What Do You Seek?

 

John 1:29-42

Epiphany 2 / Year A

John begins his gospel with soaring Christological theology: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…”  And even though the rest of his gospel will focus on the person who is the Word made flesh, most of the first chapter belongs to John the Baptist.  Initially he responds to questions about who he is and why he does what he does – baptize.  Then he gives testimony about what happened when he baptized Jesus.  And finally, he who works rigorously to get his followers to follow Jesus. 

Eventually two of John’s disciples trail behind Jesus.  It is at this point Jesus speaks his first words in this gospel.  He turns to the two and asks them a question, “What do you seek?”

It may seem like a simple question on the surface, but in the bible seeking is deeply significant and central to what we are all about as human beings.  “The one who seeks finds… (Mt 7:8).  “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’  My heart says to you, ‘Your face Lord do I seek (Ps 27:8).  “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is… (Col. 3:1).  “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (Lk 19:10).  

Each of you here this morning and those who are watching this service from your home homes has made a significant investment to be here today.  You have gotten up and gotten dressed.  You have given up a much of your morning.  And like the two disciples following after Jesus, you have gotten his attention.  Imagine he turns to you at this moment and asks, “What do you seek?”   How do you answer?

Perhaps you are here this morning to find some measure of peace.  Maybe you come seeking spiritual nourishment through word and sacrament.  It could be you are here to sing God’s praise.  It is possible you come to gather with friends.  Some of you might be here because you want to be a faithful member of this parish.  What do you seek today?

The two folks following Jesus seem not to be ready for this question, still there two-fold response is very telling.  First, they address Jesus as “Rabbi”.  Even though they were baptized by John as a sign of repentance and even though John identifies Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”, they think of him first and foremost as a teacher.  They will have a lot to learn.

Then they answer his question with a question, “Where are you staying?”  It is not that they lacked overnight accommodations.  They seek to be with Jesus and enthusiastically respond to his invitation, “Come and see.”  And after spending the entire day with him, one of the followers – Andrew – is so impressed he goes and fetches his brother Simon who, apparently, is also a seeker.

Think about the things we say people seek after.  We seek love.  We seek attention.  We seek to be left alone.  We seek fame.  We seek fortune.  We seek knowledge.  We seek understanding.  We seek respect.  We seek recognition.  We seek approval.  We seek adventure.  We seek happiness.  I am convinced every person is seeking something, both in the short term as well as the long term.  In the short term you may be seeking a little bit of rest and relaxation.  In the long term, you may be seeking purpose and direction for your life.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”  St. Augustine famously wrote, “Our hearts our restless until they rest in God.”  Restlessness and seeking seem to go hand-in-hand.  Jesus knows our hearts will be restless until we determine the primary pursuit in our life is a relationship with God in Christ. 

What we need most in our lives is spiritual.  It is a void only God can fill.  It is a hunger only God can feed.  It is a thirst only God can quench.  Now, we can try to meet this need by seeking after any number of different things, but in the end we won’t be satisfied.  I suspect the opposite of restlessness is peace and, according to Jesus, we will find it only through the pursuit of God.  

I have any number of colleagues who came to the ordained ministry as a second career.  Some of them, when telling their story, say there was always something nagging at them but they didn’t know what it was.  Finally, through one means or another, they came to understand their restless was actually God’s call.  Once they discerned this and responded everything in their lives began to fall into place.  Now, I am not saying every person who feels restless should get ordained.  That may not be your call.  Still, God is calling you to something.  Seek after it.

Branding

 

Matthew 3:13-17

Epiphany 1 / Year A

I went to the outlet mall in Williamsburg on Monday, something I seem to do once or twice a year.  Typically, I only go into a handful of stores.  If you pay attention to what I wear you can easily surmise one of them is the Columbia store.  I went hoping to purchase a hat to wear while hiking because I inadvertently left my old cap in a park in Spain.  Don’t ask.  Sadly, they didn’t have the style I was looking for.

