A Tempting Identity

“If you are the Son of God…”

“If you bow down and worship me…”

“If you are the Son of God…”

Three temptations.  At their core they challenge  identity – Jesus’ sense of self, his self-understanding, his acceptance of who God proclaimed him to be at his baptism.  And they challenge allegiance – who or what is most important to him.  Put succinctly, the temptations raise two basic questions: Who are you? and Whose are you? 

In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis reminds us the devil is, if nothing else, an opportunist, but it would be a mistake to think this wilderness event is a kind of drive-by temptation; a quick attack and retreat.  The text tells us the Spirit “led” Jesus into the wilderness, “where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”  The verb form used here for to tempt is a present, passive participle, which means the action is ongoing, continuous.  Jesus is being tempted in wilderness throughout the forty days.  At the same time he is being led by the Spirit; the form of to lead is passive, imperfect which also implies continual, ongoing action. 

So as Jesus is being tempted he is being led and as he is being led he is being tempted.  He experiences both simultaneously, as we do.  As we are living into who we are we are being tempted to be someone we are not.  And as we are staying true to whose we are, we are being tempted to belong to something or someone else.

The Presbyterian minister and popular writer Frederick Buechner makes this observation:

After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus.  During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.

So who are you?  It seems like a simple, straightforward question, doesn’t it.  You can answer in any number of different ways.  You can tell me you name, where you are from, and what you do in life.  You can tell me about your parents, siblings, spouse, children, and extended family.  You can show me your driver’s license and give me your Social Security number.  All of these things tell me something about who you are, but they are not what I am asking for.  Who are you – the ‘you’ uniquely created by God to be.  Just as no two snowflakes are the same, neither are any two human beings.  There is only one you. 

Who are you?

  What energizes you?

  What drains you?

  When do you feel most alive?

  When do you feel most loved?

  What do you do that gives you deep satisfaction?

  If you could do anything – anything at all – with the rest of your day, what would you do?

  What was the greatest risk you took in life that led to the deepest payoff?

  When do you feel useful?

  What experiences cultivated in you a sense of self-worth?

  When and how do you experience authentic communion with God?

  How is your life oriented around the reality of God?

These, and questions like these, have answers, but typically not at the ready.  We have to sit with them over time – perhaps forty days – in order for an authentic response to emerge.  It is from what emerges you can begin to answer the question of identity – who am I?

I am looking forward to our Wednesday evenings in Lent as we use a resource called “Growing a Rule of Life”, which was created by the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastic community in Boston.  Typically, most of us are not looking for any more rules to follow than we already have, but monastics use the word rule in a different way.  For them a rule of life is “a plan, discerned over time, to cultivate practices that lead to flourishing of body, mind, and soul.” 

I suspect every person here unknowingly follows some kind of a rule of life.  I suspect you have an established routine you follow over the course of the day.  You get up, make a cup of coffee, and check the internet while eating a piece of chocolate.  You clean up, dress up, and get off to work in much the same way Monday through Friday.  Work has its own established routines, even if there is little about the day you control.  You come home at night, settle down, and settle in in a way that has its own established patterns. 

These patterns (called practices in the monastic tradition) have a way of shaping who and whose we are.  They emerge over time and develop out of our specific context.  For most of us, our practices have come into being unintentionally, not as a result of thoughtful discernment to aid who we want to be.  As a result, the ongoing experience of being tempted looks like drifting along through life in the same old way, never knowing who we are and doing little to live into whose we are.

I have said before how much I appreciated the gift of the conference I attended in November where we were given the time, space, and guidance to discover ourselves again.  I identified many things I already knew about myself and landed on a couple of new insights. 

Here is something I already knew: I am not one for large, social gatherings.  Crowded parties with voices all around me, people standing shoulder to shoulder, moving from one conversation to another, is not my thing.  However, I really enjoy small, intimate gatherings with family and friends.  I recognized that, other than evening meetings at the church, I live largely alone so I set a goal to cultivate intimacy in my life.  Who am I?  I am a person who prefers intimacy to crowds.  I committed to four practices to live into this aspect of who I am:

  Once a week I make a lunch appointment with a clergy colleague, even if I have to drive several hours for it to happen.

  I invite 5-7 people to my house on Friday evenings from 5:00-7:00 PM.

  I set out but have yet to join or create a clergy group for mutual exploration and support.

  I adopted a dog.

These practices form a part of my new rule of life.  They support who I am.  I will want to revisit my rule from time to time to see how I am doing with it.  Have I drifted away from it and, in the process, lost something of who I am?  Are there new practices I can cultivate to lead to a greater flourishing of my body, mind, and soul? 

“Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus.  During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”  Someone once said if you can’t answer the question “who are you?” the world will give you an answer.  The single most difficult, ongoing temptation we face is to define who we are in ways others or the world wants us to be, as opposed to being who God created us to be. 

I was given several tasks to complete prior to going to the conference I attended last fall.  One was to work through a booklet titled Becoming Ourselves Again.  Let me conclude this sermon with the first two sentences in it:

When we get in touch with what truly matters to us, we discover what makes us most alive.

