Drawn in in love – Tuesday in Holy Week

On my way to Meijer to purchase ice cream salt and rubbing alcohol for the new fire at the Great Vigil, I passed by one of our local Pentecostal churches.  Because it is a) Pentecostal and b) on the main thoroughfare, they have one of those fancy LED marquees that announces things like opening in their pre-school or special services.  As I passed by this morning, the first ad I saw on the screen was for their Good Friday service, which is a thing I’m noticing more and more in non-liturgical traditions, and something maybe for a later post.  The ad featured a black background with a silverish cross in foreground along with the service name and time.  As the image switched to announce the Easter services, the cross changed from silver to white.  The background from black to a bright blue sky hovering above an August National-type green grass hill.

In that moment, I realized something about myself.  I think there is a part of me, way back in the recesses of my soul, that thinks the tradition of veiling crosses in Lent is backwards.  Instead, I wonder if we shouldn’t remove all the crosses from our naves during the Great 50 Days of Easter.  I know that this is a dangerously triumphalist thought, but I think it stems from too many experiences in which the fast of Good Friday and the feast of Easter Day have been conflated into a cross with purple sashing sitting below a white banner the Alleluia in gold lettering.

I can’t even with this

There is no Easter without Good Friday, and Good Friday isn’t good without Easter Day, but they are meant to be honored as separate events, or maybe better said, two distinct features of a greater whole.

One of my favorite prayers in the Daily Office was written by Charles Henry Brent, the late bishop of the Philippines and later, Western New York.  It goes like this,

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: so clothe us with your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name.

The Gospel lesson appointed for Tuesday in Holy Week is a typically Johannine text, in which Jesus is clear that it is through his being lifted up [on a cross] that Jesus will draw all people to himself.  There is, as the old hymn says, power in the blood of Jesus.  There is redemption in Jesus stretching out his own arms in loving act of laying down his life.  This even is worth contemplating deeply during the week leading up to and including Good Friday.  In the act of laying down his life, Jesus draws us all in to himself in love.  And then, it seems to me, something different happens come Sunday morning.  Rather than shifting our focus from a gray cross on a dark background to an empty wooden cross on a happier background, our focus should turn entirely away from the hill called Golgotha to the stone that has been rolled away from the empty tomb.  There is a whole lot more to think and say about this than 600 words will allow, but suffice to say, I think it is important to consider how the events of Good Friday and Easter are different, even as together, they help to bring us all into the knowledge and love of Jesus.

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He stretched out his arms – a sermon

You may not know it, but there is some rhyme and reason to the liturgical choices we make around here.  At 10 o’clock, the service music is carefully selected to match the mood of the season.  Now that we’ve survived the Great Litany, for the next four weeks, both services begin with the Penitential Order which is meant to draw our minds to the truth that we should only approach the altar of God having taken stock of our lives, recognizing our sins, and repenting of our unrighteousness.  At 8am, we have switched back to Eucharistic Prayer I, which deals more directly with the reality that sin – the corporate sin of the world and the sinfulness of each individual – ultimately brought Jesus to the cross, and that in the Eucharist, we are recreating not just his Last Supper with the disciples, but remembering the fullness of the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and yes, Easter Day as well.

The Rite II Eucharistic Prayers are a bit more challenging. None of them carry the clearly penitential tone of Rite I.  However, Prayer A does seem to be the prayer best suited for the season.  In it, as we recount the story of salvation history, there is this peculiar line in which we say that Jesus “stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to [God’s] will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.”  As the Gospel stories of Jesus’ death unfold, it doesn’t always seem like this is an accurate reading of the situation.  Did Jesus offer himself, or did Judas offer him for 30 silver coins?  Did Jesus offer himself, or did the Chief Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees offer him to maintain the status quo?  Did Jesus offer himself, or did Herod offer him out of fear; did Pilate offer him to appease the crowd and raise his stock within the Roman Empire; or, as the prayer seems to suggest, did God the Father require the Son to die to appease some sort unrelenting anger?  While each of these could be perfectly reasonable explanations for what happened in those dreadful hours, it would seem that our Gospel lesson for today is expressly concerned with making us understand that Jesus’ death was his own choice and for the benefit of the whole world.

