December 2011

Sermon,  December 24, 2011 - Christmas Eve

Grace Episcopal Church - The Rev’d Vern Hill

I was waiting for Melinda to finish shopping and turned on the truck radio.  A woman’s voice was on NPR – no video, no YouTube, but from what she said, I am guessing she was either moving out of her 30s or in her early 40s.  What was clear - her voice was tired, beat up.  She said she had two sons who were 17 and 19 and fairly typical for many older teens – self-absorbed and clueless to the world, even the family world, around them.  The 19 year old had just found a part-time job so that he could buy for himself those necessary items of clothing to fit in with other teens he thought he had to impress.  It was her 10 and 12 year olds that outed mom, that caught on to what she was up to at meal time.  Why was she not eating with them?  To the NPR listeners she explained that there was not enough money for their food and shelter so she had chosen to skip a few meals.  The NPR interviewer nearly lost it; his voice broke.  The family lived in rural Oregon, which is what most of Oregon is.  It is also the most “hungry” state in America.

50% of Americans are either in the lower class or poor.  We have yet to identify separately the destitute – those without food or shelter, a first century Palestinian term.   3% of middle class Americans fall into poverty each year.

I share the mother’s story because it helps us understand another story which we have heard tonight, the “Mary story”.  You know Mary well, whether your roots are Roman Catholic or Protestant.  You know the story as it is told and as it is sung about in carols, but for a few moments let’s climb into “the story within the story.”  What does Luke want to teach us from these first few lines of his Gospel?

Well, at least two extraordinary things.  First, the meaning of Mary -  from the little Luke tells us, Mary was probably a young girl, maybe 14, the child of a peasant farmer.  The marriage with Joseph, who was much older, would have been arranged by her parents.   

Mary was inconsequential to her world.  She lived in a land with a long history of violence, invasion and impoverishment.  In recent time it had been the Greeks; now it was the Romans, led by their divine savior, Augustus, the guarantor of justice and peace.  The one who maintained the justice of wealth and privilege by maintaining the advantage of oppressive poverty.

To help us truly understand Mary’s “lowliness” our gentle sounding word “handmaiden”, as in “the handmaiden of the Lord”, is not at all what the Greek word “doulos” means.  Doulos means slave or servant.  Mary is a common servant girl.  She carries in her genes a knowledge of what those in this same Palestinian region today know – poverty, violence, and insignificance.   She is at the mercy of circumstance.

Now what does Luke dare to say to this?  From the bottom dwellers of a fourth world country, Luke claims God has exalted a servant girl. The order of things, of life itself, has been changed.  God’s home is with Mary, not Augustus.  Divinity belongs to Mary, not the emperor.

Now a second related thing Luke teaches is this.  Mary is a woman.  And her womanhood, her humanity becomes Jesus’ humanity!  The Mary story reminds us how really as one of us Jesus is, how much like us he is. 

This Mary story begins the telling of the longer story of how what we see in Jesus is the truth about ourselves.  The Mary story is the prayer of the Veni Emmanuel.  Wherever we are, whatever our struggle, how lacking we may be in hope, however inconsequential we may feel, God is at home in us.  The Mary story which marks the beginning of the Jesus story challenges all the assumptions of power and wealth and the use of deceit, terror and brutality;  the tragically misplaced values of this Kingdom - Earth.  Through these story lines echoes the words of Micah – what does the Lord seek for human creation?  What does God hope from creation?  To do justice, love with compassion and walk humbly where God walks.  It is this Godly hope “that comes to pass,” that comes to be born at Bethlehem.  Hail the newborn King of Bethlehem.  Augustus would have laughed himself silly.  Such is the beginning of Luke’s story of Jesus. 

There is actually a third extraordinary thing that flows from Mary directly into and throughout the Jesus Story.  It has to do with the encounter of the Jesus made flesh.  Jesus calls us to a ministry in the Kingdom of God, to the poor, helpless, to the least people, to the excluded, to those needing healing and comfort.  It is not uncommon for us, then, to think of “being” Jesus to these least of these (and that’s not a bad motivator).  But the radical notion of Jesus made flesh is that it is the face of Jesus we look at in the poor, the helpless, the least people, those needing healing and comfort and inclusion.  Jesus is them!  You are not doing as Jesus would do; you are doing it to Jesus. This is the good news of the Incarnation.  When you begin to fully grasp this part of the Christmas story, everything changes.    You look at the face of Jesus in all of these, and all whom you embrace in love.  And now understand the truth of  “when you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”

May you have a happy and blessed Christmas, Amen.

Advent 3 - December 11, 2011

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11      Psalm 126      1 Thessalonians 5:16-24      John 1:6-8

Once upon a time, in a church not so far, far away (actually, it’s over there on 17th Street), as an assisting priest I preached a sermon.