When we find that which rests at our core and gives us life, we rediscover the value God intended in us and for us.

I invite you into the wilderness of Lent to search yourself as Jesus searched himself – to learn who you are and to learn whose you are.

Ashes as We Age

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

We gather tonight to do something with deep, historical roots in our Scriptures and tradition.  In the Book of Esther, when Mordecai learns of the king’s decree to kill all the Jewish people in the Persian Empire he dons a garment woven from a course fabric known as sackcloth and covers himself in ashes.  Both are visible signs of his deep mourning, awareness of mortality, and heartfelt repentance.  After Jonah proclaims God is going to destroy the city of Nineveh, its king and citizens repent with sackcloth and ashes and are spared. 

Jesus, aware of this tradition, told skeptics that if the gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon (located in modern day Lebanon) had witnessed his miracles and heard his message, they would have put on sackcloth and ashes and reformed their ways.  Tertullian, a second century leader in the early church, directed penitents to “live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of ashes.”

By the eighth century, a dying person was placed on a piece of ground covered with sackcloth and then sprinkled with ashes.  As the priest blessed the dying person he said, “Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.” The priest then asked, “Art thou content with sackcloth and ashes in testimony of thy penance before the Lord on the day of judgments?”  The dying person answered, “I am content.”  

We have a copy of a sermon by the Anglo-Saxon priest Aelfric dating to around the year 1,000.  In it he connects this ancient tradition with tonight’s liturgical moment, saying, “Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we skew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.”  And as a warning to those who snubbed his counsel, Aelfric goes on to tell the story of a man who refused to attend Ash Wednesday services and therefore did not receive ashes, who then was killed by a wild boar a few days later.

All of this talk of dust has its beginning in the beginning.  After Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and God finds them hiding, God punishes first the serpent, then the woman, and finally the man.  God’s last words to Adam are these:

“By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread

until you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.”

As we gather tonight we are doing something profoundly counter-cultural.  We enact a ritual born of their wisdom of hundreds of generations before us.  We come together to acknowledge our brokenness, our regret, and our mortality.  And we believe by doing so two things happen.  First, we believe it helps us to amend our lives so that we can be rightly aligned with the realities of our mortal nature.  And second, we believe our actions are pleasing to God.

A boy attends an Ash Wednesday service with his family.  That night, as his mother is putting him to bed, he asks her, “Is it true we are made of dust?” “Yes, darling,” she answers.  “And do we really turn back to dust again when we die?” he inquires.  “That’s right, dear.”  “Well, earlier today I was playing in my room and don’t look now,” he whispers, “cuz I’m not sure if he is coming or going, but someone is under my bed.”  Tonight I am aware of how differently I receive the Ash Wednesday proclamation as I live closer to my dusty ending than my dusty beginning.

In the 1990’s, economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald set out to determine the relationship between work and happiness.  Their international study turned up something quite unexpected: a recurring pattern in every society.  They learned that people in their twenties reported the highest levels of happiness, but satisfaction with life begins a steady decline in the 30s, through the 40s, and into the early 50s.  The lowest levels of happiness bottom out at this point and then steadily increase (on average) as a person moves through the mid and late 50s and into the 60’s.  It may surprise you to learn that people in their 70s report levels of happiness and satisfaction comparable to or better than that experienced by people in their 20s.  These findings, reinforced by subsequent studies, are now described as the U-Shaped Curve of Happiness. 

Think about why this is.  Our whole life lies ahead of us when we are in our 20s.  The world is full of possibilities.  We are young and strong and optimistic and free.  Setbacks are little more than an opportunity to start over, to begin a new and more promising adventure.  We take on responsibilities such as marriage and parenting in our 30’s, which come with both blessings and challenges.  People in their 30s work harder for less pay than at any other time in life.  In our 40s we must manage teenagers, stale marriages, aging parents, declining personal energy, and a sense of being stymied at work.  It is at this point we begin to ask of life “is this all there is?”  It is the age of the classic mid-life crisis.  And it is no coincidence, I think, that George Orwell was 40 when he wrote: “Any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”  He died six years later.

Somewhere in our mid-50’s, with our children either grown or off to college, our marriages either over or re-invigorated, and with an emerging awareness that all our years of work have paved the way for a good life, we look around and realize where we are, what we have, what we do, and who we are with is not so bad after all.  We come to feel everything has worked out OK and we will be fine.

One person, reflecting on this phase, writes:

What really changes as we hit 50?  Perhaps most importantly, our time horizon changes.  I’m not sure when my career will end, but I know I can see it from here.  This means my goals change.  I want to do something significant, but I’m realistic, circumspect, about what that might be.  I cannot pretend the possibilities are infinite; the constraints are obvious, with ‘time’ at the top of the list.

To me, this person sounds like he or she is coming to grips with the realities of brokenness and mortality and is better for it.

