What did You Expect to See?

The Third Sunday of Advent / Year A
Matthew 11:2-11

Not only do my favorite comedians make me laugh, they help me to see the world from a different angle.  Steven Wright, whose humor is drier than an overcooked side of bacon, contends “Everywhere is within walking distance if you have enough time.”  Another comedian surmised the sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy for everyone on board except the lobsters in its kitchen.  And   George Carlin, famous for his off-the-wall observations, declared, “Some people see the glass half full, others see it half empty, but I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.”  It is all about perspective, isn’t it!

Here is something I have learned from the pilgrimages I have undertaken in Spain, Scotland, and the Holy Land.  You go on a pilgrimage (or any journey for that matter) with an itinerary – where you will go, when you will be there, where you will stay, what you will see and do.  You go with an itinerary, but you come back with a perspective, often new and deeply formative. 

You never go on a pilgrimage projecting what your new perspective will be.  God, working in and through the experience, determines what it will be for you.  And what I have gained from a pilgrimage has never been exactly the same as what any other person travelling with me gained.  And yet we are bound together by being together, by walking with one another while something uniquely personal is happening to each one of us.

I am grateful for how each pilgrimage I have been on, like every experience I have had, has enriched my life.  Steve Job, the brilliant founder of Apple Computers, recognized how these experiences enhance a person’s world, and, conversely, how their lack depletes it.  Listen to what he said:

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences.  So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.  The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

While there is value in every new experience, it is not necessarily guaranteed a pilgrim will emerge from any one them with new insight or perspective on life.  Like T.S. Eliot noted in The Four Quartets, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.”  Sometimes, perhaps most times, discerning meaning takes time and effort.  It may only emerge way down the road and in concert with additional experiences.  Other times, the meaning is apparent, but appropriating it is a slow and arduous process.

I hear all of this in today’s Gospel reading as Jesus poses to the crowd a question about John the Baptist and his ministry: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?”  He is not asking about their itinerary.  He is not asking specifically about what happened when they encountered John.  He is not asking about their expectations.  He wants to know how it affected them.  What happened to you when you went out into the wilderness?  What did it mean to you then?  What does it mean to you now?  How are you different?  How have you been changed by what happened?  How have you resisted what the moment brought to you?  You had the experience.  Did you get the meaning?

You can’t open a dictionary or search the internet or turn to the Catechism to find answers to these questions because they are intensely personal.  What unites fellow pilgrims is not a shared outcome, but being together with one another throughout the journey and supporting one another throughout the process of discovery and transformation. 

These are good Advent questions and good questions for each of us to ponder as we worship with Heaven and Nature singing.  What did you come here expecting to see?  If you want to, you can get a notepad and make a list of everything we have added to our worship space.  If you are talented, you can sketch it.  But we all recognize there is a huge difference between the inventory of what is new and the meaning it has and holds for each one of us.  What is happening to you as a result of what we are doing in our Advent worship?

Last Sunday evening our Youth Group members were excited to show their friends our worship space.  And we had a really interesting discussion about what we have done, why we have done it, and what each of us might add to it.  We tried to talk about what it means to each of us, but the answers to this question proved more elusive.  I suspect the same is true for us adults.  By all accounts we are enjoining the experience, but the meaning is still percolating… and this is OK. 

I continue to pray God will use this space and time to form and shape each one of us.  I am grateful for the experience, and look forward to having a deeper sense of its meaning.

What is Lost or Left Behind?

The Second Sunday of Advent - Year A
Matthew 3:1-12

Before the Liturgical year gives us a babe in swaddling clothes, it gives us a peculiar loner in the wilderness.  Perhaps no greater difference between the Church’s sense of time and the culture’s “holiday season” is found than here.  While the culture bombards us with the promise of happiness through material gifts, the church gives us John the Baptist and his warning of a coming judgment of fire.  While our culture portrays how a variety of products will produce the perfect expression of love, John insults people by calling them a “brood of vipers.”  While the culture implores us to live it up at this time of the year, the Baptist demands we repent.  No wonder so few want to celebrate (or maybe it is more accurate to say ‘observe’) Advent.

The text tells us John appears in the wilderness and tells us the odd (but memorable) details about what he wears (clothes made from camel hair) and eats (locus and wild honey).  His is a lean lifestyle to be sure and leanness is the opposite of what many of us will be experiencing over the course of the next few weeks.  What might John’s lifestyle say to us at this time of the year?  How might it be an Advent call pointing the way for a joyful Christmas celebration?