They did have lots of t-shirts and sweatshirts with their company logo on them.  Some are relatively discrete; others are large enough potentially to violate local zoning laws for public advertising.  Who would want to pay good money to become a walking billboard?  Columbia is not the only company which pushes its branding so brazenly.  In fact, most do. 

When I was growing up most clothes contained no visible branding.  I can think of only two: Levis had the little red tag on the side of a rear pocket and Izod had a small crocodile on the front of its shirt.  Each made a statement you had spent a little more money for something of higher quality and/or status.

Back in the day logic dictated our purchases.  We made our decisions based on price and features.  We went for toothpaste with a cavity-fighting additive, for sneakers that could make you run faster and jump higher, and for watches that could take a licking and keep on ticking. 

Retail has changed a lot since then largely because companies have figured out something important, namely, we are spiritual creatures who crave meaning and identity.  Branding is all about infusing a product with both.  It is all about communicating and clearly defining what makes a company, product, or experience distinct and memorable from others.

Years ago, Bishop Lee of the Diocese of Virginia told us he had been contacted by Buick because they had learned from a focus group people associated the same positive traits with their car that they associated with an Episcopal bishop.  Buick wanted to know if he would appear in an ad campaign.  After some thought, he declined.

We consumers tend to be loyal to the brands we choose in part because we identify with the product.  Are you PC or Apple?  Starbucks or Duncan Donuts coffee?  Chick-fil-a or McDonalds?  Bud Lite or Stella Artois?  Wal-Mart or Target?  Ruby Tuesdays or Ruth Chris?  It says something about me that I peruse Columbia and Eddie Bauer stores, but walk right past Brooks Brothers, Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic, and Lucky Jeans.

Chris Grindem, on a blogsite about branding, contends every person is spiritual and draws on this aspect of self to make a wide range of life and purchase decisions.  He also contends individual brands have spirituality which, if advanced, can help consumers connect with the product.  We tend to make spiritual decisions quickly and subconsciously, he says, and they are manifested either as a “Yes” to something or as a “No”.  

After my marriage ended I came to a point where I didn’t want to drive a minivan anymore and traded it in for a pick-up truck.  My “No” to one and “Yes to another had little to with the functionality of transportation.  It was based almost entirely on how I felt about myself and where I was in life.  I wanted my car to reflect this and to reinforce it.

If brand identification is a spiritual endeavor, how do you know when it has crossed over into idolatry; “I cannot be who I am without X”?

The Christian faith tells us the meaning of our lives and our identities are grounded and rooted in our baptisms.  We rise from the water claimed and named as God’s child.  Like Jesus, we are called “Beloved.”  Like Jesus, with us God is pleased.  If asked “Who are you?”, our deepest and most appropriate response should be, “I am beloved and God is pleased with me.”  When all of the products we have purchased have lost their value to us or worn away, God’s love for us will endure beyond all else.

At each baptism I use the chrism oil to trace the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead and say, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  This liturgical act is a type of branding and although it cannot be seen with the human eye after the fact, it should be the brand we wear most obvious to everyone we know and meet. 

The writer Evelyn Underhill observed how we humans spend most of our lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do.  Our existence, she says, is caught up in craving, clutching, and fussing about things material, political, social, emotional, intellectual and even spiritual.  We are kept, she says, in a state perpetual unrest.  Underhill writes, “None of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that being, not wanting, having, and doing, is the essence of the spiritual life.”

Underhill is on to something deceptively simple but greatly profound about our identity in God’s eyes: It is not what we want, what we have, or what we do that defines us.  It is who we are and who we are is defined first, foremost, and always by God.  We are God’s children, beloved, and pleasing.  Hearing this, accepting this, and learning this – what Underhill calls “being” – is at the heart of the spiritual life. 

After pondering all of this for a week, I have come to conclude I am not called to wag my finger at brand loyalty.  It is a part of who we are and how we live and move and have our being.  I will caution it can morph into excess.  Some people actually become evangelists for a particular brand; what the bible calls idolatry.  What I am called to lift up is an awareness of our baptismal identity and its meaning for our lives.  You are beloved.  You are pleasing to God.  You are marked.  And you are sealed.

