Sermons: November 2009

Sermon, November 1, 2009

All Saints’ Day

Grace Episcopal Church, Bakersfield

The Rev’d Vern Hill 

“Icons are a window to the soul.”  So spoke the amazing artist Robert Lentz who provided me with my introduction to iconography.   His work was part of a wonderful video series from New Mexico PBS called Colores, a presentation which married the icon tradition of the Eastern Church with the glory of its choral music .  You can imagine my delight as I discovered the loving artistry of Joyce and what has unfolded in her shared gifts here at Grace.   Here at Grace I now begin to understand face to face the message of the icon.

The notion of an icon as a window (or as a hallway which is another descriptor) is a very useful description for this All Saints’ Day.  A window frames our experience of something - it is an agent of focus and discernment. A window asks the eye to pay attention in some special way.  In an icon the eyes are so important.  Gazing rather than talking as we in the West are prone to do, is a quiet, receptive action leading to wisdom and understanding. 

Today in our worship we gaze upon, we focus on the lived iconography of those that the Church has come to regard as its Saints.  These are they who in their living are windows to the will of God for us as his Godly creatures.  As we visit the heart of their being we discern by the work of the Spirit what it is that we have been called to be in Christ Jesus.  These are they who by the living testimony of their lives transfigured by God’s love place before us the challenge to do likewise,  to become a living testament to the love of God, to peace, to mercy, redemption and fairness; to become a being described by the Gospel - blessed.

One of the many lessons for our hearing and understanding today is that within the lives of the Saints can be found times that show a lack of perfection, just ask young St. Augustine or pre-Damascus Road St. Paul who vigorously persecuted the early followers of Jesus.  These Saintly Ones were not always exceptional in the sense that they could not become lost from the call to their created purpose as a child of God. But their finding of the Way, the journey, becomes the expression of their Sainthood.  This is our Good News for today.  Like them we are all engaged in a story of redemption, finding our way;  in the journey of salvation we hold  a common quest.  From them we learn that we are always works in progress - always under construction. 

I was fortunate to relearn this only last weekend.  On the Saturday afternoon of Convention I found myself reluctantly in a table group about to think together the future of the Diocese.  We began with a get acquainted activity partnering with one other.  I even made a feeble attempt to escape but God’s special joke for me was to link me to the most homophobic person I have encountered in recent time.  It has been awhile since I have heard words such as “perversion”,  the fearfulness of children catching homosexuality, not to mention that my new friend could quote scripture from Revelations of all places proving that Jesus condemned homosexuality.  Rather than follow directions we spent time talking about the evolution of certain value statements such as “All men are created equal” and how God refines our understanding; how God leads us to new understandings and clarity. There was progress.  But I also became aware of a new learning for me - a redemptive moment of sorts.  Why was he here, in this place?  Wasn’t he at the wrong convention?  Hey, Fresno is just down the road.  But, no.  Our conversation moved to talking about the Table, the Eucharist - about why we come together around the Table.  And he said that no matter how much he disliked where the church was moving, he would not leave the gathering at the Table.  Without the unity of that family gathering we have lost our center.  That was more important than anything to him. 

I will pray for his evolution, his perfection, his finding the real truth of God for himself.  For I believe embedded deeply within him was the birthing of that truth and at this Table, in the divine mysterious encounter, it will continue to be nurtured.  He became for me a window to a personal redemptive journey.  We are truly works in progress and for that All Saints’ Day feeds the soul.

Today we also remember all those who have died in the Lord, the known and those for whom no name is remembered, who in their own witness were transparent to the life of Christ and within whom we continue to find testimony to the love of God and the truth of our being.  What memories of persons stir your faith?  Who are the folks, the icons, those dead, who lovingly haunt you and inspire your path ahead.  You will hear the names of many of these Spirits in a few moments. Listen carefully for each name is a gift to the faith of someone in this room.

I do believe that our gratitude today needs to go especially for those who have come to lead us in faith by their martyrdom,  those who have had their life taken from them and who have become symbols for our repentance and our resolve for justice.  Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, was brutally murdered in 1998.  President Obama made history this week when he signed into law legislation authorizing the federal government to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of violent hate crimes that target victims because of their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. The law will be known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act.  This becomes his gift to us.

