for ever and ever. Amen. 

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Endnote: Much of this sermon came from a comparison of the parable's characters based on Joel B. Green's The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997, 645).

The Pharisee 
Frame: Some who relied on themselves because they were righteous regarding others with contempt (v. 9)
Scene: Went up to the temple to pray (v. 10)
Position: Pharisee (v. 10-11)
Stance: Standing by himself (v. 11)
Prayed: “God, I thank you I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this toll collector.” (v. 11)
Action: “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” (v. 12)
Result: Unjustified; All who exalt themselves will be humbled (v. 14)

The Toll Collector 

Frame: “Other” regarded with contempt (v. 9)
Scene: Went up to the temple to pray (v. 10)
Position: Toll Collector (v. 10-13)
Stance: Standing far off (v. 13)
Prayed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13) Request for reconciliation made in humility as seen by following actions…
Action: Did not look up to heaven, beat his breast (v. 13)
Result: Justified; All who humble themselves will be exalted (v. 14)

St. James of Jerusalem: You think your family is tough!

Left to Right: My mom (Barbara Sloan), me, and my sister (Elin)

My sister, Elin, and I are very good friends. We talk with each other at least once a week. I am privileged to be the godfather of my niece and was blessed to help baptize my nephews this past summer. We spend a week together each summer as camp directors and another week at the beach. In all of these settings I realize more and more how thankful I am to have my older sister; however, that has not always been the case.

Elin was born eight years before I was, and I am pretty certain that for those eight years she felt like the center of the universe, or at least the center of our family. She was not only the only child to my mom and dad, but she was also the only grandchild of my mom's parents. While I think at first she thought having a little brother was great (I was like a live doll with which she could play), soon she realized that she had to share the time and affection of her family. This did not go well for either of us.

For about ten years Elin and I struggled to figure out how to interact with one another. There were days and weeks when I am sure we were nice to each other. Yet, the bulk of memories with my sister from the first decade of my life are traumatic, like the time when I asked her to tie my shoes and kicked her when she was on my level, or that time that I beat her in bowling and she wouldn't talk with me for several days, and who could forget all those times when she would tell me that she had been tested as a genius when she was my age, and I was not nearly as smart as she was. Those first few years were very difficult for us individually and as siblings. Something happened when she went away to college though. Almost immediately we both felt immense sadness, and our relationship shifted. Since then, we have developed a great friendship realizing all our shared experiences and things in common that we love.

It seems unclear who James of Jerusalem is. Some early Church scholars point to him being the cousin of Jesus of Nazareth. This is what our Catholic sisters and brothers believe. There is apocryphal writings that describe him as a child of Joseph's first wife, which sounds a bit scandalous to me. Our gospel for today though (Matthew 13:54-58), points to James being one of the brothers of Jesus. Regardless of the familial relationship that he shares with Jesus, I have to think that growing up with the Messiah would have been difficult. I can hear the voice of Mary, "Why can't you be more like your brother Jesus?" and Joseph, "You know your brother Jesus was healing lepers by your age?" All joking aside, growing up with Jesus as your actual brother would have been as fascinating as it would have been difficult.

Matthew describes that the people in his hometown synagogue could not believe the deeds of power that he was completing. What about his family? I wonder if they were the ones had the biggest doubts in him. Mary certainly stood by her son throughout his entire earthly ministry, but we hear less about Joseph and his sons. In Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (15:1-11), Jesus first appears to James after the resurrection. Maybe it took something so shocking as overcoming death for Jesus' brother to realize that something special was happening in his brother's ministry. It makes me think that maybe we are missing something that is happening right under our noses. Who am I overlooking? What is happening even in my own family's life that is powerful, life-giving, or restorative?

From the time that James met his resurrected brother until his death, he shared the gospel with an intense passion. Early historians called James "the Just," as he was constantly praying for those in need, coming to help them, and serving as an intermediary between Paul and Peter who did not often occupy the same space. Many came to believe in Jesus through James, who did not cut his hair or oil his body. Although his uncleanliness did not get him into trouble, his evangelism did. When other factions in Jerusalem asked him to stop his preaching they took him to the top of the temple and asked him to preach down for these early Christians to turn away from Jesus. James stood firm in his faith and was thrown from the temple and beaten to death.

I recently spoke with some friends about whether or not the Resurrection of Jesus was real. Among the many reasons I have faith in Christ overcoming death is the witness of James the Just. He went from being a doubting brother who could not believe in his brother's deeds of power to being a leader in the evangelical movement of the early Church. He was willing to die for someone in whom he believed. This strengthens my own faith.

So as we remember James, the brother of Jesus, I wonder what are we missing in our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, our cousins and friends? I bet if we look close enough we will observe some deeds of power. We might just observe a moment of resurrection. We will see the Christ within each other! And for that thanks be to God!

Luke 18:9-14: 2,000 Years Later the Religious Folk Are Still Pharisees

Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV):


Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, `God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, `God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."