If you were not around in the 1970’s the name Euell Gibbons may not ring a bell, but for those of us who were it is sure to elicit a smile or chuckle.  Gibbons seemed to spend much of his life trying to figure out want he wanted to do with it.  Through it all he developed a passion for foraging wild food sources.  He became a best-selling author of several cookbooks that encouraged people to use natural ingredients such as rose pedals and dandelion roots in their recipes.  Gibbons’ fame skyrocketed when he starred in a commercial for Grape Nuts cereal, famously asking, “Ever eat a pine tree?” “Many of its parts are edible,” he told viewers.  Gibbons put eating naturally on the map while at the same time becoming the source of many parodies, often laughing at himself as good-natured humor was poked at him and his eccentric eating habits.

Euell Gibbons stood out because he was different.  At a time when TV dinners were all the rage, he reminded us of our roots in eating roots off the land.  While the march of progress has much to say for it, some valuable things have been pushed aside and forgotten.  In a world moving steadily and happily toward processed foods, Gibbons reminded people other and older alternatives still exist.

John the Baptist was a similar figure.  He did not dress like everyone else and he certainly did not eat like everyone else.  Living in the wilderness, as he did, by definition is an alternative life-style.  He eschewed the halls of powers and societal institutions framing much of life in his day and charted his own course.  He held a deep conviction that the more immersed a person becomes in all these trappings the less able he or she will be to discern God’s presence in the world.

John called on people to repent; a word literally meaning to turn around, to do a 180 in order to return to your roots.  And he initiated people into this movement through an act involving one of nature’s most basic elements: baptism by immersion in the waters of the River Jordon.  When I visited the site where many hold John’s ministry unfolded, what stays with me is how cool and refreshing the water felt.  The Jordon Valley is hot and dry.  The only green in it grows by being connected to the water of the river.  Wading into it and going under was wonderfully restorative, physically at first, but then spiritually as well. 

I am sure it spoke to those John baptized and reminded them of their need to get back to basics, to return to those things that are necessary, but over time have been forgotten or ignored.  The more immersed a person becomes in the trappings of this life the less able he or she will be to discern God’s presence in the world.

I like that our Advent liturgy is built on a very simple premise: God created all things to join in a harmonious song of praise.  It invites us to ask several questions:  What is this song and when do I join in it?  When am I silent?  Why do I so often sing a different song?  And the Advent question: How do I get back to singing with Heaven and Nature?  How to I rejoin this harmony?  And finally, the Christmas Question: How will this help me to discern God’s presence in the world?

Advent invites us to shut off the cultural noise surrounding us.  It is intended to be a lean time affording us the opportunity to return to what we have lost or left behind.  As we do these things, it promises we are better positioned to discern God’s presence in our world and in our life.  I don’t advice you to wear clothes made of camel hair nor do I counsel you to eat bugs or pine trees, but I do ask where you will begin.  What will be your first step into Advent?

The Song of the Creator's Praise

The First Sunday of Advent - Year A
Matthew 24:36-44

 

When I was a student at Virginia Theological Seminary we were required to take two units in homiletics (a fancy word for preaching), each a semester long.  Individual classes met once a week, lasted three hours, and consisted of three different student sermons and discussion about them.  The classes were held in an old and mostly drab, deconsecrated chapel on campus.  High up on the front wall of the old chapel, above where the altar had been, there was a clear, round window about eight feet in diameter.  It afforded the only glimpse of the outside world. 

Windows in worship spaces are intended to transform light by taking the ordinary and making it sacred.  In churches such as ours, exterior light passes through stained glass to tell the ancient story through word and image.  In spaces with clear windows, such as that old chapel, the effect is transform how the outside world looks from the inside.  They allow the worshipper to see the world through the eyes of the faith.

An old, large oak tree grew beside the chapel.  From an inside, sitting position, the human eye, looking through the window, was not able to take in the whole tree, much less the entire landscape.  The circular view framed one the high-up limbs.  All that could be seen was a portion of the limb, a few of the branches stemming from it, the leaves on those branches, and the sky.  Still, during many of those preaching classes, the view through the window was the most interesting thing going on!

The window’s limited perspective did something fascinating.  Far from restricting what a person can see of the world, its forced focus enhanced and deepened what was visible through it.  On one day all in the window might be still, while on another the leaves fluttered in a gentle breeze.  With the advent of fall the color of the leaves began to turn and then, in time, the foliage thinned out and eventually was gone.  The bareness gave way to budding in the spring, which in time became new, green blooms.  The sky itself was never the same – clear blue or filled with billowing clouds or overcast or rainy or dotted with flakes of snow.  It was like a painting, except it was alive, dynamic, and ever-changing.

The original designer of the chapel did not install the window to distract daydreamers such as me, but rather, to invite the worshipper to look out on the world with the eyes of faith; to see the world as our faith holds it to be – a wonderful creation of God every bit as splendid as the man and the woman fashioned from the dust of the earth.  The window beckons the worshipper, upon leaving the chapel, to live and move and have one’s being in a world now held to be sacred and holy.