Last night was Halloween - All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints and this leads to another truth of All Saints’.  In Mexico and parts of the United States this time including All Souls’ Day on November 2nd is called El Día de los Muertos.  This is a holiday time, festive, dressing up in costumes.  It is a holiday which focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.  It is a drawing near time for the living and remembered dead. 

Only Christians I think could possibly understand this intersection of festivity and death but it comes out of our core faith.  For today we recall  the truth of the words from the Wisdom of Solomon:  “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no sorrow or torment will ever touch them.  In the eyes of the unwise they seemed to die . . . ;  but they are at peace.”  Today we celebrate not only what has been gifted to us by these many lives, but that they are at home in God.  Death is met without fear on All Saints as  St. Paul writes

38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8) 

We belong to God and God does not let us go - we continue in God beyond what is now.  In that “beyond time” we enter into a new grace of perfected love.  And so today, we come together to give thanks that all these from whom we have received so much are at home in God, yet alive in our hearts and memory.  Amen.

23 Pentecost (RCL: B)

November 8, 2009

1 Kings 17:8-16   Psalm 146 

Hebrews 9:24-28   Mark 12:38-44 

There’s a scene in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail where King Arthur and his not-so-brave knights of the Round Table attack a castle defended by some Frenchmen who speak very naughty words.

First the French mock the not-so-brave knights: “You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called ‘Arthur King,’ you and all your silly English K-nig-hts.”

Then the French catapult all kinds of nasty, loathsome, and bizarre things at the English, including chickens. Finally, a cow comes sailing over the parapets.

What’s the response of our not-so-brave English knights? “Run away! Run away!”

That scene, I’m guessing, sums up the feelings of many a preacher as he or she prepares a stewardship sermon.1

With apologies, I’m not going to discuss the readings for today. Inspired by Vern’s sermon last week, this will be a personal reflection. My mantra for preaching is that I’m preaching to myself as much as to the congregation. And that is especially true today.

I’ll attach the Gospel reading to the copy of this sermon that I email to you; perhaps during the week, as you consider your giving for next year, you could reread the sermon and the Gospel reading, pray and reflect on them, then fill out your stewardship card.

†    †     †     †     †

Two diocesan conventions ago, some of us from Grace attended a stewardship workshop.

It was a sobering experience.

I don’t remember the numbers and statistics given us, but I can summarize what I heard with this paraphrase: “An Episcopalian and his money are not soon parted.”

Or, as the rock ‘n’ roll theologians Pink Floyd put it:

Money . . .  
Share it fairly  
But don't take a slice of my pie2

“Share it fairly / But don’t take a slice of my pie.”

So, how do we have our cake—or pie—and share it fairly, too?

To extend the metaphor a bit: A cake or a pie is not made up of just one ingredient.

Neither is stewardship; it’s about more than money. A lot more than money.

Dave Brown had a great idea about Grace’s budget: Let’s try to calculate, he said, the cash value of all the time and services that people at Grace donate—what’s called “in-kind” giving. How much would that come to? Dave thought it important that we all know how much it really takes to keep Grace and her ministries running.

Think about that. At the risk of leaving a lot of people out, let me mention just a few who’ve gone far beyond the call of duty: Jan and Cindy donating time, energy, and paper to printing the bulletins for almost two years; Vern and Melinda’s time and gas driving down the mountain to Grace several times a week—not to mention the danger they face avoiding drunk drivers; the work of Joyce and the Icon Guild; Lori Brown handling the treasurer’s duties for almost two years.

I could go on and on—and on: altar guild, Eucharistic Ministers, Pastoral Eucharistic Ministers, the choir, Habitat for Humanity, hospitality, Marilyn’s myriad responsibilities now, and all the committees and individuals doing such wonderful work at Grace.

This year our cash budget is about $70,000. We never did add up the value of all the goods and services all of us have donated this year to Christ’s ministry at Grace. If we had, I have no doubt that the figure would have come to much much more than the 70,000 we’ll give this year.

Vern, is it kosher if we give ourselves a hand?

(Applause)

OK, now get back to work.

Our projected budget for next year will be about $75,000. I have no doubt that our giving in other ways, if given a cash value, will far exceed 75,000.

I’m glad we couldn’t figure out a way to put dollar signs on the ministries we do at Grace; I get enough of ethics and actions by dollar sign out at CSUB. Yes, teaching and education contribute to the economy, but as all good teachers know, teaching is about far, far more than money.

