New Year, New You?

Aslan the Lion un-dragons Eustace Scrubb

A version of this post appeared in the All Saints Parishioner the week of January 12th

Happy New Year! And, Happy New Decade! In the world around us, this means not only celebrations, but also invitations. These invites coming from gyms, financial planners, diet programs, home improvement stores, and many others essentially say: “It’s a new year and a new decade, so it’s time for a new you!” Not to burst your bubble, but I have bad news (I also have good news, so hang with me).

Every year, when marketing experts roll out ads for a new you in the new year, they are relying on a big, little lie we tell ourselves: "I can make myself new." On the surface, this statement sounds appealing. Having a new start is awesome, and we are all about new starts in the Jesus Movement. But, the trouble comes from believing we are the source of accomplishing this newness. Here's the bad news: we aren’t the ones who make life new. There is good news though...

In the crazy, mystical vision that John the Gospel Writer had on the island of Patmos, God spoke about newness. The Almighty One said, “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). This is the good news! For God not only makes us in our individual lives new, but God also makes everything, everywhere new. So, you may be wondering, “We don’t have any part in this?” Well, we do and we don’t. Let me retell a story to help explain.

In C. S. Lewis’ fictional tale, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a character named Eustace became a dragon by watching another dragon die and sleeping “on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart." We might think that being a dragon would be awesome, but several days later, Eustace was miserable. He wanted nothing more than to be made a boy again.

Late one night, a lion met Eustace the dragon, and told him to follow him up a high mountain where there was a giant well. Eustace yearned to plunge into the bubbling waters; however, he couldn't as a dragon. The lion told him he must undress first. What did this mean? Eustace had to shed his skin, like a snake. So Eustace tried as best he could to un-dragon himself by peeling away his scales. After three attempts, he saw in the water’s reflection that he was very much still a dragon.

It was then that the lion told Eustace that he could not shed his skin on his own—the lion had to help. So, Eustace lay on his back, and when the lion’s claws cut through his dragon scales, Eustace thought the lion had gone right to his heart. While it was the most painful thing Eustace had ever experienced, having the scales and skin fall away was the greatest pleasure too. All of a sudden, Eustace was a boy again. Then, the lion grabbed hold of Eustace and threw him into the restoring waters. There he was made new.

This lion’s name, as you may already know, is Aslan, and in this series, he represents Christ. Sadly enough, we are represented by characters like Eustace (perhaps that’s the real, bad news). Try as we might, we can shed layers of our skin, but we cannot un-dragon ourselves. That work of being made new must be done by God. How does this happen?

While none of us will turn into an actual dragon, all of us may become quite beastly and yearn for nothing more than to be made new by becoming our truest selves. Fortunately, we have a loving lion who comes to us. A lion who will tear right to our hearts to transform us into who we truly are.

We find that lion all over the place at All Saints. We see Him in the pews on Sundays and Wednesday mornings. There, we have opportunities to be made new by meeting Christ in the Word and in the prayers, in the songs and in the silence, in the confession and in the absolution, in the peace and in the offertory, in the bread and in the wine. Throughout All Saints, you will find other ways to be made new with, between, and through one another. Whether it is during a Taize service, an Oasis program, or a Sunday School class; going to Cursillo, volunteering to serve, or joining the Church through Episcopal 101, there are many ways that our lion-hearted God is inviting us to the well. 

How will Christ un-dragon you revealing your new, true self this year?

Going Home

This sermon was preached at the Burial of the Dead for Florence Herbet Turpin. The readings which inspired the sermon were the following:
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 14:1-6

It is never good to play favorites. This is sound advice when dealing with children, and I think it’s also true when working in a church. A priest ought not to have preferred parishioners; however, I must confess my friends, for if this is the mark, then I have surely missed it. You see, I always looked forward to visiting Florence Turpin with a secret joy rivaled by few others, and I guess now that is not such a secret. Whew, it feels better to get that off my chest.

Whenever I visited with Flo she wanted me to come over to give her a big hug. The hug was even bigger if I had brought her a beloved chocolate milkshake. These visits were so easy and fun because Dadaw, as she was known by her family, was the consummate host. Even if she was confined to a small room in a nursing facility, her over 30 years providing hospitality in the restaurant industry shined through. Every time it was like she was welcoming me to a newly renovated eatery. Of course, not every one of those visits was chipper.