The readings for the First Sunday of Advent implore us to wake up and keep watch for our Lord’s coming.  Jesus famously describes a time two men will be working in the field and two women working at a mill.  One man and one woman will be taken away while the other two will be left behind.  It is an image providing fuel for much of the rapture theology that holds Jesus will call the faithful up into the sky while the unfaithful will be left behind to fight it out in some kind of hellish existence.  It is a literal notion based on strikingly bad biblical interpretation.  Jesus states clearly the days to come will be like the days of Noah when a few were saved while others were swept away by the flood.  Thus, as Jesus tells his story, it is the ones who are left behind who are saved while the ones who taken away are lost.

Rapture theology – with its left behind vision of apocalyptic doom – has had the effect in some circles of creating a callous and careless disregard for the role and fate of God’s Creation.  What difference does it make what happens to the environment when God is going to save the ‘good’ people from it?  Combine this with a heightened sense of entitlement stemming from God’s command to Adam to have dominion over Creation and you get a misguided theological underpinning supporting indifferent to ecological disaster.

The force of Scripture asserts the earth is the Lord’s.  It asserts God’s concern for the care and well being of every living creature.  And it asserts there is a song of Praise sung by Heaven and by Nature. 

I am so pleased with everyone’s willingness to do something different during our Advent worship and I am curious to see where it will take us.  I look forward to seeing what you might add to our visual chorus of Nature in this space.  I am interested to see how our liturgy will wear after a few weeks (will it break in like a pair of comfortable shoes or wear thin).  Most of all, I wonder how this entire experience will be like gazing through that chapel window; an experience allowing us to look on Creation through the eyes of faith.  I wonder what it will be like for us to wake up and sing again with Heaven and Nature the song of the Creator’s praise.

All Things Restored

In her day Ruth might have been called a “sour puss” or perhaps a “gloomy Gus.”  She was one of many elderly shut-ins at a previous parish where I served and I just called her Ruth.  She was taxing, to say the least, and visiting her was exhausting.  Our monthly conversation was always monologue; a prolonged, detailed, graphic litany of ills, anguishes, and perceived slights (I heard enough from her about goiters to last me a lifetime).  Her ancient stories of injustices were so well rehearsed I could almost repeat them verbatim as she spoke.  She droned of her exaggerated health problems; the only skeleton structure supporting her personality, near as I could tell.  And no matter how long I stayed, it was never long enough.  “Do you have to leave so soon,” she would say after an hour of rambling on about her afflictions.  “But you just got here!” she lamented as the sun sank low in the afternoon sky.  I always left feeling deflated, disheartened, and inadequate.

One day I learned Ruth had fallen and broken her hip.  She had been taken to a hospital 60 miles away and then transferred to a remote nursing home some distance beyond that.  I carved time in my schedule so I could get away and made the lengthy trip to call on her.  Given how miserable she had been when she suffered just from perceived illnesses, I was apprehension about how I would find her now that she was truly incapacitated. 

I walked into her drab, sparse room and to my surprise found Ruth to be in near beatific joy.  In spite of the pain, in spite of the nursing home environment, and in spite of the changes her injury would surly mandate to her lifestyle, Ruth was upbeat, even glowing.  She told me her long-estranged daughter was coming from Florida to be with her.  And she told me her daughter and her daughter’s live-in boyfriend (an arrangement of which she disapproved in the past) insisted she move to Florida to live with them as soon as she was able to travel.  Ruth had been estranged from her daughter for years and over the course of that time they never spoke, much less visited.  But in a matter of days it was all going to change and the restoration of the mother/daughter relationship completely transformed Ruth’s countenance and personality.  It is a miracle and a healing so stunning I have never forgotten it. 

Today is the last Sunday of the season of Pentecost, the last Sunday in the Church year.  Known as Christ the King Sunday, its theme is found in the Collect of the Day: “Almighty God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son...”  The reign of Christ and the work of the Kingdom are all about restoration.  It is the work of mending the torn fabric of our society, our relationships, and our lives. 

In the end, at the last, we believe this work will be finally and firmly accomplished.  But the Spirit, moving and active in our lives, stirs in us with a prodding suggestion: “Why wait until the end?  Why not begin the process of restoration now?  Why not experience the life of God’s Kingdom in this life by allowing the healing work of restoration to begin?”