 

The Holy Name

 

The Feast of the Holy Name

In the Church year today is not New Year’s Day.  It isn’t even the first Sunday after Christmas.  Today is the Feast of the Holy Name.  On the eighth day after their son’s birth, Mary and Joseph take their baby to the Temple to be circumcised and to be named, as is proscribed by biblical law.  And, following the direction each received from an angel, they give their son the name Jesus, which means salvation. 

In a month, on February 2^nd, the church will celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord.  Again, the family, following biblical law, will take baby Jesus to the Temple and present him to God because he is their first-born son.  They will redeem their child by making a required offering – in their case two doves; the offering of those too poor to afford a more lavish sacrifice such as a lamb.

From these stories, along with the story of the family making a pilgrimage to the Temple for a holy festival, we learn Mary and Joseph are devout, faithful adherents to teachings and traditions of their faith.  Today we would call them a church-going family.  No doubt they have a regular place to sit in the local synagogue where they can be found without fail every Saturday.

Names in the bible – both for people and for places – are not arbitrary.  They are chosen for a purpose and participate in some aspect of the person’s story or the place’s history.  Remember how, after wrestling all night with an angel, Jacob’s name, which means ‘supplanter’ (he takes his brother’s birthright), is changed to Israel, which means ‘one who has striven with God and prevailed’.

In our day and age, names typically don’t reflect on one’s personality or life story, but they do have a way of becoming a part of who we are.  And like Jesus, most of us have some kind of story about how we got our name.  Before I was born, my parents decided to name a boy after their fathers, so I was all set to be called Jesse William Emerson.  But for some reason, when my mother gave birth to twins, they decided to name us Karen and Keith. 

The name Keith is of Scottish origin and means “woodland forest” – not very descriptive of who I am.  It was the 39^th most popular name for a boy the year I was born and there 11,749 other Keiths born in 1959.  In 2022, the name Keith did not make it on to a list of the 100 most popular boys names, which inexplicably contains such names as Waylon, Luca, and Mateo.

Caroline Maria Noel was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman who began writing poetry at the age of 17, but then dropped the habit after a few years.  She took it up again later in life when a crippling illness left her bedridden.  At first she kept her work to herself for private enjoyment, but eventually had them published.  Her best known work is now one of the church’s most popular hymns:

At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
every tongue confess him King of glory now;

‘tis the Father’s pleasure we should call him Lord,
who from the beginning was the mighty Word.

At his voice creation sprang at once to sight:
all the angel faces, all the hosts of light,

thrones and dominations, stars upon their way,
all the heavenly orders in their great array.

Humbled for a season, to receive a name
from the lips of sinners, unto whom he came;

faithfully he bore it spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious when from death he passed;

bore it up triumphant, with its human light,
through all ranks of creatures, to the central height,

to the throne of Godhead, to the Father’s breast,
filled it with the glory of that perfect rest.

In your hearts enthrone him; there let him subdue
all that is not holy, all that is not true.

Look to him, your Savior, in temptations’ hour;
let his will enfold you in its light and power.

Christians, this Lord Jesus shall return again,
with his Father’s glory o’er the earth to reign;

for all wreaths of empire meet upon his brow,
and our hearts confess him King of glory now.

The other hymn which comes to mind this morning was written by Bill and Gloria Gaither and has been recorded by countless artists:

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
There is something about that name.

Master.  Savior.  Jesus.
Like the fragrance after the rain.

Jesus.  Jesus.  Jesus.
Let all heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms shall all pass away
But there’s something about that name.

Well, while the rest of the world celebrates the advent of a new year, we celebrate that the one sent from God to be the savior of the has a name.  Jesus.

The Light of Christmas

 

Christmas Eve

Episcopal seminarians are required to spend a summer serving as a hospital chaplain.  I did this at St. Elizabeth’s, a massive mental health campus in Washington DC, housing and treating literally thousands of patients.  In my ten weeks there I saw more suffering, loneliness, and despair than I had in my first 25 years of life. 