Over the last few years Florence faced continuing health challenges with surgeries, multiple strokes, and memory loss. On top of these issues, Flo struggled with guilt, was often irritable, and always stubborn. Through it all though, she managed to stay herself. She was always authentically, genuinely, 100% Flo. And, quite often that meant that comedy was the way that she kept going.

Flo was funny. Like when she reflected on where she had learned how to feel guilty about things for far too long. She was long ago a Catholic girl with coke bottle thick glasses growing up on the Mississippi Delta, not exactly the best place to be Catholic or a girl or four-eyed. It was a world that valued so many things that she was not. So, Florence found a way to rise above by joking. She used to compare herself to Sammy Davis Jr. who famously said he had more strikes against him than ought to be allowed as he was "short, maimed, ugly,black, Jewish, gaudy, and uneducated." Florence may not have had as many strikes, but she nonetheless always kept fighting until she got her way.

Even when she was irritable, she found ways to make herself and others crack up. Like the times when she was upset with her neighbors at the Terrace. She would ask, “Why are there so many damn Baptists out here? Where are the Good Episcopalians? These people don’t know how to play Mexican Dominoes the right way... like they do at Riverside.”

And, her habit of stubbornly holding onto her way even when her children, and grandchildren, and other family and friends would try to convince her of another way was both challenging and impressive. One doesn’t run as many restaurants as she did without having the stubbornness of a mule. While she was not trying to be funny, there is something amusing to me about how Flo so willfully held to the belief that the last place she lived was always so much better than the place where she was currently living.

Natchez and the Mississippi Delta was her home for so long. And, the friendships she had there were lifelong bonds. The joy that Howard and her shared with others, especially as they went out to dinner and danced most Fridays nights revealed Flo’s fun-loving nature. But, after Howard’s death when she had to move to Decatur it seemed like she was always looking backwards.

She first lived at Riverside Senior Living, but there she missed Mississippi. Then she had to have some more serious care after some complications, so she moved to the Terrace… where she missed the friends, the food, and the Mexican Dominoes of Riverside. As her memory worsened she had to move to Summerford in Falkville, and there she missed the independence she had at the Terrace. What strikes me is that it’s hard to live life in reverse, always looking backwards. But, Florence missed her home, and towards the end I don’t think it was just her Mississippi home that she longed for.

Over the last few weeks Flo kept saying that she was seeing a man in a suit. No one else ever saw that man in a suit. Finally Dodie asked her who it was. Flo said it was her late husband Howard. Was she just hallucinating? I don’t think so.

I can’t be sure exactly what was happening. It’s hard to understand the Great Mystery that is God’s nature. But, maybe Flo kept seeing Howard because he was waiting for her to come home. Not to a home where she would look back and think it was better back then, but to a place where everything is perfect, like the feast on God’s Mountain in our reading from Isaiah, like in our Psalm walking along protected by the Good Shepherd, like in John’s Revelation when there’s no more hunger or thirst just fulfillment, like in John’s Gospel account when Jesus leads us all to our eternal home, like dancing and dinner down in Natchez on Friday night. That’s the home where Howard was taking Florence.

He was coming back to make sure Flo knew the way to the place where Christ leads us all. And, Flo kept looking past people around her these last few days, as though she was looking to that forever home where we will all one day reside in God’s infinite love. Christ shows us the way, the truth, and the life in how he lived, in how he died, and in how he rose again.

In her guilt and irritability and stubbornness I imagine that Flo, like the rest of us with our own faults, might have struggled with making that walk back home. Howard must have finally convinced her though that if she held out much longer they would have missed their dancing and dinner with all their friends last Friday night in their new eternal home. And, so Flo went home.

As we give Dadaw, Flo, Herb, Florence over to God who has always had her and always will have her, we look ahead to that day when we will all feast together on God’s Holy Mountain. When we will walk more closely with our Good Shepherd. When we will no longer hunger or thirst. When we will be together in God’s eternal home. When we know that we are all God’s favorite. And, there we can again dance and laugh and feast with Flo and all the others who go before us. Welcome home Flo. I know you will like this one the best!

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.