The gospel reading points to this possibility.  Scholars note Luke’s narrative of the Crucifixion differs from other gospel accounts in that it portrays Christ as reigning victoriously while on the Cross.  Luke does not record the words of Jesus, “Abba, Father, why have you forsaken me?” because he wants to convey even the Cross could not rupture the communion they enjoyed with one another.  In Luke’s gospel Jesus reigns as he forgives his persecutors because they do not know what they are doing.  And in Luke’s gospel we learn of the conversation between the other two men crucified alongside him.  Notice Jesus does not condemn the one mocking him, rather his focus is on the possibility of restoration with the one we refer to as ‘the penitent thief.’  “Today,” Jesus says to him, “You will be with me in Paradise.” 

Not even the agony and the shame and the pain of the Cross are able to keep Jesus from doing the Kingdom work of restoration.  In fact, in his darkest hour we find our clearest glimpse of God’s nature.  We see the core disposition of God’s Kingdom.  It is a place where all things are restored in Christ.  Because Jesus is able to lift up this work even as he is lifted up on the Cross we learn the work of the Kingdom is stronger than the bitterest brokenness we have experienced and the worst we are capable of doing.  We learn the power of the Spirit to bring about restoration is more compelling than all the pain and injury we create or suffer.  And because Christ is able to continue this work on Cross, we who live by faith see in this moment not a human being nailed to a plank of wood, but a Lord and Savior reigning from a throne.

It is popular (but mistaken) to believe the Old Testament paints of picture of a God who is judgmental and consumed with wrath.  We live into this notion by imagining God is constantly looking over our shoulder (as it were), wrathful at our every wrong thought, action, and motive.  Today’s Old Testament reading from Jeremiah gives us a very different portrait of God to ponder.  Jeremiah states clearly bad shepherds (and here he is referring both to religious and to political leaders) have scattered the people.  Their actions have led to Israel’s fall to the Babylonians and subsequent exile. 

Now if Jeremiah believes God is a God of judgment you might expect him to wax eloquent on how the people get exactly what they have coming to them; to connect the terrible events of the day to some communal sin or short-coming.  You know what I mean, a kind of statement that might say, “We got what we deserved because we __________.”  You can fill in the blank. 

But Jeremiah does not even address question of why this misfortune came about.  He moves right to what God will do in response to the people’s brokenness,

“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where they have been driven, and I will bring them back to their fold.  And they will be fruitful and multiply.  And I will raise up shepherds who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing,” says the Lord.

The prophet gives us a vision of God who works not to judge, not to condemn, but rather to restore all things.

Restoration is something so desperately needed in our time.  I don’t need to tell you there is a tremendous civic and cultural divide in our country.  What does it look like for America to a have a sense of unity and common purpose?  How can such a thing be restored?  I don’t have an answer beyond a hope it is God’s intention for this to happen, so it falls to each one of us as people of faith to move toward what God seeks to do.  We do this through our prayers, by the transformation of our attitudes, and with a change in our actions.

I once had lunch with a colleague who talked of officiating at the burial of a small child.  The parents, he told me, have not come back into the church.  They report all they can see when they enter the worship space is the tiny casket of their dear child.  What does restoration look like for these grieving parents?  My friend says to them, “That image stays with me too.   But when I am in the church I also see an image of the time you two were married.  And I see an image of the time when we baptized your child.  And I see an image of the time when your child was in the Christmas pageant.  And I remember this place as being more than a sanctuary of pain.  It was also a place of great joy and celebration and thanksgiving.”  Obviously no mere words will turn the heart of a grieving parent and my friend realizes it may be lifetime before some sense of restoration occurs, but our faith holds and hopes God is working to restore all things… even, and especially, the broken hearts of grieving parents.

So we come to this last Sunday in the Church year and are reminded God seeks to mend the torn fabric of our community, our relationships, and our lives.  As I ponder the brokenness in my life I come face to face with the realization either I can join God in this work or I can resist it.  What does it mean, in practical terms, to join God in the work of restoring those things broken in my life?  What strength and healing do I need to find before I am ready to allow God’s work in such a way?  These questions are far too personal for me to elaborate on in a sermon (and probably the answers are far too boring for you to hear), but they are real for me and I realize again the preacher’s challenge: It is one thing for me to do the work of writing a sermon while it is another thing for me to allow a sermon to work on me.

I invite you to walk for a while with a couple of Kingdom questions:  What is broken in your life?  Where is God working to bring about restoration?  How might you join in this work in order to make our future hope a present reality?  The great irony of Ruth’s life is that she had to fall and break her hip before the real brokenness of her life could be mended.  A thief had to be crucified next to Jesus before he found Paradise.  Two grieving parents still struggle to find what God wills and works for them.  What is broken in your life and how can you join in God’s work to bring about restoration?