Two weeks ago, we heard the story of Jesus being transfigured on the mountain top.  It had been about a week since Peter finally confessed Jesus as the Messiah, when he, along with James and John were made privy to the full revelation of Jesus’ divinity.  There, with Moses and Elijah at his side, and the voice of God booming from above, Jesus was fully empowered for the final stage of his ministry. Not long after this encounter, Luke tells us that Jesus set his face for Jerusalem.  The last act of Jesus ministry was about to unfold.  Somewhat surprisingly, Luke then proceeds to spend 10 whole chapters, roughly 42% of his Gospel, sharing all kinds of experiences that happened along the way to the cross.  Jesus exorcised demons, healed the sick, preached the Good News, taught in the Synagogues, and even sent out 70 others to do the same.

Here, at not even the mid-point in that ten-chapter journey, in which Jesus is very intentional about his work and ministry, and just as he has taught that many who think they are in God’s good graces will find themselves on the outside, some Pharisees, the insiders’ insiders, came to warn Jesus that Herod was out to kill him.  This isn’t Herod the Great who had tried to use the Wise Men as spies in order to kill Jesus shortly after his birth.  This is Herod Antipas, Herod the Great’s son, who had married the ex-wife of his brother, who got drunk at his birthday party and ended up having John the Baptist beheaded at his step-daughter’s request.  Herod Antipas shared one fourth of his father’s territory with his brothers.  As the most competent heir, Herod lived in constant fear of revolution.  It was that fear that made him both dislike John the Baptist and yet fear the will of the people too much to want to have him killed.  It was that same fear that made him worry about the increasing power that Jesus of Nazareth had over the crowds.  One who could perform miracles, heal the sick, exorcise demons, and command such a following was one who was clearly a threat to the power and privilege that he had born into.

Luke doesn’t tell us why Herod wanted to kill Jesus at this point, and given that these words of warning come from the Pharisees, Luke’s favorite antagonists in his Gospel, we don’t even know if the warning is real.  Still, the response Jesus gives tells us that he is in no way worried about what the powers-that-be, religious or political, might want to do to him.  “Go and tell that fox,” Jesus says, as if calling the puppet governor of the Roman Empire a fox was something people could do in the first century.  But Jesus has no fear.  Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jesus is totally in control of the situation.  “Go and tell that fox that I’m doing what I’ve been sent here to do.  I’m not going to hide in fear.  No threat is going to keep me from the mission that God has for me.  Today and tomorrow, I’ll be busy healing the sick and casting out demons.  On the third day,” an obvious reference to his death and resurrection, “I’ll finish my work.”

It isn’t that Jesus was ignorant to the fact that his life and ministry would lead to his death.  He was quite aware that those who upset the way things have always been have always been mistreated, abused, and ultimately killed, whether it is in Jerusalem, Rome, Dallas, or Memphis.  It is just that Jesus knows that no matter how ready the Pharisees might be to get Jesus out of their hair or how anxious Herod might be about Jesus’ increasing popularity, this ministry is working on God’s time and to God’s good and perfect end – the gathering all of the faithful under God’s gracious and loving wings.  No matter how much Herod might believe that Jesus was out for political power and no matter how much Jesus’ own disciples might wish for that too, what God had planned to do through the life and ministry of Jesus wasn’t to recreate the power structures of this world, but to replace them with structures of compassion, grace, and love.  Jesus is in full control of his message, his medium, and the timing such that in the end, even when it looks like any number of other powers and principalities had brought him to the cross, we can say with full confidence that it was Jesus who stretched out his own arms upon the cross, offering himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

It is increasingly difficult in this world of the 24-hour news cycle to remember who is really in control of things.  Fear mongers make millions of dollars a day selling advertising on news channels that would have us believe any number of lies and half-truths.  We are enticed to buy this makeup, drink this beer, drive this car, and use this phone to be happy and healthy.  We are tricked into believing that our value is based only on what others can get from us.  It is no wonder that rates of anxiety and depression are on the rise.  Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and the threat of Herod reminds us, however, that outside powers have been trying to rule by fear for thousands of years.  Jesus tells us that these perceived threats, even to our very way of living and our own lives, are hollow compared to the power of God and God’s dream to restore all of creation to right relationship.  Jesus will spend six more chapters walking toward Jerusalem and certain death.  Along the way, he will restore all kinds of people into community by offering them wholeness and peace.  Even now, Jesus is here offering us the peace that passes all understanding, peace that is more powerful than any fear the world can create. Our Lenten journey reminds us that Jesus stretched out his own arms of love upon the cross, no one else made him do it, so that everyone, even you and me, might come within the reach of his saving embrace.  Amen.