But I also experienced firsthand something of the unquenchable spirit of the human soul.  I remember sitting with two elderly ladies who were participating in an art therapy program.  They were painting, such has their abilities allowed.  One lady created a dark, wintery landscape with something resembling a house at the center of the canvass.  It had a stone-cold appearance, as if no one had lived there for decades. 

The other woman surveyed the bleak scene and pondered.  After a few moments, she dipped her brush in some yellow paint, leaned over, and with a quick stroke put a tiny light in one of the windows of that desolate looking house.  That one golden dot transformed the entire painting into a vision of hospitality and warmth.  It was a breath-taking statement.  I instantly thought of Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote, “It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.”

It also provides a colorful image for a verse from Isaiah we heard just moments ago:

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

    those who lived in a land of deep darkness--

    on them light has shined.

Tonight we celebrate God loves us enough to send light into the darkness of our lives and times.  Through the gift of the babe born in Bethlehem the entire canvas of our world has been transformed.

When she preached at the community prayer service held in Chesapeake after the Wal-Mart shootings, Bishop Susan talked about dark times.  And then, as we all held lighted candles, she said our presence in the church on Thanksgiving eve was an act of light protesting the darkness of the moment.  And she noted darkness loses its power when even a single light is present.  It is a theme she shared again in her Christmas message to the diocese.

The Gospel writer John proclaims this:

What has come into being in Christ was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

This past Wednesday, on the shortest day of the year, several of us gathered in worship to acknowledged the darkness in our lives and in our world.  But we did more than name it in all its crushing manifestations, we lit candles as symbols of hope and resilience – resilience in that, through God’s grace, the darkness has not overcome us and hope for a day when all our hurts will be healed and our losses will be restored. 

After we receive communion this evening we will return to a tradition we haven’t experienced since the beginning of the pandemic.  We will light candles and sing Silent Night.  Just as God’s only begotten Son brought light into the world, so too our lighting begins with a single flame.  The light only grows as it is received by each one of you and then passed on to another, just as God’s love must be received and passed on if we are going to dispel the darkness of this world. 

I’ve told you before how during a particularly dark period in my life I prayed each day for daily bread – a single moment in the day to remind me there is light in the world and in my life.  And every day I found it, most likely because I was so desperately looking for it and expecting it.  I remember vividly one day’s bread.  I was standing in line at a grocery store (which, in my experience can be a very spiritual place if you are not in a hurry).  A mother was unloading her cart while her small child sat in its seat facing toward me.  The boy looked up at me, smiled, and waved.  I smiled and waved back.  For whatever reason I was heartened.  It was so nice to be noticed.  Why is it twenty years later I remember this exchange and still find it to be one of the most powerful experiences in my life?  Moments of daily bread may not be dramatic, but they are filling.  They transform our day just as the tiny dot of yellow transformed the painting of the dreary house.

Most artwork depicting the Nativity shares something in common.  The light on the faces of those gathered around the manager emanates from where the baby Jesus lays.  He is the source of light in the dark stable…. just as he is the source of light in our lives and in our world.  It is this light we celebrate tonight.  It is this light for which we give thanks.  And it is this light we are called to share.

The Voice of Angels

 

Matthew 1:18-25

Advent 4 / Year A

“We belong to two worlds,” writes Kate Farrell.  “The invisible, hard-to-know eternal one we come from and the noisy, obvious, temporal one all around us.”  Countless numbers of the world’s poems, myths, teachings, and traditions hint at our dual reality.  Take Plato, for example.  He made sense of our nature by saying we first live in the eternal world but then leave it behind when we drink from the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, prior to being born.  But it is not total forgetfulness, he says, and thus we see human beings from all cultures and conditions and ages trying to find the first world while living in the second.

In the Bible’s story of creation found in the second chapter of Genesis we are told God forms a human out of the dust of the earth, but this person only becomes a living being when God breaths into him the breath of life.  In a theological sense, then, we are dust and breath, physical and spiritual, temporal and eternal, of this world and of another realm, of the earth and of God. 