Life is Incredibly Tenacious

A couple of summers ago I vacationed in the Pacific Northwest (an area of the country I had yet to visit) and it was a wonderful experience.  Initially I had not planned to visit Mt. St. Helen’s, but did so on the advice of a friend and I will be ever grateful for this travel tip.  It was a beautiful, clear day providing an expansive view of the mountain so dramatically changed on May 18, 1980 by a lateral blast of hot ash and debris that killed 57 people and in an instance wiped out nearly 230 square miles of forests, rivers, and lakes.  Thousands of miles of roads, highways, and railroad tracks were destroyed and numerous bridges washed away.  The explosion created a horseshoe crater nearly two miles across and lowered the mountain’s elevation by over 1,300 feet.  It remains the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in our country’s history. 

The Mt. St. Helen’s eruption transformed the landscape, blowing away, washing away, and burying in ash over 20 feet deep a remarkably large area.  After a flyover tour of the region some days later, then president Jimmy Carter remarked, “Someone said this area looked like a moonscape, but the moon looks more like a golf course compared to what’s up there.”  His initial impression, like that of most experts, suggested nothing could survive the devastation – no vegetation, no wildlife, nothing – and it was unimaginable how life could ever return to the region, at least in our lifetime.

But just weeks after the eruption and once it was safe to explore, the first scientists on the ground were startled by what they discovered.  Insects had already begun making a home out of fallen trees, pockets made by gophers digging for food were evident, and even some aquatic life had managed to survive.  Within a year, various kinds of moss and fauna took hold and began to lay a foundation for habitat recovery.  The speed of all of this stunned experts and novices alike. 

Twenty-seven years later, as I surveyed the scene from the Johnson Ridge Observatory (the park facility named a scientist monitoring the mountain from this location when it erupted and whose body was never recovered), new life was everywhere.  Vast tracts of pine forest cover the region.  These areas received a jump start thanks to the work of the Forest Administration.  But huge swaths of land have been allowed to recover on their own by “letting nature take its course.”  And what nature is doing is remarkable.  The signs of destruction still abound (most notably in decomposing fallen tree trunks as well as the crater itself), but a new and complete ecosystem is now in place.  Life is ample and everywhere, something unimmanageable to all after the initial devastation.   Summing up what he learned from this, Don Zobel, a scientist from Oregon State, said, “Our expectation should be that life is incredibly tenacious.”

As we near the end of the season of Pentecost and another liturgical year, our assigned readings from the Lectionary begin to pick up of the theme of last things.  They anticipate the end of life and the hope of a life to come.  They speak of old things being made new.  There is in these readings a suggestion God is at work in the world as a life-giving force.  They suggest God has infused all reality with a principle of renewal.  It is a principle not always evident at first, often requiring the faithful to live with a faith that “God causes all things to work toward the good” (Rom. 8:28).  Still, this principle of life and renewal has the first word, the last word, and permeates every word in between.

Consider this morning’s first reading from the Old Testament prophet Haggai.  Lumped in with other works tagged as “minor prophets”, Haggai’s ministry of speaking God’s word covers only a few years in and around 520 B.C.  He encourages God’s people to do something they have put off for almost two decades – rebuild the destroyed Jerusalem Temple upon returning to the ruined city from exile.  Once work begins a general despair takes root because all involved sense the appearance of the new Temple will pale in comparison to the glory of the previous one.  They fear what will be will not be as grand as what was.  It is a fear to which we can relate.

Cultural observers note for the first time in our country’s history we now live in a period when the majority of people fret the quality of life for the next generation will be lower than what it has been in the past.  While this is a new dynamic in our national psyche, Haggai reminds us it certainly is not a new phenomenon in the history of our world.  He spoke God’s word to a people anguishing over what awaits beyond the horizon.

At last Thursday’s meeting of the Worship Committee we did our annual ritual of lamenting the demise of the Christmas Eve Midnight Service.  We all want it to be the way it was – the church packed with people, the worship space illuminated by the flickering of candles, a robust choir leading the carols, countless children with stars in their eyes sitting in silent motionless so as not to cause a disruption, a gentle snow falling as the faithful file out the doors after receiving communion exactly at the stroke of midnight, horse drawn sleighs at the ready to whisk worshippers back to their cabins heated by a coal burning stove and decked out with hung stockings each containing an orange and new scarf.  Well, maybe I went back too far, but you get the idea.  We long for the past – a past we can no longer have and, truth be told, perhaps never was. 

Haggai speaks two words from God to the people.  First, “No matter what may change, my spirit abides among you; do not fear.”  And second, “Someday, the splendor of the Temple you are building will exceed what had been here before,” a promise which is debatable if this ever actually happened (how does one measure such a thing).  But the first word rings true.  Much may change.  Things may not appear to be as grand or as significant or as sure as they once were, but God’s spirit is still with us.  Our expectation should be that God’s life-giving Spirit is incredibly tenacious.