From this point forward, well into our 70s and beyond, we become wiser, which is defined as growing in “compassion and empathy, social reasoning and decision making, equanimity, tolerance of divergent values, and comfort with uncertainty and ambiguity.”  All in all, we become more satisfied with life, calmer, and more grateful.  We experience every new day as a blessing.

Reflecting on where he is and who he is in this phase of life, the religion writer Arthur Farnsley II writes:

My definition of “significance” has changed...  I have a clearer sense of what matters to me, of whose opinions matter to me.

Finite time constraints and a clearer sense of values combine to offer the greatest gift of all: an improved ability to live in the present.  At a certain age, you realize that clinging to past mistakes is futile.  Even better, you stop yearning for some ideal future because experience teaches us the ideal is probably not forthcoming.

All of this is to say our experience of the ashes changes as we age.  In our youth it is something most of us most likely received with a healthy dose of denial; believing we can do anything and will live forever.  As we head to the bottom of the U-Curve it is something we experienced with a deep sense of dread because it reinforces the feeling nothing works out as it should.  But moving forward from there, we receive the ashes as a message of life.  Once we stop denying we are broken and mortal, and once we stop fighting it, and once we give up being depressed about it, only when we learn to embrace it do we find we are liberated by it.

As I worked on this sermon yesterday, the women of the Suffolk Garden Club held a lunch in our Parish Hall followed by a 75-slide PowerPoint presentation on succulents (of all things!).  A person in her teens or 20s would have felt she was being held hostage at such an event, texting friends constantly about how she was losing her mind.  A person in her 30s or 40s would try to have a nice time and pay attention, but in this brief, rare, quiet moment, all she really could do is think about the overwhelming demands on her time once she leaves.  But, from the sound of it, those ladies, all 55 and older, were having a grand time doing something that adds only joy and goodness to their day… and they were satisfied. 

Where are you in life and what do the ashes say to you this night?  I hope they speak to you of the limited nature of time.  I hope they motivate you to determine what matters most to you and help you to focus your energies on those things.  I hope the ashes empower you to let go of those things you no longer need to carry on your journey.  I hope they invite you to come before God with your sorrows and regrets; that they witness to God’s deep, unfathomable, unshakeable love for you, and remind you God bids you to let go of the burdens you bring in order to be new and whole again.  And finally, I hope the ashes give you hope that the best is yet to come, not only in this life, but also in the life to come. 

Telling Enchanted Stories

The season of Epiphany always comes to a close with the breathtaking story of the Transfiguration – that moment on a mountaintop when, before the eyes of His closest followers, Jesus’ appearance transforms.  His face changes (we are not told how) and his clothing becomes dazzling white.  As if this was not enough, suddenly there appears with Jesus the two most significant figures from the Hebrew tradition – Moses, the giver of the Law, and Elijah, the founder of the prophetic movement.  Then God becomes present to the group, but, as it often happens in the Scriptures, a cloud masks the Holy One’s Majestic Being so as not to overwhelm the human beings who are present.  And, as if this spiritual cake needed even more frosting, the Transfiguration does not end until the very voice of God is heard proclaiming Jesus as the Son, the Chosen One. 

Wow!  This is a BIG event.  It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Can you imagine being Peter, James, or John?  What would you do with an encounter like this?  Well, according to Luke, the disciples kept silent about what they had heard and told no one about what they had seen… and (as many people have quipped) this makes them prime candidates to lead the Evangelism Committee of just about every congregation in the Episcopal Church!  Our diocesan council speaker asked what you get when you cross an Episcopalian with a Jehovah’s Witness.  The answer: someone who rings your doorbell but has nothing to say!

Why do we struggle so much to tell our stories about God’s presence in our lives?

There is no simple answer: 

· We live in a culture where talk of God or politics does not make for polite conversation.

· Even in settings where ‘God talk’ is acceptable, often times our deepest experiences of the Holy One defy description.  They are so profound, so entirely other, that words fail us.   

· But not all of us.  Think of the ‘evangelists’ you hear on TV, encounter in the workplace, or know from your neighborhood.  We listen to the stories they tell about their faith and often recognize our experience has little in common with theirs.  The ease with which they share their faith and the language they give to it has the effect of silencing us. 

Who tells faith stories similar to our own?  Who speaks a language we can use to share our faith?  For many of us the answer is no one.  It is not that we do not know God, sense God, and experience God.  We simply do not know how to speak about it.  But the world is starving for us to find the words.

In her book The Practicing Congregation, Diana Butler Bass tells the story of man on an evening flight out of Los Angels:

As the plane lifted off the ground, it moved through this noxious layer of particulate, and suddenly, as it rose above the clouds, he and his fellow travelers became aware as if for the first time of a world of translucent beauty, filled with a quarter moon, stars, and distant lightning.  Not until he moved above the smog did he realize how the by-products of our industrial system had closed his whole perception of the world, and that his understanding of his experience was subject to such a degree to the system in which he lived.

Commenting on the story Butler Bass writes, “People want to soar.  They want to see.  They want to find an enchanted world.”  If we know the world to be enchanted with God’s presence then why do we struggle to tell others about what we see when we rise above the smog of everyday life?