Proper Math

If I’m honest, and who would care enough to lie about such things, I much prefer Luke’s Blessings and Woes to Matthew’s Beatitudes.  I think it has to do with the visceral nature of Luke’s version of some of Jesus’ most famous teaching.  Rather than the poor in spirit being blessed, we hear from Jesus that it is, in fact, the poor who are blessed, the hungry who will be fed, and those who mourn will find themselves overcome with laughter.  If the Kingdom of God is about some kind of grand reversal, then these moves from one fully relatable state of being to its opposite helps me visualize something that is otherwise way beyond my ability to comprehend.  What’s frustrating to me is that we so rarely get to hear Luke’s version of the Blessings and Woes.

I like to consider myself something of a rubrical snob.  I think clergy should learn to read italics, if only to know what rules they are violating as the illusion of common prayer slowly fades into the mist alongside apostolic succession and Dom Gregory Dix.  I have to admit, however, that my understanding of the liturgical calendar and its partner in crime, the Lectionary, is less than adequate.

Epiphany 6, Year C, the only time when Luke 6:17-26 is appointed for the Sunday readings, is something of a lectionary anomaly.  Let’s look at the proper math.  Epiphany 6 is also known as Proper 1, but according to the rubrics on 158, Proper 1 is never actually read on a Sunday, but rather, it informs the lessons used for a celebration of the Eucharist that occur during the week following the Day of Pentecost, and even then, only if Pentecost falls on or before May 14th.  If Pentecost occurs between May 15 and May 26, there is no chance that Epiphany 6 or Proper 1 are read at all.  Only if Easter falls on or April 10 will we have the chance to read Epiphany 6, and to get Luke 6, it also has to be Year C which begins on Advent 1 of the year before a year that is divisible by 3.  Got that?

I’ve lost most you by now, I’m sure.  Please check back later this week for some real content for preaching.  Suffice it to say for now, that I’m going to savor Luke’s Blessings and Woes because by my math, I have no idea when we’ll get to hear them again.

The Wise Men and That Sacramental Life

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If you stick around the Episcopal Church long enough, you will eventually hear someone say that we are a creedal church, not a confessional church.  What that means is that the summation of our faith is found in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, whereas in some other faith traditions, like Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations, their core beliefs have been expanded upon in what are called Confessions.  The Rev. Dr. Justin Holcomb, Episcopal priest and professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary describes confessions as “color[ing] in the picture, tying theology to everyday life in all sorts of ways.”[1]  Some would argue that our Book of Common Prayer is the Anglican version of a Confession, but within its practice, our theology can be widely interpreted, so the Book of Common Prayer can’t really be used to declare any sort of standard teaching on a subject.  What it does include, however, is a Catechism, or an Outline of the Faith, which is intended to be used as a commentary on the creeds without trying to offer any kind of complete statement of belief or practice.[2]  It is, for lack of a better term, a primer of the faith for Episcopalians.

In the Catechism, on page 857 of the Book of Common Prayer begins a section on the Sacraments.  There, the Sacraments are described as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ…”[3]  In the Episcopal Church, because of that little addendum about the Sacraments being given to us by Christ, we would say that there are only two Sacraments: Baptism and Holy Eucharist.  Our Prayer Book contains five other Sacramental Rites, which have evolved in the Church over time: confirmation, ordination, holy matrimony, reconciliation of a penitent (also called, Confession), and unction.[4]  All seven of these sacramental actions contain outward symbols: water and oil in baptism, bread and wine in the Eucharist, and the laying on of hands in each sacramental rite, which convey an inward and spiritual grace given by God, including union with God through the forgiveness of sins, the nourishment of Christ’s Body and Blood, healing, forgiveness, and blessing.