Paul’s two letters to the Christians in Thessalonica deal with last things.  They reveal the early Church’s thinking as it evolves from an initial notion Jesus will return soon – any day, so don’t be caught asleep –to pondering its mission as the months and years wear on to grappling with the fate of those who die in the faith while awaiting the Lord’s return.  In Paul’s final communication with this church he writes the day of the Lord is already here, but accompanying it are all kinds of temptations, trials, and ways to turn off the path.  This word, true then, still holds true in our time.  God is here and with us, and life can be a challenge.  “Stand firm” and “hold fast” writes Paul, “and may God comfort your hearts and strengthen you for every good work.”  Have faith, because God’s life-giving Spirit is incredibly tenacious.

It is easy to get side-tracked by today’s Gospel reading; focusing on what it says about marriage when its real force and thrust is about resurrection.  There are two main groups of religious leaders in Jesus day – the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  The Pharisees rub elbows with the average Joe and extend their ministry into rural locations and villages.  The Sadducees gravitate to the elite and often restrict their work to the Temple and upper echelons of society.  Not surprisingly, the two groups hold to different theological perspectives.  Most notably, Pharisees believe in the possibility of life after death while Sadducees do not and, as we see in today’s reading, have no problem mocking those who do.  Jesus states as clearly as possible what his own death will soon reveal – God is the God of the living.  The tenacity of God’s life-giving Spirit is stronger than death itself. 

Ultimately, this is what impressed me during my visit to Mt. St. Helen’s.  The power of death and destruction is ferocious beyond imagining.  It is strong, to be sure.  But life is more tenacious than we realize because God is the God of life and has made it so.  We hold to this faith and hope in ways universal and in ways personal.  We pray for the resurrection of all those we love but see no longer while we hope through God’s Spirit that things which have grown old in our life are being made new even as God moves all things toward their perfection.  The theory of entropy holds all matter and energy in the universe is moving toward an inert state unless it is being acted upon by an external force.  We of the Christian faith hold the tenacious, life-giving Spirit of God works in and through all things, infusing all reality with a principle of life and renewal.  We see it in our world and pray for it in our lives.   

Prayer as a Stream of Living Grace

In a culture obsessed with body image you will not be surprised by the content of this prayer offered by a person depressed by the effects of middle age:

Now I lay me

down to sleep.

I pray the Lord

my shape to keep.

Please no wrinkles.

Please no bags.

And please lift my backside

before it sags.

Please no age spots.

Please no gray.

And as for my belly,

please take it away.

Please keep me healthy.

Please keep me young.

And thank you, dear Lord,

for all that you’ve done.  Amen.

The heart has only a few windows through which one can glimpse a person’s soul – the true and unfiltered self.  Prayer is one of these portals.  The content of a person’s prayers conveys much about who he or she is “on the inside.”

That a lawyer got down on her knees to pray every night before going to bed might surprise you.  The beginning of her prayer may not: 

To all Parties Concerned: This message contains confidential and/or legally privileged information.  Unintended recipients may not use, copy, or disclose any portion of this transmission.

The content of a person’s prayer is a window into his or her soul. 

This morning we hear another one of Jesus’ parables.  This one is a story about two people who are praying in the temple.  “Standing by himself”, one thanks God he is not like other people: “thieves, rogues, adulterers” and especially the other person praying at the time – a tax collector.  The tax collector, in his prayer, begs for God for mercy, knowing he deserves anything but.  The content of each prayer reveals much about the status of each person’s soul.  One is marked by self-pride and contemptuousness and the other by honest self-assessment and remorse.

I grew up in a church tradition valuing “prayer from the heart” – unprepared words emanating from a place of personal depth rather than a rote and repetitive reciting of ritualistic prayers.  We all know how liturgy can become a dry exercise of merely going through the motions, but prayers from the heart are not without their pitfalls.  I sat through many a service where the “spontaneous” prayers of the people offered by various church leaders sounded an awful lot like the headlines of the morning paper:

God, we just thank you for today’s sunny weather.  And we know we should remember the family who lost their house to a fire.  And we are worried about the war in Southeast Asia, but grateful the cost of a gallon of gasoline has declined in recent weeks.  And we know we should care more about people starving in Africa.  And we just pray that our kids won’t join a cult.

Shallow and disengaged souls offer shallow and disengaged prayers.  Then there is this… the Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen.

And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

And if it was, it’s not a big deal.

And if it is, it’s not my fault.

And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

And if I did, you deserve it.

Do you see my point?  Prayers from the heart are a reflection of the heart praying them and they tend to reinforce the heart’s nature, for good and for ill.