I suspect the primary reason we find it difficult to tell our stories is we sense a disconnect between the fantastic narratives of the bible and the experiences of our ordinary our lives.  We believe God acted in those BIG stories, but fail to see how God is involved in the relatively little, common events in our lives.  One of my fundamental convictions is God is just as present in our daily life as God was present in the lives of the people of the bible.  True, it may not be as dramatic, but it is no less real and no less valuable – valuable for us and for those who might hear us speak about it.  It is how we describe what lies beyond the smog of life.  No matter how vanilla the details, it has value because it speaks of a world enchanted with God’s presence.

Last summer, in preparation for next year’s celebration of St. Paul’s 375^th anniversary, I began to read through the last 100 years of Vestry minutes.  Most of our really old records were lost in various Suffolk fires, but the materials we have from this site moving forward are remarkably full and well-organized.  Here are just a few entries to give you a flavor of what they contain:

From the Vestry meeting in December, 1922:

Regularly moved and seconded that the bill of Brothers-Pruden Company, Inc., amounting to $10.50 be deferred, to investigate the balance there on of $1.50 item for the year 1919.

These folks knew how to make every penny count!

From the April meeting in 1925:

Mrs. A.S. Eley requested that she be permitted to replace fans with advertizing thereon with plain fans, free of advertizing, for use in the Church.  On motion, duly seconded, granted, and Mrs. Eley was extended a vote of thanks.

We have always been a people with certain sensibilities and a willingness to do our part to make things right.

To appreciate fully this item from June, 1925, keep in mind that until the 1960’s only men served on the Vestry.  Still, the women of the parish did much the ministry of the church through an organization called The Randolph Society:

“The Randolph Society voted unanimously that it should go on record that a request be made The Vestry to offer the use of the Assembly Room to the Memorial Library Association in order that a public library may be started in Suffolk.  Said library to be opened and continued with proper supervision – the Association to be responsible for the proper care of the Church’s property.”

After discussion of the foregoing resolution, the proposition is, on motion, duly seconded, unanimously rejected by the Vestry deeming it unwise to grant the request.

We have always had a strong connection to the common good of our community, but I am thinking more than one Vestry member slept on a couch that June night in 1925.

One final record I will mention comes from a February, 1931 meeting where the Vestry expresses concern for the rector’s health:

Motion was made… that the Registrar be instructed to advise the Rector, Rev. H.N. Tucker, that is was the entire desire and wish of the vestry that, in his present condition, he not feel that it was necessary and obligation on his part to conduct the weekly Lenten services during Lent.

Rev. Tucker remained in poor health until he retired from St. Paul’s and Vestry minutes reflect the parish’s desire he rest and take days off on a consistent basis.  You care for your priest who cares for you!

Diana Butler Bass suggests congregational stories like these often “recede into the background like familiar wallpaper, taken for granted [and] unexamined.”  A while being nowhere near as dramatic as, say, the Transfiguration, these are for us powerful stories that have shaped who we are and how we practice the faith.  They tell how God has been present with us and how we have interpreted God’s desire for us.  The more intentional we are in telling our stories the more vital we will be as a faith community.  It is our way of telling others about the times when we have seen the enchanted stars.

And while St. Paul’s has a story to tell, so does each one of you.  Protest if you like.  Say to yourself “Not me!”  But the God who is present in your life beckons you to find the words to speak about it… not the words of a fancy-pants evangelist, not the words of your born-again coworker, and not the lofty words of some theologian – your words. 

Can you find your words to speak about your experience of God?  Can you find your words to speak about how God is present in our common life at St. Paul’s?  Please try.  We want to soar.  We want see.  We want to find an enchanted world.  And you have experiences of God that will help us. 

Peter, James, and John did not keep silent forever about what they experienced on that mountain.  Eventually they found the words to describe what took place.  Their story helps us to soar.  It helps us to see Jesus as the Son chosen by God to walk the way of Cross.  It helps us to recognize the world is enchanted with a Holy Being in whose presence we live and move and have our being. 

Thank God the disciples eventually found a way to speak about what happened.  And thank God for every time one of us finds the words to speak about our own experiences of the Holy One.

From Breeding Contempt to Embracing Warts

Do you remember Aesop’s Fable The Fox and the Lion?

When first the Fox saw the Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood.

Next time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by.

The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony.

Written around 600 years before the birth of Jesus, this fable gave rise to the proverb familiarity breeds contempt, wryly amended by Mark Twain to say familiarity breeds contempt – and children.  The fable and proverbs arising from it assert “extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it.”  In other words, we value least what we know best.

Several Boston researchers conducted a series of clinical experiments to determine if there is any truth to this.  In one study they showed a number of folks pictures from a dating site with three descriptive statements about each person.  When the subject showed interest in a particular photo they asked if he/she would like to know more about the person.  Most subjects believed additional learning would lead to greater liking, but the opposite took place.  On average, more information led to less liking.