A person who once saw Mother Theresa caring for India’s poorest and outcast said, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.”

Mother Theresa responded, “Neither would I.”

The same is true of our ministries at Grace: no one can put a dollar value on what we do. But as Jesus says: “By their fruits shall you know them.”

As I never tire of emphasizing: everything done at Grace and for God is a ministry. Everything. Including woodworking, Vic.

Our ministries—every one of them, however small—proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.

Our ministries are, really, about seeking and serving Christ in all persons.

Our ministries are, really, about loving our neighbors—which means each and every person—as ourselves.

Our ministries are, really, about striving for justice and peace among all people.

Our ministries are, really, about respecting the dignity of every human being.

I asked earlier how can we have our cake—or pie—and share it fairly, too.

Those baptismal vows, those baptismal ministries, I just quoted tell us how.

In giving, we receive.

Let me illustrate what I mean with my own story. I know plenty of other equally good stories about Grace and her parishioners, but by using my own I’ll embarrass only myself—and maybe Miriam.

Not so long ago, at a school not so far away, Stef came to talk to me about ordained ministry. This was well before Remain Episcopal had started. Stef and I didn’t know one another. He was attending All Saints; I was attending St. Nowhere-in-the-Outer-Darkness.

I don’t remember our conversation—in fact (sorry, Stef), I’d forgotten all about it—but Stef told me later, after Grace was well underway, that back then I was one depressed and cynical puppy.

And Susan, bless her heart, likes to tell me how miserable I looked when I was serving at St. Paul’s.

It’s not easy to acknowledge, but I’m sure that both Stef and Susan are right. I didn’t know then that I was suffering from low-level lifelong depression. I do know that being in the former diocese and at St. Paul’s didn’t help me any.

But I don’t owe my now-sunny disposition only to Prozac.

I owe it to you. I’m a believer who believes that God works most often through people. You won’t hear me much saying “God did this,” or “God did that.”

You will hear me saying, “Mary Webb’s taking Communion to Gordon in Delano every week. God bless her.”

You will hear me saying, “One of the best compliments Grace gets is when someone at school—not a churchgoer, maybe not even religious—stops me and thanks me for our inclusive ministry.

It’s people like Mary. It’s people like you who are Grace. 
 

Grace has changed my life. You have changed my life. You have given me more than I can ever account, or give back. I love being your vicar; I love being your pastor; I love being your friend; I love having you as friends.

My ministry at Grace, our ministries at Grace, together, have restored my soul. Just reflect for a moment on the past two years: everything we’ve accomplished; all the robust ministries we have; what we’ve given to others in outreach, locally, nationally, and internationally; what we’ve give to each other; the fun we’ve had together; the sharing, the community. Even the craziness.

What we stand for in Bakersfield: we’re the only inclusive church in town within the Catholic tradition. The only one. Think about that a minute.

What has God, through Grace, given you? What can you, through God, give to Grace in the coming year?

What can you, through Grace, give to others in the year ahead?

Amen. 
 

†     †     †     †     † 

Mark 12:38-44

Teaching in the temple, Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

Gen: 1: 26-31

Ps. 67

2 Cor. 5: 14-20

Mark 12: 28-31 

Grace Episcopal Bakersfield

November 15, 2009 

Let us pray…. 

“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Strength and our Redeemer….Amen” 

Before I begin my sermon I’d like to thank The Reverend Dr’s Tim Vivian and Vern Hill for the invitation to be with you this weekend. I send you greetings from the Diocese of LA and our Bishop Jon Bruno. Know that our prayers have been with you all during this difficult time, that we support you. I would ask that you do all that you can to support Fr. Tim and Fr. Vern. Theirs has not been an easy road.  

Stewardship is upon you; remember them as you make a decision to support this church and its mission. 

You all are to be commended for your commitment to be an inclusive church that upholds the values of the Kingdom. 
 

At first glance, the Great Commandment that Jesus gave us: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength AND you shall love your neighbor as yourself” is one that might be taken lightly. It’s not an easy task: every person here carries a human filter that can be hateful and discriminatory, and vengeful. Loving neighbor requires deep faithfulness, spiritual stamina, the willingness to be courageous (even at one’s own cost), and the integrity of heart to make it so.  

The commandment to love God and neighbor as self speaks pointedly to The Heart and Spirit that direct us to what really matters. Ultimately, loving neighbor leads us back to our relationship with God… back to our relationships with ourselves and with one another. 