It was my last sermon at that church for a while.

It was sometime in 1990-91. The United States was fighting the Gulf War.

I was growing increasingly concerned about the demonization of our enemies. Saddam Hussein, to most of the nation—and, apparently, to many of the parishioners—had become a second Hitler (1).

In that sermon I reminded all of us of a simple, yet profound, truth: Saddam Hussein, like all of us, was made in the image and likeness of God; Saddam Hussein, like each and every one of us at that church, was a child of God.

As I said, it was my last sermon at that church for a while.

After the sermon the rector was apparently accosted by some powerful parishioners who were very unhappy with what I had said. He told me that in the future I would have to run all my sermons by him.

So I quit.

The irony was that I had never had so many people shake my hand and thank me for a sermon.

Last week’s sermon by Cathy likewise generated quite a lot of discussion.

Vern and I are jealous.

In last week’s Gospel reading, Mark says that “John the baptizer (2) appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

One thing that’s absolutely certain about Jesus is that he was baptized by John in the Jordan.  The reason we can be so certain is that Jesus’ baptism really represents an embarrassment to the first century Christians, not to mention one or two theological dilemmas. 

So, Jesus comes to John. What’s the big deal?

We-e-e-ell, remember that tiny little bit about John proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”?

OK, Here’s a Logic 101 quiz: If John proclaims a baptism for the repentance of sins, and if Jesus gets baptized, then Jesus . . . .

The Letter to the Hebrews says this about Jesus: “we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, . . . who in every respect has been tested* as we are, yet without sin (3).

As a certain presidential candidate recently said: “Oops.”

But instead of this being an embarrassment, I want to use it to piggyback on what Cathy said last week about forgiveness so we can look at what forgiveness says about God, and us.

When Cathy said, "God doesn't forgive," both Vern and I sat up a bit, as I expect many of you did (4).

Vern and I agreed afterwards that "God doesn't forgive" was a real attention-grabber.  Vern realized where Cathy was heading—St. Paul says that nothing—nothing—can separate us from the love of God (5).

Why? Because God is love; God is forgiveness.  

The Divine Name, not pronounced by Jews, is YHWH, the Tetragrammaton, the name God self-identifies and tells to Moses: it means “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” or “I am because I am” (6).

The Tetrgrammaton celebrates God’s “is-ness.” I think Cathy was whooping it up because God’s is-ness, our tradition teaches, is love, is  compassion, is forgiveness.

Vern pointed out that, by contrast, the continuous begging for God's forgiveness is so deeply set in our religious DNA that it will take a lot for us to realize that the real problem is not about God’s forgiveness but rather how we forgive others--and ourselves.

For me, begging for forgiveness creates God as a disapproving, or even angry, father, a father who has a paddle in his hand.

One observer has noted that people of faith who are focused and fixated on rules and retribution see God as a controlling father.

This same observer suggests a better way to see God: as a nurturing parent. Parent (7). Father and mother. We need both. Not only do we need to break God out of his—his—controlling-father prison, we also need to free ourselves—us, our fathers, our children—from that same prison.

My Christianity class at CSUB concluded this past quarter by comparing readings from Rick Warren and Cornell West. Warren, the author of the mega-bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, sees life as a test.

Since life is a test for Warren, he says the Bible is a handbook.

For Warren, God is always watching us. No matter what we do.

I asked my class, “How many of you as kids were told that God was always watching you? How many of you were told that if you touched yourselves in a certain place, God would see you, and punish you?”

Warren’s God as omnipresent tsk-tsk-er, punisher, and even voyeur, brings two images to my mind. (Sorry, you as a captive audience have to put up with the stuff I dredge up from the basement—or sewer.)

The first is that of the horrible schoolmaster, straight out of Dickens, in Pink Floyd’s The Wall; this wretched taskmaster screeches over and over [Hank, in a British schoolmaster voice], “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!” (8)

The second image is that of a cartoon scene in Monty Python's movie The Holy Grail.

One day, Arthur and his not-so-brave, brave knights are clip-clopping along, with coconuts being banged together to create the sound effects of the horses the producers can’t afford and the knights aren’t riding.

All of a sudden, God appears amidst the clouds, a gray-bearded king with a gold crown on his head (9).



Immediately everyone flops on the ground and begs for mercy.

God responds [Cathy Henry, in a British God voice], "Oh, don't grovel. If it's one thing I can't stand, its people groveling."

King Arthur [Hank] responds, "Sorry."

God [Cathy] replies, "And don't apologize! Every time I try to talk to someone, it's 'Sorry this' and 'Forgive me that,' and 'I'm not worthy.' Knock it off!”