Listen to this statement from their study paper:

We propose that the relationship between knowledge and liking within individuals is in fact negative: that more information about any one person leads, on average, to less liking for that person.  We further suggest that this relationship is due to the lure of ambiguity. At first acquaintance, individuals read into others what they wish and find evidence of similarity, leading to liking.  Over time, however, as evidence of dissimilarity is uncovered, liking decreases.  In short, the present investigation shows that “less is more” in interpersonal affinity.

Jesus, of course, did not know of this study and there is no way of to know if he knew of Aesop’s fable, but he was most certainly aware of the wisdom behind it.  “No prophet is accepted in his hometown.”  If you had lived with Jesus for thirty years, watched him grow up, skin his knees, go through the awkward teenage years, struggle to master a craft, and do just about everything else any ordinary person does, you too might react adversely to his claim to be the fulfillment of scripture.  To them he was common.  Their familiarity with Jesus breed their contempt for what he claimed to be.

And it seems to go both ways.  Yes, they know Jesus, but Jesus also knows them.  He knows their small town, narrow-minded, provincial ways.  He knows their ideas are uninformed, yet rigid.  He knows they will not receive his message unless he performs some kind of miracle to back up his assertions, but miracles don’t work that way.  They never occur to create faith.  They always emanate from a faith that is already present. 

By citing biblical stories of the widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian, Jesus states unequivocally that his ministry will be offered to strangers and outsiders, to people who do not know him and therefore have no preconceived ideas about him. 

As with anything we read in the bible, it is tempting to divide this one into us verses them.  The ‘them’ would be the people who think they know what Jesus is all about and have dismissed him.   The ‘us’ is us good folks here who have received Jesus’ message and based our lives on it.  But I am aware of the presence of both us and them in me.  There are parts of me that are oh so familiar with Jesus.  I have heard it and seen it so many times that it has become ‘familiar’ – something I have grown cold and callus to over time.  And then there are those parts of me where Jesus and his message is a total stranger; places I have yet to hear the Gospel, but desperately need it.  I suspect the same is true of you.  You, like me, have grown tone deaf to some aspects of discipleship while being totally unaware others.

I think the terminology of the study – similarity, ambiguity, and dissimilarity – is helpful.  The more we see Jesus as being similar to us the more we like him.  This becomes much easier as we foster ambiguity by limiting our knowledge about what Jesus teaches, asks, and demands of us.  Ambiguity keeps dissimilarities to a minimum.  We see dissimilarities not between us and Jesus, but between us and other followers of Jesus who recognize in him what we do not see, do not acknowledge, and do not like.  Mainline churches do not like evangelicals’ passionate, personal commitment to bring Christ into every aspect of their lives.  Evangelicals don’t like how mainline churches focus on social justice.  But the truth is, Jesus does both… and even more.  When we proclaim Jesus as Lord we are saying we cannot reject the ways Jesus is dissimilar from us.  We are saying we must conform ourselves to him.  We must be transformed into his likeness.

Someone once quipped “Familiarity breeds contempt and absence makes the heart grow fonder – just means that when you go away I really miss hating you.”  The fable of the Lion and Fox reminds us being in relationships is challenging.  The more we know a person the more we find not to like.  Our faith tells us why this is: each of us is a fallen, broken human being.  None of us is perfect.  If we are looking for the perfect partner or the perfect friend or the perfect boss or the perfect neighbor or the perfect teacher or the perfect president we will always, always be disappointed. 

In the 17^th century Sir Peter Lely was commissioned to do a portrait of Oliver Cromwell.  Cromwell, knowing that Lely’s style was to create embellished depictions of his subjects, said the artist, “I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it”.  From this emerged the expression “warts and all”. 

Our faith holds Jesus loves us warts and all.  Perhaps this is the greatest dissimilarity between us and him.  Whereas we loath what is not like us in others, Jesus loves all that is unlovely about us.  We are called to be who he is, but it is not something we can achieve on our own. 

Today’s New Testament lesson often is read in the context of a wedding, but was written to a deeply fractured faith community.  In either setting, the qualities of love Paul describes are both a goal for each person and a gift from beyond.  Both work hand-in-hand.  As I set out to love I find God’s Spirit moving in and through me.  As God’s Spirit moves in and through me I determine to embody a love from beyond.  For us, familiarity should not breed contempt, but rather compassion and a Christ-like love.  Liking is something we have little control over.  You either like chocolate chip cookies or you don’t.  But loving is a decision, an action, an attitude.  We choose to love – not in a romantic way, but in a Christ-like way.  How well we do it depends on our commitment and our connection to Christ’s love in our own lives.

Sunday is Our Custom Customers

 

“Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.”

If you are in church on this snowy, icy, cold morning it is your custom to be here!  Art Bunton used to pull me aside after the late service and tell me I needed to preach about the importance of coming to church every week.  “But Art,” I would say, “the only people who will hear me are the people who don’t need me to say it!”  Most likely you are familiar with the phrase “preaching to the choir”.  Well today I want to coin the phrase “Sunday is our Custom Customers.”  You folks are to church services what letter carriers are to delivering the mail… neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will keep you from getting to church within eight minutes give-or-take of when the service begins.