This morning’s readings are all about The Abundance of God that is always there to sustain us, to calm the storms and to move us as God’s agents of reconciliation and peace. 

Michael Collins, as a little boy, loved looking up at the night sky filled with a million stars. Years later, when the Russians launched a man into space and America got serious about a space program,  Michael jumped right in. He worked hard at being an astronaut.  
 

Finally the day came - after all the rigorous training and countless hours of planning… there he was with his heart pounding out of his chest atop a huge rocket being catapulted out into the vastness of space.  

There was the tremendous roar of the engine and the whole capsule shook as if it was going to be torn apart.  The pressure tried to crush every cell in his body and then eventually – there was silence.  

Like the others of the crew, he was consumed by the tasks before him. There were so many things to do to get and keep the space capsule on course. He went through the checklists and completed each step carefully, methodically. And when he was done, he finally looked up and out the window.  

There outside was nothing but stars and empty space for as far as he could see. He turned to the next window and the next and it was the same -everywhere. Everywhere there was nothing but empty space.  

There he was one hundred thousand miles from home looking out into an infinite, black emptiness everywhere. Like many of his fellow astronauts he was suddenly filled with a terrible sense of loneliness.  

In that moment he became achingly homesick for the Earth.

Finally out of the very last window amid all the darkness, he finally found it, the single tiny orb of color: blue and white and brown and green – the only island  in the endless ocean of space.

In that moment of wonder he came to understand in a way he could never quite articulate that he was a creature of the Earth, that every atom of his being was marked with the uniqueness of this astonishing, miraculous planet – the only planet out there teeming with color and with Life.

Human beings did not create the Earth. We did not create the planet nor did we stock it with all the myriad forms of life that have flourished here. We did not make the molecules of the gasses just right so that we could breathe.  

Nor was it we who made manifest the complexity of all the countless interdependent relationships that enable life to exist here uniquely. 

What truly sustains us and brings us peace and strength and joy even in the midst of our greatest adversity is the richness of our relationships with God and with each other. If only we would meet God in joy of having relationships with all of God’s humanity.

What a world this would be…could be if we did not bear false witness against our neighbor by demonizing, mythologizing, speaking an untruth, allowing evilness get in between us. If we would but only name one another as the child of God that we have been created to be, to see in one another the manifestation of all that is good and holy in the world. What an acknowledgment of the commandment to truly love God and neighbor as well. 
 

One of the most troubled areas in the world is the Holy Land. The following is the story of two women of Jerusalem whom I met; now five years ago in Barcelona. 

Elana Rosenman is a woman of small stature but great determination. 

Her voice is steady and her eyes clear as she tells the story of being raised and educated in the United States and then falling in love with and marrying an Israeli and moving with him to Jerusalem. 

The birth of their son, Naom which means, “delight”, made her dreams come true. Life was good. It was complete. 

That is until the school bus her son was riding in was blown to pieces by a roadside bomb. 

Naom was the only child to survive and he was burned over 40% of his body. 

Elana spent every moment of the next 21/2 months by his side in intensive care sleeping on the floor beside his bed. 

Lying there, hearing his cries at night, she grasped for some kind of hope or meaning for such senseless suffering. 

There in the dark night of her soul she made a decision: with God’s help she would do whatever she could to see that no other mother _ Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Palestinian – it didn’t matter – that no other mother would suffer as she and her child were suffering. 

In the same hospital was a woman named Ibtisam Mahameed who worked as a nurse. A Palestinian Muslim, she had many friends among the Christian and Jewish staff here. 

Four years earlier with the beginning of the latest Infata in the Holy Land, the hate speech once again filled the airwaves. 

At the same time when her partner learned that she was pregnant, he abandoned her and their unborn child quite unexpectedly. 

A terrible bitterness set in. 

Ibtisam isolated from her friends and felt the hatred fill her even as she could feel the child in her womb grow. 

“I cannot hold this hate any longer,” she thought, but as the weeks dragged on toward the birth, she could break its grasp on her heart. 

Then it was time. She found herself on the maternity ward giving birth to her daughter. As she lay there she suddenly thought of all the different women gathered in that one hospital to give birth to their children 

In that time and place it didn’t matter what race they were or what religion or what political affiliation they held. They were all simply mothers, all hoping and praying that their child would be healthy and safe. 