In yesterday's sermon on Luke 18:1-8, the Rev. Evan Garner pointed out how even though we are drawn to looking at the red-lettered words (those spoken by Jesus) in certain Bibles, often times we need those black words to help us understand what is going on in a certain text (full sermon text here). Like the parable from last week's gospel, this parable is set up as an instructive message for a certain group of people. Last week it was a parable for disciples who need to pray always and not lose heart, this week Jesus' instruction focuses on those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and regard others with contempt. If I didn't know any better I would think that Jesus was aiming this story at the judge from earlier in Luke 18. Yet, if I leave myself out of those who often thinks of themselves as righteous regarding others with contempt, then I end up being just like this Pharisee, and, perhaps I am not alone in this.


According to this article from Christianity Today, the Barna Group found that 1 in 2 Christians today hold attitudes and act in ways that are characterized by self-righteousness. The president of the research foundation, David Kinnaman, tends to think that because of how many Christians live their lives, others see them in much the same way as Luke portrays the Pharisees. In Kinnaman's words they "do the 'right' thing, but with improper motives." The Barna Group's survey results seem to show that even though Christians love to point to Pharisees as the antithesis of who Jesus wanted his followers to be, we very often act just like them. Perhaps it's not quite hypocrisy, but rather just going through the motions, so that we can be proven right by our "rules" as Christians. So what do we do as followers of Christ?


Jesus ends the above gospel, "All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." The culmination of this parable appears a bit like a dog chasing her own tale (you humble yourself, which might make you feel exalted, which in turn humbles you), yet the words that Jesus leaves us with tends to make me believe that we are called to always start from a place of humility. This means that none of us begins from a position of judgment, power, and self-righteousness, but rather we start with curiosity about our own lives. Where are the places where I have separation between God and me, between my neighbor and me, and even between who I am called to be and where I am now? To observe our own faults, to recognize our own separation (that is sin), and to be inquisitive as to how we turn back is the beginning of a humble walk with God.

The Widow Wins: Luke 18:1-8

This blog post is in response to the Rev. Evan D. Garner's (a long way from home) blog post entitled, "I Don't Get the Unjust Judge", which deals with this coming Sunday's gospel.

The Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson told my Luke class one day that the words “parable” and “parabola” share a root word, which she interpreted to mean that for us to understand the deeper implications of Jesus’ story we have to move. Like the Rev. Evan D. Garner, I do not like the method that Jesus employs in this coming Sunday’s gospel. If I could I would like to just extract a message, something like keep the faith, keep praying, the Son of Man is coming, but to throw away the method Jesus uses is to the throw away a gift from God. While my sinful heart sometimes leads me astray, I believe willfully throwing away God’s gift is problematic at best and at worst leads to a life of sin, vice, and nothingness. So, what are we to do?

As I see it, we cannot just extract the message (keep the faith, keep praying, the Son of Man is coming!), as the characters (the unjust judge and the faithful widow) help to employ that message, and without them we lose a message altogether. We only get a glimpse of the importance of prayer by exploring who these two characters are within the culture of Jesus’ day. The unjust judge, one who would ignore the plight of a widow, certainly “neither feared God, nor had respect for people,” and in fact, ignored also the commandments of God, which were so important to the people of Israel and made them different from the Romans who would just throw beggars to the wolves. In brief, this judge is one unrighteous dude. 

In contrast, our other character, a benevolent widow, is the poster-woman of the Faith. She, along with orphaned children, are the persons that God's chosen people are bound to take care of no matter what. And yet...no one is taking care of her. She cannot even get a judge to rule in her favor. In a society where a judge is not able to rule in favor of an innocent widow who has nothing something is going wrong. Unfortunately, this inequality hits too close to home, as I think of all the unjust ways that the poor and outcast are misrepresented within our judicial system. The bright spot in all of this, is that the widow keeps at it. She stays true to her conviction. She fights the good fight, she fights the system and you know what?… SHE WINS! If that doesn’t get us fired up about our Faith, it’s hard to see something that will.

And, for the last few chapters in Luke, Jesus has been building this whole strange argument about Faith and what it really looks like to be faithful (Luke 15 was about God’s faithfulness, Luke 16 was about the shrewdness of faith and the lessons of Dives and Lazarus, Luke 17 was about being open to the miraculous power of Faith), and this is the culmination of his Faith argument. It's weird for sure, but maybe Jesus is not saying, “Wow, look at this unjust judge, boy our God is just like him,” as he has already shown us clearly what God’s faithfulness looks like (the Good Shepherd, the Seeking Widow, the Accepting Father). Instead, Jesus perhaps says, look at this woman who is so determined in getting what she wants that it consumes her every fiber. Jesus is saying, "This is what I’ve been trying to say about our Faith. It is persistent. So now you be persistent." Now, I am certain that I, Seth Olson, am not God, nor will any of us ever be God, so we cannot strive for becoming a judge, whether just or unjust. Instead, our focus is on what we do have, the power of prayer and the power of Faith. God is faithful to us always, now reciprocate that gift, don’t just throw it away.