To be fully alive, fully human, means learning to cultivate both aspects of our nature; learning to embrace both the dust and the breath.  And more than embrace them, learning how to integrate them; to hold both as distinct and complementary parts of our lives.  For many of us, the breath is what we do on Sunday morning – it is church – and the dust is what we do the rest of the week – we work, we go about the business of managing a home, we shop or sail or talk on the phone.  If asked how we connect the two, many might say the breath helps us to be better people, to live moral lives, and to remember God as we live in the world of dust.  And this is not a bad place to start the work of integration, but there is more… much more than this.

In this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew we hear again the story of Jesus’ birth.  Luke’s Gospel tells the story from Mary’s perspective, while Matthew focuses on Joseph’s side of the drama.  Joseph is for us a model of dust and breath, of living both in the temporal realm and the eternal.  We are told he is engaged to be married when he learns his fiancée is pregnant.  The text tells us he is a ‘righteous man,’ an apt description of dust and breath.  The way he integrates the two leads him not to anger, vengeance, or wrath toward Mary, as we might expect, but to a concern for her dignity and welfare.  Thus, he plans to end the engagement quietly. 

At this point the text takes a startling turn.  Joseph falls asleep and begins to dream.  In it, an angel appears to him and reveals to Joseph his fiancée is to bear God’s child, the Savior.  Joseph awakes and the rest of the story, as they say, is history.  He will dream again, learning the child is in danger and so he takes his family and flees to Egypt.  There, after a time, Joseph will dream again and understand it is safe to return. 

If the task of becoming fully human is the task of deepening integration between dust and breath, then Joseph gives us much to ponder.  More than being a ‘good person,’ he hears the voice of angels, discerns the meaning, and acts decisively in accordance with what he perceives.  There is something in Joseph which allows him to bridge the forgetfulness Plato described.  What do you think it is?  I don’t know I can describe it for you, but this I do believe… whatever it is, it is not unique to Joseph.  It is there for each one of us.  Maybe more important than describing the thing Joseph has is searching for it within our own soul, accepting it, and embracing it.

In his poem Evening, the German writer Rainer Maria Rilke pens this wonderful thought:

your life is sometimes a stone in you,

   sometimes a star.

There are times when we sense our life is a stone, temporal, nothing but dust; and there are times, usually brief and fleeting, when we know ourselves to be a star, eternal, wild with the breath of God animating everything about us.

Creativity seems to be one way to ascend as a star.  Writers, artists, musicians, poets, and actors seem to be able to lay hold of the eternal in a way we uncreative types struggle to find.  More and more I find I find the breath of life within me as accept it is already there.  I spent this week pondering when angels speak to me.  I have come to realize the forgetfulness wanes and breath flows and the star rises and the voices speak when I write, when I walk, when I am in the shower (there is something about water, like at baptism, which opens us to God’s Spirit), when I read, when I garden, and when I can sit in church and worship.

And, I recognize angels try to speak to me when I dream.  I remember one vivid dream from some time ago.  I was in the basement of the house where I grew up (and my childhood home is a setting for many of my dreams).  This particular time it felt deep and foreboding.  As I tried to climb the stairs out of the basement the first tread gave way.  The minister from my youth was in the basement, silently watching as I repaired steps.  I woke from my dream with a sense my near future was going to test me and be challenging.  Basements are dark and difficult places.  The way out of the pit I was about to experience would not be easy, but my dream reminded me I know how to fix the stairs.  All those people from my past who have invested so much in me had prepared me for the work ahead.  I carried this dream with me throughout a turbulent season in life.  Without it, I might have been overwhelmed.  With it, I managed to find breath in the midst of dust.

Think about today’s reading.  Isn’t it amazing to realize God’s entire plan of salvation rests on one person paying attention to a dream!  You and I… we are no different from Joseph.  There is a mystery at work in our lives; a mystery from before the world began.  It is the rising star beckoning to us as the stone sinks, it is the eternal reaching out to us in the temporal world, it is the breath giving life to the dust.  When do you hear the voices of angels? 

 

Should I Keep Looking?

 

Matthew 11:2-11

Advent 3 / Year A

Have you ever felt let down by God?  Have you ever been that low, that discouraged, that disappointed?  I suspect most of us can look back on a time when we wondered what God was doing in our life.  If so, today’s gospel reading is for you. 