A very early—and wise—tradition in the Church asking for reconciliation probably arose because Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says this:

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother [or sister] has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled with your brother [or sister]; then come and offer your gift (10).

But because of Western Christianity’s emphasis—indeed, obsession with—sin, original sin, and our sinfulness, we’ve placed the Confession right before the Eucharist. It’s as if we have to be sinless—momentarily—before we can take Communion (11).

But there’s a big difference between confessing your sins before Communion and Jesus’ command to seek reconciliation. When you confess your sins, you’re asking God for forgiveness. When you seek reconciliation, you’re taking the next, crucial, step: you’re doing something.

Your act of seeking reconciliation acknowledges that something’s wrong—which in itself is an act of confession.

Jesus doesn’t ask who’s at fault. He says, “Go, and be reconciled.” Whether it’s your fault or the other person’s--it doesn’t matter.

Maybe we ought to put what Jesus says right before the Eucharist.

Jesus doesn’t tell us to confess our sins before coming to the altar; Jesus tells us to be reconciled with our brother or sister; he tells us to be in relationship, to restore relationship, to bind wounds and embrace.

This may partly be what Cathy was getting at when she said “God doesn’t forgive.”

Through God’s grace, we forgive. By God’s grace, we forgive. With God’s grace, we forgive.

In God’s grace, we forgive.

Theologians call this “cooperative grace”: God and us, working together.

In such cooperation—literally, “working together”—goodness, grace, God, and we all become one.

One.

Amen.

Notes

1.       http://www.theamericancause.org/patissaddamanother.htm. The fact that Saddam had been “our boy” in Iraq’s war against Iran only made matters hypocritical, ironic, and surreal; see the picture of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, warmly shaking Saddam’s hand: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1264&bih=670&q=saddam+hussein+donald+rumsfeld+handshake+photo&gbv=2&oq=saddam+hussein+donal&aq=0&aqi=g2&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=2002l12126l0l14818l24l22l4l8l12l0l185l1137l4.6l10l0.

2.       John “the baptizer” rather than John “the Baptist” because the Greek here uses the participle, baptízōn, rather than the noun baptistēs.

3.       Hebrews 4:14-15.

4.       Here's the paragraph from Cathy's sermon:

God doesn’t forgive. God doesn’t even know what forgiveness is. God doesn’t forgive because God doesn’t need to forgive. If God is love, if God never leaves, which we all know to be fact because God is existence and without this existence, we wouldn’t be here, if there is not one way we can ever be separate from God, and since we say we believe God cannot, would not, separate from us, then there is nothing we can do that God needs to forgive. It isn’t God that forgives—it’s us.

5.       Romans 8:35.

6.       Exodus 3:14.

7.       George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't.

8.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs35t2xFqdU.

9.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ42IMu7HIQ.

10.    Matthew 5:23.

11.    This fits in perfectly with the doctrine of original sin. Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, we are all born sinful. Or, as the old Prayer Book, suffused with medieval Catholic theology, puts it in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, and still in the old 1928 version in use until the ’80s:

ALMIGHTIE and most merciful father, we have erred and straied from thy waies, lyke lost shepee we have folowed to much the devises and desires of our owne hartes. We have offended against thy holy lawes: We have left undone those thinges whiche we ought to have done, and we have done those thinges which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us, but thou, O Lorde, have mercy upon us miserable offendours. Spare thou them O God, whiche confesse their faultes. Restore thou them that be penitent, accordyng to thy promises declared unto mankynde, in Christe Jesu our Lorde. And graunt, O most merciful father, for his sake, that we may hereafter lyve a godly, ryghtuous, and sobre life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1559/MP_1559.htm.

December 4, 2011 - Second Sunday of Advent

Prepare Ye the way of the Lord.

Prepare Ye the way of the Lord.

I am forever grateful to our pagan ancestors for their devotion to the Winter Solstice – the darkest day of the year. Yet, they filled this day with Light, creating the celebration of the festival of lights, in their attempt to urge the sun to return. I can even throw a little thank you to those early Bishops who, in their attempt to break up this devotion to the Goddess of Light, decided to push this celebration toward honoring Jesus’ birth, toward the birth of the Christ, toward the birth of the Light. This was really a stroke of brilliance. So wonderful because everywhere we go during this season, we are visually reminded of Christ’s light. Twinkling lights to help dispel the darkness, and to ease our way into the dark of winter.

Light and dark – the themes of Advent. How we love the light. Yet so often dwell in the dark. It is in the dark that our demons live. Our hurt, our fear, our anger, our disappointment, our discouragement, our despair that life will ever be as we dream, or even as we hope. How the darkness closes in on us and forces us into ourselves. The darkness surrounds us and permeates us. We become so wrapped in this darkness, that we can forget about all the light. The darkness becomes our home, our comfort, our keeper. We sit in the dark and long and hunger for the light.