Over the years, I’ve stirred up some trouble by suggesting a different way of looking at the Sacraments and sacramental acts of the Church.  My working definition is that these liturgical acts are formal signposts of the church catching up with what the Spirit is already doing.  In ordination, when the bishop lays hands on the ordinand, it is the Church making official what God has long-since been doing in that person’s life.  In the Holy Eucharist, the bread and wine as Christ’s Body and Blood are meant to nourish those who are already actively working to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

As we prepare to celebrate the baptism of your Soren Erbach this morning, I am keenly aware that even for this almost one-year-old child, the Sacrament of Baptism is an outward and visible sign of what God is already doing in his life.  Yes, there is a specific inward and spiritual grace conferred by God in the ceremonial action of baptism, but grace doesn’t start here.  Through his grandmother, his mother, and even through this faith community, Soren is already learning what it means to follow Jesus.  He will, as he matures, gain a deeper understanding of how God is calling him to live out that faith through the promises of our Baptismal Covenant.  He will be nourished with bread and wine made Body and Blood through our prayers and the Holy Spirit, and grow, we pray, in the knowledge and love of the Lord.

The life of faith is full of sacramental actions that may or may not be called as such.  Many would say that the foot washing liturgy on Maundy Thursday is a sacramental rite.  Marking oneself with the sign of the cross is a sacramental action, denoting forgiveness, blessing, or the invocation of the Trinity.  Bowing at the cross, genuflecting to enter your pew, or raising your hands in praise are all outward and visible signs of some kind of inward and spiritual grace at work.  The whole premise of this season called Epiphany is that we should always be looking for ways in which God’s grace is revealed to us in and through the messiness of this world.  This season reminds us that as Christians, our entire existence can be looked at as one, ongoing sacramental action.

Even our Gospel lesson for the Feast of the Epiphany seems to be a story of a kind of sacramental action that is meant to catch up with what God has already put into motion.  When the Christ-child was born in Bethlehem, a new star appeared in the western sky, which the Wise Men thought to be a sign of the birth of a new King of the Jews.  They pulled together their gifts and began the long journey from Persia.  Matthew is really sketchy with the timeline of all of this, but it seems like this journey took several months, if not more than a year to complete.  The whole of their journey is one large sacramental act, as are the details along the way.  They came, according to their own words to pay homage to, literally to bow down and worship, the child, born king of the Jews.  Their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh each carry an inward and spiritual value as well.  The gold was a symbol of Jesus’ earthly kingship as a descendent of the throne of David.  Frankincense is still a common incense used in worship, and symbolized the divinity of Christ, the Son of God.  Myrrh was used in the embalming process and served as a symbol of the suffering Jesus would one day endure.  None of these gifts were prescriptive in nature.  They did not make Jesus a king, the messiah, or a suffering servant, but rather, they were all given as a sort of catch up for what God was already doing in the birth of a Savior in the City of David.  As Mother Becca suggested in her sermon on John’s prologue last week, Jesus was King, Savior, and Lord from before the beginning, when the Word was with God, long before the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.[5]  In remembrance of the blessing the wise men brought to Jesus, and as our own sacramental sign of God’s blessing upon us, last year, we began the practice of blessing chalk on Epiphany.  This chalk is mean to be taken home and used to mark the main entrance with an outward and visible sign of God’s blessing upon your home and all who will pass through it during the year ahead.

As followers of Jesus, it is possible to make our whole lives to be one ongoing sacramental action.  Each outward and visible thing that we do can be a symbol of the inward and spiritual grace, love, and mercy of God.  Our lives are meant to be lived as though we are shining the light of Christ into what is so often the darkness of this world.  Every action is meant to convey the promises of our Baptismal Covenant, which we renew this morning.  As we embark on this season of Epiphany, may God be revealed to you in all kinds of ways.  May the world around you be a sacrament of God’s grace and mercy. May your lives be a sacrament of God’s love to a world that desperately needs it.  And may we all be blessed with the task of catching up with God’s ongoing work of restoration, at home, at work, and at play.  Amen.

[1] Quoted in https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/whats-the-difference-between-creeds-confessions-catechisms-and-councils/ Accessed 1/3/19

[2] BCP, 844.

[3] BCP, 857.

[4] BCP, 860.