They were all praying the same prayer: that their child would be able to take their milk and survive. 

She realized that her child would become whatever she fed it/Right there in that moment she made the commitment to raise her child on love and forgiveness no matter what. 

Elana Rosenman and Ibtisam Mahammed somehow found each other in that hospital They have become two of the many peace activists of the Holy Land. They along with many other women who have seen their loved ones die or become terribly maimed, who have lost husbands and parents and families and friends to the continuing cycle of violence, have joined together and chosen to speak out and act out in love and reconciliation.  

Each and every week they choose to push through their very real fear of death to cross boundaries in order to comfort one another whether on a kibbutz, a Palestinian village, a Christian community, or a Druze or some other faith’s gathering. 

They choose to live their love by actively sharing in each other’s lives and hopes and sorrows being the living proof that “no one can make us enemies. We can still choose to love. We can still choose to forgive.” 

A story of forgiveness….of truly being ‘neighbor’    

On a beautiful, clear fall day in October of 2006, a quiet man stood leaning against a schoolyard building watching the children play. Charles Robert had walked his own young children to the school bus less than two hours earlier. Now as the Amish pupils and their teacher gathered inside the simple classroom ready to resume their day he carefully put in motion his tortured plan to hurt God as badly as he could.  

You probably recall your own disbelief and puzzlement at the news flash: Five little girls in the Amish community of Lancaster county murdered, five more shot and in critical condition. It came to be called:  The Nickel Mines Massacre.  

We shook our collective heads in disbelief.  

It suddenly felt like nothing was safe anymore; the violence had over-taken us. The world had truly gone mad. The gunman killed himself in the standoff with the police. Thank God, he was dead, we all thought with relief, that butcher! 

But the Amish of Lancaster County didn’t think that way – not at all. They recognized that Charles Roberts and his family were victims, too. Before darkness fell on that very first day they went to reach out to his widow, his parents, his children. They came to bring their caring and their forgiveness, their compassion and their concern for what would become of these, their neighbors. They were kind and gentle to this family, standing beside them quietly at Charles' funeral, holding his family in their arms, even as their own hearts were bleeding for their own lost or wounded children.  

There would be no lawsuits, no scandals, no recrimination. As money flooded in from strangers all over the world for the families of the slain children, the astonished community immediately re-directed much of it to care for the newly widowed wife and the family who had lost not only a father but also the family's sole breadwinner. The Amish were deeply concerned that the tragedy that befell them – a tragedy that devastated everyone - not be allowed to cause further harm.  

They had a close-knit community to support them, but what would happen to Charles’ widow now and his parents and his children. They came compelled by compassion to offer their support. That support continues to this day three years later. 

This is not an isolated incident of how such people rooted in the example of Jesus Christ meet the injustice and cruelty that come their way. If you dig, you’ll find dozens of stories just like this single one that caught the public spotlight on a perfect fall day. There are many, many others. 

When questioned the Amish will tell you that they are no better than anyone else. They are humble and keenly aware of their faults and unworthiness. Their strength lies in God not in themselves. They lean on God. At the core of who they are is The Lord’s Prayer. It feeds them and sustains them.  

We say The Lord's Prayer every time we gather. They aspire to live in it every moment of every day. We rest assured of God's Grace through our baptism in Jesus Christ. They believe that God’s Grace comes each day in living in relationship with God, in living trying to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, in praying without ceasing and in not getting lost in judging others when we are asked to forgive and build God’s kingdom with the faithfulness of the unworthy who live loving God. 

Fortunately, blessedly, God does not hold us to the same standards that we apply to one another. As the Amish and those who are nourished by God understand: none of us is worthy of the love that God shows to us. God did not slip into a manger in Bethlehem because we, humans, were all so wonderful and deserving! God slipped God’s sweet self into a manger in Bethlehem because God was moved with compassion in seeing that we were so in need of grace and kindness and love and forgiveness. If we can be forgiven, if we can be loved - not because we deserve it but simply because God loves us - then how can we possibly seek to do less in our interactions with one another. 

Jesus' heart must have been broken, torn open, over and over again at the arrogance and ignorance of those who rejected his call to love. He forgave them still. Love costs. The heart bleeds. Each drop of that blood is sacred. 