Today’s readings speak of this darkness. Each reading begins with talk of repentance, of sin, of forgiveness, of the heavens ablaze, of patience, of baptism. And each reading ends with this longing for the light. We hear these readings and our minds immediately go to the dark, to our littleness. We get caught up in ‘the other’ and what we have done to ‘the other’, how we have sinned against ‘the other, and how we need forgiveness from ‘the other’ – when we think of forgiveness, we think of others – of our needing forgiveness for something we’ve done to the other. We think of the argument we had with our spouse, or the punishment we gave our child, or the sarcasm we used against a co-worker. We think of our arrogance and our self-righteousness, of our attitude of superiority, or of inferiority. We think of our avoidance of the homeless man we just ignored as we drove to church. We think of our ‘sins.’ We get so wrapped up in what we have done to others, we lament of ever being worthy of the light, of the love, of the forgiveness. We embrace our darkness, which seems to become our badge, or our identity, or at least it seems so to ourselves. In some ways, we relish it because it helps confirm our deepest, darkest secret – we are inherently unlovable.

See, I don’t think we truly believe in forgiveness. I think we believe in sin. I think we believe in separation. I think our belief in sin and separation is stronger than our belief in a loving God. I would bet there isn’t anyone here who does not believe in sin, who doesn’t long to be brought out of the dark, into the light, who doesn’t hunger for forgiveness. We are so entrenched in our hidden beliefs in darkness and sin that we have lost our way.

See, sin is really about separation. When we covet, judge, punish, steal, hurt, pout, kill, we are acting separate from God. We are acting out of our darkness. We believe, mistakenly, that God has gone away from us. We even pray to be found by God. But, God does not go away. We must stop believing this. We go away. Every time we wrap ourselves in darkness and lament our sinfulness, we are stepping away from God. Every act, every thought either takes us toward God or away from God. We are either moving into our Beloved or away from our Beloved, away from our Creator. We are either choosing God, or we are choosing something else.

So what about our craving for forgiveness? – we all crave it, hunger for it, desire it above all other gifts. We delight that Jesus “forgives us,” or that God “forgives us through Jesus’ death.”  But, does God forgive? Why is it that we work so hard to make God be like us, to anthropomorphize God? What makes us think that God ‘forgives’? How very silly. God doesn’t forgive. God doesn’t even know what forgiveness is. God doesn’t forgive because God doesn’t need to forgive. If God is love, if God never leaves, which we all know to be fact because God is existence and without this existence, we wouldn’t be here, if there is not one way we can ever be separate from God, and since we say we believe God cannot, would not separate from us, then there is nothing we can do that God needs to forgive. It isn’t God that forgives – it’s us.

We are the instruments of forgiveness. Yes, we need to offer forgiveness to those we think offended us. We do. Yet, we need, first and foremost, to forgive ourselves. See, staying the dark prevents us from seeing our light and our light shines with forgiveness. We must shine that light in our direction. We must love ourselves into the light. We so want the light to come to us, but, the truth is we must take our darkness to the light. I know we think that we can take the light to the darkness, but, in truth, we must bring the darkness up and bring it to the light. It is imperative that we begin to forgive ourselves. We cannot give to another, what we will not give ourselves. This may be as simple as forgiving ourselves for having that slice of chocolate cake. Maybe it’s forgiving ourselves for ignoring that homeless guy. Maybe it’s forgiving ourselves because we can’t walk, or can’t climb, or can’t do all we used to be able to do. Maybe it’s forgiving ourselves for abandoning our dreams, for abandoning our relationships, for abandoning God.

I came across this lovely excerpt the other morning. This book, In the Sanctuary of Women by Jan Richardson, is a beautiful companion to my morning prayer. I want to read this to you…This is actually from the book Teaching Stones to Talk Teaching Stones to Talk by Annie Dillard. She is reflecting on the ways we speak to God in worship services:

·         “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

What would happen if we truly believed and lived out that belief?  How would we be different? How would our lives be different? How would our world be different? Let’s let go of our need for the dark. Let’s bring that darkness to the light. It’s Advent, after all – the season of dark and light.

It’s time. We are expecting an extra special guest, a celebrity. We are expecting the arrival of the Light, the Light that brings a new awareness of God’s love to our world. Are we willing to bring our darkness to that Light? Are we willing to let go of old, worn out beliefs, and embrace the truth – that we are light, too?

Prepare Ye the way of the Lord.

Prepare Ye the way of the Lord.