[5] https://beccakello.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/tell-me-the-story/?fbclid=IwAR0vc-kOroa9ecmWu7DtKRtwWkcqa3hVNJpK4CfPpS-s7nljc4zBsDTdtI8

A Good Work Begun

Given the baptismal theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, that is that baptism is “full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church,” it has often been said that Confirmation is left as something of a vestigial service, a liturgy in search of a theology.  While I’ve not done the deep research to confirm, I have it on good authority that in the months leading up to the 1976 General Convention, it was thought that Confirmation would not end up in the final draft of the revised Book of Common prayer.  Evidence in the book suggests that even as it was inserted late in the game, its placement in Pastoral Offices, rather than the Episcopal Services, betrays the fact that many thought that it was unlikely Confirmation would stick around as the thing bishops did when they showed up in a parish.

Deep within this vestigial liturgy, tucked way behind eight graders looking to graduate from Sunday school and that certain kind of person who actually takes changing traditions seriously enough to mark it liturgically by way of Reception, is the possibility for one to reaffirm their Christian faith.  It gets nary a mention in Concerning the Service or the Additional Directions, so we’ve had to kind of make up what it means.  Still, I think it is actually the most useful portion of this service, and we ignore it to our detriment.  Although it only gets less than three lines of text, the prayer that the bishop is to pray for those who are reaffirming their baptismal promises is a powerful one:

N., may the Holy Spirit, who has begun a good work in you, direct and uphold you in the service of Christ and his kingdom. Amen.

If you’ve been reading ahead to Sunday’s Second Lesson from Philippians 1, you might recognize these words as being grounded in Scripture.  In the opening acclamation appointed for Advent 2C, we hear Paul doing his normal thing by heaping prayers and praises upon the heads of the Christians in Philippi.  Included are these words, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

In the Greek, the words translated as “completion” has its root in telos, which means something deeper than simply checking a task off the list.  Instead, the telos of God’s good work begun is its perfect end.  It is Paul’s prayer for the Church in Philippi, and while the Reaffirmation prayer doesn’t include the full text, I believe it is what we are praying for in that service as well.  Those who come to make a public reaffirmation of their baptismal promises do so for a reason.  It might be because they are coming back to the Church after time away.  It may be because they’ve found a new calling in lay ministry.  Whatever it is, the prayer we offer to God on their behalf is that whatever good work has begun, whether 9 weeks or 90 years ago, might be brought to its perfect end, to the benefit of the Kingdom, through God’s direction and upholding.

The Bishop won’t be coming for several months, but this Advent 2, my prayer for each of you, dear readers, is that God’s good work begun in you might be sustained and fulfilled by its perfect completion.

If Christ is King – a sermon

You can listen to this on the Christ Church website, or read it here.

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In the Fall of 1925, Pope Pius the Eleventh threw a fit.  The Pope was upset about the growing power of modernity in the world.  As people believed more and more what science was coming to discover, Pius and many other religious leaders, were afraid that the Bible would have less and less power in peoples’ lives.  He was anxious that the Church might become irrelevant and he desperately wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.  On top of that, the Pope was embroiled in a nearly hundred-year-old controversy between the burgeoning Kingdom of Italy and the Papal States.  Since 1849, a newly unified Italy had been fighting with the Roman Catholic Church over who controlled the city of Rome.  The Popes were sure that the Church was in charge.  The Italian Parliament had other ideas.  By 1925, Pius, the fifth Pope to take on this fight, had had enough.[1]  On December 11, 1925, he published an encyclical entitled Quas primas which argued for the Kingship of Jesus above all others and reiterated that the Roman Catholic Church was the “kingdom of Christ on earth” with the Pope obviously serving as its temporal ruler.  Finally, to commemorate these two foundational truths, Pope Pius the Eleventh created the Feast of Christ the King.[2]

In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the Last Sunday after Pentecost uses, almost verbatim, the Roman Catholic Collect for Christ the King, but it stopped short of making today a Feast Day.  When we adopted the Revised Common Lectionary in 2009, Christ the King was included in the package and became a thing in the Episcopal Church.  Some would say it shouldn’t be a thing seeing as, if you look in the Prayer Books in your pews, you’ll find absolutely no reference to the Feast of Pope Pius the Eleventh’s Temper Tantrum.  I’m sure Pius is in heaven today, scratching his head and wondering how a bunch of Protestants ended up subscribing to a feast created to affirm the earthly authority of the Pope, but here we are, on the Last Sunday after Pentecost, celebrating the Feast of Christ the King.