The love that Jesus exemplified is never lost. It is eternal. It strengthens us, empowers us, and heals us - forever. Whenever we choose to act in it, to live in it, to weave it into the very fiber of our relationships – in all of our relationships with others… on each of those occasions something profound occurs that is truly holy: A tiny bit of the Kingdom of God is made manifest right here on earth. Loving neighbor is loving self; and loving God. May it be so….  

            Amen. 

The Reverend Canon Dr. Gwynne Guibord 

Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King

Proper 29 (Year B: RCL)

November 22, 2009

2 Samuel 23:1-7   Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)

Revelation 1:4b-8   John 18:33-37 

Today is Christ the King Sunday.  

I’ve never liked the image of Christ as King. And the Book of Revelation, which we just heard, is my least favorite book in the New Testament. 

What’s a poor preacher to do? 

Unlike Canon Guibord last Sunday, I couldn’t choose the readings for today. 

Second Samuel tells us that the godless are like thorns thrown into a fire and consumed; in the Psalm, God will clothe David’s enemies with shame.  

John’s Jesus says that “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Think about that a minute. In the context of John’s us-vs.-them dualism, Jesus is saying that only those who already have the truth listen to him. 

As the disciples ask Jesus in another context, “Who then can be saved?”  

Then there’s Revelation. Revelation says that Jesus “freed us from our sins by his blood.” 

Not me he doesn’t. 

(I may be getting myself into trouble here.) 

For many people of the ancient—and modern—Church, Jesus was, and is, a blood sacrifice. That metaphor, like the metaphor of a king, comes to Christianity via ancient Judaism: the blood sacrifices that Aaron and the priests offer; the animals sacrificed in the Temple; the scapegoat on Yom Kippur that has the people’s sins heaped on it and then is driven out into the wilderness to die a miserable death. 

The metaphors we live by matter. 

Jesus says, quoting Moses, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” 

Heart. Soul. Mind. 

Some of you know that, strange bird that I am, I can read and translate Coptic, the last form of the Egyptian language. In Coptic, the word hēt1 means both “heart” and “mind.” 

Other languages do this, too. “Heart” and “mind.” One word. One reality.

I think Coptic here is telling us something profound about ourselves. Contrary to what the ancient Greeks thought, we are not a mind-body dualism, a bunch of schizophrenics. We are psychosomatic: literally “mind/soul and body.” A whole. The folks from Grace who yesterday worked for Habitat for Humanity were exercising their bodies, their minds, their souls, and their spirits. 

We’re spirit and body. That’s why religion needs liturgy: words, singing, incense, hugs.  

Even, as Robin Williams says, pew aerobics.  

When we do pew aerobics we’re exercising mind, soul, and body.  

When we love God with all our heart and soul, we don’t need words. When we love God with our mind, we do. 

And that’s where metaphor comes in: King, Lamb of God, Light of the World, and others too numerous to name. 

I remember from my misspent Episcopalian youth the phrase “the beauty of holiness.”  

The holiness of beauty is just as important. 

That’s what the Catholic tradition offers us: the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty.  

There are words, then there are non-words: that which is ineffable, indefinable, inexpressible: the unutterable. For “ineffable,” the thesaurus also gives as a synonym “overwhelming.” 

Overwhelming. This is what the scholar of religion Rudolf Otto calls the mysterium tremendum et fascinans: Mystery that is tremendous and overwhelming—yet approachable enough to be fascinating, awe-inspiring, drop-to-your-knees amazing.

Islam has captured this best with the ninety-nine names of God. Islamic tradition reports that Muhammad said, “Truly, there are ninety-nine names of God: one hundred minus one.”

In other words, God, the Mysterium Tremendum, is always beyond our telling. More than that, God is beyond our knowing.

Then, what’s the point? Why are we here?

We’re here because, as St. Paul says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Or, in the famous words of the King James Version: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

Theology teaches us more about humility than about God.

Many, many Christians, both ancient and modern, get solace and deep meaning from the idea of Christ as sacrifice. As Revelation says today: Jesus “freed us from our sins by his blood.” 

I don’t mean to slight their belief in any way, but for me personally, I don’t believe that it’s Jesus’ blood that absolves us of sin.  

But what metaphors we choose is not a zero-sum game; it’s not either/or; it’s not winner take all. 

Perhaps metaphors choose us. 

Most of you know that the offertory invitation I use is “Walk in love as Christ loves us and gives himself for us.” 