We are learning more about the synagogues Jesus attended.  Because archeologists had never found their ruins, for a long time it was thought the synagogues around the Sea of Galilee were small, simple structures that did not stand the test of time.  It made sense because the rural, poor agrarian communities of the region would not have been able to afford to build something significant and, in fact, did not need to because the Jerusalem Temple was only a week’s walk away.

But just a few years ago a dig uncovered a synagogue from the time of Jesus in the hometown of Mary Magdalene on those shores of the Sea of Galilee.  It was big enough to hold over 200 people and, considering the era and location, was much more opulent than anyone ever expected.  It had a mosaic floor, multi-color frescoes on its walls, chambers for private reading and study, a room to house the scrolls, and a bowl at the entrance for ritual washing.  In the center of the sanctuary, archaeologists unearthed a mysterious stone about the size and shape of a small chest.  Various images were carved on its flat surfaces, including a seven-branched menorah and a chariot of fire, along with symbols associated with the Temple.

Given Luke’s report that Jesus went throughout Galilee preaching and teaching in various synagogues, it is most likely he did so at least once in this very location.  Far from back-water, country rubes, his audience was well-educated and steeped in the Hebrew scriptures.  They knew how to find a particular passage in a specific scroll.  They shared the tasks of reading in public and expounding on the meaning of what was read. 

We can imagine the synagogue functioned much the way our church does.  It was a place to encounter God and to rehearse cherished traditions.  It provided a space to offer prayers of thanksgiving, contrition, and concern.  It was where one went to question and to learn.  It was a communal gathering point to talk about the events day.  No matter where he was, it was Jesus’ custom to attend a synagogue on the Sabbath day.  We Sunday is our Custom Customers understand why.  We get it.

There is no word if synagogues held annual meetings.  Still, they, like we, had to manage budgets, address issues of building maintenance,  line up volunteers, and get word out about births, marriages, burials, and other life events to be celebrated.  In the days prior to his baptism, Jesus no doubt did his part to tend to these mundane tasks.

And while it was his custom to go to synagogue on the Sabbath, the gospels reveal once Jesus began his public ministry his experiences in these houses of worship became more and more contentious.  He heals a person in a synagogue on the Sabbath, forgiving that person’s sins, and this sets off a firestorm.  Today’s reading, with its sermon in his hometown synagogue in front of those who knew him best did not go well either.  Congregants are enraged when Jesus claims to be the fulfillment of prophecy.  They want to throw him off a cliff, but he slips away.

So Jesus increasingly takes his message to the streets, the lakeshores, and the hillsides, while not neglecting to attend synagogue.  His mission is not dependent on his popularity.  Luke tells us Jesus engages his mission because he is filled with the Holy Spirit.  It is the same Spirit you and I receive at baptism; the same Spirit we invite to live in us, to move around us, and to work through us. 

It is my observation that we Sunday is our Custom Customers are Spirit filled/Spirit fueled people.  We show up out of more than habit.  We sense how God has called us, how God has equipped us, and how God has placed us here in Suffolk at St. Paul’s.  It drives who we are, what we do, and how we are in relationship with one another.  Thank you for being a blessing in my life and for blessing so many others in and through this place – as is your custom!

Fetching Water When the Wine has Run Out

The wine had given out and the party was about to come to a premature end. 

In our day and time, weddings typically take place on Saturday afternoon followed by a reception with dinner, drinks, and dancing.  Everything wraps up around 11:00 PM.  The wedding Jesus attended was very different.  The celebration was a community event including more than family and friends extending over several days.  Jesus and his disciples arrive three days after the festivities kick off.  Running out of wine was a huge social faux pas bringing shame to the bridal couple and their families.  And if Jesus is the one who brings life to the world, when he arrives the party is supposed to take off, not fizzle out.

Jesus’ mother, appearing for the first time in John’s gospel, is deeply concerned, but we are not told why.  Is she a relative or merely sensitive to the needs of others?  Whatever her motivation, she approaches her son and makes him aware of the situation.  Jesus, for his part, is confused.  Literally translated, his response in the Greek text says “What to me and you?”  “Why is this our concern?”  His mother then addresses the servants.  A literal translation of the text says something like, “Do whatever he might tell you.”  She has no idea if Jesus will do anything at all and if he chooses to act, she has no clue what his plan might be.

There are six empty containers right there.  They are used to hold water for ritual cleansing.  Every person attending the wedding had drawn water from them and gone through a ceremonial process of washing away sins and impurities.  No one was allowed to be a part of the celebration who did not go through the cleansing.  Jesus gives two instructions.  First, fill up the jars with water.  This is no small task.  Each jar holds enough water to fill up half of a bathtub.  Assuming it had to be drawn by bucket from a well, this process took some time and effort; time that could be better spent addressing the crisis of the wine shortage.