While I find this Feast Day’s genesis to be questionable, what I appreciate about having a day set aside to honor Jesus Christ as our King is that it gives us an opportunity to imagine Jesus in an unusual way.  21^st century American Christians aren’t well versed in the language of kings.  We live in a country that was founded in rebellion against the King of England.  If I’m honest, most of what I know about kings and queens is the result of whatever the American news decides to pick up from the British tabloids.  Yet this image of Jesus Christ as King is a well-established, apocalyptic, theme in the Scriptures.  Dubious feast day or not, it is worth our time to ponder what it means to call Jesus Christ our King and to live within his Kingdom.

In our Gospel lesson for this morning, we find a very clear image of what it means to live within the boundaries of the Kingdom of God.  Remember the context for this parable, and for all the apocalyptic parables we have heard over the last month. [3]  Jesus isn’t making general claims to a large audience, but rather, these are final words about final things, addressed to his closest disciples.  It is Tuesday in Holy Week, and the cross is quickly approaching.  Jesus knows that his disciples have already committed quite a bit to following Jesus.  He isn’t trying to tell them what they need to do to be included in his Kingdom, but rather, what is expected of those who claim to live under the authority of Christ the King.  As inheritors of this Apostolic Tradition, we should read these words carefully, not as a parable of judgment against those who do not know Christ, but as a stark judgment against those who claim to follow Christ the King but can’t be bothered to live in his service.  This parable is a helpful reminder that the proper response to the love of God is to reach out with compassion to those Jesus came to save.  We who are bold enough to claim a place in the Kingdom of God bring honor to the King when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, take care of the sick, and visit the incarcerated.

What is particularly interesting in this parable is that neither the sheep nor the goats realize they had seen the king in the poor, the hungry, or the sick.  One group was motivated to action, not out of guilt, fear, or shame, but out of love.  This group saw a need, and decided to do something about it.  Living in the Kingdom of God means having your eyes open to see God’s hand at work in the world about you.  Yet it means more than just seeing.  Living in the Kingdom of God, being counted among the sheep, means seeing and being God’s hand at work in the world about us.  As Episcopalians, we affirm this Kingdom truth every time we renew our Baptismal covenant; promising that with God’s help, we will seek and serve Christ in all persons.

Over time, I have become more and more convinced that the true work of discipleship is learning how to see Christ in our neighbors.  It is only when we can see that we can then act to relieve their suffering.  In the Ephesians lesson, Paul prays a prayer that is becoming the foundation of my that understanding of discipleship.  “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

We grow in relationship with God by learning how to see the world through God’s eyes.  As we become more in tune with the heart of God, we see more clearly the injustices of this world, we see the suffering and are moved with compassion, we see the lonely, the anxious, the hungry, the naked, the poor, the outcast, the incarcerated, and the hopeless and we are compelled to act because in them, as in all our neighbors, we see the face of Christ.  Of course, this does not happen on our own.  The only way to fix our spiritual eyesight is with the help of God.  Through prayer and studying the Scriptures, God works to focus the eyes of our hearts, making us more and more able to see, so that, when the day of judgment comes, our question cannot be, or at least should not be, Lord when did we see you, because as baptized followers of Jesus Christ the King, we have already made a promise, that with God’s help, we will seek and serve Christ in every person we meet, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Pope Pius the Eleventh might not have had it 100% correct, but he did get some things right.  Jesus Christ is the King of kings.  It is under his authority that all of humanity lives.  One day he will come with power and glory to sit in judgment upon his throne, and all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, members of his Kingdom and subject to his authority, will need to be ready to have an answer to the question: Did we see our neighbors in need and respond with love or with apathy?  Everyday, we see dozens, if not hundreds, of our neighbors.  All of them need God’s love.  This morning, our lessons invite us to see Christ in each of them, to reach out in compassion, and to offer the love of God, not out of fear of judgment or guilt or shame, but as a loving response to the love which our King has shown to us.  Who knows, one day, with God’s help, we might just find ourselves counted among the sheep and pleased to hear these words, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  Amen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Christ_the_King

[2] http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html

[3] https://evandgarner.blogspot.com/2017/11/one-sunday-two-voices.html

Not when, but what

My non-Episcopal readers will notice that this is one of only a handful of weeks in the Lectionary cycle when the Common in Revised Common Lectionary proves false.  My Episcopal readers will notice that the same is true from the Common in our Common Prayer, which gets a pass this week as some congregations will choose to transfer the propers for All Saints’ Day to Sunday, while others will continue the never-ending march of ordinary time with Proper 26A.  My friend, Evan Garner, has handled the question of when quite well in his blog today.  I’ll wait while you read it.