That metaphor I’m willing to live by: It is in giving, in love, that we receive. 

I do believe that Jesus willingly gave himself for us. As parents willingly give themselves for their children, on a daily basis. I believe that Christ continues to give himself for us.  

My own belief focuses on the Incarnation. 

St. Athanasius says that “God became human so that we might become . . . God.” In that sentence the final word in Greek means “become divine” and “become God.”2 

To western ears, Catholic and Protestant, those words may sound shocking. Even blasphemous. How can we become God? 

St. Basil of Caesarea puts it a little less audaciously than St. Athanasius: "We are to strive to become little gods, within God; little jesus christs within Jesus Christ."  

In other words, God, through assuming humanity, makes it possible for humans to participate in divinity. 

Think about that a minute. We participate in God’s own . . . Godiness. We participate in God’s own . . . Godability. 

You can see how words fail us. 

But that’s OK. It’s the participation that matters. 

However we understand Christ—as King, Lamb of God, Savior, or ninety-six other ways—let’s participate—in word and action, in speech and silence, in comprehension and mystery—in God, in the divine. 

Let’s participate in God’s . . . Godiness, God’s . . . Godability. Not out there somewhere, but in the deepest part of our being. Not in the sweet by-and-by, but in the here and now.  

Here and now. Where God and our humanity unite, unite in a lovemaking as intimate with and far beyond sex as we in our humanity are intimate with and far beyond the atoms that make up our being. 

Amen.

Sermon, November 29, 2009

Advent 1

Grace Episcopal Church, Bakersfield

The Rev’d Vern Hill 

Picture for a moment two some-what prehistoric looking, smallish critters embracing an island-like chunk of rock surrounded by rising waters.  Moving away from them is an ark-shaped boat with numerous animals on board.  One  critter turns to the other and says, “O crap!  Was THAT today?  Timing can be everything!  Pay attention - your teacher was right. 

This weekend Christians around the world begin the season of Advent, a time when we commemorate the adventus of Jesus - his coming into our world.   The adventus of Jesus is a backwards looking time -.  Believers look backwards in celebration of the birth of Jesus, to the gathering of the stable crowd, to a young mother, to shepherds and a star, to that time and place when we believe that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  (John 1:1f)  But Advent is more complex than recalling just this past time;  Advent is a bi-polar disorderly season, a looking backwards and peering forwards into the opaque uncertain future and this can be a really tricky thing.  At Advent Christian orthodoxy teaches that we look forward in expectation and hope for Christ’s coming again, to a time when we believe that God will culminate what began in the stable at Bethlehem, to a time when God will fulfill what has been promised.   

Speaking about this dimension of Advent, the end-time’s language, this vocabulary of the future, can be troubling.  Still this future business is not something that can be left to fictional novels and the film industry to sort out as we have recently seen when NASA had to step in to provide a reality check on the film 2012. 

This film, 2012, describes no future but the end of the earth - Doomsday.  It uses a vocabulary reminiscent of the end-times Apocalyptic language of Ezekiel and Revelation and even trace amounts found in the Gospels such as today -

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, . . .

In the movie, an alignment between the Sun and the center of the galaxy on December 21, 2012 causes the sun to go berserk.  The earth’s core overheats and the crust weakens with Los Angeles falling into the ocean (again), with Yellowstone blowing up (again) and tidal waves washing over the Himalayas where the governments of the planet have secretly built a fleet of arks in which a select group of 400,000 can ride our the devastation  (very Biblical sounding - the sheep and goats).  To add additional spookiness to all of this, the date Dec 21, 2012 is the end of a 5,125 year cycle known as the Long Count in the ancient Mayan calendar. The END! 

What prompted the NASA response from David Morrison, an astronomer at Ames Research Center at Sunnyvale’s Moffett Field was the content of the flood of emails they were receiving.  In one email message for example, a woman wondered if she should kill herself, her daughter, and her unborn baby to avoid the suffering of 2012.  People take this stuff seriously. 

NASA pointed out, there will be nothing special about the sun’s alignment on December 21, 2012.  It’s in pretty much the same alignment at that date every year; we call it the Winter Solstice.  No serious consequences with the possible exception of the overuse of eggnog and excess eating.  Moreover regarding the Mayan calendar, Mayan time was cyclic, meaning that the end of the Long Count would have been met not with an END filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth, or cities falling into the oceans but would have probably been marked by festivals and celebrations followed by the beginning of a new Long Count. 