On a hike in Ohio this past week I paused for a moment to enjoy the sights and sounds of a small trickle of a stream as it made its way through a deep ravine and cascaded over a series of thin shale ledges.  The ravine was carved out by the water over time, removing obstacles in its path by its incessant movement toward lower ground.  I noted one place where the water fell only about a foot or two from a ledge to a flat rock surface below.  The water has smoothed out a shallow, bowl-like basin in the shale on which it falls.  At the edge of this rock it has worn out a V-shaped notch allowing the water in the basin to fall on to a lower level.  Completely natural, it struck me as more beautiful than any fountain feature I could imagine.

Liturgical prayer, in my experience, works like this on the heart.  It carves out and cleans what should not be there.  It makes a place receptive to all the goodness God intends.  If prayers offered from the heart are a window into the heart, then liturgical prayer is a stream of living grace flowing over and through the heart, ever creating a new and more godly space.

I may struggle to forgive, but there is something about saying the Lord’s Prayer on a daily basis that keeps it as a goal toward which I strive.  If I prayed from the heart, most likely I would say, “Help me to be nicer and more accepting of those who annoy me” but my perception of the people around me is being changed and shaped by these words from a collect for giving thanks for the Social Order: “Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us” (BCP p. 840).  The way I confront the presence of death is informed by the words of the burial rite: “Even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”   Over time, the liturgical prayers I offer are shaping who I am becoming.  What prayers have been shaping who you are becoming?

How might the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable have benefited from attending a Rite I Eucharist every Sunday and hearing these words?

And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses.

When Thomas Cranmer put together the first English prayer book (introduced in1549) he began with a foundational belief if people recited week after week the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Nicene Creed in their native tongue then most likely they would do the right thing most of the time.  Many Episcopal Churches built on this by having the three written out on large tablets, which were displayed in a prominent place in the worship space.  Our historic tablets in the chapel, carried with us to this site from our 1846 building, are an example of this.

People wonder if prayer changes the world.  Sometimes it is difficult to see to be sure.  Theologians debate if prayer changes God.  There are a few examples in the bible of God’s mind being changed by a person’s petitions, but it raises a host theological questions.  But this much I know with certainty: your prayers can change you. 

On Friday evening the AA group that meets in our church celebrated their 50^th anniversary.  The parish hall with filled to overflowing and the food rivaled our best potluck dinners!  I was truly honored to be asked to say a few words and offer a blessing and I can tell you the group deeply appreciates the hospitality our parish extends to them.  I was very touched at the beginning of the meeting when the group recited from memory the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; 
enjoying one moment at a time; 

accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 
taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,

not as I would have it; 

trusting that God will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will; 

that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him

forever in the next.  Amen.

This invitation to God to work miracles in your life sustains millions of people every day.  It counters the worst in a person’s heart by naming the best God has to offer.  And every day living into this best is a victory for those who offer the prayer.

Yes, spontaneous, extemporary prayer has its place.  The heart that knows God ought to be able to speak to God anytime, anywhere, about anything.  But liturgical prayer has a way of strengthening the heart, of stretching the heart, of challenging the heart, and changing the heart in a way nothing else can.  It is a stream of living grace flowing over and through the heart, ever creating a new and more godly space.

Sensing Healing as He Went

This morning’s healing story from the Gospel of Luke stands apart from others in at least two ways.  The first relates to when the healing occurs and the second relates to the story’s focus on what transpires afterward. 

How and when it occurs.  Jesus instructs a group of ten lepers to go and show themselves to the priests.  This directive, taken from Old Testament code, requires a leper to be inspected by a priest in order to be certified as clean – free of a horrible, painful, disfiguring, and isolating disease.  That the lepers leave Jesus and set out to find the priests indicates they must have some level of faith something will happen.

When you have been knocked down or when you don’t know what to do about a certain situation or when you are grieving the loss of someone or something dear, there is something to be said for standing up and simply putting one foot in front of the other.  Sure, sometimes a friend or family member enters into your hurting world, takes you by the hand, and walks with you until you can walk on your own again.  But most often most of life’s hurts and challenges are overcome by doing whatever it takes to move forward. 

Jesus tells the lepers to go and so they go.  Are they hopeful?  Joyful?  Expectant?  Merely going through motions?  The text does not say.  What it does say is telling: “As they went, they were made clean.”  They aren’t healed in Jesus’ presence.  It isn’t by his touch or as a result of his verbal command.  How it happens we do not know. 

When it happens we do.  It happens as they went.  And, in fact, the text tells us the lepers at first do not even realize it has happened.  It states one of the ten, “when he saw that he was healed,” praises God and returns to Jesus to thank him.  The leper is healed as he goes on his way – as he puts one foot in front of the other – and initially is unaware anything about his condition has changed.