Since I will be involved in services on November 1st and the transferred Sunday, my concern this week is less about when we celebrate All Saints’, and more about what lessons we might use to do so.  I have long been an advocate for petitioning one’s bishop to ask permission to use the old Book of Common Prayer lectionary for the Feast of All Saints’.  In both sets of lessons, you’ll get a snippet from Revelation 7.  In both, you’ll hear the Beatitudes from Matthew.  The difference comes in the BCP lectionary’s use of the Apocryphal text of Ecclesiasticus, which is also known as Sirach or the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach.  It was, in its day, a popular handbook of wisdom for study in educational settings (HarperCollins Study Bible, 1530), and it appears in the RCL only a few times during the three year cycle.

I like to hold on to this old tradition because of the balance the Ecclesiasticus lesson strikes between the Feast of All Saints’ and the less often celebrated, non-Major Feast of the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed on November 2nd.  The lesson opens by “singing the praises of famous men [and women],” but eventually turns its attention to those who “have perished as though they had never existed.”  To my mind, this lesson navigates the various themes one must juggle on a singular All Saints’ Day celebration better than the 1 John lesson of the RCL.  This came alive to me one All Saints’ Day as I preached a Sunday evening service in a congregation that was not my own, in their parish hall, the walls of which were lined with old, dead, white guys for whom various things had been named.  It has returned with vigor this year as I now serve a congregation with a penchant for naming things after clergy (not that that’s a bad thing, in and of itself).

Taking time to sing the praises of famous men [and women] is important, but so too is the commemoration of Aunt Sally, Gerald, or Joe, who were faithful disciples in their day, but of whom there is no written record.  On All Saints’ Day, it seems to me, it is important for us to take the time to honor both, for without them, the Church is not what it is today.

Comfortable Words

It may seem morbid or a sign of the slow decay of Episcopal relevance, but I am of the opinion that the Burial Office is the best thing the Episcopal Church has to offer the world.    Its language is beautiful, though I think those who find the pronoun usage in the various anthems to be troublesome have a salient argument.  It balances well the tendency to err too far to one side or the other between “this should only be about Jesus” and “this should only be about the deceased.”  Even the rubrics, which yes, we should read and abide by, help make an Episcopal burial service an opportunity for reflection, prayer, and celebration.  For example, the requirement that the coffin “be covered with a pall or other suitable covering” ensures that whether prince of pauper, every soul buried from the church is brought in under the cover of their baptismal gown.  As and aside, for which I am well known, I have seen, on occasion, the use of the Episcopal or American flag as “other suitable covering”  I can understand the impetus for this, but would argue against so as to expand beyond “prince and pauper” to include “priest and solider” as well.  All are the same in death, for, as Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, “whether we live or, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.”

Astronaut Gene Cernan’s burial at St. Martin’s Church, Houston, TX. Note the pall covering his coffin

If you were reading Sunday’s New Testament lesson and the middle portion sounded familiar to you, it is probably because you have attended an Episcopal Burial service sometime since 1979.  Romans 14:7-8 is an option among four anthems in both the Rite I and Rite II services.  Often strung together as one long anthem, said in procession, these words at the opening of the Burial Office set the tone for the rest of the service to follow.  These are words of comfort.  These are words of hope.  These are words of resurrection.  These are, in the parlance of our Rite I Eucharist, “Comfortable Words” meant to place the hearts and minds of the bereaved in the hands of the resurrected Lord through whom we all have access to the Kingdom.

In a world that seems to be disintegrating around us, these words might come just at the right time this Sunday.  With a major earthquake in Mexico, the 16th anniversary  of 9/11, Charlottesville, and Hurricanes Harvey and Irma weighing heavy on our hearts, it seems prudent that we hear these words from Paul and have the Burial Office brought to mind.  In the same way that, in death, all of us come to the altar under the garment of baptism, so too, in life, we are all here on earth because of the gift and grace of God.  As Fitzmeyer puts it in his Anchor Bible Commentary, “This passage implies the service of God in all things, and it is the basis of life in the true Christian sense.  In life and in death, the Christ exists to Kyrio, i.e. to praise, honor, and serve God” (p. 691).  So, whether we feast or fast, whether we keep the Kalendar or honor everyday as a Feria from God, our lives are to be lived under the banner of our baptism, to the honor and glory of God.