Once the jars are full, Jesus gives his second instruction: “Draw out some water and give it to the master of ceremonies.”  After tasting it, all this person knows is more wine has been found and his only amazement is it is much better than what they were drinking before.  The servants know what happened, and so too do Jesus’ disciples.  John calls it a “sign”, not a “miracle”.  It reveals who Jesus is and his disciples believe because of it. 

Have you ever felt like the wine was running out of your life?  I don’t mean actual wine from a bottle, but that thing which gives you life and joy and purpose and hope?  Have you ever felt like the wine was running out?  Each of us has been there, and most of us more than once.  Some of us are there right now.  Most likely you will be there again somewhere down the road.  Maybe you are bored.  Perhaps life has gotten stale.  You have no energy or enthusiasm to give to the same old same old.  Or maybe the wine has run out because life has bruised you, battered you, and broken you to the core.  You are hurting to the very depths of your being and don’t know where to turn. 

What do you do when the wine runs out?  

If we were Roman Catholics, we might turn to Mary the mother of Jesus and ask her to intercede on our behalf: “Please let you Son know I need some help.”  Mary has never featured prominently in my spirituality though.  Still, in my experience, tending to my spiritual disciplines is absolutely essential when the wine has run out.  Weekly worship and receiving the Eucharist is life-sustaining.  The words of the hymns, the message of hope in the scripture, the insight of a sermon, praying for myself and for others, confession, taking Bread and Wine, giving thanks, interacting with others: it may not be the new wine, but it will see you through until a new wine arrives in your life.

When I am out of wine I nurture other spiritual disciplines in addition to Sunday worship.  I like to use some form of Evening Prayer in my home.  Its prayers for light in the darkness are especially helpful.  The simple act of lighting a candle reminds me of the presence of light in my life.  It proclaims the darkness has not overcome me.  I turn to reading: scripture, classics from our Christian tradition, and poetry have a way of bringing light into my life.  And I welcome opportunities to be with family and friends who bring healing and happiness.

What else can you do when the wine runs out? 

There is a little detail in today’s reading I never noticed before.  The water jars are empty.  For some reason I had always thought there was water already in them and Jesus turned it into wine.  I always thought he took something already there and transformed it.  It would be the equivalent of sitting back when the wine has run out and waiting passively for something to happen to make everything better.  Before the wine could flow at the wedding in Cana the servants had to do something.  They had to fill up the jars with water.  There could be no new wine without it.

The meaning is straight-forward: when the wine runs out of your life, you have to fetch some water.  The challenge is figuring out what the water is.  I remember being in a dark place after my marriage ended in 2002.  I would sit at the dinner table by myself for two or three hours and never move.  After the traumatic death of my daughter’s third hamster in just six months, I realized we needed a more durable pet.  Enter Dipstick, a Jack Russell Terrier puppy who was loving, energetic, and yes, resilient.  Dipstick did a lot of good things for my daughters and me.  My days of sitting at the table in stillness and grief came to a swift end.  Dipstick was all about go! go! go! now! now! now!  Getting a dog was not the only water I fetched, but it was an important way God brought new wine into my life.

I love to share a story Frank Gray, former assisting bishop in the Diocese of Virginia, tells about a church in Indiana he served as rector.  The wine had run out of that lifeless congregation by the time he arrived.  Everything about its worship was deadly dull.  It had no life, no energy, no spirit.  Over time, in Gray’s mind, the single thing that came to embody the miserable state of the congregation was the drab altar flower arrangement put out each week.  It was consistently lack-luster and unimaginative.  Then one day a family brought a child to be baptized.  The grandmother asked if it was possible for her to make a floral arrangement for the altar for the service.  Gray said yes and what she created was spectacular.  The next thing he knew, a group of parishioners wanted to form a floral guild to make arrangements on a weekly basis.  Over time, this one change brought the entire parish to life.  Who would have thought Sunday’s floral arrangements could be the water that would be turned into wine?

Three years ago, when preaching on this text, I introduced you to Richard Wilbur’s poem The Wedding at Cana.  He is a celebrated poet and an Episcopalian.  The poem is a toast for a family wedding:

St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world’s fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.

Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana’s wine.

“What love sees is true; that this world’s fullness is not made but found.  Life hungers to abound and pour its plenty out for such as you.”  Peter James Lee, retired bishop of the Diocese of Virginia once described the season of Epiphany as being a season of ‘signs.’  He said that we see the signs of the kingdom as we live by faith, not before we have faith.  I think Wilbur captures the essence of a faith that allows us to see the signs: believing God has filled this world with abundant goodness, believing grace abounds, believing mercy is real, believing in blessing.  When you have faith in these things you will see signs of them all around you.  Yes, there will be times when the wine runs out of your life, but in those moments you will be open to the possibility of new and better wine entering in. 

Whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

 

A Different Kind of Messiah

Here is a fact you may find interesting: The Ford’s Theater Centre in Washington, DC houses more than 15,000 unique titles of books written about Abraham Lincoln.  One wonders if there is anything new to say about a person after – oh, I don’t know, say – 10,000 books.  Each one of these works will tell you something about Lincoln, to be sure.  In addition, they will tell you something about the author.  But they also say something about the times in which they were written.  Each book attempts to bring Lincoln’s life to bear on circumstances unfolding at the time in which it was written.  

We will be reading from the gospel of Luke throughout this lectionary year, which began in Advent.  We have spent a few weeks with what scholars refer to as “the birth narratives”, but beginning with today’s reading we dive into the heart of Luke’s story.  It is helpful to keep in mind that when he was writing about Jesus’ baptism he was describing a historical event which took place around 27AD, but he is describing it to an audience in approximately 80AD.  So the more we know about that period, the more we will understand how Luke is trying to present Jesus to his target audience.

The first thing to keep in mind is the majority of Luke’s readers had not known Jesus personally.  They never met him or heard him speak.  In fact, some knew very little about Jesus at all.  At best, they might be aware of a small sect who followed him and believed him to be the Messiah.

Now the concept of a messiah is something those readers knew much about.  Several prominent figures before Jesus claimed to be a messiah, and several people after his death laid claim to the title as well.  The most recent messianic figure prior to Luke’s gospel was Menahem ben Judah.  He was the leader of a group of assassins known as the Sicarii.  They were named for the small knife they used.  A Sicarii hid a dagger in the sleeve of his cloak, pulled it out, struck quickly at the target, and faded into the crowd.  There methods gave rise to the phrase “cloak and dagger operation.”

In 66 AD, ben Judah led an assault on the Roman stronghold at Masada and captured its weapons.  He then orchestrated an attack on the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, which met with incredible success.   ben Judah established himself as the ruler of the liberated city, but became such an insufferable tyrant a rival gang of Zealots murdered him. 

After the Roman army laid siege to Jerusalem, an uneasy truce between Zealots and Sadducees erupted into full-scale civil war.  The infighting was so fierce and destructive that the city’s entire food supply was burned.  The Romans breached the city’s defenses in 70AD and destroyed the Temple.  Those who escaped were hunted down and killed, with the final battle ending with the famous siege at Masada in 73AD.  All told, over a million Jews lost their lives. 

These horrific and disastrous events were still fresh in the minds of Luke’s reading audience.  They were still living with the wounds and consequences of this serious military and political miscalculation.  Israel had longed for a messiah and over the years several different people stepped up to claim the role.  Each manifested himself as God’s champion; a revolutionary figure empowered to lead the people in a violent uprising.  And eventually each figure and each revolt was put down, and put down hard. 

Just as our country takes years and even decades to assign blame and hash out lessons learned when our actions don’t succeed, Luke’s reading audience was engaged in an on-going quest to determine what went wrong and how they needed to change.  Luke adds his voice to the national conversation.  He says as clearly as possible, “We need to revisit Jesus of Nazareth, a messianic figure from a half-century ago.”  

What do you think those initial readers thought when they heard John’s words in today’s lesson: “One is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear the threshing floor.  He will the gather the wheat and burn the chaff”?  They must have thought, “Oh, this Jesus is going to be just another Zealot or revolutionary.  All he will do is guide us into another catastrophe.”  But as they continued to read, a very, very different picture began to emerge.  Jesus’ embraces a non-violent approach.  His beef is not so much with Rome as it is with the leadership of his own people.  Yes, he is trying to establish a new kingdom, but it is one not shaped by geographical boundaries or won by military conquest.  It is a kingdom located in every human heart where God’s love is allowed to reign.

So Luke is doing more than giving a historical account of Jesus’ life and teaching.  He is laying out devastating critique of other messianic figures whose violent ways led the people to great harm.  He is proposing a new idea of Messiah, which Jesus embodied through his life, death, and resurrection.

2016 is a presidential election year.  Primaries begin soon.  This summer, both political parties will nominate a candidate.  One thing is sure… the rhetoric is going to heat up as we approach November.  More and more, presidential elections take on messianic overtones.  Each candidate will portray him/herself as a savior able to solve all of our problems and will paint opponents as misguided (and perhaps evil) figures who will lead our country to ruin.  A good number of citizens will buy into this notion and pursue the election as if salvation itself is at stake.

Perhaps it is a good year to work our way through Luke’s gospel much the same way his initial readers did.  Perhaps it will be a good year to measure the words and actions of candidates against the words and actions of Jesus.  By doing this, perhaps we will gain a more clear sense of the kingdom Jesus brings as well as an awareness of the scale and scope of any president’s ability to ‘save’ us from all our troubles and threats. 

Now don’t fear, I am not going to stand in the pulpit week in and week out evaluating the candidates and telling you which one is most like Jesus.  This is not my judgment to make.  It is not a judgment Luke hopes for us to make.  He wants us to take a look around our world, to measure our times, and then take a fresh look at Jesus.  I, for one, am looking forward to meeting Jesus anew and thinking about him in the light of our times.