I was in pretty bad shape when my marriage ended in 2002.  I went through a long, dark, and difficult period and I am not sure I can say when exactly it abated and became more manageable.  But I have a clear memory of a conversation with a parishioner a year down the road.  She called to tell me her marriage was ending and as I listened to her I knew exactly where she was and what she was going through.  She was in an awful place and in the midst of an awful time.  I knew it because I had been there myself.  But as I listened I realized I was not there any longer.  I had moved on from the initial place of loss and was making my way toward God’s new beginning.  I wasn’t there yet, but for the first time I had a sense I was making progress.  I was moving forward and, while I did not detect its slow, persistent process, healing was taking place as I went. 

This experience stays with me even today and explains in part why I warm so favorably to the image of the Christian life being like a path we walk.  As your pastor I try to encourage you as a fellow pilgrim; as one who can tell you the path, even though challenging at times, is well marked.  And I can remind you that you never walk along.  As you put your whole trust in Christ’s grace and love you find Jesus is with you as your guide – as someone who shows us the way.

So the first part of the story focuses our attention on the process of healing – that it happened “as they went”.  The second part (and the part with the most force in the narrative) focuses our attention on the aftermath – one (and only one) of the ten lepers turns back to thank Jesus.  For his part Jesus is puzzled.  “Were not ten made clean?  Where are the other nine?”  We wonder with Jesus what their story is.  Surely they are overjoyed.  Surely they are grateful.  So how can we account for their less than hearty response?  Let me suggest three possibilities: perhaps they were literalists, or oblivious, or just plain clueless. 

Literalists.  Why didn’t they return?  Because Jesus told them to show themselves to the priests.  In fact, if you want to be technical, the one who does not follow Jesus’ instruction is the one who returns.  The literalist’s go-to excuse in a situation like this is, “I did exactly what you told me to do” and it makes us want to bang our heads against a wall.  Literalists treat life as if it requires only that you check the box, but never actually engage it.  They do what they are obligated to do, but for Jesus it is not enough merely to do your duty.  Your actions must emanate from your heart.

Perhaps the nine are oblivious to their healing.  The text tells us the one who returns does so only after he sees he has been healed.  Perhaps the other nine never notice something has changed.  Think about how life channels us from one problem to another; how we go from one crisis only to face another in a never ending tide of troubles.  If this is how your life feels it is likely you never fully recognize and appreciate how many problems are solved and how many crises are defused. Or maybe you are so focused on your scars that you never appreciate how each one marks a place where a wound has healed.

Or maybe the nine are clueless… aware they are better but unaware of how it happens.  If they don’t attribute their healing to Jesus why would they return to thank him?  What one person sees as a blessing from heaven another understands to be a cosmic accident or good fortune or the by-product of healthy living.  You only pause to thank the person you believe to have done some special for you. 

Literalist, oblivious, or clueless.  Each possibility presents us with a cautionary tale.  Do you approach religion as being little more than a series of boxes to check off in order to be a moral person? – the literalist’s approach.  Or do you fail to discern the manifold blessing of your life, perhaps because your focus is drawn only to the challenges? – the oblivious approach.  Or do you sense your life is marked by abundance and good will, but have no idea why or what to do with it? – the clueless approach.  If you see yourself in any of these, what would it take for you to praise God and to give thanks to Jesus, as the one leper did?

Let me close by saying how I grateful I am for the many blessings I have experienced in just the last week alone.  I was surprised by the surprise birthday party you all had for me last Sunday and I am deeply appreciative of your incredibly generous response to contribute to a gift.  I told Cindy and Janice I will have to keep a closer eye on things around the office because those two slipped all of it past me with very little effort.  Even more than what you did for me, I am so grateful for the way you invited my twin sister Karen to be a part of kindness, even if it meant I had to share with her half of Nina’s chocolate chip cookies.  On Monday Bev made a pan of chocolate chip brownies for a Food Pantry volunteers celebration.  Miko brought me a triple chocolate cake (made with Hershey chocolate) on Thursday and I began to wonder if you all love me or are trying to kill me with sugary sweets.  Yesterday, Dan Jones, his nephew Wesley, and Jim Gordon spent their entire day rebuilding the 10x20 foot shed I had to demolish in August.  You all have been exceedingly good and kind to me ever since I came to serve as your priest in 2007, but this week I feel it even more deeply.  I thank God for each of you and for the gift of God’s care and keep that comes through you.  If I am not mistaken, October is Pastor Appreciation Month and believe me, I feel appreciated.

I pray each of you may be as blessed as I am and each of you, as you go on the way, will sense the manifold goodness of life in God and the loving care which surrounds you on every side.