Christianity has suffered its own embarrassments with end-time greeters especially over the past few centuries.  Some denominational groups even carry the word Advent as part of their identifier.  Over and over communities have gathered on mountain-tops waiting in expectation only to have to invent some undiscovered explanation for the Second Coming, the Final Advent not happening. Still, today, a significant percentage of Americans who consider themselves religious believe they are living in the last days, that to be righteous is to embrace the narrow fundamentalism that strings together collections of end-time passages that they promote as predictions of some imminent Day of Dread and Doom.  This same fundamentalism often breeds ethnic, religious and gender hatred and harassment from a literal Bibliolatry as well.   Even politicians have not escaped influence of this attempt to discern the circumstances, the time and place for the end-time, bringing about an affect on their judgment regarding both domestic and foreign policy interests for our country.  The tragedy is that for the most part this zealous desire to be faithful to Jesus has  often led to behavior that ignores the radical welcoming and redemptive ethical demands of the Gospel of Christ, retreating into a highly individualized, private personal religion.   

So, what are we to do?  How are we to meet the future?  Foremost we need to pay attention - to watch carefully.  To be attentive to the “signs” and promptings of the Spirit.  According to Jeremiah and much of the Hebrew scriptures the purposes of God for us and for our world are peace, joy and justice.  Jeremiah writes, -  

“In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”   

It is odd to believe that the means for bringing to fulfillment a world of peace and justice, of raising up a vegetation of righteousness, would be by the bringing of destruction, chaos, agony and unprecedented bloodshed to the world. 

What feeds this notion of destruction as a means for redemption today derives from an ancient understanding that may not have much value for us today.  Judaism tended to understand the moments of national disaster as actions God took because of their failure to live the life of the covenant.  While this was and remains a popular understanding of suffering’s meaning, it meant that the people of Israel created an odd disconnect between their actual behavior and the consequences, a disconnect which shaped the character of God as they described him in unfortunate language.  What they failed to understand was that the success of their enemies and their resulting destruction and poverty was not a punishment of Israel by God, but a direct failure of their ethical, political and social values as a living community.  What Israel created for God was grief and sorrow at the consequences of their choices.  This is the very different character of God introduced by the prophet, Hosea.  It is the God of Jesus, God the parent,  God who raises up a human creation to be of his image and likeness;  a God who embraces the weaknesses of a parent in the struggle to bring forth life. 

In Advent as we look toward the rising Sun, the beginning of a new morning, we are reminded again that it is God’s will, God’s quest, for justice and righteousness in our land.  God has seen the very worst that the world and his human creation can project but God continues to make a choice too.  He could have accepted what he sees as the final word in the world’s story and end it.  But God chose to love the world, to give his Son into our worst so that we might see the true power of redemption and grace. 

Behind the colorfulness of Apocalyptic visioning is the simpler reality derived from the word’s meaning - “revelation.”  What continues to be revealed to us?  What gathers us up and draws us with hope and confidence into the future?  It is what we have met in Jesus, in what he images back to us of what we are to be.   

While many people point to disasters as evidence that Creation itself is a disaster in waiting, what we meet in Jesus is testimony that God made the world for a different purpose and God is faithful in bringing those purposes about. 

Apocalyptic visions take a serious, HD look at everything going on in the world - all the suffering and fear, all the fireworks the powers have to offer.  In the end, the judgment for tomorrow rests in us, in what we as individuals, governments, business, industry, the military, the wealthy, the poor - what we choose to value, protect, create and provide for, and (and this may be more important) what we refuse to accept any longer.  In the end, the judgment for tomorrow rests in how well we accept the Truth about ourselves and envision what Creation’s true end is, the Garden that God made this world to be.  What we see in our failing cities, the increasing violence, in the testimonies to greed that ravish our environmental gifts of soil, water, air, animal and plant life, in those cast outside by unemployment and limited opportunity, in those marginalized by the want of healthcare, nutrition or education, by what we see in the struggles for national integrity in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, in Africa; what we see in the growing drugged culture of the world, and a growingly post-literate culture -  this is a world groaning in pain and sorrow, a world God lovingly poured and is pouring out God’s own Self to complete.  The work begun at the stable continues in our humanity as it seeks to find the end that God seeks for us all. 

Amen.