John the Baptist is in prison for speaking out against King Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife.  He is a political prisoner.  God had called him to prepare the way for the Messiah and when he met Jesus he believed he had found the person he was expecting.  Do you remember from last week’s lesson how John described what the Messiah would do?  He was going to be an ax-chopping, winnowing fork swinging, flamethrower who would do all the dirty work necessary to make God’s world right again. 

Now in prison and surely suspecting his life is in danger, he gets word from his followers about what Jesus is actually up to.  While John expected an action hero, Jesus, it turns out, has little children sit on his lap and tells cute stories about looking for a lost lamb.  And so John sends a question to Jesus: “Are you who I thought you were, or should I keep looking?”  Can you hear how disappointed he is?

There are times when disappointment is a very appropriate response, like when someone gives you his word but doesn’t follow through.  Still, most disappointment is rooted in unrealistic expectations.  I once served a parish with cavernous worship space, easily seating 450 people.  Sunday after Sunday it swallowed the 75 folks who attended.  As Christmas Eve drew near I got more and more excited about the possibility of having a “packed house.”  By chance, I went back through the registry of services and discovered the typical size of the congregation on Christmas Eve was around 120 – better than Sundays to be sure, but nowhere near what I envisioned.  I was disappointed to be sure, but at least my expectations became more closely aligned with reality.

It is also easy to be disappointed when you are not in a good place in life.  John is in prison and you can be sure this contributes mightily to his discouragement.  For you, it may be a health crisis or financial hardship or problems at work or a souring relationship or any of a host of other challenges.  Just as it is more difficult to be cheerful on overcast day than when the sun is shining and the sky is blue, it is more likely you will feel discouraged when something important in life is not going right.

So John is in a difficult place and his unrealistic expectations are not being met.  He sends word to Jesus, “Are you the one or should I keep looking?”

Notice how Jesus responds.  He quotes the prophet Isaiah:

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” 

In so doing, he says, “I am the one you were looking for, but your expectations about what I am going to do are way off.”  The bible does not report John’s response, but I trust his eyes opened to a new possibility he had not envisioned before.

Do you know the difference between Santa Claus and Jesus?  Well, when you send Santa a list of the all the things you want for Christmas, he sets his elves to work and tries his best to give you everything you want.  That is Santa’s job – to give you what you want.  But not Jesus.  Jesus is all about giving you want you need, even if you don’t want it.  And sometimes, getting what you need and not what you want will leave you discouraged and disappointed.    

We have a word to describe a child who always gets everything he or she wants – spoiled.  And we have words to describe a child who receives everything he or she needs – mature and well adjusted. 

All of this is to say, when you feel discouraged and let down – especially by God – do these three things:

· Take stock of what is happening in your life.  Is there a hardship or struggle making this particular challenge more difficult to endure?

· Articulate your expectations.  What did you think was going to happen?  In what ways might you have set yourself up for a fall?

· Ponder what actually happened.  What blessings might be obscured because you were hoping for something else?

All of this a way of saying pray about it.  Even though John’s question to Jesus is rooted in disillusionment, Jesus receives it and responds warmly and honestly.  You and I can count on nothing less.  

The Job of a Prophet

 

Matthew 3:1-12

Advent 2 / Year A

Welcome to St. Paul’s on this Second Sunday of Advent.  You may be interested to know on this Sunday in 1962, St. Paul’s had three regular services: 8:00 Eucharist, 9:30 Morning Prayer, and 11:00 Morning Prayer.  You also may be interested to know total attendance on that Sunday 60 years ago was 199 Christian souls.  Today, we will have somewhere in the area of 25% of that congregation.  Some things change…

…and some don’t.  That Sunday, as today, the faithful encounter John the Baptist and the prophets.  This morning’s collect hints at what their ministry is all about.  They preach repentance and call us to prepare the way for our salvation.  Prophets like John have a two-fold task.  First, he is required to speak the truth.  And second, he called to point the way. 