Maundy Thursday 2017 – The Church’s Petrine Moment

Before I get too deep here – a joke for you to keep in mind as you read this post.  What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?

You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Peter gives Jesus a pass on the foot stuff

“You will never wash my feet.”

How long must those words have hung in the air?  Peter, Jesus’ most petulant disciple, again springs into the limelight on Maundy Thursday as once more he directly challenges the will of his teacher and friend.  The first disciple to name Jesus as the Messiah, you would think he might be more willing to go along with what Jesus asks of him, but for whatever reason, Peter is constantly fighting with Jesus like my four year-old fights with me.

Jesus is undeterred.  Here is the line in the sand.  “Foot washing is a part of this discipleship thing, and unless I wash your feet, you will have no part with me.”  This is, to be very clear, a non-negotiable.  Jesus is modeling for his disciples, which includes us, what it means to be a servant leader.  “I have given you an example to follow.  Do as I have done to you.”

“I don’t really like washing feet.”

“It doesn’t mean what it did in the first century.”

Of late, some clergy have taken on the role of Peter when it comes to Maundy Thursday, choosing to skip the foot washing (n.b. I know it is an optional rite) or somewhat inexplicably choosing to wash hands instead of feet (Honestly, just take the rubrically allowed path and don’t do it at all).  As I reflect on my own discomfort with feet, with touching feet, and with slathering on hand sanitizer, but still feeling like I’m celebrating the Eucharist with feet covered hands, I know, in my heart of hearts, that I’d rather not do it.  Like Peter, I’d like to say, “I’ll never wash feet,” but Jesus didn’t let Peter get away with it, and I doubt if he’ll let me either.

The very fact that the washing of feet is so awkward and strange is the reason we should do it.  Ignoring for a moment that Jesus said, “do as I have done for you,” every Episcopal Church in the land should be washing feet tonight because it is a part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  Discipleship calls us out of our comfort zones, it asks us to talk to our neighbors about Jesus, to get up early on Sunday and come to worship, to donate time during the week to serve our neighbors, to give sacrificially of our money for the Kingdom, and it is all summed up in one terrifically uncomfortable act on Maundy Thursday.  When we wash feet, we take our part with Jesus who shows us what it means to walk the hard road to redemption.

More Names

I may have gone a bit overboard on the influence of names in my final sermon at Saint Paul’s.  From a homiletical perspective, I took the hook too far.  From a liturgical year perspective, I undermined my Rector’s ability to preach on names on the Feast of the Holy Name this Sunday.  The Feat of the Holy Name is one of only a small handful of feast days that takes precedence over a Sunday, which means that when Christmas falls on Sunday, there will be no other Sundays in the season.  Holy Name supersedes Christmas 1 and Epiphany occurs before we can have Christmas 2.  So, what is TKT left to preach on this strange Sunday?

Well, names, of course.  I’m sure he will take some time on the power that lives in the very name of Jesus (God saves), but knowing TKT and his love of the story of Moses, I suspect that he will also focus his attention on the Aaronic blessing that Moses speaks over Aaron and the people of Israel.

So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

In the Israelite tradition, the name of God is so holy that it is not to be spoken.  This name is the one given by God to Moses at the burning bush.  Rendered in Latin Script as YHWH, it means something like “I am.”  God is ever present. In the midst of bondage in Egypt, God is.  In the midst of the joyful expectation of the Promised Land, God is.  In the midst of famine, peril, and sword; birth, marriage, and triumph, God is.

While that holy name is not to be uttered, forms of us are all over the Hebrew language, including the other Holy Name we remember on the eighth day of Christmas.  As I noted two weeks ago,  the Hebrew form of Jesus is Yehoshua, and it is a combination of YHWH and shua, which means a cry for help.  In the holy name of Jesus, we are reminded that God saves; that God is our very present help in trouble.  Jesus is the Aaronic blessing of God personified.  He is the face of God that shines upon us.  The very image of God that gives us peace.  Within his name is the very name of God – I am – God is.