Speaking the truth.  Here is a truth on my mind today.  The Christian Church is in serious decline in our country – across the board.  We are catching up to what has been happening in Europe for a long time.  A report this week indicates less than 50% of the people in England now identify as Christian.  Over a third state they have no religious affiliation, and their numbers are growing.  It isn’t much better on this side of the Atlantic.

Stephen Bullivant, a 38-year-old British sociologist, has written a new book titled “Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America.”  The opposite of a convert, a nonvert is a person raised in a religious tradition who walks away from it.  Up until the early 90’s, about 7% of our country had no religious affiliation.  This percentage has grown steadily and dramatically over the last three decades.  Today over one in three people state ‘None’ when asked about church membership.  Bullivant has some theories about what is driving this change.

Noting this trend began in the early 90’s, he sees this movement has a backlash against the rise of the Religious Right in American politics and life.  He notes before the end of the Cold War, our greatest fear was godless Communism.  People with doubts tended to keep them to themselves.  Soon after Communism fell, our biggest fear transitioned from godless people to people with too much religion, both at home and abroad.

The internet also has contributed to the decline of religious involvement.  Bullivant notes it has allowed like-minded people from all over the world to connect and share ideas.  So, even if you live in a deeply religious community, you can find others who share your doubts and grievances about the faith.  

A final factor Bullivant identifies is what he calls the herd mentality.  We tend to do what our neighbors do, so as more people stop going to church, more people will opt out with them.  Add to this we are still in the backwash of the pandemic and have yet to be able to access its impact on religious communities and organizations, but so far it looks bleak.

My own family reflects what is happening in American life.  My grandparents and my parents (and their siblings) were staunch Presbyterians.  I grew up in an era when churches gave out medals to youngsters for perfect attendance in Sunday School (more of us received this yearly reward than did not).  My sisters and I are each active in a church, but none of us are Presbyterians.  We each raised our children in a church, but none, now adults, participate in organized religion.  None of my sisters’ grandchildren have been baptized and most likely will not grow up being raised in a religious community.  I suspect most of us here, if we traced our family’s religious history, would have a similar story. 

Some people have stepped away from institutional religion because they disagree with a controversial stance taken by a denomination.  Individual congregations have lost members as a result of poor leadership or misconduct.  But if Bullivant is correct, the most significant factors driving the explosion of nonverts are cultural forces beyond our control.  Are there things we as a congregation or as a denomination we need to repent?  Of course.  But the reasons why today’s attendance pales to what it was in 1962 lie primarily outside our walls. 

The prophetic truth I speak is painful and deeply concerning to all of us who value a connection to the Holy One fed primarily through a church like ours, but allow me to take up the other prophetic mantle – pointing the way.  What in the world are we supposed to do to swim against the furious current of our culture’s trend toward anti-religious engagement?

Well, perhaps Stephen Bullivant gives us a clue through his own personal story.  He never went to a church as a child, but managed to meet some Dominicans when he was in college.  He developed friendships with some and they invited him to join them for dinner at their abbey.  There was one catch, he had to attend a mass before the meal.  Because the food was good, the wine was plentiful, and the conversation was interesting, Sunday evening worship became a regular feature of his week.  He grew to enjoy the service as he became more comfortable with it and was moved by its rhythms and cadences.  He was impressed by the people he met because they were bright and kind and lived out what they believed in a way which was life-giving and never critical.  After some time, his friends encouraged Stephen to be baptized, and he consented.  Now married, he and his wife are raising their four children in the church.

The way forward in these lean times, it seems to me, is to be who we are and to do what we do as a people seeking to be faithful to God, caring of one another, and connected to our community.  We are a welcoming place.  Perhaps we could do more to invite people to join us for worship or an event or to be a part of an outreach effort.  But there is something fundamentally good and holy and beautiful about our parish – something people hunger for even if the culture doesn’t encourage them to find it in a faith community.

I suspect none of us here this morning will be here on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2082, maybe one or two of our children.  I don’t know if here will even be here.  But I have confidence St. Paul’s, Suffolk will endure in some form or fashion and those things which matter most to us will be evident on that day… by and through the grace of God and our faithfulness in our own day.